I Love Lucy

This is Lucy. She is a Parson (Jack) Russell Terrier. She is 16 years old. That's really old. My humans have had her for 11 years now. She doesn't hear or see as well as she used to. She has trouble sometimes keeping her food down and she can get pretty thin. Some days she has energy, but some days she just sits and rests. She doesn't like winter very much.
When Lucy was younger, she didn't meet a lot of dogs. When she got older, when she did meet other dogs, she'd usually try and beat them up. So when I'm around, most of the time Lucy gets to wear a special mouth covering.
My humans were going to wait until Lucy goes to The Big Doghouse in the Sky before they found another dog, but I convinced them to get one earlier. This is because one of my humans is prepared to consider buying anything if it's half-price.
Most of the time Lucy ignores me. She growled at me once. I was sniffing her butt at the time. So here is a piece of advice: some people will growl at you if you sniff their bums, so be careful whose bum you smell, or maybe ask permission first.
I would like to play with Lucy, but I have to remember my primary duties to my humans and make sure they get to play and exercise. Charles used to be Lucy's human. He drove all the way to Ontario to pick her up when her former humans had a baby and couldn't keep her. When Charles and Sarah lived in different places, Sarah used to come and visit Lucy, so Lucy helped them decide to get married. So they love Lucy.
When Sarah came to live with Charles, she became Lucy's human and Charles became this other guy. Then when Mark came to live with Charles and Sarah, Mark became Lucy's boy and Sarah was Lucy's girl, and Charles was just this shmuck who paid for Lucy. I think this is because Charles's voice is too deep and Lucy can't hear it, and Charles says it's because Lucy is an ungrateful female dog. Anyway, the point of this is that Charles is obviously smarting from being emotionally abandoned and so as a result I have to pay special attention to Charles so he doesn't feel sad.
I think Lucy and I will be great friends, and Lucy thinks I would be delicious, and has started a blog to explain how much she loves me. Yay!
I love Lucy. But then again, I love everyone.

My Favourite TV show

People ask me, what does a discriminating puppy enjoy watching? Well, I am told years ago it was easy, because the best shows were the ones on the vacuum tube TVs where the TV was getting old and there'd be a really high-pitched whine the humans coulnd't hear, sort of like a closed-captioning for canines so we could just sit and enjoy the sub-text. Sadly, that's largely a thing of the past in today's high-def solid-state world.

So while I can't enjoy shows like in the good old days, my human is quite fond of watching TV and lately he's been watching a show I quite enjoy.

The show is called Chuck, and it's co-produced by a woman named Anne Cofell Saunders, whom my human knew when he lived in Japan. She also worked on 24 and Battlestar Galactica. My human always liked Anne, but I think he likes the show for some other reasons:

The show's main protoganist is a total computer geek named Charles. He is tall and totally awkward, although he's smart. He's clueless around women, although he's kind of king of the nerd herd where he works.
Chuck is assigned a government agent who is played by a total babe, who is named Sarah. She is very nice and very beautiful and we think she might like Charles a little, but she tries not to show it sometimes.
My human was introduced to this show by his sister, Stephanie Mainville, who's a cool musician. I haven't met her but I met her kids and they are very nice. And like puppies.

Anyway, I'm not sure why my human likes a show where the hero is named Charles and the babe is named Sarah, but humans are hard to understand. However, look at the cool guy on the right, who's like a super trained government killer! He's played by the guy who was Jane on Serenity, but Jane is a stupid name for a clever and strong boy. Fortunately on this show, he has the best name possible: Casey.

Anyway, it's a show with a hero Charles, a super agent babe / love interest Sarah, and super talented agent named Casey. That sounds like a good show to me - even if I do fall asleep sometimes when my human holds me while he's watching.

For the record, Sarah says I wasn't named Casey after this guy, but after another guy in another TV show. I'll show him to you another day. I'll bet he too is a super-cool agent spy guy. Yay!

Growing Confidence

Ok, I've been with my humans a few days and so it's time to begin training them. At first, I had to stick nearby when we went out for walks, so they wouldn't get lost. Now I feel like I need to venture a little bit so they can get some more exercise. This should teach them that they will need a cord to tie themselves to me so they don't get lost.

Also, although they made an effort to set up my kennel with my bed next to it, I've had to show them that no cage can hold me with a couple of Harry Houdini routines. I just slip out through the gaps and go for a little walk until they realize their mistake.

Mainly, these days I am enjoying getting my bite on. Play-biting is of course old hat to me, so when my humans play with me I typically try and see what's available to bite. Fingers, toes, you know how I roll, whatever's available. Last night Charles went away so Sarah played with me a long time and I got super excited and gave her a good nip. That led to a lot of "no" and the end of play time. So here is my latest note to dogs: I don't think humans like biting as much as we do. I know, makes no sense to me either. Whenever I try and bite my humans they keep trying to put a rawhide bone in my face. Which is delicious to chew, by the way, but still.

It's not all bad news. I have got my humans partially trained so that when I get restless or make a certain noise in my kennel, they take me outside to do my business. This also helps me keep my area clean. It's important to train your humans to let you out like this. Charles does especially well, because when he and I go out into the night air and he sees me peeing, he often decides to do the same. Sarah for some weird reason doesn't seem to ever pee in the backyard the way Charles and I do, but hopefully she'll notice what I'm doing and catch on eventually. You have to realize that humans look up to dogs and will often try and copy them, but some humans are naturally slower than others.

Getting Charles moving has helped him lose another pound. That's 2 so far in less than a week, so he's doing pretty well. I'm trying to encourage him so he'll play more often. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it, so I guess it's up to me. All in a puppy's day's work.

Monday, January 25: Going to the Vet

Because of yesterday's drama, I took my humans to the vet this morning very early, so that the vet could reassure them to calm down. Which he did.

We also had a long discussion about vaccinations. My birth mom's human is very opposed to it, both for humans and dogs, and doesn't do it. The vet said there's parvo around and it killed 10 dogs in my area last year. Sarah and Charles are caught between those two opinions. They want to do the best for me but they don't want to give me too many vaccinations. Sarah just wants me to be safe. Charles keeps grumbling about the vaccination "industry" and the cost of these things he calls scams. I haven't met a scam yet, but it sounds like it would be fun to chase and possibly herd into a pen.

Anyway, the main news is my paw is Ok and I've been given some holistic medicine (or as Charles calls them, "snake oil tears") to make my bruised paw hurt less. But I'm doing better and better so maybe they work.

The holistic medicine doesn't require refrigeration but must be kept away from "kitchen radiation", which Charles thinks proves exactly what it's made of and why we probably shouldn't have spent a lot of money on buying it. There were instructions on how to squirt it into my mouth but not touch my gums with the dropper because that would spread germs to it and then it would have to be rinsed in special water. So Charles tried to give me some and proceeded to touch my gums with the eye dropper right away, so Sarah and I decided she should do it from now on. And Charles snorted and said that was fine with him.

Charles doesn't like needles, he is afraid of them. I don't know what a needle is just yet, but if Charles doesn't like them, that's good enough for me. Sometimes you need a human to help you make these decisions.

In the track Charles shovelled in the backyard there are often deer and they carry something called lepto, which is also bad. But so far I haven't seen a deer.

I guess all dogs also have worms, according to my breeder. The vet says that doesn't mean it's good to have worms, and then he said something about worms making little kids blind, which made me sad. My breeder gave me a diet with a lot of a special dirt in it. The vet suggested that maybe a de-wormer might be more effective. Charles said he needs to do more research on the internet. Sarah wasn't crying, so that's the main thing there, she was happy I wasn't hurt.

I weigh 5 and half pounds. This means my human weighs 48 times more than I. I think he needs to lose weight. I am going to have to work out an exercise plan for him so that he will be able to take good care of me. So far he seems more motivated. Although he does make that funny "whuuh" sound each time he gets down on the floor to play with me (or up afterwards), he is walking on the trail with me, so that's something. So far I've helped him lose 1 pound. My goal is to help him lose about 16 more. Then he should be more lively and maybe not make the "whuuh" sound as much.

At the vet I also saw a cat, which I didn't find particularly interesting. After that, I had Charles take me to his work so I could meet his co-workers. They seemed very nice and were of course very glad to see me, because I'm a good boy. Then Charles took the rest of the day off because he was so tired from not getting a good sleep for three nights in a row. We went home early and then Charles' Dad showed up. In the summer we are moving into an apartment and now Sarah is giving away a lot of furniture to some people at the church who need it. This is an example of how Sarah's prayers get answered, because Charles said she wanted to get rid of the furniture anyway, but he didn't, but then when Sarah came up with giving it away to needy people, that meant God was on her side and Charles didn't have a leg to stand on and that's how he lost his favourite couch ever and is stuck with a stupid leather one which doesn't have a drop down table with cup holders the way all couches should. Sarah says that the old couch was ugly and had a tendency to come open suddenly and that if I was around it would have just been a matter of time before it catapulted me across the room and seriously injured me and hadn't we learned anything from last night. It went on like this for a while, but in the final result the couch got taken away. So this is an important lesson for my fellow dogs: when your man human and your woman human spend a long time talking about something, it's probably just a matter of time before the man human stops talking and the woman human gets whatever it is she wanted. This, for example, is why I'm here in this house and not my brother, and look at the secondary lesson there, which is: when it doubt, it's best for everyone if we do what the woman human wants. That's what I think, anyway.

Sunday, January 24th: After-action Report

It was a good day at first. Sarah went to church in town and Charles stayed home to spend time with me. He also shovelled out a path in the backyard and we walk around the path from time to time. I particularly enjoy the part where we pass by the composter because it is nice and smelly.
Charles and I played and we've tried a number of different toys to see which ones we like the best. So far, one of my favourites is Charles socks with his foot still in it, it is wonderful and smelly. I don't think Charles likes that one so much.
In the afternoon, Charles left and went to town because he was directing a bridge game, whatever that means. So I was in the care of Sarah and Mark. I was playing with Mark and I tried to jump over him while carrying a toy and I fell on the hard floor and hurt my paw. And this made Sarah cry a lot.
I was limping and not putting weight on my left front paw. And Sarah phoned and woke up the vet, who was sleeping, so he growled, "bring him in tomorrow." And Sarah cried some more.
When Charles came home that night Sarah had been crying very hard for very long. She met Charles in the driveway and said I had an accident, and she was very sorry and she was crying. Meanwhile, I was sleeping in Mark's arms.
Charles felt my paw and leg and he said he thought I was OK, but when I walked with a limp Sarah cried some more. Charles and Sarah agreed they'd go in to the vet the next day.
I slept well that night but Sarah kept waking me up with her crying. She was saying things like "I broke the dog." and "We can't have children, look what happened to our puppy on Day One." At 3 o'clock in the morning she got up and went on the internet and found out that lack of energy is a symptom of serious injury, so then she cried some more and said maybe I was badly hurt. Lack of energy and movement is of course also a symptom of being asleep, which is what i was, but I couldn't explain that to Sarah and she didn't believe Charles when he said so. So at three o'clock in the morning Sarah was asking Charles what if they have to put Casey down, and Charles was saying things like, he's a puppy, not a racehorse, worse case scenario he'll get a little cast. Charles also started to say things like "we need our sleep, the only and best thing to do now is get some". You see, Charles hadn't slept well on Friday night because he was excited to come and meet me, and then Saturday night he slept on the floor because he's my human and I was lonely, and now he was getting tired. So he prayed for a little bit and Sarah set the alarm for very early so we could get to the vet's when it opened at 7:30 in the morning. And I slept.
In the morning I was still a little tender and walked with a bit of a limp, but everything turned out fine. We went to the vet and he said I was Ok and I'll tell that whole story another time.
But what I learned today was that Sarah loves me very much and is also likely to cry sometimes. And that Charles is pretty calm and doesn't like to go without a good night's sleep three days running. And you have to be careful what you try and jump over when you have a toy in your mouth.

So the above picture is of Sarah one time when she wasn't crying. But she does have red-eye the way doggies should in their pictures.

My first night in my new home

We got home at night, and I met Mark and Lucy for the first time. Charles had stoppeed in Sussex at the Wal-Mart and bought big box, which he proceeded to unpack and assemble with no swearing, because now that he has me he has resolved to be a good Daddy who doesn't swear.
Then Sarah set up the inside and I went in to check it out. They tried to make it like where I had been the first 8 weeks of my life, there was shredded paper at one end and a towel and bed at the other.
I went outside with Charles and peed there and he said I was a good boy and a very smart puppy.
When I went to bed in my home for the first time, I had never slept by myself like that before. I was in the bedroom with Charles, but in my kennel by myself, so I was a little nervous and started to cry. Then Charles did something. He got off the bed and put his blanket on the floor and his pillow there too, and then got another blanket to cover himself. And he laid down and slept on the floor next to me that night. So when he did that I was pretty sure he was my human and so I didn't have to be worried or cry any more. So I had a good night's sleep, and since then I always sleep well at night. Charles can sleep in his bed now, which is quieter too, because when he gets down on the floor or gets back up, he makes a funny "whuuuh" sound. So I am a good boy and I sleep quietly through the night, and everyone seems to think that's just great. Still I think it's good to know that if you're feeling lonely at night, there's a human nearby who will sleep next to you and keep you company.
And that was the night of January 23rd, my first night in my new home.

My trip home

So Sarah picked me up and Charles started driving the car. This was first experience with being in a car. The car was a silver PT Cruiser, which I think they call the Batmobile. Did I mention that people are silly?
We got to the end of the driveway and then Sarah drove and Charles held me. You can see his grey beard in the background of this picture of me. We drove a few kilometres and I had never been in a car before. So what I did next was I threw up all over Charles's shoulder. The vomit was very hot, and very smelly, and very muddy. And at this point Charles was thinking terrific, this owning a puppy is working out even better than I had hoped. And Sarah was thinking she was glad to be driving because she was wearing a nice coat.
Anyway, the humans cleaned up a bit and then we drove some more. Did I mention I had never been in a car before? Right, well, I hadn't. So I threw up on Charles again. You must understand it's not personal, I just didn't like moving like that, it made me feel bad in my tummy. So they cleaned up some more and then stopped in Alma and got some paper towels, because they had forgot to bring towels.
So then we drove some more, and this time when I started to throw up again, they stopped the car and held me outside the door so it went on the ground, although there wasn't very much left now. But there was enough left to throw up one more time after that, on Charles' pants.
By now however, we had reached the highway, and my stomach was empty, and I was getting the hang of being in a car. So, even though we drove two more hours after that, I didn't have any more problems. We stopped at Charles's sister's family and I met his nephews and nieces. Ava likes dogs, I can tell. Stephen, too. Daniel came up and looked at me in his Spider-man bathrobe, but then went right back down to the basement. Lydia took photos of me which I think I'll show you later. Kenn played with me some and also I had a drink of water, which was nice after all the vomiting. Charles was saying that maybe Casey was a bad name for me and Pukey might be more fitting. He also got a shirt from Kenn to replace the Sushiman one I threw up on. Charles is quite a bit fatter than Kenn so the shirt bulged at the buttons.
After our brief stop at the Mainvilles, we drove home, and I was a good puppy with an empty tummy, so there was no need to vomit on Charles any more, because I'd got the hang of it, and I'd made my point, which was that I'd marked Charles with my smell so now he was my human.

How I came to live with my humans instead of my brother

Here is a picture of my brother. As you can see, he is very cute indeed, plus he was more outgoing than I am, and smaller. I think he takes after our birth mom more than I do, I think I lean more toward my birth dad.
Through the week, a woman decided she was going to take my brother, so it looked like Charles and his wife would have to take me or not have a puppy right now. But then she changed her mind. So it was on the afternoon of January 23rd, Charles and his wife showed up. By now, my half-siblings were gone to be with their humans.
Charles and Sarah (her name may also be "Mummy", humans are quite confusing that way) met everyone in my extended family, my birth mom and birth dad and grandmom and we all went outside and played in the snow. I like playing outside, even though I sometimes trip a little bit. I sat on Charles's shoe a few times, because it was black and because it is nice and smelly. I think Charles warmed up to me a little after that, but when everyone went inside, I got put in the pen with my brother and the people sat down at the dining room table to talk. One of the cats was spread out nearby and I was just having some food and playing a bit with my brother. When we were outside I tried to get a drink from my birth mom but she was having none of it. That's Ok I'm a big boy now anyway and don't need to get milk from her.
Anyway, Charles and Sarah were talking about taking my brother, because that's what Sarah knew Charles wanted. They had waited a week to see if fate would take one of us (or both of us) to other humans but now they had to decide. And my brother was going to be chosen and leave me without any humans of my own.
But then my brother started talking a lot. I think he was excited about being outside. And the whole time Sarah and Charles were sitting at the dining room table, he kept talking. I was still being a good quiet boy. The people were all going over papers, by which I don't mean they were peeing on them. This is another hint for my fellow dogs: I am pretty sure humans use papers for something other than peeing on, because sometimes they will just hold them and look at them for a long time.
Sarah and Charles started talking. Sarah said she thought my brother was too talkative, and maybe she'd be happier with a quieter dog, but she was worried because she knew Charles wanted the other dog. Charles said it was OK, because either dog would be a good dog and either dog would have to be trained but if naturally one was quieter that might be a better match for them. The daughter of my birth mom's human whispered in her mother's ear that Sarah and Charles sounded like her parents, each one trying to make the other happy. When I heard that, I started hoping maybe they'd choose me, because that's the kind of humans I like best.
Anyway, my brother kept howling a little and in the end, Sarah picked me instead of him. And Charles went along with it because he thought we'd both be good puppies, and that a quieter puppy might be better, but mainly because Charles knows his wife is wise and it is wise to make her happy when you can. And that I why I will always love Sarah very specially, because she chose me and she's why I live with my humans now instead of my brother.
I am sure my good-looking and nice personality brother will have his own humans who will love him, and that everything will work out the way God planned for it to.

But that is how I ended up with my people, who started calling me "Casey" right away. So I guess that's my name, although I'm not sure, because I also hear "Puppy" and "Doggie". Like I said, humans use a lot of words for things.

The first time I met Charles

On January 14th, this guy came by to see me. This is an older picture of him, when he came to see me he was fatter and greyer than in this picture, and he was wearing a baseball cap to keep his hair under control. I think his name is Charles but he may also be called "Daddy" because that's what some people call him.
Charles came by with his friend Greg, who was his best man at his wedding, whatever that means. They were about to spend the weekend with some other buddies in the mountains in Alma, which they have done every year for 16 people years. I don't know what that is in dog years but I think it's a long time.
Because they were in the area, Charles asked Greg if they could drive over and take a look at me and the other puppies. They followed a GPS to find me and got lost on the way, but they didn't mind because they weren't in a hurry and the scenery was nice.
Charles liked my birthplace and he liked my birth mom's people. He was thinking about taking a puppy for the whole weekend so he could spend time with it before he went home, but his buddies said the puppy might get hurt, so that he should wait until after the weekend. Charles said his friends were "Puppy Haters". I don't think this is true, but this is a good thing for dogs to learn about people. I think when men are friends, they show this by making fun of each other. It's a bit like play-biting.
When Charles arrived, my two half-siblings were spoken for, so it was just between me and my little brother. Charles liked my little brother best at first, because he's a bit more outgoing than I. Also, because he's smaller, he's cuter. Anyway, when Charles left the house, he had decided he would come back next week and decide with his wife which puppy to take - if either of us was still around. But he was definitely leaning toward my brother.

Me and my (half) siblings

Here we all are together, that's me on the right. As you can see, I was the biggest of the puppies. You sure can see the difference between my brother and I and our half-siblings though, can't you?
But we all got along really well, we played in a pen and we got along well with the humans and the cats and the other shelties in the house.

My mom and my birthday

This is a picture of my birth mom. Her name is Pixie. She has a lot of personality and is very smart.
I was born on November 27th in New Horton, New Brunswick. There was a litter of 5, but one of my siblings didn't make it. :( But the rest of us were really healthy, and Pixie's humans took really good care of us, they were a family of 4 and a nice Christian family, and they gave us really smelly (that's a good thing) and tasty raw food.

Not long after I was born, we learned that my birth mom had two boyfriends, and so half my litter-mates were just half-siblings to me. It seems that a dog snuck in when my birth mom was in heat so half the litter was purebred shelties and the other half was sheltie-cavalier mix. This meant that I couldn't get my official papers as a purebred sheltie.

Hi everyone!
This is me, and this is my blog. I am going to blog my whole life so you can get to know about me and maybe get a better appreciation of both me and my people.
The relationship between people and dogs is an interesting one, and now that I have my people, I decided to make a blog so that my fellow dogs can better understand their people and maybe vice versa.
The enclosed photo is me just chillin'. These days I try to get a lot of sleep because I'm a growing boy.