kirabug’s idea files

Spent Friday working from home because Kaylee tried to choke herself on her leash that morning. At least, that’s our current guess… Vet said she could’ve also tried to swallow something weird, and considering that on a walk around our building she usually tries to eat or carry around no less than six things, I can’t say that idea would shock me much. The short-short story was that in the amount of time it took me to turn away to holler at Chance and then turn back she went from bouncy and bubbly and causing trouble to quiet and subdued and clearly in pain. She was also making a nasty nasty choking noise every few minutes, and my extremely vocal dog wasn’t even whining.

Anyway, within 36 hours she was totally back to normal, though we have moved both dogs to harnesses on walks instead of clipping their leashes directly to their collars just to keep that from reoccurring.

Saturday I took a well-deserved break to go out and visit my sister at LVC, and we decided to go to Hershey Park in the pouring rain. We got in free because some group in front of us had two extra tickets and they’d already paid for them so they just gave them to us, so I paid $10 to go ride roller coasters and flume rides with my awesome sister all day. Can’t beat that.

(OK, $10 plus the money to buy some sweats at Walmart so I didn’t have to drive 1.5 hours home in incredibly sopping wet clothes. The Tidal Force was one of the rides that was still open.)

Today was lots and lots of errands and chores, and a huuuuuge sinus headache. Plus, the Eagles pissed me off. But altogether I can’t complain.

Tomorrow (whoops, today, Monday) I test for orange belt so I’m really hoping my sinuses clear by then. And considering that I test for orange belt, I’m thinking I should go to bed. Now: sleep.

I created two Twitter feeds for the puppies — @chancedog and @kayleedog — so I can express their personalities without clogging this site.

I have a backlog of links I want to link to that I probably won’t get a chance to look at so go google “infinite blood supply” and somewhere in the news you should see an article on stem cells that’s pretty damn cool. I like it because it makes me feel a little less guilty that every time I’ve wanted to do the blood drives at work this year I’ve been coming down with something.

Can’t remember the other big article I’d wanted to post. If you go read the last 7 days of fark headlines you’ll see it somewhere though. Good luck.

Can barely keep my eyes open. Comic is done and all is right with the world. Time to sleep.

Kaylee’s photo album collection finally has some photos in it. I also added some photos from last week for Chance.

Ok I lied. Here’s Kaylee on the sofa and Chance in my lap.

Kaylee’s flight went very well and we were all home together by 11:00, which is pretty good time considering the traffic.

She and Chance are rapidly working out their differences. He’s easily the more dominant at the moment, being twice Kaylee’s size, but she doesn’t take a significant amount of crap from him either, so we’ll see who stays on top.

Chance is the one having a rough day. First Kaylee came home and invaded his turf, then he threw up on the lawn a few times. Then we tried to introduce him to one of the yorkies that our neighbor owns and Puddin bit Chance almost as soon as they went nose to nose.

Chance is fine physically. Emotionally I think he’s exhausted. Right now I have him draped across my lap and Kaylee sleeping on the arm of the sofa a few inches away.

I’ll post some better pics of the pack later, but right now I think I’ll just stay here and be mom.

Kaylee will be on a plane to Philadelphia tomorrow morning, and we pick her up at Cargo City around 9:00 am. With any luck, the next post (of any valuable length, anyway) will be replete with puppy pictures.

I’m nervous about this one, much more than with Chance. I’ve never flown a dog anywhere, nor driven one home such a long distance. Kaylee’s breeder doesn’t provide nearly as much communication as Chance’s, so I don’t even really know what my baby looks like. But she’ll be home soon…..

These photos look like crap because my original revision iPhone has a lot of trouble capturing these new high-energy puppies they’re producing these days.

The top left and the bottom are taken at 9pm a few days ago after a looong walk around our complex. The top right was taken this afternoon after romping with my sister a while.

Some highlights:

• He is terrified of french fries, but will eat leaves, sticks, and bugs. Nature boy!
• We’ve spent a lot of time this week barking at the dog that lives in the shiny black dishwasher, and occasionally at the dog that lives in the stove. Dishwasher Dog even gets scratched at, and one day I caught Chance trying to peer around the edge of the door to see Dishwasher Dog better.
• The bad news is that he’s escaped from the kitchen twice this week. The good news is that when he has the run of the house, he’s making a good effort at returning to the kitchen (where the pee pads and litter box are) when he needs to go.
• My nose didn’t get bit once this week, which is definitely an improvement.
• We’re making good progress on “sit” and “come here” and “come on” (or as everyone else knows them, sit, come, and heel”), and he’s starting to get an inking of what “wait” (everyone else’s “stay”) means. And he definitely understands that “Hey!” is “stop what you’re doing and pay attention to Mom”.

I’m thinking of doing puppy updates every Thursday, so that a) I have a chance to get a few decent pictures throughout the week, b) you have something visual to look forward to and c) I can track his age (since he was born on a Thursday). No guarantees yet, especially considering how busy this week is supposed to be, but that’s the plan.

Here’s a movie, to make up for it.

And yes, at some point, I’ll learn how to embed this crap correctly here instead.