We found some tall grass

Louise was back in the office yesterday which was probably a good thing since the weather forecast for the next little while is all rain. While I can still bring Louise in when it's wet, it does make for a lot of extra work.

But Friday was a fantastic sunny day and Louise discovered a new park area that has recently been put together. It is next to the Olympic Village, but is not nearly as elaborate as the park that is part of the Village. I think this was a vacant lot and they decided it would look nicer if they just threw down grass seed and some gravel for a path or two. It really was that low budget and simple and you know what? It turned out fantastic.

The grass is uneven as some places grew faster and taller than others, leaving a patchy texture across the lot that must have seemed a lot more interesting to someone at Louise's height than at mine. She already has a thing about long grass, as she likes to run in it, so I let her off leash and she would weave in and out of the tall spots.

I tried to get the camera low enough to give some idea on where the grass was in terms of height - obviously we aren't talking about a hayfield here. Just very fresh, new grass that has grown quickly. Louise just loved it.

The other nice thing about this little park is that it's even closer to the office than any of the other spots. This is great news for me, as there are times when Louise just doesn't have the energy to walk all the way over to the far side of the Olympic Village just to play in a park. Either she toughs it out and just sleeps the entire day away afterward, or she just pulls up short and indicates to me that she doesn't want to walk that far.

Yes, Louise has no problem telling us when she is done walking. Sometimes (especially on rainy days) it happens immediately on exiting the condo. Once she sees the rain, she will often just turn around and walk back inside. At other times, we will approach an intersection and she will just stop walking if we are about to go in a direction she doesn't want.

That wasn't a concern yesterday, as this park was close enough that she was able to romp about without getting too tired. She still wanted a nap later on though, but that was perfectly fine by me.

Dog-casting

Ok, the first part of this post won't really be about Louise at all, but I'll bring it around to her, promise.

As some of you know, I'm a big fan of podcasts. I listen to a lot of them, especially on my daily commute into work. CBC is a fantastic source for some of my favorite ones and one in particular, Ideas had a three part series on dogs recently. You might not be into the far ranging topics on that podcast, so here are parts one, two and three respectively. Go ahead, they are free to listen to. They might take a bit to actually load up in your browser, depending on your internet connection, but I tested them to make sure they were legit.

Now coincidentally, Apple released a software update for their iphones (my podcast delivery method of choice) and when I synched up to get the update, I was half way through listening to the third part. Something messed up with that software update such that for a podcast that was part way through (an ipod/iphone keeps track of where you are) the pointers would be messed up, reporting the podcast as complete. If I pressed play, it would pick up from this point always, and play through, but if I paused or stopped it, starting again would resume from that same point. It was kind of like Groundhog Day, but on a very small scale. I ended up listening to that same portion about five or six times in order to hear it through to the end.

I'm not one to believe in fate or such but I do believe that one is shaped by the experiences in one's life. Maybe there were parts of what I listened to multiple times from which I will draw upon in the future - who knows. What I do know is that at the time I was listening to it I had Louise with me and we were making our way into the office after visiting with a friend. I did note that I was a little more attentive to Louise and what she might want to do as we walked on some less familiar streets in downtown Vancouver.

One of the things I found interesting about the above podcasts is the notion of how a dog's experience of the world must be radically different from our own. These creatures are smell driven, not sight driven like us. As such, they most likely interpret their surroundings with a different sensibility (no pun intended). It was an interesting topic that made me look at Louise in a different light. She's quite a little individual.

Playoff Madness

Louise lives in a hockey town. No, not Detroit, although that is also a hockey town. We are proud to live in Vancouver, BC and all of us in our household are Vancouver Canucks fans.

Last night was the first game between our Canucks and the despised Chicago Blackhawks. I had to take Louise out just before the game and tried to see if Louise could predict the score, based on... well that part gets kinda gross, so I'll just call it 'reading the tea leaves' and let you imagine the worst. It's probably not far off.

Anyway, I think I mis-read what she was telling me because I was certain that she was predicting a 3-0 win for Vancouver. As it turns out, we scored 2 goals in the first period and that was it. We were out for another walk during the first intermission and this time the 'tea leaves' told me one more goal. Again, I was off in my reading by one goal as the remainder of the game was scoreless. I think I have seen the flaw in my reading pattern though, so I look forward to testing this further tomorrow night (hopefully another win against the no-good Hawks).

Maybe Louise can become as good a predictor as Paul the octopus was during the last FIFA cup.

Oh yeah, welcome to our newest followers! I am pretty sure you discovered us through twitter. I don't tend to blog frequently, but feel free to browse the more than three years of posts from the past. Louise has had many adventures.

Another Visit with Dr. Sandhu

My goodness we had a long night last night. Louise was clearly having problems and was very uncomfortable. She could barely sleep and was generally miserable all night. While she was feeling miserable, at no point did she take it out on any of the rest of us - I just wanted to make that point crystal clear. Louise was suffering a lot but was good throughout all of it.

This morning, I didn't even make it all the way to work before I get a call from Holly saying that Louise is doing even worse and we are going to have to call the vet. I start making arrangements at work and with the doctor and in short order we arrive at his office.

I'm not really going to go into great detail over what was causing her problems, but will say that her bowels were blocked. Once Dr. Sandhu took X-rays it was pretty clear what the problem was and he had her back in fighting shape before we were able to return to pick her up. Louise's visit with the vet was barely an hour. She would normally have her teeth cleaned in about a month, so we also opted to have her blood work done at this time just to streamline the process for next time.

One of the cool things about the X-ray is that you can see her micro ID chip (around the shoulder area). I always nerd out over things like that and Dr. Sandhu had no problem with me taking pictures of the X-ray photos. (He was asking how many megapixels were in my camera phone.)

Oh yeah! Last weekend we saw Chester's owner and they finally got a new pug, this one named Julia. She's a lot smaller than Louise is, and of course is super cute. Just look at that face! Louise was pretty hyped up at the time and barking at nothing in particular and this was a bit startling for Julia so hopefully our next encounter will be more relaxed. It's alway fun welcoming a new pug to the neighborhood.

Louise welcomes Diesel to the office

Today was a pretty good day at the office. That was because today we were introduced to a little Boston puppy named 'Diesel'. I arranged to bring in Louise so the two dogs could meet and I'm pleased to say that it went very well.

Louise and I arrived at the office first and as we planned, when Diesel arrived we came downstairs so the two dogs could meet. We have found that it generally goes much better when we introduce new dogs in this way. There have been times when a new dog will arrive at the office and if there is already a dog working that day, they will attempt to defend the office against the intruder. This neatly avoids all that and it gave the two dogs a last chance to pee outside (instead of on the carpets.)

Once inside the office the two dogs got along really well. Louise set her boundaries once, and after that Diesel respected them, despite being VERY excited to see another dog. He would jump toward her and try to get her to play (Louise was having none of it) but never challenged her directly. The best way to describe Louise's reaction to Diesel would be 'casual.' She didn't seem to mind him being around, and didn't seem to miss him when he was gone.

Of course, being a puppy, Diesel overwhelmed the office with his cute antics. I wasn't the only one chasing him around with a camera today. I have to say - it's much easier photographing Louise these days. Not only does she move a lot slower - something I don't seem to notice unless there is a much faster pup around - but she also knows what I'm trying to do when the camera is out. Louise will 'pose' for a photo much better than Diesel. Of course, he's young and still learning a lot.

One thing is certain - even though there was a young pup in the office, it didn't affect Louise's sleep schedule. Both Louise and Diesel managed to fit naps into their day.

Overall, it was fun having a new dog in the office. It reminded me of earlier times, when we had a lot more dog owners looking to bring in their pets. While at that time we had to be a little more rigid over which day of the week belonged to what dog, I think the rest of the office appreciated the overall variety of dogs, as compared to just the same one over and over.

As for Louise, I like to think that she was a bit relieved to discover that there was another dog to lend a paw at the office.

Twitter account for Louise

I'm trying to keep up with the times. I tell you, that's what this is about. Louise now has a brand new twitter account and you can follow her by adding @wheezie_dog to your twitter feed. For a while now I have struggled to update this blog regularly enough because a lot of the time there really wasn't anything extraordinary going on, but I would have a funny photo. Well twitter seems to be about perfect for that, so I'm trying it out as a bit of an experiment.

Don't worry, this blog won't be going away. I will still update it from time to time. I'll just feel less guilty about not updating it weekly if I can still put out photos of Louise on twitter. When interesting things happen to Louise, I'll post a writeup here like I always have, and in a similar fashion. This is really just a way for me to increase what I put out.

Let me know what you think, if you like the idea, if twitter mystifies you, anything. I'm hoping this becomes a fun little experiment. Also, if you have a twitter account that is used primarily for your dog, let me know! I'll have Louise follow other dog's tweets!

Oh one final thing: if anyone knows of a better gadget for this on blogger, let me know. While the one on the side seems to do the trick, I'd prefer something with a bit more consistent formatting, etc.

February Adventures

A few weeks ago we got a new camera for Holly. She has been taking a lot of pictures and video with it as she gets used to it and as a side effect I have a lot of fantastic shots of Louise I can share with you.

This first one is of Louise asleep on the back of the sofa. This is a usual cat perch so it's a bit odd to see her jump up here to relax. I'm guessing the sun was out that day and it would have been a warmer spot in the house.

One of the other things Holly likes to do is to compose the occasional song. To do this we have a digital keyboard that can plug into our computers and well, here we have Louise taking over a bit. I'm not quite sure what was going on but I bet that the song was probably about steaks, or maybe a blues number bemoaning the hardships of living with two cats.

Next up we have another action shot, this time Louise is eagerly looking forward to wrapping her lips around that turkey meat ball that Holly is holding up. We tore it in half so Louise wouldn't choke on it, which she didn't. Everything happened so fast after this photo that I really don't have a better one. Pugs are efficient when it comes to meatballs.

With all these indoor shots you might think that Louise never leaves the house during the winter. Not so! While she is sleeping more these days, she still insists on going out at least a couple times a day and unless it's raining she is usually out there for at least a half an hour. Of course, that means that one of us is out there with her during that time too. Louise has always been a great source of vitamin exercise because of this consistency. Oh, and as you can see, our grass is still green and we are without snow. But the temperatures vary quite a bit, ranging from a few degrees below freezing to about ten degrees above.

Bone Crazy

So last night we were watching some shows and Louise hopped up on our sofa with one of her 'bully bones'. I'm not going to describe what this is other than to say it's a dog chew toy made from bull 'parts'. Anyway, Louise hopped up on the couch and started to chew her bully bone.

About a minute into this, Louise starts to act a bit silly over it. Holly had the quick thinking to suggest I get out my phone to film this, as it had us entertained. You can tell when I'm laughing because the camera starts to shake a bit.

Later on in the evening it happened again, this time in her doggie bed. I tried filming that too but this clip has the better quality so it's the one you get. Hope you enjoy the silliness.