A note about the Vet

It hasn't stopped raining here yet. Except for a few sunny days between now and the last post, our yard still looks just like the previous pictures. Schools have been closed for the past 3 Fridays in a row now. Novel doesn't mind the mess outside...but my mom does. Continually muddy paws are not exactly compatible with good housekeeping skills. It's like the quote I read on facebook the other day:

"Cleaning a house with a dog in it is like eating an oreo while brushing your teeth."

Sooo true.

Especially when the dog is a lab.
And the entirety of the outdoors is composed of mud.
Vomit doesn't help matters.
Which finally brings me to my point:

Lookit! He was just a little kid back then!

The handsome bud Novel is just getting over a bout of entirely unexplained but regular stomach sickness. It began around a week ago and continued once a day like clockwork (except, of course, for Sunday, the day of rest. ha.) until Tuesday. Normal eliminations, normal eating and drinking, normal behavior, and the vomiting seemed to have no relation at all to mealtimes. We still don't know what the deal with him could have been. After a series of x-rays just to positively rule out the possibility of an obstruction or other strange thing going on inside, we have put him on Metoclopromide which seems to have done the trick, and which Novel gobbles up greedily 3 times a day. And no, it's not flavored. Novel just likes the taste and texture of chalk, I guess.

Novel loves the people at the vet...which in our case are the people at work. They are the only people I have ever seen Novel grin for. Including myself. And of course they all adore him. It works out great for us...I can be almost positive that he will never have much trouble with disliking going to the vet. He has had so many good experiences with all the reasons that dogs hate the vet, I really can't see it ever being a problem.

Novel has probably seen more surgeries than most people. He regularly gets to meet dogs (and cats!) of ALL shapes and sizes, and has mastered the art of ascending and descending a very precarious spiral staircase. (Believe me, I work at the. awesomest. animal hospital you've ever seen)

It's also great to have the dog-sized scale so readily available for our monthly weigh-ins. This month Novel weighed 66.6 lbs. haha yikes! I rounded up ;)

We Grew a Lake!

Well aren't you all lucky! 2 posts in one day.

I figured I would do a picture post of our new lake. Abbi and Novel have been having a blast with it. Please understand that this area of our land is usually as dry as the rest of it. Sometimes if it rains a lot, it will collect a little water, but I've never seen more than a few inches full. Needless to say, we have gotten MUCH MORE that "a lot" of rain over the last few days. Just yesterday alone we got 3.5 inches!

"Don't you see it? It's right there!"

"I like big sticks and I cannot lie"

Speed racin'

If I didn't know better I would think there was only one dog in this picture

Wet dogs make happy tails :)

Big Boy Food

 It is with a bittersweet smile that I announce that my little man is no longer so little. On Monday, the 14th of January, 2013, Novel, son of Jensen IV and Gaylor II, turned one (1) year old.

Nawww!! Nook at da widdw puppy dog!!

Top: 4 months
Bottom: 1 year
Bud, you haven't really changed a whole lot

On the same day, (whether by random luck or premeditated by Eukanuba's people who determine dog food bag size, I know not) he had his first meal of "big boy food."

Sorry about the blurry picture...the cat bumped me as I was taking it and I was
too lazy to take another

I didn't really like buying Large Breed Adult dog food. First of all, by the time I realized that I was gonna need adult instead of puppy, I had already pulled out the hugest size bag of large breed puppy and I had to figure out a way to stuff it back into the shelf without it falling out again. Kudos to the people who stock dog food shelves.

 Then, I go to pull out the adult dog food, and right there on the front, there is a great big adult dog! No more puppies! What's up with that? I mean, why buy dog food if it doesn't have cute puppies on the front right?

Finally, I got home and opened the bag and the kibbles were shaped differently! What kind of freak show is this anyway? Supposed to be better for the dog's teeth, but in my book, it just makes it less scoop-able.

Oh well maybe I'm complaining too much. Maybe I'm just sad that my puppy is no longer a puppy...although I gotta admit, he's a lot easier to live with now that he's grown up some. And Novel seems to like the new food just fine.

It's not the 14th anymore. Novel has been one for a few days now, and thing's haven't changed much. Except for our yard. Novel went swimming in it this morning. I'm not talking puddle splashing..he went full out swimming. Those of you who live near here can relate...schools have been closed since yesterday because of all the rain, and I can't stop thinking: "If only this was snow......"

Oh yeah, and Novel bit me this morning too. Ha. It was a total accident though. Part of a game called "There is a stick in Katherine's hand." Let's work on not grabbing things from me, ok Novel?

Looks puny, put he actually sliced me pretty good with his K9. This was
and hour after it happened and it was still bleeding.

St. Joe's state park

Close your eyes and imagine a beautiful, white, sandy beach. Well, actually, if you close your eyes you won't be able to read this, so go ahead and keep them open. But keep imagining the beach. Vast white sand extends as far as the eye can see in both directions. On one side it is bordered by graceful palm trees and on the other, the blue ocean laps gently at the shore. Seashells of every color, shape and size are scattered liberally across the sand. The morning sun is still so low that even the shells cast long shadows.

Yeah, yeah I know. No palm trees. They were on the other side of the peninsula from this picture.

Now imagine a dog charging gleefully down the beach. He is a large, handsome dog, and his jet black coat shines and flashes in the morning sun. Dancing playfully through the shallows, he is the very essence of freedom and joy.

At this point, the idyllic image tantalizing your brain begins to go a little south. You suddenly realize that this dog running so free and unsupervised down the beach is supposed to be one of the elite CCI service dogs in training who are never supposed to be off leash unless supervised and in a safely fenced area. But he is not wearing his customary yellow cape. You scan the horizons for his handler...someone...anyone! But to no avail.

From another corner of your consciousness you become aware of the fact that the above mentioned dog is charging down a beach in a State Park that strictly prohibits dogs of any sort off leash. And he is running on a beach that does not allow dogs at all. Period. In fact, you can just make out a sign in the distance that reads "Pets Prohibited."

Can you see it? Good job you're almost finished.

Now, dig deep into your memory banks and go to the place where you keep memories of things you don't want to remember but can't exactly manage to forget. Find the nastiest rotting dead thing you can find. We all have one or two in there somewhere. Preferably it should be some kind of marine animal, but a bird will do just as well. Actually any smallish animal will do as long as it is dead and rotting. Place this bit of stinking organic matter into the dog's mouth. Some of it should hang out the side a little, flopping against his face with every bound the dog takes.

Not exactly a dead rotting animal, much less THE dead rotting animal...but shells were just as
characteristic - He LOVED them :)

Congratulations! You have just recreated Novel's last adventure from our recent trip to St. Joseph Peninsula State Park.

Ok, to be honest, I took some artistic licence in telling that story. Obviously I wasn't actually there, but most of the details are accurate, like the time of day, the picture of the beach, the dead thing, and most importantly the unsupervised and forbidden off leash freedom. (we did have permission to have him on the "Pets Prohibited" beach, but only as long as he was wearing his cape. Which he wasn't) However, as my brother (who was the one who actually retrieved Novel from this adventure) informed me, he wasn't exactly charging down the beach when he found him, but was sniffing around a fire pit, and turned into the gleeful dancer only after seeing his captor. Though, judging from my own knowledge of Novel's personality, I think it's safe to infer that he probably did take a turn dancing down the beach.

My brother's probably-more-accurate-version of the story was actually quite hilarious in itself, but unfortunately, I don't seem to have the same knack for telling it as he did, and besides, I had already written this whole thing out.

Despite Novel's crazy escapade, our trip to St. Joe's this past week was quite wonderful. It was filled with long walks and early morning runs on the beach, puzzles, good food, a little shopping, an epic sandcastle, swimming, (yes, swimming in January!)  and of course lots and lots of sand and saltwater everywhere :)

Just realized that there aren't really many pictures of me on here...
so for those of you who don't know...that's me.

This face is the absolute epitome of Novel :)
Only imagine a tail wagging so hard you can't see it. Come to
think of it, that may be what's actually going on in this picture...

Me and my peeps :) Except for my bro who was taking the picture.

Just to prove that I did actually go swimming...but it was COLD!

Yes. There was sand and saltwater EVERYWHERE!

 I'm pretty positive that Novel somehow got the memo that this was a vacation, because even with his cape on, he never really made the switch into his usual "working mode." He wasn't bad exactly...just full of himself...full of puppy playfulness and his usual, crazy, all-encompassing joy for life. And of course it probably didn't help much that his gentle leader broke in the car on the way there leaving us with nothing but his flat collar to "reel in the crazies," or that everything was so very new to him, or that I was on vacation and didn't exactly always take the time I should have to work through things with him.

Trekking home after a very long day...I think we hiked something like 18 miles
 in the sand that day. That was also the day that I took almost all of my pictures.

So maybe it wasn't a perfect week if you gauge it by actual progress made or work done, but it was a perfect week of rest and relaxation. I think Novel and I are both ready to jump back into work and school and training after a long and wonderful Christmas Break.

Novel was NOT pulling on the leash in this picture...it was actually my brother
pulling on Novel ;) wink wink