Dog hair, the story of my life.

I feel as though Rescue's dog hair is every where, in our food, on our clothes, everywhere. Some times we even feel like the hair is following us. I make cookies I'm pulling hair from the batter, I putting away clothes straight from the drier, hair.  Today was the ultimate hair find though. 

Why yes that old be inside the block. How did it get in there? I'm stumped.

Rescue

When we first got our dog we had issues to say the least.  After trying to train her we came to realize she was a bit, well, different.  She wasn't motivated by food when there was ANYTHING that could distract her.  Our training method was a positive reinforcer, you do what we tell you to do, you get a treat.  Guess what, she didn't do so well.  We also never were able to solve our dominance issues.  We finally had a sit down meeting with one of the "behavior specialists" and were told that we were going to have to choose between our new dog or children because she would never be good with kids.  This caused a huge fight between BJ and I.  He refused to give up on the poor puppy, and I couldn't imagin putting our children in danger with a dog that could possibly bite them.  We then found a negative reinforcement training program, you do what I say or you get a pinch on your collar.  It took a while and we still do have minimal issues but nothing to big.  

That leads us to the present.  Lately, we have been having a harder and harder time finding Rescue at the end of the day.  Typically she is laying on my pillow in the middle of our bed, but the last few nights, Elijah's bed.  Last night was one of those nights.  So much so, I didn't even see her in there at first glance. 

Keep in mind my son is laying under his pillows at the top of his bed so that might have slightly distracted me.  We ended up fixing Elijah, tucking him in, and leaving him there.  Most nights, Rescue I will leave and come into our room within a couple of minutes.  This morning when we were awoken by our 7am alarm "MOMMY, THE SUN IS UP!" Which is actually translated to, Mom I'm awake can I get up, Rescue was still in his bed.  He came into our room, crawled in bed and we started talking about the dog spending the night with him.  His response, "yeah, I covered her with blue blankie." So BJ got up to go check on her...

Yup, I'm glad BJ convinced me to keep her.  Elijah loves her so much and she knows that he is her human.

On a side note, our whole story with Rescue reminds me so much of kids with behaviors or special needs.  Lots of times they just get a generic, "you should do this" without being fully understood.  Most of the kids I work with are driven my anxiety and live most of their life in a fight or flight state of mind.  Without understanding what is the cause of the anxiety to help decrease it, they look naughty.  I don't know how many kids are just given up on instead of really understood.  Just goes to show you even though she is a dog, she has taught me a ton about life. 

What do you do?

What dou you do when it is 10 degrees before wind chill, and there is 6 inches of snow on the ground, and your dog can only stand for 1 minute before her paws start to freeze but needs 5-10 to do her business?

Why you tape your child's baby mittens to her paws of course! Good thing we had two sets.

 

Poor thing hated it at first at least was able to stand the temp. long enough to get what she need done. I can't wait until Monday when the high for the day BEFORE wind chill will be -10! When did we move to the North Pole?

Amber is that you?

When I was in Jr. High we got a dog.  Her name was Amber.  I wanted to post a picture of her but I quickly realized that we had her before the time of digital cameras.  Can you even remember that time?  Anyway, tangent, Amber was a quarky dog.  She had some weird habits, like having to have the water bowl full to the top and not to close to the wall or the food bowl.  One of our favorite was when Amber would be given a rawhide bone.  She would eat half of it then try and hide the other half.  However, her hiding spots were not that great.  She would put it in the middle of the floor or in the middle of the bed and try to put the covers over it.  What could we say, she was a weird dog.

The other day as I was cleaning up some extra blankets upstairs I found a pig ear hiding in there.  As soon as Rescue saw the ear she jumped off the bed, grabbed it and ran downstairs.  I didn't see her much the rest of the night but when I came back down stairs she was hiding under the table and her bone was sitting in the middle of the floor.  Really Rescue?  I can see it.  It's right there.  After I walked almost right up to it she grabbed it and ran upstairs.  Now the ear sits "hidden" next to the bed and every time I see it I can't help but think, "Ah, Rescue, there must be a small part of Amber hidden in you."

Oh Rescue

What are we going to do with you?  The poor animal woke us up for the first time in quite awhile so she could let us know she was about to vomit on the carpet.  I then spent the next couple of minutes chasing her trying to convince her that the tile is the best place for that.  Then having to clean it up, wait, BJ had to clean it up.  Then she refuses to eat her medicine, then we bathe her and we find a rash on her skin.  Awesome.  We will be monitoring her skin and still trying to shove those pills down her throat. 

I just ask that Rescue, you stay healthy and just hang out for a while.  We need this right now.  Okay?

I now present you with...Houdini Dog

I have always said I wanted to give Rescue to the traveling Gypsies, however, I never actually expected her to unhook herself and go looking for them herself. 

We recently switched Rescues outdoor lead to a new flexable one.  The new one has a much larger clip and it is a bit longer.  Now with the warmer weather Rescue wants to be outside ALL the time.  So we let her.  She can't reach the sidewalk and she keeps the riff raff on the other side of the street.  The problem is though that the other day BJ looked out the back door and noticed Rescue was wandering around...not attached to the lead.  Hmmm.  Tonight, Resuce had been outside for almost 20 minutes.  BJ had just gotten home and as I was finishing up dinner I had just seen Rescue at the back door.  I had asked BJ to bring Rescue in.  As he turned to realized the dog was not at the back door the doorbell rang and I thought, "did I bring her in and I just forgot about it?"  As I answered the door it was our neighbor asking if that was our dog hanging out in the front yard, not attached to anything.  Okaaaaay????  Apparently she had found our dog sitting in front of the neighbors house trying to see if their dog wanted to come out and play. 

Oh Rescue, what are we going to do with you? 

My life

Let me just share with you the morning I had.  Now keep in mind this is with my 16.5 month old child who has limited words.  This is us getting out the door today.

Me: (put dog food in the dog bowl and hand the bowl to Eli) Put in Rescue's crate.
Eli: (walks over puts the dog food bowl in the crate)
Me: (opens the cabinet to get out a dog treat and hands the treat to Eli) Tell Rescue "crate time" (turn my back to close up the cabinet)
Eli: (walks 10 steps and stops)
Me:  What are you doing?  Go give Rescue her treat.
Eli: (on the verge of tears no dog treat in sight)
Me: Where did the treat go?  I gave you one right?  I though I did.
Rescue:  (Can smell we have all touched her treat but also can't find it going crazy)
Eli: (about to cry, staring off into space)
Me:  Did you hide the treat?  Did you drop the treat?  Did I really give you a treat? (get down on the floor and look under everything)
Rescue: (jumping on top of us trying to find the treat)
Me:  I could have sworn I gave you a treat. (look one more time on the ground.  See the treat about a foot under the stove) Found it.  How did it get under there? (get the treat out with about 10 pounds of dust) Give this to Rescue.
Eli: (not real sure what to think drops the treat 3 more times in the 10 feet to Rescues cage)
Rescue: (barley able to contain her self just takes her treat and gets in the crate.)

Dreams

I had a dream last night that made me really mad at BJ.  Do you ever have those dreams?  You know the ones where you wake up and feel as though they really happened, however, you are 100% sure it was a dream.  It is just they have so much emotion behind them that even though you know it was a dream you are just so ANGRY?  Yeah that was me last night.  I woke up at 2:30 ready to take the baby, the dog and two days worth of clothes for us all and leave BJ to sleep at a hotel.  Yes that is how angry I was at BJ, I was going to take the Satin Dog with me.  Right, that would be a great idea, I see Rescue barfing in the car then eating the hotel room.  On second thought I think I should leave the dog with BJ.  But the rest of the night I spent revising the dream in the rest of my dreams, and all day I have been slightly annoyed at BJ.  Let's hope tonight will be better.

12 month doctor visit

On Saturday Elijah had his 12 month Doctor visit, granite he is just days shy of being 13 months but hey what can you say when you have to find a Saturday when they have open appointments. Anyway my baby now is up to 23 lb 12 oz (58%) and 30.3 in long (55%) over all he is almost average for his age! Wahoo, go us we kept our baby alive for a whole year and he is doing good! Sorry no pics. We were so busy this weekend I didn't have a lot of time to grab the camera.

Oh and I think Rescue can read, because as I typed the blog for the other night Rescue realized she hadn't eaten any undies for the week and took care of that for me. GRRR...that dog.

I have a confession

Rescue has an issue... That issue involves frequently eating my undies. It is really frustrating because as far as I can tell there is no rhyme or reason to when or why she decides to do so. I typically average losing one to two pairs of undies per week. I lose more on the weeks that the laundry basket does not make it back into the bathroom, or on weeks when there is a significant weather change. She is real sneaky about this too. She will get every one else busy in the house and go up to the bathroom, then by the time we realize she is missing from our family activities, gone. And what makes it even more frustrating is it's not like the whole pair of undies goes down. She just chews it enough for the undies to be completely unwearable. I have also found that she prefers the newer, most comfy undies. I have pairs of undies that I would love for her to eat...NOPE that would make me happy. The nice expensive comfortable ones gone the second or third time they are worn. I mean really dog! Anyway, my confession.

The other day went into the bathroom and saw a pair of undies where they should not have been and I knew instantly that the dog had gotten another pair. However, when I picked them up to throw them away and see how much of them she actually ate, I realized that there were just a few holes in them. So me being cheep, threw them in the wash and am currently wearing undies with teeth marks in them. I mean compared to all the other pairs of destroyed undies, these are practically still new!

Oh and does anyone have any advice on how to get your dog to stop eating your undies?

My first day of Garage Sale

First of all, Rescue just farted and I am in too much pain and too tired to more away.

Second I took today off of work so I could work at the OSLC garage sale. However, Elijah had a fever and is getting to the end stages of a cold today but he is happy right and eating and sleeping fine. Okay last night was not so fine but other than that. Thank goodness I love my daycare so much and they still took him.

Dear Lord, the dog keeps farting, It's like one endless fart that just keeps going and going and going. Blah!

Third I convinced my neighbor to join me and she was awesome help, All those Bratz dolls are now clothed in church appropriate attire and she helped out significantly with the animal crisis.

Fourth, I am SOOOOO soar. Standing on the concert floor all day long hurts, and now my hips, knees and back are aching. However, one thing I have learned over the years is, every day you go, you have to wear a different pair of sneakers so there is different areas of pressure on your feet and body.

Garage sale scores to this point:
Several books for me
Several books for Elijah
Several books for work
Two choices of winter coats for Elijah, Daddy will have the final say
Snow pants for Elijah
Cute little nativity toy (really awesome church toy)- It will go great with the Noah's arc that we have now. I love it sooooo much.
Fisher Price Little people Stable (birthday or Christmas gift, not sure yet)

I really want to work tomorrow night too, but I think my hubby might want me to come home and see him once in a while. I don't know.

In memory...

Warning first and foremost, this post will have some sad moments and if you cry easily or were part of this last weekend, you might not want to read this while at work.

As many of you know this past weekend our family traveled to Minnesota for BJ's grandpa's funeral. One thing I like about funerals is everyone shows up. Unlike weddings people bend over backwards to get to a relatives funeral. Most of the time weddings come along and if we have to travel it seems difficult and we tend to look towards reasons we can't go. Funerals on the other hand, we know that that is the end and we have to get there to say our goodbyes. This weekend I met ALL of BJ's family. There were cousins I never met, aunts and uncles I haven't seen in years, and second cousins I have never met. At the same time, every one was able to meet our little man.

Sunday we attended the memorial service, which was absolutely beautiful. I learned things about Grandpa Berwyn that I never really knew. One thing that I learned is he lead a full life. Yes he made some poor choices along the way but it really made him human. He also realized his decisions and changed his ways to be a good father and grandfather in the end. I also realized that although BJ did not get a lot of physical traits from his grandpa, instead he received his outgoing personality. I heard more times than I can count, "he was always smiling" and " He would talk with everyone he met." That right there is my husband and one of his best personality traits (although it does drive me crazy some times).

Monday we went to the National Cemetery out side of Minneapolis and had the funeral processional. This was the first time that I had been a part of funeral for an individual who had been in the armed forces. The best way to describe it is beautiful. The whole thing was perfect. It was also the first time that I had actually been inside a National Cemetery. The white head stones, the straight lines, perfect. Elijah did well with the 21 gun salute, mostly because his ears were completely covered, but it was wonderful. Then when the service was complete one of the family members looked up to see a complete rainbow around the sun. I have never seen the full circle of the rainbow, but it was wonderful.

After the ceremony was complete we drove the couple of miles to the Mall of America for lunch

(Elijah watching the fish and the gorillas at Rainforist cafe)

then went back to Grandpa's burial sight and marked it with the GPS. Although his permanent head stone was not in place yet, there was a blank, white head stone that looked perfect. We marked it with the GPS because he will be buried in the middle of a large section and it might take a while to find him when we go back in a couple of years.

All in all this trip has been very peaceful. Seeing the family, reminiscing about Grandpa's life, and laying his ashes to rest in a very peaceful place, has brought a calm feeling about his passing. I just hope the peaceful feeling will last the entire drive back to Chicago tomorrow. And in the words of Grandpa Berwyn, "Have I told you today that I love you?"

PS: Happy Adoption Day Rescue.

Off to the doctor

My car that is. Yes, it is going back to the doctor. Actually this is to fix the check engine light and the shaking that is going on. So to day my mom and I played musical cars and I am now the proud driver of a lovely SUV.

On another note, we have had a ton of rain these past few days and when I got home and put Rescue out she went out and drank the water pools off the fire pit cover. I tried to get a picture but go figure batteries were dead and by the time I got new ones she was done. Oh well. It was cute.

Near Death Experiance

Rescue gave us a bit of a scare today. I thought St. Patties day might have been the last day we had our dog. But I think luck was on her side today. Let me tell you what happened.

As we came downstairs today I noticed a spider in the dinning room. So being the wimp that I am, I called the dog and had her try to eat it. Well the spider high tailed it under her basket of toys and Rescue looked at me for help. I moved the basket and she went at the spider again. Typical spider hunting today, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until I saw she had got the spider. Then she jumped back and spit the spider out. It was odd, the spider was in the middle of the floor and Rescue was just looking at it, she would never typically do that. She then got up, walked to the door and gave me a look that said, "I'm going to throw up." I put her outside and sure enough that she did. She then came back in and laid down under the table. She didn't lay down like a sphinx, but like a dead animal. She wouldn't respond to her name, even when I got down on the floor and poked at her she didn't move. That's when I started to get worried, I when to the last resort, I pulled out her all time favorite treat. Nothing. I even waived it in front of her noise. Nothing. That's when I was officially worried. I then grabbed her front paws and back paws and dragged her out from under the table. Nothing. Didn't even phase her. Since BJ had just left I called him to come back. Upon closer examination it looked like her lip was starting to swell. I then called the Animal Hospital and after I told them what had happened, they told me to get her in ASAP. (never a good sign) So BJ took her in and I headed to work, with no breakfast because I spent all my time seeing if the dog was dead or not.

Apparently once Rescue got to the hospital she started to feel better and was walking around a bit more. By the time the Doc came in she was back to normal. So BJ brought her back home and left her in the crate. I kept wanting to call her to check on her, however, I didn't think she would answer the phone. My biggest fear was that I was going to get home from work today and she would be dead in her crate. No worries she was up and running around.

Rescue Lives another day. And BJ has banned me from having the dog eat spiders.

As I hit publish post the first time Rescue jumps off the couch and goes for another house spider. Damn!

How much is that doggie in the window?

Dog for Sale!! Who wants a dog?? She is great *wink**wink*. I'm not to happy with our "fine" furry friend. In the last week or two, She has pooped in the house probably once a day. BJ and I can't figure it out. In the last two weeks nothing has changed that would have made her upset. She has stopped eating in her crate and waits for us to force feed her before she will eat. She has been very distant from us the last few days. Any way I look at it... She is driving me up the wall. GRRR... Rescue we're going to sell you to the Gypsies next time they are in town.

I lost in Monopoly... TO THE DOG!!

Awhile back BJ and I were in Meijer and were checking out the clearance section and we came across Monopoly Tycoon. It looked different, a new twist on the old game. So we took a chance and bought it. Then maybe 3-4 months later we finally got around to playing it. We sat down got everything out... and realized that you needed 3-5 players. Bummer. We really wanted to play so we started making a compromise... "How about we both play the third person? How about Rescue be the third person?" We liked that one. We then made the decision that she had to buy anything she landed on and any trade offered presented to her. The interesting part about this game is that there is a DVD to give out the chance, and community chest, as well as some different things. Then all of a sudden, Rescue started to take off. She had a ton of properties, and a ton of money. Great. Then we started making bogus trades with her, "Rescue, if you give me X, I will give you treat. Do you accept?" Of course she did. We continued to make bogus trades and deals that would benefit ourselves. At the end of the game you tally up your money and things to get points. The one with the most points wins! Rescue had 84 points, I had 85 and BJ had 73. How sad is that. Even cheating and taking advantage of the non-human, she still almost beat us. That sucks! HA!

Sleep deprived

I feel that I need to get this down before I forget it completely. As I look back at how far our little family has come in the last 7 months I realize there were things, that if I was blogging at the time, needed to be blogged about.

About 6 months ago or maybe a little bit more, there were many nights that I was very sleep deprived. I spent most of my time trying to figure out when I fed Elijah last, how long have been feeding him, and when would be the next time he needed to be fed. Even when I was trying to sleep. However, one night I got stuck between being awake and being asleep, I started going through the motions in my head of when I was feeding Elijah, but I was still sleeping. I then started having a vivid delusion of Rescue sleeping in Elijah's bassinet.

This is when I started talking in my sleep. I felt that I was holding Elijah and I needed to put him back in his bassinet, but the dog was there. I woke up BJ and told him that he needed to get Rescue out of the bassinet. He questioned me about what I wanted him to do and i told him again, "get Rescue out of the bassinet." He actually got up, walked over to the bassinet, passing the dog at the end of the bed, looked in and said, Elijah's in the bassinet. That's when it hit him that I was talking in my sleep. At first he was angry that I woke him up and got him out of bed, but then he thought it was funny.

Ah, wonderful sleep deprived moments in life. Very glad the majority of those days are gone and if I get up now in the middle of the night it is only for 15 min. However, over the past two weeks I have only gotten up 4 or 5 nights out of 14. Looks like I'm getting closer to getting a full nights sleep.

Our Dog Rescue

I wasn't blogging over the time when we acquired our .5 child, AKA our doggy. Let's start at the beginning of this story and after BJ and I bought our house we were ready for our next big acquisition, a dog. In March we went on our last big vacation before we got a dog and then BJ went on a business trip in the middle of April. The weekend he got back we went off to the pound to check out the cute doggies there. The problem was that I wanted a dog between 30 and 50 pounds, one that was around 2 years old, and one that was good with young kids since we wanted to have one soon. We were having problems finding a dog that met those standards for us. Most of the dogs we were finding were over 100 pounds or under 15 pounds. Others were not recommended for children at all or children over the age of 9. I was getting a bit frustrated with what our options were. Then we found Rescue The Wonder Dog.

She was about 30 pounds when we found her but they thought she would gain about 5 more pounds, the thought she would be good with kids and they recommended that she go to a home that could spend time with her because she was very skittish with EVERYTHING. So we got her and brought her home, once we would get her in the car. Found out she was scared to death of cars and refused to get into the car. She barfed doggy bits in the car on the way home and that should have been our first clue we were in for a bumpy ride.

Over the next 24 hours we figured out:

• She had difficulty with transitions. She refused to go through doorways which makes if very challenging to get her to go to the bathroom. (Now she has no issues with them)
  
• She is scared of her leash. We would have to chase her around the house and corner her to get her leash on then start running and get through the door. (Now as long as BJ or I put the leash on her she doesn't mind)


• She had gravitational insecurity. She didn't know how to go up stairs and would only take her front feet off the floor. It took her about a week to figure out how to get up the stairs and for the first couple of months we had to lift her in and out of the car.
  
• She had massive anxiety if you left her. Thank goodness we had a crate or else I'm not real sure what we would have lost. (She chewed a lot of towels).
  
• She didn't like the order of the house and kept trying to attack me. (Training took care of that)
  
• She was scared to death of any motor vehicle bigger than a bicycle, especially buses, dump trucks, tractors, and motorcycles. And when your house has a back yard that is for a construction dump site there are lots of things your dog doesn't want to be around. (Now she chases them as they drive by)
  
• She has no body awareness. She is the only dog I know that takes over a half an hour to pee, and will poop while walking.

Over the next couple of months we went to training school the really didn't work out for us. They even recommended us getting rid of her. That's when we found the trainer that worked for us. We went to 10 weeks of training and by the end we had a dog that trusted us and is not so scared of everything. However, she still doesn't do well with some people. In fact, for some odd reason she is scared to death of BJ's father. No clue why. Now our dog is still weird and here is what we need a doggy Occupational Therapist to work on with.

• Understanding when she is hungry. She won't eat for 24 hours then barf because her stomach is empty.
  
• Pee in less than 10 minutes.
  
• Her attention span

The list has gotten MUCH shorter over the last year and a half and most of the time I am glad we kept her. I do have to say though there are days that I threaten to sell her to the Gypsies.

Bed wetting

For one member of the house hold it is appropriate and expected for the bed to be wet every once in awhile, for the other members it is not acceptable. Let me tell you about the wet bed that I encountered last night.

At 2:45 am Elijah woke up and wanted to be fed. That's fine, that's normal. So I got out of my nice warm, 2 comforter, heated mattress pad bed to feed him. As I was feeding him he decided to poop. Not just poop though explosive diaper poop all up the back and all. It was great so I changed him, and fed him the second half of his midnight meal. As I was feeding him I heard Rescue in the bed room readjust herself. Again, normal, Rescue typically likes to sleep touching us and when one of us gets up she will typically take over there spot. Elijah finishes and I put him back to bed. All good. I walk into the bedroom and practically find Rescue on my pillow. Not the first time, I laugh, wake up BJ and tell him to look at the dog. He snicker and tells Rescue to move, then rolls over and goes back to sleep. Rescue looks at me and puts her head back down. Mean while, I climb back into bed and dig my feet under the dog to make her move she literally flies off the bed and heads to her doggy bed on the floor. I try to convince her to get back in the bed which she does and tries to sleep on my lap, at that point things go from normal to way not normal. I then stretch out my legs and my feet hit a damp spot. I pull my feet back and think, "did I really keep the bed on that high that my feet sweat that much?" I then put my feet back to feel it again, not just damp, soaking. Then I get the smell. PEE. BJ gets a punch to the kidneys and "Rescue flipping peed in the bed!" His response, "are you sure?" What do you mean am I sure, real sure that wet spot at the end of the bed is pee. We then have to get up, change the sheets, and the covers but here is the problem. As you just read, I just changed the sheets Wednesday, so the second set of sheets we have for our bed are dirty and we only have two comforters and they were both on the bed. Really?? Really?? at that point Elijah wakes back up. GRRR. Put the baby back to bed, put Rescue in her crate, BAD DOG, get a blanket and quilt out of the closet.

The only good thing, due to the # of layers on the bed the heated mattress pad did not get wet and that's the only way we stayed warm the rest of the night.

The Giggle

Last week (Friday maybe) Carissa (who Elijah spends his days with) told me that he laughed for the first time that day. A real laugh too. Up until that point Elijah's laugh has been more of a gagging sound with a very very very wide open smile. We used to call a bug catcher in color guard way back in the day. However, she told me it was a real laugh that was just soooo cute. Apparently the rest of the day all the kids were trying to get Elijah to laugh which is probably why he has refused to laugh for me. Up until TODAY!!! It was great. We were playing on the floor and Rescue was being a slightly crazy dog which was getting me worried.

Short story of Rescue: From the day we brought her home I have been convinced that our dog needs Doggy Occupational Therapy. She has difficulty with transitions, she has gravitational insecurity (she wouldn't go up stairs), and she has problems figuring out where her body is in space (runs in to walls, frequently step on your foot with her incredibly long toe nails, and can't tell when she is pooping). She also has doggie ADHD (runs in the family I guess) because she is the only dog in the world that takes 20 minutes to pee and that's when she really has to go.

So anyway, Rescue was being wild and crazy and came with in centimeters of stepping on little Elijah's head while killing one of her jungle animals. Well since I felt bad for her being in her crate all day I didn't want to make her stop running around so every time she came running into the room I would cover Elijah with my body. Well Elijah just though that, that was absolutely hilarious and started his typical giggle, then broke into a laugh. Carissa was right, it was SOOOO adorable. It actually made me cry a little bit. I love him!