Charlie's Appointment

Note: This was written yesterday, but I never pressed the button to post it and am too lazy to change all the "todays" to "yesterdays."

Pre-appointment



We took Charlie to Dr. W for his vetrinarian's appointment today. It started out well, Charlie decided he wanted to weigh himself before I even had to think about how to get him to stand on the scale. My vicious little terrier is 20.9lbs!

As we sat in the exam room waiting for the doctor to come in I looked down at Charlie reflected in his eyes the verticle blinds appeared to look like jail bars. I sat there and giggled at the irony well my mother stared at me like I was crazy.

Dr. W came in and offered Charlie a treat which he gobbled up immediatly. We now know he likes Liver Biscotti treats... a LOT. Dr. W was petting Charlie as she was giving him treats and he was enjoying the attention with no problems as long as Dr. W didn't touch his head or pet him too much and the treat giving didn't stop. Eventually they started the examination and Charlie didn't like that too much and gave a small warning growl, but allowed Dr. W to gently put the muzzle on him.



Charlie got two shots and his blood drawn and The doctor said she didn't see any problems! Afterwards she took the muzzle off and gave Charlie some more treats and he took them without a problem, even impressing Dr. W with some tricks. We got a reccomendation to a trainer that Dr. W thinks will do a lot to help Charlie. Unfortunatly I'm probably going to have to find a summer job to pay for it.

As we were leaving the building Charlie decides that the man sitting in the chair, reading a newspaper was a threat and began to growl at him. Or did he just take offense that the man was not offering up Liver Biscotti as soon as he saw Charlie?! I guess we'll never know for sure.



Charlie discovering the wonders of a sun roof on a sunny day.



So the stress i've been feeling about "The Appointment" wasn't so nessecary. I really liked Dr. W and I thought she did a wonderful job. I was worried I wasn't going to like her or what she was going to say, but she asked me a lot of questions about what I was doing, and made a lot of suggestions. Some of the things she suggested I had already been doing, but the fact that she suggested them made me feel better about what I have been doing.



Another thing I liked was that at no point did she say, like the last person we went to "I don't think he will ever be able to be around strangers." Though I know I will probably never be able to trust Charlie completely around strangers, in her following sentences she made it sound as if we should lock Charlie up and never let him see people at all. As I was watching the person who said this she flipped her hand around well she was talking which went in the direction of Charlie, and that is what set him off. When she said that she hadn't done anything to provoke that I attempted to inform her of her movement with her hand, and she immediatly put me down because "She didn't move her hand." and "That would not cause a reaction."

Yeah, cause since you teach puppies to sit and stay you automatically know what does and what does not set my dog off.

Moving on..





Post Appointment



I'm actually looking forward to working with the person Dr. W suggested, and I don't think I will mind going back with Charlie to see Dr. W for another check up later.

Overall it was quite different from the horrific dreams that had been stirring in my mind the last few days (thank goodness).

Happy belated Easter!


Jessi

Only My Dog Can Make Petco an Exciting Adventure.

I'm considering Changing the name of this blog to "Crazy-adorable stranger-mistrusting dog and his super paranoid owner."

Not really...

                            Anyways...

                                                                Moving on....

Yesterday I went to Petco to finally buy a dog backpack for Charlie. I asked my mom if I should put the muzzle on him before I went in or leave it in the car. We decided to leave it in the car, with the downside of me having to:

1.) Search for the perfect backpack and at the same time

2.) ALWAYS stay on high alert and watch for people from every direction.

It's a lot harder then it sounds.

Since Charlie is completely potty trained I don't worry about him peeing in anybody's house, but as I say that... Petco and Petsmart are a whole other story. I wish dogs understood that just because one dog decided that the corner of the store looked like a wonderful place to relieve themselfs that not every single dog for the rest of eternity that walks by that one spot has to pee there also.

So while I looked around for a sanitation station because Charlie had wandered upon another dog's potty place I was momentarily not following rule #2 of "ALWAYS stay on high alert and watch for people from every direction." and... BOOM.

A petco employee is kneeling down in front of Charlie with a toy and she throws it at him and it lands right between his two front paws before I can say a thing all of the following happen. When he looks at me to say "Can I play with it?" Or it could have been "What is this crazy lady think she's doing?" she reaches towards the toy or from Charlie's point of view... reached right toward him. Before I can react she has the toy back in her hands and Charlie is wagging his tail.

WHAT?

WHAT?

No way...

Of all the things she could have done the one thing that sets Charlie off it if someone reaching towards him. She did just that and he didn't react? Was it the toy? Was the toy really awesome? Should I have bought the toy?

Well at this point I realized I was probably standing there with my mouth open looking like an idiot and she looks like she's going to make another move towards him when I spit out (probably sounding like a total snob) "Actually, he's not too great with strangers all of the time." She looked at me like "Okay?"

I should probably work on my way to nicely but effectively say "Stop reaching towards my dog right now or he's going to bite your hand off." Any ideas?

So after continueing to kneel is front of Charlie doing nothing for another minute or two I awkwardly say "Do you have something I can wipe my dog's pee up with?"

Did I use an awful lot of quotation marks in this post? Yes... yes I did.

Please stay tuned for the next blog post from Jessi and Charlie. Where even a trip to Petco is a thrilling adventure...

A Bit of Embarassment.

Most people who know me will not doubt that I love my dog. I love to teach him new tricks, coming up with crazy tricks, and I love to try and think of challanges for his oversized dog brain... I love walking him, I love how he is my rollerblading and biking buddy, how he can walk or run further than I would ever even dream of. I love playing fetch with him, I love how he helps me practice for tennis by running to get the ball over and over again to bring it back to me even ignoring passing bikers, joggers and even dogs. Even the things I do not love so much don't seem that bad when you compare it to all the good things about Charlie.

So why on this lovely Tuesday am I embarassed? Why, as I am writting this, am I considering not posting it? Why do I feel like a horrible, terrible person today?

Charlie has an appointment with the vetrinary on Monday. Now that itself is making me nervous, but it isn't why I am embaressed. No, I am embaressed because since we got Charlie in May of 2009 he has not had a visit to the vet.

I feel awful.

Now I have "excuses" but they're terrible.

This is my first dog, and I personally could not make the appointment, one of my parents did. I didn't know where to go, who to ask for, what to do. I did a lot of research on vetrinary hospitals in the area and found the one that looked like it was the best choice, but I could have started right as soon as I had gotten Charlie.

And what if something had happened? I know where I could bring Charlie in case of an emergency, but they don't know him, or anything about him because he has never gone there before. What a disaster that would be if something horrible happened and I couldn't get him help because I hadn't planned ahead!

Overall, I think I will feel better when the appointment is over. I'm nervous for how Charlie is going to take it, and mostly how I will take it.

Now i'm still wondering if I should even post this... I'm just embarassed that my dog's health wasn't important enough to get that appointment schedualed sooner.

On the bright side... he seems happy I have put it off...

There's always a bright side.




Since Fargo has begun its 2011 flood fight there has been a whole lot more optimism then the 2009 or 2010 battles. For one, we were much more prepared. In 2009, even though it was not completely necessary, I stayed in the cities with my cousins and school was cancelled for an entire week. Last year, 2010, I remember from midnight to eight in the morning, going down to the Fargodome and filling and stacking sandbags until my arms were too tired to continue, going home to sleep for a few hours and heading over to pile sandbags up in a friend's backyard through the miserable rain while standing in mud that instantly covered any sandbag you didn't catch. We would be found later carrying all of the furniture, electronics, musical instruments, and work out machines up to the top level of their house where it was so packed they couldn't fit one more thing.

This year?



Charlie helping my practice for tennis by running to get the ball for me.



We have that fancy new portable wall that you can see in the left of this picture of Charlie, the school was out sandbagging only one day, we've filled most (or all?) of the sandbags before the water was even seriously threatening us, and Charlie and I have made sure the blocked off road by our house does not have lack of activity for too long.

Though Moorhead is still behind, and some of the smaller places around Fargo are still trying to save their homes from the water, I think over all this year was a great improvement from recent years... But, sadly, they probably wont be talking about how awesome our community is on the national news so much this year...