We're both sick

This has been an entertaining week so far. We gave Zuul a rawhide bone Sunday night. She was chewing away at it pretty well and before I know it, she's sniffing around for something else to chew. She swallowed the entire bone. It was the ~6" long variety. Nothing too big, but big enough that I didn't think she'd be able to swallow it. The package claims the bone is "highly digestible." Bull honky.

The next day at lunch I take Zuul outside. She's dropping the kids off at soccer practice, then, about half-way through, out comes some fat bastard the same color as the bone with the consistency of a Starbucks Frappuccino. I hoped that was it. Wrong. She developed a mean case of the squirts. I happened to fall ill on Tuesday. Good thing. She was out at least every hour squirting some lovely goodness out her behind. Our lawn looks like a battlefield diorama. There is no way we can pick that stuff up until it's dry.

We became worried toward Tuesday evening. Megan went to the park and spoke with a dog friend. She gave us some pulsatilla to give Zuul after each trip outside. This is to go on until things clear up. Zuul had a normalish poop last night. Then at 4am this morning she's whining to be let out. I take her out and she can't get out the door fast enough. She runs to the corner of the yard and out comes 5 pounds of sloppy crap. Impressive. She even managed a cute butt scoot on the ground afterwards.

Before work this morning she went out and crapped out a wad of that bone. It looked like the edges of the rawhide. Like the frog leg lollipops from an episode of Top Chef I was subjected to watch. But more stringy. And watery. We'll see how she does at lunch today. Hopefully that was it.

We had a dog date on Sunday. My co-worker is out of town and another co-worker is dog-sitting for him. She and I thought it would be fun to have Zuul and Toby get together. Toby is a 100lb chocolate lab.

We went to NE Portland to Irving Park. It has an unfenced dog park which was nice. There were a bunch of dogs there and Zuul had a great time. She made friends with a Boston Terrier of the same age. It was about 1/5 Zuul's size and tough.



Zuul also met a cousin. Sheila the Weimaraner. She is 8 years old and about 60 pounds. She didn't seem very tall to us. Zuul will most likely be larger. They didn't really play together.

We went from the park to Otto's Sausage Kitchen to have lunch with Auntie Bludgeon and Uncle Brian. It was Bludgeon's first time meeting Zuul. She thought she was cute. Naturally. I snapped a photo of Megan and Zuul. Megan is not smiling because she likes Zuul. She's smiling because she's minutes away from eating sausages.

We went to my sister's on Tuesday. Zuul thought it might be nice to grab a bite of Hobie's food. Hobie witnessed this event just as we did and was not pleased. He swiped at Zuul and caught her nose and her eye. Zuul has a scratch on the white part (phew!) of her eye. It bled a tiny bit and we rinsed it out with saline. Zuul never seemed bothered by it. Hobie spent the rest of the evening bullying Zuul. Zuul was pretty freaked out and hid on the couch.

We went back again last night for some ANTM and Hobie proceeded to be territorial. Zuul proceeded to hide on the couch. On our way home, I opened the back door to the car and Zuul hopped right in. Until then, she has been laying of the floor of the front passenger seat. This was her first time in the back. She went right across the bench to the other seat and sat just like a person. It was the cutest thing ever, that night. We'll have to get her warmed up to her dog seat belt that my mother gave her. She seems ready. BTW, she lay down just before we were going to tell her.


I'll see you next time.

p.s. Don't give your dog rawhide bones.

picture credit: me
picture credit: me
picture credit: me
picture credit: me
picture credit: me
picture credit: me

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Busy!

Work has been busy last week and this week with the start of the semester. I also started riding my bike to work. Not much time for typing. Sorry!

Last Friday Zuul came to work with us. At lunch time we played a little bit of fetch.

I realized my camera can record video. Here she is rolling in the grass and fetching.

(The video hates me. I'll try again later)

On Saturday, she went with us to a gathering with Megan's co-workers. There was a tiny child there and all she did was try to lick her. It's amazing how well-behaved she is around tiny children. It must be something about the eye level. She was generally well-behaved.

Afterwards, we went to Powell Butte Park (map) and went for a walk. We went with the understanding that it would be a good place for Zuul to run around. That was wrong. It was a nice hike, but much of the trails were flanked by blackberry bramble. There was a nice meadow on top but it was control burned. Not much fun for a puppy. Zuul did well on the leash and we were able to let her off for awhile. We went to the park twice on Sunday.

Zuul has lost two front bottom teeth. Her top front teeth, featured below, have grown back in at least halfway by now. It's amazing. We still haven't found any teeth around.

I need to make more treats. We've used all her beef liver treats. I'm going to try making some peanut butter treats. I have some beef liver ready to be slapped together as well. She really seemed to like those. She also likes Cheerios.

Mother, we have started using her bed. She thinks it's the greatest thing in the world. It's really foofy and fun to watch Zuul walk around on it. It's still too big for her crate, we have it next to our red couch. It's been reasonably cold the last couple nights. I started to feel bad that her fleece blankets were not doing a good job. They lay pretty flat and don't really insulate her sides. I pulled out my favorite blanket ever last night. It's an off-white comforter with blue flower decoration. I think it's from the 70s. I threw it in her crate and she seems to like it. She spent a little time rearranging it and then plopped down. Megan was impressed I was able to give up my blanket like that. I'm just that amazing. It's also part of my strategy to get Zuul to love me more. She already does, I'm just reinforcing.

Zuul's training is coming along well. She's working on Down, Leave It and Stay right now. She can Leave It a treat on the floor. She gets sneaky sometimes and gets one. She's so cute, it's impossible to get irritated. I'm also priming her for Whoa. I plan on training her to point out the ladies.

That's all for now.

I'm sorry, Megan. I can't help myself.



picture: me
movie: me
picture: me

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Our Girl is Growing Up

Yesterday while hanging around with Zuul I checked her mouth and discovered she had lost her two front baby teeth. It was so exciting. I was hoping to find the teeth to keep or at least to see what puppy teeth look like, but so far I haven't seen any in the house. I think she might have lost them in her playmate, Percy.
Zuul has also been gaining weight finally and she is growing like crazy. On Monday at the vet she weighed 28 pounds, which is a 3 pound increase from the week before. Amazing what a difference eating makes!

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Labor Day Fun

It has been requested (off line) that more pictures be posted. I will do my best.

Zuul, Megan and I all had a great holiday weekend. Zuul spent lots of time training, playing and napping.

First, though, I need to briefly catch up with events from last week. We went to the Hedge House with our friends Justin and Ranjani. It was super busy, but Zuul was mostly well-behaved. Have I mentioned she's a total babe magnet?

Zuul is now able to Sit and Leave It. She's cute as can be when she's training Leave It. We haven't worked up to putting a treat on the floor, but she is able to Leave It treats we hold in our palms. We are also training her to Sit before entering the house, before meals and when greeting people. She'll almost always sit on her own before entering the house, otherwise just looking at her will remind her that she needs to sit.

On Saturday, we had a great time at the park. Twice! Zuul is very accomplished at reaching the water fountain. I had to hold her up the first couple times but she's growing so fast she can reach all on her own now. Speaking of growing fast. She was 21.2 pounds at the vet on August 20. As of Sunday, September 2, she weighs 28 pounds! I weighed her at my sister's house. She gets to go to the vet tomorrow for some shots, so we'll get a more accurate weight. Her appetite has really kicked in to high gear. She licks her food bowl clean and goes looking for more.

Megan snapped some shots of Zuul with her puppy friend Percy. I misidentified Percy in a previous post. He is a Belgian Tervuren. Forgive me. They had a great time. A lot of her other dog friends showed up as well. Harry, Percy's unrelated brother, Tallulah, Hannah and Jake.

Sunday Zuul, Megan and I went with my sister to the Swan Island Dahlia Festival in Canby, Oregon. I've only recently learned that Dahlia's exist (I have some in my yard) and I now know that there are tons of varieties. Zuul was super well behaved and received many compliments on her appearance and behavior. She met another dog and I figured she should probably sit for this greeting. I told her to sit and she sat. The other dog's owners remarked that she is already ahead of their dog. It was some ugly small mop of a dog that was probably several years old. I was proud of my girl! She had her picture taken and even some repeat visits from people that found her irresistible. Zuul met a young child, about 12 months, and she was very well behaved. She sniffed gently and made no attempt to jump up (probably because they were the same height). Zuul suffered (napped) through an hour and a half of a class about Dahlia arranging. We walked around the fields a little more and finally she was hot and pooped. She lay down in the shade of some dahlias and stretched out in the cool soil and grass. We left and she had a hot car ride home (after stopping at the Shane Co.), napped and then we were back at the park a few hours later.

We made another attempt with Hobie on Sunday night. He made it all the way to Zuul's outstretched toenails (twice!) and sniffed. Progress. Zuul expressed a little more interest but was weary whenever Hobie hissed at her. We'll see what happens next week.

We found ourselves at the park again on Monday evening. Zuul's friend Tallulah was there. Tallulah isn't very happy about having to share, but after some convincing, she shared her squeaky toy with Zuul. Zuul thought it was the greatest thing ever. She fetched it several times. She has yet to be consistent with fetching, but this time she brought her game. We gave her another bath afterwards. Then she passed out.

That's all the Zuul news for now.

Peace out.
Photo credit:
Justin
Megan
Megan
Megan
me

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Dancing Queen!

Zuul has developed a love of dance like me. Today she spent a good 10 minutes dancing on her hind legs with Tom and then me to none other than 80s music. The entire time she was wagging her little stub of a tail. It was so adorable! This evening Tom put her into a trance by rubbing her belly. She was out in a matter of seconds and did not want to wake up even to go to the park. We finally got her out of the house and to the park to play with her doggy friends. As usual playing with them wiped her out and as I write this she is lying on her blanket at my feet asleep. I love this dog!

photo credit: megan

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