Poor, Attention-Starved Puppies

Since we added Caleb to our family we've been asked lots of questions. Aside from the usual, "Where did he come from?", "How old is he?", and "How do you like being a Mommy?!" (arguably the most annoying question I'm asked. How am I supposed to answer that? The only answer you can really give is that it is wonderful or people start wondering about you. Anyway...), another popular question is "How are the dogs adjusting to him?"

Well, I'll tell you.

I think they are undecided.

I'm not sure if they regard him as a person equal to me and Zack or more like a pet that they have to check up on once in awhile. When we come home they always check the car seat to make sure Caleb is in there. They sniff his face and give it a lick once in awhile. When I go to wake Caleb up from his naps they are always trotting ahead of me down the hall to his room as if they were the ones who decided that it was time for him to wake up. They sit by his crib and wag their tails when I take Caleb out. They sit next to him on the couch and usually don't mind if he grabs their hair. Well, Maxwell kind of minds so he keeps a distance.

So it would seem that everything is hunky-dory and they have adjusted well to having a new person in the house.

However, there are a few things that make me wonder if there might be some jealousy towards the new addition.

For instance, when we try to help Caleb walk between us on the rug Maxwell will get in the way and try to get our attention, not caring if he steps on or trips Caleb in the process.

And recently I've been seeing a lot of this:

These are all Caleb's toys. One of the dogs, I'm pretty sure it's Mckay, will pull one of Caleb's toys out and leave it in strategic places where I normally walk, like the hallway. She won't chew the toys, but she'll move them around. And then, the next time I see her, she'll have her head bowed and act like she's done something wrong, because she knows she's not supposed to play with those toys.

Observe.

The face of shame.

Invariably I'll tell her, in a stern voice, not to play with Caleb's toys (her head bowed, her tail down, the picture of shame) and then I'll pet her and tell her she's a good girl. She then trots away, head held high, little tail in the air.

Attention-starved?

You tell me.

How To Make A Chipmunk.

First, you take your dogs on a long, dirty, fun hike.

Like this.

And this.

You might even throw in a meadow or two.

Next, you let them cool off however they want.




Then you take them for a ride.

Let him stick his head out the window because you know how much he loves it.


The next thing you know...


You've got yourself a chipmunk.

Happy New Year

This post has nothing to do with the new year except for the fact that it is written on the second day of the new year. I just wanted to be cool like everybody else and say Happy New Year on my blog.

How did we spend the first day of our new year? We drove for 11 hours. Salt Lake to Burlington is a nice, grueling 11 hour drive. We decided to take our puppies with us this time. It was pretty uneventful driving with 2 dogs in the back. (Not nearly as eventful as driving with three girls in the back...Chris and Allie....) We only had to stop 4 times and let them out. Aside from McKay throwing up twice things went well.

We spent the second day of our new year with Zack's dad playing various versions of Pinochle and eating junk food. Good tiiiimes.

The experiment on this trip was to see how our puppies would do left alone all day (8 hours) in a hotel room. I'm happy to say they passed with flying colors. Nobody pooped on the floor! And hopefully our efforts to soundproof the room by keeping the fan and the TV on worked and kept our puppies from barking at any strange noises coming from outside.

We decided this time around to go with the cheaper hotel room and save ourselves over a hundred dollars. So far, we are happy with our choice. It's amazing how good saving money can feel. The more expensive hotel has an indoor pool and a Continental breakfast, two things we haven't missed so far.

This motel hasn't been that bad. Aside from the cigarette butts, beer bottle caps and one creepy chicken leg that litter the patch of lawn outside our door, the cigarette burn in the bedspread of our "non-smoking" room and the lighter and bottle of pills we found under the bed, our new, cheaper hotel has been just fine. At least it doesn't have bugs on the floor of the bathroom. I draw the line at bugs on the floor. That's just gross.

Bonuses to this room include: A patch of grass right outside the door for our dogs to do their business (so long as we keep them away from the aforementioned creepy things), a fridge, a motel that's so old they don't care if we leave our dogs in the room unattended, and ESPN on the night of the Sugar Bowl so Zack can watch Utah beat the pants off Blabablama.

That's My Dog

Taking a midnight emergency trip to the vet 20 minutes away and consulting with a doctor: $75
Having a team of doctors feed your dog a can of delicious chicken flavored dog food: $5
Having the team of doctors give your dog an injection so he'll throw it up: $30
Having the doctors clean up the mess: $37.50

Not having your dog's insides shredded by a half-inch square scrap of metal: Priceless

Elf Yourself

'Tis the season to be jolly and/or elfy.
I recommend you all go to this site and check out my elf family and then create your own. You know, cuz it's Christmas time ...and stuff.

And Then There Were Four

Presenting one of those creepy, weird family photos of a couple and their dogs. At least the dogs aren't wearing clothes.

Zack and I have debated for a while about whether or not we wanted to get another dog. Maxwell has been such a good dog for us. We weren't sure if we were asking for trouble by introducing someone else into our totally functional one-dog family. We kept going back and forth. Would Maxwell get jealous? Would they become best friends? Would it change his behavior? Would he help with her behavior? Would he become more aggressive? Would he get more exercise? Would the new dog chew on our furniture or our shoes? We've been pretty lucky having a dog that only prefers chewing paper, plastic, and small stuffed cows. Why would we want to jeapardize our perfectly happy one-doggy home?

Why, indeed.

Maybe we got bored with how well things were going. Maybe we missed the sound of tiny paws going pitter-patter on the kitchen floor. Maybe we're gluttons for punishment. Maxwell hasn't been causing us any problems for the past year and a half, perhaps we should drop a potentially huge bomb on him and change his idealic puppy-pampered world forever. Or maybe we just wanted to take care of another living something, since our future kids seem to be on their own eternal schedule instead of our mighty earthly one.

Whatever the reason was, we did it. We got another puppy.

I was kind of on the fence about the decision, even after we paid for her, even after they called and said she would be arriving the next day (we got her from Pennsylvania, the same place we got Maxwell), even as we were driving to the airport. But as soon as I saw her, I knew we'd made the right decision. Here's my first view of her after Zack picked her up from the Continental baggage claim at terminal 1.

She's so tiny!

I don't have a lot to say about little McKay (It was the cutest girl-sounding name among the prophets and apostles. "Uchtdorf" just didn't have the right zing...). All I can say is that she's exceeded all of our expectations so far. After three days she was peeing on command. And as of this afternoon she's going to the door to let us know she needs to go outside to poop. Yes, she's a miracle dog. She likes Maxwell, she doesn't whine at night (as long as she can see us), she stays when we tell her to stay, and she lays down like a bunny just like Maxwell does.

Maybe it's because we're a lot better at being puppy parents the second time around. Maybe it's because Maxwell is a good influence on her. Or maybe it's because she's just a good puppy.

One day after we got her, we took her up to the cabin. While there, we tested out her leaping capabilities. She did quite well.

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Dare-Devil Dog

I didn't know my dog would be a dare-devil, excitement-seeking animal when Zack and I decided to buy him. He was friendly enough at first- playful and happy. We soon found that he was afraid of anything new, strange, or loud. He doesn't like fireworks. He doesn't like strange objects left on the floor, and he doesn't like tight spaces. He's slowly overcoming his fears as he grows accustomed to his world. He was afraid to go down our stairs at first. Now he bolts down them with no thought that his feet could at any moment slip out from underneath him and send him sprawling, head-first, to the bottom. He is unafraid of a few other things also. He's not afraid of a ball coming straight for his head. He merely stares, curiously, at it until it smacks him in the nose. Then he tries to bite it...a little too late. He's not afraid of running head-long into cement steps. He's definately not afraid of the basketball.
I've found out recently that not only is my dog not afraid of things now, but he likes creating exciting, tense-filled situations.
Let's talk about vacuuming. Maxwell loves it when I vacuum for some reason. It's like it's his oppurtunity to prove how fearless he can be. He'll jump in front of the vacuum and then spring away as it comes near him. (He used to bark at it and run away. I guess he's overcome his fear.) He'll do this almost the whole time I vacuum. When I'm finished, it's as if the pride of winning the tournament-- Maxwell VS. The Vacuum-- gives him renewed energy and he spends the next 2 or 3 minutes racing around the house until I send him outside.
Well today I was vacuuming the living room when Maxwell ran in and placed his precious chewed-up cow on the floor, right in the path of the on-coming vacuum! He stood there tensely for a minute, until the vacuum was inches away from his Precious, then he snatched it up and ran away. He came back to try it again seconds later.
I guess now the thrill of putting himself in danger isn't enough. He must risk the life of his precious cow in order to get the thrills he needs to survive.

Maxwell, the Wonder Dog

Zack has always wanted a dog. For most of his adolescent years he asked his mom for a dog. According to him, she would say something like, "You can have a dog as soon as we don't have (insert the current pet they owned here)." As soon as that pet was gone, she'd "surprise" he and his brother with another pet. Because of this, Zack has been the proud pet owner of rats, frogs, rabbits, and cats. When we got married, we couldn't take his latest pet, Lynx the cat, to live with us in our newly-wed apartment because, alas, I was allergic to cats. Poor, poor Lynx had to stay with Zack's mom, where she resides to this day.

I always pictured my future spouse and I having a dog because I grew up with a dog. Tippy was a member of the family. He thought he was "people", and rightly so. We treated him like a sibling, my brothers and I. Except we usually didn't tie our siblings to the table to sleep at night and we certainly didn't make our siblings poop in the backyard.

A year or so after we moved into our house, installed a fence, and put in sod, (all requirements, in my opinion, for a dog) we found Maxwell's picture online. He was born in Pennsylvania to a Lhasa Apso mother and a Cocker Spaniel father. He was so cute we decided to buy him. We had him shipped to us via Delta Airlines. He arrived on a Wednesday night around midnight, September 2005. When we first saw him at the airport in his little carrier I put his "bigger than I expected" puppy-size out of my mind and enjoyed how cute and fluffy he was. He was adorable! Scared to come out of his carrier at first,(Do you blame him? He just spent the last 4 hours in a cage hidden in the dark belly of a plane.) Zack had to pull him out. Once he was in my arms, he just laid his head on my arm and snuggled in. Oh yes, this was the best decision we'd ever made.

Around 3:00 AM I began to rethink this "best decision" as Maxwell began barking for the 6th time since we'd put him in his lovingly crafted pen. Going into the kitchen to say "Quiet!" everytime he barked had me rethinking the very idea of having children.

I'm happy to say that those days are past. We no longer follow him around waiting for any sign from him to indicate he was about to soil our beautiful flooring, and we no longer have him penned up. He is free to roam the house. He has turned out to be, what we fondly call, "the perfect dog". He doesn't chew on furniture or shoes. His only chewing weaknesses are paper, pens, and pencils. He has a few odd habits, such as taking the pillows off our sofa when we're gone, and he loves to play with our old plastic containers. Hurray for cheap dog toys!

He has learned a few tricks over the years. He can sit, speak, stand up, roll over, stay, come, shake, lay down, drop it, and get the paper. The last one is how he earns his keep. :)

And now, without further adieu, Maxwell gets the SUNDAY paper!



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