Wire Fox and Poodle

Today it snowed so much in Bloomington that it was hard to walk outside. There was over a foot of snow on the ground. So, naturally, we had to find some other way to get in our exercise since Lola and I couldn’t even get to the (unshoveled) sidewalks. We decided to trek through the snow in our yard, all 12 inches of it. Lola jumped through the snow to her little heart’s delight. I forgot how much she absolutely loved the snow. She especially loves burying her head in it. ‘Tis the nature of a terrier I guess. To dig in and find little scurrying animals. In this case, a fox (since she’s a fox terrier). But, not surprisingly, we didn’t find any foxes today in the snow. Maybe tomorrow.

So as if I didn’t already have enough financial obligations and expenses, lately I’ve been toying with the idea of purchasing a new camera. You see, my current digital camera is at least 5 years old and, frankly, wasn’t that good to begin with. In the five years since I’ve owned the camera, it has been surpassed by much less bulky and more powerful cameras. But, to be perfectly honest, I don’t even want a camera with a lot of bells and whistles. I just want a digital camera that I know will take GREAT pictures with little hassle, something my current camera has never been able to do.

I started thinking about getting a digital camera because I would really like to take nice pictures of my wire fox terrier Lola. The picture that’s on our blog banner now is cute, but I can’t help but feel that it doesn’t really capture her. In short, it looks like a digital photo taken by a mediocre camera. I’d really like to be able to take low light pics in a more natural setting or action shots outdoors. I’d just like more options.

Also, I was thinking that I do a rather poor job of documenting our lives. Although I have a handful of pics of Lola from our last four years together, I could do a lot better job of keeping track of Lola’s life–something that I will inevitably be grateful for down the road. And, since we are expecting a new standard poodle in the future, there’s even more incentive for taking lots of great pictures of my little ones. I think Lola and the new pup will take splendid pictures together!

I think I’ll wait at least a couple of months before making my final decision. But, I can say that the point will surely come when the camera I have now will no longer be of service.

I may have already mentioned this before, but come August we’ll be moving from our current apartment into a new apartment that’s quite a bit bigger. The idea was to find an apartment that could accommodate both Lola and me as well as the new standard poodle pup we’ll be getting at the end of May. Since I was already looking for a bigger place, I thought I may as well try to find something that met all of my requirements for a great new home. So, I started looking for an apartment that was within walking distance to the park that we now usually drive to. I also really wanted to find a standalone house as opposed to an apartment in a multi-unit building.

Fortunately, I found both of these in an older, 1 bedroom apartment unit. Although it is quite a bit older than the newly renovated apartment that we live in now, I think it’ll give us sufficient room and it’ll be great to be able to walk around the corner to the park. Also, I won’t have to worry about noisy neighbors! I think this is probably the best part about moving to a new, completely separate place! But after moving 3 times in just as many years, I am NOT looking forward to schlepping my stuff to a different home.

Today was my long day. I left the apartment at around 9.30 am and didn’t get back until around 6.30 pm. I don’t really enjoy Tuesdays because I’m away from home for so long. I spend most of the day in classes and during the breaks that I have, I usually work on an assignment or do some reading that needs to get done. After getting home, most of the time I just want to unwind and spend some time with my Lolis who has to stay home by herself the whole day.

In future semesters, I should have a bit more flexibility with my schedule. I’m hoping not to overbook days like this again. I’m thinking that when we get our third member of the family, at least the two four-legged members can keep each other company when I’m on campus. But, I’m hoping to be working from home a lot more in the future so I can spend some more time with them.

Oh, how things have changed since the last post I wrote. I had intended to use this weekend to do two things. One - I wanted to spend some quality time with my Lola. Two - I wanted to get a lot of work done because this semester is going to be tough, and I cannot let myself get behind. Well, all was going well until I woke up Friday morning feeling deathly ill. I was SO miserable. I had chest congestion, sinus congestion, sore throat, a fever, chills, body aches, the whole package. By Saturday, the only thing I could do was stay in bed and hope that the sickness would leave my body. I couldn’t even eat because everything seemed disgusting to me. Not a good weekend.

By Sunday, I was feeling a little better, but I still could not go half a minute without blowing my nose and coughing. I also still had a low grade fever. Fortunately, today I did manage to wake up at a decent hour, get dressed, go get supplies from the store, and come back to start work. I feel mildly happy with the way I redeemed myself today.

Unfortunately, my being sick meant that poor Lola did NOT get the attention that she’s used to getting. It took all of my strength just to take her out for literally two to three seconds to do her business and then come back in and crash on the bed again. She didn’t get to walk for a few days. This, of course, meant that she had some pent up energy, which became apparent the minute she walked out of the door this morning.

While we were out taking care of business near my apartment building this morning, one of my neighbors walked out with her dog who she did not have leashed. I didn’t think too much of it. Of course, her dog came up to Lola, and Lola was uber-excited and started doing the lunging bit to try and meet her. The owner asked if this was okay, and I said “Sure.” They met, everything was fine. Lola started running around a bit, and then came back over to her dog and all of the sudden let out a little growl. There were no teeth, no hairs standing on end or anything, but it did sort of shock me because I had never seen Lola do this to another adult dog (she’s been known to put a puppy in its place, but that’s normal adult-puppy interaction). Of course, my neighbor was a bit shocked and said that she’d leave us alone and take her dog inside (she wasn’t rude at all, but she was probably surprised that I didn’t correct Lola when it happened). I was really speechless. I could have apologized, but I really think Lola was just being frisky. Neither dog reacted as if it were a provocation. This is when I think dogs understand themselves better than humans think they understand dogs. We tend to attribute things to dogs that they simply don’t see. I think if agression had really been an issue in this situation, there would have been other signs. The growl would have been lower and more sustained, there would have been teeth, there might have been a lunge. Still, I guess since we live in a human society, I should teach Lola that she shouldn’t do this again, lest she scare another owner (even if the other dog isn’t phased).

This weekend is a three day weekend. Yeah!! On Monday, classes will not be held because it is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This is coming at the perfect time since the semester started this past Monday and I’m already behind. I think I’m going to set aside Saturday to just get organized, clean the apartment, and maybe take Lola on two nice, long walks. Unfortunately, the past couple of days I haven’t been able to walk her as much. This is because I’ve been SO busy with trying to get through my first week and because it’s been ridiculously cold. But, I think on Saturday I’m going to slow down a bit and enjoy the Lolis.

Today it snowed a lot here in Bloomington, Indiana. I was surprised to find when I opened the blinds this morning that the ground was covered in a nice blanket of white. I took Lola out and, for the first time this season, she wanted to come back in as soon as she did her business. I was kind of surprised because we used to live in the upper Midwest and she was much more used to colder weather. I think this morning she just wasn’t feeling the cold.

I might have to buy her some booties if her feet get too cold. So far, I haven’t had to do this, but I guess it’s better to be safe than sorry. The things we have to go through here in the Midwest. Although it’s beautiful, a winter wonderland isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Today was a rough day. It was my first day back from break, and although there wasn’t much to do for school (yet), I was running all over the place today. Our first walk today was at 6 in the morning. I had to leave the apartment at 7.30, so we went for our walk first thing after we got up.

Our evening walk was interesting. We went to the park, and in stark contrast to yesterday, there were a LOT of people and dogs out today. Lola met a couple of dogs that she wanted to say hi to. There was minimal lunging but, for the most part, she did fine. One of the dogs that we passed by twice and who Lola wanted to meet the second time around was a large goldendoodle. His owner passed us by and on the second time he said, “I think your dog wants to say hi.” This was, of course, because Lola started jumping up and down. So, I said “Sure” and started talking to the owner a bit. He asked if Lola was a terrier and I told him she indeed was a fox terrier. I was pretty sure his dog was a poodle mix, but I asked him just to make sure. He confirmed that he was a 13 month old golden doodle, and I told him he was a pretty dog. Well, I think this offended the owner somewhat as he quickly turned and left after mumbling something under his breath. I don’t think he appreciated someone calling his male dog “pretty.” I just thought about how humans impose their own social gendered values on their pets. Yet another reason I would pick a dog over a human any day.

Today Lola and I took a walk in the park. We got there at around 5.30 pm while it was still light outside. I was surprised when driving up that there were hardly any cars in the parking lot. Usually, especially on the weekend, there are tons of cars parked outside while everyone and their dogs and/or kids are in the park.

So, Lola and I started walking and, for the most part, she wasn’t too bothered by the few people and dogs out on the walking paths. I thought to myself, this is really nice. I kind of wish everyday were like this. We virtually had the 33 acre park to ourselves.

There were a couple of times where she picked up a scent and wanted to pull a bit on the leash. I’m trying to get her out of the habit of doing that. Although she’s improved greatly, I haven’t found a surefire way of getting her to quit pulling. I did some research today on a harness called the Gentle Leader where the leash attaches to the front as opposed to the top of the harness. I’m thinking about buying it and trying it out. Maybe then walking without Lola pulling with truly be “a walk in the park.”

Recently, I came across a blog that I quite enjoyed dealing with whether or not to dock a dog’s tail. Now, it particularly interested me because the dog that the author was talking about was, you guessed it, the great poodle. I knew that poodles are born with a curly, long tail. I also knew that most breeders, at least in the U.S., dock their poodles’ tails soon after they are born. But, what I didn’t know was that the question of whether or not to dock a dog’s tail is a rather controversial one. Apparently, there are quite a few people who feel very passionately for both sides.

I have been toying around with the idea of leaving our poodle pup’s tail long. The idea first came to me when I viewed a couple of youtube videos where the standard poodles’ tails were left long. I think both of the videos I saw were from breeders in Europe, so I assume this is more customary there then it is here. I thought the long tail looked rather elegant, especially on the standard poodles with their long legs. It reminded me of an Afghan hound’s tail, sort of long and curly with longish hair on it. Although I think the long tail would be unique, I also quite like the short poof look of the docked tail. I’m thinking that since it is so customary here to dock the tail when the pups are only a few days old, it might just be easier to go this route. Otherwise, I’m sure I would have to make special arrangements with the breeder, and I’m not sure she would be willing to do it.

There are also people who are very anti-tail docking because they feel that it is cruel to the dog. I can understand this too. However, I think if the dog is young enough, it probably isn’t quite cognizant of what is going on. As long as it is safe and healthy, and done by a professional, I guess I don’t have too much of a problem with it.