Ausie! Ausie! Ausie!

This week's doggie blog is brought to you from Sydney, Australia. The land of digaridoos, rugby and 6% beer. Homer and Mervin are unfortunately not here. They are staying at our vet for the next 2 weeks. But first, let's back up to the beginning of the week.

Homer and Mervin spent a lot of the week with Ellen. She has been home sick with Mono, so the pups have gotten a lot of time to lounge around the house during the day time. Great weather has warranted a lot of play time in the backyard. A lot of the time, Homer and Mervin will chase each otherback and forth. Many parallels can be drawn to greyhound races. They use the width and breadth of the yard. All we need is a little baited bunnytrack and those two would probably wear a path of their own. Homer is particularly found of playing catch with the hairless tennisball. The tennisball is hairless because Homer managed to knaw off all the little yellow tennis folicals. Apparently Homer's GI is fortified enough to withstand a coating of yellow fibers.

This week was relatively unexciting. We did not get to do much with the dogs because we were getting ready for Australia. On Sunday Homer did manage to ralph all over the carpet in the dining room. So I spent a fun 45 mins scrubbing that up. I am getting pretty good at these since Mervin has become a regular offender. This house will not survive 2 dogs. I think I have said that before.

Friday morning I had to take the dogs to the Vet for kenneling. This was Homer's first trip in the escort. He was extremely excited. He spent most of the time looking out the window at all the stuff going by. He actually adourned a waiving fan as we passed through the neighborhood. Homer is big enough to pretty much look like another person in the car. In fact, he actually hits his head on the ceiling. Mervin did a great job in the back in his travel kennel. A no vomit trip is the best kind of trip. He has a bit of a social paranoia when it comes to cars. The second he gets into a car, he starts drooling uncontrollably. If you drive around corners too fast or slow down too fast, he has the potential to vomit. He has done this since the day we got him. We have found that the best thing to do is put him in his travel kennel and drive slowly.

When we got to the kennel, both dogs were excited to be at this strange new place. We entered the vet with much enthusiam, but that quickly deteriorated. Getting the dogs on the scales was a struggle. Mervin had lost some pretty significant weight, pulling down a respectable 27.5lbs. Homer did well again hovering around 75lbs. After the paperwork was complete, it was time for good byes. I have to say, since the beginning of the year, I have definitely become more attached to these two dogs. I was pretty sad to see them go. Mervin gave sufficient kisses even though he was excited to be at the vet. Homer was not as enthused, but mustered enough courage to follow the nurse into the back room and wag his tail good bye. They are in good hands though and will be well cared for.

Sorry, no pictures this week.

Welp, from the land down under... B-Dubs out!!

Homer goes to the Vet!!!

Note to self. When scheduling pups for the kennel you want during spring break, schedule early!! This is the lesson we learned when we tried schedule Homer for time at 4Paws Unleashed. This is pretty much a daycare facility for pets. They do walks, they have play times with other animals, there is grooming and treats and toys and pools and slides. Its like puppy dog heaven. This place sounds better than our vacation. If you thought this place could not get one-upped, you thought wrong. You need to check out, Avondale Pet Resort. Guests get their own themed room, with beds and heated floors and one-on-one times with trainers, and ultra posh spas and grooming and physical therapy and laser surgery. Paris Hilton's rat dog would feel remorse staying at this place. In fact, we would probably need to refinance our house if we wanted to send Mervin here... Either way, we were not able to get either dog into these kennels. Instead we settled for tried and true Altoona Vet. This is like the Hampton Inn of Kennels, clean, good service, but no frills...

Later this week, Homer got to go to Creature Comforts Vet for his checkup. Over course Homer was frantic with all the excitement of a different place and other dogs in the waiting room and the fact that its a hospital. I would be nervous too. They escorted us into an examination room. Homer spent our 10 min wait sniffing out the place and hiding under our chairs. When the doctor came in, not even beefy treats could get him out. He was not coming out, so we had to use some gentle persuation. Homer was good for the doctor though. He sat still for his exmination and his 4 shots. Then the doc and nurse took him in back to cut his nails. We could pretty much hear everything. There was a lot of whine, but mostly from the staff. Apparently Homer's old collar still smelled of skunk and BO and death. But, both Homer and the staff made it through with flying colors. The procnosis: Homer is completely healthy. He has lost 7lbs since his last check-up and the doc said he could stand to loose 5 more. Wish Mervin could have such good check-ups.

After the Vet visit, we hopped over to PetSmart and picked up a new ISU collar for Homies. This one smelled a million times better. Plus this new one is bright and clean and really stands out against Homer's dark fur. Homer also got a new rabies tag to go with his name tag. He looks very sophisticated if I do say so myself. Ellen fitted Homer with his new collar and then it was off to the Brown Dog Bakery for some freshly baked dog treats. This place is like the Old Country Buffet of dog treats. They 48ft of bone chewing selections and full of fresh out of the oven dog pastries. We got Homies a large bone and Mervy pants a little one. The pictures to the left and right of Mervin and Homer each indulging in their bones. I am not sure the shudder speed on our camera was quick enough to capture Mervin breathing in his bone. It was gone in under a couple nanoseconds. Homer on the other hand, savoired every bite. All in all, Saturday was a good day for the pups.

Since is was so nice out, Homer and I went for a stroll. Had I known there were going to be so many little kids and teenagers by the lake, I would not have gone there. But we pressed on anyway. Homer was completely freaked 90% of the time. About every 15 secs, someone walked by Homer was having nothing of it. He was particularly frightened of the 3-5yr old children on bicycles. One child walking/running behind us, thought it would be a great idea to annoy Homer and I. The little punk thought it would be awesome to run right up to Homer and I then stop, wait 15 sec, repeat. And every time the kid would run up, Homer would lurch forward trying to get away from the boy. This went for the first quarter of the trip. The last time he did it, I shot him a nasty look that would bore through steel. And that pretty much ended it. Homer and I completed our walk.

On a final note, I captured a good pic of Homies and Mervies cuddling on Homer's bed. They have been doing this sporadically for the past month or two. Mervin has little man's inferiority complex and insists on being the big spoon.

B-dubs out!!

Weekend with the Wade's

Ladies and gents, let me tell you, this was a nice week in Iowa. We had a couple 40deg days, a 50deg day and a 74deg day. It was awesome. Some of you might think that is nothing to brag about. But for us Iowan's who are used to 0 to teens weather and snow and rain and ice and "Wintery Mix"(I don't really know what that is, let alone the spell checker) this time of year, those kinds of temps are what some people talk about for ages. In fact, I bet when I'm in my early 100-tweens, I will say to my great great great great grand children, "I remember back in the day when we didn't have Autoweather and we indulged in sporatic weeks like the first week in March of 2008". By the end of that sentence, they will have gotten bored, played 17 virtual games and had conversations with 4 other people about how great great great great grandpa smells, without me even noticing...

Anyway, my point is, the weather was good and that allowed Homer and I to go on lots of walks. In fact, we went on walks 5 of the 7 days this week. That is a new record! Homies was extremely excited to go out this week because of the weather and there were a lot of kids out. Not that he would know what to do with kids, other than bark at them and run away. But at least he was excited about it. We went on our usual route around the lake. This week, not only were there lots of people out walking, the bikers came out as well. They are particularly difficult to deal with when they come up behind you and you are wearing earphones and cannot hear anything outside of your current tune and they about run you over. I almost got taken out from behind by an overweight dude decked out in full biker attire. Not Cool!! Homer had the hardest time dealing with it though. Anytime he saw someone on a bike, I knew we were going to go for a ride. Homer wanted nothing to do with bikes and had no problems dragging my 140lbs along for the ride into the nearby forest or couples of people standing on the side of the walk way. This Saturday I went on a walk with the rents and was able to take both dogs out. Mervin was so completely thrilled to be outside of the house and the fenced backyard. He made sure Dad kept up with the group. Mervin has a tendency to "powerwalk" wherever he goes, so that helps. That last 10mins of the walk it started to downpour. Homer and Mervin had no problem with it though. They thought it was great.

Speaking of walking/running dogs, I listen to AC360 podcast on weekdays and stumbled about this video last week. HI-llarious. I actually had a couple people in the office ask me what I was laughing so hard about...



Homer ran out of food this week. So I ran to Target and purchased a 50lb bag of Purina Dog chow. This bag was enormous. I mean, this would take Mervin literally an entire year to finish. Homer might polish this bag off before May-ish.

Also, Homer spent the weekend hiding/barking and my parents. Homies went through his normal adjustment routine of barking at foreign people from the dining room where he thinks he is safe. Then he will venture closer to the new person but never get with in touching distance. Eventually the barking dies down and he will go about his normal business while maintaining a 10ft radius from the newcomers. If he ever leaves the room to go outside or upstairs and comes back to the same new people, we start the process over gain. Its like he has temporary amnesia. But he eventually got over it and by the end of the weekend, the barking was pretty much done and Kev and Deb could get pretty close to him.

Update:
I was reminded tonight that Homer became the first Houdini dog ever. On Monday and Tuesday, Ellen went through her normal routine packing her lunch and putting the dogs away in their kennels. This is normally a trivial process that lasts all of 7 minutes. However, Monday and Tuesday were different. I came home at 5pm on those two days to be greeted by none other than Homer Brett. Yes it seems that Homer had found his way out of his cage. A feet that would even perplex David Copperfield. The same thing happened on Tuesday when I arrived home. But with every magic trick, there is an explanation. Apparently when Ellen puts Homer away, she lets him in the front of the kennel. When I let him out, he comes out the side of the kennel, and I seemed to have forgotten to close the side the time before. So Homies had two days of pure unadulterated freedom to do whatever he pleased. I'm kinda surprised he didn't pull a Rick James all over our couch...

That's all for now. B-dubs out!!

This week was not nearly as exciting as last week. Homer still leaves a slight wake of skunk smell. You would think that after having him run around outside for a bit, the smell would just dissipate and get covered up by his own dogstink. This is not the case. He now smells like a combination of the two. There is nothing better than waking up to a big smelly skunky Homer head, 3mins before the alarm goes off. This is becoming a regular event. Homer rests his head on the bed, 3 in away from my face, makes some groaning noices and wakes me up just before the alarm goes off. Let me tell you, if you need to send my blood pressure higher than the clouds in the sky, wake me up within 5 minutes of my alarm... However, on Monday morning I was not woken up by Homer's head. I woken up to Homer throwing up everywhere, but mainly right in front of the bathroom. I spent nearly 20 mins. and a half roll of toilet paper trying to remove puke stain. Our carpet was pretty much dyed yellow. It was like Homer pee'd from his mouth. Similar topics have been touched upon by South Park. Eventually it took Ellen's and my team effort to get the stain up. We're not really sure what caused the vomitsode, but this happens to both dogs consistently on a monthly basis.

This Saturday was Ellen's birthday. But of course Homer and Mervin made the day all about them. They are selfish like that. Mervin seemed to want to help Ellen unwrap gifts more than anyone. This conflicted with Ellen's need for space when opening gifts. I had to separate the two for fear that they would start wrestling, and biting and sniffing each others butts. And no one wants to see that... Homer took a more spectator roll next to me. He also made sure we knew when the new neighbor dogs were outside. All in all, it was a fun time. Ellen got everything she could ever want and the dogs got to sniff it all out.

A couple hours later, Mollie showed up on our door step. Clearly this is a situation for Homer to freak out. He eventually loosened up... until Mollie left the room and came back. Then Homer acted like he had 10 min. amnetia. Something that neither dog got over were the balloons that Ellen received from Linda. We kept the balloons in the dining room where we thought they would be out of the way. No no no. The dogs were fully aware of the presence of balloons. Homer would not go near the kitchen or stairs to the second floor. Though Mervin seems to have a little more gumption, he could not even bring himself to eat the bowl of food we had laid out for him. Yes, it takes a lot to scare Merv out of eating. Don't want Mervin to eat? Bring balloons. And of course, Ellen in fine form, thought it would be great to terrorize Merv with balloons AND video tape it. See video below.



We quickly realized that keeping the balloons in the house was causing to much commotion. And Mervin would starve to death. And Homer would wear a hole in the carpet from not leaving the living room... ever. So the balloons have been removed from the interior house structure.

Mervin was an incredibly bad puppy this week. He made the decision that he wanted to eat Homer's food, no matter the cost. Ellen had to drag Merv away from Homer's bowl and the resulting angry fights. The multiple times El had to do this, Mervin would leave trails of mouth fulls of food on the way to his kennel. I mean its not like we do not feed Mervin enough. He gets an allotted amount for his weight. No more, no less. And yet, he is still convinced that he needs Homer's food as well. Clearly Mervin has an addiction and may some day need an intervention.

This week was riddled with bad weather, so Homer and I did not make it out much. This week looks to be pretty good so I am hopeful that we will get out a bunch. On a final note, Homer has developed a small soar on the top of his nose. We noticed this at the beginning of the week in the aftermath of the skunking. By the end of the week, it looked like his nose was scabbed over and healing. If it gets any worse, we will have to take him in to the vet.

Until next time... B-dubs OUT!!