Okay, so Lucy and Bentley aren’t exactly old, but still.  Getting them to learn anything new, especially Lucy, is like “trying to push butter up a hill with a hot knife.”

Sorry, for the stupid analogy.  That’s what it’s called right?  I had a professor who used that saying all the time.  I crack me up!

Alrighty, back to schooling the poochies.

Mary James has recently started down the sticky, crumbly, gooey, messy fun road of finger foods.  More specifically, Cherrios (Tally Ho!) and teething biscuits.  She hasn’t quite mastered getting Cheerios in her mouth everytime, but she does like to hoard them.  She grabs a handful in each little fist. 

Hmm…wonder if the dogs have whispered in her ear to store some extra food for later.  Seeing as how the “short, loud human forgets to feed them (the dogs) sometimes.”  Note:  I DO NOT FORGET TO FEED MY DAUGHTER!

One Wednesday evening, Ms. Mary J somehow she managed to keep one little Cheerio in her palm for her entire stay in the nursery after dinner.  It fell out as we getting her strapped in the car.

But I digress.

With hard, dissolvable (<– what this isn’t a word?  says who?) food comes many crumbs and of course the stray Cheerio.  Also known as doggie heaven.

In the short week, since Mary James has been eating cereal, Lucy has figured out that:

1)  The cereal is kept in the pantry.

2)  The box/bag make a specific sound when being opened, and a hand is stuck in to retrieve yummy goodies.

3)  These wheaty delicacies are next headed to a funny looking chair in the kitchen, where the “small protected one” is sitting.

4)  The best position is to the right of the weird chair.

5)  Certain death shall follow if I, Lucy, try to eat off the tray in front of the “small protected one.”

6)  The more patient I am, the more likely I get to clean up any treats raining from the sky.

This weekend we “pet-sat” for our good friend Adam, and my parents.  Adam has a gorgeous, full-of-energy, male Golden Retriever named Sully who is one year old.  My parents have a two year old Golden Retriever named Max, who sadly has better manners than my dogs.

Let’s think about this.  We have two Golden Retrievers.  Bentley, a five year old male who is brilliant yet neurotic; and Lucy, a three year female, who is our gentle giant (she’s between 90-100 lbs of blonde love!).

Throw in two more Goldens and you’ve got a party!  In humans years, we had a 35 year old male, a 21 year old female, a 14 year old boy, and a 7 year old boy.  HA!

We got a kick out of watching them play together.  Max and Sully (the youngins’) took turn asserting their dominance over one another (a.k.a. mounting one another).  Each dog attempted their conquest of power on Bentley…once.

Lucy was game to play with the fellas on her own terms.  She had a blast nipping and chasing after Max and Sully.  Until she had enough fun.  One gentle growl reminded the gang that the lady of the bunch was taking a much needed break.  I mean how do they think she keeps her hair so golden blonde?  A girl’s gotta sun bathe!

I tried to take some photos of our four golden tornadoes.  You can see how well they turned out.  I guess they represent the controlled chaos of furry fun!

“Um…guys?  Where are you going?  I think she’s trying to take our picture.” -Lucy

Sully displaying his mounting prowess. 

Bentley has started a new obnoxious behavior since Mary James has arrived. He has become the insufferable Mr. Whiny Pants.  My normal morning routine is to feed the dogs and let them outside, while I nurse the baby. Bentley has started barking, whining, groaning, squeaking, and any other annoying dog noises he can manage to let me know he wants back inside. I could understand if he was outside for and hour in the freezing rain, but this is like 5-10 minutes after I have let him out.

It starts with pitiful whining and squealing…
“I’m thirsty woman, please, please let me in. I love you. Please?”

Then it proceeds to barking at the french doors and glaring inside…
“I want my giraffe. Must suck on the giraffe. NOW. Have you forgotten us? Mooooommmm!!”

I’m really expecting him to starting throwing himself at the door.

While this is hugely irritating, it WAS helpful for the first few weeks of MJ’s existence. When I was no longer a human but had become “zombie mom” from utter lack of sleep.  I would forget the dogs were outside and Bentley would politely remind me with a short little bark, and then I would let them inside.

Admittedly, I broke my own rule of not giving in to whining & barking.  I was exhausted and had no patience for a complaining dog, so I would let them in.  For example, when they were puppies they would incessantly bark to get out of their crates during the first part of crate training.  I didn’t let them out of their crate until they stopped barking, thus not reinforcing bad behavior with a reward (i.e. getting out).

So, I guess I’m reaping the rewards of breaking my own rules.  Congrats to me.

I want a rug in front of the door the dogs go in and out of to collect dirt. Sounds easy enough, right? WRONG! I can’t really remember how many rugs we have gone through in the past year. I think we’re on number 5 since this summer. I would attribute this munching of cloth to stress from our new baby, but alas it was going on long before she arrived. I keep meaning to spray bitter apple or some such nasty conconction to deter the doggies from chewing on said rugs. Needless to say I haven’t.

My guess to the chewer is Lucy…but I could be wrong. I can’t prove it, I’m not there when it occurs to discipline them, so it really doesn’t matter. The only good thing is that all the rugs come from Wal-Mart or Big Lots (I LOVE BIG LOTS!). However, they’ve already chewed up $50 worth of rugs.

This week I got a another $10 rug. There are already bite marks on the edges and a hole in the middle. I’ve decided to leave it. Tacky, yes, but I’ve given up. At least for this week. I think I’ll try to find bitter apple at the grocery store today…if I remember.

So last week as McKenzie was spraying urine in the fireplace, Bentley spent his nights eating/destroying random things in the house.  He is almost 4.5 years old and is definitely old enough to know better.

It started with the complete destruction of a grocery paper bag.  Now this bag had not had any food items in it, it actually came inside the newspaper.  None the less, Bentley destroyed it and scattered the teeny pieces across the living room.

As the baby is set to arrive pretty soon, I was looking through my book from our pregnancy class as a refresher.  I left it open to the page with a list of what to pack for the hospital and stupidly left it on the couch.  You can so guess what happened next…  I came downstairs the next morning to find the book on the floor with the corner edge chewed to bits and a portion of the middle of the book torn out completely.

Speaking of chomping on books, that reminds me… Ben and I took a Bible study class called Disciple for around 32 weeks this year.  I had left my Bible with my study book on the kitchen table — not out of the ordinary, there are often books on the kitchen table.  So, you can imagine my horification to find my study book had been eaten to the halfway point (thank goodness we had already made it that far!).  And the worst part…Bentley had chewed the back cover of the Bible (which was leather) and eaten the book of Revelations.  My classmates thought it was fairly funny and someone even joke that we could always say Bentley had a Revelation. Ha.  Although, it seems like it should be some kind of sin when your dog eats your Bible — though something tells me my dog is not the solitary case in the world.

Back to Bentley’s follies last week. So, my parents came over to eat dinner with us and for desert I made brownies so we could have brownies and ice cream.  I remember thinking at some point I was going to put the brownies in a tupperware container to ward off any inquiring furballs.  Key word here is thinking NOT doing.  So, the next morning Ben is all — ” Did you put the brownies in a different container last night because there are no brownies in the pan?”  Hmm…”No.”  I then hear Ben telling Bentley what a bad, bad dog he is.  Yup, you know the answer, he ate the 1/2 pan of brownies left.  And not only did he eat the brownies, but he removed the aluminum foil without crumpling it, moved the knife out of the way, and cleaned the plate so it looked like it had been in the dishwasher.  Needless to say he did not get any dog food that day — much better for his stomach to just process the crap that was there without adding to it.  Amazingly, no massive vomiting or diarrhea occurred (unlike the time he ate half of Ben’s birthday cake when he was a puppy).

You may wonder how we know that Bentley is the one destroying and eating.  Well, actually it’s quite easy because he tattles on himself, actually both of the dogs do.  If you go to the site of the destruction and ask with a disappointed tone “Who did this?” the guilty party will usually either turn their head away or in Lucy’s case she usually lays in the floor.  If Bentley has done something really bad, he will hide upstairs or wherever we are not…that is NEVER a good sign.  This is rather funny considering that we don’t hit the dogs.  We verbally tell them in a scary, deep tone what “Bad, bad dogs they are” while pointing at them and shaking our heads.  Not effective in all dogs, but works great for Golden Retrievers whose goal in life is to please you.  Poor Lucy always thinks she’s in trouble whenever you lower or raise your voice at anything (the TV, the cats, etc.)

So far this week, no major destruction has occurred, however, I did catch Bentley trying to get turkey off a plate on the counter.  I guess some things will never change.

So, I’ve only been a licensed veterinarian for a little over a year, but man am I already sick of hearing excuses for why people don’t want to “fix”, spay, neuter, castrate, sterilize, “take away manhood/motherhood”, etc.  And no I’m not talking about breeding animals.  Men definitely have a harder time with acceptance of neutering their male dog, than spaying their female.  Usually, it’s just a matter of cost with the spay, versus some sort of testicular reverence when it comes to male dogs.  I always discuss the benefits (health, behavior, population control) of spaying/neutering a pet.  It’s not like I enter the exam room, then laugh maniacally and insists on taking away a dog’s manhood because I’m a feminist or some crap.  Please.

Some of my favorite statements/questions:

“He (the dog) was put on this earth for the same reason I was…” said a young man.

Oh, I could take this so many ways.  I’m assuming he means to have sex and produce young.  Or is it to be an ignorant, macho, egocentric male?  I’m thinking the dog doesn’t really care either way.  Not to mention this guy thinks his only purpose in this world is to “spread his seed” — yes I know we are programmed by mother nature to want to procreate — but geez.  I mean you would think I recommended sterilizing him (which might not be such a bad idea). 

“Won’t he miss having…you know…I mean doing “it”?

Again, dogs are not people.  (I can already hear my family giving me grief about that statement –> “…don’t your dogs live inside?”)  They are not men, they do not sit and dream about sex (and no I don’t think all men sit and dream about sex).  I’m not saying it may not enjoyable to them (I’ve never gotten a straight answer from a dog ), but they are animals.  Not to mention, is the dog in a steady relationship with another canine in the neighborhood?  I mean unless this is a breeding dog, what “action” is your dog missing?  The neighbor’s dog that gets out of the fence occasionally?

“Female dogs that have at least one litter of puppies are more nurturing, calm, and have a better disposition.”

Considering some mothers eat their young, or accidentally suffocate them by sitting on them, I don’t really believe that having a litter of puppies changes a dog’s baseline personality.

“It’s healthier to let my bitch have one heat cycle before I get her spayded<sic>.”

“Spaying my dog will make her fat.”

WE make our pets fat by feeding them too much, and not giving them enough exercise — the same way we make ourselves fat.

REASONS TO SPAY

Spay = surgery that prevents a female dog/cat from having offspring by removal of reproductive organs

Decreased risk of:

Ovarian or Uterine cancers

Uterine infections

Vaginal prolapse

Breast cancer

Close to 50% of breast tumors in dogs are malignant/ Close to 90% of breast tumors are malignant in cats

Occurs more commonly in dogs/cats than in humans

A dog spayed before her first heat cycle has almost no risk of developing breast cancer   (First heat cycle around 6 months of age)

A  cat spayed before 2 years of age, has a 7 times decreased risk of breast tumors

REASONS TO NEUTER

Neuter = surgery that prevents a male dog/cat from impregnating a female by removal of reproductive organs (i.e. testicles)

HEALTH (neutering decreases the risk of the following):

Testicular cancer

Prostate disease

Hernias

Tumors around the anus

BEHAVIOR:

Neutering often reduces roaming, aggression, and scent marking

#1 Reason to Spay/Neuter is to decrease the enormous number of dogs, cats, kittens and puppies at animal shelters/humane societies that have to be euthanized.  If people who are completely against spaying/neutering had to witness the incredible number of animals that are “put down” due to overcrowding at shelters it would give them a different perspective.  The worst part of being a veterinarian is euthanizing healthy animals (litters of kittens, etc.).  It infuriates me!

Some people would chastise me for owning a pure bred Golden Retriever instead of adopting an animal from the shelter (all of my other animals are shelter goodies).  Their point being, that by owning a pure bred I am denying a shelter animal a home.  Well, we wouldn’t have the majority of shelter animals if people would spay and neuter their pets, instead of letting intact males/females roam freely, now would we??

Normally I am an over-organized, perfectionistic, OCD freak.  Versus Ben, who can stand a pair of socks to “live” on his desk for over a month…yeah.  Throughout undergrad and vet school, I color-coded my notes for ease of studying.  Darker color highlights (blue, green, purple) for major headings, then medium (pink, orange) for sub-headings and yellow for important phrases or words.  I really didn’t think anything of it, until my junior year of undergrad when my Genetics prof took one look at my notes, ignored my pressing question, smiled sweetly and asked me if I was a slight perfectionist and possibly a little obsessive.

WHAT?  Normal people don’t organize their notebooks, notes and day planner by color? Their highlighter/pens/markers aren’t in ROY G BIV order?  And their clothes aren’t organized by color and type?  Did I mention I like things to be in fours?  Hmmm…

I mean is there anything better than a to-do list you can cross off?

I always heard people say, Oh I forgot about that quiz, or birthday, or meeting, etc.  I never could manage to “forget” anything that involved a “to-do” (that non-forgetfulness unfortunately didn’t cross over into physics).  I mean I even wanted to forget things but couldn’t.  So, I secretly wondered if people really forgot their “to-dos” or if it was just an excuse.

Well, evidently when I became pregnant my hormones must override the part of my brain that is involved with the whole organization/ remembering part of me.  Unfortunately, the only “people” who have suffered (if you can call it that) from my brain loss are Lucy and Bentley.  And possibly Ben, as I can’t seem to remember conversations he swears we’ve had.  I feed the dogs in the mornings, let them out to do their business, and then, in theory, let them back into the sun room while we’re gone.  But for some reason, step 3 keeps getting deleted in my brain.  I mean it really never crosses my mind that the dogs are outside.  Yeah they’re dogs and can be outside but there’s no shelter and usually no water (unless I remember-keyword- to fill it).

The worst I can remember, is the day I met Ben for lunch and forgot to bring the dogs in.  Usually not a big deal, but there was a nasty thunderstorm and a southern monsoon.  I realized about half the way home, as I was slowing down on the highway because I couldn’t see from the torrent, that the dogs were outside.  CRAP!

I enter the backyard, expecting to be trampled by two sopping wet, muddy beasts.  No trampling….okay…could they have opened the gate and run away during the thunder and lightening?  I start calling their names and hear a rustling near the deck.    Somehow my big ole dogs had figured out a way to army crawl their way under the deck with a 1 ft clearance.

Well, there was also the night mom called around 6:40 to ask if we were coming to dinner?  I didn’t get the message until after 7 and we, of course, had already eaten.  I felt like a horrible daughter calling her back to let her know I had no recollection of dinner plans and I was SO sorry!  She was, as always, sweet & understanding, but man I felt like a jerk.

From what I understand, from other moms, the whole “remembering things” doesn’t get better once the baby is out.  There was even a segment on the NBC nightly news where they called it “Momnesia” having to do w/ the flux of hormones during pregnancy, post-partum, & breastfeeding.  Oh well, the forgetfulness in a way is almost mellowing; since now I truly forget things.  Strangely, I sort of feel more “normal”.  Whatever that means.

Dad Quote:  “Normal is ONLY a setting on the washing machine, Erin.”

Quick update on the 5 bird eggs (pretty sure they’re Robin eggs) I doused w/ Miracle Gro.  All of the baby birds have hatched!!  Oh, and they’re not ginormous from the fertilizer…hee hee!  Here’s a pic of the babies, and yeah, the fern looks rough.

When I found out I was pregnant I could NOT WAIT to feel the baby move. Well, Ms. Mary James made her presence known at around 19 weeks. Ben and I spent a good week or two trying to “catch” her movements, so he could feel her. I remember the night he finally felt her, his face lit up like a little boy on Christmas morning who’s just seen what Santa brought…it was wonderful!

As the pregnancy has progressed, her movements have, of course, gotten much stronger. I’m 27 weeks right now, and some nights I look down and my belly is swaying from right to left as she rolls around. When Ben puts his face on my belly, and talks to her she kicks him…quite hard! Which we both get a big kick out of (no pun intended! tee hee). Ben asks how it feels to feel her acrobatics in my tummy, and I find its hard to describe. When she’s rolling around, I think it kind of feels like when you’re going down a hill too fast (that whole stomach in the throat action); as for the random kickboxing sessions…hmm…now she can kick hard enough that it feels sort of feels like a sharp pain in your side, but it’s in the middle of your belly.

We started baby classes a couple of weeks ago, and our instructor is the mom of a guy we both went to high school with. She found out I was a veterinarian and asked “Isn’t this boring for you?” I said a “Noooo!” Yeah, I know the $10 words — lochia, meconium, blah, blah. But a cow or cat popping out their baby(s) is a little different than ye olde human species giving birth. I mean epidurals, an episiotomy, grade 4 tears, having a c-section performed on ME???? These are things my nightmares are made of. I think its mostly due to a total loss of control issue.

Though, it did get me to thinking about pregnant animals. How must it feel to be a large breed dog, such as a Golden Retriever, and have 8-10 wriggling puppies in your belly? I guess ladies who have had sextuplets could possible relate (and NO that is not a slam). Granted, the canine species is only pregnant for approximately 2 months so I reckon they don’t have a lot of time to “think” about it.

Or a cow? I mean I know their calf to cow ratio fits for their weight/body size, etc. But can you imagine something that large rolling around and stretching in you? Maybe I’m looking at this from the wrong angle…I’m imagining a giant hooved creature in my belly…EEW! Perhaps the feeling of fetal movements is no different for mama cow than it is for me.

No matter, I love to feel Mary James move! I know I will miss it when she is out, but then I will actually be able to hold her and see her!! So for now, let the Jazzercise at 3 AM continue….well maybe we could discuss rescheduling class time.