Raising Eyes For the Blind: Midnight Edition

I miss having four dogs.

I feel ridiculously lazy with just these three.

Bubbles and Texas probably require at MAX 30 minutes of exercise a day to be mentally satisfied, though they didn't quite a bit more…

Pompei is still young so about 20 minutes of walking, and he's out for the rest of the evening.

Over the last 6-8 months, I've been used to about two hours of hard walking, or play times just to get the house semi-calm in the evenings, and then lots of training and food toys to keep these little minds busy enough for me to relax a bit.

Yes there were some days I wished it weren't so, but for the most part I loved the work of it.

Now when my dogs are snoozing the evening away, I sometimes wonder if its because they are actually tired, or just because there is nothing else to do.

I know I know. Who cares why they are sleeping.

It's just that were constantly running nowadays, I don't feel we're getting out enough for them to be tired..though I time myself.

I am thinking about sending Pompei and/or Texas to daycare at least once a week, but have some concerns about that…1 Texas doesn't "meet and greet" really well, and two when he was with me at when I worked at doggie daycares he alternated between sleeping or "screaming at the gate"…so I don't know how well that would go over with daycare staff…

We'll see about Pompei, he could use the dog socialization and I could use the savings in gas money…


I cAnNoT wait for summer.


But in other news.

Pompei is officially legal in the shots arena.

We went to class this morning, and then wandered around that side of town for about 4 hours until our appointment time at 2:30pm. (Our vet is near my school, which is about 35 minutes away from my house) We walked around the trails on campus; (No Dogs allowed there so we were safe.) went two a couple of stores looking for house décor…Pompei were really pushing some boundaries with his sniffing today. Gotta work on that. A couple of times I literally pried his nose away from a display full of breakable items…as he wasn't budging. We got some down/stay practice in as well.

Short Shopping Blurb:
Most of my puppies have considered shopping, and extremely boring event, so I'll normally put them in a down/stay at some point in the aisle (depending on the crowd in the store) and browse at my leisure. So far no "run aways":)

Anyway after that, we got some lunch..er.. I got some lunch and went to the vets office to wait for our appt time…only about an hour and a half away. The weather was BEATIFUL, and there was a huge field next too the office, so Pompei and I got out and walked. And walked, and walked, and then sat in the sunshine, Pompei in my lap…I love this dog. For real.

We got back to the car and sat there and waited for the last 15 minutes..I think Pompei recognized where we were at this point, as he started to get antsy and wanted to leave the car. When we finally made our way into the building, his little tail went crazy in anticipation of the "love session". The receptionist comes out to "love on him" then, he'll cast loving looks and wiggles to anyone else in the lobby who succumb to his charms quickly. Then its his turn and he bounces to the scale and tries to throw himself at the vet tech, while I'm holding him in place. J

Then we move into our assigned room, where the vet tech will give him lots of hugs and kisses while the tech surreptitiously tried to take his temperature.

Any Concerns? Nope

Diarrhea cleared up? Yep!

Sneezing? Coughing? Over amounts of urination? Normal amount of water intake? Eating Good? - Nope, Nope, Nope, Noope, YESssss,
One question that always makes me…I don't know wonder is even though I've been there almost every three weeks they still ask if he's only Heartworm and Flea meds…somehow I was under the impression that they lasted for thirty days…

Silly Me.

Anyway the vet came in, and basically repeats the above question, and plays with Pompei…

Then its shot time!!

This time Pompei actually noticed them shots as he was uber excited to have TWO NEW PEOPLE touching him AT THE SAME TIME!

Wiggling + Shots = Puppy feeling the Pain.

So he was biting at his butt area for a few minutes after the procedure was over. Tsk tsk.

But his attention was quickly placed else were when the vet presented him with a a RAWHIDE (AH AH AAAAH sung in heavenly tones)

He was loathe to part with his new toy, as we bagged it up for the trip home.

But after a firm command from me relinquished it for a cookie.

We came home and played the afternoon away.
Trained for part of our dinner, and then "worked" the other part out of our Tug-A-Jug toy..

And he's been sleeping a very tired puppy induced sleep.

Aah.

P.S. (Moms says to let her know if you are having trouble with the Disqus Comment system, by email toomanyemails07(at)gmail(dot)com)

Like most dog owners, I shied away from clipping my dogs nails, for fear of hurting them. Bubbles nails have been sorely neglected as they were also so hard to clip through. My dad has been the only one to attempt Bubbles nails in the past, and I had a groomer dremmel them at one time, but she never went down too far.

Bubble's nails are RIDICULOUSLY long.
Since then I learned how to clip my dogs nails, but for some reason never attempted Bubble's nails. A couple of months ago, Ben's former owners gave me a PediPaws dremel like tool, that they'd never used.

Speaking of Ben, I heard from his new family, and they say he's doing great, and "his boy" always wants Ben to be involved in everything he's doing. How cute is that?!

Anyway I began desentizing the dogs to Pedipaws while I still had Victoria with me, but  found it was easier to clip my more active pups nails with a clipper, as they didn't like to stay still long enough for me to properly grind their nails. I began desensitizing Bubbles to this new device as well,and she didn't really have much reaction too it, but since I'd never done her nails before, I was a little hesitant as too how far I could go.As I believe its true that the quick grows too the length of the nail?? I don't know.

Well....Saturday night I was playing with the Pompsters, when I was "attacked" by one vicious claw. I immediate jumped up and grabbed my nail tools, and went too work on his nails. I started off with the clippers, but moved to the Pedipaws when he tried to wiggle out of my lap. (which he placed himself in willingly) He actually calmed down, and laid still while I 'buzzed' his nails..then he got bored and wanted to leave, which I let him AFTER I was finished with the nail I was working on.
I looked up from that too see Bubbles snoozing on the couch, and decided to work on her longer nails.....for Bubbles its best to work on her if she's already in a relaxed position. Sure enough, the only visible sign I saw that she was uncomfortable with what I was doing, was the change in her breathing, from deep sleep, to the faster awake.
I probably worked on her back feet for about 10 minutes, (one negative of the pedipaws is how SLOW it turns) and she barely shifted positions. 

Course now I'm going, why didn't I do this before??

I'll be working on her feet, at least once a day, to get them back to a nice short size..but I'm happy to find a non intrusive way of doing her nails!!

The weather this weekend, was beautiful! The dogs spent as much time as possible sunbathing on the porch.  Now if only I could get Pompei to stop bringing me dead stuff!!! We also had a lot of visitors this weekend, as RoomieC was moving more of her stuff in...Texas did excellent with all the people coming in and out. He'd bark but that would be the end of this. Can I see the light at the end of the tunnel??