One Day at a Time

(Click for a larger view)

Saturday, May 3, was the Animal Humane Society's annual Walk for Animals. We were all geared up to walk in nasty, cold weather. Friday it rained all day, and the forecast for Saturday was more of same. But Saturday dawned clear and cool. Windy, a little chilly, but SUNNY. Yay sun!

I was actually pretty bad about photographing the events. I caught a picture of two Canada geese and a picture of a new sparrow for me to ID, but really didn't get any pictures of the event itself except the three below. That's too bad, because there were actually a lot of things to take pictures of: the pony, the goat, the alligators, the ferrets, the cats, the birds, and the dogs dogs dogs dogs who were participating. (The pony made me realize that I am actually pretty accurate when I correct people who say Payton is a horse...I tell them he's just a pony cause he's only a "Mediocre Dane.")

One of the pictures is of the pot bellied pig we saw, and Remy deciding to take a break in the wading pool. At first she was happy to just drink. But with only a little encouragement, she waded, then lay down. I was actually half expecting her to roll completely over, but she managed to wet her back even without that extreme. Remy's pool antics earned her nearly as much attention as Payton gets on a regular basis. She elicited quite a few chuckles and "oh, I just have to get a picture of this" comments. Payton and I just stood and waited until she decided she was ready to continue.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of my daily comic strip reads is Dog Eat Doug. Several syndicates require a two-week lag to allow cartoonists to publish online, and this happens to be one of them. Even though I read this strip on Tuesday this week, it's original date was 4/15. (Click for a larger view.)

Leashes inspire the utmost excitement for my kids. Leashes mean GOING SOMEWHERE, or that SOMETHING IS HAPPENING. Both of the kids go completely nuts, and no peace will be had until the SOMETHING happens.

Once the leashes are on, however, the tables turn. Now, leashes are the restraint, that which is preventing the kids from enjoying the world the WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE ENJOYED. Payton has been known to completely forget what "come" means when he doesn't want to leave the dog park and he sees me adjust the leashes for leaving. "Oh, you meant stop having fun and be restrained again. I thought you meant let's keep playing for a while."

Is there any analog in the human world for what leashes mean to dogs? Is there anything we get completely crazy excited about only to feel restrained and oppressed by later? The only thing that comes to my mind is the depression that some people feel right after the craziness of Christmas morning has passed.

[Philosophical pondering aside, I love Sophie's question in this strip. Instead of the "My dog is smarter than your honor student" bumper sticker, I want one that reads "My dogs are better behaved than your children."]

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I confess, I'm a slacker. I don't have anything new for DoT. However, since I just saw on the interwebs/tubes/thingy that today is "Take Your Child to Work" Day, I thought it might be appropriate to refer back to this post: "Take your dog-ter to work."

I still work at the same place, and still have this wonderful option. Just yesterday, my boss brought her dog, Sophie, to work. After their lunchtime walk, she told me about all of the smiles Sophie elicited. Similarly, I just gave a blogger soliciting random advice to go to a dogpark or someplace where dogs are playing and happy whenever you feel depressed. I've also noticed the smiles dogs bring to people's faces, particularly when I walk them here on the U campus. Along the same lines, Sophie and my boss participated in a therapy-dog event at the Law School last spring--they brought dogs in for the law students who were studying hard for finals.

And, once more, don't forget about the contest I'm running for people sponsoring me in the Walk for Animals and MS 30/60 Bike Tour.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

That's my boy....

Whether it's typical of all Great Danes, or just Marmaduke and Payton, I don't know. But Payton definitely needs someone to tell his troubles to, and it's usually me (momma's boy that he is...)

Since I don't have any pictures of my own kids today, I'll send you over to photographer Erin Vey's blog, where her Great Dane, Gracie, also needs someone to tell her problems to.

And, just because it seems to fit the theme, here's today's "Red and Rover":

Plus, don't forget my little contest....

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

These are just some quick shots of Remy from this morning. Every morning she has a little spaz-fest, grabbing a toy and tearing around the house with it while I feint and pretend to catch her.

Remy's current favorite toy is Squeaky Crackle Frog. This is a Ty beanie for dogs, stuffed with a squeaker and crackly paper inside. This is the one toy, knock on wood, that she hasn't attempted to de-stuff. The best part about it is that she actually looks like she's carrying around a dead frog; it made the husband slightly squeamish the first few days due to how realistic it actually looks.

See?

Do you see the mischief in these eyes?

And then it's over; the frog is done for, the game is done....

P.S. Just as a reminder, if anyone is interested in donating to my MS Bike tour or Walk for Animals, here is the original entry.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Over the vernal equinox weekend, we went up north the a cabin on Lake Superior. We rented the house with a bunch of friends (5 couples in all), and our kids got to join us. These are two pictures that E, our friend and organizer, took. There are more in the series, but I don't have them scanned in...these are just poor photos of the developed prints. Her photos are simply gorgeous, and these images do not reflect the beauty of the actual pictures.

Click these to view them larger (and E really did have the exposure right...the darkness is my "picture of a picture" attempt"). I chose these two because I love the action shot of Remy and the tongue on Payton.

* The house was called Namaste. I didn't realize that until we got up there and saw the sign--every time E had sent out messages about "Namaste weekend," I thought she was just referring to relaxing. :-) I've got my pictures of the weekend up on my Flickr account; the other dog in the pictures is Baker, E and J's pup. The ones of Baker curled up on his daddy's lap are some of the cutest things we saw the whole weekend.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I'm finally remembering to post for DoT, but I can't do the post I want to! Argh. I actually do have pix of the kids. Action pix, even. But they are at home and, alas, I am not. I may update this today, but if I don't, I'll save them for next week.

In the meantime, here is a comic strip for you (click it for a larger version):

This seems par for the course for great danes. Our little Remy girl (golden retriver) will curl into a ball, will sleep on the floor, will fit all of herself onto my lap. Payton, on the other hand, wants his couch room. He usually lays on his side with his four paws hanging off the edge of the couch. Photographer Erin Vey has a lovely picture of her great dane's "bouqet of limbs" hanging off the couch. (Check out the rest of her site for some great canine shots....) The most fun part about the legs hanging off is when he dreams...the legs start running. I call them "twitchy toes."

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The dogs are loving the house remodel. Because we're sleeping downstairs, they have full access to us and the bed. Our usual bed upstairs is quite a bit higher off the ground (probably close to 3.5 feet to the top of the mattress), and the kids are not allowed on the bed. But since we're sleeping on the futon in the living room, two things have happened to the kids' advantage: 1) they are closer to us, so poking mommy in the ribs or licking her face just means a slight lift of the head from the laying-down position, and 2) they get to sleep on the bed when we're not there.

Here are some pictures of both of them enjoying their domain:

Not to be outdone, Remy also wanted to show off her sleeping talents on one of the many dog beds they have scattered around the living room:

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 06:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

"Red and Rover" by Brian Basset 12/18/07

This week's "Red and Rover" strips are a perfect reflection of my kids, though they usually start campaigning 3-4 hours ahead of dinner time.

See, we have a pretty regular schedule during the week: they get breakfast around 6 and dinner around 4:30 when we get home from work. Basically the same routine every week day.

Weekends, on the other hand, may be an entirely different matter. Breakfast on weekends may come anywhere between 6 and 8 in the morning, depending on how late the husband wants to sleep in (he gets breakfast duty and I have supper duty). Generally speaking, dinner is served between 3:30-5, depending upon how persistent they get.

"Red and Rover" by Brian Basset 12/19/07

The dinner campaign usually begins around noon. It may start with a Remy-spaz-n-poke (a burst of rolling around on the floor while kicking up her feet followed by poking mom in the arm or whatever happens to be available).

(Yes, it looks like she's lying there innocently playing with her toys; what still photos don't show is the wagging tail that indicates a spaz is about to begin)

When we check water dishes, yes, they're full. Do they need out? Why, yes, that seems to be the issue. However, the backdoor is on the way to the food, so as we're heading to the back door, they get the bright idea that we're actually heading to dinner. "While we're in the area," they tell me, "we think it's dinner time." "It's not time yet. You are waaayyyy too early for dinner," I reply. They go out, come back in, and we all go back to whatever we were doing earlier.

This little game continues through the afternoon, with the spaz-n-pokes getting closer and closer together. Even Payton starts to join in as it gets closer to 3:30. But what may be the most amusing part of this whole routine is that we usually don't figure out the campaign has begun until we're well into it. Inevitably between 1 and 2 or so, either the hubby or I will suddenly exclaim, "You guys must be campaigning. That's why you're being so goofy."

And the kids just look at each other and say, "Duh."

"Red and Rover" by Brian Basset 12/20/07

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today's official Dogs on Thursday is out sick (get well soon, Paula!), so I thought I'd take this opportunity to return to 3, 4, 5 (?!) of my favorite rants.

I was part of a conversation this morning that took about 30 seconds before my head was about to explode. We were talking about a Great Dane puppy that a co-worker is going to take for her mother. The pup needs a new home because her family can't give the time she needs. Why is that? The pup is 6 weeks old (Yikes 1)! She was purchased at 4 weeks, from a backyard breeder (Yikes 2) (the litter was originally 11 pups) whose bitch wasn't able to take care of the pups because she was bleeding excessively (Yikes 3)! The new owner had been looking for a dog for their 16 year old son who is missing his grandfather who recently passed away; when they found the ad for the pups in the paper (Yikes 4), they checked in, and the woman said that she had to purchase a pup because she couldn't leave them there (Yikes 5?). I was already familiar with the situation (co-worker and I had discussed it earlier), so we got through that part of the conversation in 15-20 seconds.

From there the conversation turned to a beagle that my co-worker is looking at for themselves; they were planning to go to a local humane society that just took in 3 beagle pups. Co-worker 2 mentioned that her daughter purchased a beagle from a local pet store (Yikes 6). Finally, the conversation ended with co-worker 1 talking about a cute pug-beagle mix she had seen (I'm not going to grace that with it's "cute" "breed" name--a mutt is a mutt) (Yikes 7).

So in the space of about 30 seconds, the conversation touched on: backyard breeding (potentially puppy milling on a small scale), neglect/abuse, improper weaning which has led to pup needing a new home, pet-store animal purchases, newspaper breeder advertising, and designer dogs. So, my head exploded.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Another quick post of pictures. These pictures are after a romp at the dog park with several inches of new (first) snow. They don't usually cuddle like this, though I think that is more Remy's decision than Payton's. As you see here, she's pretty okay with being his pillow at this point.

(Um, those yellow-ish foam bits...those are remnants of a bed's stuffing. I'll let you decide who was responsible there....)

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I missed Thanksgiving DoT. Today is going to kick my butt at work, so I'm just going to give a few pix here without much commentary.

One of the nice things about my building is that most people don't really care what goes on here, so dogs are not unusual in the offices. Here are a couple visitors just from this week.

First up is Lilo, a 3-4 month old Yorkie who lives with a woman who works for the Army (she is actually not military, though her husband is). I'm not a small dog fan, but this one is pretty darn cute. She reminds me of an ewok from Star Wars.

Then we have Sophie, my boss's dog, just after a hard hour's work on a couch from a therapy workshop for the law school students.

I'm thinking about bringing my kids in on Friday.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had some charming pictures of the kids that I was going to post for today's entry, but then I got the email from my mother that said she had to put Kodi to sleep this weekend. Kodi was a Newfoundland that we were given when his breeder was in a difficult situation. It's a long story, and I won't provide the gory details here. She needed to find good homes in a short period of time, and thought of us because we have had a very long relationship with her and her kennel.

Kodi's death represents the end of an era for our family. See, we've always had Newfoundlands, or at least for the past 35 years. My grandparents started with a Newf-mix before I was born, then mom and I joined the Newf-group, and even the Husband and I had one. [Madchen, Sherman, Fagin, Ursa, Kuma, Baron, Kisha, Shawnee, Lena, Kodi] There were times when I would take four of them for a walk at the same time. That generated some stares for passers-by.....

When the Husband and I agreed to take Kodi, my mother had two newfs already, one of whom she had also been given by the breeder. If she hadn't already had two, I'm sure she would have been the breeder's first choice. Anyway, in 2002, we took in Kodi as a third dog, basically sight unseen. We went to the breeder's to meet him while we were in Wyoming, and took him primarily due to her circumstances and my bleeding heart.

Kodi was "special." He had earned his championship, and really did exhibit very good physical characteristics of the breed. He was one of the breeder's special house-dogs, but all he had ever known was the show ring. At age 5, already middle-aged for a newf, he was the dog-ification of the "model" stereotype. We're pretty sure there was not much more in his mind than looking pretty and having people clap for him. Honestly, I have never met a more vacuous dog. He was super sweet, very friendly, great dog in general, but just no personality whatsoever. I don't even think the term "dumb" applied to him. There just really wasn't much there behind those sweet dark brown eyes.

Several things happened that led to Kodi going to my mom's. First, mom lost Shawnee-pup, the very first dog we got from this breeder. Even at Shawnee's age, she was still a puppy at heart, essentially everything that Kodi wasn't. In order to provide company for Lena, she went to the pound to adopt a newf or pyrenees mix. She came home with Shilo, the "little yellow dog." Shilo didn't last very long. She was a wild thing, escaping, chewing up the house, high energy. Very sweet, but very high maintenance. Shilo went back to the pound.

In May, 2004, I was preparing to defend my Ph.D. dissertation, when Kodi and our dane Micaela ran into each other (we don't know what really happened), and Caela ended up succumbing to a gradual paralysis. We spent a week hauling her to the vet for x-rays, tests, anything, but she kept getting worse until she even started refusing food. She was completely paralyzed, 10 years old, could not even eliminate on her own, and just told us it was time.

For a variety of reasons, including the brutal summers, Kodi went to live with my mom that November, even though she had re-rescued Shilo from the pound. Shilo actually kind of taught Kodi how to play a little, something he never did with us (I still blame the heat and humidity of summer for part of his utter passivity). When mom lost Lena earlier this year, Kodi was still there to provide companionship to Shilo.

It will be strange not to have any newfs in the family anymore. The Husband and I are convereted to Great Danes, and mom feels that she is at an age and physical condition where medium-sized dogs are more appropriate. So Kodi, the newf with a big heart and no brain, is truly the end of 35 years of newfs.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Remy is just about to be eaten by Payton. She doesn't know it yet, but she will soon.

He's moving in, closing in on the kill.

Oh no! He's moving in on the belly! Run, Remy, run!

Oh, the carnage. Payton made it to the throat. It's all over now. Poor little Remy.

Note: No canines were harmed in the shooting of these pictures. These are professionally trained actors, performing the roles they play every single day.

Posted by danielle at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I was gone last Thursday and meant to pre-publish, but completely forgot. But we're back today.

I don't have any accessible pictures of Remy, so this will have to be another Payton post.

This is one of his favorite sleeping positions (click the picture for more Flickr pix):

I frequently look over from my computer in the evenings to see him curled up on his bed, nose tucked under paw. And yes, this is the same bed he stole from Remy...it is more or less definitively his. He has the mysteriously-replaced larger bed in the bedroom for nighttime-sleeping, and this one is in the study for hanging-out-sleeping.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Payton decided that he really wanted to be featured today, since Remy got all the attention last week. He's been quite cute lately, so it seems like a good idea.

Here's his typical "lean against the back of the couch" pose. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a picture of the additional "and hang my head over the back of the couch" position that frequently accompanies the lean.

(you can click to make this image bigger, but I think the picture is huge, so click at your own risk)

This is another pose he likes, and it seems fairly atypical for most dogs. He folds his front paws underneath himself and lays on them. It's sort of like he's tucking himself up like a little lamb-y.

And a slightly closer look at the legs:

Silly, silly puppy boy.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 07:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Both of these cartoons are from today, Thursday, and they seem so appropriate. (click on pictures for larger images)

"Stone Soup"

It really is hard to go wrong with a dog. This morning I woke myself up from a dream by crying out a little; as I was re-orienting myself in time and place, Remy's head popped up, right into my hand.

"Dog Eat Doug" (actually, I lied just a little...DeD's website is 2-weeks off due to syndication v. website rules, but this strip still appeared online today)

This is the exact train of thought I wish I could have every day. I truly envy my dogs sometimes, and these days, I really feel like I could sleep as much as they do.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here are the pictures I promised yesterday of Remy modeling my completed muttluk:

You can see her getting more and more annoyed with a) having the muttluk on, and b) me fiddling around with the camera. In the final picture, she just gave up and decided to ignore me.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

(click for larger)

Today's Dogs on Thursday picture comes from our summer trip to Wyoming. Mom and I took a hike by our favorite camping sites and I had the opportunity to snap this shot of the dogs in a line. More like a dog butts on Thursday, but at least they're of the canine persuasion. Payton is leading with Remy, then Shilo following. What's unusual about this arrangement is that they're not all vying for first place. Shilo especially, but even Remy and Payton to a lesser extent, insist on being "first." This time they were happy to just trot down the path in a line. Until the creek became more interesting, that is.

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just found a blog for discussing the canine kids on Thursdays. There are many "daily themed" entries out in blogland, such as Illustration Friday, Friday Flowers, Saturday Sky, etc (don't click on "etc." if you're easily offended.... ;-) ). Not all of them have their own separate blogs; sometimes it's just something one person does and then other people take up the same idea.

I actually managed to take these pictures of my kids today, Thursay, and get them posted on the same day, no less!

They're actually being pretty normal in these shots. The first one of Remy on the couch is in the middle of her post-dinner spaz-out routine. She had just dropped the toy she was holding, probably in hopes that I was bringing her something more interesting to eat. The second shot is outside a little later, just sitting and enjoying the cooler temperatures. She tends to hang out on the concrete patio, having developed an aversion of some sort to walking in her own backyard.

Payton, on the other hand, is completely unconcerned with where he goes. I had to get these shots after he'd been running around a bit; he was hearing sirens and other dogs barking, so he became a "lert." He was posing regally, as Great Danes are wont to do, but both ears were inside out. Then, of course, he had to go see if the neighbors were up to anything.

But this was my favorite shot. Usually he can manage to keep at least one of his ears down. How can anyone not love this face?

Posted by Danielle Tisinger at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)