Can you have too many puppies?

How many dogs is too many? 

We have good friends who have 9. Yes nine dogs. They live on a rural property so there's no by-laws limiting the number of pets. But the house is small and all the dogs are in the house for the most part. There is a designated dog room, but for the majority of the time they have free reign of the house.

And its a good thing, their house does not smell of dog, their furniture is not chewed up, their floors are spotless because no crumb of food ever stays for too long.

They even have 2 cats. I'm not talking little dogs either, each and every one is either a labrador or golden retriever.

It works for them, but could it work for us?

Yes, I fear that we may become a multi-dog household. Not 9 of them, but perhaps 2.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we've spoken for and put a deposit down on a puppy who will be coming home in about 6 weeks.

So that is good, but in the last week we've had 2 inquiries about taking other dogs that people are needing to get rid of.

One is a 6 month female black lab that someone was looking to use for a show dog, but the adult teeth didn't come in quite right and that is out for the dog by the owner.

Leery on this one, would love to have a pup that is out of the real puppy stage, but at the same time if it was bred for show, will it be good for retrieving? The price is right, free, but can't let my big sympathetic heart get the best of me on this one.

The other is a 18 month old that has been with a pro trainer since birth. Good bloodlines, good training history and so on make this a more attractive option.

The dog isn't quite living up to the standards and/or timeline that the pro had set out for her. She's a good dog, but with so many others to train you have to leave the weaker ones behind. Kind of like a sports team, you can only keep so many and the ones that don't make the grade have to find another place to play when they're cut.

The price for a dog like this is steep even with a less than stellar performance record. Our beloved mudpuppy came to our home under similar circumstances, a great dog, but didn't fit in with the plan/team she was on. But she was free under the condition that we get her spayed right away.

We'd already said that we could not afford the asking price as it was over 2000 bucks. But there was an email last night saying that there was some negotiating room on price and how did we feel about that??

Ahhhhrrrggghhh, I don't know…I'm not too sure about the puppy coming in 6 weeks, let alone having  a more mature dog in the house.

It would be good in a lot of ways. There's advantages to having 2 dogs for sure. A more mature dog to show the other one good habits, 2 for hunting, 2 for training, one could rest while the other is running, hunting. More to love, more of everything, including dog hair!! Mostly, one could entertain the other and that would be helpful at the puppy stage.

It could be bad in lots of ways. With the older dogs, you have no idea what sort of issues you could be dealing with. There is double the cost in all areas, double the trouble basically.

We'll have to think long and hard about whether we would even consider having two dogs right now. 

Have to think of Miss K, what is it going to do to her if we did decide to bring 2 into the house and then had to get rid of one because it wasn't working out?? Plus how might an older dog relate to her? Have they even been around kids or would that be a safety issue??

Adding to the thought process is the real possibility the breeder of the puppy we are getting may very well offer us an attractive deal on 2 puppies.

The mom had a litter of 12. Yes 12 damn puppies. I think he had about 6 spoken for before she had them, but now he's got double that number to get rid of…yikes

Well wouldn't that be a whole other kettle of fish? Or barrel of puppies if you will. We're not sure about having one puppy, how would we deal with 2??

Could be double the fun and definitely double the trouble.

For the long time we wondered if we'd ever get a replacement for our little girl who put such big paw prints on our hearts, and now we've got the little buggers knocking down our door.

In some ways I hope we just end up with one for the time being, but another part of me says fill the house up with any that want to come our way.

Like they say, when it rains…it generally pours..whatever happens I know I'm going to have to get more Swiffers for the floors!!

Til next time...

Like a steel trap

Do you kids ever frighten you?

I don't mean hiding in their room and jumping out of the closet, I mean scaring you with what they know and remember?

Miss K has a mind like a steel trap. The information goes in, and does not come out. She files it somewhere in there for recollection at a moments notice.

Frightening on its own level.

Take this week for example. After a trip to the clinic we find out that the poor kid has an ear infection. Mild, but still some antibiotics are needed to make sure it goes away.

She will complain for 3 damn days about a hangnail she had 2 weeks ago, but just mentions in passing from time to time that her ears are sore, but that's another story.

After Miss K woke up in the wee hours of the morning the other day. 5:20 to be exact. She was complaining rather profusely now that inside her ear hurt so we told her that we'd be going to the clinic later in the day so they could check things out.

We have been to this clinic exactly once in her life. Our family doctor retired 6 months ago so we had to make the switch to a nurse practitioner clinic.

We did  a small tour and meet and greet one evening in March and that is the last we've ever been there with Miss K. (I'm not complaining, she's a healthy kid)

Upon hearing the news we'd be going to the doctor. She asked if we'd be in the fire truck room, because that is the one she'd like to be in.

I got a blank stare on my face and said I didn't know. I honestly was thinking that she'd seen something on TV about kids going to the doctor or hospital and they'd been in a room like that.

She asked me then what the other room at the clinic was because she couldn't remember and that's when the light bulb finally went on in my head.

The clinic has 2 rooms geared for kids, one with a fire engine bed and one with a train bed.

Dear God, how did she even think of that?? The things that get imprinted on those young minds blow me away.

I guess she pulled the almost identical conversation with Big C later in the day when he picked her up from the sitter. He said it took a little longer for him to clue in, but he had the same reaction. How in the hell does she come up with this stuff?

We're figuring if her memory stays as sharp, she will be very useful in the future. We are not young parents, with both Big C and myself being in our early 40's and our memory not what it used to be.

She can remember where we left our sunglasses, remind us to take medication, and eventually tell us to put our underwear on the inside of our pants etc…

I guess its a lesson to be learned and one that I've always subscribed to. Never, ever, ever make a promise to your kid that you don't intend to keep. Because that little pickle head will remember it till the day you die!!

Til next time…use it or lose it…your brain that is

When the truth hurts

The saying is cliché, but sometimes the truth hurts. I had to tell the truth this week and it hurt. It hurt me and it hurt Big C, and that hurts.

We have been house hunting for quite some time now, it's not going well to say the least. We are thinking that perhaps we just don't have the budget for what we're looking for.

Or we have the budget, just that we have to go and live in the middle of butt f%$# nowhere.

There was one house that was sort of fitting the bill, overpriced in my opinion and not exactly what we were looking for but I suppose it would do.

We heard this week that there was an offer put in on it. Big C has been thinking about this place for a while, and he's sorta digging it.

I can see his point, its a pretty good base and we there's potential for making it the way we want. But at the top of our budget and 1000's of dollars in changes/upgrades are we making the right decision?

I see where he's coming from. I can envision what he'd like to do. 

I can't see myself living there. I want to in the worst way. I want to share his vision and optimism but I can't.

He asked if we could put a lowball offer in, just to see if we could take a stab at it. Our offer was going to be way off the asking price, I almost agreed with him on the premise that it would never be accepted.

But never say never right? I went on the notion that our offer was accepted, and then what? We sold our house and 3 months from now we were living there.

No, I couldn't do it. I couldn't even go through with that. I wasn't feeling it, I wasn't excited about moving to this place, no matter how remote the chance. I was sick inside about it, guts churning knowing that I'd have to say no.

Big C wants out of where we are for many reasons. Our house is not horrible by any means and suits our needs  in many ways. But we've sort of out grown it, or at least need a different arrangement of space. Maybe not more space, but a different allocation of it.

I stalled for a bit, saying I didn't know what to do. But after Miss K went to bed, I had to come out with it. I had to say that I just couldn't move there, that staying where we were was the better option.

Big C was upset. Or disappointed would probably be the better word. I think he thought I was digging this other place the way he was. It had lots going for it, but I wasn't feeling it, some intangible thing I couldn't put my finger on.

Big C asked me again yesterday morning to think about it some more. I guess he hadn't got much sleep. He figured it was a mistake not to at least try to get it.

I stewed about it for most of yesterday. It ate away at me a little more. But honesty won out again. Even if this house was well below our budget, I still don't think I'd want to be living there.

We talked again last night. More truths that hurt, but not being honest with Big C or myself for that matter would damage us even more. 

I hated crushing his vision, hated that look of sadness in his eyes. Hurting someone you love so much with nothing more than the truth.

I hope we can move onto something better someday. I hope there is a place out there that suits us and will fit our life. I hope its in line with both our hearts and minds and Miss K's too as she gets older.

I also hope that in the future I don't have to be truthful and cause so much pain in the process.

Til next time…tell the truth, even if it hurts

Here we go!

Oh no, what have we done? Remember how I said we were kind of stuck in one endless repeating circle? Well, change is on the way.

A big one. Really, really big change, in a very small package.

We're getting a puppy. Sometime in early December our lives are going to be turned upside down.

I'm excited and scared all in one emotion. I didn't really want a puppy, was hoping for a more mature dog, at least 6 or 8 months old.

But as the saying goes, opportunity will knock and you have to listen. We even put a deposit on this opportunity, so its not going away.

Again I say, oh no what have we done? This is not going to be good, cute and furry yes, good no. The only thing that could be worse is if I was having another kid about 2 weeks before the puppy's arrival.

Please, please, please let this work out all right. Miss K is so wanting this to happen. She is still torn up about the loss of our Mudpuppy. 

Just last night we caught her up close to the TV because there was a puppy on it. She said she was touching the TV because she wanted to pet the puppy. She went into a long lament about missing our Mudpuppy and wanting another dog etc…

Puppies in the not too distant future is a hard concept for a three year old to grasp. She was sort of thinking that when we went to see the "mom" of our new addition on the weekend that we'd be bringing a puppy home that day.

No we told her there are puppies growing in her belly, it will be a while before we can see them and longer still before we can bring it home.

I hope she gets it, it will be another 6 weeks or so before the puppies are big enough after being born that we can go see them.

Oh, god the puppy stage. I'm not sure that I want to do this. But we couldn't pass it up. A breeding and pedigree that was sound and proven. 

A mother dog that was keen to hunt and retrieve but was docile and calm around the house. A father dog along the same lines.

An older dog would have been ideal, house trained, some basic obedience already, kennel trained, could leave it for longer periods of time etc… But also rare to find, and much more in the cost department.

Yes, we'd love to rescue a shelter dog, but our needs/wants are more specific so we're going this route.

It's not cheap either and we've got a whole lot of logistics to work out in the next few months, but deep down I think it will go OK, at least I hope so…

Change is coming and its going to be black with four furry feet and a cold nose.

Oh yeah, and a co-worker of Big C's is coming to look at our house tomorrow. He's looking to move to the area and thinks our house might fit the bill.

Egads, wouldn't that be a trip. Sell our house, buy a new one and move all before the new fur kid comes along

Should be a fun run up to the end of the year n'est ce pas?

Til next time…think of puppy names…lol

Taking the bad with the good

It's Friday! That in itself is always a good thing. We've got some summer like weather on the cusp of fall so that is good too. There's a chance of rain, which kind of sucks but we need the rain so can't complain too much!

Lots of reasons to be in a positive mood. Miss K. made a kick ass card for her dad's birthday this week. Her and I had signed and stickered a store bought one on the weekend, but this was way better.

I have no idea how long it took her but she nailed it. She spent a lot of time and bless our sitter's heart she had a lot of patience. My 3 year old kid printed out "Happy Birthday Daddy" and signed her name on a sheet of paper she cut out with "fancy" scissors. She drew a cake with candles, and though I'm still not totally sure I think the other things were meant to be balloons.

I don't like to show that kind of stuff off too much lest i become "that parent" but this was fantastic. Will post a pic so you can see. Yes, I'm sure that there are 3 year olds out there with much better writing or even working on their SAT's but it was awesome in my books.

So, that was cool, Big C's birthday was understated, but we had supper and cake together and opened presents, so not much more you could ask for.

But, that being said there's been a tinge of sadness on the edge of life these days. 

Some of it is still missing puppy dog, she loved the fall so much, the cooler weather brought more of a spring to her already bouncy step.

No, its other stuff so profoundly sad it just creeps into your everyday thinking whether you like it or not…

There was a girl I went to high school with, we weren't great friends, maybe not even friends, more acquaintances, ah hell, I didn't care for her all that much truth be told, but she lost her husband last week. He hung himself, leaving behind her and 2 kids.

He'd battled depression for a few years, but everyone said he seemed a bit better lately. Perhaps it was just an illusion to make it seem less awful. A disguise of deeper more debilitating despair that he couldn't deal with.

No matter my feelings toward her in our much younger days, no one deserves that, no one deserves to lose the one they love that way. No one deserves to have to explain to their kids why dad is no longer coming home. 

I can only imagine the sense of utter loss and emptiness, and if that weren't enough, the additional questions/guilt of how you may have been able to prevent it, help in some way, something or anything to stop such a horrible ending to life.

Then there's the extended family member that has decided that they're going to end their marriage after 17 years. There's just no love left they say. Well doesn't that just paint a pretty picture for the rest of us.

You may be in love now, but give it time folks and you'll end up hating your significant other. I mean we all probably hate our spouses on any given day or a given moment, but its fleeting.

I guess it makes me sad because our wedding anniversary is coming up. It's 6 years for us…but the prospect of feeling the way this other couple did in another 10 years or so just sucks.

It doesn't give me much faith in the world or in society. I wonder if we are under so much pressure that we just give up? Do we think we have to be perfect or else we're nothing? 

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a rainbows and buttercups sort of person. I'm not the eternal pessimist by any means but I think of it as more a realist with hope for the betterment of all.

I really want to see the good in things, I cheer for the underdog, I really do try to treat my neighbour as I'd want to be treated and so on and so on. 

Sometimes things just seem bleak. Like everything and everybody has lost their way a little bit. There's good things happening out there, but they just don't  seem to brighten the rest.

We're struggling to find a new place to live, that is in our price range, a reasonable commute to work, good school prospects for Miss K and so on and that search is frustrating to say the least.

We're struggling to find a way to get another dog into the house. I don't want to and we can't do the little puppy stage with us being gone from home so long everyday. But to find a more mature dog is a task in itself too.

So many challenges in life, and they're little compared to some, but they wear on you after a while. You want to give up, but something just keeps you forging on, working for something new and better

I guess that is maybe all we have…hard work and the hope that the dogged perseverance will pay off someday, or maybe it is paying off, I'm just not able to see it right now…

Til next time…enjoy the last bit of summer weather, it's probably all downhill from here...

Things are changing??

I wasn't sure what I was going to write about today. I think the topic is going to be "change". Not loose change you find in your pocket, which is awesomely cool and definitely worth mentioning, but rather change as in something different.

The weather this week is something different every day let me tell you. Tuesday we broke record highs all over the place with it feeling like 40+ degrees Celsius. About 105 Fahrenheit for the old schoolers out there. Today its about 14°C or 55°F for a high. Today is Friday people. We went from sit by the pool and sweat your ass off weather to OMG better put on a jacket weather in less than 3 days.

We had the awesome thunderstorms to prove it. Fantastic light show, hail, wind, some funnel cloud spotting. Miss K wanting to change spots with me at the dinner table so she could watch the hail on the deck!

Pretty volatile and incredible, but changeable weather in September in this part of the country is nothing all that new. 

There's no change in the day job which on one hand is a good thing. Job security is a wonderful thing.

But no change on the side of there being no work, well that's another thing entirely. I'm about ready to put needles in my eyes I am so bored.

I like to work at a pace that puts many in the dust. I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm not trying to show anybody up. That's just who I am. I work quickly, efficiently and I stick with it. I get in a zone and stay there for the most part.

But, we're nowhere even close to having enough to do to reach a "zone" Hell, we're not even close to a district/province or territory let alone a "zone". It's awful, I know it will pick up, but I hope to God it's not after there's been lay offs or downsizing. We've got the dept. set with a good number of people and it feels like family so we don't want that to change.

At home no big changes with Miss K. She's testing with the back talk or attitude thing right now, which I tend to ignore, but it does get annoying at times. 

Big C goes crazy when she does it, he tries to ignore it too, but doesn't always do too well, which he's trying to change.

Miss K is getting tall and changing into more of a little girl than toddler or preschooler. Size 4T pants seem like they may not make it through the winter she's getting so tall. 

We're still searching for another house to live. And we're still not getting anywhere with it. Big C has one that he kinda likes, but we're still way off in price. As in we can't afford anything close to what they are asking. Always seems we've got champagne taste and a beer budget.

Plus, all I see are $ signs for stuff we have to change if we moved in there. I'd pay that kind of money if it was perfect from the start but not when there's 25 grand in reno's or additions to do.

So, we still keep looking, with the change being that we actually might find something!

Soon it will be time to change the clocks, turning them back to standard time, which means it will be dark even earlier now…yuck.

Change is inevitable, be the change you want to be in the world, things never change, the sayings and clichés go on and on

For me, I'd just like to find some spare change…till next time

The Great Outdoors

I feel some small part of me may not be Canadian. I'm at least a 3rd or 4th generation pure Canadian, but I think some part of my being may belong to another country.

I don't have the camping gene. The need/want to stay in a tent in the great outdoors, usually on a long weekend and near 100 other people and about 10000 different bugs.

No, I'm not a girly girl who needs her comforts of home. I can pee in the bush with the best of them, and could care less if I have TV, cell phone or wi-fi at my disposal. The lack of a hot shower gets annoying at times but I can survive.

But some small part of me just doesn't enjoy it. I don't know why, it just is this way.

Miss K. has been bugging us for ages to go camping. She wanted so badly to have a campfire, sleep in a tent and all the other things that go along with it.

We figured with it being labour day weekend we better get to it or it would be next summer before we'd be able to even consider it. We'd purchased a new and bigger tent just recently so why not try it out.

Maybe its all the work that goes into one night of tenting that I don't like? We did nothing but get stuff ready Friday night and Saturday morning. Granted if we camped more often some of the stuff would be more readily available, but my what a pain in the ass.

We wanted to take the boat along too as we were going to be near a large bay so that was added stuff that Big C had to dig out of storage.

On a positive note, we were going to be nowhere near a public campground. Definitely not my idea of fun, with your neighbours tent about 2.5 feet from yours, defeats the purpose of getting away from it all in my books.

Fortunately, we have a couple of friends who have rural properties that lend themselves well to outings like this and that is where we were going to be spending the night, not with partying teens or screaming kids, but somewhere that was actually remote.

Back to my complaints, there's too many bugs. Bugs and me have never got along, extended times in the outdoors never bode well for me even with buckets of bug spray. I'm guessing bathing in a vat of DEET wouldn't help, I'm just a tasty snack for the insects we encounter.

I hate being damp/moist/dewy whatever. Your pillow is damp, your clothes are damp everything just has a certain amount of moisture to it after a night of camping out. 

It's gross. I've been camping where you have to wear a hat and mitts at night its that cold. You can see your breath in the tent if you get my drift, that doesn't bother me, not ideal, but you can cope. It's the damn moisture. You roll over and the pillow at night feels like a wet wipe, not really wet, but it sure as hell ain't dry.

Putting on your clothes is another one, hey lets put on some undergarments that feel like they might grow mold at any minute. Fun? I think not.

We do have a tent now that I can at least pretty much stand  up in to get dressed so that is a bonus and eliminates one of my other complaints of trying to get clothes on while lying on a sleeping bag.

So, I go camping, but part of me hates it just a little bit. Not enough to refuse to go, but enough that it will never be a monthly thing. 

It does make it so much better when your kid had a total blast. Miss K. I think is made for camping. She maybe has a bit of whatever native blood Big C has left in his ancestry, I'm not sure but she took to it like a fish to water.

There was at least 200 extra questions on top of her daily total of 400, but it was good. The look of sheer joy on her face standing by the campfire or in her bed in the tent was enough to make any camping hater just a little softer in the heart.

There was stuff her 3 year old mind just couldn't comprehend, like why we had to take our garbage back home with us in the truck, but others like removing her footwear before going in the tent was second nature.

We had fun, it was nice to sit with Big C after we'd tucked the rugrat in and just talk and watch the crackling fire, listening to the 10 million crickets and other creatures of the night.

It was only one night but it was an escape from the everyday. No chores, no phones, no tv, no shopping, no errands no nothing but hanging out with one another and just having fun.

There are so many things you can give your kid without spending a lot of cash, this was one of those times. She learned lots, had fun, got dirty, laughed and slept hard. What more could you ask for in life?

Til next time…maybe I will have stopped scratching my bug bites...