Lentil Soup!

The other night my wife made some very tasty lentil soup. It had smoked turkey bits in it and that flavour (along with tasty pieces of turkey) was in every bite. I had to have two helpings myself, which left me feeling very full, but also very satisfied at the end.

My wife on the other hand, wasn't able to quite finish hers, so she decided to give some to Louise as a special treat. Louise went from lazy to excited in about a full second - she knew what was happening before the plate hit the floor.

Needless to say, Louise was also feeling full and satisfied after that. She and I both needed a nice long walk to help with digesting. I suppose we could have gone for a nap instead, but we did opt to be a little more healthy than just sleeping on a big meal.

Thanks for the soup hon, it sure was tasty!

Louise and I were going in to the office this Saturday and she was full of energy. Perhaps it was because it was her first walk of the day or maybe she was just excited because the temperatures are once again above freezing. All I know for certain was that she was quite happy and rambunctious as we made our way toward the skytrain.

Part of the time Louise was walking alongside the stroller

(making short detours to sniff at trees and fire hydrants) and part of the time she was riding in the stroller. While this is normal, today she behaved as if the stroller was her 'command perch' from where she could bark orders and get a better view.

She certainly was enjoying herself.

At any rate, we had an enjoyable walk into the office. Once here Louise knew the drill (settle down and let me get some work done) but before that happened she had to run about the place to burn off some steam. Personally I think she was excited because she knew that I would be buying pizza for the guys who showed up on a Saturday. Louise likes to 'help out' with the crusts.

Oh yeah - as we were entering the skytrain station I forgot to mention: Louise noticed some advertisements for Fido - a local cellphone provider who use puppies in their advertisements. One in particular featured a Saint Bernard puppy and Louise took exception to it. She would bark every time she saw that ad, and lucky me, it was plastered everywhere in the station. I was very happy to see the train finally arrive as she is normally quite subdued once we are inside.

Heat Hogs

Okay so this week I am going to show you how dogs and cats do in fact learn from each other. As I mentioned earlier this month on my other blog, our cat Sophie has started to creep off the sofa a bit and onto the pet stairs in order to place herself more directly into the path of the space heater we use.

We were entertained by this of course, but were really surprised when last night, we witnessed an old dog demonstrating that she learned a new trick. See for yourself. Louise thought that if it was good enough for a cat, then there must be something to it. She started to step out onto the stairs, also to get more heat from the space heater.

In her defence, she had just come in from outside and quite frankly, she isn't really feeling the colder, damper weather. There have been days where she will flat out refuse to go for a walk, or she at least needs a lot more coaxing to get outside. Even when out, Louise will now sometimes 'abort' the walk. She does this little protest where she will not move an inch unless we are going in the direction she wants (usually back inside).

There are a few exceptions to this. I can tempt her to continue if we are headed to Bosley's (our closest pet food store) or possibly to the dog park. But even a walk to the beach is a vain effort if the wind is too cold, or there is a lot of salt on the sidewalks.

Oh don't even get me started on the salt. Every year seems to be worse than the last! Vancouverites are salting walkways in the remote chance that it *might* drop to freezing. I couldn't believe it when Louise's paws started to hurt from the salt already. Normally that is something that happens in combination with really cold temperatures, or at least it used to be that way. We may have to take another look at doggie bootie technology and see where it is at now. (Our last attempts were failures because the booties would slip off after only a few yards.) For now, we walk on the grass for the blocks that are heavily salted.

Season of Darkness

It's colder and darker these days, but that was no excuse tonight. Louise still got a bath. She always goes into such an event with a little hesitation but by the time we are ready to towel her off, she's crazy hyper and looking to fool around. A lot.

Tonight was no exception. Because it is colder we had to ensure that she was walked before the bath, as it would not make sense to take her outside while wet.

I'll have her in the office again tomorrow so hopefully I will get a few more photos at that time. I took this photo while we were on our nightly walk - it's in front of the Westin Bayshore hotel, where I also got a good few shots of a heron about a year ago.

Babysat

We took a day trip to Washington state to participate in some Black Friday shopping. This meant we needed to find someone to drop in and give Louise a walk during the day. 'Uncle Chris' offered to do it so we were able to plan our little trip.

We woke up early and I was able to give Louise a good long walk in the morning before we headed out. Louise really only needs to get outside a couple times in a day. Our habit is to take her out more frequently than this, but it is handy to remember for when we have a lot of running around to do. With her morning walk out of the way, Louise was prepared to settle down for her 'morning nap'. If all went according to plan, she wouldn't wake up until 'Uncle Chris' arrived to take her out again.

Which is pretty much what happened. We were able to get this cute little coat for Louise while we were doing our shopping for about a third of what it would cost up here. She was plenty excited and very happy to see us when we returned later that day. We only got the one coat because we had concerns over how well it would fit her. In hindsight, we wished we stocked up on a bunch because it fits so well.

Is it time for Business Cards?

Holy moly I went a long time between posts! Louise and I have been out in the rain and mist that is typical in Vancouver during this time. My memory isn't so good but let's see if I can recall some of the adventures that Louise has had lately.

One good thing is that she is no longer on any antibiotics. We have settled into our winter routine which involves a LOT of towels after walking outside. Hey that reminds me, someone could use a bath....

Ah, but that won't be tonight. She's already snoozing on her pillow (featured in the first photo.) She has been in the habit of snoozing there lately whenever I sit at the computer because it's right next to my desk. It's not perfect, but in her terms it is acceptable. 'Perfect' for Louise would be for my chair to actually be a lazy boy that was wide enough for the both of us. Oh yeah, in the first photo she is chewing on a Denta-bone. They help clean teeth apparently. She likes' em but they make one heck of a mess.

So we were out walking last weekend and ran into a group of people who clearly were interested in Louise. I indicated that she was friendly and they could pet her if they liked. Louise decided to go over to them herself, but I think she was motivated by the McDonald's breakfast sandwich one of the girls was eating. If nothing else, at least she follows her gut I guess.

Anyway, she made some new friends and certainly enjoyed the extra attention even if she didn't get some of their fast food. Once again I realized that I need to print up some business cards for Louise, since as people start talking to me about her, inevitably this blog comes up and folks want to know how to find it. So far the easiest way for me to describe it is to tell them to search on Google for it, but really, the business card would be fun to hand out. Any thoughts from the readers? Feel free to comment.

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.