The Spuzster

It has been a week since I brought little Spuz-a-relli home and he is settling in to his new digs quite nicely.  He has a few favorite spots to hang, none of which are the little pen that I have set up for him in the basement for when I have to leave him home alone.  I wouldn't want to be confined to a pen either, so I can't blame him for the few retaliation poo's he has taken in said pen.  But, he's not house trained yet, so letting him have free reign of the upstairs isn't an option at this point.  He had his first appointment with the veterinarian yesterday, and I was happy to find out that he's a healthy little guy, weighing in at 9.25 pounds.  You'd look at him and think he weighed more, but he's all floof.  He only weighs one pound more than Frank, but looks like he's about 3 times Franks size.  The vet did discover one thing -- little Spuz has infections in both ears.  So he's on drops twice a day for 10 days.  I figured he had something going on with his ears because the smelled sort of funny, and he was pawing at them a few times a day.  Poor kid.  Anyway, his ear pawing has lessened even after only three treatments with the ear drops.  I'm sure he'll feel better soon, and lucky for me he takes the drops like a champ, just a lil' bit of wiggling :)

I've scheduled his first appointment with the groomers for next week.  I'll be so excited to get his hair trimmed so I can see his adorable face.  I'm sure he'll be pretty freakin' pumped too, he can barely see from behind all that fur!!  Seriously, his eyes are almost totally blocked by a combination of the hair that hangs down from his forehead, and the hair that sticks up from the sides of his nose.  I would go nuts.  Speaking of nuts, he has them.  And they are going to get snipped in two weeks.  I also scheduled him to get neutered and microchipped in a couple weeks.  So he's going to have a busy few weeks with his various appointments coming up.  I'll have to get him an assistant to help keep track of his schedule.

 
My mom was in town for a few days this week, and she fell in love with Spuz.  And I think he fell in love with her too.  I think he loved having someone pay attention to him, literally all day long.  If he wasn't laying on her lap, she was making sure he was happy.  She took him outside every hour or so, chased him around the yard, gave him as many belly rubs as he could handle.  Cleaned his ears (much to his chagrin).  Napped with him.  I think secretly she wanted to put him in the car with her and take him back to Moses Lake.  I'm sure I'll plan a trip over the mountains for sometime this summer so Spuz can visit my parent's digs and play with their Westie, Bailey.

I'm still adjusting to my life with a dog again -- and I've missed it.  Part of me will always miss Milo, but it was time to move on and welcome another dog in need of a home into my life.  I feel pretty lucky I found Spuz!!

there's a new kid in town.......

.......and his name is Spuz (pronounced like "buzz").  Short for Spurzheim.  If you're wondering, it is a family name.

But considering his likeness to an Ewok, I probably should have named him Wickett.  He is a big floofball!!  He's about 7 months old, and he's a Shih Tzu.  And he is mellow like jell-ell-o.  I swear I didn't hear a peep out of him for the first 24 hours I had him.  So how did I come about acquiring Spuz?  Well, it has been 7 months since my sweet Milo passed away.  I knew I wanted to give myself time to heal -- I fell for Milo hard and fast, and admittedly his death really threw me into a wee bit of a tail-spin for awhile.  Nothing like the combination of months of shitty NW weather and losing your best canine friend to send you searching for the warm embrace of your feather bed.  I loved having a dog, and I knew that I wanted to get another dog sometime in 2011.  One of my requirements for the new dog was grass growing in the backyard.  The winter saw my backyard as more of a mudpit than a place for a dog to hang out and catch some rays.  Or just catch some daylight for that matter.  So when I saw this......

....I decided it was time to start looking for another friend.  My mom has been looking at the classified ads online for months now, searching for dogs.  And recently Gina logged some hours looking at possible candidates on Petfinder.  A few days ago I found Spuz......within 30 minutes of meeting him we were jammin' to some tunes in my car, driving to the pet store to get him some supplies -- bed, treats, food, the essentials basically.  He's been adjusting well to life in Ballard.  He has been *really* cautious around Frank, which has been awesome.  Frank doesn't do well with any form of aggression, or chasing, so Spuz's calm demeanor has definitely helped in Frank's adjustment to having another animal in the house.

 
We are working on getting him house trained, which I didn't have to do with Milo, so that has been an ongoing learning experience on my part.  Luckily, Spuz is so small, when he has an accident in the house it is a small clean up.  When Milo had an accident in the house it was like a hazmat situation.  Granted, I'd clean up Milo's enormous shits a thousand times over to have him back, but that isn't going to happen, so I'll focus on the positives of a small dog's #1's and #2's.  So far Spuz doesn't know what a leash is, or how one operates.  He likes to stop and sit while on leash.  He's more of a wanderer I guess, a free-spirit.  We'll definitely be working on his leash skill set.  I think I'll enroll us in a training class to pick up some tips.  He has been absolutely wonderful so far, and I'm really excited for us to get more and more comfortable with eachother.

In other news, I have this coming week off.  It's birthday week folks!!  Yep, I'm turning 34.  I have the week off to relax and spend time with friends, family, and my animals.  And I'm soooo looking forward to it!!  Look out for some more blogposts.....I hope!!!