So… since the cone of shame has been on Lucy’s head… she has decided that I must take over her duties as Mama Dog to Mugen.

So… when Mugen whines and gets bored, Lucy gets up from her nap, comes over to me and barks at me until I ask her what’s wrong. Then she sits and looks at the pup, who whines… as if on cue… and then finds a ball. Since Lucy is unable to play bitey face due to the cone and the stitches, I must take her place as Mugen’s playmate.

Fine… okay, I get it.

For the last several weeks, it’s been raining. In fact, most of the time, it’s raining. Mugen is bored out of his mind. Lucy has been barking at me quite a bit and my nerves are just about shot. I cannot wait for this cone to come off of her head so they can play together again.… [Read More]

Good Girl Lucy?

These are the pictures we’ve taken from the day of Mugen’s First Birthday Party. We needed to celebrate and cut loose, it’s been a very long week with some very bad news, so Mugen’s birthday was as good an excuse as anything.… [Read More]

Mugen’s First Birthday Party

Yesterday, I decided to try something different for dog school. I fed Mugen a larger than usual breakfast and skipped his lunch meal entirely. Dinner happens after dog school is over. I thought I’d see how this worked for us.

I got out my hot dogs (hebrew national, 97% fat free! Thanks to Annette! I never would have thought to share MY hot dogs with the puppy if she hadn’t mentioned it!!) and started slicing them up and prepping them to go in the nuker and Mugen started salivating all over the place. So I had him do a few sits and downs for me and I gave him a couple bits of hot dog and then we got into the car and left.

I missed dog school last week. I was painting my bedroom and my hands were weak and I pulled a muscle in my shoulder while I was painting around the ceiling.… [Read More]

Mugen is AMAZING!

This morning, hubby again tried to let me sleep in. He’s so sweet and I love him for it… but my daughter when she’s hormonal… I swear I could just explode.

Hubby had her put Lucy out. She didn’t wait for Lucy to go all the way. Both dogs, first thing in the AM have to do 1 and 2. She let Lucy pee but didn’t wait for the second half of the game. So she brought Lucy back in. Lucy, bless her heart, came upstairs to my bedroom and bumped her head on the door and tried to wake me up. I woke up in time to catch her squatting on my carpet as hubby was running up the stairs after her. Poor baby.

So quite obviously, I was awake for the day.

Hubby cleans up the mess and apologizes profusely for not making sure that Lucy had gotten to go all the way and I tell him it’s fine and I have the daughter take Lucy back outside for me, and this time, Lucy gets to finish.… [Read More]

Parenting Teenagers Sucks.

It started at the end of August. I hadn’t even thought of adopting a second dog yet. Mugen had been home for just under a month at that point, and I had no idea that anything this heart wrenching was going to happen. I was wrapped up in chocolate Lab puppy dreams and sweet puppy kisses.

I didn’t know anything at all.

At the end of August, a female yellow Lab was picked up by a shelter in LaPorte, Indiana. Her test for heart worms came back positive and she had a wound on her left eye that looked as though it was having trouble healing, or possibly worse. The shelter had no idea and had no way of knowing. Municipal shelters often don’t receive funding to give animals necessary veterinary care. These animals are usually on the short list to euthanasia if those shelters become over crowded, and are often difficult to adopt out.… [Read More]

Miss Lucy Girl

The morning routine in this house doesn’t get deviated from, even on weekends. This is why I was up at 6:30 am this morning. Mugen must be let out, must have breakfast and must have a play time while I read my forums and drink my coffee.

It will take me 20 or 30 minutes to write this post in between sips of coffee and finding where Mugen’s lost his wubba this time and tossing it for him, but it wears him down so he will take a short nap in his crate while I shower… and then the fun begins.

We come downstairs and make breakfast. Mugen is all over the counters, trying desperately to counter surf and he’s just about tall enough to get his paws up there now. Hubby gets very angry with this, but the trick I used with Reilly will not work here. Shake cans have no effect on Mugen because he’s not gunshy.… [Read More]

The Morning Routine

So he’s home.

I thought I would need more time to recover from Reilly’s passing, and I still miss him horribly, but it’s hard to be sad when you stand at your kitchen counter typing and there is a brand new little baby licking your toes.

When I talked to his breeder, I expected to have to get on a waiting list. She ended up with two more puppies than she’d planned for this summer and hadn’t been able to find forever homes for them all at the time that we’d spoken. In other words, I got lucky. If I had waited a couple more weeks to contact her, she would have found perfect homes for all the puppies and I would have been out of luck. Maybe it was fate.

I always said that I would never just pick right up and get another dog, but the opportunity presented itself.… [Read More]

Mugen the Amazing Puppy Monster