Bindi, My Bindi

Saturday night, Coach got to meet a friendly cat: Bindi. Bindi grew up with four dogs and currently lives with two.  So, she is very experienced with the canine temperament and has no problem with puppies.

We set up a very safe meet and greet with plenty of escape room for her (which she eventually took advantage of) and slowly walked Coach over to see her.  You can see by the video that he was overcome by excitement.  Our calm, dour boy was almost Jam-like in his enthusiasm.

Unfortunately for Coach, once irritated into fleeing, Bindi decided to stay gone and didn't make another appearance the evening.

Eating at Little Habana and Meeting His Reflection

Saturday night we had planned with our friends Erik and Michele.  We were going over to eat at a Cuban restaurant they love called Little Habana.  Now, usually, I'm so-so with Cuban food as I prefer Mexican food because I like things spicy.  So, it gives me great pleasure to announce that Little Habana was AMAZING.

Not only are they guide dog puppy friendly (Michele had prepped them! 8-), but the restaurant is charming and the food is flavorful, spicy and delicious.  I had the special, the goat stew, which was a type of curry and it was out of this world with such an incredible sauce.  It was an effort to hold back and save some room for the tres leches cake for dessert.

Make sure you save room for dessert!  It is not to be missed.  Now, you may be wondering what Coach was doing all this time.  He was not being his usual sit down, fall asleep, good boy self.  NO.  He was getting up.  Rearranging himself.  Trying to visit the table next to us.  It was as if periodically a jolt of testosterone would shoot through his system and he would be overcome.

It wasn't the good boy behavior we had come to know and expect.

"He's such a good boy," Tanya said.  "I didn't even know he was under the table!"  I looked at Michele. Hmmm.  I guess he had been good, we were just used to better.  Coach looked up at Tanya with his sweet face.  He's such a ladies man.

Afterwards we went back to their place to chat and meet the critters.  The two little pups had a meet and greet but it was ultimately decided that they were pumped up and should stay in their crates.  Coach was very pumped about being the only dog and in charge of ALL the dog toys.  He then proceeded to lick them all just to prove that he could.

He's a pill.

Michele watches as Coach chews on one of the nylabones.

Here he is with Michele chewing on half a nylabone.  He also found their glass doors to be intensely interesting as another dog lived out in the reflection.

Coach is standing at attention looking out at his reflection.

This dog would peer back in at him and often startled him and made him bark a time or two.  We took him closer to the windows to get him over this reaction, but he never quite seemed to make the connection.  We also met Bindi the cat, but I haven't had time to process the video.

Something to work on during our next visit for some delicious Cuban food and fun company!

Yakking It Up

Yesterday afternoon was a quiet one in the library.  I was out in the classroom area we have in the middle of the library with my computer working on some class projects I have coming up.  Coach was asleep at my feet, so quiet (unlike the other night at the play!).

There were only about 15 students in the library, and they were scattered all around.  Some were by me as all the tables in that area have outlets and some were over at the other tables reading or working.  A few were upstairs on the mezzanine.

All of a sudden, Coach sat up and started making that unmistakable sound of a dog beginning to hurl.  It is quite appalling and there is no way to stop it.

Every student turned their head to look at me.  I looked down at Coach.  "Oh Coach!"

There was complete silence as Coach made three loud and sustained gagging noises and then barfed on the floor by my feet.  It was a bit of his stomach contents and some grass, since he does always try to eat grass when he goes out to busy.

The junior girl near me said, "Poor Coach!"  There was a chorus of Awwwws and Ohhhhs throughout the library.

"I know.  Poor baby."  I was standing by this time and I tugged on his leash to get him moving.  I figured we might as well get some paper towels and clean it up.  He was a little wobbly since he was coming out of a deep sleep and had just thrown up and we were walking slow, when he started that heaving noise again.  I was near the library work room.

"Jan, paper towels!"

"Don't bring him in here!" Jan yelled.

Some of the students were standing to see if he was going to hurl in the workroom.

"I'm not going to bring him in there!  I just want to some paper towels!" By now we were standing by the doorway.  Coach was standing and heaving.  Then he let out a huge burp.  He sat down and looked up at us.

I patted him on the head.  "This has been a tough day for you, little baby. Let's go outside for a bit."

I took the paper towels that were finally handed to me and on my way out set them on the table near my computer.  Everyone murmured sweet things to Coach as we passed by.  Out in the sun he seemed to perk up a little.  He didn't try to eat any grass.

I left his coat off and went back inside.  Then I cleaned up his accident.  Since he was out of coat, there were some students who wanted to comfort him.

"I love Coach the best," one of them said.  The fact that he had just barfed did not deter them in the least from loving on him.  Nor did they seem in the least bit grossed out.

At the end of the day, on the way to the car we had something extraordinary happen.  Well, I say extraordinary, I guess I mean extraordinary in Coach's eyes.  As we came up to the car, there was a huge orange cat sitting next to the passenger side door.  If you remember, that is where Sir Pukes A Lot threw up his breakfast on Wednesday and some of it I just left on the ground by my car.  I guess the cat found it and decided she liked dog food barf.  Coach, who was just in the process of throwing on the brakes as we approached the car, saw the orange cat and was entranced.  A cat! All for him!

He picked up speed.  The cat picked up speed and raced to the front of the car.  We raced to the door.  Then he realized where we were and it was too late.  I had the door open and it was time to get in.

He learned.  Chasing cats is dangerous.  It can make you do things you don't want to do. But puking.  Puking brought love and unexpected cats into your life.  Puking was a double-edge sword.

Adventures in Babysitting

 Last night we went to the wedding of the daughter of one of my first friends at school.  Eileen and Tom are the parents of Maggie and Eileen is the health teacher where I am the librarian.  Every year Eileen and I work on a research project with the freshmen class so we have become very good friends over the years.

Even though Jammy has become quite comfortable with the kitchen/crate substitute, given his separation anxiety issues, we wanted to make sure that he wasn’t left alone too long.  So we made some babysitting arrangements.  Christina, who is our collections development librarian at school, also serves as my back up Jam corraler with Jan, our library assistant.  I've trained the both of them in appropriate Southeastern puppy handling behavior so that if I need to leave Jam with them for a meeting he is appropriately taken care of by adults.  This baby sitting job would be an at-home, no-coat job.    

Christina lives right by where the wedding was taking place, so we could drop Jammy off and then pick him up on the way back.  It would work out perfectly!  Christina was free so we made the date and dropped him off.

Here Jam sits in the doorway in a rare moment of nonshadowing, looking off to the left into the foyer and the front door.

When we went back to pick him up, Christina said he was a little nervous about being left and did some heavy breathing for about an hour.  But after he realized the we weren't coming back, he decided to do what he normally does when he thinks he might be left again: he will shadow the person.

Here is a photo of Christina cooking.  You are looking down at her feet and Jam is lying in between her feet.

 So, Jam decided that Christina was his glue and he stuck to her.  He followed her from room to room, even the bathroom.  He watched her cook dinner.
 He watched as she ate dinner.

Jam under foot at the dinner table.

More Jammy between the feet.

Sometimes, he would change it up and be on the feet.

Or sometimes, it was beside the feet.

Finally, at some point during the night, he got relaxed enough that he wasn't compelled to shadow.  He could explore on his own.

Jammy, sitting in the living room.

He decided he would check out the side window and see what was out there.  After all, during his walk, he did smell that there was a crazy cat lady next door and it did smell like there were 100s of cats lurking about. 

Holy Crap!  Crazy cat eyes glowing in the dark at Jammy as he peers out the window!

Boy, did he score on the cat jackpot!  There was a crazy cat just outside on the sidewalk and it was crazy enough to sit there and torment Jammy.

Jammy staring at the cat who is just barely visible on the sidewalk in the upper left of the window.

 He sat, and he sat.

Jammy standing and staring out the window.

Then he stood and stared.  But at the point the cat had had enough and wandered off for more interesting things to do.  Poor Jammy was left to wait it out for us to come home.  He finally curled up and slept.

Eileen, the one with the umbrella, watching her daughter and husband walk down the aisle.

The wedding, by the way, was lovely.

Father and bride walking down the aisle.

The bride was stunning and the wedding was a lot of fun.  We didn't stay out too, too late.  But, I had to get a few dances in!

Cat House

Jam is a little nervous. He's at a cat house. He's going to have an interaction, nudge, nudge. They say these things go better if they are done when a puppy is young, but Jam is still a bit unsure. After all, Willow has been whispering strange stories of cats she has known.

It starts off innocent enough. Cosmo is in the wicker chair relaxing. Jam wanders in clueless.

"Jam, look at the cat."

"Uh?"

"There. On the chair."

"Uh?" Honestly. Is this puppy for real? Then Cosmo takes over and deigns to move his head. In fabulous Cheshire Cat fashion he turns his head and fixes his large, mesmerizing eyes on Jam. Jam freezes. I think I hear a puppy "oh crap".

Cosmo is not amused. Jam decides to sniff his tail. Just the tail.

Then he backed away. Cosmo rolled his eyes. I swear he did. Then he disappeared.

I heard Jam gulp.

We'll be back next week.