Monday, October 30, 2006

Summer Daylight Saving

Milo might not be able to tell time, but his stomach can! Always, at 5 PM, give or take 10 minutes, he sits next to my chair and stares. If I don't realize it he cries. Yesterday, it was exactly 4:00 PM when he did this. Time for dinner came 1 hour earlier, but exactly on time according to his stomach.

Happy Halloween!

Milo could have scared the children with his loud barking, but since most children in the building know him, and love him, that did not happen.
He did not get the concept of Halloween, though. He tried to take the candy from all the children that came to "trick or treat". He even chased some of them on the hall. It's really not his fault. The children were opening bags full of candy exactly at his nose/mouth level. What was he supposed to do?

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

For Xena


Here's a picture of Milo's golden paw, if you need it for comparison purposes.

A better beach





Long Island is not as "pet-friendly" as we would hope. So Milo gets to be off-leash on the sound and it's not as nice as the beach on the ocean. We still like to wonder over there but Milo is not allowed to go there and much less to be off-leash. He still tries to get there... very unsuccessfully.

The ride


Milo, very happy on the way to the beach and tired on the way back from the beach.

See... we're learning


We took Milo to the beach again last Sunday, but this time we did things a little bit differently. He did not swim as much and we carried bottles of water with us for Milo and made him drink. As a result, he was not too tired but he did not get sick. In summary, it was a great day for everybody.

Problems and solutions

I have figured out a solution to a problem that I encouter everytime I walk Milo. Such a solution has secondary effects, which are positive and negative. Whether I provide the solution to the problem, or I let the solution be a random occurance, there is a negative and a positive secondary effect. The positive effect of the random occurance solution is the abscence of the negative effect when I provide the solution.

It is common knowledge that NYC is not the cleanest city in the world, by any means. When it's "trash day", people, I'm assuming mostly homeless, go through the trash and collect whatever can be exchanged for money at recycling centers. They leave a bigger mess after they go through the trash and the streets become "food heaven" for Milo.

If Milo has a tennis ball in his mouth, he walks very proudly and does not care about the trash. So if I don't want him to eat all that trash... gross!, all I have to do is give him a tennis ball and both of us will be very happy.

The positive secondary effect of this solution is that because his mouth is full, he won't bark and disturb the building where we live, therefore nobody will complain about the noise and we can ensure a roof over our heads. The negative effect, if I give him the balls, is that he might lose some of those balls on the street and we will run out of them eventually.

Another way for Milo to get a ball for his walks is to find them on the street. It's not uncommon to see them, but it's still a random occurance. The positive effect will be, besides the no barking effect, that he will not lose his own tennis balls. The negative effect is that I will have to make him leave the tennis balls outside before we enter our apartment or deal with a very nasty ugly dirty ball in my apartment.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The golden tail, part II


Here Milo uses his tail to show his disappointment because we came so close to the dog park and then crossed the street in the opposite direction. He pulled as much as he could and then gave up.

The golden tail

The vet had told us that Milo will learn to compensate for his missing leg... and he has! Thanks to his tail. I never noticed how important a dog's tail is! Now I see Milo using his tail not only to greet or show emotions, but to do other things too. He uses it to swim, he uses it to walk and, most importantly, he uses it for balance.

I noticed a couple of days ago how he uses it when he pees. He points it towards the tree or any other target and moves it to keep his balance. Here's a peak.

I was being faithful to google, just to keep everything together, but now I find that their site for the videos is often down. I love to have alternatives!

Monday, October 09, 2006

paws

what's missing?

After the fun was over

Although it was a great day for Milo, it ended up not being his best day. He drank so much salt water at the beach that he vomited a couple of times after we took off from the beach. He also had diarreah. He did not want to go out, even though he was drinking water like I had never seen him before. Everytime we dragged him outside, he was really loaded but as soon as he was done, he would turn around and go back to the apartment.

I was really worried because he did not beg for food when we were having dinner, which is very unusual. This morning we gave him boiled rice and he did not eat it all. He still had diarreah this morning, but he has not done anything since. I gave him more rice but mixed it with his regular food and he ate it.

His appetite is back and so is his barking and joy for walks. He still seems a little stiff, probably sore from all the swimming yesterday. What a relief! We wanted him to have the time of his life and he ended up sick! I hope that he will only remember the good parts from yesterday and not how he felt afterwards.

Digging a hole

Although Xena told us that she was able to dig a hole, I was curious as to how she did it. So I buried Milo's ball (which was acutally found on the beach but Milo took it with him) and made him dig. Now that I've seen it, I think "Of course they can do it! It's not a big deal!" because Milo did it with so much ease that it seemed almost obvious that he was going to be able to dig.

Rowing tail

Milo showed us that as long as his tail rows with him when he swims, his fourth leg is not missed. Milo got another day at the beach yesterday. Is it global warming? I don't know, but it's warm enough for us to go to the beach in October, even though the trees are losing their leaves already. Whatever it is, we are going to take advantage of it, and I'm sure Milo will be very pleased.

It's not unconditional love

Yes, Milo LOVES the water, but not all water! We tried to make him jump into the water, but he whinned and barked and refused to do it. He needs to enter the water from the shore and never from the top!

Based on expert advice* ;) I decided not to post videos on the blog any more, but you can click on the links to see them. I was recently informed that my blog and/or the videos are not always accessible.

*My husband and Tessa

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Storm in NYC

Last night, after we all went to sleep, Milo woke us up by whinning and scratching the bed. I did not know what he wanted, but what he usually wants is an extra walk. I first check his water bowl. He still had water. I grabbed the leash and he ran to his bed... so I figured he does not want a walk. That was good news since it was close to midnight and it was raining hard, and I heard some thunders. I offered him food, and he does not know how to say "no" to food. As soon as he was done eating he sat in front of the couch. I invited him to jump on the couch and we all slept comfortably for the rest of the night.

Maybe he was missing my brother-in-law. He left last night, and Milo always got longer walks, massages, and more food from him than from me. He could have also been scared of the thunders and his bed is right by the window. Since he cannot jump on the bed anymore (too high), I could not invite him to join us there last night. I guess the couch was a good substitute.

This morning, however, since my brother-in-law was not here anymore, he woke ME up VERY early. I'm not a morning person, but Milo does not care about that kind of stuff. He got his first morning walk before 8AM...

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

On the beach



This time it did not take that long to upload the video, so I'll share this one too. Here's Milo, with my brother-in-law fetching, "something they found on the beach." This is his favorite game on the lake, but he is not very good at giving the toy back so we need to trick him into leaving it. He knows the game, but he can be very stubborn sometimes.

Milo's tail does not lie

Here's Milo having the time of his life at the beach. If his face is not enough proof, take a look at his tail ;)
The pictures look better if you double-click on them.

Afer a good run and swim


If we forget to carry a bowl for Milo, there's always the sink. A well deserved drink.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Nothing better than the beach

Saturday was probably the best day Milo had in the past 2 months. My husband took him to the beach in Long Island and he had his first chance to swim. No vest, no help. The first few meters don't seem to be too deep and he managed even the deep water very well. My husband made more than one video, but it took me 2 hours to upload this one to google and then 4 more hours until it went "live", so this might be the only one I post and the rest will be pictures.



Maybe Milo is so happy when he swims that he does not use his tail the way the rest of the dogs do. He keeps it almost outside of the water instead of using it to swim. Now that he needs more support for swimming, he tail is just all over the place! It will be a matter of practice, and then he will be again the dog that swims the farthest and for the longest time at the Ramapo lake.

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