Family Funk

All Dog Parks Are Not The Same

2 Comments / Animal Issues, Family Funk /

We’ve been to three of the four dog exercise parks in Lake County and have discovered that all dog parks are not the same. All dog owners are not the same either.

We love Prairie Wolf — it’s the one closest to us and the one we visit most often. It’s clean. The people are friendly. The dogs are, well, dogs. There’s nothing we don’t like (love!) about this park and I’m very thankful that this is the one closest to us, particularly since Lola can’t manage to hold the contents of her stomach long enough to go much further than that in one sitting.

We like the Independence Grove park but it’s closed right now due to construction along Milwaukee Ave. We discovered this yesterday when we attempted to visit it. Oy. We should have checked before we left but we didn’t — so we decided to drive the extra 11 miles to go to another one, since we were already out there. Lola’s stomach actually held out (though she didn’t quite make it home again, poor dog.)

The Duck Farm park is big and wide open. There’s not a lot of shade. The few wooded trails aren’t cleared enough for people to enjoy walking along them with the dogs, though the dogs did enjoy rambling through them a little bit. The dogs also enjoyed romping through the prairie and since there were fewer dogs than at the other two parks, they did a LOT of running with each other. There aren’t many water (mud!) spots at this park either. A real let down for our two mud lovers.

And, we encountered a couple walking a PACK of huskies. It was a literal pack, as in when the three off leash chased Skeeter, who yelped as she does when surrounded by dogs that intimidate her, the woman yelled to her male companion “be careful she’s alpha and she’s going to attack to protect her pack.” And she did. Or tried to. The dude launched himself on the alpha of the pack while his female partner screamed at him that he was out of line for doing that. While he yelled “What was I supposed to do, let her attack someone else’s dog” and… it was ugly. And uncomfortable. And a little scary.

While I agreed with the chick that his reaction wasn’t the best, she clearly had no control over her pack and her attempt to control the alpha weren’t doing the job, either.

It’s people like this that give dog parks a bad name. If you have a badly controlled pack of animals, a dog park may not be the best place to exercise them off-leash (even if your alpha is on a leash.)

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You Know You’re a Grandmother When…

2 Comments / Family Funk, Kid Talk, Toys & Games /

You spend $300 on toys for your grandson to play with when he comes to visit… even though he lives thousands of miles away and he’s not actually old enough for most of the toys you’ve ordered.

That’s right, folks. I am that grandmother.

I ordered the complete set of Froebel Gifts for JMP. (I’m also calling them a birthday gift for TW because she loves them as much as JMP ever will and she can appreciate them all right now.)

I’m blaming my brother for this. If he wasn’t such a Wright fan and hadn’t come to visit, we probably wouldn’t have visited the Wright House and Studio in Oak Park and I wouldn’t have seen all of the Froebel Gifts in their awesome boxes and decided JMP needed them.

OK I might have decided this, at some point, because OMG they are so amazing.

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Puppy Bonding

3 Comments / Animal Issues, Family Funk, Pets /

Back in the day, I could go hours without seeing Skeeter because she was glued to TW’s hip (and my bed.) She really only left TW’s side to go to the bathroom (and only if TW took her) or to occasionally play with one of the kids or go harass Koto. Really, she just stayed in the bedroom with TW.

Totally different story now that Lola is here.

Lola is not attached to TW’s hip, or to my bed. She likes both well enough but she is more likely to follow me and she prefers to sleep in the office while I’m working.

And Skeeter is attached to Lola.

Which means Skeeter spends most of her day in the office with me. I mean with Lola.

TW can walk through and neither dog moves. If I get up and leave the room, Lola follows — which means Skeeter also follows.

What a difference a showgirl makes.

We’re probably going to have to get another dog to keep TW company back in the bedroom…

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Still No Beagle

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Family Funk, Pets /

Lola Belle was listed as a “Beagle Mix”. We thought she might have some sort of terrier lurking in there (TW was taunting me with Jack Russell because she knows I’m not a fan of the Jack. She also taunted me with the idea that there was chihuahua, too. Not a fan of those.)

Of course we sent in her DNA test and I’ve checked the website pretty much every day to see the progress of the test — except today. I hadn’t had time to check. Just as I was about to take a really important MUST CONCENTRATE phone call, the results email came in (eight days early!) and I was one minute late to my call because I could not manage to dial my passcode properly, lol. For my own dedicated conference call line. Yea. I was distracted.

I made it through my call (thanks, Logan) and yelled for TW to check her email because I was forwarding the results to her, too.

We don’t have another poodle!

We also don’t have much of a beagle (though she has more beagle in her than Skeeter Bess does.)

We have… insert drumroll…

A Bloodhound Miniature Schnauzer Weimaraner mix.

One parent was a Bloodhound, Weimaraner, something else mix and the other parent was a Miniature Schnauzer something else mix.

No pure bloodlines for Lola Belle, the showgirl circus dog.

When digging deeper into what the “something else” mixes might have been, here are the breeds (in order) that might have contributed:

Bouvier des Flandres
Beagle
Afghan Hound
Irish Terrier
Siberian Husky

I’m not seeing the Husky at all. Not even a little. And the Bouvier des Flandres? Huh. Interesting, though she doesn’t seem like much of a herding dog to me. Maybe we’ll have to get HER a dog and see if she tries to herd it?

Now I need the folks who adopted her puppies to contact us so we can tell them their mom is a Bloodhound Miniature Schnauzer Weimaraner mix. (that’s a mouthful… BMSW? That looks kind of kinky, doesn’t it?)

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For a Showgirl, She’s Awfully Chipper in the Mornings

1 Comment / Family Funk, Pets /

Lola is a morning dog. She starts whining and barking from her crate somewhere between 5-6am every morning. As soon as she wakes, she wants out and if I’m lucky, she’ll follow me back to bed and lay down with us for awhile. After she licks TW and Skeeter and her own butt for awhile.

If I’m not lucky, she’ll lick her butt for a really long time by which point I’ll be fully awake and annoyed and have to get up. She, however, will stay in bed with TW and Skeeter — happily licking whatever is handy until she falls asleep again.

An hour or so later, she’s up again for real. If I’ve been in the office without her, she’ll cha-cha in like she hasn’t seen me in years and try to lick me all over. I’ll take her out where she will stalk squirrels or ants, whatever is awake along with her.

We’ll come back in — I’ll go back to my desk, she’ll go find a bone or antler and lay down on the quilt in the office and lick whatever’s handy. She might doze a little bit. Maybe. Not for long, though.

And as soon as Skeeter is awake, she’s going full throttle. Skeeter, however, is not.

Skeeter would be more than happy to lay in bed forever and only gets up because TW forces her up. Skeeter would be happy to go outside and pee, sniff for wild things for a minute, and then head right back to bed.

Lola doesn’t understand that. As soon as she sees Skeeter, it’s play time. She runs, expecting Skeeter to chase her. She pounces, expecting Skeeter to snarl and pounce back. She grabs Skeeter’s ear or leg our jowls and Skeeter is not happy about any of this.

It’s too early for this madness, in Skeeter’s opinion.

When they go back in the house, Lola heads straight for the toy bin. She grabs a toy, looks at Skeeter — expecting her to come after it. Nothing. So Lola will take the toy to where Skeeter is laying and plop down next to her, chewing it. Expecting Skeeter to try and take it away. Nothing.

So Lola pulls out the big guns. The bones. Or the antlers.

She’ll go find one and then prance by Skeeter, not looking at her (except looking at her out of the corner of her eye) and that will do it. Skeeter will give in and the chase begins… and everything is fine until about 9pm.

That’s when Lola is DONE and Skeeter is not. That’s when Lola has to be forced out of bed to pee and when Skeeter has to resort to bones and antlers to entice her to play.

I wonder if the two of them will ever get their play schedules in sync?

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All The Toys

4 Comments / Animal Issues, Family Funk, Pets /

I’ve written (bitched) extensively about Skeeter’s ability to destroy a dog toy in seconds flat. Even the ones touted to be INDESTRUCTIBLE are gone faster than it took us to buy them. We waiver between buying tough, “good” toys on sale and buying cheap toys for $1 at the dollar store.

Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

And then Lola came along.

The folks at Wright-Way said she loves “babies”. She likes to carry them around. When they walked her through the building, she’d “steal” a toy out of the bin and take it with her. The toys in her kennel weren’t destroyed when we were there… though I knew that didn’t mean much. Plenty of new toys for them to toss in before the people came puppy shopping.

Still, I was hopeful.

But, either Skeeter has taught Lola how to destroy a toy or she knew it all along. She’s not as quick as Skeeter but she’s definitely good at it. And, since Skeeter believes she needs all of the toys, a lot of fighting over toys happens. Not mean fighting, just… that’s mine, I want it, I’m not giving it up, tug, tug, tug type of fighting.

Of course Skeeter also collapses on the floor/couch/bed and throws a tantrum a three year old would envy when Lola will just NOT give up the toy Skeeter wants. (Which, as I’ve mentioned, is all the toys.)

I was getting kind of tired of seeing shredded bits and pieces of toys all over the house so I figured what the hell. Petsmart was having a good sale on toys (and treats) — 50% off on a lot of things. I figured it was worth a visit. And, the pups need some exercise. Two birds, one stone and all that.

Off we went. Lola didn’t get car sick (yay!) — it was less than what we think is her 20 minute car ride limit, so I’m not sure that it really means anything that she didn’t.

They had fun. They barked madly at some sort of beagle/hound-like dog. They were petted a whole lots. They really want a guinea pig and enjoyed scaring the parakeets. Skeeter loves cockatiels but the birds in Petsmart aren’t in an ideal place for Skeeter to look at them, so she had to settle for parakeets. I think Lola wants a lizard.

We came home with 30 new dog toys, some prairie dog treats, a huge bag of prairie dog bedding, 4 bags of treats, and 2 of the very big logs of dog food (that we cut up into pieces to use as training treats.) We spent less than we normally spend on a trip to the pet store and came home with tons more stuff.

One hell of a sale, I’m telling you.

We’ve been home two hours. The dogs have destroyed five toys.

Hell.

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Open (puppy) Adoption

2 Comments / Animal Issues, Family Funk, Pets /

It wasn’t long after adopting Skeeter that we started talking a lot about finding her sister, “Abby”. It really became something we wanted to do after we had Skeeter’s DNA tested. We thought it would be cool to find out how alike (or different) Skeeter and “Abby” might be and maybe even find a way to let them get together to play. That would be fun, right?

So we started hanging out on the Wright-Way Rescue Reunions Facebook page but there was no sign of “Abby”. We started posting photos of Skeeter now, along with the photos of “Abby” and Skeeter (formerly Scottie) asking if “Abb”y was out there.

No luck, so far.

Then we adopted Lola (formerly Farrah) and we knew right away that we’d want to hear about her puppies — so we’ve continued to hang out on that Facebook page and I’ve been posting photos of Lola and Skeeter, in hopes of finding some of their family members.

Which is why it was super awesome when a comment appeared right after I posted a photo of Lola and Skeeter barking at raccoons while standing on the couch. The woman who fostered Lola when she was pregnant was asking if that was “Farrah”.

Yes! And then she went on to tell us things she knew about Lola.

… She’s an escape artist (we figured that out ourselves, lol.)
… Yes! She used to get car sick when she was with us!
… We used to call her Molly (which explains why she didn’t come to “Farrah” at all. lol)

It was so much fun to hear her talk about Lola and I’m looking forward to hearing more… she’s promised to tell us how Lola got the scar on her leg. Cool, right?

After spending months on that Facebook group and seeing just how hard it is for people to find the other dogs/families they are looking for, I just keep thinking there should be a better way. Those of us who want to meet or just chat or share info should be able to find each other, if both parties are open to it. But how can that be made easier, when the rescue group is already low on funds and their staff/dollars need to be focused on saving animals?

I don’t know. I just think it’s cool and technology should make it so much easier than it is. Right?

Abby… we’re still looking for you. (Born in April 2012, adopted in August/September 2012)

We’d also love to hear from “Farrah’s” puppies … the “D” Litter born in March 2013 and adopted in May 2013!
(This one is Dionne)

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That Didn’t Go As Expected…

Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Family Funk, Pets /

Since Lola had been in her crate for a couple of hours while we did round one of our errands, I suggested we take her and Skeeter with us when we went to the Navy Base/Jewel. We could stop at the big dog park and let her run around in the training pen — and get an idea of how she might do off-leash in the big park.

Hah.

She got sick all of the back seat when we were about 100 yards from the park. Undigested and barely chewed dog treats from two hours earlier. I am thinking we won’t give her that kind of treat again.

Skeeter was very excited to be at the park and did not understand why it was taking us so long to get in there and take her leash off. She was wholly unamused that we were going to try to keep her on the leash for even a second longer than necessary. So, I released her and off she went.

Lola was… overwhelmed. Barking. Hair raised. Confused by what was going on. But we made our way, 50 yards or so, to the little pen and took her in. We called Skeeter to come in, too — and she did, but she brought some sort of little bulldog type of dog with her. We could not manage to keep skeeter in and the bulldog out, so I just closed him in with us. His people didn’t mind.

Once I closed the gate, TW unleashed Lola and… off she went, for the gate and slipped through the opening between the gate and the fence post.

Oops.

We thought we might round her up and try the second small training area because there wasn’t a gap between the fence and the gate but there was a huge gap under the gate. No way that was going to keep her in and by then, she was off sniffing the people and the dogs and following Skeeter around.

So, we shrugged and started walking.

Dangerous since she hasn’t been spayed and she’s not done any work with us on recall, really.

But, it went very well. She’s a little afraid of big dogs and black dogs and she wasn’t interested in going very far from us — not even to follow Skeeter down a path or into a mud bath. And, she doesn’t really love mud baths (yet). It wasn’t til we were pretty much done that she decided to follow Skeeter into this little mudhole.

It was a good, (too short for Skeeter’s liking), trip. Even though she got sick again on the ride home.

Gah. I really hope she’s not a car-sick kind of dog and it was just nerves and treats that didn’t set well…

That Didn’t Go As Expected… Read More »

What a Difference a Day Makes

1 Comment / Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Pets /

Today was almost pleasant. Well, sort of. As pleasant as a day can be when you have days like mine.

What I mean is, the puppies were awesome today. Lola wasn’t crated all day — she and Skeeter were able to take breaks on their own, sometimes in the same room! Miracle of miracles. Turns out they do have off-switches and they seem to be able to turn those off all on their own. Yippee. I was kind of worried that we were always going to have to be enforcing time outs for over-tired puppies.

Heh.

Lola jumped the baby gate today when TW and the little kids came home. First time TW has actually seen her launch herself over one of those things. She’s one hell of a jumper.

Skeeter threw a lot of tantrums over Lola playing with her toys and chewing on her bones and antlers. Just like she used to do when Koto took her toys or bones or antlers.

Lola’s visit to the vet was fine. She’s 24lbs. She has a broken tail. Her eyes are red but we don’t really know why and are just going to watch them. Her microchip isn’t functioning or was expelled, so we have to take her in to get a new one. She took her heartworm treatment like champ (which is a big deal because she really doesn’t love treats the way Skeeter loves treats. Skeeter would eat a whole box of heartworm thingies and beg for more. )

TW took both dogs in the car together for the first time and nobody died. She says they were good. That must be because I taught Lola how to WAIT (for godsake) when the door is open. hah.

That’s something else Lola is doing well — she’s doing a great job of waiting at the door before she runs through it. This is important for her to learn, we really don’t want her dashing out of the house every time a kid or TW’s mom (or TW) goes in/out.

All in all — a good day. We’ll see what happens tomorrow when someone is going to be in the car pretty much all day long (and it won’t be me.)

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Puppy Mania

Animal Issues, Family Funk /

Every now and then, over the last 10 months, we’ve said stuff like, “We should have adopted two dogs, instead of just one.” We’ve said this because Skeeter really has always needed a playmate. She loved Koto but he was old and grouchy and not interested in being her best, hyper puppy buddy.

I’ve always been pretty thankful that we didn’t adopt two dogs because OMG I could only imagine how maddening that would have been.

Now I’m really, really glad because holy hell — the puppy mania is really manic.

Having Lola here has shown us just how awesome Skeeter is and just how badly trained she is, too. Yea, it’s both of those things.

We have a lot of work ahead of us, that’s for sure.

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