Report Card

12/27

"Barksdale ran REALLY hard into a large rock today. I think she's ok, but just keep an eye on her. It was her left side that hit the rock. She was running too fast down hill :("

Hey, nobody ever said our dogs were the brightest crayon in the box.

In other news, I took the doggies to my parents for Christmas. Although they stank up the basement, they were relatively well behaved. They were even more well behaved when I brought them back home after their three day stay at my parents. I think they thought I was going to abandon them at my parents and therefore had to be on their best behavior when we returned home.

Doctor, Doctor!

In writing the title of the post, I realized I have many doctor or doctor to be friends that treat humans, but no vet friends! What a travesty. I need to add that to my future friend list.

During these past two days we have discovered that Barksdale has come down with ticks. *Shudder* Well, I'm actually more "oh, eh" and the bf is the *shudder**shudder*head in palm of hands*shudder**shudder.* I actually find things such as ladybugs and butterflies way more terrifying.

Anyway, I have spent the past two nights pulling ticks off Barksdale. Last night, I found a tick on Ender so I ended up pulling that sucker off too. So before two days ago, I've never encountered a tick in my life. Which meant it took me a while to figure out that black spot on Barksdale's underside was NOT crusty dirt but a bug. It also meant that the bf and I spent some time on google trying to figure out what to do which translates to deciding whether or not we wanted to pay the vet $50 to remove them or if we should just remove them ourselves. (This would have been a situation where a vet friend would come in handy.)

So far our plan of attack is to watch the dogs more carefully over the next week to ensure there aren't any secondary tick after effects. We have both the dogs on Revolution so I don't know what what is up with this recent tick development.

And to make up for the fact that I mostly mention Barksdale only when something bad happens, here is a photo of her looking cute.

More Bread, Please!

Or more specifically cornbread. Arg on us for leaving cornbread out on the counter. Arg on Ender for being sneaky. We left for 10 minutes to take Barksdale out to pee and take the garbage out. The bf as a joke took the knife out of the cornbread, just in case Ender snarfed it. We came back and he had the "errr, perhaps I did something bad" look on his face. However, the pan of cornbread was still on the counter. The tell? Chunk of cornbread missing! Also, I should really admit to the fact that Ender is indeed tall enough to eat off the counter without much effort. Sigh. He's now officially forbidden from the kitchen.

Backpack

I've been thinking about investing in a new backpack for Ender. We actually have purchased two (yes, what's that sound? Us throwing our money away? uh huh) but I am still dissatisfied with the fit. This is a two prong problem.

The first prong is that we may not be the best in estimating Ender's size. Common sense says that he's a large. Like come on, he's 90 pounds. Large. However, I don't know where that 90 pounds is because he's actually probably a medium.

Second prong, I am cheapo. The last backpack we bought him was $30 and it was some random Outward Hound backpack. I have two issues with this backpack. The first is the strapping system. There are two that go under his belly and one across the chest. When he sits, the weight of the backpack falls on the strap across the chest, making him less likely to sit when I tell him to. Second issue, the bags on each side are humongous. When we put water bottles in the bags as weight, they hang down past his body. Therefore, when he walks, there's a mighty back and forth sway.

These two things really really irritate me.

So I was looking around for some backpacks and found one that I like. Except it is like $100. But offers me two solutions to my irritation: harness straps and bags that don't hang. Here's a photo of my coveted item:



This is the Ruff Wear Singletrak Pack. And I waaaaaant it. However, if anyone knows of a similar backpack that may cost less, I will forever be indebted to you.

Product Review: Tuffy Dog Toy

Apparently the tuff scale of 9 doesn't account for pitty nibbling, which leads to the downfall of most of the toys in this house. I do like these better than the rubber rings because we don't get the rubber bits laying around when the dogs start nibbling on it. However, I might knock the tuff scale down to a 2 because it only took about two days for the toy to get to this:



The dogs have enjoyed playing tug with it so I would say the fun scale is a bit higher, but for the price, I really would have liked this toy to last more than a day before starting to fall apart.

Report Card

Apparently, Ender's trying to redeem the family name. Here was his report card:

"Ender was really REALLY good today (I guess sort of ironically). Minimal whining, I only had to give a couple corrections and he was overall calmer than usual. He also had great recall. Definitely the best walk we've had so far!"