Busy Weekend

I think weekends should *always* be 3 days. By the time Sunday evening rolls around, I'm beat and need a day to just do nothing. That's what Mondays should be for. Some would argue that people actually do nothing on Mondays, even when they're at work.

On Saturday, Greg played in the AACO Sports Day volleyball tournament with some friends. When he got home, the first words out of his mouth were, "I'm too old for this stuff." I don't think it was the volleyball as much as it was the beer and sangria that he drank between games.

While he was having fun in the sun, I was volunteering at a Pound Puppy Rescue adoption event in the morning. There were lots of puppies; I'd guess about 30 puppies. I didn't have a foster puppy, but I helped out with the sign-in sheets and making sure everyone got interviewed. The majority of the people came to see the mountain bike litter, 8 lab mix puppies; 4 yellow and 4 black. They are C-U-T-E! If I was fostering this litter, I might have to keep one of the yellow lab pups so Tachi could have a little brother or sister as a playmate.

In the afternoon, I took Tachi to the Fort Funston with Ann, Newton and their dogs, Buttercup and Muffin. Tachi LOVES Fort Funston. We love it too because he always comes back really tired and messy. (Okay, we don't really like the messy part, but it's worth it).

On Sunday afternoon, we went to the Mountain View Obon Festival. A friend of mine was working the corn dog and french fry booth. I'd never been to the Obon festival, even though in college, I went to lots of parties/dances that happened in the evening after the festival. Greg told me he used to go the Obon festival at the Buddhist Church in Sacramento, where he spent most of his time at the game booths. We ate corn dogs and shaved ice (the line was super long for shaved ice), played Bingo (didn't win anything...boo), checked out the exhibits and watched a Taiko performance. We didn't stay for the Bon Odori dance, which seems to be the highlight of the festival. Maybe next year, we'll check out the San Jose Obon Festival, which is supposed to be bigger than the Mountain View festival.

Liberty

For the past week, we've been doggie-sitting Liberty while Jeff and Jeanette were vacationing in Maui. It's been fun having another dog in the house. I'm not sure Tachi would agree with us, as he's gotten quite used to being the king of our little castle. But it's good for him to learn to share his toys, water bowl and our attention. Having Liberty live with us for a week has given us a chance to get to know her better. Some observations (in no particular order):

• She doesn't simply walk; she sashays. Liberty shakes her boo-tay when she walks.
• She has no concept of personal space and likes to climb up on your legs when you're sitting on the couch. She'll walk right up to you and start panting in your face.
  
• She's an attention whore. Whenever we play with or pet Tachi, she'll come over and push Tachi out of the way or climb on top of him to try to get to you. When you push her off, she just tries again. She probably thinks it's a game. She'll also climb up on the bed in the morning to see if you're awake. If you try to push off the bed, she'll just climb back up. But if you roll over and ignore her, she'll go away...eventually
• She leaves pools of water on the floor when she drinks from the water bowl. I'm not talking about dribbling water here and there. I'm talking about leaving a trail of puddles around the water bowl, down the hallway and finally dripping some onto your foot in the living room.
• She got used to being crated when we weren't home. I'm sure it helped that we threw her favorite treats into the back of the crate to lure her in and that we'd feed her in her crate too. She barked and whined a few times as we'd leave the house, but by the time we got home it was quiet...no barking or whining.

Having Liberty for a week has also helped me appreciate how well trained Tachi is. It's so much easier when your dog actually responds to you say, "Sit." "Off." "Down." or "Drop." We've enjoyed having her with us. She's back home now with Jeff and Jeanette, but I have a feeling Liberty might be staying with us again sometime in the future.

Doggie Update

Just a quick update on momma dog, Mikasa and her pup, Molten. Molten was adopted to a family in Alameda who had an 80 lb black lab. He has been renamed Quincy. Our friends at Pound Puppy Rescue, think he might be a Lab and Newfoundland mix. Good think his adopted family has experience with big, energetic dogs!

Mikasa has been adopted by Greg's brother and sister-in-law. I guess they didn't realize how much they wanted her until she was gone! =) They've renamed her Liberty. Jeff and Jeanette came down last week to pick her up. She met Tachi, her doggie cousin, and they got along fine. Well, if you consider Tachi ignoring her every time she tried to get him to play with her getting along, then it was fine. Liberty's going to be staying with us next week, so they'll have plenty of time to get to know each other.

Thanks to Grace for helping find homes for both Quincy and Liberty!

How Much is That Puppy in the Window?

A few weeks a ago, Greg's parents found a black lab and her pup wandering the streets. They didn't have collars and weren't chipped. So, Mom Tai called Greg because we have a couple of friends who rescue and foster puppies.

This past weekend, we drove up to Greg's parents house to pick up momma and her pup. Momma is a really sweet dog. She rolled over right away when Greg greeted her. She likes to jump up when she's excited, but was a quick to learn that's not okay to jump on people. She wasn't food motivated, but loves attention and seems eager to please. Momma walked well on leash and did really well on the car ride back to Grace's place.

The pup is huge and really cute! He's got the biggest paws and if those are any indication, he's gonna be a big dog. I know he's part lab, but his poppa was probably a BIG dog. Looking at his paws made me realize how dainty Tachi's paws are. (Sorry, Greg.) He's got tons of puppy energy and is a bit mouthy. When I was playing with him, he bit me (accidentally). Of course, I screamed, "Ouch!" when he bit me. After I corrected him, I checked my thigh and the little bugger broke skin! He didn't bite me that hard, but his puppy teeth are pretty sharp.

The pup had never met a leash before we took him for a walk around the block. It was hilarious watching/listening to him walk on a leash. He started out trying to eat the leash, which is bad. And then he did the "I'm just gonna park my bottom right here and make you drag me." After that he did the "Fine. I'm gonna run ahead of you and then yelp at the top of my lungs when I reach the end of the leash and get tugged backwards."

Both momma and pup are being fostered now - in separate foster homes. I hope they find good homes and a families that will love them. Check out their adoption pages: Momma (Mikasa) and Pup (Molten).

The Dog Just Wanted Attention

Tachi is doing much better and probably won't need the surgery. It's amazing how quickly he improved...makes us wonder if he was just faking it. We'll never really know what was wrong, if whatever was in his paw worked its way out or if it was the antibiotics. The mysteries of vetrinaray science (and $250). I suppose all that matters is that he's getting better and starting to rough house with Buddy. =)

Our Dog is Broken

This morning started with the sound of Tachi heaving at 5:00 AM. The heaving sound quickly turned into a barfing sound. Ugh...it must be all those "treats" that people were feeding him. As we were cleaning up the mess and getting Tachi some water, we noticed that he was limping.

Greg put him on his back and started to check his feet. When he touched the outside pad of his front left paw, Tachi yelped and started to squirm. He had a cut on that pad about a week ago. We had put some Neosporin on the cut, and it looked healed over. It didn't look inflamed or red. But Tachi wouldn't put any pressure on his left paw. When he sat, his front left paw would be lifted off the ground. When he stood, it was the same thing.

Since everything looked okay on the outside, we took him to vet to have his paw checked out. The vet started to check his paw out, but Tachi was too squirmy. He had to be muzzled and restrained by both the vet tech and Greg. I guess I'd be squirmy too if someone was poking me where it hurt. The vet didn't see or feel anything wrong during the exam and recommended an x-ray because it could be fracture in his paw.

After waiting for 15 minutes, we were called back into the exam room to look at the x-ray. As we were looking at his x-ray, the vet commented that Tachi was a handful during the x-ray. Oh boy. I wonder if he's going to hate going to vet now. We looked at the x-ray, and there was no fracture. But there was a mysterious, small density at the base of his outside pad. The vet speculated that it could be an infection was developing where the cut had been, which is what was causing the pain. Or it could be a piece of gravel or something embedded in that pad. We had two options:

1. Wait it out and see if whatever was causing the pain would work itself out. He'd give us some antibiotics in case it was an infection.
2. Schedule a surgery to remove the mysterious density. Because they didn't know what they were looking for, it would be difficult to find it and could actually do more damage to his pad than good.

We chose option 1 and would touch bases with the vet on Friday for a progress report. If it wasn't better, then we'd have to bring him on Friday for the surgery. Ugh...I really hope we don't have to bring him back on Friday.

On our way home, I told Greg that this must be like being a parent with a kid who was climbing a tree, fell and broke his/her arm. The big difference is that a kid would be able to articulate what's wrong or what happened. Whereas a dog, really can't do that.

Tachi's been mopey all day and very tentative with is front left paw. Instead of following us around the house or playing with Buddy, he's just resting on his dog bed. I hope he feels better soon. =(