Tag Archives: weimaraners

Everyday Life

A Boy and His Dog

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Well, I was “ready” for this day, but not expecting it so soon. Someone has fallen in love with the dogs. Head over heels, new best friends.

I would like to say that I had NOTHING to do with this. He just decided that they are totally okay and actually a lot of fun. He has been trying to pull them around by their collars. Cache does not like being bossed around, so he had to go in his crate. But Ilya played with Nina for quite awhile. I am trying to teach Ilya not to hold onto her collar on the steps, because she likes to go quite a bit faster than him!

We had a hard morning, because Aaron went back to work for the day. I was so ready for their naptime after lunch. I needed that time to myself. I had made a dozen trips to the bathroom this morning. They always come in 3s. And not because there are 3 people here. Nope, someone has to always go twice, before and after the other person. Ilya just had a really hard morning without Aaron here in general, too. I think he realized it would all be okay when I set down his lunch in front of him. A turkey sandwich, leftover cheesy potatoes, cherry tomatoes and carrots. For dessert, we had apples. No, please don’t tell my children a plain old apple is not dessert. They think it is a wonderful very special treat. Seriously. I am trying to introduce them to lots of healthy food while they are still open to it. Right now they’ll both try anything.

Edited: Ilya totally regressed with the dogs once Aaron got home from work. It was hard to watch, but the second Aaron walked in the door, Ilya was screaming at Nina again. I think he may be doing it for attention, because I noticed him hanging on to Aaron’s legs and petting Nina behind Aaron. Hmmm…

Everyday Life

Just a Little Update

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We have always taken our dogs out to the park daily, or almost daily. Hot, cold, rain, snow, whatever, we’re there. I am not kidding. You weimaraner owners know what I mean. Weather is no obstacle; your dogs need exercise. So, yesterday, all four of us humans and all two of the four paws went out to the park. At first the kids were scared, but the dogs stay pretty far from us at the park so that they can just run and run. The kids discovered how fun it is to call the dogs back to them. “Niiiiiiiiiina! Caaaaash! Niiiiiina! Niiiiina!” Ilya can tell them apart already, which I need to tell the next person who asks me “how do you tell them apart?” Quite easily, thanks.

Ilya is still scared of them, but he doesn’t want them to go too far either. He would yell in Russian, “Nina, come over here!” Of course, Nina’s Russian is not that good, so she just ignored him. He would also try to follow them. When we got in the car, Aaron turned to Ilya and said “was that fun?” And Ilya said, “Fun! Fun! Dogs fun! Dogs fun!” He is still totally freaked out by them and started crying today when Nina walked into view from the next room. So totally loving them one minute and terrified the next. He really likes them if the baby gate is between himself and the dogs, but for the most part, the dogs ignore him then and won’t come over to him. They really ignore both kids 95% of the time with or without the baby gate, but Ilya feels more secure with it there.

Life is good. Life is hard. We can only expect so much of them and we can also only expect so much of ourselves. It is a tremendous adjustment for them, but it is also an adjustment for us. While it does not compare to theirs, it is still huge. Trying to keep that in mind right now.

I’m tired, so that’s all for now.

First Adoption

Merry Christmas!

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It is nice to be home. I managed to go upstairs last night and see the dogs. Lots of licking on my face… I never let them do that, but Nina was just so excited to see me. I was pretty excited to see her too… she is a special dog, very intuitive of how I am feeling. Silly when I need a laugh and calm and cuddly when I am upset or sick. It might sound funny if you aren’t a dog person yourself, but she and I have a bond.

One of the first things we did today was introduce the kids to the dogs. We brought Cache down first. He is a very good dog around kids, will let them pull his ears and jump all over him. He just laid on the couch and let us do what we wanted with him. Both kids were very scared. Aaron and I touched him and showed how calm he was. I put my mouth near his muzzle and made kissing sounds. The kids thought that was so funny and seemed to relax a bit when they realized he would not bite me. They petted him a bit, but they are still very scared. We let both dogs out a bit later. Nina, who has no kid experience to my knowledge, was a natural too. She often acts like a huge puppy, so that surprised me. Both dogs are good about keeping a little distance between themselves and the kids, but it is going to take more time. One minute they are petting them or reaching a hand out to be licked and the next their screaming in fear. Of course, this is normal, but I am ready to be past this and have dogs and humans peacefully co-existing.

We tried to go to Wal-Mart today. We wanted to pick some stuff up, like wipes, which we are totally out of. But, Wal-Mart was closed. Seriously Wal-Mart? I had much lower expectations for you. So, I was a little happy that Wal-Mart closes on Christmas and a little frustrated because we needed a few things. Target opens at 7am tomorrow and I am ready!

The rest of our day was just hanging out at home. We skyped with my family for awhile. We had our second annual gag gift exchange this year. I wanted to see the people who received our gifts open them. It was a lot of fun to see them open their gifts. Then, Ilya and Lena opened the gifts my parents sent them. Books which they just LOVED. Ilya got very excited because one of his books is all about trucks. We skyped for awhile longer, just talking while the kids played. It is great to see all 10 of them. I miss them a lot.

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The Christmas tree is absolutely beautiful. My mom sent us my ornaments from when I was a kid. So, I gave Ilya and Lena those ornaments to add to the bottom of the tree. They LOVED that. My mom also got them their own bells, engraved with their names. It is a tradition in our family, a bell with your name engraved on your first Christmas. These bells are beautiful.

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I am so grateful for all of these people we have in our lives. I know I’ve said it before, but it comes as a surprise to me constantly, how wonderful everyone is. Our friends and families have blowed us away with support. We still have our loan with family, but the rest of our adoption expenses are taken care of. Any money which we did not need, we are planning to put into the grant of a waiting child, specifically one of the boys at Ilya and Lena’s orphanage. We are not sure which yet, but we hope to soon be sponsoring one of these boys through Project Hopeful‘s Family in the Gap Program. I am grateful to have an opportunity to put something back into the adoption process.

Life here is so different from Ukraine. I want to share more about that later, but my American friends, we have it good. Really, really good. We are blessed. Blessed with things like clean water and building codes and vegetables free from giardia. I just wanted to share that with you.

Merry Christmas!

First Adoption

Worn Out

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This has been a long week…

On Monday, we got a new foster dog. He is a handful. He barks and whines at night, whenever we crate him. He can literally bark for HOURS. He can also break out of his crate. I took him for a 1.5-2 mile bike ride one day and a 4-4.5 mile bike ride another and he still barked and whined when we got home.

On Wednesday, we found out about Quinn.

On Thursday (today), I had a sick dog who would not eat her breakfast and got sick in the house (let’s just leave it at that). Late this afternoon, we had animal control come to our house. Not because of all of the barking. Or because we have four dogs. But because one of our dogs is thin. I will give them that… she IS thin, but she is needs-to-put-on-a-few-pounds thing, NOT about-to-die-because-no-one-feeds-her thin. Yes, she looks very thin in comparison to the average dog, because the average dog is FAT. This girl runs for hours a day. I am certain that one of our neighbors called it in, without talking to us first. We must take her to the vet to have her tested for “diseases causing thinness”. Money that we will waste. I don’t think it is too likely that my dog who ran all weekend, and went on a four mile off-leash bike ride yesterday, where she ran way more than we biked, is sick. She just lovvvves running.

To be positive though, everyone has been really supportive. Several people listened to my rants about animal control. I’ve talked to lots of people about Quinn and considering a new little boy. There is a chance that we will be adopting a different little boy and when we figure that all out, I’ll let you know… I also have a cool fundraiser idea that I am working on and hopefully will be letting you know about soon…