Brightly Colored Salamanders: June 2009

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

New Pictures!!

We got some more pictures of the pup over the weekend. He's now 5 weeks old and getting so big!! His ears will be cropped right at 9 1/2 weeks old and we'll have him home after that! The breeder says that he's very outgoing, curious, and sweet, so those are good things to hear. He's also very excited about this litter because the pups are developing really nicely.

We are SO excited to bring this little guy home! Even though now he's probably about the size of Hayden when we brought him home at 7 weeks... I've even resigned myself to the fact that we'll probably always have at least three huge crates in our living room. Josh says that it's a "dog house" and that's just how it is. I guess... Just like I've had to come to terms with the fact that we'll always have nose-prints on our windows, slobber on our walls, clothes, couches, etc, and finding the occasional white hair on my black shirts. It's all worth it though to have our crazy babies in our home!!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Pup Info

Okay, Tami, this one is especially for you. Dontcha feel special?? ;)

Are the pups eyes blue?

Yes, for now. Like the fur color, they will change in the next month-ish. Based on his coloring now, his eyes will most likely be an amber color like in the picture below. If he turns out to be black, his eyes will most likely be a dark brown color, like Abbi and Hayden's.

Why is the breeder hanging onto this dog longer than our other dogs?

Well, two reasons. The first is that in the large/giant breeds, the pups develop more slowly and they need to be with the momma dog just a bit longer. We're also leaving him with the breeder for a few extra days because we're having his ears cropped down there. The breeder's vet is experienced with the Cane Corso crop whereas ours, not so much. And reason number two, he's a good breeder. Abbi's breeder let her go at 5 1/2 weeks. Something that we figured out way too late. And we got Hayden from a backyard breeder that let him go at 6 weeks. Neither one of the places where we got our dogs from are "ideal" but we were ignorant when we got Abbi and didn't mind when we got Hayden.

I'll post more pictures when I get them!!

Monday, June 22, 2009

More pictures!!

Our new baby is now three and a half weeks old and it looks like he's tripled in size!!! We can't tell at this point if he's going to be black or black-brindle, and really, we won't be for sure as to what his color will be for another month-ish. So seven weeks from today (but who's counting??), we'll have another furry baby running around our house!!

So just a little reminder, this is Legion at almost a week old:

And this is him at three weeks. A little bit of a size difference!

Friday, June 19, 2009

Sacrifices...

We've had to make some concessions to bring our new baby into our home. One is that we can't enjoy food or eat out like we used to. So we found our little neighborhood ghetto mart called Grocery Outlet. It's really not as bad as I thought. Yeah, it's a lot of processed and canned food but they have good prices. And the produce is organic. Who can pass up a bag of apples for $.99???

So yes, dad, we are eating like this:

But it's only for a little bit and believe me, once we can, we'll go back to our usual dining habits!!!

Our fun, puke-filled, weekend...

Since the weather was nice last week, we decided to leave the dogs out in the backyard. We picked up all of the barbecue tools, shoes, work gloves, etc. that were on the patio so the dogs wouldn't get into those.

I get a call from Josh on Friday afternoon, asking why there are clasps laying in the yard. Um, I have no idea... I follow up with the question: Where are the leashes that were out there? Apparently, they're now in Hayden's belly. He got bored in the backyard and decided to eat two, six-foot leather leashes. TWO!!! Okay, we're gonna be in for an interesting weekend...

The puking started on Friday night. We noticed four puddles on the patio and didn't know what it was at first and then realized very quickly. Thankfully, it was outside so it was an easy cleanup...this time... Poor little guy kept vomiting all night and all weekend. We were worried about him so I stayed home with him on Monday. Of course, he was fine. Until that night. I called the vet first thing Tuesday morning and they wanted us to bring him in. Okay. So I make the appointment for later that afternoon but closer to the time of the appointment, I noticed that he hadn't been sick all day and was acting fine. Great. So I cancel the appointment. That night, he didn't eat much, wasn't drinking, and wasn't poo'ing. All bad signs. So again, I call the vet first thing Wednesday morning and make an appointment. I keep this one. The vet sees him and based on what I tell her about his behavior (other than the not eating/drinking/poo'ing thing, he's acting fine), she doesn't think he has an obstruction but wants to do xrays just to be sure. The xrays didn't show any obstruction but they did show a mass of dark in his belly that was the leash. Along with "nice, soft, healthy poop in his GI tract."

The vet feeds Hayden some wet food and it's time for me to leave him there because about ten minutes later, she was going to pump him full of a drug to induce vomiting, hopefully to empty his belly. My poor baby!!! That went well and he vomited up a 7-inch piece of the leash. If anybody doesn't believe me, the vet sent it home with me...

Fast-forward to today, Hayden is doing much better. He's eating, drinking, passing pieces of leash in his poo, and most importantly, no vomiting. Unfortunately, their days of freedom in the backyard are no more. Our hearts, and wallets!, couldn't take it if something worse happened to one of them. We still have to watch him for a bit, to make sure that he's passing everything and that something isn't stuck somewhere in his innards.

Thanks to everyone that expressed their concern for him!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

First thing on my Christmas list!!

So I'm already thinking about Christmas and what I want to put on my list. I found this while perusing things on the internet. It's relatively inexpensive for those of you trying to save money. It's an ingenious idea. And it's a good tool for us germaphobes! A good idea all around!!

PS: This was a joke. The product is definitely real, but I would be mortified if anybody bought this for me.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

What's next???

In looking for some fun things to get for my brother and sister-in-law for their new baby, I found these. I didn't know what to say or think...

The Daddle. Really? And kneepads?? Dan, would you wear this?? I can just see the numerous lawsuits coming in after kids have fallen out of this. Who gets sued when the kid falls off when the Daddle isn't being worn?

And this one just takes the creepy cake; it's called a Peekaru. If you want your child to look like something from the Aliens movie, then this might be right up your alley. On the other hand, it you could put little ears on the kid's head and fashion a tail coming out the back. Tami, are you game to wear this?? Can you imagine though if you were following a person wearing the Peekaru and they turned around. GAH! I think I'd fall over my own feet trying to get away! Buuuut, it might be useful to cart a puppy around in...

Monday, June 8, 2009

Pupdate!!

We got new pictures of the pup today!! He just opened his eyes and he's still really small but we're already so excited to bring him home. We've decided to name him Legion. We went back and forth between names like Tanner, Lycan, and Ronin, finally settling on Legion. Probably one of the only things that Josh retained from his religious studies: Legion is a demon found in the Bible. So Legion it is!

I'm sure our breeder will be sending many more pictures from now until August but here's only one to tide you, and US!, over 'til then.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Hayden's Birthday!

On June 2nd, 2007, little Hayden was born. We celebrated his birthday with a cake from The Doggie Bag boutique in Granite Bay. He's grown up so much in the time that we've had him and we're so incredibly proud of the dog that he's become. We love you very much, little man!!

I have to apologize for the quality of the pictures... Hayden NEVER sits still...

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Nute Addition #3!!

At 6:30pm on Friday evening, Josh and I began our trip to Fallbrook, CA to see our new son. The drive down was uneventful, with Josh taking the first half and me taking the second. Okay, lemme just say that driving a rented Ford Focus is MUCH different than driving, or riding in, a Nissan Titan. Much different... We got into Fallbrook around 3:00 in the morning but spent the next hour navigating windy, hilly roads, trying to find our breeder's house. Well, turns out that our GPS system had us going in the complete wrong direction!!! We headed back a different direction and we were able to find his house. Okay, it's now 4:00 in the morning and we're pretty sure that the guy wouldn't appreciate us knocking on his door at that time. And we were actually afraid to, given the kind of dogs that he has... So off to a church parking lot we went to catch some sleep.

We woke up about two hours later, went to Denny's for breakfast, and hung out again until we could head to the breeder's house. The pups were getting their tails docked that morning so we had to wait for him to come home from the vet.

Once we get to his house, we were given the grand tour of his kennel. Josh and I have never been more impressed with the type of dog that we saw. They were gorgeous!! We were able to meet and play with all of the females, leaving the daddy of our dog the only one we weren't able to see. I guess he takes a bit to calm down and we just didn't have the time. Two things we found out about the dogs: they're BIG (the daddy dog on his hind legs is taller than me!!) and they're POWERFUL!! But still play all crazy-like like our two do. We got a little glimpse of what it's going to be like in our house when we have the three, playing and running with each other, knocking everything and everyone out of their way. YIKES! But we're so looking forward to it though and so excited to bring another baby boy into our family.

Since the puppies were only three days old, they're still little grunting balls of fur and their eyes weren't even open yet. We were able to hold both of the males though and we both melted. We won't know for sure which one we will get, as it's still way to early to determine temperament, etc in the dogs.

I didn't bring my camera in with me because the pictures wouldn't have really turned out and I didn't want to inconvenience the breeder any more than we already had.

So, just as a reminder, this is the momma dog:

And this is the daddy dog:

Here are pics of the two pups:

Number 1

And Number 2

The breeder is going to have his ears cropped by his vet so the pup will have to stay a little longer than normal. The scheduled date of pickup, for now, is August 7th so we are counting down the days!!

Our little boy is 2!!

Happy birthday, Little Man!!

I'll have pictures of Hayden's birthday up tomorrow.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Memorial Day Weekend, 2009

Back in February, we'd made reservations to camp at Yellowjacket campground near Icehouse, up off of Highway 50. Neither one of us had been there before, nor had we heard of it, so we didn't know what to expect. It was really nice!! The campground is right on Union Valley Reservoir, with access enough for the dogs to play and for us to dunk our feet. We headed up on Friday, May 22nd, and got home on Monday afternoon. It was such a relaxing weekend and a great way to kick off what is looking to be a pretty eventful summer!

Hayden smelling the fresh air on the ride up in the truck.

Our little home away from home for the next few days.

Abbi & Hayden thinking they're small, lapdogs... Not so much anymore, guys!

Some of the flora and fauna that we saw.

On Saturday, we were looking for some water for the kids to play in and found Loon Lake Reservoir. This is where Abbi decided to start swimming. Yes, the rock was swimming.

After getting back from Loon Lake, we decided to explore along the bike trail that ran thru our campground, as well as 4 or 5 others along Union Valley Reservoir.

The bike trail ran right along the reservoir so we were able to hike down there with the dogs to let them play a little more in the water.

Michael Phelps, you've got some stiff competition now in Abbi!!

Abbi would go out and get the stick, bring it back, and Hayden would be right there to steal it from her as soon as she got back on shore. The little stinker!!

The dogs were pretty well exhausted when we got back to they laid down with daddy on their sleeping bag to relax.

Josh had been looking forward to a special camping dinner almost the entire week before we left. This was our dinner on Saturday night.

Our mood lighting.

Pics from Sunday.

Hot dogs and wine. Out of red, plastic cups. How klassy are we....?

My fire!!

We begrudgingly packed up on Monday morning and took the kids for another romp in the water before we took off back home. We'd like to get back up there before the summer ends because we all had a blast!

Brightly Colored Salamanders