A forlorn Ellie watches Sam and Emma play in the cat tree. She often relaxes this way with her front legs splayed wide. Don’t feel too sorry for her, she got some gifts from the pet store as well.
Tag: Ellie
Little Sam & Big Ellie
Ellie knows the bed is hers but apparently is willing to share.
Sam and Emma had been snuggling on the dog bed until Emma got up to curl up in one of the warm beds. That left little Sam all alone circle sleeping in the middle of the bed when Ellie came into my office. She sleeps on the bed frequently but rather than force Sam off, she lay down beside him with only her head resting on the bed.
What a sweetheart!
Trouble, 12 O’Clock High
“I see you up there little hawk and I’m sure you’re mighty hungry, but know this: you come for my hedgehog, you come for me. My name is Ellie!”
This picture is for my wife who loves Ellie’s soft, floppy ears. I forget what drew Ellie to attention, probably a bird outside or little Sam jumping onto the windowsill, but for a split second she raised her head (and ears) before resuming the serious business of squeaking her hedgehog.
I love this dog.
Some Toys Should Come with a Warning
A few months back my wife picked up this hedgehog from Plush Puppies for our dog Ellie. If you bite its head it squeaks (who wouldn’t?), it grunts when you bite its hindquarters, and it even rattles when you shake it all about.
My advice to Plush Puppies? Put a warning label on your toy!
Something like:
Warning: After she plays with hedgehog, your dog will abandon all other toys. When you throw dear old goose, her first and favorite toy, she will look at you like you just stepped off the moon. Rabbit had a brief moment in the sun but no more. Poor mallard and pheasant never had a chance. It’s all hedgehog, all the time.
I have to say I’m surprised by how much she loves it. Goose was such a natural fit, it squeaks easily — Ellie has turned carry-and-squeak into an art form — and is the sort of quarry for which retrievers were bred. The round shape of the hedgehog makes it harder for her to carry and squeak at the same time, she often has to stop and place it on the ground for a proper squeaking before continuing. And I doubt very much that a dog has ever retrieved a hedgehog in real life.
But whatever it is, the hedgehog has it.
Put Your Dog On My Shoulder
A couple of times recently, Ellie has curled up next to me in bed and put her head under mine. What a sweet girl!
There is other good news on the Ellie front. My wife took her in to get her weighed the other day and she’s right at her target weight of 70 pounds! This despite her continuing dietary adventures (her latest: a sealed tub of pistachios, a few slices of bread, and an unsuccessful attempt at a tub of mini wheats).
The vet was pleased and suggested we up her meals from one cup of dry food to a cup and a half. Ellie was so happy she spent the entire day running around singing “Victory in Jesus”. A bit over the top I thought but our girl does love her food.
Love Comes Tumbling
Ellie continues to confound with her dietary adventures, somehow opening a tupperware tub of freshly baked chocolate raisin cookies and devouring every last crumb, maintaining her perfect attendance in the clean plate club. But dear Ellie, not freshly baked cookies! Not freshly baked! If you must eat cookies, stick to the store-bought kind!
A day or two later she broke open a bag of cat treats and finished those off, followed later by the supplements she takes for joint health. If only the cats were so eager to take their medicine!
While walking her at night earlier in the week, she had so much energy I ran with her a bit. We ran past the houses in one section of the neighborhood where the tall trees block the streetlights, where the roots of the tall trees broke up the sidewalk, where I tripped on the broken sidewalk and faceplanted into the concrete.
I landed hard but was able to get my hands out in front of me, the ground knocking out the doggie treat I was holding. I wasn’t surprised that Ellie sniffed out the treat in the darkness and gobbled it down before checking to see if I was OK. My palms took the brunt of the damage and got skinned up pretty badly, as well as the top of my right hand. My left knee and right elbow were badly bruised but not bleeding.
After the first night the swelling went down and it was clear there was no permanent damage. The wounds are healing rapidly and the pain subdued with ibuprofen. It was a lovely weekend but I didn’t do any yardwork apart from mowing as I can’t put any hard pressure on my palms yet, but that left extra time to play catch with the tennis ball in the backyard with Ellie, a fair trade.
This picture of Ellie is from earlier in the year, you can see a bit of white paint on her neck. All of the paint spots are gone now, apart from a bit on her tail, the fur there must shed more slowly.
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.
Ellie Earns Her Freedom
We’ve completed a month of obedience training with Ellie at the Humane Society and have seen a marked improvement in her on-leash behavior. She’s still an excitable girl but her twice daily walks are much more manageable now. Her off-leash behavior is, well, she’s not going to be outside and off-leash anytime soon.
Indoors though she’s been fantastic and gets along well with the cats. Fortunately she’s sleeping on her bed in the basement at the moment, as Sam and Emma are asleep on her bed in my office with Scout a few feet above them in one of the warm beds. Ellie’s been so good with them that this week we’ve allowed her free roam of the house while we’re at work.
We’ve also started letting her up into our bed at night. Like me she’s a real snuggler, so that’s good, but I’m less pleased at the immovable black mass that occupies my spot when I come to bed at night. I naively assumed she’d move over when I climb in. She does not. Sam and Scout don’t always move either, but they also don’t weigh 80 pounds.
Ellie’s a black lab mix but we weren’t sure what makes up the non-lab part of the mix. After observing her for the past month, however, I can definitively state that she was mixed with 100% purebred stomach. After her early adventures with chocolate calcium chews, a tub of caramel, and a jar of dog treats, she has branched out into a block of cheese, potato chips, a batch of muffins my wife baked, a bag of noodles, and a variety of other snacks.
Oh, and some granola bars and breakfast bars in my backpack. Which were in a zipped compartment. She didn’t chew her way in but instead seems to have worked the zippers. Zippers. Zippers!
Two Cats, One Dog
I’m on the couch in the basement with little Sam sleeping on my lap, Ellie curled up against both of us, and Emma curled up at Ellie’s feet. All we need is Scout!
Boolie 