Nokes (Our Dog)
May 5, 2007
The first’s for the dog have kind of tapered off. Nokes has developed a habit of peeing on the stairs, and pooping in the basement if we don’t watch him, and keep the gate closed. He has also gotten more crazy, started biting, jumping, growling and running at full sprints around the house. He is still really clumsy and even though he can jump higher, he just falls that much further and much more spectacularly.
May 26, 2007
Memorial day weekend was an exciting one for Nokes, and a curious one for us. We went up to Michigan to introduce him to the rest of the family. He did really good at my parents house, barking maybe once. They were impressed with him that he was so well behaved and quiet. I think it was nostalgic for them to have a dog in the house again, and it made all of us happy.
Then he met Hunter. We kept him on a leash for most of the meeting period, which helped. He was jumping up and nipping at his ears, and Hunter was trying to pin him down. And as we found out a couple of times later, he tried to hump the heck out of him. I hope it was a dominance thing. But Hunter got tired of the little ball of energy. Nokes stole some attention and that wasn’t all. He was taking Hunter’s toys, trying to eat out of his dish and following him all over the place. It was really cute to see them run up together to great us, then simultaneous turn and run into the other room as a little father son pack. Soon enough there won’t be such a size difference, probably the next time we’re all together, maybe this Christmas.
Nokes did really well in the car too. He slept or sat clamly on the ride up. On the ride back he was a little more anxious, climbing back and forth a number of times into Sarah’s lap to span the ride.
April 27, 2007
We noticed last night that Nokes’s tummy is firming up, which the vet said would happen when he got older, his muscles would tighten and we would see more of an arch.
At lunch today, Nokes caught the tennis ball twice on the bounce.
April 26, 2007
Nokes is now going up and down the stairs completely on his own. Sarah had been coaxing him down the stairs, and he seemed to do it with some reserve, but when we are both down there and he wants to hang out, he will brave them. It is really cute, he puts his front legs on the lower step and sort of slides his butt off the current one.
We gave him two liter pop bottles to play with, he seems to like those. He carries them around by the top. I have also noticed him getting more and more barky, he pants a lot now when playing outside, and really likes to jump up on you when you are playing.
He seems to have stay down pretty good, he knows his crate, so Sarah started last night to work with him on some new things, like shake and rollover. I don’t care too much about those as long as he knows the main stuff. But we will probably think about enrolling him in a puppy class in mid May sometime, butting right up to the end of her school year.
Nokes had his second set of shots today, and he also got his first bath and did really well. He didn’t squirm too much, and he didn’t wine.
April 23, 2007
Nokes was pretty good with guests down this weekend, only did thing that were typical of a puppy. This weekend we got a package from Brenda and Amanda with some great little gifts, some chicken flavored dog treats and two Tiger theamed items, a Tigers Collar for when he gets bigger, and a Tigers dish. We were going to have to get him a dish soon anyway, so that really saved us.
Sarah let him play with his first rawhide in a monitored setting this weekend. I am still really nervous about them, but the vet told us they are ok.
He gets really excited to play outside with the frisbee, and we did that with him a lot this weekend. Rachel watched him while we were wine tasting and played with him too, so he got a lot of that attention.
He has also started running up and down the fence with the neighbor German Shepherd. Before he was a little scared, but now he incites it a little, he will get really low in the grass and wag his tail, let out a little yip and start to do his little hobbled puppy run down the fence. The other dog wastes him in speed, but it is still pretty cute to hear him from the kitchen knowing what he is doing.
April 20, 2007
Something pretty cute Sarah wanted me to note. He has started doing some barking, and although we think this is the most darling thing, we have to tell ourselves that it will be bad later, so we scold him when he does it. But usually, he will do one little bark, and then right after he does this sort of chewbacca call growl thing. It is really funny.
April 19, 2007
Today at lunch Nokes was pretty excited. At one point he jumped off the top step at the door onto the deck, and surprisingly landed just fine. He also got into a little bit of a fight with the Rose bush, but sniffing and licking made him realize that the bush would win every time. He dashed around the side and jumped onto the deck.
