Nikita's last day at the office

Okay, so this is the first photo I bothered to take of Louise's paw since her accident last weekend. You can see it if you look closely but I don't really plan on getting any gruesome closeup photos. She's healing fine and isn't bothered by it anymore and really, that's all I could hope for. This photo is of course also a great view of Louise's command center, otherwise known as the passenger's seat for her stroller. As we were going into work today she was extra enthused to go for the ride, unlike most days when she would prefer to be out walking.

It was important to come into the office today, because it would also be Nikita's last day at the office as her owner was one of the workers who were laid off recently. Little Louise will be holding down the fort until Shiho returns later this summer. Things are so different from when I first started bringing Louise in to work, having to make arrangements in a very busy dog schedule.

For lunch we decided to take the two dogs for a walk over toward the Telus Center of Science. On the way there we decided to cut through the parking lot for the Olympic Village. Technically it wasn't yet open for the public but they were working on the fence so we found an easy way in. Of course, once we got in the dogs could come off their leashes and well, Nikita took off like a bullet. Holy cow that dog likes to run. Louise didn't even pretend to give chase, she just kind of looked at Nikita like 'hmm, that looks like a good idea, but nah, I'll hang back.'

I am sure that we will stay in touch going forward - after all, Louise has stayed at Nikita's house while we were away before - but at the same time it's sad knowing that this part of office life is winding down to a close.

Oh Noes! Not the Toes!

I suppose the good news is that Louise has been feeling better the past couple days - Momma's cooking helped to bring her back to health.

While we were out for a walk today Louise had an accident and accidentally ripped off one of her toenails on her back paw. She damaged a couple nails on the other rear paw too, but not quite as seriously as the one on her left.

She was bleeding quite a lot but didn't yelp at all - in fact she was able to continue our walk without limping, but I was getting more and more freaked out as we returned to the house. By the time we got back I had already called Holly to talk about it and had concluded that we needed to visit Dr. Sandhu.

These first two photos were taken after the doctor had dressed her paw and gave Louise a shot of pain medicine. He decided that covering the paw for a couple days was probably best, until it scabbed over naturally. At the time we were joking about how none of the previous bandages stayed on her paw very long. We figured that a couple days was about all we could hope for with this one.

As usual they were very professional and took the best care of Louise, taking every step to keep her as comfortable as possible. While Louise wasn't thrilled to have someone pulling at her paws today, but she put up with it. As I said, the first two pictures today were taken after the hard part was done - she was already back to her normal happy self.

Before heading home we ran a quick errand and then stopped for a snack. That's where the other two photos were taken, and I got them after a family with three little girls came over asking to pet Louise.

Oh, and hey! Did anybody notice the award Louise got for her blog? We weren't expecting that one at all. Thanks for the recognition, Dogster.

Springtime fun in the sun

I took these photos last Sunday when it was nice and sunny. Louise and I went for a nice walk out to English Bay, where we hung out on park benches, got chased by toddlers and sniffed toes at the feet of giant statues. Really.

In other words, we had a pretty good time enjoying the nice weather. Since then, our little dog has been feeling a little under the weather again with an upset stomach. Holly has started cooking up her special broth with rice to help settle Louise's tummy so hopefully that helps, or it will mean a trip to the vet. Not that we mind visiting Dr. Sandhu, but really, if we don't have to waste his time we won't.

Even with her upset stomach, Louise has still been in a great mood, eager to go for walks and spunky while out and about. So we know she is at least not feeling terrible or suffering much nausea. Even so, we will leave her home tomorrow and not bring her into the office.

The worst part by far though is the moderate fasting that she is doing for now, just to put things right again. Tomorrow should be a good day when the eating starts again.

Other than that, things have been pretty crazy around here as I settle in with this new computer. As if that wasn't enough, we bought a hard drive for Holly's computer. While the installation went smoothly enough, getting the software installed, well that's still going on now and has been a bit of a bumpy road. Luckily, she kept her cool and helped me figure out what to do next so things seem to be progressing.

But that has very little to do with Louise, other than we are inadvertently keeping her up as we do this. I just needed some more things to say in order to fit in all these pictures, including the last one here of Louise next to the feet of the statue. I've photographed these statues before, when they first went up. They are still just as creepy now as they were then, but the people seem to like it. Louise seemed ambivalent toward them this time.

Gus, Tulips and a new way of doing things

It's been a pretty busy week for us, what with the NHL playoffs beginning, getting a new refrigerator and well, me switching from PC to Mac. Just like the commercials.

So far Louise approves simply because my new computer is a laptop and that means she and I can be on the sofa while blogging. Although in her case it might be too much of a good thing - she's starting to overheat.

A couple days ago while out walking we met another pug, this one named Gus. I really hope I remembered that correctly, but I think I did so I'll go with that. Anyway, Gus was a great little guy who was friendly toward Louise. He is actually smaller than her which we find a bit unusual around here. We stayed and talked about dogs and pugs for about ten minutes until Louise eventually got bored and wanted to bark at cars. Clearly it was time to move on.

Of course, Louise was also in the office again this week and she was happy to see Yvette back to work. Yvette is one of the other people who likes to bring in her dog, Nikita and Louise has stayed with them before while we went away. It was a really nice day so when we went for a walk we headed over to Science World. As usual the city has plenty of tulips planted for spring, so I got a quick shot of Louise posing in front of them.

In fact, it seems that we have round two of the cherry blossoms as well. When I had Louise out for a walk yesterday there were tons of trees in bloom, but these ones seemed to be a little different. More of a white colour instead of pink this time. Still, it's always interesting to see what is going on in Vancouver.

So in another post I was a little annoyed with how to post my pictures. I seem to have that figured out now and it's okay. Having said that, there are other little touches that make blogging on my new computer even better than before. Things like the multi-touch trackpad, which lets me move around the edit window much easier. I think I'm going to like this little computer.