Quirkiness

Okay, so I'm going to share with you some secrets of my personality as an answer to a friends blog tag...

#1 - I like poo! Yes I do! I eat it in the morning when A would really rather that I come inside and get in my crate so she can go to work. Now that she's working from home all the time, it's not that big of a deal anymore. And the report from E is that it's a lot easier to gather my poo now that it's usually frozen in the mornings. A adapted this tribute to me...


#2 - I have perfect turnout. It was harder than I though to find pictures of my handsome sit where you can see that my front paws often point out like a ballerina's feet.


#3 - Bones! I don't know what it is but there is just something oh so satisfying about gnawing on a bone and whittling it down over the months.


#4 - Take cover - I find it comforting to hang out under the coffee table, it's my safe zone! But when I get the chance to hang out with the pack just before bed time, I do NOT like it when E throws the covers over my head. I also like to curl up in a tight little ball, tuck my nose under my tail and i have a quirk that I often have three of my four paws all lined up!

#5 - hide and seek - one of my favorite games! usually E does the hiding and I do the seeking (remember the wet butt hiding place?)


#6 - Can't catch me! Another fun game. Kind of goes along with my love of bones. E likes to chase me trying to get my bone and play. When he does get it, I get to chase him while he runs around screaming "Don't eat me!!" Then when I catch him, I like to stand on my hind legs, prop my front paws on his arm and gnaw at the bone even standing up!


Oh wait...you wanted E & A to divulge their quirkies? Well, they are perfectly normal!

And I tag all my buddy dogs from obedience class: Who-boy, Gucci, Teddy, Matos, Mango, and Duke. But somehow I don't think they are as advanced as I am to have their own blogs...I'll have to give them a bark at class.

Fall Time

I love the Fall. A & E rake the leaves and then they throw them into the air and I try and see how many I can catch. So I really look forward to the time of year when the leaves start the change color because that means its almost time for some Fall fun!
Now I know I'm not in this picture but E is such a photography genius that I had to let him post it.
I'm such a good dog to my owners.

Missing Rabbit

I haven't seen that rabbit in awhile but every now and then I pick up the smell of something good. These are some pictures of me on patrol. I keep the yard safe for A & E!

Workn' Hard

I am willing to pitch in where I can around the house. E went up into the attic the other day and I wanted to see what was going on up there. I haven't mastered ladders yet but give it time; I'm a smart dog.

One year!

Lots of fun things happening here with my "pack.". E has been enjoying his new camera so there are lots of photos that have been taken to show my antics. Hopefully he'll get around to sharing some of them soon. But the biggest news is that we've all been together for a year! And as their 1 year adoption gift to me they are letting me share some other news. It's been hard not to say anything since so much that's been going on has been connected to this news. Have I piqued your interest enough? Ok...so here it is... E&A tell me that by the end of January, they are going to bring home two more "pups" for the pack! Littermates of sorts, but they won't be fuzzy soft quite like me - they'll be their own kind of soft they say. They'll be a little E and a little A. Maybe I'll have to call them O and U? That way we'll have all the vowels covered when I refer to myself with I! Okay, so that's just a thought, we'll have to what names they actually end up with...

Rascally Rabbit

A small rabbit has taken up residence somewhere in the back yard and I'm going to catch him one of these days. He's pretty quick but as you can see I am pretty determined.

Oh...that Cheez-It is so mine. Just give me the word and I'll make sure it never sees daylight again.

I'm really not supposed to be doing this but the bed is so much more comfortable than the floor.

So this is one of E's favorite pictures of me. I'm such a handsome guy!!!

Tagged - Not Dog Tags

Okay Roman, you're going to have to move over for just a moment. My best friend from college (and mother of one to whom I was once betrothed) has tagged me to get us out of our rut of waiting for E to get around to posting about all those pictures of fun stuff we've been up to. So here are my memories...

20 years ago: July '88 I attended our first ever family reunion. (I still have the shirt!) My grandmother was the youngest of 11 and the reunion was for all of her siblings and their descendants. We all hung out at a Holiday Inn. My memories of the reunion are pretty vague beyond some dinners and swimming in the hotel pool and the picture that supposedly contains everyone who was there. But what I do remember is that after the reunion I went to Michigan and spent a week with some of my cousins. We listened to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack the whole way there, and I'm sure I hadn't been allowed to see the movie and I had no idea what I was singing about! They took me across to Windsor, Canada - and the border guards almost didn't let me back into the US! Then at the end of the week, my grandma and grandpa picked me up and we headed back home. That ended up being the first of many road trips I took with my grandfather - he liked having me as his navigator!

10 years ago: Summer '98 I was living in the Russian language apartment on campus. Our apartment complex was just around the corner from the home of my "betrothed" so I spent a lot of happy times hanging with him. He was only a couple of months old, so we were heavily chaperoned by his parents. But then again, maybe the betrothal wasn't quite official yet at that time... okay, so truth is most of my time was spent hanging out with A&R and the little guy was a bit of a tag-along. ;-)

5 years ago: In 2003, I had the opportunity to embark on 2 different US Navy destroyers as part of the testing for the development of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. For both trips we sailed from Pearl Harbor, HI - one of the trips stayed within the Hawaiian waters, but the second trip was for about 2 weeks and we went within sight of the CA coast before returning to HI. For my first underway, I had been counseled to take some Dramamine before embarking and if I started to feel it wear off, then I should take another. I never felt it wear off, so there wasn't any motion sickness on my part! Come to think of it, I actually still have some of those tablets! There were only 8, and they were in a handy container, so I've added Advil and Tylenol to the container and along the way I've shared the Dramamine with others who were in need!

3 years ago: 2005 was the half way mark of my participation in the company's (sector level - not corporation wide) System Engineering Associates (SEA) Program. Up to five employees are selected each year to enter the 2-year program. I worked in 4 different business areas, each for 6 months, over the 2 years. The company pays for temporary relocation and puts you up in corporate housing! I however chose to stay in the DC area and didn't travel the country in 6 month increments. 2005 was also the first year that I worked with the YCLs at camp, and I've continued doing that every year since then.

1 year ago: I lost my green ruler! :( Seriously! I loved that ruler and it just up and disappeared one day. It was perfect for checking lines on my drawing reviews, it was a transparent, flexible plastic and it had the perfect set of markers for various size scaling. There are all sorts of fun office politics that played into that time frame too. But it was notably gone before I was forcibly relocated to my 5th desk within the office spaces to allow "construction" to begin immediately. Said construction still hasn't begun and I much preferred the lighting environment of the cube where the entrance opening was oriented towards the window and allowed all the light to come in. I'm still by a window now, but I only get 1/3 of the light that makes it over the cube wall which actually casts a shadow gray area on my workspace where I'm scrutinizing earlier mentioned drawings without my green ruler!

This year: Most of the past year has been filled with the adventures of welcoming Roman into our family. See many of the blog entries for details on his antics.

Yesterday: I got an email saying that I'd been tagged! It was a good thing the email was sent, because I've gotten a bit out of the habit of checking my google reader for blog updates. I also went to a digi-scrapping gathering and learned a little more about how to use the new fangled camera that E bought recently and has been going hog wild with taking pictures. I'm really glad we have a dog. Roman is such a better photo subject than I am!

Today: I'm getting entirely not enough done at work because I'm having too much fun reminiscing. But tonight's plan is to go to obedience class with Roman and see if we can continue to improve his behavior and responsiveness in the presence of other dogs.

Tomorrow: I hope to get more work done at the office, but it seems to be very quiet on Fridays around here. Oh wait, no, I get to go to a fun luncheon tomorrow at one of the other offices so there should be many things going on around me! yippee! Then E and I will head out for our usual Friday "date night" and service opportunities.

Now to pass the tag along... I don't even know who reads this blog!!! Okay - so if you are reading this, then you've been tagged! (And let me know you still happen to check in even though it's been 2-1/2 months since our last post...)

A

Time Well Spent

So E had a few weeks off between jobs. He really liked his short commute but an opportunity came up that was a career move he couldn't pass up. I miss him coming home so early during the day. It means more time in my crate then I like. :(

But for two weeks I had my run of the house and yard as E and I worked on all kinds of little projects. First was the brick patio out back. I really tear up the yard when it rains as I jump in and out of the back door. So E thought we would expand the brick patio that the grill sits on. While E was working on that I did my best stick my nose in the freshly dug dirt trying see if there was anything interesting under all the grass. When I got bored with that I started wrestling with the bags of gravel E bought to put the bricks on. I amazed even myself when I found I was able to lift and move the 50 pound bags!

A few days later when E's back recovered from moving all those bricks he started hanging new closet doors. I didn't see why we needed new doors but humans are a different breed.

The worst project we did was the painting. E & A want to repaint the main floor of the house. That is going to require a lot of prep work. It started with the priming since E had already sanded the wall down after applying putty to hide a few scratches in the wall. I wasn't as invited to help with the paint. Apparently dog fur and paint don't work well together, or so I'm told.
I liked working with E because he is a pretty cool boss. I helped when I wanted to help and took a nap when I wanted to take a nap. I think he needs to learn to delegate more of the work because every time I got too involved he would tell me to relax and not work so hard. I love E & A so I just want to help wherever I can!

R

Another week gone by

Nothing too exciting happening here. E&A say that the spring rains are a bit cooler than usual, but I just find them to be wet! A took a little hop up to Long Island for work, but made it back in time for my class - that hourly shuttle comes in handy! E has put in his 2 week notice with the county and is going to be starting a new job soon. Still not sure exactly which position he'll take, but he's going to have to adjust to the commuting lifestyle again. They say that's going to affect our play times, but we'll still get time to play...it'll just be later in the day when he gets home.

R

Bigger and Better

After all my hard work and creative redesign and modification of my crate structure, E&A have given me an upgrade! It seems that they didn't like the modified style of disconnected welds and bent bars. I mean it was an Incredible Hulk type of statement, even if all that would fit through was my nose! But when I spread them enough that I stretched the latch housing and the latch fell out... Well, their confidence on my containment plummeted. I just miss them so much when they're gone!

Since I'm on the small side for a GSD, it was a bit of a debate if I should get a bigger size in addition to a stronger mesh grid. E really likes how my ears poke up through the top of the crate when I sit in there. But E and A debated about what the crate makers meant by ability to comfortably turn around. After some consideration, they went for the bigger size too! Yippee - it's like being in the penthouse suite!

So after some opportunites to test it out, those vertical barsa don't seem to bend. But my tongue still fits through! I don't want to divulge all my secrets, but I have a little something that I do during the day that leaves a bit of a slobber puddle beneath the latches. E came home early today - didn't tell me that he wasn't going to work. And when he went to let me out, he found that the latches were a bit slimy and didn't lilke that much. Shame!

But my new crate is shiny and bigger and stronger. What dog could ask for more? I hope we can find a happy home for my old crate...maybe my old friends at VGSR could use it? We'll see.

Hide and Seek

We play a high paced version of hide and seek at our place. It seems the E and A do all the hiding and I do all the seeking! But I enjoy it that way. E likes to exploit the fact that I don't see very well in the dark if nothing is moving. Sometimes he'll run upstairs and stand in the corner of a dark room while I run around all over trying to find him. Sometimes he hides behind doors or in the bathtub. I think the bathtub is one of us favorite hiding places. Last Saturday, he got a bit of a surprise in his favorite spot and wasn't able to wait for me to find him. He got a wet butt! Turns out that A had been hand washing some sweaters earlier in the day and there were still some puddles. HA HA!!

The Painting Saga

E&A have gradually been working on painting the house. It has been a slow and long process. The latest region of focus is the stairwell to the upstairs. A took a day off work and taped it all, then Saturday was spent painting. There are square grid details below the chair-rail that were quite the challenge to tape up.

Here is one in-process shot during the taping -

And once again, it seems that I got caught sleeping on the job again. And I'm sporting several of the leftover taping cast-offs while I dream -

And here's an attempt to capture the "after" state. (Sorry the flash washes out the ugly color that we are trying to get rid of, but you get the picture from the contrast shown at the bottom of the stairs)

The baseboards and wall color are next on the to-do list... I wonder when we'll finally get around to that?

He's Got No Feet!!!

Once we finally got to one of the Relaxing Rowdy Rover classes we had some great fun! I don't get to see the other dogs all that often, but I still get to work on all my fun tricks. And occasionally I get to take a peek at the other dogs. Little by little, I get to see more of them. They say it's because I'm becoming more comfortable. (Fooled them! I'll still bark at them all when I get the chance!)

At my first RRR class I had the unfortunate experience of sitting on my water bowl. I didn't think much of it, but Colleen sure thought it was a hoot! She pulled out a little PVC pipe ladder and laid it on the floor and asked me to walk over it. I did that for a while and then she put some loose sticks down to make it tougher for me. Her conclusion - I've got no feet! Or at least I'm not aware of where I'm putting my feet or what is under them. So my homework was to walk all over or better yet avoid walking on various things. E&A put all sorts of brooms and rakes and other long handled things on the floor for me to walk around. They would send me on food hunts among all the clutter. I eventually got the hang of it. But once it came time for clean up, I was all tuckered out. I guess they had some fun while I was resting...

Itchy

Not one of my more photogenic moments...but this was a common pose prior to the Itch-be-gone

Up a little...now to the right...and down...go left...ahhh! That's the spot!

R

That Annoying Itch

When I joined E&A, they already knew what some signs of stress were that I would probably exhibit. One common behavior is scratching as a stress relief. Every now and then I would just sit down and scratch at my ear to sooth or relax myself after a stressful moment. But after my stay at the kennel over Christmas I found myself scratching more and more. E&A started taking my collar off at night so the jingling wouldn't wake them. I started scratching more than just my ear, I was scratching my elbows and armpits and then I also started biting and licking a spot on my stomach too. I could tell that A was concerned and knew that I was in some discomfort. Eventually, we went to the vet to let them have a look at it. The vet said that the spot on my tummy was a bacterial infection, so she gave me an antibiotic to eat with my breakfast for 3 weeks. She wasn't positive exactly what was causing the irritation on my ears and forelegs, but she suspected that it was due to a particular type of mite. Ew! So she gave me a shot right between my shoulder blades. Grrr! Ow! I had to go back two more times to for the shots again. I did NOT like it the second time and E said I screamed like a girl! It hurt! But the good news is I don't itch anymore!

R

Christmas vacation

Another holiday, another family visit. This time E&A went to visit A's parents and I didn't get to go. :-( but I did get to stay at a really neat place. I met lots of other dogs and they taught me how much fun it is to bark bark bark! Hmm maybe that's why my obedience classes got so much more vocal after the holidays....

E&A drove the RAV halfway across the country in one day! They stayed the first night with P&Em and had a great time hanging and chatting it up. Then after that, they made the difficult decision of where to stay for the remainder of their visit. All day long E was joking about the presence of a Holiday Inn Express in town. A was sure that he had a preconceived diabolical plan to convince her to get a room. But in all actuality it just sort of happened, they went to the front desk and inquired about the availability of a room, and they checked in right then and there. They didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but they also didn't feel AOK with accepting hospitalities that were available with family. They have had some holiday adventures in the past and really wanted to avoid a repeat performance.

They enjoyed dinner with all the W side of the family on Christmas Eve and opened presents that night. Afterwards they all (E,A,P,C,R) piled in one car and headed out to enjoy an old Christmas Eve tradition, by celebrating at Aunt Alice's house! They didn't get to eat all of the yummy food of Christmases past (who needs two dinners?) But the company was fun. A was the master assembler of the knock 'em sock 'em gift that was a hit activity for the evening after Santa's visit.

Christmas day was even more fun. Em was able to come with everyone to S&J's house. Santa came just to visit her! But at one point Emma got wise, and she identified J under Santa's beard!

The rest of the vacation time was spent visiting other friends. They saw the Jensens briefly and had dinner at El Maguey's, got a grand tour B&A's new house and enjoyed lots of laughs and fun with them and their boys. And then one last dinner at Farmer's with all the W's wrapped up their vacation time in the mid-country.

The drive home had a few more adventures than the drive out. On the way out the fog was incredibly thick as they passed through the passes in WV, and all the FedEx planes in Indianapolis made for an fun distraction at a split in the road, but all roads still went the rihght way. Coming home there was a LOT of slow traffic. We're talking about crawling at a constant pace for over 2 hours! Then after that had eased, they came to a complete stop for 30 minutes. Turns out there was a very large truck of some sort that was going their way and had a police escort preventing all traffic from passing. That 30 minutes was entertaining as people ahead of them in the backup would make a U-turn, but they could also see the spot where a cop was pulling all the U-turners over at the next bend in the road.

Since they got home so late on Saturday night, and there wasn't pick-up time on Sunday, they had to wait until Monday morning to come pick me up. As soon as I saw E out there by the front desk, I took off as hard as I could and ran for him and showered him with all of my affection. Yippee!

R

Photo Shoot

I love leaves!!! I will chase them as they are falling and try to bite as many of them as possible out of the air as I twist and turn! E took some video of my antics, but A hasn't figured out how to cut out just a short clip to put up here. So you'll just have trust me, and enjoy these stills of me.

R

Thanksgiving

We went to E's parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone was going to be there - even E's brother S was in town for the holiday! It was a surprise for Gpa J and Gma D that S would be there. When we arrived, E went in ahead of us and I started sniffing around. I was so excited to explore a new place! We started up the stairs so that I wouldn't scratch the floors in the entry way and I tried to calm down a little. E came back to the door and said he was taking me home. What?!?! Without dinner? But S wasn't even there yet! He told A not to wait for us, to go ahead and eat and that he might not come back. We got back in the car and headed home.

E did eventually head back for dinner and when E&A came home. They said they had a good time. It was probably better that I didn't stay though. My cousin Tess came with S, and it may have been hard to play nice with her. We'll never know. Turns out she probably didn't enjoy dinner either because she had to hang out in an upstairs bedroom all alone. Now she has moved to NC, so it might be a while before I get to meet her.

R

Obedience school

E&A had a plan before they even met me, that they would take me with them to school so I could teach them the best way to communicate with me. We started out going twice a week to a Level One class. We learned sit and down, and I can do them both wherever they ask me to - in front of them or on either side. We played a lot of the name game, one of my favorites, because I get something yummy every time I hear my name and look at them! The only hard thing was that I REALLY want to go play with the other dogs. So sometimes I would watch them instead of paying attention to E&A. One time I even tried to run over and play with one little white fluff of a dog. I took off running while E was swapping the leash to his other hand. I got there, but A did a spectacular grab and pulled me away from my new friend. E&A were worried, but all the instructors said that there wasn't anything agressive about my behavior.

Just before the Christmas holiday, the instructors announced that everyone had passed Level 1! So there was one class of level 2 left before the break so we went and visited there. They had all sorts of interesting things set up and we tried and tried to walk along all the paths that they had set up. It was really hard to stay with E&A. But we survived!

Then after Christmas when classes finally started up again, E couldn't make it to the first class with me. So A and I went on our own that Tuesday. We had a good time and even had some walking around that we did. But I passed a little close to one of the other dogs so I barked a bit, but eventually calmed down. Then our last activity, one of the trainers held my leash and A went running away - oh sadness! But then A called to me and the trainer let me run to A - high speed chase yippee!

When Saturday rolled around, I was ready to go have fun at class again. E&A were both with me this time. We had our little corner that E seems to like, right there by the door to the "nap room". I decided to bark a lot that day. So much that we hung out in the naproom and didn't get to do much with the class. I would calm down a little bit, then we'd go back out to the class and then someone would look at me - woof wooof woof! Back in the nap room. Colleen came in to visit us and suggested that we start coming to the "Relaxing Rowdy Rovers" class, but I could still come to the levels class too.

RRR isn't until Thursday nights, so we went to one more Level 2 class on Tuesday. I was really excited!! We got there before the door was open so A took me for a little walk. I wanted to tell everyone how excited I was, so woof woof woof I told the world. Well A wasn't going to let me in until I had stopped barking, so we waited around the corner while all the other dogs went in. E went to get our nametage and talked to Robin. When he came out we got back in the car and left. Sad, I didn't get to go in and play. And since I was so vocal outside the trainers actually decided that I should only go to the Rowdy Rovers class.

So now I'm working on relaxing rowdy Roman!

R

The Crate Escape Chronicles

My first couple of days and weeks with E&A, I was really reserved. I sat out front with them on Halloween while a few kids came by looking for candy handouts. I let them pet me and was well behaved. One of the neighbor boys, Sammy, even gave me a huge dog hug (I'm not a bear therefore it wasn't a bear hug) and I just soaked it up.

In my first couple of days I tried to meet and play with one of the neighbor hounds, Blessie, but that didn't go too well. Everyone seemed to think that I was not happy about playing nice and dragged me away!

There was one day that a spider set off a motion sensor and there were sirens and all sorts of noises while E&A were away at work. So until they could figure out what was wrong with the sensor, they turned off that one sensor. Being the smart fella that I am, I used that as an opportunity to explore the house and do some "redecorating." I figued out that if I bounced around enough, I could unhook some of the latches on my crate and with a little pushing, pulling and houdini tricks, I was able to squeeze out of my crate.

What do you think of my design style?

A big thanks to E for documenting my handywork! Although he considered the shoe trees and his book to be great casualties of my "antics" and didn't seemed too pleased with me. As big as I am, I figured out how to hide under the bed real quick!

I've worked on a couple of other noteworthy projects since then. Two days later I actually got myself stuck in the top half of the crate door and bent things up a little bit. No worries though, I was able to pull the whole front end of my crate in and then walked right out. Redecorating time!!!

Now E&A had great motivation to keep me IN my crate while they were out. So E bought a bunch of clips and secured all the edges of my crate. I haven't gotten out since! But I did manage to kick/slide the tray thingy halfway out once. Then I didn't know what to do with it and the edge of it was smack dab in the middle of my space, so I treated it just as any tresspasser should be treated. Tear it to pieces!!! What fun!

Oh, but I had one more antic up my sleeve in the crate department. Once the plastic pan was out of the way, I had open acces to the carpet scrap that was under my crate. The grid of wire on the bottom is probably 6" by 6" and I found a way to get a hook on it. Pulled the whole 4'x4' square of carpet through a 6" hole. Triumph!!!

Now it's just me and the cement floor. Occasionally I manage to scoot my crate here and there away from its ideal location. Sometimes my Kong or bone get stuck under the crate...it seems I can lift the crate with my head. I've started to get a little too cozy with some attachment on the furnace lately (so E says). But I should be getting a new tray any day now and I won't have access to external traction anymore. Hopefully, it'll still fit in the base of the crate, even though I have added some curvature to the typically straight line welded design of the wires. I'll do my best to not snack on this one, as long as E&A keep it latched in...

R

As far back as I remember

I don't remember much about my life before mid October. It is reported that I was wandering the streets and was turned over to Animal Rescue. After a week, no one had claimed me and I was about to go "to sleep" but someone at VGSR took responsibility for me. The vet gave me lots of shots and a little bit of surgery before I headed to VA. Back then they called me "Romeo" and you can see some of my early portraits here [My VGSR Page]

B.J., from VGSR brought me into his home and let me play with all the other dogs at his place for a week, then on saturday morning he took me and some of the others to a place called PetSmart. And that's where I met E&A. They walked around with me for a little bit and introduced me to a few other people. After a long while playing around, I got to go home with them!!!

Before we left, they had to buy a place for me to sleep, food, and some other things too. It turns out that I'm a bit smaller than I look under all my hair. E had to go back inside twice to get a different or smaller collar that would fit me. Finally, the third time, he just took me in with him and finally got it right.

So I hopped in the back of the RAV for the ride home and we were off on a new adventure! We stopped for "gas" on the way home and that's where A captured my first portrait, right there at the station in the car!

Aren't I handsome?

R

Under Construction

Let me get the hang of this blog thing and then you'll start seeing tidbits from me...

Topics to come are:
- my trip home
- Halloween
- Obedience classes
- my Thanksgiving
- my Christmas vacation
- That annoying itch

R