What to do when your English Bulldog thinks he's a people person

Slade noticed this morning that the dog, because he gets upset to be left alone (he has clearly been traumatized by how he was kept in the past), shows that he knows people are leaving him by doing a 'protest whiz.'

The first morning the boys were leaving back to school this year he went on a pile of their books. Yesterday when we were getting ready for church it was in our room. I know his methods of communicating are limited, I just wish he knew we have gotten the message.One thing that is hard is that he has to constantly be underfoot, which sometimes has the advantage that I have to be watching him anyway so he doesn't do any of the above, but it is hard when I am going down the stairs or cooking.

And the most amazing thing of all is how he shows that he knows Slade is the master. I remember Bo did this with my dad. My mom and us kids would fawn all over him all day but my dad would come home and he would plant himself by dad for the rest of the night. His favorite time of the week was jumping up to lick him when he slept in on Saturdays. Good times.And Slade is the brutal disciplinarian with Harry, but he is the owner, so he gets all the Kudos. Slade bought this training collar for walks and doesn't put up with anything (I was going to say he doesn't put up with something particularly crude, and that would be true, also).

But Harry definitely prefers him.Saturday was movie night and we watched (unfortunately) Karate Kid II. Afterward Sadie got up to show she had learned some moves and was doing karate chops on her dad. Harry was visibly upset and got in between Sadie and Slade and paced around. Great, he is protecting Slade from a six year old girl. Slade didn't appreciate when I joked that maybe he looks like he wouldn't win the fight.I am pretty sure it has something to do with the history of the breed. No matter how vicious they were to bulls and bears in the pit they had to also be fiercely loyal to their owners especially because as they were lower class city dwellers (the big bull baiting pits were in London) they probably lived all in close quarters.It is very endearing and why I chose him and wouldn't have a substitute, but I am starting to at least see the advantages some dogs and particularly cats that are willing to have their own lives.

We sure love this dog. Hope there is some improvement with his behavior and health issues so we can keep him. That will to a great extent depend on whether the woman I bought him from decides to compensate me for some of the health and behavioral problems. It was Christmas, so we went fast and didn't think contracts, but morally she told a sick woman she was getting a housetrained healthy, behaved older dog.

And she cared nothing for his future home! Mainly she was maximizing profit on this sale at all ends. The dog has clearly lost already, and we are joining him. Some will some other family if we decide we can't have a dog going to the bathroom everywhere and ruining our house, not to mention the likely constant vet bills. Oh, Harry...

Puddles in Oregon

I don't want to be all my posts complaining about the puppy mill situation that I ended up buying him from, we are actually getting attached to the guy and figuring him out a bit.

Oregon has a bad rap about all the puddles. Well it used to. The rain is actually not bad and OR has some of the mildest weather anywhere all things considered. I went out with no coat on today. There were a few raindrops but I didn't have to worry about loosing fingers or toes, slip to my death, or need to scrape anything off my car, or worse. This is coming from someone who would rather be living in Arizona and so nothing about winter will be perfect, I have all the snow I want within an hour's drive and the appropriately maximum twice a year in my yard.

But the puddles I am having a hard time with lately, even in January, are coming from inside my own house. After having spent our last red cent on this dog and purposefully bypassing the adorable puppy stage so he wouldn't ruin our house, we may have to end up buying all new carpets anyway. And it isn't that he doesn't prefer to go outside. He loves the weather, now that we got his foot condition fixed after vet visits and many medications.

He just likes to go inside, too.Apparently that is one of the disadvantages of getting a nearly adult male dog. They don't like to move into a house that they don't feel is fully their territory. My luck.Right now he and I are having to be very lonely for each other because he is being punished in the downstairs bathroom, as usual. He developed the absolute necessity to keep a bag of new curtains peed on. Other than this, he is a delight. Seriously, the amount of love and adorableness that he has brought to us and the absolute giddy happiness of our kids has been hard to overstate.

Seeing Drake take absolute responsibility that has come with being one of the main people to take care of him has been precious. So if the puddles were really so bad that if I would have known I wouldn't have gotten him, I probably wouldn't have gotten myself any kids, either. Because they are much messier, much more work, and much more frustrating. So I guess we will survive.