S(n)o(w) Close You Can Taste It

N *almost* had her first snow Sunday morning.  Instead, we got just a light dusting.  She clearly realized something was up the minute I opened the outer building door:  stretched her neck way out, nostrils quivering, then panning quickly from side to side a few times, before finally venturing out into this white new world.  

I took her down to the kids' playground for her morning mid-walk run-around.

Later in the day we met up with Angela and Kate, and their dogs Nevada (far right below) and Charlie, respectively, and all three pooches got to run around the baseball fields for awhile.  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our neighbors were getting into the holiday spirit.  Here's Wicked -- the six-pound pooch who attacks the seventy-plus-pound N every chance he gets (?!?) -- totally decked out.  

And here are Melina, holding Henrey in his Christmas sweater, and Christina, holding Wicked.

After the Halloween costume fiasco, I won't be trying to put N in anything, but it's fun to see these guys dressed up...

Laundromutt

Today I took N to LaundroMutt -- the best business idea I'm kicking myself for not having had first in awhile.  Their slogan is "BYOD" and, having brought your own dog, you can choose one of several options:

- the Muddy Paws Express:  a quick rinse-off and towel dry ($5) 

- the Regular Lave Canem ("Wash the Dog): a "house shampoo" plus a towel dry ($15) 

- the LaundroMutt Special: a house shampoo plus a blow dry ($19) or  

- the Uber Spa: a "speciality shampoo," conditioner and blow dry ($23).

We went for an upgraded LaundroMutt Special, meaning one with a specialty shampoo -- "the Bright and White" good for N's dingy legs and underbelly -- so all the joy of an Uber Spa with none of the rinse-out conditioner (and only $21).  

N was very good about getting into the tub, which was kind of like a metal trough.  One portion of the trough's front (considerably lower than the back) slid open and one of the LaundroMutt girls hooked a little metal staircase into the newly-opened slot.  N walked right up (for the most part) and then the girl closed the trough and removed the steps while I slipped the lead over N's head.

Our neighbor Nevada wasn't nearly as sanguine about the whole experience and looked pretty glum throughout.  

Nikita on the other hand was, as usual, a complete champ and didn't complain at all when I was washing her.  (Note the huge dry head atop the scrawny wet puppy-body.) 

After I wet her, shampooed her, rinsed her, squeegeed her, and towel-dried her, we moved over to one of the grooming tables -- requisite lead off, sliding panel open, stairs brought over, N down the stairs, stairs moved over to the grooming table, N back up the stairs, new lead on -- and let the blow-drying begin.  I started with the most diffuse nozzle and kept it on the lower of the two settings throughout.  The table came with two different styles of brushes, some ear-wipes, and multiple drier attachments.  

After the girls were relatively dry -- N started howling about 10 minutes into our blow-dry session so I cut it short -- we went to settle up at the counter, where we met Gunner, a trained police dog who was "too mellow" to join the Force and was therefore manning the counter at LaundroMutt instead.  Coppers loss = our gain.  Overly-tatted tattoo lady was nice too.

N's now nice and clean and fluffy.  We'll see how long it lasts...

Just for Kicks

Towards the end of the "Edwardian collar" period (ie. the cone), Nikita got increasingly fed up with things and started getting really creative in her attempts to extricate herself...  Here's her spinning around in circles on the floor, in a post-birth, puppy version of a sonogram shot:

(The incision from the spaying is visible on her belly.)  When it was all over, I let her murder the thing:                                                                                          

She also got to play with Henrey for the first time in weeks:

I'm now plotting to get rich off puppy, starting with an ad campaign for Shaw's, featuring her favorite product:

Mmm...  Peanut butter...

The New New Routine

Now that Nikita's back to normal after her assorted surgeries and getting older, I'm trying to increase the length of her walks and decrease their frequency.  So I've replaced her old morning loop around the Fens with an approximately four-mile walk over to the Public Gardens and back.  

The first part is the same -- we walk down Park Drive and cut through the Victory Gardens (I'm still waiting to hear back about my plot, argh) where Nikita stops to sample some of the plants:

We then go a couple blocks on Boylston before cutting over to Commonwealth, which has been looking particularly lovely, even on rainy, grey mornings like the one on which these photos were taken.

Nikita stops and stares at each of the statues along Comm Ave, but eventually we get to the Gardens, where we walk around the Lagoon and she goofs around with the ducks.  

We then take Newbury, Marlborough, Beacon, or, most often, the Esplanade back and, after an approximately two-hour walk -- including a stop at the Beacon Hill 4bucks for chai for me and water (with a cup to play with later!) for her -- N passes out for a good for four or five hours: score. 

Halloween!

Well, I gave it try, but Nikita flat-out refused to keep her dinosaur costume on for more than a couple seconds at a time (made more difficult by the fact that I had to kind of drape it over her like a cape that could fasten in only one place since even the XL was too small for her).  Our neighbor Henrey looked adorable in his though:

Jigs, the male bulldog on the fifth floor who tries to hump Nikita any chance he gets, was also adorable in his purple, witch-printed cape, and Smoochie, the female bulldog on the first, is so cute she doesn't need a costume.

We gave out some Milk Bones and Kit Kats to incoming dogs and humans, respectively, and had fun checking out all the costumes.  (Emily, Smoochie's "mom," was particularly great dressed as an old woman, with boobs coming out of her stomach...)  After a week of pretty much total isolation, N also seemed to enjoy all the action.

Puppy's First Nature

As a reward for getting through such an unpleasant week-and-a-half since her attack, I took Nikita and my dad, who was visiting for a few days, apple-picking in scenic Andovah, Mass.  I figured it would all be so new and exciting for N that there wasn't much danger of her chewing on her stitches, so she also got her first break from the cone.  

She also saw her first livestock: a chicken, a goat, and some sheep, a couple of the last pictured below: 

She just stared at them the first time we passed them -- "These are really odd-looking dogs..." -- but lunged at their pen on the way back, sending them running -- "It's a wolf!"  N also got a big kick out of the orchard, and we decided that, by this time next year, we'd (ie. I'd) have her trained to pull our loot back for us.

Trying to keep her relatively calm and still this past week so she doesn't rip open any of her stitches has been pretty stressful for me and I'm sure downright maddening for her, so it was really great to let her, and watch her, get to be a normal dog again, if only for a few hours.  (The cone is back on until Monday, at which point we'll start phasing it out.)  

Dad also had a lot of fun with her, and is now hopefully making his way through Logan with the 60+ apples that constituted his share...  

Playing Inside, Part II

Keeping Nikita "quiet" -- ie., no running, jumping, or wrestling with other dogs -- has proved to be fairly challenging.  This little gem of a game (thanks Jess!) bought me five-to-10 minutes of peace and quiet earlier this afternoon, not to mention some funny photos.

You put some treats in a cereal box, seal up the box -- done, in my case, with some heavy-duty clear tape, -- then give them the box.  Now I just need to start eating cereal and/or hitting up the neighbors for their empty boxes...

Update:  this works even better with a washed-out, treat-infused, resealed Fourbucks cup.  ("Fourbucks" because it's tough to get any drink there for less than four bucks...)

*So* Proud of Puppy

Nikita's had a tough week.

She was attacked Tuesday evening by Kody, a shepherd mix in our neighborhood, and got what turned out to be an incredibly nasty bite-wound just above her tail out of it.  I didn't find it initially under all that fur, and didn't think anything major had happened.  We had an appointment first thing Thursday morning to have her spayed at Angell Memorial Animal Hospital though, so I figured the doctors there could take a look at it just incase.  

"Just incase" turned out to be a severe bite, with an even more severe pocket under it.  (Dogs apparently carry so much bacteria in their mouths that even minor bites are prone to infection -- fortunately this one hadn't spread yet.)  So, after shaving a four-inch by four-inch area of her fur, they cleaned up and stitched up the bite-wound, then made a clean incision about an inch-and-a-half over; drained the pocket under the wound; and left in a slim plastic tube about as wide and as thick as a drinking straw, though much softer and more bendable, to help with follow-on drainage.  She got to come home late Friday.  

(The spaying operation, by the way, was a piece of cake in comparison, requiring no follow-up visits, tubes, or antibiotics -- ironic that *that* procedure was what I'd been so nervous about.)  

Her energy level and spirits have both been higher than I was expecting, which is generally good -- the only bad part is how frustrated and stir-crazy she's been.  After our follow-up appointment today, during which she had the tube removed as well as the stitches from the bite-wound, she's allowed to start taking semi-normal walks -- as in, short, slow, excitement-free ones -- which should help alleviate her boredom and thus hopefully her frustration, anxiety, etc.  When I told the doctor how generally aggravated she seemed and asked if there was anything else I could be doing for her, I was told, "It's just really tough with the Arctic breeds."  That's my little monster =).  

It'll be good to start spending time outside again with her, and really good to get a break from her bashing the cone into the walls.  She definitely hasn't been loving it...

World's Greatest Neighbors

N and I are lucky enough to live in a building -- and, more specifically, on a hall -- full of puppy- and dog-lovers.  Melina and Henrey next door have become good friends of ours, and we're looking forward to sitting out on the stoop with a bowl full of dog treats for passing pooches on Halloween.  Hen already has his dinosaur costume:

Melina gave Nikita a squeaky toy that's provided her with almost 'round-the-clock entertainment.  Here's N playing with it first at Melina's, then back at the apartment on the bed:

Melina and Hen also bailed me out big-time when an allergic dinner-guest required that I either leave Nikita trapped and upset in the bathroom or drop her off at a neighbor's.  She had a *huge* time playing with Melina, Henry, and Christina from across the hall, pictured below with the pooches:

I got to sleep in all the way until 8:45 -- approximately an hour-and-a-half later than usual -- so clearly N was exhausted from an initially stressful and then fortunately fun night.  Thanks Melina and Henney!

Addendum: readers may be pleased/horrified to learn that I've since purchased the very same dino-mite costume for Nikita, size XL.  

Eargate

So, N's grandparents and I have been at loggerheads as to whether or not to do anything about her "lazy ear" situation.  I find it kind of endearing, particularly when we play dress-up -- see Tourag Puppy below -- but grandma and grandpa find it undignified.  Breeder Helen attributes this situation to larger- and heavier-than-average ears, inherited, apparently from her mother and (great-?)grandfather...  

"Fixing" it would require that I do the following:  

1. Shave/buzz/seriously-trim the hair on the inside of her ear,

2. Cut an ear-shaped piece of cardboard from the inside of a roll of toilet paper (which apparently have the perfect curvature or something), and 

3. Using fabric glue (!), afix this ear-shaped piece of cardboard to the shaved/buzzed/seriously-trimmed inside of her ear for a *week* or until it falls out if that happens before a week is up, which would at least spare me -- and her -- my having to rip the thing out of her ear.

I then check to see if the ear will stand up on its own when the other one does -- as in, when she's "alert" -- and, if not, repeat until it does.  

Not sure I want to run try this home-ec experiment on my sweet puppy, but am also getting sick of all the "Oh look at its floppy ear!"s on the street...  Vhat to do, vhat to do??

Lucky Boy

I'd been so nervous Nikita would miss her old buddies in Chicago and wouldn't meet new dogs here...  She seems to have adjusted just fine, meeting handsome four-year-old Lucky the Siberian Husky one of our first days in Boston.  He's quickly become her new best friend and they play almost every day, sometimes twice a day. 

They'll also, very rarely, just hang out without being crazy.  (This typically requires an hour plus of playing first.)

The New Deal

I take Nikita for A Very Long Walk several times a day, because a tired puppy is a well-behaved puppy.  Our usual loop is a circumambulation of "the Fens," the big park we now live on.  

We start by taking the elevator down the couple flights -- N doesn't like steps much but does like to give the inside of the elevator door a good lick (?) -- and hang a left down Park Drive.  

We pass the rose garden; the memorials to those Bostonians who died in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam; the Victory Gardens (my application for a plot is in); and curve around Boylston Street, getting nice views of the big dome of MIT across the Harvard Bridge and of the start of swanky Back Bay on our side of the Charles.  

We then skirt the edge of Northeastern University -- mascot: Huskies, so Nikita gets lots of appreciative calls (even though she's a *Malamute* not a Husky but anyway).  Then it's the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, its School, Simmons College, and Emmanuel College, before looping around the opposite end of the Fens and heading home.  

Along the way, I try to keep N away from the huge gaggle of Canadian geese that live in the park, in part because she tries to eat their poop, in part because some of them seem pretty aggressive, staring at us and making odd hissing noises.  (My neighbor's dachshund was attacked by one: apparently flipped onto his back, straddled, and beaten repeatedly by the thing's wings while being pecked in the face by its mouth/beak/whatever.  Nice.)  

Adding in time for sniffing things; picking up and dropping sticks, branches, logs, empty coffee cups and soda bottles; and saying "hi" to any friendly dog that crosses our path, this takes us about an hour.  If she's not dropping from exhaustion, I then bowl a tennis ball down the length of our hall (~75 feet) and she retrieves it until she really is exhausted.  We then go in, she passes out, and I get to do whatever I need to without having to worry about what she's up to.  

Live From Boston...

Nikita is such a champ.

Frequent stops at the fine, highway-side offerings of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York helped wear her out and make the two-day ride from Chicago to Boston seem more bearable.  She didn't even complain about the absurd little (2.5 by 3.5 foot) space all my assorted crap left her in the backseat of our rented minivan.  

My mother had booked us a big suite at a Marriott in Syracuse, NY, smaller than the Chicago apartment where N's spent her last few months but alot bigger than my new Boston studio, so hopefully it helped her gradually get used to progressively smaller digs.  She definitely got a kick out of jumping up onto a high hotel bed after my little platform job.  (I was laughing too hard to take a photo, sorry.)  

Once we got to Boston, N just sacked out in front of the fan -- no A/C here -- while my mom and I did all the hard work of unpacking, etc.  It's a tough life.

I'll post shots of our new neighborhood and her new buddies soon, but just wanted to celebrate having internet at home (as of an hour or so ago, woo!) with a fresh post.  

From Mesopotamia With Love

My dad came to town for a few days this week to check on N's progress. Taking advantage of her natural couch-potato instincts, and concerned that I was letting her education slide now that our class is over, he began her formal schooling with the history of the ancient Near East. (Lucky me was subjected to his thoughts on early versus late Wittgenstein instead.)

We left her at home Thursday night and went to dinner at Marche (I don't know how to put the accent aigu over the "e" and can't be bothered to learn). The decor was ridiculous -- dozens of mismatched umbrellas hanging from the ceiling and it got only crazier as the eye moved down -- and the food was for the most part just so-so, but N made out like a bandit, scoring the bone from my lamb shank. Remembering her manners, she just stared at it completely mesmerized for a good 20 to 30 seconds until I gave her the "Take it" command.

Dad suggested I start ordering more osso buco, as those leftovers would also be very N-friendly, and I was surprised at how reasonable making my restaurant plans around my puppy's likes and dislikes seemed...

In any event, between the history lessons and the tasty treats, N seemed really sad to see him go, and tried to prevent him from doing so by making off with his plane ticket.

Fortunately Matthias came over a couple days later and cheered her right back up. (I, apparently, have gotten old and don't elicit quite the same degree of excitement that guests do. Humph.) Or, maybe she just knows that, with him, any photo has a good chance of ending up on Facebook and contributing still further to her fame...

Dad's going to check back on her in a couple of months in Boston and my mother will be arriving in a few weeks to help with the move, so N should (continue to) get plenty of couch-time with adoring houseguests... *Such* a tough life.