I am happy to report that Guinness is recovering nicely, though it has not been an easy proces. The past couple of weeks have been, shall we say, interesting. Between Guinness recovering, Christmas and New Years, a rapidly approaching deadline for the 2nd edition of Network Warrior, and me traveling for work, I am a tad, shall we say, burnt out. Going back to work almost felt like a vacation. Almost. (more…)
Category: Dogs
Guinness and the TPLO – Part III
The night of day three I got all his pills in him with the pill gun. He hated me for about a 1/2 hour, but he needed his meds dammit. I slept on the couch this time to let Lauren get some sleep. To be painfully accurate, I didn’t actually sleep so much as lay there for eight hours. At least he wasn’t lonely.
The next morning I think he figured out a way to scoop his tongue back into his throat and pull the pills out. What’s worse, every time he did that, he ruined three expensive antibiotic capsules. I think I need a horse pill gun. This would have been easier if they’d just given me a needle and syringe. (more…)
Guinness and the TPLO – Part II
Bringing Guinness to the Veterinary Hospital wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but it was still an emotional day. Guinness was excited to go for a ride in the car, and limped outside. He climbed up into the back seat of my car, eager for some window snorting. I won’t let him stick his head out the window, but I cracked it so he could enjoy the onslaught of smells from the road. Seeing as how all this transpired at 6:30am, I could not have cared less about the drool on my normally spotless windows. I am not a morning person, which also explains why I forgot my sunglasses. I did get to enjoy the sound of my retinas sizzling as I watched the sun rise directly over the highway for an hour. (more…)
Guinness and the TPLO – Part I
Guinness blew out both of his knees (one while on vacation running from a plastic goose), and he needs to get them fixed. As of today, Mr. Guinness has been scheduled for his first of two TPLO surgeries on this Wednesday, December 22, 2010.
TPLO stands for Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy (now you know why everyone refers to it by its initials). TPLO is a procedure used to help a dog deal with what is roughly analogous to a torn ACL in humans. When I look at Mr. Guinness as he struggles to get up and down the stairs, I can feel his pain. You see I completely ruined the ACL in my right knee some 15 years ago and had surgery to have it repaired. The difference is that he has ruined both legs, he needs the surgery more than I did, and he seems to be in more pain than I was. He has no idea what’s coming. It’s killing me though. (more…)
Please Don’t Buy a Newfoundland Dog
Every year hundreds of giant breed dogs are put up for adoption or worse, destroyed because someone fell in love with the fluffy little puppy and brought it home, only to be overwhelmed by slobber, food, vet bills, and the sheer size of their full grown dog. If you cannot make a commitment to this (or any) animal to keep it forever, then please don’t get one. Would you give up a son or daughter because they got too big? Certainly not. Anyone who thinks a Newfoundland is any less than a child doesn’t understand the breed. (more…)
Dog Dinner Détente
If Guinness has one fault, it’s that he can be a bit protective of his food. We’ve gone to great lengths to make him understand his place in the pack, so he has no problems with humans. The kids routinely feed him and put things in his bowl while he’s eating. They’ve taken thing from his bowl too, though they both know better. At least I thought they did. Some days I’m amazed my kids can remember to breathe on their own, but this is a story about dogs, so I’ll spare them further reflection on their continued absent-mindedness. (more…)
Guinness the Protector
Brave Guinness doesn’t like thunderstorms. I know that many dogs dislike thunder, but I find something funny about a 140 pound zombie hunter being afraid of loud noises. Usually the big baby finds me and hides under my feet when the thunder starts. I guess I’m the alpha-male, so he knows I’ll protect him. On the night of this tale I was traveling, so Guinness was the resident alpha-male, though I don’t think he understood what responsibilities the title imparted. (more…)
Fannie and the Macbook Pro
We have a rule in our house that states, “Happy tails never get punished.” This rule harkens back to the halcyon days when Cozy was a puppy, circa 1997. Lauren and I were newlyweds, we had a beautiful, clean house, and our precocious little pup had grown enough that her tail could sweep the coffee table clean with one wag. We were young, eager to please parents of our first puppy, so our rules were designed to foster the long-term happiness of our fuzzy little bundle of joy.
Fast-forward thirteen years. Our house now has two pre-teen children. The pretty green carpet in the picture has been ruined (by dogs) and removed. Cozy and Daisy have long since passed over the Rainbow Bridge. Now Annie and Guinness rule the roost, but still the rule remains, “Happy tails never get punished.” (more…)
Annie and the Tissues
Somehow, a box of tissues wound up on the floor. In a normal house, this would be a virtual non-event. Someone would walk by, see them, pick them up, and put them away. Luckily for you, we live in a house where people don’t seem bothered by boxes of tissues in odd places. I’d be wiling to bet that I could glue an inverted box of tissues to the living room ceiling and not hear a word about it for months. Unless someone sneezed, in which case I’d be asked where the tissues were. In such a situation I might reply with a single finger pointed up, resulting in wonder and excitement from my children who would have completely missed the point of the exercise.
This time though, the tissues were left on the floor where we all stepped over them for days. One day something changed, at which point I stopped and stared, trying to figure out what had caught my eye. Then it struck me; the tissues were suddenly outside the box. (more…)
Annie and the Mousetrap
Here in the woods of New Jersey, when the leaves start to fall and the temperature drops, we all tend to spend more time indoors. And by “we”, I mean family, dogs, and the filthy vermin commonly known as mice.
Our rodent problem is not a unique one. Go to any hardware store around here in October, and you’ll see the mousetrap section picked over like the dairy aisle in a supermarket before a hurricane.
I tend to be a “live and let live” kind of guy. In the past I’ve used live traps so that I could release the gentle creatures into the wild where they might frolic and play. Those days are gone I’m afraid—now I kill ’em dead. I felt bad while disposing of the first thirty or so. After fifteen years of battle, I now have the blackened soul of a cold-hearted executioner. My wife though, she’s the scary one. (more…)