Long time gone…again

I seem to have really taken a full stop on writing in my blog. The reason, of course, is that it’s nice out and we have been very busy enjoying it. The summer has been pretty good, but we have had a set-back this week with Reese.  I’ll start with that.

We found out this week that Reese has most likely torn his ACL, one of the main ligaments that supports his knee.  Humans do this to themselves too, and it often requires surgery where they use a tendon to fix it. Well, the same is true for dogs, but it is a far more expensive procedure. For those of you who live in the US, I am quite spoiled by our free health care, and so am always shocked when I see what it costs for the dog to get things done.  In order to try to avoid/postpone surgery, we are resting Reese for the month, in hopes that he will develop his own scar tissue.  So this means no walks, no stairs, no swimming, no jumping for a month. He is allowed to go up the stairs, with our assistance, to go out and do his business. But nothing else. So we purchased a ramp for him, and have confined him to the basement for now. We have been spending a lot of time in the rec room since he can’t go upstairs.  He thinks he is being punished, especially when we have to take Seamus out for a walk. It breaks my heart. However, he is happy when we are with him in the room, even if we have to keep him and Seamus from playing. I have had to try to tire Seamus out so he wouldn’t play with Reese.

Before this happened, we were all having a lot of fun. Jessie and I went camping with my parents in Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada.  Look it up, beautiful place beyond words. If only it had palm trees and tropical weather it would be a paradise the likes of nassau and st thomas and jamaica.  I had forgotten how beautiful the beaches are there, and how bare. We were the only people on the beach.  In Halifax, if there is a beach it is full of people no matter what.  There is one in Hubbards that you can pay to get in, and it’s worth the five dollars to have a less busy beach. That one is a bit of paradise too.  The dogs were very good camping, and Jessie and I enjoyed ourselves too.

Seamus is getting very big. He is swimming and completely housebroken. He will bark to go out and has not had an accident in two weeks now. I am very proud of him. It was almost a lightbulb moment, just like Reese when he was housebroken.  I am so glad to be finished with this.  We will probably not have another puppy for a long time now, and that is fine with me. There is nothing worse.  I can now enjoy Seamus without having to worry about him messing all over the house.

I guess that’s all the news. I’ll post some pictures of the dogs at the beach below.

 

 

Swimming!

A quick post as the pups are below me snipping at each other in play.  This can only go on for so long before one gets hurt, so I tend to put an end to it pretty quickly. I took the dogs to the park the other day, and Seamus had his first dip in the water with his brother. He seemed to enjoy himself. I snapped a picture, here it is!

A Moment in the Day

Here we have the pups playing tug the way they always do.  An incident like this was also the cause of the bite to the nose. Apparently they never learn…

I’m not Dead

I haven’t been posting much in the last couple of weeks. We have been busy with my birthday and Seamus.  For a while, he was taking up all my time and I was hardly able to do much of anything else. Than he and Reese were playing a couple of weeks back and reese missed the toy and got Seamus in the nose instead, which hurt him quite a bit.  The vet couldn’t give him his needles until we were finished the abx, which means he will get them tomorrow, at ten weeks instead of eight weeks.  So we’ve been laying low with him until he gets his shots.  Reese went to Camp Bow Wow a couple of times and loved it. It’s been raining a lot as well so we haven’t been out al that much, although we did get some planting done outside. Other than that, we are taking turns napping to make up for the lack of sleep!

However, we are starting to get a routine with the dog now. He will sleep through the night as long as we put CBC radio on for him, which also worked for Reese (he is in a different room, so this doesn’t mean we have to listen to CBC radio too!).  We just got back from a walk and the boys are both sound asleep now.  I have some pictures from a trip to the babysitters a couple of weekends ago when I worked three nightshifts.

Sleeping after playing outside…you can see his nose wounds, they are healing there…they are all gone now!

Sniffing the tulips

Eating his huge bone. I am trying to get them away from rawhide, but they can’t get big chunks off these ones so they are still allowed to have them.

A quick update before work.

As I type this, Seamus is playing around on the floor and Reese is eating his bone. This will give me about fifteen to twenty minutes peace before Seamus gets bored and decides my foot tastes better. Sometimes he will go to sleep after playing and I will get an hour.

So far so good with him though. Today I had to sleep because I was nightshift last night and am again tonight.  I had to treat it as if I was at work, and he was home. He cried for about ten minutes, then fell asleep. I woke around eleven, played with him for half an hour and then put him back in.  He let me sleep till three when I woke on my own and let him out of the crate again. We went outside where he and Reese ran around the yard together and visited the neighbors for a bit, than sat on the step while I drank my coffee.

I’m glad this worked out so well. Next week I am nights for three shifts in a row, but we are getting a roommate here at the house, so she will be able to help with the puppy with any luck. He will be a whole week older as well, which makes a big difference at this age. I am glad we waited until Reese was almost two to get a second pup. Reese is well behaved now, and will listen to us better. If he gets too rough playing I can just say NO and he will settle down quickly.  We had taken in a pup for a little while last year until we could find a home for her, and it was very hard with Reese still being so young. The year made a big difference.

Seamus Pics

So Seamus is asleep right now, and we are taking advantage of this time to check out our cyber worlds.  So i caught up on my subscriptions (I had a few weeks of daily bailey to catch up on) and now I’m going to post some pictures of Seamus on his first weekend home. I have a bunch on my big camera too, but I haven’t hooked it up to the computer yet, so I’ll post those another day. So far we have been spending all our time with Seamus housebreaking him.  This is a bit more difficult than with Reese, because he would come up on the sofa with us and play there, instead of on the floor.  As long as he was on the sofa he wouldn’t pee.  Seamus likes to run around more and play on the floor, and sometimes he just stops whatever he’s doing and squats.  So we have to be on top of him much more. He is crate trained for the nights and when we are not home so that helps with that part. And hopefully he will catch on fairly quick, since he should be a very smart dog! Duck Tollers are smarter than chocolate labs. We also have a new store that sells the dog puzzles I’ve seen on other blogs (again, daily bailey) so I’m going to get one for him, and maybe Reese will also like it. So here are the pictures:

Playing with his toy, sporting his Nova Scotia Tarten collar!

A closeup of his beautiful face!

Reese chillin with a bone. He doesn’t mind Seamus too much as long as he doesn’t get his tail bitten!

Two Seconds

I have two seconds to post. We got Seamus this weekend. I’m very tired! He is very busy exploring the house. And I’m awaiting the election results. That is all I can say for now as he is trying to bite Reese. More when Jessie gets home!

Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

A few years ago we started a book club. Since I was the only person who actually liked to read, and the rest of the girls just wanted to drink, it only lasted for three books.  The first one on the list was “Life of Pi”

I had no idea what this book was about, and thought it was going to be stupid.  If you’ve read this book you know as well as I do that it is a very good book, with a surprising ending. I was the only one who actually finished the book, although everyone else skipped to the end to find out what happend. If you haven’t read this yet you must…it’s a very good book.

Lazy Week

I’ve been having a very lazy week this week. We have gotten lots done, I got my motorbike out and we went to visit Seamus. We cleaned the house and did laundry, had people over for dinner last night. But as far as writing goes I have not been doing it. I downloaded a new book over the weekend, and didn’t do much of anything until I finished reading it. The book was “Water for Elephants” and I loved it. I am looking forward to the movie coming out, even though I never enjoy the movies as much as the books. So here are some pictures from our visit with Seamus

Seamus posing for the camera!

Playing with his sister Ginger!

A snuggle with Mommy

Snuggling with Momma

Finally finished playing, and settling for sleep with his brothers and sisters.

Day 08 – Most overrated book

This was an easy one for me: The Twilight series.  I don’t even know where to start with this.  Everyone went on and on about these books, so I bought them to see what the hype was about. It took me forever to get into the first one, mostly because it took Stephanie Meyer forever to get to the point.  Three chapters devoted to cooking. A few more devoted to school and dreams. Finally in the middle of the first book she gets to the point.

I did read all the books, because I had to know if she ever became a vampire.  However, in hindsight, I could have just read the last book and pretty much figured it all out.