This evening I will take Henry, his crate and his toys and I will load them all up in my truck.  I'm not going to drive, I'm already crying and I know that I won't be in any condition to handle the road conditions right now. When I get to our destination, I will hand Henry and his accoutrements over to a man and woman who will be his new 'parents'.  After saying my goodbyes, I'll get back in my truck and I'll cry all the way home. Henry isn't going to be living with us anymore.&n...

Grace is just about full-grown now... Her first day: Bonding with the pack: She loves getting her belly rubbed: Owning a boxer has been a totally different experience than any of the dawgs I've owned before.  For one, they have very unique behaviours, like 'beaning'.  When they're happy, the curve themselves around into a 'c' or a kidney bean shape.  Someone saw her doing this and asked us if she had something wrong with her leg.  When we e...

Our Boxer dawg, Gracie, likes to be outside.  We have a tie-out for her right outside the back door, and when she's outside I leave the door open so I can see (for the most part) what she's up to. When she asked to go outside this morning, I let her out and then went to start some candy mix on the stove and make myself a cup of coffee.  I figured that she'd been going outside by herself for weeks and hadn't gotten into a trouble so it'd be okay for me to leave her unattended fo...

 

*I'm going to give you a little background information before I get to the 'EEK' part of the story* Saturday morning I get up and find little smears of dried blood all over the hallway tiled floor.  I wondered if one of the dawgs had cut their paws, but couldn't find any evidence of that when I examined them.  The cat wasn't anywhere to be found, so I summised that she must have injured herself somehow and that's where the blood came from.  We had a big hole in the screen of ou...

A lot has happened since I last wrote.  First of all, my momma and The Big Guy got another dawg.  They call her a boxer, but I've never seen her get into boxes like that cat does, so I really don't know why she's called that.  I still hate that cat.  But whatever.  This new dawg is called Greasy....no, that's not right.  Gracie.  That's it.  Gracie.  She looks like her mother dropped her on her face because her nose is all smushed up and it causes her...

I have a pretty strong stomach, stronger than most, I'd say.  I've changed some nasty baby and toddler diapers, picked up and cleaned up animal waste, seen and dealt with all kinds of vomit, both from kids and grown-ups,  and regularly go into nursing homes and hospitals to sit with and care for people who have lost control of their bodily functions.  In other words, it takes a lot to make me gag. However, there are still some smells that cause me to gag.&nb...

Being a puppy is hard work....   Yep, it's pretty tiring stuff.

I've learned a lot about Boxer dogs in the past few weeks.  They have some behaviours that are unique to their breed - and that are pretty funny too. For instance, there's the 'Boxer Bounce' as I like to call it.  The way Gracie jumps...it's almost like she's on springs and is bouncing all over the place.  She does this when she's playing with us and when she's happy to see someone. She's got this face that I simply cannot resist.  She'll look at me with ...

We've had Gracie living with us for 10 days now.  It seems like a lot longer; it feels like she's been here forever. She's done remarkably well in the week and a half.  She's learned that outside is the appropriate place to go potty, and if she can't make it outside then she should use the housebreaking mats we have.  Her aim could be a little better and I wish that she'd stay still when she poops, but...she's got the idea, and I'm cool with that. She's learned to sit on com...

Having a  puppy is much like having a toddler in the house. She gets into stuff.  Even though she's confined to the same room as I am and isn't ever left alone to roam freely, she still manages to get into things.  Like when  was getting dressed this morning.  I had crated her when i was in the shower.  There's no way I can supervise her when I'm all wet and soapy, so for her own good she went in her crate.  When I got out, she was howling that distinct...

  She's a 9 week old purebred boxer pup.  We're making the decision about her name this evening, but right now Grace/Gracie (because she's a wee bit clumsy yet), Maggie (the name of the girl in 'Million Dollar Baby' - the girl boxer, geddit?), or Ginger (because she's a sort of ginger color) are the front runners.  Of course, we could come up with something completely different...but we DO know that as of tomorrow morning she will have a name. We have a winner!&n...

The mystery of what the dog rolled in has been solved. He asked to be let out again about half an hour ago and came in stinking again.  That prompted Dave and I to go out and see if we could find what he'd been wallowing in.  We came in empty handed. Jake was the one who found it.  He came in and announced his findings: "it's a mole.  A dead one.  It's all slimy n' stuff" I went back out to see, and sure enough, there it was.  In a pile of dead leaves be...