Animal Issues

Skeeter is not a morning dog.

She’d lay in bed ’til noon if nothing forced her up (or piqued her interest) and as soon as she gets up and uses the bathroom (barks at whatever piqued her interest) she’s ready to go right back to bed.

Unless you’re going to take her for a walk or to the dog park. She’s happy to get out of bed for that.

So this morning, when she was forced out of bed at 6am, she was sluggish. I also noticed she had gunky eyes. Fairly common for her — so I wiped her eyes, took her outside, and went about the business of getting the kids to school.

I noticed after we got home that Skeeter, (who did not get to go with us on the school run), had gunky eyes again. So, I wiped them and took her outside to use the bathroom — wondering aloud about why her eyes were so gunky this morning.

And then I went about my business, while Skeeter went to bed.

When she woke up a few hours later, her eyes were gunky again — so I looked closely and not only were they gunky, one of them was not opening all of the way and looked a little swollen.

Darn dog.

She has a scratched cornea.

No idea how that happened but $150+ later she has medicines and has to go back to the vet for a re-check.

I swear we’ve taken this dog to the vet more times in 9 months than we took Jake or Chanel in all of the years we owned them.

Poor poodle puppy.

Ya. We joined the Dog Park circuit. (And I do mean circuit, since there are four parks we can visit — and we plan to visit them all.) Joining a dog park is not something I ever thought I’d do. Really. But, this is a nice park — not just a fenced in dirt/dead grass lot. That’s why I decided to join Prairie Wolf Dog Park rather than one that’s closer to us.

– The one we’ve visited is a little more than 40 acres. The ones closest to us are 2, 4, or maybe 6 acres. That’s a big, big difference.
– This park has trees and ponds (a really big pond that seems more like a lake to me), hills, flowers, weeds — and yes, it has a lot of mud holes. There are trails to walk. The photos and videos of the ones closest to me have pretty much none of these things.
– The one we joined is open year round and the others are not. I know, much of the year it’s frozen cold and snowy and odds are slim that we’ll take Skeeter to the park very often (ever?) once that happens but it’s nice to have the option.
– The cost for a non-resident to join the nice park (that allows you to visit three other parks) was about twice as much as the park closest to us.

After two visits, I’d say it’s worth it.

Skeeter thinks so, too.

She’s most anxious to visit the Duck Farm park next. Look at that mud.

Then again, Independence Grove looks good, too. Skeeter really likes the woods and this one looks nicely wooded.

LOL Lakewood looks like it’s got plenty of mud, too. Good thing I’ve learned my lesson about the towels, eh?

Remember when we went to the Pet Expo, well not only did we buy a bunch of dog treats, I bought a cat nip toy in the shape of a banana for the Fake Cat. It was a banana, I couldn’t resist.

It was in the bag with the other treats that we bought and that bag was in Prince J’s room. A couple of hours after we got home, Elly asked if she could give Skeeter the banana toy. I told her that she could not because it was a CAT treat for the FAKE CAT, duh. She insisted Skeeter wanted it. Needed it. Should have it. I told her NO!

Since then, every time Skeeter has broken into Prince J’s room or one of has has inadvertently let her in there, she’s gone for the banana cat nip treat.

When I retrieved the banana cat nip toy to send it to the Fake Cat, Skeeter got very excited. She was SURE she was finally going to get that treat. She jumped, she spun around in circles, she sat like a good puppy. She begged. She tried to grab it out of my hand. She sniffed it all over and licked it and made one last attempt and grabbed it from the counter while I was looking for the Wild Iris coffee mug. I had to chase her through the house to get it back.

Why does our dog love cat nip? Do all dogs love cat nip? Why does Skeeter go nuts over the banana cat nip toy while the Fake Cat is so much calmer?

Skeeter really likes bugs. Bugs that crawl on the ground. She doesn’t like bugs that fly.

Flies and bees annoy her. She’s even a little scared of both of them. It’s kind of amusing to watch her cower in fear and confusion because there’s a fly buzzing around the window of the back door when she wants to go out.

It’s also pretty amusing to watch her dig a hole to try and get the non-flying bugs that she can smell down there in the ground. Because that is what she’s doing — she’s digging for bugs, not digging just to be digging.

I seem to be talking to a lot of people, one on one, about dog toys that stand up to Skeeter so I figured maybe it was time to write a new post about dog toys we recommend.

But first, I have to give a nice shout out to DoggyLoot.

I joined DoggyLoot a couple of months ago when I saw a discount code thingy for $5 off when you join. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to order, so I just joined their dog toy of the month club and Skeeter’s received several toys from their club since we joined.

Most of the toys didn’t stand up to Skeeter but not many toys do, so I don’t hold that against DoggyLoot. What I do particularly appreciate is the fact that when they sent emails to their customers telling us that we had a $5 credit to use, when we really didn’t, they made good on that email and gave everyone the $5. That’s the kind of customer service that seems to be going out of style.

If you want to try DoggyLoot and you haven’t joined, this link has my affiliate code attached to it. (If you join using my link, you get a $5 credit right off the bat — if you order, I’ll get a $10 credit.) If you don’t want to join, it won’t hurt my feelings. If you want to join but you don’t want to click my link, it won’t hurt my feelings either.

Now, onto the toys that are standing up to the Skeeter test:

• Orbee-Tuff Glow Bone — we got this one at the Pet Expo. She likes it and she hasn’t (knock on wood) come close to destroying it. I was surprised by how well it’s held up.
• Crinkist — another toys we got at the Pet Expo. After chewing up a few different water bottle toys, this one is amazing. It’s a little tough to get the bottle into (use soap!) but once it’s in there, it stays until she’s chewed the heck out of it. She’s been through four bottles and the toy/holder is no worse for ware. That’s amazing!
• Sticky Bone — we bought this at Pet Supplies Plus. Total impulse purchase that I picked up because the material is similar to that of the Orbee-Tuff Glow Bone and I was interested in what would happen if she had a toy that sticks to the floor/wall. Well… it doesn’t stick very well, so that’s kind of a bust. (I tested one in the store and it worked great — I’m guessing I didn’t buy the one I tested, sigh.) But, she carries it around and chews on it like she chews on everything, and it’s holding up really well though we haven’t stuck any toys into the crevices…
• This was a $5 toy that we bought at Pet Supplies Plus. I figured it would be destroyed in a second, particularly after I pulled the tag off the top and exposed some stuffing. She’s a maniac for stuffing. But — nope, it’s in great shape and she loves this darn toy. Soft rubber, a lot like the Orbee-Tuff and the but not exactly the same. It’s softer and I really can’t believe she hasn’t destroyed it yet. I should have saved the tag but I really never thought it would last more than a couple of hours, max!
• This one came from DoggyLoot. I didn’t have a lot of hope for it but she had it almost a month before she started chewing pieces off of it. Though she has started chewing pieces off it it, it’s still holding up well… normally once she gets the first piece off, it’s just a matter of minutes before she’s shredded the toy into tiny bits. Not this one. I sure wish I knew the brand name…

It’s puppy weather.

Not super cold. Not super warm. Not super icy. Not super muddy.

That’s the important part, the not super muddy part.

Skeeter does not like getting muddy.

She does like getting dirty, though. She’s happily digging holes all over the backyard. I was hopeful that adding some fresh gravel in areas where she normally likes to dig would dissuade her from the digging. No luck. She’s a happy digging dog.

We’re considering some fencing in back but I’m wondering if what we need is a puppy sandbox…

Damn Jenna for tagging me in an instagram photo of the $1 discount for the Chicago Pet Expo. If she hadn’t done that, we’d have never known about the damn event.

And if we’d never known about the damn event, we wouldn’t have taken Elizabeth with us to the Chicago Pet Expo.

But we did and it was crazysauce.

Elly decided Skeeter needed a green bow tie and was sure we’d find one there. She ran from booth to booth (think BlogHer Expo hall full of pet stuff and random animals wandering around) looking for a green bow tie. She saw a lot, all of them on the rescue animals at the booths but none to buy. She was annoyed.

She also wanted to take home just about every dog, cat, tortoise, goat, pig and ferret she saw. And she saw a lot of them. The only animals she didn’t want were the shih tzus, the bulldogs, and the meechis.

We ate (expensive) bad food. We spent a ton of money on dog treats and dog toys. TW petted some Saint Bernards and I probably promised her that our next dog would be a Saint Bernard. She also got the name of someone who cleans dog poop from yards. Hah. I have cleaning ladies and she has dog poop scoopers?

We had fun but it was crazy, really crazy. (And Skeeter is happy with the first toy we brought her, the Crinkit is holding up really well — better than any toy we’ve gotten her in the past three months!.) She’s also determined to get into Prince J’s bedroom where she knows I put the rest of the toys and treats. Darn dog is too smart for her own good.)

Yesterday’s post, the one where I kind of raved about how awesome my dog is about sleeping on her bed when she’s told to sleep on her bed.

Yea. That post right there, pretend it never existed.

Because last night… 2am, the dog was on my bed. 4am, the dog was on my bed. 5am, the dog was on my bed (and I gave up telling her “Off. Place.” because by then, I was awake and figured I’d just get up and get to work. Busy day ahead and all that.

The little beast had the nerve to GROAN at me when I accidentally bumped her foot (that was hanging off of MY bed) as I stumbled to the bathroom.

How dare I keep her from her beauty sleep.

Shit. I’m tired.