Back in the Saddle Again...

Well, the transformative powers of spring have given new life to this old project we call our home. It's been almost one full turn of the calendar already, and after a long looooooooong winter break, we've jumped right back in with both feet, kinda like we did one year ago.

All of the outside structural work was done by fall, which was perfect. We had a nice, sturdy, secure house that wasn't going to come crumbling down on our heads and we finished up the siding to keep the elements out. We were very pleased.

The inside needed A LOT of TLC. And still does. Perhaps a recap is in order?



Here's our living room, the way we bought it...



...and after we tore it apart. We cleaned up a bit, but for the most part, this is how it stayed for, well, what felt like a very long time.

But today....ooooh today. I scarcely want to post about it, it feels kind of like a dream. It's too exciting.



Today we have walls. Real walls. With mud on the seams. That means that they can't come down again. They are up and on their way to being finished, and you can't take that back. I don't know why I feel I need to stress that point, but I just do.

Here are two things that just delight me to no end, with no explanation as to why.

Number One:

The half wall. Separating the living room from the hallway that leads to the kitchen. The kitchen and the living room are the only two rooms on the main floor (well, there is a little half bath/laundry room), so it's fairly small, though both rooms are a fair size. I love that if you're in the kitchen, you'll be able to hear and see what's going on in the living room or that when you're in the living room, you can yell at your husband who might be going through the kitchen and ask him to bring you an iced tea. I love this little wall.



This one is even more inexplicable. This is the little corner that you see right when you come in the door. For months I've been staring at studs and some sort of pipe and exposed insulation. Over the last two days, I've been greeted by a little corner. One where I could hang some hooks for keys, perhaps a little shelf for the constable's wallet, which he's always losing. It makes me quite happy.

We're still far from done, but this seems like lightspeed progress to me. Oh, and just as a disclaimer, the hubs and I did not do this ourselves. We finally came to our senses and realized that there are just some jobs best left to people who know what the hell they are doing. Not that we didn't give hanging drywall a try. We did. The old college kind. But it really is miraculous what two people who have been hired to do a job (and, as an aside, are not married to one another) can accomplish in two days. And that's not even the whole story. Most of the main upstairs bathroom is drywalled as well! I'll save that for a later post.

The guy we hired is awesome. He returned our call, which in an of itself blew our freakin' minds. He knows what he's doing, does a great job in really good time, and is also going to fix up the walls that still have plaster. I think I might just love him.

Anyhow, I know some people find this stuff really quite boring, but, ya know, it's what we're doing. We're going to be able to move in before too long. For real. It's actually going to happen. I'm still holding off on doing the happy dance though. I'll save that for move in day. This move is probably coming at just the right time too, cuz...



this doesn't look too comfy.

Until later...

PS: If I can see the dust in that last picture, I know that you can too. The mess from next door seems to be seeping into the apartment faster than I can keep up with it. I've decided to ignore it until the worst of the worst is done.

Hank, a day or two later...

So Friday I didn't post about the Hankster mainly because I didn't have any new photos of him and couldn't think of anything terribly new to talk about either. Puppy school is over and we've pretty much stopped doing any sort of practice of his commands altogether. Though he does still know what we want him to do when given the chance.

I did buy him a new head halter, since he bit through the last one, and the one time I took him for a brief walk without it, just using his regular neck collar, I was afraid that every house we passed would call the SPCA on me for animal abuse. But I'm sorry, it takes a bit of heft to heave a nearly seventy pound dog back into submission. I figure if he can drag me around, I'm entitled to the same.

So Friday afternoon I decided that we would get some nice outside shots of Hank, which we did. It was a lovely spring day and both the constable and I were outside doing a little yard work. And of course we wanted Hank to join us. Recently, we've been trying to get him acclimatised to the tie out lead, so that we don't have to escort him out into the yard to do his business every time he requires it. We were doing this all winter since he was little wee, needed to be trained and the weather was crap. Now that it's nice and he's a big boy, I figure I shouldn't have to get fully dressed in the mornings anymore to watch my beloved biped poop in the grass. Really not my idea of a great way to start a morning.

This tie out thing...it's not going well. The first couple of days I thought he might get the hang of it. I'd let him out the door and wish him luck. I'd peer through the kitchen window to see how he was doing. Then I'd make my coffee, check my mail, go back and check the window again to find my Hank standing peering at the door. Awesome, I thought! He's got this down no problem. Wasn't until later that day when I go to walk out the front door that I find that Hank has left me two rather large calling cards right near the front step, meaning the damn dog is too afraid to leave the vicinity of the house. Back to the drawing board on this one.

So guess what we're doing now? Getting fully dressed, taking Hank out on his tie out and trying to train him the importance of location, location, location.

We thought he might feel more comfortable with noodling around in the yard on his lead if we were out there too. No dice. He seems to think the lead is some sort of magical paralysing device. If you're not pulling him along, he has no idea what to do. He just stands there, and quivers. And, as I've recently noticed, drools. Which he does when he's very upset. Things weren't going too too badly on Friday afternoon, but once the hubs or myself were out of sight, like, you know, in that scary place all the way around the corner, my scary looking seventy pound German Freakin' Shepherd lost his mind. You would've thought we were torturing him with the way he carried on. And on. And on. After that, he wanted inside and was seemingly more content to watch us out in the yard from the comfort and safety of the window.

But we did get some fun playing pictures, which were really cute, cuz this whole spring thing is entirely new to my beautiful boy and has him both excited and puzzled. The first couple of days that I had some windows open, he didn't know what to do with himself. Too much sensory input.

I was going to post those playing pics today, as well as the little video I took. But then I decided to go away for the whole day yesterday, and when I came home, I found this...



...a ruined coffee table. Those aren't just surface scratches, those are deep teeth gouges.

When I first walked in the door, I was all excited to see my dog. I miss him after a while. I was all ready to make a big fuss, then I turned around to put down my things and I saw what I saw. All I said, in a raised voice was 'What did you do??!' and I turned back around to see a dog who was all hunched over, with his ears straight back and really sad puppy dog eyes. I silently took him out to relieve himself and when we came back in, he did this...



...put himself in time out. Which is where he stayed for the better part of an hour, until my husband came home. He wouldn't come near me. I didn't hit him or scream at him, just admonished him for his behaviour, and he so knew that what he did was wrong, he punished himself.

He heard my husband pull into the driveway and went to the door to greet him, where there was much merriment until I showed him what Hank had done. Then he got another tongue lashing, and again with the ears and the sad eyes and back in the crate he went. We don't send him to his crate as a matter of punishment by the way, so it's not as though he knows that's what he's supposed to do.

Hank was very mellow and kept his distance from us the whole evening, and wouldn't go near my husband at all, even when he was ready to make up. I had to be the one to tell my Hankster that it was okay, we'd forgiven him. Cuz it's really hard to stay mad at a dog who's harder on himself that you are.

And it was right after that that we found the tick. Near his ear. Quite engorged. And really freakin' gross.

Tastes Awful, but I hear it works...

I am at the Buckley's stage of a head cold. Do you know of what I speak? A cold that has gotten so entrenched in your body that it's now more like a demon and the only way to exorcise it is to bring in the Father Karras of all cold remedies. If you've never tried it, I dunno what to tell you. It's like pure liquid eucalyptus. It's harsh, but it works like a charm. I avoid taking it until I just can't stand the effects of the cold any longer. To be frank, I don't mind the taste so much anymore. I've taken it since childhood, and I guess I've just built up a bit of an immunity to it.

In my mind, it's in the same category as all other kinds of secret home brew remedies, the kind that families pass down from one generation to the next, as the end all and be all cure all tonic. When someone mentions Buckley's, my mind immediately makes a connection to my grandmothers 'black salve'. I don't know if it had a brand name, but it was this mysterious concoction in a beat up old tin that look like it came from the 1930's (which it in all likelihood did...my grandmother being born in 1910 and all). It resided in the dark recesses of her linen/medicine closet (which, OMG, I just realized that my mother now has the EXACT same set up in her apartment) and any time one of us had an injury, it was black salve to the rescue. I had a bee sting once as a youngster and nothing since has cured something like that so quickly. Freaky. Anyway...

I was so under the weather yesterday that, shamefully, Hank and I missed his graduation from puppy school. I was pretty bummed out, I don't know about Hank. I haven't mentioned it to him yet. Lexa, my partner in puppy crime, told me all about it and it sounded like it was pretty fun. Lots of games and play time, which I'm sure Hank will miss. That and the overload of hot dogs once a week. I just couldn't peel myself off the couch though. This morning has seen me dragging my proverbial behind around the apartment in fine pathetic form. This is the third time I've been sick since Christmas. My fellow Knitterpudlians are crying sick apartment syndrome, and if that means that I am sick of this apartment, then that's what I've got in spades. But there may be something to it. We'll have to see about getting a really thorough spring cleaning done in the next little while.

To make up for missing puppy grad. I let Hank help me out with some frogging. He really does love the hand knits. I was going to pick just one of these photos, but they're all kind of cute.



I started this cardigan about a week or so ago...

(Carmella's Cardigan, Patons Classic Top Down Knits...or something like that)
...when really all I went into the shop for was to check out the new Noro sock yarn. But I had spied this on Ravelry and had been wanting to knit it, although at the time, it said that the pattern book wasn't out yet. Just so happened that the Patons Shetland Chunky Tweeds that was called for in the pattern (and that I wanted to knit it in) was on sale FOR ONLY ANOTHER TWO DAY!!! so I bought seven balls and the pattern and off I went.

When you go on a marathon knitting/cabling binge, you're bound to make a mistake at some point, but how this sweater got so far off the rails, really still mystifies me. I had mentioned it at Knit Nite and figured that I could bring it in for a group salvation session, but when I pulled it out to re-evaluate where I had gone wrong, I could see that only total annihilation (and eventual rebirth) was the only way to go. The top of the yoke of the sweater is knit over 22 sts for 35 inches, which I had no problem with. Then you pick up X number of sts and knit top down, increasing for the sleeves as you go along. Eventually you divide everything up nice and neat for the fronts and the sleeves and the back, come back to the sleeves and knit them later. While I was increasing, things just didn't look right. And when I compared the picture of what the sweater was supposed to look like to the blob of yarn that I had in my hand, I knew I had had some sort of knitting seizure and had no recall of what I had done. I had no cables where there should have been cables. I had increases where there shouldn't have been increases, and vice versa. It was a monstrosity.



So under the watchful (and still goopey, somewhat infected) eye of my esteemed colleague, thus was the sweater frogged and yarn rewound. I reknit everything yesterday/last night and am back to where I was, which was at the dividing round for the sleeves, and a little beyond even. But then I think I messed up the cabling round during CSI, so I have to tink back at some point today.



That's about it on the knitting front. Working with chunky yarn is mucho satisfying at the moment, as it goes so quickly. And I've decided I want a spinning wheel. A new one. Not right away, but I'm ready to check some out, get a feel, start saving up. I like the drop spindle, but it takes a really long time and I find that when I sit and spin with one for a while, my shoulders just scream for days afterwards. I've got some yummy fibres here that I would really like to be yarn in the near future. And trying to ply with little bundles of singles off the drop spindle is, at least in my limited experience, a bit of a nightmare.

Anyhow, I actually have to do real work today, which I've been putting off all morning. Until later...

Stupid Commercial Jingles...

Actually, it's not that stupid, it's just stuck in my head. Anyone know the Free Credit Report.com commercials? Never mind, I found it for you.

I'm thinking of learning this on the guitar...my life makes me sad sometimes.

I don't know about where you live, or your tv viewing habits, but I watch what could be considered an appalling amount of television. I should qualify that statement; I have the tv on a lot. If watching consists of looking in the general direction of the television, paying a moderate amount of attention to what is going on, then I don't actually watch it. I knit, compute, doze off on the couch in a bored stupor...that sort of thing, all with the tv as my white noise in the background. We have this obscenely large television for the space that it's in (I'd say that the tv would actually be a sizable fraction of our living space) so it's very very hard to ignore.

Anyway, my point. The cable channels, like Spike or whathaveyou, loop commercials at a tortuous rate. It's the same three commercials over and over and over again. It's very 1984 in it's design. It actually surprises me that I haven't gone over the deep end by now at how irritating these looping commercials are. It's the ones for the local radio stations that get me. They play this montage of horrible pop songs, and it happens at every commercial break. To top it off, the constable, when he's home, sings along to 'Bringin' Sexy Back' every time there is a commercial break and that frackin' commercial is on. But the Credit Report commercial? These ones we both like (there's two or three different ones). And we both sing along. It's just disgustingly Pavlovian.

But when you wake up with it in your head, you know the evil advertisers have won, hands down. They have bored a hole right into your subconscious and there's no getting them out. I'm still not interested in their product though.

Onto the knitting part:



I have this much done on the alpaca baby sweater. To answer Carrie's question in the comments, alpaca is a dream to knit with. Surprisingly heavy once knit though. Has a little bit of heft to it. But so so soft. I have a pair of fingerless mitts in alpaca and they are hands down (pun intended) my favourites, for their warmth and their softness. I plan on knitting another pair. I saw that Heddy made a pair of Fetching with her alpaca, and I may very well do the same. Sorry for the crappy lighting of the photo, but the flash just washes out the cables.



Feeling a little baby sweater fatigue, I started this Skull Isle out of Son of Stitch n' Bitch for myself. This is going to be Stash Project #4. Two balls of Wool Gatto, one 100% wool (red) the other with a touch of cashmere, both stash yarns. Again, a dream to knit with, but the pink is much thinner than the red, which I hadn't thought of until I started knitting and so the two together are knitting up a little differently. That combined with the fact that I'm using a 3.5mm needle when the pattern calls for a 2.25mm needle and the whole thing is turning out a little loosey-goosey and on the big side. It was pure laziness on my part. I wanted to start knitting it, I had the 3.5mm handy, I didn't feel like rummaging for the appropriate needle size, nor was I going to swatch, so I just started knitting, full steam ahead. The result? I'm going to rip it out and do it again, with a more appropriate needle size. Noodling around Ravelry I've read of more than one person who had some gauge issues with this hat, so I'm thinking that either a 3.00mm or a 3.25 might work out for me. I love how the two colours blend together though, and am uber excited to see the skull chart come together in this uber girly hat.



Then there's this. I've taken this picture 800 times this winter. This very picture. I had an epiphany about this weather this morning. The universe is preparing me for a northern posting someday, where this kind of thing starts in like late September and doesn't stop till sometime in May. I just know it. That has to be it. It was somewhat funny on the CBC yesterday, as I was listening to the local weather report on the way home. The weather dude, in talking about the impending snow, said 'Well we haven't had any for almost 24 hours ya know.' Ha...ha...h-uuuuuuggggghhhhh.

Don't even bother trying to be optimistic or cheer me up about it. I'm wallowing. Okay, okay, we definitely have not had it as bad as most. And the inch that we get will be gone tomorrow. But still...with the jingle in my head and this greeting me as I took the Hankster out for his morning ablutions...h-uuuuuggggghhhhh.

Oh yeah, Hank. He's getting quite possessive of me. Last night at puppy school, he barked his fool head off at any other dog that came near me, which they all did, cuz I have hot dogs for treats. I felt like I had a little band of furry disciples. I was not impressed with his behaviour, and am in fact quite concerned about where this may lead. Not sure what I'll have to do to get this in check. For the time being, he's all bark and no bite. The little collie that is there to be the shining example of a well trained, well behaved dog, was taking none of Hank's BS, and when she snapped at him and told him in no uncertain terms to shut it, he scurried behind my legs and hid. So...ya know. Whaddya do. Silly dog.

Until later...

The Secret to Increasing Knitting FO Output...

I have discovered a revelation. Knit Nite is not only fun, but it can be incredibly productive. Case in point, I made great headway on not one, but two projects last Wednesday night, both of which I was able to finish when I got home. How is this accomplished you ask, when the main goal of Knit Nite is to drink hot chocolate and eat crack-filled cupcakes (they put it in the icing, I swear)?

Have someone else do the knitting for you! One of our esteemed members brought a project that had been put down for some time, and she didn't feel much like trying to figure out where she left off. After a brief stint with Heddy's dish cloth cotton, I handed over my second little sock that I had started and then put down in favour of my newly acquired alpaca. Granted, it is an itty bitty sock, but she got to the heel by the time we left and I was able to finish the foot of the sock (and the crown the hat that I was working on) when I got home.



Did someone mention alpaca? Ah right, that was me. Well, I dropped into the LYS with the intention of just picking up one ball for another pair of baby socks (I'm doing some baby knitting, can't you tell? There are few babies who need knit wear out there in the near future) and I had a bit of a falling down. I found a cute little pattern for a baby cardi and hat, and four balls later, I walked out on a bit of an alpaca high.



I lurve working with this stuff. It's so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend you pick some up. The pattern is SRK 164, Cable Hat and Cardigan and I'm using Luxury Collection Alpaca Peru in sort of a beigey colour. It's delightful. I'm doing the 3-6 month size, and it looks really big to me. Ah well. Whatever!



And no Friday would be a Good Friday without this guy, at least in my opinion. He had his third-to-last puppy class last night and was totally like a kid who just came off of two weeks vacation. Not interested in doing school work, just wanted to play and find out what everyone else did with their time off (we had a week off from puppy school last week because of March Break). Of course, the blame rests squarely on my shoulders as we didn't do as much practising of the exercises and commands that we should have and somewhere along the way, Hank just stopped wanting to do down altogether. I'll even get into a deep crouch and put my hand all the way to the ground and he'll just sit there and stare down at my hand like 'that's nice...not laying down though.' And I have never encountered a dog that is so disinterested in treats overall. At home, yeah, he can get sort of excited about them, but with new treats? He's so cautious you'd think that he was convinced the world was trying to poison him. He rarely takes treats from strangers. Anyhow, even hot dogs weren't tempting him to co-operate at some points last night. He's going to have expensive taste, I can just tell. We'll have to do a little better with our homework before next week. Only one more class before graduation. I kept telling him before we started our training that he'd get a gold star. Can't let the poor guy down. Could you disappoint that face?

Hank and I wish you all a Happy Easter. Watch out for rabbits bearing chocolate.

Until later...

Not Terribly Chatty...

I haven't really been busy and I haven't really been knitting, so there isn't a whole heck of a lot to talk about today. Not even the dog has done something noteworthy in which to justify an entire Hank post, hence the passing unnoticed of Hankday.

He has pretty much abandoned his crate now though. We were keeping him in there at night time, but about a week or so ago I decreed that he was officially too big for it. Everytime he would turn around or try and get comfortable, the whole thing would shake and I could hear it from the bedroom (which, granted, isn't all that far away). And I came home one afternoon after he had been cooped up for an extended period of time, something I wasn't a big fan of doing, leaving him in the crate, and he had chewed big chunks out of the cardboard that sits on top of the crate, acting as a makeshift side table. I figured that was a clear sign.



I could also hear him panting heavily at night and I felt terrible. He's a big fluffy dog and all I could imagine was him wanting a drink or looking at the door longingly, knowing there was a nice cold draft coming in there and if he could just get to it, he'd find some relief.

There wasn't a big weening period, just one night we invited him in the bedroom to sleep beside the bed instead of putting him in his crate. He brought Rosco, his crate buddy, and the rest is history. It's pretty cute. He fusses and fidgits, playing with his chewy or licking the bedframe (?) until we put the light out, and then it's all about the sawing logs from then on. About eight in the morning is when I get the snout at the side of the bed, seeing if I'm up for taking him outside. Works for me. I feel much better about this. We'd decided when we first got him that the crate was only temporary, for housebreaking only, and I'll be glad to be rid of it altogether at some point. It's ugly and I'd rather not have it in my house somewhere. Hank barely goes in there anyway, although it does seem to be a good spot to have a quick day nap from time to time.

On the knitting front, I did finish these...



...some time ago and sent them off to their intended recipient, a friend of mine from back home. I was going to put a photo here of her wearing them, but for some reason, the picture was miniscule, so this will have to suffice. She assures me that they fit well and she loves them, so that makes me happy. Anyhow, they are knit from Regia Mini-Ringel, 2.75 mm needles, your basic sock pattern. Put in the black heels and toes cuz I didn't want to disrupt the striping pattern. These are the tallest socks I've made cuz I was facinated by the striping and just kept going and going to see what colour would come out next, despite knowing there was like a four colour repeat. Anyhow, simple minds.

Right now, I am knitting this...



...perhaps the tiniest sweater I've ever knit. It is only one small part of a large project I have in mind, which I suppose I shouldn't be blogging about as I'd like it to be a surprise, but, ya know, meh. Surprises make terrible blog fodder. And if I knit and then can't blog about it...what's the point? Ravelry only supplies so much gratification. Not enough feedback. I'm a comment whore, I'll admit it. I like it when people tell me what I'm knitting is pretty! Besides, I'm not sure how much the intended recipient read the blog anyway. Guess I'll likely find out over the course of the project.

So I guess I was a little chattier than I thought! I think I might try to finish up little red there and perhaps do some spinning today. The hubs has the whole weekend off, which has been lovely as I've felt as though I haven't seen him a whole lot lately. We were total slugs yesterday, pretty much didn't move off of our respective couches. We were so sedentary in fact that by eleven o'clock, I was actually exhausted from doing nothing. The weather helped too, as 2008 seems to be the year of perpetual winter and we got another snow storm. I remember when I was in 8th grade, and we had this really unusual weather year. Spring just never really came. It was chilly and grey and I remember the closer it got to the end of the year, the more it seemed like summer would just never come. And this was in a part of the country where shorts and t-shirts were very much the norm for March break, even if we did get another cold snap after that. Anyhow, I remember being in the school yard one recess and telling this classmate of mine, a very sweet but apparently gullible girl, that they had cancelled summer. She had a very concerned look on her face, and I'm pretty sure, if only for the few moments that we were torturing her, she believed me. Today, I feel like her. If someone made an announcement that the rest of the seasons have been cancelled for this year and we should continue to expect snow storms ever week from now on, I wouldn't batt an eye.

Oh, and plow guy? Thanks for taking out the mailbox.

Here's Mud in Your Eye...

I rediscovered this photo when I was organizing my picture files. The breeder kept us up to date on the litter prior to us taking our puppy home. We didn't know which one we were going to get, so seeing Hank in hindsight has been fun. Here he is with the breeder's pet Dasch---Dachsun---Weiner Dog, Trixie!

Hankday started with a trip to the vet's office. He's had really red eyes for about a week now, which the constable and I thought might just be a result of some sand that was causing some irritation, as we take him to the beach quite often. Last night at puppy school, Hank's eyes were almost completely red, which caused me a great deal of concern. This morning they were more pink, but his one eye has been weeping pretty badly, and as gross as it is to say it, turned into a very discoloured puss over the last few days.

His trainer suggested that it might be a food allergy, but I wasn't totally convinced. The hubs came home last night from his shift and said that he could see Hank's weeping eye from the doorway, in the dark. So we thought it best he take a little trip to see the doctor.

The first thing they always do is weigh him. He's 58 lbs. Fifty----eight. I've never really parented a dog all on my own before. My mom had a Lhasa Apso when I was growing up (small dog), which they said they bought for me, but it was clearly my mother's dog. Then the constable got Maury, the wonder Jack Russell ('nother small dog) when we were dating and though I wasn't directly involved in his care, I was around a lot. I mostly just played with him! So good 'ol Hank here is my first dog that is entirely mine. Well, ours I should say. And he's 58 lbs, at not quite five months old. This just blows me away. I don't know how my husband talked me into getting a small horse as a house pet.

I knew he was in the fifty-odd pound range, as it's been getting quite unmanageable when I take him out for his business trips on the leash. But I had no idea that he was breathing heavily down the neck of sixty pounds. It's a good thing we're in training. Though you wouldn't know it from this morning's performance at the vet's office.

There was this sweet little black lab puppy sitting there, being good, and the minute Hank walked in the door, he went practically apeshit with the barking. And he's got a big, bad bark. I knew he was being playful. He was just saying hello, in a very unavoidable and attention getting manner. Had he been off the leash, I don't know as he would've barked like that. After seeing his behaviour at puppy school these last three weeks, I'm starting to learn more and more about his behaviour and dog behaviour in general.

Then another dog walked in and Hank's mood changed dramatically. To me, his bark and his stance changed. He seemed to get a little more aggressive. Which I did not like at all. The woman with the new dog was quite gracious about it, and waited outside until Hank was no longer in the waiting room.

So he's darting all around the waiting area and barking like a mad fool and I am just mortified. I get quite upset about this kind of stuff. I know he's only a puppy still and we're working on the behaviour, but ya know, I want my good natured Hank to be a model of good behaviour when we're out in public. I might know that his bark is benevolent, but it sure doesn't sound like that to everyone!

Getting his eyes checked was a bit of an adventure. He's still very bitey, which I also don't like at all, and neither did the vet. He's quite soft about it, but definitely too old to still be doing it.

So, as Hank is on March Break next week from puppy school (the trainer also boards dogs and has a full house next week) we have a few issues to work on. One; separation anxiety. We did a hand off exercise last night which did not go very well for Hank. I feel very badly for the other participant who were dragged around the room by a very stressed out and desperate dog wanting very badly to get back to his mama.

Two: watch me. This is an essential first step to controlling all other behaviour problems. He's fine in the house of course, so we need to step it up a notch and include some distractions. Once he knows to look at me before making a decision on how to behave, we'll be away to the races. This should help with barking at new people and new dogs.

Three: walking using the Halti. I tried out his Halti head harness last week for a quick walk and Hallelujah, what a difference. We bought it when Hank was little wee and of course it didn't fit his head. The whole point of the Halti is to discourage pulling while walking, as it fits around the snout. If he starts to pull, his head will automatically turn, and he stops pulling. He's not a big fan of putting it on, and fusses quite a bit while we're on the walk, but he really likes being out, so there's more progress than regress.

Four: mouthing and biting. This has got to stop. As evidenced today, I've been putting up with it for too long. He's gentle, but you just never, ever know. Not sure how to remedy this one.

I'm off to get some really irresistible Gucci dog treats. Something that he absolutely can't ignore. Maybe he'll get a little something special for having to get salve in his eye twice a day for the next week. Poor Hank.

Murder Tonight in the Trailer Park...

Dateline: Liverpool

What at first blush appeared to be a tragic case of toy puppicide, ended as merely an annoying case of mischief. Local RCMP were called into investigate the complaint at a residence early this morning.

The homeownwer, a youngish, crafty woman who did not wish to be identified, was horrorstruck as she happened upon the scene.

"I thought Roscoe was disemboweled! He was just lying there, with his insides apparently spilled out all over the place."

The suspect, known only as 'Hank'...



...seen here atop a large snowball, was taken in for questioning by the RCMP. After a thorough interrogation and the repeated denial of treats, the police have concluded that in fact it was not Roscoe that bore the brunt of Hank's frustrations, but his blanket.

The suspect has been charged with mischeif and will be required to be a good boy for the rest of the day.

Don't Come Over...

Whoo boy, am I every cranky this morning. Day four of waking up with a headache, low grade temp, nausea and just a general feeling of overall malaise. And it's still winter to boot. Frack! I haven't had a cup of coffee since last Tuesday and it's really getting to me, so despite all the advice to the contrary, a pot is brewing as we type. I will suffer the consequences as they arise, but at least I will be properly caffeinated when I do.

So I guess Hank day has been unofficially moved to Saturday, as I haven't got around to posting on Fridays of late. Ah well. Anyhow, here's a photo.



Why is a dog who isn't supposed to be on the furniture, lounging on the couch, looking ever so smug? Because in our weakened states, neither the constable nor myself have the energy to constantly be fighting him off. Which is what you have to do. Constantly...fight. Frack! So as long as he's quiet, content and not bugging the living daylights out of us as we lie in pathetic heaps, he has free range at the moment. I realized last night though, as he was curled up next to me on said sofa, that he finally wormed his way into the last bastion of sanctuary that I had here in, what I affectionately (no, not really) term the Postage Stamp. That's about the amount of space that we're living in. While Hank would still bring his gooey, slobbery, disgusting dog toys to my lap while I was sitting on the couch, he could never entirely engulf my being. Now he can. As soon as I have my strength back, I have to put things back the way they were. He's not going to like it, I can tell.

Hank is four months old now. He's starting to look like a big boy, isn't he? He's getting some big boy teeth and sadly, he's losing his fuzzy puppy fur. It's being replaced by this lovely, shiny and wavey adult coat. And as you can see from the photo, his one ear has popped up...again. His face looks very grown up in that photo, although in real life, he still looks pretty young.

He starts puppy school next Thursday and not a moment too soon. We've been very fortunate so far that he's stuck pretty close by us, so we've taken him out into our yard for his business trips sans leash. The other day though, he ran out onto the road in front of the house after another dog, the first time he's done that. And he's been really bad about coming inside when he's called. Also, he's getting pretty defensive when other dogs are around, especially if he's on his leash, with either my husband or myself, which is a little worrisome. I've heard that if they feel the need to protect you, they don't respect that you're in charge. I'd hate to think that at four months, he considers himself the alpha dog. So a little training might go a long way. I hope. I'm probably not being as consistent as I should be or am not teaching him the right things. Hank is definitely the kind of dog that needs stuff to do, and the more you teach him, the better off he is. He goes positively apeshit when he's bored. His favourite game is hide and seek. Hubs and I took him to a little nature walk/trail near here one day when the snow was still fairly deep and fresh, and there's a little clearing with lots of trees where we let him off the leash and played hide and seek with him. He loved it! You can't hold him long enough for the other person to hide, he gets so excited. He runs full tilt from one to the other. It's pretty cute.

Hank has a bedtime now too. We used to just put him in his crate whenever we went to bed, and if one stayed up later than the other, then whomever came to bed last would tuck in the dog. Then we started noticing that Hank, while sleeping late in the evening, would wake up and get very antsy. He'd go from one spot to the next, flop down, get back up, wander around, come to us, look at us, go somewhere else, flop down and continue to do this for a little while. Then we noticed that the later he stayed up, the more times he seemed to want to go outside, without any results. So I started putting him in his crate around eleven o'clock. And a couple of nights, right around that time, he'd wake up from his napping place near the door, come and look at me, almost as if to say, 'Ma, is it time for bed yet?'.

So the other night, around eleven, I called Hank over and told him it was time for bed. He happily obliged. I noticed that Rosco, his big stuffed dog buddy who sleeps in his crate with him, was on the other side of the room (sometimes Rosco comes out to play too.) So I said to Hank, "Go get Rosco!" and he wandered over to where Rosco lay, grabbed him by the snout and dragged him into bed. It was the cutest damned thing I ever did see. Last night, again around eleven, the hubs and I were lying on our respective couches watching Sports Center (guess who had control of the remote) and Hank was doing his little antsy circuit. It looked like he was headed for the futon, near where his crate is located. I said to him, "Is it time for bed Hank?" and he did an immediate detour and went right in his crate. By the time I got over there, he was all settled in, ready for his bedtime neck scratch (wherein I remove his collar and give him a little scratch). It's a nice way to end the day, with a little cuddling and petting and telling him he's a wonderful boy. Especially when that day has been filled with chewing on the zippers on my clothes and goobering on my furniture and knocking over everything on the coffee table and chewing on the pillows on the couch and well, you get the idea. Cuz really, at the end of the day, he is a wonderful dog.

I Need My Own Laptop...

The video, which wasn't working earlier, should work now. I had privacy setting enabled and didn't realize it wouldn't work. Duh.



Another grainy video about the dog. We missed Friday cuz the constable insisted on taking the laptop with him on a training day, which means that it sat in it's backpack while he was in a seminar for eight hours and I was left home all twitchy and unsettled. Anyhow, Hank has had this trick down for a little while now, but you can really only go so far on still shots of the dog sleeping, so I thought I would show off what he can do. What would have been more amusing of course would've been all of the attempts leading up to him being able to catch it. On a walk one day, I tried this with little pine cones (back when he was a little smaller) and he'd basically just watch them bonk him on his forehead. Now that was entertainment.

So I went skating yesterday, for the first time in...well, a long time. Highschool I think, but it may have been even earlier than that. Like middle school. A friend from up the road was taking her little girl to the family skating afternoon and invited me along. I hesitated at first. I had a brief glimpse of what it must be like to be frail and elderly and facing the prospect of going outside when it's icy. I was deathly afraid of falling. But I think the potential of a bruised ego was more upsetting than a bruised anything else.

Anyhow, I went. I dug my rusty, dirty skates out of the garage, gave them a quick once over with the Magic Eraser and I was off. I had two objectives; don't fall and if at all possible, avoid making a huge ass of myself. And I succeeded on both fronts. It took a few minutes to get my legs to relax and to remember exactly the right co-ordination of motions that produce something resembling skating. Before long, I was buzzing around. And it was a lot of fun! I think I've talked the constable into coming with me to the free adult skate later this week. I've been wanting to get him to teach me a thing or two on skates, since he's the hockey player in the fam. We shall see.

Not much to talk about or show off in the knitting department. I just haven't felt much like it lately, and a good portion of my evenings lately have ended with me asleep in front of the television without the needles in my hand. It might be the dog days of winter. Or just the dog. He has this really endearing and yet unbelievably annoying habit of bringing all of his toys to my lap and setting them there, and then sitting and staring at them. I'll throw it, he'll bring it back, do the same thing all over again. And is usually the case with dog toys, they're slobbery, gooey, covered in god knows what and just generally give me the heebie jeebies. I don't want them, I don't want to touch them and I can't seem to impart this on the dog. Bringing a ball or the like is one thing, but the chewies are something altogether different. I've been trying to explain to him that those are for him to play with on his own. I don't feel the need to share in that experience. And I certainly don't want that crap on my knitting! He doesn't share my views and opinions on this subject. To Hank, knitting and spinning is only improved by his persistent and relentless input.

Anyhow, I am almost done the Forever Sweater so hopefully I'll have something interesting to post next time. For now, I'm going to admire Heddy's trip photos and pretend I'm there. *sigh* I hope she brings pics to Knit Nite!

Until later...

A Thousand Words...