One year ago...

One year ago today we adopted Pepper. And boy, he has changed during that time. The little teenage rascal has turned into a wonderful companion.

For giggles, I'll revisit this post from January 6th:

"Walking on the leash - A (as in awesome!)." - Yeah. I had no idea what "awesome" really means ;). In this year we've gone through a plethora of harnesses to find the one that works best for him. His problem is, as always, his nose: 

 When he smells something he MUST follow that scent, and that means a lot of back and forth (and often a "let's just see how this tastes" finale). In addition, he was super-excited when he saw other dogs. So to combat both we had him on a Halti/Gentle Leader for a long time. During that time I practiced the "Leave it" (treat), "Come" (treat), and "Pepper, watch me" (treat) over and over again, until he did all of these on the loose leash, at least when there were no other dogs around. I then switched him to various chest harnesses (he hated all of them), continuously practicing the "Watch me" (treat) when we encountered other dogs. And by now he's on a flat collar. No pulling, typically. If he gets a bit too excited I can always call him back to me to ease the tension on the leash. Pretty remarkable. I'd call that an "A" now.

"Riding in the car - A." He was (and is) pretty good with that. We did have the occasional climbing over the back seats to see if there's more fun in the front area of the car, but a safety barrier took care of that too. He usually just sleeps while we're driving. Good :).

"Being calm in the office so that I can get some work done - B+. Being alone in the office or his room - B+" That has improved significantly. I still have his kennel in my office, just in case, but he hasn't been in there for a good half year or so. A simple "Not now." usually does the trick. And no barking or whining when I leave the office. He usually just takes a nap under my desk. So, up to an "A" from a year ago.

"Feeding time - by now A-." I can move that up to an "A" without hesitation. He walks (sometimes runs) to his blanket and waits patiently until I tell him to "Take it". We've also switched to exclusively feeding him from his kong toys - he LOVEs them. And it keeps him busy for a while.

"Lastly, moving around freely in the house while respecting the kitties: C+." I'd bump that up to an "A-". He has gotten much, MUCH better, but every once in a while he is still interested in chasing the kitties up the stairs. Rarely though. And, I can usually call him away from that. By now, Abby and George have also begun slowly approaching and sniffing him. In another half a year or so things have probably fully calmed down here.

So yeah, all in all we couldn't be happier with him. I'm very much looking forward to taking him backpacking next year!

Poor pooch again....

Pepper woke me up this morning at around 1 am. Since I had not let him in the yard after our evening walk (sometimes he holds back a little urine during the walk), I figured it's my own fault and let him out. Sure enough, that's why he was up. When he came back inside I noticed that his tail was hanging down, and that he was repeatedly biting it as if something irritated him. I didn't see anything obvious and decided to check again in the morning. Well, turns out I couldn't get back to sleep. After some tossing and turning I got up at 2 (urgh) and settled on the couch with the second book of the Hunger Games series. At least I was not bored (although pretty tired today)! I even got doggie company.

Turns out, Pepper's tail was still pretty limp later this morning. A quick check on the internet (amazing!) revealed that this is most likely a condition known as limber/cold water/flaccid tail. And breads that are most often affected are - drumroll - labrador retrievers and beagles. Of course. Looks like our little pooch welcomes every little ailment out there with open paws. 

We've decided to keep an eye on it for now since it most often clears up on its own within a few days, and since he does not seem to be in pain when I touch his tail (there is a little discomfort, but no whining). In the mean time, we kept his butt warm with a hot water bottle and blankets which he seems to enjoy. He just looks so sad with his droopy tail. I sure hope I'll see some tail wagging tomorrow!

Christmas 2011

One last picture before Jule, Juri and Soso headed back home again:

Christmas Eve

Santa was here!

Christmas 2011

Jule, Juri and Zoe (Soso) arrived last Thursday night, and we're looking forward to spending Christmas with them. 

The tree is decorate:

we had some AMAZING food at VQ on Friday (sorry, when we remembered to take a picture all that was left was an empty plate!):

and lots of fun on the playground:

 

 

And now we're waiting for Santa!

New computer room!

Earlier this week we finally decided to redo our computer room. One of the desks and several of the shelves were still from Rochester, and the rest was bought to sort-of match what was already there. So - after some online shopping at ikea.com, we headed to Portland to pick up our new toys. We've spent most of our time the last two days assembling everything, but it is well worth the effort. The whole room looks MUCH better now!

Icy spider webs

I brought my camera to work today to take pictures of our recently declared physics majors (we have a board in the hearth area with our students' names and graduation year). That's when I saw these gorgeous spider webs and couldn't resist. Because it was so cold last night, they were covered with a thin layer of ice and looked very pretty (I bet the spiders beg to differ!).

Mooooore cookies :)

Chocolate truffles (yumyum!)

molasses cookies (with lemon frosting, chocolate, and plain)

shortbread (very crumbly)

Baking is fun, especially with a good cup of coffee with lots of frothed milk (thanks Jan!).

And in the mean time on the couch:

No, we did not break the dog. That's what he considers comfortable!

Cookies!!!

Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is just around the corner - time for some serious baking!

Here's what we have so far:

A ginger bread house

almond cheesecake bars

cinnamon stars (without butter - doh!)

and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

All cookies have been tasted and approved by Jan :). Stay tuned for a good half dozen more over the weekend!

Fall is still here!

What a beautiful fall we're having this year! I keep waiting for the rain to start... and it does, for just a few days. You know, I can live with that! Wish it would stay like this until spring.

In the mean time, enjoy the sunshine while it's here.

(PS: Because someone asked: No, this is not a muzzle on Pepper's face - he can carry a tennis ball in his mouth if he wants to, it's pretty loose. It's a headcollar, similar to the halter that horses wear. )

Molalla State Park

Despite the rather bleak weather forecast on Friday (guess what, rain, rain and more rain), today turned out to be really beautiful. It started to clear up at around 9 or so, and since this might very well be our last chance to enjoy the sun, we decided to head to Molalla State Park for a little walk (I wouldn't call it a hike, really). 

When we arrived a good half a dozen dogs were already there, all off-leash, ready to explore the park with their owners. What a great opportunity for our pooch to work on his behavior modification (no, you can't always play with dogs when you see them). He did pretty well, huge improvement from half a year ago, but still not where we'd like him to be. Patience (urgh...). 

They continued their walk around the field that you see in the above picture, while we moved closer to the river and through the woods. It was gorgeous. With all the leaves Pepper was in heaven (all those smells, got to inhale them all!), and both Jan and I thoroughly enjoyed the calm and peace.

A last quick stop at a scenic point

before we headed back home and treated ourselves to something yummy from Fred Meyer (it's Sunday after all!):

Later in the afternoon we took Mr. Pooch to the dog park. This time - entrance on leash, walking around on leash for a while, meeting dogs POLITELY (not running up to them to engage them in play immediately). He did really well (except once when he got excited when a 10 months old pup got all excited around him). After we had finished our meet-and-greet tour we went to the southern half of the park and played ping-pong with him: Jan and I were a good 100 m apart and took turns calling him. He did so well! 

I guess we'll keep doing that for a while. Trying to keep him calm in the dog park (which is hard because many of the dogs there are in a very excited state already, and he picks up on that), not entering if there is potential trouble, and keeping him focused on us (i.e. making us more interesting than the other dogs - the hardest part of it!). He has shown huge improvement over the last month or so, so I am confident that we'll get there with patience and persistence.

Happy Halloween!

I'm not a fan of dressing up pets for Halloween. Really not. However, I could not resist adding a bow tie and some cuffs to our gorgeous black boy. He didn't like the cuffs too much (and yes, I took them off after I took the picture), but the bow tie was fine. After all, it's essentially just a fancy collar, right?

And: A slightly blurry ACTION SHOT!!!!

Fall has come and not yet (!) gone

I love this time of year. It's still dark when I get up, the air is cool and crisp, and the trees just look gorgeous. And when the sun decides to shine, it's hard not to love it outside. 

Last week Jan was in Seattle, so Pepper and I went on our evening walks a little earlier. And we were rewarded: This beautiful sunset was taken last Thursday.

Rough week...

About two weeks ago we noticed a little bump under Pepper's right eye. Nothing bad, really, and since we had just returned from the dog park - and he had done some wrestling with Greta there - I figured maybe she got him a little too hard and it is just a small wound that will get better on its own. It didn't.

So after a week I took him to the vet who said it could either be a benign histiocytoma or a cancerous mast cell tumor, and as it was so close to the eye he could not take a good sample to make that judgement call right there. So he decided to take it off and send it to biopsy. Which meant a long week for us. We finally got the result today - it was benign. Thank goodness! 

Here are some pictures of Pepper with his "cone of shame" (I can't tell you just how many times I have heard that this week...).

Here he is on Monday evening right after surgery. Still a bit drowsy and definitely uncomfortable. We left his harness on so that we could tie the cone to it to ensure that there is no way he can strip it off over night.

 

We first tried to get him into his kennel over night (and I slept in the same room just in case he got stuck with that huge cone). He couldn't get comfortable and after a good hour of him whining and looking pretty miserable, we cleared out one of our rooms completely and moved him and his bed in there. I stayed with him until about midnight (and actually got a few moments of sleep), then took him out for a brief walk + bathroom break. He wasn't quite sure how to manage to eliminate with that cone on. Poor bugger. 

The second night was also pretty rough. He slept until about 2 when the combination of being in pain, being uncomfortable, not having run for two days and being alone in a room that he usually does not sleep in was too much. I then decided to at least take off the harness (and connect the cone to one of his old collars), and that made a huge difference already. I took him for a walk/run (in the middle of the night!), and that *definitely* made a difference. So while I did not get a lot of sleep the first two nights, it has paid off. He has been just wonderful ever since. I've said it before and I'll say it again: What a great dog he is!

Helga & Wolfgang

Helga and Wolfgang came to the west coast to visit Jule, Juri and Soso and spent a long weekend at our place as well. They were the first ones to try out our new guest bedroom! I think they liked it :).

They arrived on Friday afternoon. I was still at work but Jan had taken the day off. Which was great, because our new espresso machine arrived! We finally decided to buy one of those Nespresso machine that use capsules. The price difference is not that much (amazingly!), they have a good variety of different coffees, and it is a lot less messy. Plus, our old machine just couldn't produce any good crema anymore, so it was time for something new.
Pepper and I arrived at around 5ish. Pepper's first order of business: Jump up on Helga. *facepalm* Ah well, he did pretty good after that. While Jan and Helga were firing up the grill and preparing dinner, Wolfgang, Pepper and I went on a nice walk (we had to make use of the sunshine - it's rare to have such beautiful warm days this late in September!). 
And in the evening - chatting while cuddling on the couch.

On Saturday morning we went to the dog park together. I think everyone had some fun: Helga & Wolfgang chatted with some of the other dog owners, and Pepper finally met Greta again. The two really like each other and enjoy a good wrestling match (or two, or three) and a game of keep-away.

Here is Pepper in the act of sitting down and waiting, looking at me and yawning. All at the same time. Nice action shot :).

 

Pepper and Greta:

More walks Saturday afternoon (with new harness):

And lastly, a short trip to Ikea on Sunday after dropping Jan off at the airport (he flew to California to attend a conference there) and lunch at Dave's BBQ.