Author: finchy

Yesterday, Buster & I got to meet some new friends!  We met at the dog park in Plainfield.  We got to meet: Spirit Tripawd Tate’s little sister Sam and her baby brother Zeke, Tripawd Holly and Zuzu, and Tripawd Queen Ginger.  We got to meet their pawrents too, and they are all soooooo very nice!  Noah and Juli came along too and they had a lot of fun running with the dogs and giving treats out.

Sam and Zuzu are very fast, but I was able to keep up with them for the most part.  It was nice to run with dogs that are as fast as me.  Buster can’t keep up with me at home so he just stops in the yard and waits to cut me off.  Towards the end of our visit, I got hot, so I laid down near Ginger.  She reminded me of Chili Dawg, which was very nice.

Noah’s favorite parts of the day included: 1) meeting Ginger- because she looked like Chili Dawg (his exact words), 2) seeing the 2 very fast dogs run (Sam and Zuzu), & 3) collecting pine cones (he turns them into bird feeders- thanks Special Agent Oso & the Disney Channel).  Juli’s favorite part of the day: “lots of puppies!”  Juli often found herself in the “sea of dogs” and would get knocked down.  Where some kids might have cried, Juli was always laughing and yelling, “more again!” wanting them to knock her over and give kisses again.

At the end of our visit, I did get cranky when a bunch of new dogs showed up and started sniffing at me.  Then Mom had to drag me to the van, while Aunt Jan stayed with Juli who was crying because Mom left the dog park.  I didn’t mean to get cranky, I was just hot and I didn’t want to be sniffed anymore especially by a bunch of new dogs that just showed up to our pawty.  Buster and I were pretty tired for the rest of the day, and Juli took a really long nap.  It was such a fun time!

Here are a few pictures from our day :

Back when Chili Dawg was still with us, Mom and Dad used to say I was “simple”.  Not anymore.  Now, I’m the genius of dog family.  Poor Buster.  He still runs into the screen door every single day.  In fact, this morning, he was so excited to go outside that he took the screen door completely off the sliding part (he can’t go through it, because Mom and Dad put pet screen on it from back in the day when I went through the patio screen door).

Last weekend, we took a trip up to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  I don’t think Buster had been on many road trips with his first family before.  Dad had to practically lift him into the van because he didn’t know how to get in.  Then, he didn’t know where to sit (we get the whole back seat of the van to ourselves!) and tried to sit in the driver’s seat.  Mom had to pull and Dad had to push to get him out of that seat and into the back by me.  When we got to Grandma and Grandpa’s, he couldn’t figure out how to get out of the van either.  I had already greeted Grandma and was in the backyard with Sarge and Burley before they got Buster out of the van.

From then on, we were a “Sea of Dogs”.  I am the oldest at 9.5.  Then there’s Sarge.  He’s 6.  In January, Grandma and Grandpa rescued Burley, who is a mastiff mix.  He lived down the street from them, and his owners wouldn’t let him come inside the house ever!  It gets COLD in January in Illinois, especially if you don’t have a thick coat, so my Grandpa knocked on their door and asked if they could bring Burley home with them- he didn’t even have an outside dog house!  His owners said yes, and Burley came home with them.  Grandma and Grandpa took him to the vet and got him healthy and he started gaining weight (he was skin and bone).  Now he weighs around 92 pounds and he’s a gentle giant.  And then, there’s Buster.  We all got along pretty well.  Buster and I did get Mom up at 6 AM the next morning, but she enjoyed the silence and sitting on Grandma and Grandpa’s deck.

Later that day, our human cousins arrived and everyone went strawberry picking.  It was hot out, so we got to stay inside in the air conditioning.  We were tired out anyway, from playing and wrestling with each other the day before.  Then, we had to leave to go home.  Dad had to again show Buster how to get into the van.  This time, he did go to the back seat.  Since he’s younger than me, I let him have a little bit of the seat, but I took up most of it.  Hey, that’s what Chili Dawg used to do to me, so now it’s my turn!  Then, we got home.  Oy!  Mom and Dad got the kids up to bed first.  Then, they came back and I got out the usual way.  Buster just sat there and looked at Mom and Dad.  Then, he decided to try to climb OVER the back seat and go out through the back hatch!  It was good that Dad was standing there to catch him!  I don’t know what that boy is thinking, but if he had just followed me it would have been so much easier!

I do have to say that it is nice to be the smart dog for a change.  This must be what Chili Dawg felt like all the time.

Mom said it was time for me to post an update on Buster.  We adopted him in March and he has settled into our family pretty well.  Of course, there was some initial carnage.  He seemed to take a liking to Juliana’s Little People, and learned how to open her Noah’s Ark in order to get to the Little People and Animals stored inside of it.  We learned to keep the Little People up high when Juli isn’t playing with them, and poor Buster has to be crated when there aren’t any humans home, because he really really likes Juli’s things no matter how well she puts them away!

His diet is going well.  Dad takes him on part of his runs on the weekend.  He does 2 miles with Dad and then gets dropped off at the house.  He has gone from 95 pounds down to 80 pounds!  Yay Buster!  He doesn’t look like he’s going to pop anymore, which is good.  He is slowly becoming comfortable with Dad brushing his teeth and cleaning his ears out.  That has been a slow process, especially the brushing the teeth.  I don’t think his old owners did any of that for him.

He did have an incident with a bunny though.  Mom says Buster is innocent, but the jury is still out.  All I know is that I heard Noah say, “Mom, what is Buster carrying in his mouth?” and then I heard Mom yell, “Ew!  Oh no.  Buster drop it, drop it, drop it, and get in the house now!”  Then she grabbed a couple bags and ran outside.  I overheard her tell Dad that the bunny was dead.  She doesn’t know if Buster killed it or not, but he definitely was carrying it in her mouth.  She also told Dad that he owed her big time for having to bag a dead bunny.

Then there was the day of the “terrible smell”.  Mom and the kids came home and Noah said, “Mom, why does the house smell like poop?”  Poor Buster.  He had an upset stomach and had diarrhea in his crate about 5 minutes before Mom and the kids got home.  He was good and tried to not sit in it.  After Mom got the crate cleaned out and Buster bathed multiple times, and the house aired out (thank God for the whole house fan and a nice day out), she again told Dad that he owed her big time.

Which brings me to this weekend.  Yesterday, Dad went out for his run.  Mom was the only one up besides me and Buster.  She let us outside.  Well, Buster saw something.  I’m not sure what, and he busted through a rotted part of the fence.  Mom didn’t know because she was inside.  So, I did the only thing I could think of, and started barking and barking.  Mom came out to call us in and that’s when she saw that Buster was gone and the hole in the fence.  She immediately got me in the house and ran out the front door calling for Buster and saying some other words that I’m not allowed to type.  I also heard her mumble something about Chili Dawg never doing anything like this.  I watched from the front door as she took off down the middle of the street, barefoot and in her pajamas yelling for Buster.  When she got to the end of the street, I saw Buster come running from a different direction.  He ran right to Mom.  Mom grabbed his collar and then Buster practically dragged her home.  As soon as Dad came home from his run, Mom sent him out to the “Man Store” to get supplies to fix the fence, and the 2 of them spent the rest of the morning finding and repairing ALL of the rotted areas along the fence line.

Geesh, that Buster.  He sure keeps us on our toes!

It’s been a while since I posted, but this month has been crazy!  On March 4th, I got a new brudder!  His name is Buster, and he is a 5 year old Golden Retriever.  Momma has been asking for another dog since January because she knew I was lonely, and finally Daddy said okay!  So, Momma jumped on her ‘puter and went so some website called petfinder and found us Buster.  He’s a little on the chubby side at 95 pounds, but Momma says we will whip him into shape in no time.  All I know is, I am not lonely anymore.  We play outside all the time, and he wears me out!  I can still out run him though.  He can only keep up with me for 2 laps around the yard.  But when we wrestle, I end up having to lay on the ground because I get tired!  Chili Dawg used to lay on the ground when we would wrestle, and now I understand why.

Momma calls Buster, “Thumper”, because he has a very loud tail.  As soon as Buster hears you coming, he thumps his tail on the floor and it’s really really loud.  He’s good with the little kids too.  He lets Noah play pretend vet with him.  Noah has a doctor kit and he lets Noah try to listen to his heart, and put a blood pressure cuff on him, and check his ears.  I don’t like doing that stuff, so it’s good that we have Buster now.  He’s still kind of naughty though.  Today was the first day Mom and Dad forgot to put the baby gate up, and Buster destroyed the comforter on their bed.  I told him to stop chewing it, but he didn’t listen.

Momma says I’m smarter than Buster.  We have been having warm weather, and we NEVER have warm weather in March.  So Mom and Dad have the screen door open on the patio door.  I only run into it the very first time it’s open, and then I remember that it’s there.  Buster runs into it every single time he goes out.  I was never as smart as Chili Dawg, but finally I’m smarter than my new brudder.  I think Chili Dawg sent him to us, because Momma had been looking on petfinder for Golden Retrievers and they are hard to find- all of the golden retriever rescue places around us won’t let you rescue a golden if you have kids under the age of 5, so when Momma found Buster and he wasn’t at a golden retriever rescue, it was a sign.

So today this white stuff started to fall from the sky again.  I don’t get it.  Yesterday we were all playing outside.  The kids weren’t even wearing their winter coats- seriously.  Mom said it was close to 60 degrees when she got home from work!  Today, there’s white stuff falling from the sky and it’s cold again.  I don’t like the cold.  I’m not built for the cold.  Today it took Mom longer than normal to get home with the kids from school.  Then she made the kids put on all sorts of layers and made them go outside to PLAY in the white stuff while she shoveled the driveway and sidewalk.  I tried to tell them that it was a bad idea by barking at them from inside, but they stayed out there for a while.

Chili Dawg loved the white stuff.  He would go out there and roll around in it and make snow angels.  Chili Dawg would have loved today.  I wonder if he sent us the white stuff?

Today, I turn 9 years old! Yep, I’m a Halloween baby.  Mom keeps threatening to dress me up as a bumblebee, but Dad told her to give me a break this year since the Chili Dawg isn’t here to dress up too- thanks for helping me dodge that bullet, Dad.  Mom says that after work we’re going to take Noah and Juliana trick-or-treating.  I hope that means treats for me too, because it’s my birthday, and I should get something too, don’t you think?  I hope it’s not too cold outside, although I did see that Mom brought out my red hoodie and my green coat that great-grandma made for me so that I can stay warm.  I miss my snuggle buddy, and wish he were still here for my birthday celebration, but I know that he’s celebrating with me up in doggie heaven.  For today, everyone gets a head butt and a wiggle-butt dance from me 🙂

Ugh.  I think my dad got me confused with the Chili Dawg.  Chili Dawg used to love bath time.  He loved anything that had to do with being wet.  One time mom and dad took us to “Dog Daze” at the community pool, and they pretty much had to drag Chili Dawg out of the water when it was time to go home.  But me?  I sunk like a stone in the pool.  I don’t like to be wet at all.

Apparently this past weekend, Dad decided that I smelled and needed a bath, so he gave me one.  I didn’t put up too much of a fight, because the tub gets slippery, and I learned that lesson when I was much younger.  So I sat in the tub and let Dad wash me, but I wasn’t happy about it.

Now that I’m clean, I have to work on finding my smell again.  Any suggestions?

Finchy here.  It’s been a while since I posted.  I’ve been missing my brudder a lot, and so has my mom.  Over the weekend my pawrents took all of us up to visit our grandpawrents.  Our cousins and aunt and uncle were up there too.  So were my dog cousins:  Sarge, who I’ve known for a long time- my grandpawrents got him after their Beagle, Fred, crossed the Rainbow Bridge, and Igor- who I just met- my aunt and uncle decided they were ready for another dog after their pitbull, Leia (who was the sweetest princess ever) crossed the Rainbow Bridge a long time ago.

Sarge and I get along fairly well, because the Chili Dawg was the alpha of the group and had put Sarge in his place when he was added to our pack.  Igor never got the chance to meet the Chili Dawg, and is still a puppy.  Sarge seemed to understand that the Chili Dawg is gone and that I’m still grieving him, but I don’t think Igor understands that I’m still grieving and I don’t really want to play ALL THE TIME, right now (give me a couple months and then I’ll be ready, I’m a Boxer after all, playing is what we do- right Rumbles?).  I did have to put Igor in his place once during the day, and I did feel bad for getting all cranky on him, but…

I did, however, get plenty of love from my little girl, Juliana, and her cousin she fondly calls, “Bubba” (his real name is Brendan, but they call him Chubba Bubba, & Juli picked up on the bubba part).  Brendan and Juli are 6 months apart and have their own little language that no one else understands…well, I think I understand it.  Of course, Mom doesn’t have a current picture of the 2 of them together, so I have to put in a picture of the 2 of them at Easter when they are both being “yelled” at for throwing their easter eggs out of their basket, because then the eggs opened and the candy bounced everywhere- which they thought was the funniest thing ever (notice they have similar looks on their faces).  So I’d say it was, overall, a successful roadtrip.