Lady Day 5

After today I'm not going to keep a day to day record of Lady's adventures because we are settling into a pattern.  Yeah, dogs love pattern. It's a get up in the morning, morning routine, play and nap during the day, potty around 2pm, and love on the humans when mom gets home/pre-wash dishes,  bedtime potty trip, then into the crate for bed time. Today she survived the roofers banging on the roof all day. My new tactic to keep lady from nipping me is working well. Lady also got to see Krystal and her boy friend Adam today. As much as she doesn't like/trust Lonnie, she instantly fell in love with Adam.  She is pretty comfortable here she is to the point where she will fall asleep in the evening and not even worry when we move around or leave the room. My mom, tonight, even checked her pulse in three places and she just looked up and laid back down and fell back to sleep. I guess she will just have to learn what happens when both me and mom are at work at the same time, Monday-Friday next week I'll be doing short days just behind the desk, but after that I may be working my normal 5 to 10 hours some days and she will be stuck at home probable in her crate until we can trust her not to destroy anything in the house or potty in the house when we are gone.

Lady Day 4

Well it was another day of learning for all involved. This morning Lady has began to figure out the routine, mom gets up, she goes potty, then Lady gets to go outside. She is also learning the words "outside" and "potty". She is always very excited when I come up stairs in the morning or when mom comes home from work. Today we had people over to work on the house, so lady spent most of the day running around trying to figure out what was going on outside. I think Lady has developed a sense of ownership for the yard and mom and me. Lady did better today about nipping me and and messing with the bird. I have a new tactic to help stop her nipping me, I'm not going to let her get so excited when we play. She still isn't eating regular or doing #2 regularly but tonight she did do both outside. That's a huge milestone by its self. Lady also went to vet today and passed her puppy check with flying colors. Most of the staff that was there wanted to take her home too. Our vet, Dr. Cays, approves of Lady and after all we went through with Blacktail that means a lot to me. Lady's spay day is set for Tuesday, the sooner its done the sooner she can go to daycamp and enjoy playing with other people and dogs.

Lady's Third Day Home

Lady trying to get the bird

Lady sound asleep in her favorite sofa spot

Mom and Lady out side in back yard

So today was a day of learning for everyone. Lady survived the night, she apparently likes bed time stories along with her night light at bed time. This morning I learned that she prefers the adult Proplan over the puppy stuff that my mom thinks she should be eating. With a full tummy and a trip outside, lady fell fast sleep on the sofa. After her nap she went into puppy mode and tried to play rough with me and to get to the bird. Both are things that I will be spending the next few days/weeks working on discouraging and stopping. She got so rambunctious at one point that I put her in her crate for a half hour. To my surprise I find a nice #2 mess in her crate. Well, at least she went #2 up to that point she hadn't and we were starting to worry. She had a late lunch nap and then was ready to play again. My hands will never be the same. We decided to go out for dinner so lady had to go back in the crate again. This is both good for her and for me. She needs to get over the separation anxiety and I needed a time where I wasn't yelling at her to get off the bird cage or to stop nipping me in her over excited play. When we got home, Lady had barked her self out, but had made a big mess of #2 in her crate. At the minute I'm doing wash after I had wiped out the whole crate floor. While we out at dinner we also stopped at Petsmart and bought her a longer rope toy with tennis balls on it. She loves It. Now she is passed out on the sofa corner again. So peaceful in her sleep, she needs to be this calm when she is awake.  I have pictures today to add, check her out.

living room running for me

Looking outside through back door

New Chapter

Well, it's been a while since I've used this blog, but since I'm stuck at home for the next two weeks with a SEVERELY sprained ankle(bad enough for it to be in an air cast) I might as well make some notes on the first few days for my new dogs (lady's) life with us.

So, some background on Lady to start. She is a black lab/beagle mix possibly. She's about 30 pounds and full of energy. She has three traits that make us think she is part something other then lab. 1. she is small for a lab. 2. she has a soft bay in her bark/cry. 3. she can stand straight up on her back legs. We don't when she was born but we assume she is about 1 year old. I meet her about 6-7 months ago when I noticed she was one of those dogs that didn't go home from the kennel in the normal 1 or 2 weeks. Most of the rest of the Kennelwood staff really did pickup that she hadn't gone anywhere tell about her fourth month in the kennel. I really began to bond with her around her fifth month in the kennel when it was pretty clear that she wasn't going  home. About that time we had to put are last dog down, Blacktail was 15 years old and even though her spirit was strong her body couldn't keep up. A week after Blacktail had passed I began asking my boss and the general manger of the Page Kennelwood (Amy) if there was a way to adopt Lady and give her a good loving home. In short after many phone calls between lady's ex-dad and Amy, letter of eviction from the kennel, Me asking about her everyday for two and a half weeks, and calls between Amy and the corporate headquarters I finally got to bring her home yesterday afternoon.

So yesterday was an exciting day for both my family, myself, and Lady. My mom meet Lady for the first time yesterday. Lady didn't, hasn't totally adjusted to her yet. She had no real experience in the car so that was her first big excitement. Next it was coming into an house. I was glad to see that she figured out stairs pretty fast. For the first few hours lady stayed near the back door in the kitchen while I made dinner (yes I can cook when I want to). Eventually she relaxed enough to explore the living room and the many soft surfaces with in it. I have never seen a dog so excited to have a soft surface to rub on. So far the sofa is her favorite place although she likes her dog bed also.  She was very intimidated by my mom boy friend Lonnie though and they just didn't quite make friends yesterday. Last night was her first night in a crate. She needs to be crated until we can trust her not to destroy the house while were gone or asleep. We learned that she needed a night light to sleep with, my moms room was to dark for her. who knew?

This morning started early because my mom had to be in St. Charles at 6:15 am to be ready for a hell class at 6:30am to start. Lady can be an energizer bunny in the morning I swear I spent 5-6 hours just trying to proof the upstairs against her and she up to this moment still is finding things and bring them to me and watching me put them back and try to block the place where she got them from. Also during this time Lady has also become comfortable walking around the bird. To be fair my green wing macaw, Cassey, can be intimidating even if your a 200 pound human.  Lady also discovered my snake, Zoey, but hasn't done much but watch her.  Lady doesn't hold still, if you sit maybe she will sit, but if you are moving about the room you bet she wants to she what your doing. Well, she did finally take a nap this afternoon from about 12:30 tell 3pm, but after that she was right back at it. Okay enough for now I need some dinner so I'll write some more tomorrow.

The Summer Blues

Well, I know is been a while scents I last updated my blog, but that's because nothing exciting really happen right now for me. My summer includes fill out an application a day for a job, house work both inside and outside depending on how hot it is, and taking care of my aging dog. I can't really complain about the house work or dog though. I am kind of mooching off my mom, now that dad has stopped sending my child support check. I feel bad that I don't have work,an income of money, to help pay for the house or car bills. She says not to worry about, but I do anyway. So if she says "jump", I ask, "how high". It's the only way I don't feel total useless.

I can really only stand filling out one application a day, if you've applied to anything lately, you understand. The paper work is extensive and although you can some time do it online by coping and pasting most of the time its either hand written or filled out by hand on the computer in whatever program or site the company uses. It's not like your filling you contact information over and past experience, it much more. You fill out your contact information, your social security, the Equal opportunity employment form, your current/past work, your community service, your references, and then you fill out a 5-10 page survey about your personality and how you handle situations. In short it goes on forever. It also doesn't help that live in STL right now, when phizer just let go of a bunch of scientist. So any lab position I might have gotten is now taken by someone that been in the feild, longer then I've been able work.

oh well, I'll just keep trying.

Graduation, Camping, Wolf Sanctuary Internship

Yeah, I finally did it. I graduated College. I now am the proud owner of a peice of paper that says I'm smart and deserve some respect. It only took 4 hours of torture called a graduation ceremony, 4 years of book work, some gross lab skills, many new freinds, and a new view of the world from the other side of the state through the eyes of others. I'm not going to miss test, papers, and constantly get sick, but I'm going to miss my freinds, my random adventures, and my freedoms.

Right after graduation I left for the feild trip part of my Biology Feild Trip class. This was a great way to force me not to think so much about leaving Rockhurst and focus on what I doing, physical labor does that, well if you don't want to get hurt. We camped at the Roaring River State Park for a night, proved that we were handicaped, got to see a fish hatchery, then we went to Lamberts in Springfeild, MO, that was a experience, we camped and stayed in a cabin a few days at The Lake of the Ozarks State Park, played hackysack, saw the lake, played card games, frisbee, and catch, we found a couple boob tree's, lizards, and turtles, visited Ha Ha Tonka State Park, survived Chad surprise, ate honey and peanut butter sandwhichs, and floated down a river . It was great fun though and I was able to escape the reality of life untell the last night of the trip. At least I got to say goodbye of my teachers, inculding one that was very special to me.

Right after getting home I started an internship at the Wild Canid Center. It was a miss advertisement on the internship, it was as much an animal care internship as it was a maintance internship. Along with getting to feed, water, and clean wolf poop, I also got to cut grass, srcub tubs, pull weeds, skin rats, play in posion ivy, pull vines off a fence, clear a path through the woods, and strip the plastic of steel cable. It wasn't all bad, I did get to see the new born puppies, help in the capture of one of the wolves, see Aferican wild dogs devor deer legs and bones, and educated the public on box turtles and then set one free.

I miss it all, I miss school, I miss my freinds, I miss my teachers, I miss the morning howls of the wolves, the stars camping, and yes even the alarms going off in the middle of the night.

Barbara Wynne Award / Snake Names

Okay, I really exicted becuase today at the Festival of Student Achivements I was chosen to receive the Barbara Wynne Award for Outstanding Biology Student. Its really awsome and a great honor. Only one person per year in the last three years has won this award, and this yearI and my freind Tiffany both won it. Along with getting my name ingraved on plague, a nice certificate, and a awsome card I also got a couple books. One is on animals of the world, it covers alot but misses out on birds. The second book, I'm most excited about, is on wolves. I'm thinking it may inspire me to get out my drawing pad and try drawing some wolf images.

If that wasn't enough, last night I looked up names for the snakes, I've been tracking with Dr. Walker. I suggested some names to her and she's already adopted them all for the snakes. So the boy snake transmiting at 515 is now Blaze, the girl snake transmitting at 105 is now Maya, and the girl transmitting at 482 is now Brook. Its kinda cool to know I got to name 3 timber rattlesnakes. Above is a picture of Maya and what we hope is her snake den in the background, it would be awsome if she did give birth considering these snakes are endanged in Kansas. Just don't tell the land owers near the park. Personally, I think I would be cool to have radio taged snakes in my backyard, as long as I had a reciver, but most people don't think that way.