so, the everlasting fun ball has always been a highlight of the dogs' day... but the last 40lb. bag of food brought with it a free bag of dog treats which fit perfectly in the ball without having to be broken into smaller bits. i think they could be completely occupied for at least 2 hours. which is awesome if you have a dog.
we're sitting in the computer room with the door shut because the guy installing the dish is afraid of dogs.
so we came home to another catastrophe. apparently nora decided to tear apart the remaining dvds on the table (therein which lies a lesson for both kurt and nora).
what's interesting is that she left the plastic chopsticks completely alone. like they weren't worth damaging.
jones was, again, sorry and submissive.
i think i ought to get a webcam to ease our discontent. or to provide humor.
i came home to a small mess this evening... it would appear that someone got into a (yet unpacked) plastic bag with sunscreen and ferret shampoo and they managed to keep all of the shampoo inside of the bag, thankfully. judging from the possible suspects' reactions, it would appear the guilty one was jones. this is unfortunate, because i know that it was nora. jones is just the one who knows that whatever happened was wrong and gave me the sorry face for it.
nora is definitely benefiting from being a "second-child". i did not scold her nearly as much as jones has had it in the past. mostly because she would have peed, but secondly because she probably didn't remember having been the culprit in the crime.
in an unrelated note, my back has a huge knot that i can't seem to get at.
about having two dogs is that jones hasn't touched the garbage in two weeks. at the apartment, we had to put it out in the back hallway when we left the house, and now, it seems like he just doesn't care. who knows, though, it could be because we have a house now and he doesn't want to mess it up? we just kept putting it out into the back porch, for some reason, until Nora came along.
they're still "gettin-ta-know-ya", but Jones seems to be content with her presence and i think he secretly likes it. :)
kurt's friend brendan and mom's george came over this evening to run wire in the basement. all was successful. we got the broken outlet in the first floor bedroom to work, and put the room on a 20 amp circuit all by itself, and brendan's going to put one in outside so we have electricity when it's time to build a deck.
i have to admit, it's been kinda hard to get into the home-owner's groove... things i want to do and won't have time for. but we have less than 3 weeks to get our sh*t together and get the house presentable for a party.
grandma and john are coming over this weekend (they're in town for another festivity), and i'd like to, at least, get it comfortable. john's a big guy, and i'm not even sure he (or grandma) is going to want to trek upstairs... so i'm taking friday off in order to get the house up to some sort of standard that doesn't look like we just moved in... impossible expectations, i'm aware.
i just have to remember to take before pictures so i can enjoy my accomplishments. :)
today, she made it all day without going in the house. and, she seems to have found her place with jones. at least as much as two days of learning can find a dog.
this week will be another test, since i won't be home all day. she is having a little trouble sharing me with jones, though... every time he comes over to get pet, she gets in the middle of us.
here's them being very good doggies:
we go to the warner dog park frequently. actually, jones has been there almost every single day since kurt got a car.
today, it was just we two (me 'n jones), and he found a boxer mix named olive to play with. well, olive's owners discovered they'd lost their car keys and we proceeded to walk around in the grass staring at our feet. i really wanted to find them cuz i'm usually good at spotting items in the grass; no such luck.
they had to walk home... i woulda offered a ride, but i didn't see how three people and two dogs would work in my car.
so ever since we got jones, part of our daily conversation consists of things like, "did he poop yet?", "was it big?", "was it hard?" and so on. this morning, jones' excrement consisted not only of digested food, but plastic and foil. a week ago, he got into the garbage by the couch and ate kurt's gyro wrapper. i'm amazed that it took so long to go through him. i, however, don't know where the plastic came from.
we thought this will probably be the last really nice weekend; so i brought the digicam to the dog park. here's jones not bringing back his kong (he's really goot at this).
i forgot to tell you guys that jones turned one on sunday, september 24th. we sang happy birthday and gave him a frosty paws. it was funny.
it also marked us being owned by him for 6 months. it went by fast. those first two weeks, i hardly slept omg.
we went to the dog park after i got home from work and there were like 800 people there. anyhow, this woman with a really cute dog that looked like a cat said, "i love your hair! it's glowing!!" and proceeded to touch my head.
we had a guest at the end of last week. here's jones and darlin' playing around:
here's jones being a gooboy.
jones has been pretty good at walking off leash for about a month now. kurt's been trying since a week after we got him. well, yesterday, he proved to kurt that jones does not quite understand the concept. apparently, they were walking down thornton on the river-side, and jones saw his bff bella across willy. so, he bolted across, in front of a car in which the driver had to lock up his breaks. it was a close call. i'm hoping both jones and kurt learned something from this.
jones is now 43.1lbs; and i won $1 on the bet. :)
we're watching bella until monday. she enjoys guarding her food from jones.
when we got him, i stupidly figured he'd stay roughly the same size; not knowing how much dogs actually grow in the first couple years of their lives... he went to the vet yesterday to get his monthly heartgard and we discovered he'd gained 8lbs since the previous month! maybe it's all the peanut butter. :)
it would appear that jones has no problem with rain. in fact, he seems to go slower in it, stopping to sniff every little thing, and eat leaves, and sticks. i was out in the rain for a total of 1.5 hours last night walking around aimlessly... waiting for him to find just the right spot to do his duty. at 8:05p, the demon inside was awakened by a romp with james*, and finally, eureka! i could go back inside and take off all wet things.
*james is a 5yo german shepherd/something small who lives on morrison next door to darlin', who is a 1.5yo black lab that owns a friend of ours.
and how does a ribcage end up on the sidewalk? i swear, i have seen more strange animal bones since getting a dog than ever in my life.
kurt and i went on a date last night... for no other reason than i really wanted some good sushi and i wasn't going to get what i wanted from a delivery (i'll spare you the explanation, since i've done it in the past). it was absolutely scrumdiddilyumptious. the chefs at takara know their stuff.
but, we came home to some sort of natural disaster. jones ate the daisy that my friend judy got my for my bday.. and he tore apart some packaging which had that black foam stuff in it. omg. what a mess.
i should really start taking pics of the state of the livingroom to accompany these posts. you'd chuckle.
so, that new cd thing that i bought? jones decided to use it as a chew toy. grr.
so, he's gained 4 lbs in 4 weeks. at this rate, he'll reach my estimated full-grown size of 40 lbs in 2 more months. everyone is just smitten with him; and jealous of his non-six-month-old behavior. kurt attempted walking without a leash this weekend, and it worked out just fine. a lot of 'hood dogs don't use a leash, but they're like 8 and up.
i wish i were home with him right now.
there's a site for everything. jones is now a proud member of dogster, the dog version of friendster. cute.
there're 195 dogs in madwisco registered, but i don't think we've met any of them.
they've met before, but i didn't have the camera handy. here's jones trying to figure out, still, what these weird ferret-things are.
i left the house for an hour and a half last night, while kurt was out playing poker.. and jones proceeded to drag my tulip and gingham sock all over the house.. not before he chewed up the bamboo needles, leaving me at a knitting standstill; cuz how could i predict that i'd need two sets of each of my dpns? so, an order to knitpicks went in last night for more needles.
for the last week, he's been spending the night in the bed. some people seem to think that's a little weird, but i like it because i know that he's not getting into trouble.. well, last night we decided to leave the bedroom door open in case he wanted to take over the couch. *ahem* VERY bad idea. he came into the bed around 3, and woke us up. kurt asked if he wanted to go out, and i said "he just came in, we might be in for a surprise in the livingroom." a surprise indeed. not only had he emptied the contents of the garbage into the dining room, he had defacated in front of the tv. a lot.
see, previously (during our breakfast outing), he pulled some buns out of the garbage and eaten a little bit, so i think it had him "blocked", as they say; and he didn't poop on our evening stroll. so i forgave him right away.. kurt, on the other hand, is having a difficult time with it. i'd say we're fortunate that he's been so quick to train thus far.
again, he's lucky he's so cute (no, there's no fish-eye lens action on this shot.. his ears are that big).
here's jones getting a treat from kurt.
i'm leaning more toward the german shepherd because of the amount of brown in his fur, but i'd prefer he not get too much bigger considering he knocked me over when i got home last night!
this won't turn into a jonesy-blog, but i don't know how much time he's gunna afford me to knit.. luckily it's almost summer.
so i took him out at least every 45 minutes yesterday; during which time he didn't pee. once. so, kurt got home after work and he finally peed. he's picked a favorite spot outside the front door, which is handy. after a while, i had to go to bed.
kurt woke me up at 2:45 to tell me we'd had a little accident in front of the tv, and where are the puppy pads? well, this one was only paper trained, and puppy pads aren't quite the same. so we thought it would be nice to have him come to bed.. as he was getting comfy, he peed. :/ so kurt yelled and i took him out and he made his last tinkle of the night. he wouldn't come back into the bed, so i laid on the couch with him (we were extremely worried that he'd poop in the house, since it's a little puppy-like, and he hadn't pooped since 6pm). aside from him laying on me all night, it wasn't too bad. i'm dog-tired though.
this a.m., he surprised me by scratching on the door, being taken out, and almost immediately finding a place to end the digestive process. he sure is lucky he's so dang cute.
here's jonesy:
he is SO CUTE.
p.s., i think he's part australian shepherd and lab. also, he met like eight neighborhood dogs AND the ferrets today. he's exhausted!
so, we went to mounds, cuz i needed to get puppy pads for the ferret cage. they're only 50% litter-box trained, so it makes it a lot easier to clean up. there were two puppies in the care of a foster mom from the country animal haven and kurt absolutely fell in love with the smaller one... so i'm mailing our pre-adoption application tomorrow. he said he's never been this excited about a dog before; so i hope we get to get her, he'd be awfully disappointed otherwise. he's pretty small, and the foster mom think he's got some shepard in her. he's 6 months so he probably won't get much bigger. i'm anxiously excited. he even said we'd take her to training classes! i wish i had a pic to show you, but they only have adoptable cats listed on their website.
*edited later because we found it she's a he. :)