Eh I will say something about my lack of food posting. I've been in a slump that just will not quit. I can't remember the last time that I made something worth talking about. It is what it is.
Dawg Life
It's National Rescue Dog day, and Doggo is here to represent. I've got two brags to make about our girl.
Brag #1 is a too dark photo of a black dog that holds a special place in my heart. Doggo dropped by my office during the work day. The significance is that she wasn't able to do this before because she couldn't climb our stairs until now.
We started training Doggo to climb stairs by putting treats on the stairs. Since she has a long body, her first move was to see how far up the stairs she could stretch while keeping her back feet firmly on the ground, and let me tell you that our Long Dog is Very Long. Eventually she started going up one stair, then two, then three, and there her progress stalled for some time. Eventually us hoomans caught on that our wood steps had anti slip tape that was only a few inches wide and that her feet were slipping on the wood part. So we got an anti slip that covers the entire stair and Doggo started climbing higher...but then there was the next challenge that she didn't know how to go down, so she would climb a few stairs and then jump or fall down. Then all at once the pieces came together and she now goes up and down stairs like she's been doing it all her life
Brag #2 is that we had our first big family party since we got Doggo. Doggo is reactive, meaning that she gets barky/growly/unhappy around strangers. She's gotten better after a lot of conditioning with treats, the passage of time, and being exposed to lots of new people at training and doggy day care, but we weren't sure if she was up to one of our big family bashes. But we had the tribe in town over the weekend and we were best suited to host, so we decided to take a chance.
By coincidence, Doggo and I were outside when the guests arrived. It was SIL#1's family who she'd gotten along well with when they came to see her a few months ago, but there was a new niece who hadn't been there before. How was our reactive dog going to deal with an influx of people and a complete stranger in her house?
She "reacted" by running up to the newcomer and giving her a big phat sloppy dog kiss. After that she was a little on edge about the living room full of people but by some magic they all seemed to have dog treats to give her, so she decided that they were alright. There were a few moments throughout the night where a new person came in, someone made an unexpected move, or Doggo fell asleep and awoke abruptly and forgot where she was, but she quickly calmed down and went back into Life of the Party mode. This was such a huge milestone for her.
Workouts
My baby pull up efforts are moving along. I'm nowhere near being able to do a pull up, but I can hold myself at the top of the bar for a count of 15 for three reps, which is up from a count of 0.5 for one rep when I started.
Watching
Hubs found a gem for date night. If I tell you that it's a movie about Jack the Ripper stealing H.G. Well's time machine and the two time traveling from 1893 to 1979...you know that I can't make this stuff up. The movie is Time After Time, and the story is so crazy and the actors are so good that it absolutely works. My favorite trivia is that Malcolm MacDowell was in a mood where he wanted to take a step back and make something that wasn't A Clockwork Orange and wasn't Caligula...achievement unlocked.
Reading
One audiobook and one book to report!
The audiobook is via Nicole via her guest post for Engie: What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love by Carole Radziwill.
Do you remember the summer of 1999 when JFK Jr's plane went missing and no one knew what happened for several days? People always used to talk about how they remember where they were and what they were doing when JFK was shot, and I remember vividly where I was when JFK Jr's plane was found. I was traveling for work somewhere in West Virginia doing a factory installation. One day someone from the front office ran into the lab yelling "They found JFK! They found JFK!" And she quickly followed up that "found" was not "found alive". I joked to her that I would always remember her, and 25 years (!) later I still do.
But enough about me, this book is about how badly the summer of 1999 sucked for the author, or how sometimes really bad things happen to really rich people. She was married to JFK Jr's cousin and was close friends with Carolyn. Her husband was terminally ill with cancer, so first came the crash and then he died three weeks later. She starts the book by telling us this, and then the suspense of knowing exactly what is going to happen built up for the rest of the book. This was a fascinating listen.
The book was Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout, and if you're keeping track this is the third Lucy book that I've read in the last few weeks and it was also a Nicole recommendation.
Recommendations Please!
My big long road trip back to Wisconsin is coming up. Please hit me with the best nonfiction books that you've read or listened to lately - I'm looking for audiobooks for the road.
Peace Out!
It's funny that you mention JFK Jr's plane crash from 1999 - just this morning I was reading an article about that, and it had a photo of him and Carolyn (it was an article about celebrities who died in plane/helicopter crashes, which in turn was related to the Iranian president's helicopter crash last weekend). I will always remember Carolyn as the woman who wore no jewellery. Which I always thought was very cool.
ReplyDeleteYay for doggo conquering the stairs and the party!! You're doing such a great job with her! I bet you love having her in your office.
I'm not the biggest Kennedy fan, but I always liked Carolyn and she really sounded like a great person in the book.
DeleteIt is a joy to have Doggo up in the office. She's still getting used to our upstairs so she doesn't stay very long. It's a big world to get used to when you're just a little pup.
DOGGO!!!! She's doing so well! Hooray!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you loved those books because I do too. I remember reading the part (SPOILER) when Anthony goes to the hospital for the last time and Carole says someone needs to call John and Carolyn, and the person with her just stares. It's just such a poignant moment. I love that memoir so much, it's just such a fascinating story.
And Lucy By The Sea!!! Loved it. Strout is such a gifted writer.
I'm glad that you shared the books on your blog because otherwise I would have missed out! Both authors write so well.
DeleteYay Doggo! She's doing so great! I like how all your guests "mysteriously" had treats for her.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little bummed that you're in a food rut, because I am too and I usually get ides from you. SIGH! But my son is home and has promised to cook twice a week!!! One night is takeout so that only leaves four dinners. Arg- it still feels like a lot.
I have no nonfiction recommendations for you- my nonfiction reading has definitely petered out. But I'll be interested to hear what you decide to read. Maybe it will motivate me!
What goes around comes around - your reading and eating post this week gave me two good food ideas! Now I just have to get off my butt and cook.
DeleteAwesome progress Doggo!! Charlie is pretty small- about 18 lbs- so he seemed to just naturally be the right size to easily handle stairs. I was nervous when he was little about him falling down them somehow (and we have a permanent baby gate at the top of the stairs anyway) but he never had any trouble with them from the beginning, fortunately.
ReplyDeleteThat is a big deal about the reactivity progress!! That sounds like a really stressful "dog issue" whenever I hear about dogs that have this problem, and especially I would think if you have a bigger breed that some people might be naturally a bit more on edge around. Hopefully Doggo realized that all the people are actually okay!! Charlie has sort of the opposite problem, lol. He is like, OVER friendly. haha. If someone comes over, he goes nuts with excitement and wants to jump, wiggle, etc all over them. Which since he's small is not the worst thing in the world but I do NOT want him to think it's okay to jump on people! He always settles down in about 30 seconds, but initially always goes berserk. It's like his whole body wiggles and he is just.so.happy.he.can't.even.stand.it!!!!! hahaha. He also does this whenever we see other dogs, which is even worse. He is like LET'S PLAYYYYYYYYYYYY and then proceeds to try to climb all over them or sort of "stands up" and ends up basically clawing at their face! He is just so overexcited. But obviously not every dog wants another dogs paws in their face, you know? Again, he always settles down after he gets it out of his system, but I am sort of at a loss as to how to prevent this in the first place. It doesn't help matters that Charlie has a very sensitive stomach, so he is really limited in what treats we can give him. He mostly just eats his kibble and that is it. And he likes his kibble, but not THAT much that he really cares about it as a high value training treat.
I feel like Doggo would have had an easier time with stairs if she had been smaller when she started. She grew very quickly once we got her and I think her body was just an awkward size to learn stairs. Plus the slippery part where we didn't have the stair cover. But anyway, she's figured it out now.
DeleteI'm sure that Charlie will grow out of the maniac greeting phase, just as Doggo has grown out of quite a few things on her own. They're both teenagers after all.
That is awesome to hear about Doggo! Stairs and parties are huge wins. Our dog Bella came to us with a lot of fear and aggression issues (especially around tall men) that took a couple of years to navigate. The Mr. and I still are surprised and grateful when we have someone over to the house and Bells ends up a puddle of love on their feet.
ReplyDeletePoor Bella! It's so rewarding to see these dogs make progress. And it does happen - as you say it just takes time, patience, and love.
DeleteWay to go Doggo! I am glad she handled the party as well as she did! That's a big milestone especially as you approach prime season for having people over for summer gatherings/BBQs/etc! I do wish I could see a pic of Doggo stretched out on the stairs when she was learning to climb them, though! Your talk of stairs reminds me how we were total outliers in never having a baby gate in our house despite having stairs. Our current house was a little bit more stressful be because there is an open staircase to the basement (in our last house it was closed off by a door). But the kids figured out stairs and we never had any catastrophes. It did require close monitoring but both stairs in our current house have carpet which makes them way easier to navigate for little crawlers.
ReplyDeleteI should re-read What Remains. I remember loving that book when I read it probably 15 years ago. I probably should have kept that one but it got donated during a massive purge of books before I moved in with Phil.
For non-fiction, While You Were Out might be good? It's about a family's struggles w/ major mental health issues. I read it in print so can't say how the audiobook is. R. Eric Thomas might be a fun listen? I read "Here for It" and will read "Congratulations the Best is Over" after I finish my current read. "Good for
Girl" was also very good - about how professional women athletes are terribly mistreated. Lastly, "Under the Skin" could be interesting - it's about how racism impacts health outcomes. We read it for book club last summer and everyone really liked it.
Doggo is really funny when she goes into Long Dog mode. She's small enough that she can get vertical when she needs to, which is also pretty funny.
DeleteThanks for the book recs! I will check them out.
Doggo is such a cutie pie! I love the pictures and the pink giraffe!
ReplyDeleteI looked through my audiobook library, and I haven't listened to any non-fiction in a long time, so that's interesting!
Raffy the Giraffe has been well loved! We have to watch her with him because as you can see he has a few punctures, but he's lasted a long time and I think he still has a bit more life in him.
DeleteThe Feather Thief was a nice non-fiction audiobook I listened to.
ReplyDeleteCan Doggo come over and give Hannah some lessons on stairs? Hannah can do stairs and she does them all the time, but she won't go down the basement stairs. *sigh* Someday we're going to have a tornado and Hannah's going to have to fend for herself. (JK, of course, we'd pick her up and drag her down there if we had to.)
Also, yay for making sure Doggo thinks people coming over = treat bonanza for her! Such a good way of making sure she knows that sometimes strangers are good.
Yep, the basement stairs are going to be a separate skill. All of the dogs that I've known have had issues with basement stairs. Stepdog would go down them under protest for tornado warnings but she wasn't happy about it.
DeleteThanks for the rec on The Feather Thief!
Yay Doggo, on dealing with people AND stairs! It never occurred to me that stairs might be difficult for a dog, mentally or physically. Our stairs are carpeted though, so not too hard. We got Mulder at 7 months, and he knew about them already I guess. Our last dog, Genevieve, went blind and a couple of times she almost fell down the stairs. She was a smart girl, though, and decided not to come up anymore. It made me sad to be upstairs working with her downstairs, but she knew what was best.
ReplyDeleteI remember Time After Time! What a great movie. I HATE Clockwork Orange, so YAY Malcom for finding a less horrible film to star in. (My husband loves Clockwork Orange.)
Congratulations on your chin up progress! I don't know where I would even attempt such a thing, and I think I will keep it that way.
I think that Doggo's size when she came to us - not a tiny puppy and growing rapidly plus the slippery stair covering both worked against her. But hey she figured it out!
DeleteI saw A Clockwork Orange once but it was definitely a one time thing AND I skipped a few scenes that I could tell were going to bother me. I know enough about Caligula to know that I will never see it. I really like Malcolm MacDowell as an actor so I'm happy that he has at least one movie where that I could just sit back and enjoy.
Good job Doggo; I am so proud that she was able to be with a big group without getting too crazy! That is very cool.
ReplyDeleteRe books, I replied to your comment on my post! As for the one you are reading, it sounds very interesting; I think I will put it on my list!
Thanks for the list! I've already read (OK, listened to) Quit Like a Millionaire and I'm Glad My Mom Died and loved both, so I have a good feeling about the rest of your list. Here it is for anyone who wants to check it out - scroll down to the comments: https://travelspot06.blogspot.com/2024/05/tgim.html
DeleteDoggo is doing so well! I am proud of her and impressed with your dedication to training her. She is going to lead such a happier life feeling more at ease thanks to you!
ReplyDeleteSo sweet to hear how well Doggo is adjusting and I love that you're putting in the work with her. She's going to be so happy in your home (and she's really so cute in the pictures!).
ReplyDeleteSome major Doggo accomplishments in this post! That's a testament to your dedication to training her and making her feel safe with your family. <3 I'm glad there were treats for Doggo at the party!
ReplyDeleteNonfiction recs: Cultish by Amanda Montell, All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson, A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost, and Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad.
Oh, Doggo. Those ears get me every single time. And thanks for the tip - when I stop by (and I will!) I shall pack my pockets with treats and perhaps carry a short-but-chewable stick. ;)
ReplyDeleteI just started Sitting Pretty, a memoir by a teacher who uses a wheelchair. I'm already into chapter 3 and started today, so there you go. (Don't tell Engie but I listen at 2x speed...)