He has an appetite for literature

Literally!


I think that in this next one you can see the title of the tome really well.
Yup, it's "Surviving Your Dog's Adolescence," a moderately useful dog-training guide that Chris's mom found at a used book store and gave us. Well, it is no more. We had to throw it away, because every time we came home we found bits of it scattered all over the floor, and Blondie is afraid of the dustpan. Besides, it didn't say anything about what to do when your dog starts eating your dog training guide. That would be too meta.

We keep a lot of books in our living room, which is his room, and so far the only other one to suffer a similar fate is my copy of Jessie Fauset's "There Is Confusion." Fortunately, he only chewed off the cover and a few pages of Thadious Davis's foreword!

Arrrrr, he be walkin the plank!

As I have said, just before we left for Indiana, Blondie looked like this:


But that splint was on the wrong leg. A second opinion prescribed pain medication and lots of swimming, which Blondie did beautifully from land:

At sea, however, getting into the water was slightly more difficult.


We got him a doggie life jacket so that we could pull him out of the water by its handle:


But he still had trouble jumping into the water from height of the pontoon. The Gacks took action. A stick of 1x8, a few carpet scraps, an old life jacket, and some staple-gunning later...


we attached the creation to the side of the boat.


And, as my niece likes to say, ta-DAA! After a few minor adjustments, Blondie was getting on and off like a pro!


We have given Blondie some new middle names. Now his name is Blondie Seadog Sparrow, plus my last name, followed by Chris's. We were inspired by Chris's cousin's daughters' dog, who goes by Blackie (he looks a lot like Blondie, apparently), but whose full set of given names is Beethoven Blackie Christine.

Curbed!

Here's where I would post a pic of Blondie with his cute purple splint, but the computer here can't read my sandisk, so it will have to wait until we return to Chicago.

Blondie seems to have a broken leg, or something else wrong with his leg. Our Chicago vet took x-rays and then splinted his *left* leg, even though he's had an apparent problem with his right leg for several weeks. But, he got the splint wet (here's where I would post pictures of him swimming), and then he resumed limping on his *right* leg again. So, we took him to the vet here in Indiana to get a second opinion. Definitely the right leg, says she. And she prescribed pain meds, no splint, and lots of swimming!

Thanks to the wonders of doggie-profen, we now have our energetic pooch back again.
I think he's sleeping right now, but that's because he spent the morning playing (by himself) with his tennis ball. I have to try to get video of this. In the meantime, I'll post all manner of photographic evidence of life with Blondie upon our return to Chicago Sunday.

sick as a dog

Blondie has been sneezing like crazy for the last two days, and also "reverse sneezing." He kept me up half the night on Sunday, because his sneezing fits come in threes. It is awfully cute when a dog sneezes, but, being a health alarmist, I am taking him directly to the vet, since he did have kennel cough just a month ago, and sneezing can be a symptom of pneumonia in dogs, and he has been acting a little bit subdued. Except when he sees a squirrel.

We're also going to have his shoulder checked out, because he has this weird problem where it gets all stiff when he's been lying down. I hope it's nothing....I'm a worse hypochondriac for my dog than I am for myself!