black lab – Page 30

I’m Ever So Happy. Seriously. I Am.

One thing I hadn’t anticipated is how much harder it is to get a good picture of Ellie compared to the cats. A trained chimp could point a camera at little Sam and get a nice picture but I’ve been struggling with Ellie. I expected it to be hard to photograph her black fur but hadn’t accounted for the difficulties of her larger size and how sad she looks when she’s relaxed. She’s holding one of her favorite toys, a plush rabbit that squeaks when she bites it. She has a similar goose that was her first toy and remains a favorite. When you toss them, our retriever loves to bring them back, and especially loves to bring them back squeaking all the way.

The other day Ellie had a roast. Not the sort of roast where we’d make fun of how she snores, but a pot roast kind of roast. The kind of roast that I was going to eat later. Somehow while we were enjoying the roast for dinner the leftovers disappeared from the counter upstairs.

And some leftover bacon a short while later and a tub of cookies last week. Fortunately there were no gastric disasters as a result of her dietary indiscretions. We were prepared to interrogate her when her legal counsel stepped in and told her not to say another word. Little Sam said we had no evidence that Ellie had actually eaten all of these things, for all we knew he had done it. The bacon, perhaps, but even he couldn’t eat that much roast, and the tub of cookies was bigger than he is. He then claimed that perhaps I had eaten all of these things and was blaming it on Ellie.

The outrage! I could eat that much roast but not that fast (some here say I’m a slow eater), so what jury would believe such a story? Sam pointed out that there is prior precedent, a certain night in which a batch of strawberries freshly dipped in chocolate didn’t live to see the morning. An offense for which I admit my guilt, and which I also admit could cause reasonable doubt in a jury.

All charges against Ellie have been dropped.

A King, A King, My Bedroom For A King

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!
King Richard in Shakespeare’s Richard III

Ellie had an upset stomach this past week which led to a rather unfortunate if prodigious emptying of her bowels in the living room. The vet suggested we switch her to a bland diet of rice and cooked meat (no bernaise sauce) for a few days and thankfully there have been no more incidents. Erring on the safe side, we isolated her to the easily-cleanable part of the basement while we were at work and at night while we slept. She didn’t mind the imposition while we were gone but our champion snuggler was not pleased about the loss of bed privileges at night.

The morning after she had to be encouraged to eat (a surer sign of the apocalypse than any four horsemen) but otherwise her appetite has been fine. Her energy level and spirits have also been high the whole time and today we started slowly working her regular food back into her diet. So far so good!

She was allowed to rejoin us in bed at night after a few days of no accidents and I’m happy to report that she now moves over when I come to bed at night. I can’t say if her banishment to solitary affected the change but regardless I’m no longer wishing for a king-sized bed.

A Super Weekend

This past week we’ve made good progress on our slow introduction of Ellie to our world. She has free reign of the house as long as we’re home and this weekend was allowed to join us in the bedroom for the first time. No cats were eaten!

In fact, the cats continued to sleep on us just as they always have, with Ellie beside our bed on the dog bed my wife made for her. To show you just how well I know my cats, I thought the order of Ellie acceptance would go Scout -> Sam -> Emma. Exactly how it happened, except I got the order backwards.

The other day when my wife had the morning off, she and Ellie joined me on my walk to the train station. When it was time to part ways, I walked off and looked back to see her staring with such sorrow that you’d think I was drifting off to sea. It’s a cold soul that can turn from such a longing gaze but I knew the warm welcome I’d receive at the end of the day. Oh how her tail wags!

The Dog & The Tennis Ball

You don’t need to travel to the Galapagos to see evolution in action. Consider that when Lewis & Clark first crossed the Rockies into the West, they looked across verdant fields and saw dogs chasing tennis balls, with some highly evolved breeds specializing in catching the hapless balls on the bounce.

While at the time dogs seemed to have the upper hand, in the intervening years evolution seems to have lobbed the advantage back into the ball’s court. The balls have increasingly learned to anticipate being caught from above and have developed ever more complex bounces to evade their slobbering foes.

But recently, dogs seem to be regaining mastery over their prey of old. While the ball nervously scans the skies, the dog flattens itself against the ground and sneaks up from the side, catching the ball unawares.

Usually catching the ball unawares. Sometimes the ball still manages to escape. That’s nature for you.

Dark Chocolate

Ellie had a vet appointment this morning to get a booster shot. She got a good health report all around (apart from needing to lose a little weight, which we are working on). But late this afternoon I got a call from my wife saying she was heading back to the vet.

During the day, Ellie had somehow gotten a hold of some of my wife’s chocolate calcium chews. This is not the way to weight loss Ellie! Although at least we won’t have to worry about her suffering from osteoporosis. The vet didn’t think any harm was done but had us watch for vomiting and unusual stools just to be safe — any blood and it was off to the emergency vet. Thankfully she’s been fine, a little hyper but she got a lot of exercise this weekend and calmed down nicely by nightfall.

Ellie’s a black lab, at least we thought she was, but I’m thinking now she may be a chocolate lab. Dark chocolate.

Ellie & Smelly

The title for today’s post comes from little Sam, who is skating on thin ice I assure you.

He asked me today if I knew which part of Ellie I most smelled like. I said no but to consider his answer carefully and reminded him who plays countless hours of String with him. He deliberated far longer than I thought necessary, eyes darting between me and Ellie, before finally answering “Why the sweetest part of course!”

Say Hello to Ellie

“Let it be said that I am right rather than consistent.” Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan explaining his transformation from a vigorous defender of slavery to the lone supporter on the Court for the rights of former slaves

We reduced the candidates of names for Unnamed Dog (aka the dog formerly known as Sidka) from sixteen to two, Darcy and Zira, staying consistent with our scheme of choosing names from our favorite books. Today we settled on her name: Ellie.

When I first came up with a list of possible names for the dog, all sixteen names were from our favorite books or shows save two, Ellie and Libby, which made the cut simply because I liked them. Libby seemed like a good name for a lab but I ruled it out myself the very next day when on the train I couldn’t get the “Libby Libby Libby on the label label label” song out of my head and realized the horror the next seven years could bring.

My wife further whittled the list to a half dozen but even after a week none of the literary names felt right and we realized we were trying to force the wrong name onto our sweet-hearted girl. She feels like an Ellie, not a Darcy or Zira, so we’re breaking with tradition. We could cheat and say that she’s named for Elinor from Sense & Sensibility or Elessar, one of the 187 names for Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, but she’s not.

She’s Ellie because she’s Ellie.

Action Pose!

A week ago we went to the Humane Society and brought Sidka home. She has readily adapted to our household and all its denizens, she seems quite happy and healthy and loving and good-natured and smart and patient and playful and we keep waiting for the other shoe to drop but so far she’s just been a real sweetheart.

We’ve whittled our list of names down to two likely candidates, Darcy and Zira, which keep with our tradition of choosing names from literature. I read on the internet (so it must be true!) that Darcy comes from the Gaelic word for dark which goes well with her black fur, and of course Darcy is a character or two from a mutual favorite of ours, Pride & Prejudice. Zira comes from the chimp in Planet of the Apes (book and movie) that discovered our man hero could talk. Our dog can’t talk but she is an excellent typist.

Emma has suggested another name — since she has black fur like her, she wants to call her Emma II. I pointed out that since the dog was born long before her that really the dog should be Emma I and she should be Emma II, but she thinks it ought to go by the order of the arrival into our home. My wife agrees with her but I think it’s just the womenfolk sticking together, it may have been a mistake to adopt another girl as now Sam and I are outnumbered 4 to 2. They’ve got veto power! My wife was quick to point out that they’ve always had it.

It was sunny if cold and windy today, so after a much-needed haircut I walked home and took Sidka into the backyard for an hour’s worth of fetch. What a wonder it is to have a pet actually bring her toys back when you throw them! Playing with the tennis ball seems to be her favorite game followed by the rope toy. We then came inside for even more playing and then it was time for more cat bonding time.

All three cats were anxious to get down to the basement today, every time I’d go up I’d have to fend them off as I opened the door, no besieged city has ever been so well-defended. When it was time I opened the door and all three came down. Sidka was being good so as I test I took off her leash and let her go. She didn’t chase anyone, at first the cats kept their distance so Sidka and I played some more as they watched and got a feel for her movements.

Everybody got a nose touch in today with Scout again setting the record for the longest nose touch, she holds both first and second place by a wide margin. Emma wins the award for most time spent near Sidka, she’s rather fascinated with her, while Sam wins the award for actually falling asleep with her just a few feet away. Also for eating the closest to her, as if we had any doubt who would win that contest.

Sidka is definitely interested in the cats but has clearly been around cats before as she doesn’t move and scare them when they come in for their nose touches, and when she once got too close for comfort for Sam he swatted her on the nose and she immediately backed off and came over by me. The cats aren’t comfortable with her yet but today was excellent progress.

First Contact

Sidka has mostly black fur save for a tiny white stripe on her chest and white around her mouth, I suspect when she was born she must have wiped her mouth on the ground before the paint was dry. Speaking of paint, she also has some white fur that is only temporary thanks to some paint splotches on her head and tail. The reason her previous owners listed for giving her up was “Moving” so they were probably painting the house to get ready to move and a certain someone got a little too close …

We are going to change her name from Sidka but haven’t finalized the name from our pool of candidates. We’ve crossed a few off the list, I had originally suggested Willow but little Sam was horrified and pointed out that Old Man Willow in The Lord of the Rings eats hobbits. I didn’t quite see the problem until he reminded me that he was named after a hobbit. Good point little one!

Today was the first introduction of Sidka to the cats. After taking her for a long walk and run and playing ball with her, I put her leash on and held her close while my wife opened the door to the basement. Scout wanted no part of the proceedings but Sam and Emma did eventually creep down, moving in super-slo-mo as they crept down from the top of the steps to the landing to the bottom of the steps and finally into the den. Sam was first to approach with the fur on his tail spread wide, he rubbed noses with Sidka before backing off again. First contact! He and Emma later approached but were intrigued by Sidka’s bushy tail, when Sam went in for a sniff Sidka turned towards him and both cats bolted under the couch at full speed. They watched from a safe distance until we decided to call it a night.

Not bad for a first introduction!

Passing Grades

One of the good things about adopting Sam and Emma during Christmas break last year was not only being able to spend a lot of time with them to get them properly introduced to the household, but also having lots of free time to take pictures. This isn’t the case with Sidka, I worked from home today to see how she would do when left alone and that didn’t leave time for pictures. This one is another from yesterday, for some reason she looks like a young puppy to me in this picture but she’s definitely not so little.

Sidka had a lot of passing grades today, she had her vet exam bright and early and was not only friendly to the staff but so far seems in good health. She also did quite well being left alone during the day, technically I was here but I worked in my office and only checked on her a few times during the day. She slept peacefully downstairs when no one was there to keep her company and didn’t have any accidents. Scout was whispering words of encouragement down through the heating vents so I’m sure that helped.

There are a few things we’ll need to work with her on, such as obeying commands when she’s excited, tugging a bit on the leash, and thinking that every dog and person will want to meet her. But I am amazed at both how readily she has adapted to life here and how sweet she is, her previous family obviously took good care of her. She was kind of nervous at the shelter but at home we haven’t experienced the adjustment problems we expected. Knock on wood of course, the acid test is the introduction of the cats. Given how well she’s doing I think we may try that this weekend with some limited exposure before then. I don’t know what we’re going to do with feeding the cats, we used to just leave food out for them so we’ll either have to feed them in high places or start feeding them on a schedule too (somewhere little Sam is making a face of sheer horror at the thought).

She’s also warming up to me more although she obviously is still infatuated with my wife. When we were playing ball she started bringing it to me most of the time instead of always taking it to my wife, so she’s a quick study. She also showed a funny little trick today in that instead of always walking the tennis ball back to me and dropping it, she would stop a ways away and toss it to me with her mouth.

Her aim isn’t perfect but I dare say she could play for the Mariners 😉