Kenai’s Great Fun Saturday…by Lisa Harmon November 22, 2008

Kenai epitomized, an outdoorsman in his tall grass, 46 wks old

Boy ‘tis been a rough week on my body… Preventing a hard, hard BB splat getting out of the car Monday, Tuesday’s long list of errands, Thursday’s cleaning and dusting while Mom was gone so the stirred up dust didn’t cause her breathing problems; all contribute to a painful week. To top it off, Kenai is waking me up at night so I’m not getting good enough sleep to feel better.

He’s waking me up because of my breathing. Took awhile to figure it out, too! Mom finally saw him pick up his head and start listening to me, then get up and wake me up. I’ve been a wheeze woman for a few days. When he doesn’t like the sound, he gets on the bed with me until I’m awake, then goes and lays down again. By 4 or 5 am he’s hungry, so it’s up and make his breakfast. I’M GOING TO BED AT 8 OR 9 PM! Guess I’ll never be hottie of the nightlife around here. Oh well.

Friday wasn’t anything remarkable, but SATURDAY! That means my special K got his weekly run in the baseball diamonds! I could almost hear him shouting “yippee, look at me ma!” We didn’t stay too long because there were other places to go. 

But the rhino got to run for awhile, and that made him happy. He gave me 11 really good new pics. One of them is very similar to “kangaroo puppy” from a couple posts back, but this time, even his skin is having trouble keeping up. It’s “kangroo puppy in a wind tunnel”!

To put them all up before he turns 47 weeks old, I’d have to post 3-4 times a day! Guess I have to choose the best of the best. They’re all so good! Maybe I’ll make a picture book from one of those self-publishing sites, and use the proceeds to fence in a big chunk of his field. That’s an idea.

Then it was into the larger town nearby for a stop at a puppy store. We got there before it was open, so Sasquatch got himself a wander in the undeveloped lot behind the store. All those swell smells! He didn’t want to leave his newly found patch of tall grass. But the store was stuffed with outside toys and big, big chews for big, big boys like him.

Kenai is the proud abuser of a soft plastic jolly ball on a rope to play with in the UK (unmovable kennel), waiting for its debut sliming Sunday. We got two pressed rawhide bones too, for the Brothers Grin to gnaw on while they wait for meals to hit the raised feeders. Bones are good things. They get the drool going so a boy can slobber before he eats too.

Then we headed back towards home with a stop at his favorite small puppy store. Guess who was there before it was open. So again, it was a wander, followed by a heel practice without his gentle leader. He did surprisingly well, considering the exciting surroundings. When I’d had enough (sadly quick), it was back to the car to rest the final 10 minutes.

Low and behold who should appear in a car next to us but another Dane! This was a little guy, just 5 months old, and sweet as candy. Rufus was a blue merle, several inches shorter and lots of pounds lighter than Kenai because of his age. He’s going to be a big fella, though, pretty good sized for 5 months old. Did I mention sweet? Aww, Ru was the gentlest little guy, all leans and nose smooches.

He and Kenai had sniffs, swats, leaps and nuzzles until TEENAGER K started playing rough. Then Kenai found a mad momma staring down the length of his suddenly immobilized snout. That brought the dunderhead hijinks to a quieter end. I made him sit stay while I petted the other pup. Then after a couple downs and stays, he could re-enter the puppy games. The second round he had to earn with good behavior.

He wasn’t being mean at all, just too excited and forgetting his size. The other owner actually thought it was kinda funny my thug got his thugness put away for him—she’d had lots of male Danes and every one of them had been afflicted with the teenage knucklehead syndrome. Been there, knew how it was done. That’s what I like about owners of really big dogs: they aren’t taken back by the occasional need for putting overly stimulated poundage in its place.

The two boys trotted around the store together, getting in a game of tug, chase and peek, and watch-us-do-our-sits-for-treats-together. That last one is followed by slobber slinging in duplicate. Kenai doesn’t really slobber very often, remarkable considering those lips and jowels, but when he does it’s spectacular. Could probably drown a toy breed.

♣

By the time I got home, there wasn’t much by way of limbs still working on me. So he got his lunch and we collapsed on the bed. “Whoosh” is the sound of Kenai running past at a thousand miles per hour, and it’s also the sound of the two of us deflating when heads hit pillows. That was all she wrote for the two of us, flat as popped tires! Cooking human supper was in serious jeopardy.  So was the possibility of excursions Sunday.

I may have to go back up on my dose of Lyrica to get through the season change, and colder weather. It’s getting tough to keep up the pace of outings, and he needs them now that adolescence set in. He really does need the time in public to keep him from getting rusty, because he pulls the leash more, doesn’t listen more, etc. I gotta keep going, so I might be having to ask for more medicine to control the fibromyalgia pain.

I’ve started taking some super-duper specialized probiotics that are supposed to balance out the natural flora in the intestines. Having CFIDS, I can easily develop problems with yeast and bacterial overgrowths, making me fatigued and feeling bad. It’s doing something, that’s for sure, because I’m having familiar yeast die off symptoms. Uuhg. But if it prevents another monster bout of candidiasis, and gets rid of the tinea versicolor troubling me, it’s worth it.

It was recommended to help with Kenai and BB’s bacterial gut imbalances by a holistic vet, a possible contributor to their low pancreatic enzymes. It’s made for humans, but works well at replacing the need for antibiotics in milder cases of SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowths) in dogs.

After some research and discussion about it with the holistic vet, I decided to start taking it myself before I give it to them, and see what happened to me first. Oddly enough, it makes me hungry. Perhaps it’s the dying yeast begging for startches and sugars, who knows? It’s doing something, after less than a week. Seems promising. I doubt it’s going to “cure” my CFIDS, but if it helps without side effects worth complaining about, that’d be great.

♣ 

Kenai’s developed a quirk. Not that he has any quirks already. But this one is a new boy wrinkle in toy times. He plays best with pilfered toys now. Snitched from BB’s box, boosted from the kitchen toy stash, or any toy that doesn’t belong to him is a trophy.

Doesn’t matter that much, really, but he thinks it’s the coolest thing since peanut butter. He has a big old sasquatch game out of his slight of paw! It makes his thieving heart happy, the silly boy. Is it me or is he bored with his own toys?

He’s also developed a quirk about the UK, the unmovable kennel where he has his daily run time. He makes figure eights around me, running with his snatched up weed stalk or squeaky bone. First he has to “steal” something I’m pretending to want.

Our signal for keep-away-is-okay is “gimme that you boy!” Then a tushie touch game is on, the long legged brown bear zooming past to see if I can molest his rump or grab the weed on his way by. Goosed ya! Ooh-hoo-huu! Zoom!

He’ll run straight past, but he really, really likes doing figure eights. Goofy gus. And he doesn’t mind being left there while I sneak to the freezer in the garage. He loves it when I magically appear at the other end of the UK, having quietly come back a different route than I had left. Play bow, swat the air, and goober run time! Momma snuck up on you!

I hope his having such a good time in the UK once or twice a day is keeping him mentally happy, since there are a lot of times I’m not up to doing much. He’d be happier if he could be outside more, and riding in the car more, no doubt. What boy wouldn’t? It’s a really good thing he’s not a high energy dog.

We only made it out in the car twice this week, but I tried to make dusting and cooking and tub cleaning entertaining to him. Takes longer to actually get done dusting and cooking and tub cleaning, but with any luck the brain teases make up for reduced outdoor exercise, courtesy of his affinity for critter chase of late. All in all, he’s not too bad off in his human owner–luck of the draw didn’t go against him.

Not even his skin can keep up! And hey, check out the shine on that coat again…doing better!