September 23, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged excitable puppy, great dane food, puppy exercise, puppy play, timid puppy
BB in the sunshine! 9 months old
I got a camera again! I do, I got one. The boys will be hearing beeps and shutters in their dreams for at least a solid month. It’s been 6 weeks without any pictures and I’m going to go as hog wild as BB does with a new ball. The Brothers Grin get to be seen again, as all good celebs should be (ha, ha), via their own personal photographer.
He handled himself very well over the weekend with my niece, very well indeed. He had a couple instances of barking, and some muscle tension. Overall, I’m really happy to report that the 4 hour car ride Saturday left him far too tired to get his puppy panties in a knot. He went on errands with Mom in her car, Kenai and I in mine. We all slept away the afternoon because of it, too.
The king of the bump and wiggle hasn’t had his morning constitutional every morning, but now that Mom’s cold is getting better, that should return. He did another run off and chase me in the field thing to her Sunday morning, but I brought it all to a halt with a food bowl being filled up on the porch—he came gallopoling at a great rate for his breakfast. That’s the one ace in the hole with these two puppies; a jangling food bowl when they’re hungry!
Beebs hasn’t had a single problem with constipation on this new food, hooray! It’s called a high digestibility food, sometimes a low residue kibble, but I call it a low emission fuel. Twice a day is all he needs to go, and he doesn’t have any difficulty with the going. So that’s a battle won for now, not to mention a relief to us all. No more big worrying about trips to the e-vet for another plug-em-up problem, just little worrying just in case. We can’t go cold-turkey, ya know.
An the stress filled cycle of weekends with Emily will be over soon, just 22 days from today (Tuesday) when my brother has to be moved out. That’s only 3 more weekends to get through. We’ve made it through 25 of them, so hopefully 3 more won’t be too challenging. Beebs will still see Em from time to time on holidays and such, but not for 24-72 hour hauls every weekend anymore.
Mom has promised me up and down that Mike leaves whether or not he has a place or even a job: he will have had more than 7 months to take care of his affairs, which is more than most divorced people with bad credit have. He goes, and our four-pack has our house and our lives back. Don’t let us down again, Mom!
I think the little bent bottoms sort of misses me and Kenai. We aren’t spending nearly as much time with him, now that I don’t watch him every time Mom goes somewhere. The weather has cooled off enough he can go with her, and so our four-pack gets together in the afternoons or evenings.
It’s a nice break for me, and Kenai too, but BB will come and stand at the foot of the stairs like he misses us. “What ya doin up there?” Bless his heart, he wants to be involved in everything with everyone! One side effect of spending less time with him is he’s not minding me quite as instantly as he did. Still minds pretty well, but not as sharp if that makes sense.
I have my shoe still in the door as his outside play buddy, though—he comes to play with me outside more than he will anyone else. Mostly just because I play how he likes: gimme that stick games, find me games, get the tushie games… I let him get all hyped up and laugh like a goofus with him, and that’s just fun for a boy!
Encouraging him to be excited outside helps him be quiet inside. Satisfies his need for speed, and tires him quicker. The faster he gets tired out, the less like a monkey on meth he is inside. So there is a slightly ulterior motive, I suppose. Besides, it’s entertaining watching him indulge all that exuberance.
I think he’s awfully fun most of the time, though I have to admit he can be a pest. Every little once in a while he rattles my nerves, and one of them was this week. I gave him a good angry fussing at and he laid right down and pouted. We made up later, of course, but nothing else was getting the point across about backing away from the door when Kenai and I were coming in.
He’s so enthused to see us that he just doesn’t listen, and they’re too big to be all over each other and me like that. Some days I don’t need their help falling, I do it just fine on my own. So 200 combined pounds of puppies is no small amount of enthused.
Baby Brat has to learn to at least let us through the darn door before the doggie greeting rituals. Oh the tribulations of a boy! “I just was glad to see you…”
He’s only got it a little hard, though he’d tell you otherwise. He’s become quite the mouth recently, complaining when he doesn’t like something. Tough! Still it’s a blast listening to his puppy indignation. He gets in trouble, since we really can’t let him be that bossy, but we do get a good chuckle from it. All in all, Beebs is gonna make it and so are we. Just 22 more days.
September 20, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged gardening, great dane puppy, puppies and gardening, puppy play, reactive puppy
A boy and his field…this was way back when BB was 12 weeks old. He’s 37 weeks now, and our new camera shipped out Friday. New pics soon!
BB had a really tough week with Mom catching her granddaughters’ chest cold like the rest of us. He’s been entirely in her care for a couple weeks now, having returned my attention to Kenai’s needs and training, so there’s a transition there I suppose. He’s used to me being around and I haven’t been as much.
Then to add to it, Mom gets the gripes when she doesn’t feel good, so by Thursday he is was more inconsolably insecure than I had ever seen him. Nothing made him relax, nothing at all. Poor kiddo was just radioactive as puppy plutonium.
Beebs was still very unsure of himself, and hesitant Friday, though Mom was once more being encouraging to him. Any kind of noise or commotion upset his apples all day, so with my niece coming to stay the weekend (only 3 more after this!!!), we went out Friday night.
The whole crazy convoy that drops her off would have had BB swinging from the light fixtures, so out we went. It’s good that he gets out of the house. He got a nice long ride in the car, in the rapidly cooling evening air, and generally enjoyed the change of scenery.
With luck, and good sense, Mom will get him out for a romp in the field tomorrow. That should brighten up his uncertain eyes! The storms leftover from hurricane Gustav knocked down plenty of small to medium branches he can cart all over creation, and he likes to play with his orange ball too. Any play excites his happy meter.
And I’ve finally convinced Mom to go out in the field with him—I haven’t seen a snake out there since March and I’m in it with Kenai every day. I’ve also cut walkways in the taller grass. There’s nothing there that will do him harm that big brother hasn’t chased away already!
We’ve solved a small dilemma of where Mom can garden with Beebs without worrying about what he’s into or where he’s wandered to: the rose arbor. It’s a large one, with a table, a grill, some lounges and the like. It has a gate on one end, and the other end opens to the deck leading to the pool.
All it takes is a baby gate, and he’s closed in with her while she weeds and ties up rose canes. Kenai would leap right over the raised planters, but Bouncy bottoms doesn’t have the chutzpa. He can hang out on a bed in the sunshine instead of holed up in the expen!
Also, BB is very happy to carry sticks and twigs for you, and he’ll drop them on a pile too. I taught him that last spring, and you’d think he was Apollo he was so proud of himself. His brother would demolish the pile, but Beebers likes having a job to do. The bump and wiggles get bumpier and wigglier.
He would drop the stick where I showed him, gaze up at me like “I did it good, Auntie Lisa!”, and there’d a nice round of smooches and ear rubs, then off to work again. If he knows how to please you, he’ll do it till the cows come home! I think we’ll dust off his pile making skills this fall for Mom, our little busy buddy with ants in his pants.
One good thing about his gimpy rump, if there is anything good about it, is that he will lay down outside to rest fairly often. That should give Mom time to really concentrate on something for 5 or ten minute stretches, getting longer as the yard work goes on.
The trick for Mom is not to get so focused on the gotta-do that she doesn’t let a rhythm develop as they work together. They’ll both enjoy it more, working together. There’s some things outside he can’t be around, of course, but most of that work is up to me anyway.
I’m disabled, but I still have more lift and force capacity on my better days than Mom, so dismantling the lattice with it’s nails, sawing off big branches, or setting fire to the weeds in the unused veggie patch isn’t something she’s likely to do. She’s more of a weed yanker or rose pruner. I take on the big mess, she cleans up the stuff I leave behind.
After 18 years of yard work together, we have our established roles, and a rhythm of our own. It won’t take long before she and Beebs have a rhythm too.
September 13, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged dog food, great danes, littermates, puppy play, puppy toys
BB the serious playmonster! The pic is old, but the Beebs is the same!
I’m sitting here worrying about the boy’s breeder: she and her family live south of Houston TX and aren’t evacuating for hurricane Ike. So I’m going to worry about them. Word before I went to bed was the winds were going to be hurricane force all the way to Dallas. Ohhh, I wish she was cowardly as me!
BB is blissfully oblivious to my worries, having a couple of his own. Luckily, my niece won’t be here this weekend, at least she’s not supposed to be. He doesn’t have to worry about a 2 year old running around. He just wants out of his expen! Thursday he stayed in it as usual until Mom came home, and Friday too he spent another 4 hours in it while the rest of us were gone.
Now that we’ll have rain being pushed ahead of Ike today, and Ike himself will innundate us (7-10″) Sunday, the boys will both be stuck in the house. It’s bigger, but still a pen of sorts. Somedays it feels like a cattle chute, herding the livestock to and fro! Heavy rain is not good, because it means no outside runs for the boys–too much energy.
BB’s other worry is getting enough rumpus to suit him. And fight picking. He’s been determined to get after his brother the past few days, and it didn’t go well for him Friday morning. Normally I catch the mischief early and stop a tussle before it starts, but I can’t catch them all–like watching a pair of human toddlers, they will still manage to cause trouble right under your nose!
I’m not sure what motivates Beebs sometimes. Kenai and I were barely off the stairs Friday morning before BB stood up. That stinker bared his teeth at a much too much bigger opponent, who was casually walking to his bed. Kenai absolutely clobbered him, plain flat angry, too. BB just kept at it, and wouldn’t cry uncle. Even when I commanded Kenai “off” and sternly put him on his bed, BB continued to try getting to him.
He doesn’t learn from his beatings, and it worries me. He’s high strung and strung out for several months now. He also has the ability to blow the circuit on the rest of our little pack with his high voltage. His brother is sensitive enough to energy to be a medical alert dog, so it doesn’t take much instability to disturb him.
What really worries me is the one day in the future when little Beebs might start an actual bloodletting with industrial strength Kenai. Adolescent males can have some whoppers. Big brother is also 9 months old, but a heavy boned and muscled 120 pounds, versus BB’s small, thin built 95 pounds. Luckily, Big Bro is also astonishingly tolerant and dignified–not quick to fight.
He’ll put up with a lot of nip and swat and ignore it. But bared teeth Kenai won’t tolerate. He’s careful not to step on or hurt BB. He’ll make him cry though, and those SUV sized paws have alot of wallop behind them. He can roll his 95 pound littermate with one good swat.
That’s my over-the-winter indoor project: putting the brakes on the nonsense between the Brother’s Grin. I know how I would handle BB and bring down the voltage, but I can’t do it. That’s Mom’s dog and her responsibility. I’ve got my own handful to handle. One at a time I can control, but my energy isn’t strong enough to walk in and “own” a whole pack, especially with a special needs puppy in it.
By late fall, they will have had time to detox after my brother (and his daughter) leave, and they will have a set routine not altered so very frequently as it is. Mostly, Mom and I will have had time to settle. We humans will have our act together again, which means it will be time for the boys to toe the mark too.
♣
It’s not all teeth and flying fur here. Those are the unusual moments that are “exciting” enough to be mentioned, ya know? Mostly they just desperately want to play together. Part of my winter project is finding a way they can play without frustration (or bite and smash). BB already has his preferred ways of playing with people. He’s a bump and wiggle boy.
He’ll get a toy, come close, bump you and wiggle when you playfully pretend to try and “get” the toy. When you do get it, the toss and gallopoling run after it is great fun. BB doesn’t gallop, he gallopols, four feet flopping about in all directions, ears flapping like a dodo bird trying to fly… he’s a living cartoon when he’s playing.
He likes balls of any kind, toys that talk or sing, and anything he can chase. Give him one of those and the bump and wiggle is on! He loves to go outside, where he gets in touch with his “inner hunting puppy”, gallopoling through 3 acres. The outside time cuts down the voltage, though the tendency to wildness remains.
And BB has a foot fetish! Never, ever play barefoot with BB!
Beebs also has a new food, a sort of low-emmission kibble. He’s been contstipated twice since our last run to the e-vet, and I worry about wrecking his gut with so many laxatives. So we found a food that is supposed to have 96% digestability, meaning less has to go out the bent bottoms.
I’m really careful about Great Danes and food. The wrong food with improper ratios of minerals causes growth deformities and life-long orthopedic problems. Banana butt has enough of them, without food adding to it. I even had the store owner call the distributer to find out the calcium/phosphorous ratio! It was nice and low, so home with 2 big bags of Nutri-Source we came.
I’ll give it a week and see how they do. It’d be nice not to have giant scrap piles in the field, or not enough scraps coming out of BB. They love the taste, though neither of them has ever been a picky eater. Chow hounds those two. They’ve been through several foods in their short lives, and never resisted the change.
We’ll see about their food, we’ll see how they do without outside time, and we’ll see what it takes to turn of BB’s electricity. Lots of seeing…
September 10, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged fleas, great dane puppy, possessiveness, puppy exercise, puppy training, re-conditioning, reactive puppy, teamwork
BB eleven weeks ago, after a good long romp. “Can we go get a drink of water?”
I’ve been waiting for the new camera to post, but I am still without it. So ya get one more older pic of Mr Lump and Bump. He has always been a photogenic cuss, expressive and goofy. Still is. Yay!
Happily for him, he’s been getting an outdoor playtime in the cool air everyday, and is calmer for the few hours afterwards. He’s definitely one of those 2 or 3 times a day pups, but I’m just thrilled Mom’s taking him out in the mornings. That’s a good first step. And even once a day made the last 3 day haul with a 2 year old easier on him.
His latest flumpation is getting on and staying on his bed in the kitchen. Mom’s been trying to make that stick, even when he’s wound up tight as a spool of thread. Beebs just isn’t the inconspicuous type, so he isn’t always capable of parking and snoozing. I’ve convinced her to just let him wander and be up as long as he isn’t bugging his brother or sticking his nose on the table. When ignored long enough, he goes and lays down on his own.
When he’s being a pest at the table, then he has correction coming. He seems to feed on the attention, even if it isn’t happy. Silly boy! I’m debating about putting his bed farther away, but I’d still have to get up and deal with him over yonder, so I might as well leave it where it is. The trick to Banana Butt is to calmly, patiently, even serenly deal with him because it CALMS HIM DOWN.
Why can’t I get across to everyone else that irritation and frustration only make him worse? They see it for themselves, but keep on being irritated and frustrated. Duh. Grrr. Training people is harder.
Mom, BB, and I had a relaxing and enjoyable walk/romp Monday. BB has been playing catch me if you can with Mom, and the madder she gets, the more he does it. So I wander out and ask where my bump and wiggle boy is, and here he comes, galloping like a cartoon character! He stuck pretty close, in case I got the urge to play “you can’t find me”, or “I got your stick”.
Mom and I could slow down the pace, and make Beebs pick up his–he didn’t get a chance to be bored. We did the same thing to Kenai, who rarely gets much one on one time with Mom. Both pups got exercise and Mom and I enjoyed some laughs. Teamwork makes for a good time.
Unfortunately, Kenai was spotted with an unwelcome hitchhiker, so out came the frontline for both boys and furniture spray. I HATE FLEAS. Ticks you can pull, but fleas are an insufferable pest to get rid of. A day later, I saw another flea on Kenai. Okay, Frontline, he’s hardly infested, so why can’t you kill 2 fleas?
I hate using the chemicals, but I won’t allow the nasty beasties to live with us. All three of us had an off day, feeling not so good from it. They’ll bounce back, but I’ll sort of crawl back–alot of chemicals make me sick. The second flea spotting means I spray again.
It being Wednesday, we are supposed to have 2 more days to get BB good and relaxed before my niece comes again. I have a bad feeling my brother and his ex will have decided to bring her tomorrow or Friday morning, despite Mom’s having said no weekdays. They’ve done it 3 weeks in a row, and there’ll be serious consequences if they disregard her wishes again. They’ll have it coming.
BB is faring better with children overall, barking less in public when startled. We keep on with the “look at that” game, long term, and I believe we’ll have him non-reactive in time. There’s other aspects to work on, like anyone touching Mom or reaching over her. That’s more possessiveness, I think. But it all ties in. Once we get out of this lose-your-mind weekend cycle, we’ll have some breathing room to tackle more complicated issues.
Our little special needs pup is hanging in and being his funny self. And I will get pics up as soon as I get a camera to takes some pics. I’m going nuts without one. Running doesn’t help me, either. LOL.
September 5, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged depression, great dane puppy, littermates, puppy emotions, puppy play, reactive puppy, timid puppy
BB at 22 wks old, he’s now 35 wks and still has those expressive eyes!
Where oh where could my cam-er-a be?! Hopefully by the next post, there will be new pics of the bent-bottoms game boy. He’s driving Mom crazy in her craziness, of course, being the kind of pup that can act all wild and silly. She’s having some hard mood swings right now, under the strain.
I think now that she has decided and told Mike he has to leave by mid-October she’s switched from hunker down and take it mode to that ever difficult stage where she sees the end of the misery and just wants it over. She’s touchy and irritable, all strung out.
She’s worried about money too, with the horrendous 4 fold increase in our living expenses while he’s been here. Add to that a giant bill for fixing the mowers he messed with, and the now big bill to fix the fridge that broke yesterday. It’s all piled on and Mom’s got a touch of depression.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t have an inconspicuous pup who quietly goes to lay down when her mood is wonky. BB gets wonky too, hyper and hard to control. He nips and swats incessantly, barks and whines as insecure pups are apt to do. He doesn’t push her buttons, he stomps back and forth on them. I convinced her to take an anti-depressant pill this morning, just to stabilize her some.
So we have a clash of the titans, two strong and reactive personalities getting on each other’s nerves! I feel sorry for them, and try to be a calming influence. Doesn’t work or course, while they are both so tightly wound up. BB’s just being a dog, reacting to his environment by instinct. Only Mom can choose how to act and manage her emotions.
Mom’s trying, BB’s trying too. Uphill battle. With the wild week, we haven’t gotten Beebs in the the pool a single time. It’s so much work to get him in. I wish it were easier, so we could manage it every day. 86 pounds of “I don’t want to” is tough to manhandle. Still, it has to be done, for his sake. We’re due a spanking for our neglect of it.
Beebs did super well with the fridge repair guy when I kept Kenai upstairs. I convinced Mom to just let BB investigate and walk around, instead of insisting he stay on his bed. He wasn’t knocking into things or getting underfoot, and after a few minutes he simply laid down to watch. Good Boy!!
It’s been raining for 2 days, so neither pup has had any outdoor exercise. That should change today, with the sun out and the cooler temps. BB boy needs his tarzan time in our field ‘jungle’. It chills him out for awhile. He needs chillin out, being a high energy puppy! And my niece is coming tonight, so he should have his grand self two or more playtimes–makes it easier for him to be calm around her, and not go crazy.
Yesterday was Thursday, so he stayed in his pen while Mom was gone. He has his brother and me for company at least. I didn’t even try to take him out or feed him: the two were snippy snappy with each other, and being butts until I demanded they stop it. Two underexercised puppies don’t mix well with a migraine, so they stayed seperated until Mom came home.
The BB bottoms is bouncing around again, feeling better and being silly. He has ants in his pants! He’s awfully fun to watch play, legs flying around, ears flapping, toys squeaking. Our little cartoon character… It’s quieting him down that is the challenge. The best course of action is to let him play it out, and he’ll lay down on his own.
That’s the plan with BB: let him play it out, get all the icky stuff out of this system. We’ll see if Mom gets him to the field, and how he does this weekend, having had a break from the 2 year old. We’ll see!
