destructo-pup

It's been a year since Keeley has done anything like this. Besides tearing up a lot of this bed, he also worked on a pair of his grandma's shoes and some cardboard boxes today. Keeley's and my schedules got out of sync. I stayed up too late and he went to sleep way too early last night. We usually nap together during the day but today every time I fell asleep, he turned into destructo-pup. I think he was mad at me for not paying enough attention to him. I did chase him around the house 18 times and 4 times in his yard but it wasn't enough. He so needs a sister!

What a failure of a day. We tried to go to the dog park but when we got there we found out that it was closed due to mud. I tried to practice "No Marking" with Keeley at Petco but totally failed at that since he marked 3 times inside the store. He was completely not listening to me at all. Plus someone had spilled M&M's and Skittles all over the lobby to the store which was a major distraction to Keeley since he loves sugar. And in the parking lot someone had dropped a bunch of cookies and I hate it when Keeley tries to eat food off the ground. It's so gross and I'm convinced he's going to get sick from eating moldy stuff. Before I got Keeley, litter and gum and cigarette butts on the ground never bothered me but now I can't stand that stuff!

Today was a bummer. I hope tomorrow goes better.

Make A Wish Upon A Star

We've been tagged by Asta to make a wish upon a shooting star.



Linda's Make A Wish Meme.

The Rules

1. Think about what it is that you want more than anything, what your heart's desire and fondest wish is, and what it is that you would wish for if you were to see the above wishing star flame across the night sky.
2. Right click and SAVE the blank graphic above.
3. Use a graphics program of your choice and place your wish on this picture:
4. Post the Make A Wish Meme and your wishing star on your blog along with these rules.
5. Tag as many people as you like so that there can be wishing stars all across the Blogosphere and ask them to please link back to Linda so that we can see what wishes others have made and share those wishes with others.



Keeley would like to tag his blogging buddies: Kirby, Lenny, Bogart, Balboa, and Faya to take this challenge and make wishes of their own.

Keeley's weekend report

The humans spent a long time shoveling on Saturday morning. Keeley had to stay inside during this because he likes to attack shovels and that gets annoying really fast.
We got over a foot of snow on Friday night. Fortunately, a lot of it has been melting. Here's a couple of pictures of Keeley playing chase with his grandpa this evening. We got a little snow flurry but nothing stuck around.
We got inspired by Asta to get out some bunnies as decorations for spring. Aren't they cute?

I dug some bunny stuffies out of Keeley's toy box too. I wanted to get him to pose with them for a nice picture but he wanted no part of that.
We had a lot of excitement on Saturday when Keeley and I discovered a live bird flying around in the basement. It was scary and Keeley was going crazy. I wonder how these birds are getting in. Finally, Keeley's grandma got the bird to fly out the front door. Keeley didn't see this with his own eyes though and he was convinced that the bird was still in the house somewhere. He spent over a half hour looking for it before he finally gave up.
Today Keeley got to come with me to visit some relatives. They have a golden retriever named Goldie. Keeley must have wanted to impress her because he marked twice in their house! How embarrassing! We're going to have to do some practice with "NO Marking" again it seems.

Never Ending Winter

We are dealing with the never-ending winter here. It just snowed 10 inches and it's still coming down as I blog! The weather report says we're still going to get another 5-7 inches before it's over. This sucks!
I opened the door to Keeley's grandma's balcony because I wanted to take some pictures of the snow on the trees. It's that really heavy, wet snow that sticks good to everything so the trees all look gorgeous, but that's the only good thing about it. Keeley took the opportunity to explore the balcony a little since he doesn't get to go out there very often.
I already shoveled the drive way once and have decided I'm not going back out there until tomorrow (well except to take Keeley out for his business trips of course).
During Keeley's birthday party last weekend, Romare relaxed on the daybed in Keeley's grandma's guest bedroom. Ever since then it's been Keeley's new favorite place to nap.
We're all going to just hang out at home until this snow clears up!

Quick Update

Yes, Keeley is feeling better. He had three meals of rice and boiled hamburger and is now back to having normal solid poops twice a day. (Keeley always has a tablespoon of pumpkin puree with dinner too.)
I think his leg is feeling better too. I've been watching it a lot since the weekend. He's using it just fine but I do think he naturally favors that leg, maybe out of habit. I'm worried that means it will always be weak.
The holistic vet that he was seeing has left the clinic, but I found her online and is apparently floating between a bunch of clinics now all on different days of the week and also doing house calls. I think I'm going to keep an eye on his leg for a while and think about contacting her to set up some kind of therapy plan to try to make that leg strong. That's my plan anyway.
Sorry, no pictures of a potential sister for Keeley yet. The litter is still in their mommy's tummy. They're not expected to be born till the end of next month I think.

Package from Kirby

Look what the mailman delivered today. It's a package from Kirby!
Keeley loves opening boxes! He can't wait to see what's inside!
Wow, it's a birthday gift from Kirby!
Pawsome! It's a bunch of Windees, Peanut Butter HipAction, and a green shamrock stuffie that says "Lick Me, I'm Irish!"
Thank you so much, Kirby! Keeley loves all the gifts you got for him!
Keeley took off with a Windee right away! I think he was wishing that Kirby was here to chase him for it but instead he had to settle for being chased by me.

more love from DWBs

bad day birthday and lots of love from DWBs

Today was Keeley's birthday and he had a really bad day. He was supposed to go to doggie daycare but I decided to keep him home to rest his leg. He was bummed about that since he loves daycare.

Then when I got home, I discovered that Keeley had gotten diarrhea during the day and there was gross poop all over his pantry. I could tell that he was so ashamed of himself because he was curled up in a corner trying to stay as far away from it as possible. I told him that it was okay and that he couldn't help it that his tummy was upset. But he still didn't want to make eye contact with me and just followed me around with his tail between his legs while I cleaned everything up.

Just when I was almost done with that then he threw up a few times in the stairway. I told him it was okay and tried to clean that up too but must have done an unsatisfactory job of it because Keeley's grandma had to clean it again when she got home.

Then to top it all off, I told him that he couldn't have dinner since his tummy obviously needs a rest. So now he's doing his starving dog routine. Poor baby Keeley. He's had such a horrible day.

On a much more pawsitive note, Keeley has received lots of wonderful birthday wishes from his DWB pals. Here are a few that he got via e-mail:

Keeley also got a sweet email from Lenny but I couldn't figure out how to get it to display right here so I'm just posting the part with the cute picture of Lenny:Keeley says thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes!

Oh yeah, we sent out some homemade doggie treats to many of Keeley's DWB pals that we knew the addresses of. We wish we could have sent some to everydog but priority mail is expensive and we didn't think that the treats would make it to our overseas pals. We hope the dogs that got them like them and we're very sorry if we missed you.

Keeley's bum leg

I don't know what I'm going to do with this pup! It seems that Keeley really over did it at his party yesterday because he's favoring his bum leg today.
It feels like there's always something wrong with his left hind leg. When he was just a little pup he had a greenstick fracture from a bad landing and then last year he somehow managed to break a toe on that same leg.
Near the end of his party, I caught him hopping around on only 3 legs and I immediately said it was time for him to take it easy and no more wrestling. Apparently, I was the only one who noticed him favoring that leg because everyone else seemed to think that I was overreacting.
This morning he seemed fine and so we went to the dog park. But as soon as we got to Minooka, he started doing his 3 leg hop. If you look close a the picture below, you can see that he's not using his left hind leg.
Keeley doesn't complain or whine but I figure it must be hurting if he's choosing not to use that leg. So we took him home and gave him a dose of Metacam. He took a nap and seems fine. Just to be safe, I think he's going to stay home from daycare this week and rest.

Birthday Wishes

This card is from Romare. Inside it says: "Dearest Keeley... My best friend! Like we need an excuse! Happy Birthday. Love, Romare de Bear... Your best friend!"

Inside this one it says: "Butt Seriously. Happy Birthday! Love, Cousin Tully".

Inside it says: "Happy Birthday Keeley! Thanks for being such a great friend! You are a wonderful, handsome, and intelligent pup and I hope your b-day is fab! - Kate"

"Happy Birthday Keeley! You are such a wonderful guy! You have such a playful and loving spirit and we all love you very much! I hope you have a great day! - Molly"

"Dear Keeley- Happy Birthday! We know you've already found the meaning of life - family, friendship, good food, fun times, and the watchful, protective eye of an Airedale pal. Thanks for bringing so much joy to so many people. Love, Jane."

This one says: "Keeley, On St. Patrick's Day, everybody's Irish. But none so much as you! -Your Grandma."

This one was written in Lojack-ese. It says: "Hoppee Birfdae ooowwwwwwoooo. Hoppee Birfdae ooowwwwwwoooo. Hoppee BBIIIRRFFFDDAAEE a Kewelee. Hoppee Birfdae oooowwwwwwooooooooooooo. Lub, yur gurl fren Lodak."

Keeley's 2nd Birthday Party!

Today was Keeley's birthday party. He will be 2 years old on Monday, St. Patrick's Day. I was so thrilled to find decorations that featured an Irish Terrier!Gracie, a 4 month old cockapoo, was the first doggie guest to arrive.Keeley's cousin dog, Tully, was the next dog to arrive. When they're together, they just can't seem to hold still.Keeley's best bud, Romare, made the trip from Madison to help celebrate.Lojack was the last doggie guest to arrive and certainly the most well-dressed of all the dogs.The big dogs spent a lot of time romping outside......while the little dogs explored indoors.There were human guests too, including this cutie-pie, Tristan, who will have his 2nd Birthday next week. He was born one week after Keeley.Other human guest included: Keeley's grandpa, Marky-Mark, Amy, Damien, Helen, Christopher, Gary, Kaity, Mr. Goodkind, Sandy, PK, Jane, Kate, and of course, Keeley's grandma and me, his girl.Keeley would have been happy with just ONE visitor, so he was thrilled that so many of his favorite people came to celebrate his birthday.Keeley is a very social pup. If it were up to him, he'd have a party every weekend!Gracie found a lot of toys to play with. She had quite a pile going.There were even a few surprise gifts for Keeley to open. He got a green squeaky bone and a paw print magnet from Jane, Kate, and Molly. He received a z-bone and a barbecue flavored biscuit bone from Mr. Goodkind and Sandy. He got a cute elephant stuffie from Christopher, Gary, and Romare. He also received a gift card to Petco from Lojack and PK. Keeley sure is a lucky pup!Romare helped inspect all Keeley's presents for quality.Keeley's grandpa baked special doggie treats for Keeley's canine guests to take home. When all the party guests had left, Keeley found a nice sunny spot to sit and eat his z-bone. Minutes later, he was sound asleep. I guess that means he had a good time!

NOTE: Kirby was supposed to come, but his mother was so sick that they had to cancel. We hope your mom feels better soon, Kirby! Maybe we can make plans for you and Keeley to meet up some other weekend.

I've been tagged!

Asta tagged Keeley for this. Here are the rules:

Rules:
1. Grab the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
2. Open it to page 123.
3. Find the first 5 sentences and write them down.
4. Then invite 5 friends to do the same.

The book is: DOG ON A SURFBOARD by Billy Lambert
(FYI, it's about an Irish Terrier)

P123.... "When it was obvious that Kerry wasn't coming, their raft progressing in its drift down the river, there was no being lulled this time into false complacency: once burned hopefully forever-after forewarned.
They watched the sky for any return of Helen Harpy or for any of her feathered clan. They watched the shoreline for any reptile or cat sliding down the bank in pursuit or intercept. They watched the water not only for the likes of Kerry in sneak attack but for piranhas, eels, rocks, and floating debris.
"Just because a branch or piece of wood isn't visable," said juliet in a place where acoustics made her soft voice audible above the flow of the river, "doesn't mean it isn't there.""

Keeley and I would like to tag our blogging dog friends: Lenny, Jackson, Butchy & Snickers, Ralph, and Lacylulu to take this challenge. We agree with Asta, that it would be a fun glimpse into what is being read in the homes of our fellow dog bloggers.

I actually used to try reading to Keeley just like he was a little human child, but he found it to be extremely boring.

Irish Terrier Pups

Thanks to all you dogs that told us about the three adorable Irish Terrier pups that need to find their fur-ever homes. They're awfully tempting! If I weren't already in the process of getting Keeley a sister from his breeder, then I would certainly snatch one of them up! Please go check out the DOUBLE TROUBLE blog for more information on these cute little pups. We hope these guys find good homes and quickly!

That's right, I said Keeley's going to get a sister. I know I had decided on a brother earlier, but when we spoke to his breeder, she insisted that his new sibling must be a girl. So that's that. With a little luck, she may be born as early as next month. I told Keeley to keep his paws crossed.