DIY Dog Furniture

I saw this online and immediately wanted one.  Andy has a standard dog crate big enough for a golden retriever.  It lives under the dining room table and is just an awkward eyesore.  It would be great to have one that doubled as a classy end-table.

This particular one is listed for $105, although the nicer ones can run $200-$400.  Looking back, maybe we should have just bought it, because in the end we only saved about $50 by doing it ourselves.  The original plan was to only spend $20 and seemed like a stroke of brilliance. 

We begin with an old cabinet of unknown provenance that we acquired for $20 at Goodwill six years ago.

Until lately, it had been used to store our DVDs.  Now it will be transformed into Lady Andromache's doggie boudoir.  

First step was to remove the shelf and pull out the support pins with pliers.  Easy.  Next we had to cut windows into the doors.  That was a bit more complicated because the only power tool we own is a drill.  I used it like a woodpecker, and after three days of drilling and chiseling, we had fabulous open spaces.  

A little wood stain and varnish, and it looks great.  Just don't look too closely.

Anyway, we added fencing to the front doors by cutting up the divider that came with Andy's big crate.  We had never used it, and it was about time it justified the space it was taking up in the closet.  I attached it be means of screws and big washers for lack of any better ideas.  Then I pried the rotten cardboard off the back.

I was still undecided about how to finish the back when we went to Home Depot this morning.  The original plan was to use a panel from the portable dog fence on the patio, but that proved impractical.  After wandering around for a while, we found a pet grille meant for a screen door.  At $35, that was what pushed us over budget, but it worked out perfectly after trimming it down to size.

Scored some 3" high density foam for the bottom today at the craft store.  That stuff is usually $50/yard, but we only needed 13" AND we brought our 50% off coupon.  So, $9.

I covered the foam with part of Andy's old fleece blanket and secured it with safety pins underneath because I didn't have the patience to sew it into a zipper cover.  Took out the door magnets.  The front was retrofitted with a hook latch between the handles, and it was finished.

Andy hasn't seen it yet.  I hope she likes it when she gets home from doggie daycare.  Johanna was intrigued by the whole process.

Baby Progress Report

For about five minutes, I imagined little premature JoJo would be a petite, underdeveloped baby.  Now three months old, Princess Chunk is closing in on 15 pounds and wearing clothes sized for a 12 month-old.  No problems catching up to the average here.  I am also extremely gratified to report that she has figured out how to deal with a normal breastfeeding routine, and we have been able to put away the pump.  Hooray for many fewer bottle washings.

Her current interests include morning stroller walks and lounging on the porch with the dog.  She's reached that awkward phase when she's awake more often and completely bored by the activities she's capable of.  Hopefully that will spur her on to more manual dexterity and we can break out some of the cool toys.

Most fabulous of all, she's consistently sleeping through the night in her own bed in her own room, generally from 9:30 PM to 6 AM, with no diaper overflow.  I feel like we've won the parental lottery.

My every spare baby-free moment is spent on a new all-consuming project - a deluxe kitchen and felt toy food set for her future use.  We've finished making hamburgers, lettuce, spinach, tomato slices, onion rings, mushrooms, avocados, bacon, fried eggs, cheese slices, condiments, cookies, sandwich bread, luncheon meat, linguine and farfalle pasta, two kinds of cereal, and pancakes with all the toppings.  Currently in progress are kiwi, banana, strawberry and peach fruit slices, ravioli, breakfast sausage, and more cookies.  Getting some little green pom poms for peas, and considering making green beans.  Loads of fun, but very time consuming.  Someday we'll have our dining room table back.

Gift Registries and Other Updates

In response to popular demand, and the need for more detailed guidelines than "not pink," we have created a few baby gift registries.  They are by no means the be-all-end-all lists of what we want or need, but they're a start.  If somebody finds a cute outfit at the thrift store and washes it a few times, that's cool too.  But we really do love the Burt's Bees stuff.

• Burt's Bees Baby
• Amazon

In other news, we had the 18-20 week ultrasound at the hospital last week.  Everything still looks good, but they want to follow up in a month to look at whatever they didn't get a good enough look at the last time.  My blood pressure is in question, so I've been monitoring that at home in addition to a delightful 24-hour pee test and blood panel.  Results to follow.  Getting the progesterone injection has been a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare involving second-party distributers, third-party pharmacies, lost paperwork, and lots of waiting on hold over the phone.  I think we finally have all the bugs worked out, and I'm supposed to go in for a shot in the butt every week for the duration.  Cervix still looks good; we have another ultrasound this week to check it again.  Blood pressure follow-up is next week.  If our insurance didn't cover all this, we might well have been tapped out by March.

I'm told they usually deliver people in my circumstances around 36 weeks, which would be the week of March 15, the dog's birthday.  I'm seeing some very cute birthday snapshots in our future.

Mooch Busted

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program for this dog shaming.  The culprit was determined to be a one-year-old toy poodle with an entitlement complex.  She was sentenced to public shame and ridicule, but immediately forgot the incident.

Parenthood Lite

Random ways having our dog is training for having children, in no particular order:

1)  Whatever you are doing, there must be room for sitting in your lap and perhaps napping there, no matter how awkward it may be to continue or finish whatever activity you were doing in the first place.

2)  She has socialization therapy (aka "Puppy Playtime) twice a week.  Inevitably, one of those times is Saturday afternoon when everything else happens.  Reorganize your schedule accordingly.

3)  Once she starts co-sleeping, good luck getting her to sleep alone in her own bed.

4)  When she wants to play, she asks nicely with a tap on the leg or a nose-nuzzle to the ankle.  When you ignore her, she resorts to growling, whining, groaning, and the tantrum dance.  If you are staring at the laptop, she will make annoying noises or just smack you in the face.

5)  She is very specific about the toys she wants to play with at any given time, and how the game will be played.  She manages to communicate this fairly well without words.

6)  She never picks up her toys.

7)  She enjoys destroying her toys.

8)  We now handle poop multiple times on a daily basis.

7)  On bad days, we also handle vomit.

8)  You never again leave the house without the appropriate supplies to handle a public poop.

9)  Other parents give you compliments about how beautiful she is, although neither of you had anything to do with it.

10)  Errands and outings are structured as much as possible around nap-time.

11)  There is always a load of stinky puppy pads to be laundered.

12)  "Doggie radar" is running 24/7 in the back of your mind, making it hard to focus like you used to.  When things are very quiet, it is generally a bad sign.

13)  Six times out of ten, you need to take something out of her mouth.


                                   . . . to be continued.

No Love For the Blog

Poor blog, dying the slow death.  Let's see if we can resuscitate it.   I don't even remember what was happening when the posts dried up.  Let's see . . .

Oh, yes.  Personal make-overs, projects, and fan art.  Now for some quick updates.

(1)    The personal makeover is still in effect, though I've gone through several different tattoo designs by now and ended up hating them all.  Nothing is really wrong with them, but I can't decide where I would put them.  So now the focus is just working out and losing twenty pounds.  Seems feasible.  Unfortunately we weren't able to move to the better apartment with gym facilities, so getting to the gym on base requires setting aside at least a three-hour chunk of time, which the little poodle doesn't appreciate.  It basically burns all the crate time for the day, making errand-running hard to schedule.  After about a month of putting in these gym trips, I lost five pounds, but gained four back over the Easter weekend.  This resulted in a personal ban on milk chocolate.  Currently down two pounds of the four, for a total of three pounds lost.

(2)    Projects!  There are too many of them.  I find myself trying to prepare jewelry and stockings for both private commissions and craft shows, as well as using up lots of hoarded papercrafting supplies for personal projects and special requests.  At some point, I also decided to experiment with a hideous old piece of furniture my family knows as "the Elliot table."  Rather than chucking it in the dumpster, I decided to sand it down and see if I liked it any better naked.  I had no idea how long it would take to sand down a little side table and how many freaking sanding blocks I would burn through.  Fortunately I found said sanding blocks for $0.49/each at the salvage store.  Now I'm that crazy person who spends hours on the patio making horrible scraping sounds.

(3)    Took a time-out day yesterday to unwind and write fanfiction.  I have several stories running, two in various stages of publication, but I actually managed to churn out a whole page of new text for the one my husband is collaborating on.  First chapters are always hardest for me.  I'd rather get on to the good stuff.

(4)    Health updates.  After lots of drama and phone tag and scheduling snafus, I managed to get in for a hysterosonogram ordered by my OBGYN.  They didn't find anything incredibly interesting, but saw enough to determine that I do not in fact have a true bicornuate uterus, but only a partial septate uterus.  The plan now is to burn (or scrape?) the septum out in the hopes that it plus a progesterone treatment will increase the odds of a successful pregnancy.  I don't really have a lot of hope for it, but I'm willing to give it a try.  Frankly, they could destroy my uterus, and I would probably thank them.  The only thing that gives me the jeebies is their plan to put a camera through my bellybutton.  Yikes.

(5)    Doggie updates.  Andy continues to be nervous and anti-social around other dogs, but we keep taking her to Puppy Playtime at PetCo twice a week, hoping for a different result.  If the trainers just let me into the enclosure with her, we seem to see some results.  Despite being only nine pounds, she has no time for little dogs, but has perked up for a Great Dane and a Rottweiler named Valkyrie.

(6)     Debt report.  Ever since we committed to a puppy (who is now one year old and a Big Doggie at heart), overpaying the debt has been almost impossible.  The financial drain was quick and incredible.  However, after six months of minimum payments, I think we've made at least the beginning of a healthy recovery, especially since the little princess doesn't have vet appointments every two weeks.  We may even start overpaying again, except that now the older car is having a diva day for it's 60,000 mile check-up, and we expect at least a $1,300 bill.  Maybe next month.  Here's where we stand now.

This represents 61% paid, which is based on the number we started with when I started making all these silly pie charts.  However, if I use the original total of this loan, not taking into account the paid-off car loan, it looks more like this.

81% paid.  Booyah.

(7)    Work report.  Dave re-enlisted and, as of this morning, passed his weigh-in!  Yay!  Next time around it won't be quite so stressful, because one of his previous failures (one of which was not official and should not have even counted against him) will no longer be relevant, and his entire career won't be on the line.  However, since this is the year of personal make-overs, next year won't be a problem at all.

(8)    Also, I have a bra that fits!!!  It has been a personal revelation.  I've never paid $75 for a bra before, but Nordstrom is the only place I can find the appropriate range of sizes for purposes of trying on.  I had been attempting to fit into a standard 36 or 38 C, D, or DD for YEARS.  It was a daily battle of strap-slippage, cup-spilliage, and awkward manual adjustments, finally resulting in a personal routine of wearing a sports bra over the underwire one just to provide some staying power.  I now have a 34F (in British sizing) and it is FABULOUS!  Now I want to evangelize everyone.

Andy's Raw Food, the Follow-up

So, after weeks of looking for a simple outdoor thermometer in all the wrong places, we have finally determined that our freezer has not been cold enough to render the raw food safe.  When I turned the settings down to make the freezer cold enough, everything in the fridge froze.  So, until we have a freezer and refrigerator that have independent settings, or enough disposable income to acquire a little chest freezer, Andy will have to make due with med-rare hamburger.  She's not a happy camper today, enduring the 24-hour fast between food types.  Fortunately, eggs are an ingredient in both types.  Maybe I'll scramble a few for her.

Everyday Dog Training

I used to think I was a decent dog trainer.  Now that my sister knows how to do it professionally, I realize I am actually pretty lousy at it.  Most of that is just laziness, or not being able to see around the seeming pointlessness of some of the standard tricks.  What really is the point of teaching a dog to roll over?  Is this a precaution against her ever catching fire?

Fortunately, we have a smart dog who catches on quickly.  We've had the best success in "everyday training," which is basically about learning to communicate.  She's picked up several vocabulary words in the short three months we've been working with her.

Basic tricks down cold, by voice or hand command:

• sit
• down
• stand
• "sit pretty" (like a circus dog)

What more do you really need?  Maybe "come" and "stay."  Both of those are still a little tenuous, but the foundation is there.

Extra words, phrases, and general communication:

• get in your crate (works best at bedtime)
• breakfast
• hungry
• food (a favorite)
• eggs
• eggs for food (the best of all worlds)
• squirrel (actually looks where I'm pointing now)
• in the chair (when her toy "disappears")
• outside
• inside
• c'mon (she's a slow walker on leash)
• baby (referring to her)
• good girl

It's always exciting to see that glimmer of understanding when we talk to the little critter.  It makes me wonder if she draws any other conclusions about her world.  She knows what happens when she goes outside; does she assume that's what we're doing when we leave her here?  The jingly keys mean going outside.  When we leave with the jingly keys, does she imagine we're going for a car ride or taking a stroll around the neighborhood without her?  I guess we'll never know.  

This Month's Magic Number Is . . .

200.  It's been turning up a lot in this first week.

• $200 for student loan
• $200 for credit card #1
• $200 for credit card #2
• -$200 in pay while the government is "shut down"

and finally, the surprise of the morning .  .  .

• $200+ in emergency veterinary care for vomiting and bloody diarrhea. 

Really, puppy?  Credit card #2 was just a fraction of the payoff for her spay, and now it's right back up there where we started.  Stop being sick!  :(

Fortunately for her, I was just reflecting yesterday on how much I like our dog and how great it is to have her around.  The expense is worth it in the end, but seriously, that's enough for now.  

With any luck, I can finish a few commissions soon which should be worth about $200.  Should be able to get a lot of work done while the doggie is sick/napping in her quarantine pen.

Andy, Raw Food, and Transitional Motherhood

Sampling the goods.

I've decided to finally ditch the kibble and put Andy on a raw diet.  The recipe I found uses raw hamburger, cooked rice and boiled eggs (shells on).  She has recently discovered that she LOVES boiled eggs, so much so that we probably should have named her Joanna.

Anyhow, the first batch is done, packaged, dated and in the freezer, awaiting it's 14-day parasite quarantine.  I'll have to find a real thermometer to be sure it's at least -4F in there.

But I digress.  She costs a fortune, but having Andy around finally seems worth the trouble.  Rationally, we knew the puppy phase wouldn't last forever, and that ultimately it was about investing the time and resources necessary to have exactly the dog we wanted around for 10+ years.  

But despite the fact that we just really wanted a dog, and that she just makes us happy, it was the nearest thing to having kids we could manage at the moment.  It's almost like being a real family, not just emotionally but practically.

We tell our friends we got a dog for "practice" before having children.  Some laugh it off, but others who have infants and toddlers of various ages dismiss the idea out of hand.  "Pets are NOTHING like kids," they say.  "It's completely different."  Well, that may be so, but there are several important transitions which pet ownership has in common with parenthood, fundamental transitions which many young families may have forgotten about by now.

We planned on having kids right away.  Clearly that didn't happen, and that's a story for another post.  Now, four years later, we were actually quite comfortable in our childless existence, being able to go where we wanted to go and do what we wanted to do whenever we wanted.  Romantic evenings alone were the rule rather than the exception.  We could go see movies, take trips, and had a very flexible schedule.  Dave had his work and his books, I had my crafts and hobbies, and we managed to occupy all our time.

The master plan for most of the last four years was to look into adopting a few kids once we were settled and debt-free.  By our original schedule, we were set to begin that process in a year or so.  But despite all the financial preparation, we were in no way psychologically prepared.  That's where the dog comes in.

We committed to getting a dog, a very specific kind of dog, a small poodle or doodle suited for apartment life and the real possibility of getting kids with allergies.  Dog acquired.  Happiness shall follow, right?

Not so much.  We were first acutely aware of our lost freedom.  We couldn't go anywhere for very long and had to be back at a certain time.  We had to stick to a schedule.  Somebody besides me needed to be cleaned up and fed in the morning.  Somebody else needed her laundry done.  There was no more sleeping in.  Everything was a choking hazard.  There was much more unpredictable excrement and bodily fluid.  Parents, does this sound familiar?

Personally, I was already swamped.  I was trying to redesign the apartment and start a business, I had a long list of backorders for Christmas stockings and was working an early-morning part-time job.  Cooking and housekeeping had been forgotten long ago.  Now I was following a three-month-old puppy around the house, fishing her out from behind the furniture, designing makeshift barricades, and generally spending my entire waking life doubled over picking crap up off the floor, literal and otherwise.

Many times I considered - sometimes as long as a few seconds - getting rid of the puppy.  She was clearly a mistake, a lapse in judgment, and we would all be better off without such an expensive distraction.  But each time I realized that if I couldn't cope with a puppy now, I would stand no chance coping with toddlers later.  At least I could put the puppy in her crate when I needed some space.

Now, on the other side of puppyhood and house-breaking, we've achieved a very harmonious existence.  We still don't have our freedom back, but that isn't as big a deal as it used to be.  Sometimes she walks off her potty pad before the poo falls where it should, and she howls and cries bloody murder from the other room whenever she detects any marital romance, but we're glad to have her.

Overall, I think we're better prepared than we were before.

Pampered Pooch

Andy went in to be spayed this morning.  She seems to be getting the best treatment there is, but I'm starting to wish we'd gone to some back alley shelter for this procedure.

"Little Bundles" special rate: $300

Modern laser surgery: $200

Post-surgical accessories: $50

Last minute removal of entrenched baby teeth: $200

The little princess' $700+ bill right on the heels of family vacation and the purchase of a huge new computer is finally testing the limits of our checking account.  Oh, yeah, and the energy bill for that last hot month was another $200.  Then there's the internet bill.  And phones.  And rent.

Yeah, we're broke.  For the first time, the credit cards will have to carry over into next month.

Tech-Savvy Dog

We have doggie gates in place in our apartment to keep Andromache contained in the main living space while she's out and about.  Our bedroom is off limits because it usually isn't clean enough to be puppy-safe.  Despite being a very quiet dog, Andy does NOT appreciate us leaving her alone while we disappear into the bedroom or bathroom, and inevitably treats us to a (largely ineffective) chorus of whines, moans and groans until we come back.

Today we took a few minutes to change out of our church clothes and just talk on the bed.  Despite being vocal, Andy is generally much too busy pining at the gate to get into much trouble, so we ignored her.

We might have stayed in the bedroom longer, but my phone started ringing and vibrating on the dresser.  Dave checked it, and was baffled to see that he was calling me.  We returned to the living room to find the dog standing over Dave's phone and wagging her tail, delighted we had received her call.

They told me poodles were smart, but this is ridiculous.

She would not oblige me by playing with the laundry detergent bottle like she had been before, but she's still cute.

I Am Puppy - Hear Me Roar

So, apparently it's just a toy poodle thing, and Andromache isn't the only one who sounds like a baby cougar with a smoking habit.  She isn't toy possessive at all, so it's hard to capture her doing it.  Usually it only happens when she's super excited or hears her food bowl being filled.  But she sounds just like this. :)

Achilles

Meet Achilles, Andromache's new all-natural cotton dog toy.  He squeaks.

So far, she really likes chewing on him.

Crazy eyes!

The Curse of Cute

I think we should have gotten an ugly dog.  You know those stuffy modern neighborhoods where the kids don't ever play outside?  This isn't one of them.  And they've all figured out where we live.

Being only three pounds, Andy's not a huge fan of strangers, let alone loud excitable ones.  But every time we take her out to poop there's a chorus of screams and a swarm of bicycles comes over the hill.  

"Can we pet your dog?!"  "Does he bite?!"  "What's his name?!"  "Is he boy or girl?!"  "HE LICKED ME!!!!!!!!"  "Put him down!"  "Can I walk him?!"  "Can I hold him?!"  "What kind of dog is that?!"  "Can he run fast?!"  "Will he run away?!"  "OOO, I SAW HIS TEETH!!!"

By this point, she has usually jumped into my arms, climbed onto my shoulder, and seems to be contemplating a flying leap in the other direction.  Pooping has been entirely forgotten.  Eventually we escape into the apartment, and she poops on the floor.

Now they've actually started following us home, inviting themselves inside, and peering through the sliding glass when the other door is locked.

"Hey, I know where you live!"  "I see her cage!"  "Is that where she sleeps?"  "Is she shy?"  "Will she bite?"

I think I'm going to start saying she does bite.  We've started checking through the blinds before going out to do her business.   Her new favorite position for walks is hanging around my neck like some kind of Cruella de Vil fashion accessory, keeping an eye out in all directions.  Maybe we'll just get a litter box.

Andy

After years of fawning over small furry animals to an almost unhealthy degree, and ignoring all sound fiscal reason, we have finally taken the plunge and acquired a puppy.

Meet Lady Dulcinea Andromache.  We call her Andy, by my sister's recommendation.  She's a three-month-old purebred miniature poodle, but will probably only reach toy size.  She's a money pit already, but she's exactly what we wanted - an intelligent, hypoallergenic, non-shedding portable dog.  It's hard to find a rescue when we're that particular.

We've had her since Saturday afternoon, and since then we've made considerable progress in house-breaking, crate training, and leash walking.  We finally got some treats today, and within a few minutes she had grasped the basic concept of "sit."  She literally never barks.  She sleeps during car rides.  Did I mention she was non-shedding?  Grooming will be an issue, though, as she has a real problem with standing still.  All in all, she seems like she definitely has the potential to become the clean, mannerly, unobjectionable canine companion we had in mind.  How can you object to a dog who doesn't bark, jump, shed, smell, or soil the carpet?  Well, we're still working on the carpet part.  But three accidents in as many days isn't bad for a baby like her.

She's a keeper.