Archive: Dogarazzi

This week, we made a discovery that was none too surprising after our recent birthday celebration: peanut butter upsets Ted’s stomach. Sigh.

I met a friend for dinner the other night, and JG filled the little Kong toy with peanut butter in an effort to pacify Ted’s need to chew. Our magazine holder is no match for Ted’s teeth, and it’s hard to distract him from a particularly tasty piece of wood, so JG went with the peanut butter. When I got home, I took over Ted duty and we watched the DVRed second hour of the season finale of House. In the last ten minutes of the episode, Ted became very quiet, and I heard the stomach grumble of impending doom. My own stomach lurched, and I pressed my hand to my mouth and looked away.

Thankfully, JG’s stomach is not as weak as mine, and he monitored Ted while I was busy turning green. I held Ted afterward (again!) while JG found a replacement towel for the couch blanket. My own disgust aside, the situation wasn’t so bad. I’m a little disappointed that Ted can’t handle peanut butter, but if nothing else, my insistence that he sits on a blanket while on the couch has been strongly reinforced by the, uh, evidence. The upset stomach explained the lack of eating that day and the heightened crankiness and chewing. Really, it’s just good that we know now about the peanut butter intolerance. And that I would be completely useless if some child were to be sick in my presence.

I handled Ted very gingerly afterward, fearing any aftershocks of stomach tectonics, but he appeared to be fully recovered. In Ted’s book, there’s not much that a tummy rub doesn’t fix, I guess.

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Last Sunday, May 11, was Ted’s birthday! He is now a one-year-old doggie!

In preparation for the festivities, I researched birthday cakes and party ideas, and I promptly came to the conclusion that it was a bunch of hooey. I mean, Ted is great and all, but he’s a dog. He’s a dog with no capacity for recollection, and I was not about to manufacture a semblance of a party, despite what any froufrou website told me was “all the rage.” I waved off the ideas with the roll of an eye.

Despite my pragmatism, I wanted some photographic evidence that we marked the occasion, so I headed to the kitchen on Sunday afternoon to make some dog birthday magic. I smoothed a layer of peanut butter on two milkbone biscuits, and then crushed two smaller treats for sprinkles. I laid out the treats on a birthday napkin on the kitchen floor, and JG released Ted, who had been squirming the whole time I had been in the kitchen.

Now, I had been told that every dog loves peanut butter, so that’s why I used it to frost the biscuits. However, Ted had never had peanut butter before, and he was somewhat confused as to what to do with it. He nosed the biscuits all over the floor, as though he knew they were familiar, but what was this foreign substance on top? When I picked up a treat and handed it to him, Ted grabbed it in his mouth, suddenly territorial. He headed straight for the living room, despite my cries of “Not on the carpet!”

I trailed after Ted with the camera and a damp paper towel to dab up any peanut butter traces, and he eventually figured out that he could chomp down on the biscuits. I suspect that the peanut butter got stuck to the roof of his mouth, since he had some intense lip-smacking action.

After he finished his treats, Ted was bouncing off the walls, just like a typical birthday kid. It’s strange to think that he is officially full-grown at this point. Even though Ted is a little small for his breed, and he exhibits a lot of puppy-like behavior, he’s on his way to becoming an adult!

They grow up so fast.

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For about a year and a half now, JG and I have set aside Wednesday as a no-television night. Sometimes, we ease up and turn on the TV after a climbing session, but I don’t feel so bad about that because we haven’t spent the entire evening zoning out. Recently, we added internet browsing and playing video games into the Wednesday ban, so last night’s entertainment consisted of hardcore games of Boggle and Scrabble. Woo! Party animals!

JG beat me to a pulp in Boggle, and I am determined to get better. I have trouble when the letters are not aligned so I can read them easily, and I did not have the advantage of playing hours of Text Twist in college, so there’s that. As for the Scrabble, well, I did not have the best game of my life. Apparently, I was not in the good graces of the tile gods, because I had to trade in my tiles twice, which is absurd for me. I successfully challenged JG’s non-word off of the table, shortly before he bingoed with CREATURE and hit two double word scores with it. Agh! A quadruple word score plus the fifty point bingo bonus! I was sure that the game was over, but I plugged along. As is my habit, I got distracted by playing a beautiful, low-scoring word, but I managed to chip away at JG’s lead until there were just a couple of turns to go. Then I pulled the last two tiles in the bag: the Q and the K. Awesome. I managed to dump both of them (QI and KEGS), but JG used all of his tiles first, so he ended up winning by about twenty points. Still, I consider this game a moral victory because I didn’t get blown out of the water. I will say it again: quadruple word score on a bingo. Bah.

While JG and I were locking horns in nerd warfare, Ted was wandering around on his indoor leash. Boggle was very exciting for him because of the rattling dice, but Scrabble was more of a snooze. Every so often, he snuffled up to the coffee table to see what the fuss was about, and he sat on my lap for a while to help me make sense of my awful tiles. I’m sure that Ted will be able to qualify for a novice tournament in a year or two, that is, if he doesn’t eat the tiles first.

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Last Saturday, JG and I filled up water bottles and applied sunscreen in preparation for a momentous event: Ted’s first trip to the park! He knew that something was up, that it was not our typical Saturday routine of catching up on DVRed shows and doing odd chores around the house. I held him on my lap during the quick drive over to the park, and he was already panting with his tongue out, just full of the excitement.

The local park boasts a small performance space, playground equipment, pavilions for parties, athletic courts, a disc golf course, and miles of walking trails, in addition to fun events throughout the year, like the Trout Rodeo at the fishing pond this weekend. Dogs are allowed, but they need to be on leashes all the time, which is completely fine with us. On Saturday, the park was hosting Springfest, an event where local gardening places and botanical gardens set up booths to woo passersby, so the air smelled of herbs and blooms in the commons area. Ted fairly flew off of my lap and galloped his way to the main path, where his tail went a-waggin’ at the sight of a long-haired dachshund. JG and I took up a brisk walking pace and set off for the trails.

I snapped a few shots here and there, but the sight of JG and Ted trekking along was the best one for me. Man and dog, out in nature! Their progress was slightly impeded by Ted’s constant need to sniff out every single tree, and holy cow, did you know that there are tons of trees in this place?! Even more thrilling than the hiking path were the yards of meadow for romping and the cool stream for splashing and muddying of paws.

When we headed back to the car, JG estimated that we had walked at least four miles, which made me feel quite fit and ready for lunch, thank you very much. Ted seemed pleased with himself and his walking abilities, and he lost no time in crashing on the couch for a nap. It was so much fun to spend the morning at the park, and I hope we do it again soon. I think Ted hopes so, too.

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