Happy New Year!

I’m a day late in posting, and so far, the New Year is kicking my butt.  After hanging out with some friends in Chicago to ring in the New Year, I couldn’t sleep pretty much at ALL.  Which kinda sucked.  Felt like I had downed some energy drinks and then tried to get to sleep.  My eyes were stuck open and my heart was racing.  I had a good time and all, but I don’t know what brought all that on, especially since I had been drinking Malibu mixed with juice all night, which wouldn’t have caused me to stay awake.  And I had stopped drinking a couple hours before I went to bed.  Oh well.

This morning I was woken up early (relative term – it was 9:30 but remember the no sleep the night before, so I was going for later) by Mr. B being annoying (a shock to those of you who know him, I’m sure), followed by Sylvia getting sick all over the floor in the bedroom.  Not really a way to start the new year.

On the positive side, the pups are now a year old.  Tag’s birthday was New Year’s Eve and Kyra’s birthday was New Year’s Day.  They’re growing out of puppyhood so fast.  For those keeping track – he’s about 75 lbs and she’s about 65 lbs, so they’ve been beyond puppy size for a while now, but still quite in the puppy playful stage.  Sylvia still doesn’t want anything to do with them, so we’re still working on that.  Our main obstacle is Kyra’s excitedness.  She sees Sylvia and runs over to greet her, which freaks poor Sylvia out.  Tag’s more calm, so we’ve tried a couple times to get them used to each other hoping that it will help her get used to them and also will keep Sylvia from feeling overwhelmed with both of them.

And I’m going to try to post more.  Still not completely defined on how much.  Certainly not a post a day, but anything’s gotta be an improvement on last year, so we’ll see how it goes.

It was a good day…

It’s amazing how much your outlook changes just by starting fresh. Granted, starting a new job today, I didn’t have a whole lot to do. Though, I must say with everything going on recently, it was nice to have a non-stressful day. Just some highlights of the recent month (in list form for all you list-lovers, though I realize last month’s BloPoMo was lists):

• Having a coworker leave somewhat suddenly and not be able to replace him.
• Having another coworker out for a good portion of a week for a family emergency and then out the next week for a scheduled vacation
• New puppies and all the training, housework, cleanup, etc that comes along with it (along with multiple vet visits, repeated vomiting of medicines prompting re-dosing and medicine changes, etc)
• A couple quick trips on weekends to visit my grandmother, who’s declining a little quicker than expected
• An unusually long Saturday workday
• Trying to finish up all the last little tasks before leaving my current job for another position in the company
• Water coming out the overflow of the water heater several days in a row causing a bit of a mess in the basement and flushing the tank to help prevent lime buildup
• The bathroom tub clogging (yet, again – I really am on a first-name basis with my plumber…he remembers me and especially the house) and them having to replace a section of pipe to get out the clog that was building for several years from the sounds of it.

This month has started a bit better, and I hope it stays that way.

Whack-a-Tag

The video below is a normal occurrence around here now. Sylvia still isn’t quite used to the new puppies, but she’s starting to play with them just a bit. It took quite a while before we could get any video of this cause every time we reached for the camera, she ran away. Even after I got hold of the camera, I had to move away slowly to keep her from freaking out. So, the quality isn’t great, but you get the idea.

The Vet Lowdown

This is quite normal behavior whenever Tag and Kyra are sleeping. They’re almost always touching and are often piled on top of each other somehow. That’s part of the reason we couldn’t separate them.

So, don’t ever try to take two dogs and a cat to the vet at the same time. Especially if they haven’t met each other yet. We went in the dog side (the vet has a cat waiting area and a dog waiting area, one on either side of the reception desk) since the puppies were loose and Sylvia was in her carrier. Luckily, there wasn’t anyone else out there at the time. We definitely didn’t need to encounter a dog that wasn’t friendly towards cats.

Kyra pretty much hid under the bench or curled up next to our feet, but Tag was out wandering all over. Sylvia, meanwhile, was either cowering in her crate or growling at the two puppies. We finally took them all into an exam room together. Kyra and Tag were placed on the table and Sylvia was set on a bench back in the corner. Both puppies took the whole thing quite well, except for when Tag backed away and slid off the table, but we caught him before he hit. Tag ended up weighing 14.8 lbs, and Kyra weighed 13.2. We were still thinking around 10 lbs. She may be quite a bit smaller than him, but she’s apparently a lot more solid.

They both got clean bills of health, though one of the puppies has roundworm, so we’re having to give them pills. The only scary portion of the day was when the vet tech said that Kyra looked like she had some Saint Bernard in her. I certainly don’t need that big of a dog.

When it came time for Sylvia to be examined, we took the puppies back out to the waiting area and Brian watched them. But, Sylvia wouldn’t come out of her crate, so we had to upend it and dump her out. She got a clean bill of health too, but really struggled during the rabies shot. She also carried on hissing and growling whenever she heard any other animals, so they weighed her in her crate to make sure she didn’t freak out out of the room near other animals. She came in at 11 lbs exactly, so she’s already outweighed by both puppies. I then took her straight out to the car and came back to pay and help retrieve puppies since at that point there were quite a few other dogs there and we can’t carry all three at once anyways. The puppies were quite nervous about their first visit outside and all the noises that came with it, not to mention they didn’t care for their new collars or being on the leash.

I think Sylvia’s already showing them who’s boss though. The vet said it could be up to a month before she was comfortable being in the same room with them, even if elevated away from them. But tonight while we were at the table eating dinner, she hopped up on the kitchen counter (which she had only ever done late last night since the puppies arrived) and peered down at them, watching them play. She is used to my parents dog, though their dog doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘play’, so these two are quite a bit more rambunctious than she’s used to. They finally noticed her and Kyra came over to say hi and Sylvia instantly started growling. Both puppies were still interested, but backed off appropriately. I’m pretty sure she’s going to be the dominate one, and that’s OK by me. I’m hoping one of the females is in order to help keep him from both spraying to mark his territory and humping to assert dominance. Time will tell I suppose.

New Family Members

The newest additions to the family. Kyra (pronounced the same as Keira) is on the left with the black nose. Tag is on the right with the brown and white nose. They’re not quite 9 weeks old. They were born on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Kind of a strange story how we got them. Mr. B’s roommate’s girlfriend’s sister (did you get all that?) found a stray black lab. When they were unsuccessful in finding her owner, she wanted to adopt her, but being in med school and in a little apartment, she couldn’t keep her. Mr. B’s roommate adopted her, and when he took her to get spayed, found out she was already having a litter. Seven puppies later, these were the only two brown ones. And they were inseparable. Even before their eyes were open. Well the little boy, Tag, bonded to Mr. B almost immediately. So there was no getting the two of them away from each other. And of course, we couldn’t leave little Kyra behind. She’s a sweet little girl. Polar opposites actually. He’s bold and outgoing. She’s shy and timid. But they’re both adorable.

We picked them up on Friday afternoon and took them to the vet. We’re having a few issues trying to get them adjusted to Sylvia, but so far, so good. They’re romping and rolling all over the kitchen. Thankfully, they’re all tired out right now, but we’re going to have to go wake them up before long so we can tired them out again before putting them to bed for the night.

“And…Christmas is finally over…”

This is what I said to Mr. B a few minutes ago as we finally got our Christmas tree taken down. Yes, you heard me – the tree finally came down on Feb. 6, even though it sat undecorated and unlit since Dec. 29 and the rest of the Christmas decorations were packed up by Jan. 6. At that point, Mr. B had lamented that Christmas was over. But the tree remained. Why? Well, several reasons, actually.

• Mr. B started classes again the weekend of the 7th, with two classes this semester, so he was in class two nights, and working on homework usually two other nights and Sunday mornings.
• Mr. B has been working overtime for months consisting of 10-hr days on weekends and an 8-hr day on Saturday. One week he even worked a couple 12-hr days when they were trying to perform some work during a shut-down. Between that and the classes and homework schedule, he’s pretty wiped out most of the time. The overtime finally stopped last week, but we’re not sure how long that’ll last.
• We’ve had stuff going on most weekends since the holidays. Between birthday dinners, being on-call for work, trying to squeeze in grocery shopping and the like, it’s been quite hectic. And Mr. B got really sick at the end of Jan. to the point where he basically slept the entire weekend. This weekend we spent taking care of puppies at his house. His roommate recently adopted a dog and then found out she was gonna have puppies that ended up being born on New Year’s Eve. His roommate was going out of town last weekend, so we were taking care of the two dogs and 7 puppies. Talk about a handful. That definitely didn’t leave any free time.
• My cat chewed through a couple of the wires on the bottom of the pre-lit tree, so Mr. B’s been refusing to take it down until he could also fix the wires. At first, he didn’t have his tools here. Then he didn’t have connectors. Then he didn’t have enough time. It was always something.

Well, last night his class was canceled due to the weather. I tried to convince him to take the tree down last night, but it never happened. Tonight, his other class got canceled. Since that meant he had a week with no homework to tie him down, he didn’t have excuses like this was his only chance to do…whatever. So I finally convinced him to do it. And how long did it take him to actually fix the wires? Oh, about 5 min, including getting the tools and connectors out. Wasn’t that long of a task at all.

As we were leaving the basement after storing the tree, I told Mr. B, “And…Christmas is finally over.” I know he was a bit disappointed. He’s a big fan of Christmas.

I will never have another cat

I currently have a single cat. A 5-year old female. And, yes, I’ll never have another cat. There are times when I’m wondering why on earth I have this one. Why? First off, cat’s aren’t trainable, at least not by me. I’ve failed in just about everything I’ve attempted to train her not to do. Stay off the kitchen table and counters? Failed. Stop chewing up cords? Failed. I’m sure there are other examples, but at the moment, I’m not coming up with anything else I’ve attempted to train her on. And it’s not that she doesn’t learn. She knows she’s not supposed to do it, but she does it anyway, just to get attention. She will look at me to make sure I’m watching before she attempts to chew on the computer’s power cord.

For some reason, lately, she’s really into the mini-blinds. She dives between them and reaches up through them, though I have no clue why. Well, when she does this I’ve been shooting her with water from a spray bottle that I keep on the end table next to the couch. It used to be half water and half vinegar, but she always came over to the spray bottle trying to get a drink. After a couple weeks of not getting anywhere with this, I ended up raising the one set of mini-blinds up higher than the chair-back she normally sleeps on. All the other mini-blinds had long since been raised well up above this point. I still occasionally have to spray her to get her down from standing up on the chair and rooting around under them, but it’s a lot less painful for both of us. I sometimes wonder which one of us got trained in this situation.

However, just the other day she started doing this same thing on one of the bedroom windows. And since we’re only in the bedroom to sleep, she’s usually doing this when I’m trying to get some sleep. And of course, since it’s the bedroom, I refuse to open the mini-blinds. Well last week, she decided to keep me up all night doing this. I spent the first 15 minutes try to give her some attention so she’d settle down. I spent the next 10 minutes trying to swat her on the head or butt to convince her she wasn’t supposed to be up near the window. I spent the next 5 minutes spraying her with water and throwing her out of the room. I then gave up and locked her in the bathroom for 15 min because that usually calms her down. But I felt bad leaving her in there too long, so I let her back out. She immediately began digging through the mini-blinds again. After about 10 minutes of chasing her around again, I locked her back up in the bathroom and tried to go to sleep. A couple hours later, I woke up feeling extremely guilty and let her out of the bathroom. Less than 5 minutes later, she was at it again. Mr. B got up for work shortly thereafter, but she still kept at it. I think the only sleep I got that night was the couple hours when she was locked in the bathroom.

Luckily, she’s been pretty well behaved since then. That’s not to say she’s not still doing it, but she’s stopped when I’ve told her to. Let’s hope she keeps it up. I don’t want another night like that.