Limping again

Louise is limping again and this time we are still unsure as to why. She doesn't have another wart on her paw (we have checked) and to the best of our knowledge, she hasn't injured herself. Our best guess is that she might still be encountering salt on the sidewalks, or it could be an arthritic style pain due to the weather changes. As I said, we just aren't sure yet.

Still, she is only mildly bothered by this - she still goes out for walks and the paw tends to 'warm up' after about 4 or 5 minutes. It's either that or she just forgets about the pain once the first car drives by, I'm not sure which. At any rate, once she gets going she seems to be fine, at least for the duration of the walk. We notice it most once she wakes up, she is often limping very badly for the first few steps at least.

I will say this though: Louise seems to be happy for the weather to return to normal. She was getting tired of the snow. It was fun for her for the first little while, but once all the salt was thrown down, she started losing interest. Even now, I notice her making a decision as we are leaving - it's like she is deciding if it is worth it or not. The rain had stopped yesterday and the temperatures were mild. Louise approved. We had two long walks that she seemed to enjoy.

Wet, but not as cold

Another day in the office, this time with lots of rain instead of lots of snow. Yay the snow is melting, but now the city is afraid of mass flooding that may occur. Yesterday I saw some homeless guys employed downtown shoveling snow away from the drains in the street, one of the largest contributing factors to floods.

We had a lot of snow last winter and when the thaw came in the spring, I remember the reservoir was basically filled up with muddy water from erosion. It bumped up the turbidity levels in the water to the point where the whole metro area had to boil their water. Things are warming up now and I'm curious to see how it affects our water supply this time, given the anticipated high volume runoff.

For Louise's part, she takes it all in stride. It means that the puddles are deeper, and they still have slush in the water so she does get cold if we are out too long. And now she is wising up to us - if she doesn't want to go out, she will flat out refuse. Two nights ago we started to go outside but once she saw the snow, she had a change of heart. We technically made it outside, but she refused to step beyond the entrance and into the snow.

On nights that are cold and wet, having a dog that can say 'no thanks!' is having the best dog in the world.

Here we are again with another Louise Video to ring in the new year. This past week has been very busy for Louise, who will be in the office THREE days. It would have been four out of five, but Thursday is a holiday and Nikita was in on Monday. It's probably just as well, three days is already a heavy workload for this dog.

She hasn't minded it much though, to be honest. So long as she can come to the office and get spoiled by my coworkers, she's down with the cold weather. Now if only we could do something about all this damn salt.

The video attached was taken on one of our days off, and is of Louise hopping through snow that is about chest deep to her. I posted a few other videos on my youtube page if you are interested in seeing Louise chase after snowballs.

Last post of the year (almost)

Last Tuesday was of course Louise's day in the office. On Monday we had a brutal snowstorm and we were still cleaning up the next day. At one point Greg, Andy and Neil headed out to Burger King for lunch and since I had some meetings, they took Louise with them for the walk.

Greg hesitantly took a poop bag.

I only got a few photos as they headed out in the snow but I am sure that Greg got a bunch so you might want to check his blog to see what he comes up with. The snow did start again before the end of the day so we headed home a little earlier than normal. This was because the way in was a lot of work! It was a pretty cold morning so that meant the salt was stinging Louise's paws and she would have to be carried if I saw a lot of salt down, or if she happened to get into some I did not see and started to limp. Since we were going to work, that meant she could ride in the stroller... unless the stroller was not able to be pushed across the street because of all the snow.

So there I was, walking with a dog in one arm and a folded stroller in the other - since neither one was able to move along the uncleared path to the office. And to think I was griping because the streets in my neighborhood were not plowed. At least the various appartment buildings and condos kept their walkways relatively clear. But with a couple car lots and some unoccupied light industrial buildings along the way, there weren't a lot of people to clear the sidewalks - just look at the stuff Greg and Louise were trudging through.

Lastly, I've uploaded a photo taken from our office window near the end of the day, to give a better sense of what the streets were looking like. Oh yeah - it snowed the next day too. It's been fun!

They don't salt the dog park

It's snowing again today and Louise just loves it. Well, most of it. The salt people put down on their walkways does bother her paws quite a bit so I find I have to carry her over those blocks. Lately, it has also been getting cold enough for her to mind it. But really, she's pretty hardy in the colder weather so when it gets that cold, I mind it too.

Luckily, the dog park is 100% salt free and nicely frozen over which means it is a packed down snowy area that dogs can roam without getting salt on their paws. It also means a lot less mess as the mud is all frozen and under the layer of packed snow. It's like the best time of the year for the dog park!

Louise hasn't spent a lot of time with the regular crew of dogs that hang out here - when the weather is warmer and wetter we tend to walk along the sea wall instead, again because it is less mess. Also, there tends to be more people for her to meet as it is fairly touristy. But I think she doesn't mind either way, so long as she is getting out to do some exploring.

Having said all that, we are certainly getting a lot more snow today than we normally would. My family on the east coast have been teasing me lately as their temperatures (which are normally much colder than ours) have been about the same, or warmer than here.

Okay, I am going to leave off this post with a photo from the last visit into the office, as Louise was working on a 'broccoli bone' that she got from one of my coworkers. It's just one of the many photos we took that day that didn't make it into an earlier post. Hope you like it.

Heard it all before

Louise and I use a stroller to get her to and from the office. This allows us to ride on public transit (at least the Skytrain, if not busses) so that we can still get to work in a timely fashion.

To say that a dog in a stroller gets people's attention would be a severe understatement.

I have grown accustomed to perfect strangers approaching me while I have the dog with me. However the tone often changes if Louise is in the stroller. Suddenly she goes from being a 'cute dog' to a 'spoiled dog'. People will often proclaim 'that's the ugliest baby I've ever seen!' expecting me to somehow find this hilariously funny. I'm notorious for telling jokes poorly - many of mine fail in the retelling. The one lesson I have learned from taking Louise into work is that the bad jokes get old really fast.

Don't get me wrong - clever or witty remarks are always fun. Yelling 'MEN IN BLACK' at me like I haven't made the connection myself already is less so. Last night on the way home, I was actually approached by someone who wanted to have a normal conversation with me about the dog stroller. This of course followed a woman who proclaimed that 'now she's seen everything' at which point I thought 'then why continue living?' but kept my thoughts to myself. But coming back to the other person, we were walking along the same sidewalk for several blocks so it was nice to hold a conversation where I wasn't expected to explain why a dog in a stroller wasn't automatically 'wrong.'

Snow is only fun when it's not too cold

What a difference a day makes. Just a few days ago the ground was soft and the grass was still green. We were complaining because of all the rain we were getting. But at least we didn't need scarves, hats and down parkas. So long as I remembered my umbrella, Louise and I could walk for an hour or so with no problems. (At least three times last week I left without the umbrella and had to go back for it.)

But not this week. We woke up early on Saturday morning to do some gift shopping and noted that the local mountains all had a fresh coat of snow. 'Ooh, pretty!' we commented. Later, we were out visiting friends and on the way over we saw the first few flakes of snow. 'It's just flurries' I said. 'It won't stay.'

Near the end of our visit we were entertained by watching the local authorities as they directed traffic away from the slippery hills and away from the accidents that had already happened on said hills. We left early to allow extra time for getting home (coop cars MUST be returned on time, you know.)

By now some of you are probably asking 'what the heck does this all have to do with Louise?' while the rest of you haven't read any of this and are just here for the pug pictures (that's ok too, by the way!) Well we did return the car on time, and once I was in the door, it was also time to take Louise out for a walk. You can see how much accumulation we got in the photos.

Generally speaking, Louise really enjoys playing in the snow. That is, so long as it is not too cold outside. On days colder than about -5 degrees celsius our walks get pretty short, and usually are only so she can go 'do her business' and then quickly return. Luckily this night was a little warmer, so she enjoyed romping about in the few centimeters that did pile up. There is one photo in this set that looks kind of ominous - this was entirely accidental - because I was wearing gloves and holding the camera in one hand, I accidentally had my finger partially cover the flash. Louise was having a good time, honest!

Short paw of the Law

Yesterday was a work day, and Louise was hard at it, ensuring that things were running smoothly at the office. She even wore a Sheriff badge for a while, which gave a little credibility to her investigations.

Let's be clear about one thing: the role Louise took on was much closer to 'Food Police' than any gunslinger from an old Western movie. She was on the hunt for doggie treats.

When she found some, she got a little help from her 'secretary' and called in a report. Then, it was off to do a followup investigation with the prime rib suspect. After gathering as much 'evidence' as possible, Louise started to get bored with the interrogation, but the lap was comfortable so she stayed for a while.

We were supposed to also have a fantastic photo of Louise sitting on Tommy's lap here, but well, he's not all that used to dogs yet so we decided not to push our luck (despite trying to bribe him with a dollar!) Later, Tommy did feed Louise a treat so she knew that he still liked her just the same. I don't know about you other pug owners out there, but ours has an ego the size of Manhattan, so this was a somewhat important step with smoothing over office relations.

To sum up, Louise had another fun and interesting day at the office, which is a great lead-in for today, when 'Santa' and his helper dogs arrive for the kids! Okay, maybe the dogs won't be actually helping - but they will be there for the children to interact with.