Back on Schedule

For the past few days I have had the flu and that meant Louise was without one of her walking partners. She found this to be quite confusing - every time she was to go outside she would look to me to see if I was going to come along. Since I wasn't, her walks were short as she kept wanting to come back to the house as soon as she was done her business.

It also meant that while I was recovering in bed (bored out of my mind most of the time) I was surrounded by all of the pets. They seem to take advantage of warm bodies laying around in this house. So there was never any fear of me getting chilled. It seemed to work too, as I recovered pretty quickly. Thank you, pets.

So one of the adventures we had prior to my bout with the flu was we encountered a new sculpture down by the water. Briefly, it's a metal sculpture of about a dozen giddy men. It's kind of creepy in the wrong lighting. Anyhow, Louise took it on faith that these guys were real and she found the one with his hands held out. Obviously, this man was holding out TREATS! Louise promptly sat in eager anticipation. I had to lift her up to inspect the hand (tail wagging the whole way up) before she was satisfied that this 'man' was actually treatless.

So today was the first day I was able to take Louise out on a walk. We went down to Coal Harbour again as I figured she hadn't been there in a bit. While there I noticed a big barge with the olympic logo on it. If you look closely you can see it just above Louise's tail in this last shot. Kind of tricky to get her and it in the same frame.

Halloween is like the dentist

Louise has been on mild antibiotics and painkillers this week. She was in for her dental cleaning and while it was an overall success, it came at a cost. She lost another two teeth, one small one in the front that was loose and came out easily, and a molar in the back that was actually cracked and in pretty bad shape. Our vet was able to remove both and stitch her up with dissolvable stitches so that we would not need a return visit.

That, my friends, is the kind of attention I appreciate from a vet. Don't try to ding me for a second visit to pad your coffers. Do the job right the first time and have confidence in your work. We have been returning to this same vet for a while now, and get consistent care. Oh and in case you are wondering Dr. Sandhu Louise is recovering nicely and we should have her back on her regular food in a few days.

Tommy, a guy I work with went to Vegas for a week and brought us back some neat trinkets. I had originally intended to come up with some Halloween story about wild partying and Las Vegas to go with this photo but well, I got busy with other things. But I liked how the collar goes with the shot glass so I figured I would include another nap photo.

Instead though, we had a rather quiet night inside. We don't get any trick or treaters at our condo but we did head out for a walk to see what crazy and stupid things people can do with firecrackers. We saw people lighting them off their balconies and stuff like that. Most of it was harmless fun although I feel a little sympathy for folks with dogs who get scared of the noise. I've met a few, they say it's not a pleasant night.

Louise could care less about the noise, unless it's right next to her. So we continued our walk and then came home. Once there we decided to dress her up a little bit, just for giggles. The costume was on for maybe about five minutes or so and only while she was in my lap. I doubt she would have wanted it on any longer.

Halloween is almost here

We have been trying to find chances to play in the leaves but have been dogged by rainy weather. Still, Louise needs her daily outings so we find ourselves in the elements. The chestnuts seem to be gone now, the squirrels have made short work of them. Louise still looks in a few spots to see if there is one there but she is figuring out that they are gone.

I have to say though, on our walk this afternoon I noticed something... weird. Louise was being her normal self when all of a sudden the sky darkened and she barked in a deeper, more evil sounding voice. She saw a crow on the road and darted across the sidewalk much faster than normal. I happened to be taking a picture at the time and well, the results are a little odd. You be the judge. But, just as soon as I thought it happened, the sky lightened up a little and Louise was acting normal again. No crows (or squirrels) were harmed on this walk. When we got home I checked the calendar to see when the next full moon was - it's still a week or so away.

Louise has been acting like nothing unusual happened, in fact, here is a video I took mere moments later. However, our cats seem to be telling a different story and have been giving Louise more space than usual.

I hope we don't have a re-emergence of the Demon Dog...

Followup post.

Ok, things seem to be settled down so here's a few of the photos I meant to post earlier. The chestnut games still continue - depending on who you are, it's either a good thing or a bad thing that there are a few chestnut trees right out front of our main entrance. This means Louise has a steady supply of nuts to choose from.

As usual, I've forgotten what I was going to say when I took the photos. It's doubly bad because now I've also forgotten what I was going to say when I created the original blog post. One day I'm going to look back at all this (assuming I still have my mental faculties) and wonder how I could be so absent minded. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll just look at the pictures.

Okay these next few shots are all pretty similar but I couldn't choose which of them to go with so you get to see them all. Obviously a yawning dog is a fun photography subject - maybe I'll upload that one to loldogs to see what comments I get.

These photos were taken just before we had a week of rainy weather. Now it seems that we will be having another one of those weeks which leads me to believe that autumn in the Pacific Northwest is underway. Louise doesn't care - she just rummages around trying to get a good sniff under the leaves in case there are some - you guessed it - chestnuts laying around.

Speaking of leaves, last year I got a few really good shots of Louise surrounded with some vibrant orange maple leaves. They are starting to change colour again so hopefully in another week or so I will be able to get updated photos. Of course, I might not get the chance at all if the weather stays wet. We will see. Often when the forecast is for rain, we get about an hour's worth and then empty overcast weather the rest of the time. Which is just fine by me.

Chasing Chestnuts

Well fall is here in Vancouver. If you look closely at this first photo you will see our crazy dog with a fresh chestnut in her mouth. As can be expected they are dropping from the trees this time of the year and Louise has been finding them. In her perfect world she will get me to toss a chestnut down the sidewalk for her to chase after.

In the excitement of the chase, Louise has been known to lose track of her chestnut.

I have also noticed that if I let her catch one, she will happily carry it with her on our walk. Eventually she decides to put it down, but usually not without prompting. The best part of this is that she doesn't bother chasing cars if a chestnut is in play. As you can imagine, I've been enjoying this a lot. I have to be careful though - the last thing I need is for Louise to crash into an unsuspecting skunk while chasing after a nut.

I'm having trouble uploading photos tonight. I'll see if I can get at least one more with this post but it's looking like I'll have to come back later, after Google has sorted out whatever internal problem they have.

Almost Skunked!

The other night Wheezie and I were out for our evening walk. It was a quiet night so I had her off-leash, we both kind of prefer that arrangement. Louise was being good and I was able to keep my hands in my pockets. She was walking within ten paces of me, exploring the grass and fire hydrants as per usual so I wasn't really paying attention.

My focus returned immediately when I noticed Louise approaching the business end of a wary skunk. Louise was all set to sniff the nethers of what she thought was a strange looking dog and the skunk wasn't having any of it. The tail was up and quivering but Louise wasn't taking the hint. The skunk moved back a few paces and resumed it's defensive position. Again Louise wasn't taking the hint.

I should point out here that while this train wreck in the making was unfolding, I was going out of my mind barking stern commands trying to call Louise back to me. Louise was very torn over investigating this curious animal and obeying my commands - she would start to come to me, then hesitate and head back only to stop again as I continued to get louder.

Throughout it all I think the only ones who were tense (or even aware of the dangers) were me and the skunk. Anyhow, with the crisis averted Louise and I were able to continue our walk - with the leash on.

This last picture is one I took last night while out a little earlier in the evening. Louise has a habit of saying hi to people on the park benches, just in case they happen to be eating something and are of the generous persuasion. Or can be persuaded into generosity. Or something. So long as food being passed to the cute dog is involved.

Long Walk Home

Even though I hurt my back last week while I had Louise at the office, we still had to get home. I had to use most of my tricks to ensure that we could get back without Louise getting too rambunctious, as every time she would yank on the leash I would wince in pain.

Behold, the strategy I call the 'sleeping canary'. When nothing else will do, I drape something over Louise's stroller so she cannot see outside. No outside distractions, no barking dog. It's almost eerie with how well this one works.

Of course, as you can see by the photos, my implementation of this strategy was less than perfect and Louise managed to find a way to peek out from under my sweat shirt. We were half way to the skytrain before someone mentioned that they thought Louise looked cute, tipping me off that she was just being good and not barking. I think Louise appreciated the shade from the sun to be honest, as the weather was quite warm that day.

We made it home and my wife had to take over the nightly dog walking duties. This really confused Louise who would always wait for me at first. She was happy when I was able to finally take her out for a walk again this afternoon and then again tonight.

Pug with a cold

Over the last few days, Louise has been fighting off a cold. She's doing much better now, but for at least one day she was really feeling the ill effects. So much so that Holly had to prepare some warm broth for her, just to entice her to eat. Let me say that again, for it bears repeating. Our dog was so sick that she lost her appetite. But like I said, the broth was effective in helping Louise to eat and the day was saved.

Over the course of the next few days Louise would wake up feeling rough, but then improve for the balance of the day. The first morning walk would have her hacking and sneezing, but eventually something would dislodge and then she could breathe clearly again. Well, as clear as one can expect for a pug. Miracles didn't happen.

On one of these walks we were cutting through the park and were spotted by Lenny. Lenny is a pug who is kind of special to me because he was the first pug I saw in our neighborhood, even before we actually moved in. I had been scouting out places to buy and noticed him walking with his owner. By that time I was pretty homesick and went so far as to stop Lenny's owner to chat about her dog.

Anyhow, Lenny saw us and decided he was going to cross the park to meet Louise. We all saw him purposefully striding over to us, which is why it was easy to grab this quick picture of him. As you can see in the next photo, the two dogs didn't cooperate for the camera quite so well. To be honest, I don't think that Lenny even noticed me or my wife. He was focused on greeting Louise, another pug he knew. They had their greeting and all was well in Lenny's world. Louise even let him sniff at her stroller, something that normally would be a no-no for other dogs. Then, as quick as it started, we parted and were off. That's how it is in a dog's world here in the West End. We just roll with it.

Back to Louise's cold, it seems to be mostly done now. She's currently snoring on the sofa with my wife and her breathing seems normal again. Which is good, because her sneezes were extra gross during this time. We all could hardly wait for Louise to get better.