Fun & excitement basset style!

Last night Linus & Einstein played together. They've been trying to play for awhile. The problem always is that Einstein starts barking because he's excited & then Linus gets scared & runs for safety (love seat, couch, behind Mom, behind Dad). Einstein then stands and barks at him trying to get him to play thus scaring him further.

When Puddles was here, she would get scared of Einstein even before the barking because of his size. She & Linus would chase after the same toy together but eventually Einstein would want to join in. Puddles would get scared & start barking. Einstein would get annoyed & start barking. Linus would run & hide.

Last night Einstein was chasing Linus. They ran back & forth at a rather shocking speed considering that they're basset hounds. They ran from the back door to the front door & back again. At one point, Linus ran right out the dog door with Einstein hot on his heels. It was pretty funny & good to see. Linus gave all appearances of playing & not being scared. Eventually though Einstein started to bark & so Linus jumped up next to me on the couch. Chris grabbed a toy & tossed it. Linus launched himself from the arm of the couch & took off after it with Einstein hot on his heels. He ran back with the toy & Chris tossed it again. Unfortunately, Einstein started barking again & back up on the couch went Linus. He would take off after the toy a few more times before he decided that wasn't fun anymore with Einstein barking at him.

But it was actual playing! Einstein's been trying to play with Linus since he got here. Linus is such a submissive Zeta dog that he would just get scared. When Einstein started going Alpha on him for no apparent reason at random times, that really didn't help. We seem to have the Alpha thing under control. Einstein really isn't an Alpha type personality so when Chris & I started working on reminding him that we were in charge using some of the techniques in Cesar's book, it didn't take long for him to respond.

Yay! Linus is playing!

Long time no blog

Things have been a bit crazy. We finally got our carpet in. After we got that done, we started dragging in the computer stuff & sorting through it all. We threw out a lot, put some in the donate pile, and we have a lot to keep. When we go back through that, we may pull some of it out to add to the donate pile.
A good trip to IKEA resulted in a very overloaded Outback. We've started putting one of the cabinets together. Linus & Einstein both needed to come in and help. Bassets & power tools, not a good mix so Chris did the assembly while I passed him parts & kept the dogs safe.

We've also been helping some friends pack for their move. Everyone pray or cross your fingers or whatever your personal preference is that everything works out with their current prospective new house.
As a result of this, their sweet little rat terrier, Puddles, is staying with us. It's kinda funny watching Puddles & Linus try to run away from each other. It's a contest as to who is more scared. Tonight is flying night but we're going to leave Puddles at home. It'll give her a chance to get settled in plus I'm not sure how well she'll be able to handle the heat. Then there's the danger of her getting squished under 2 bassets in the back seat.
She's a good dog. It'll be fun having her here.

Linus, the barking seal

Linus & I had some snuggle time on the couch. He seems to have calmed down.

We call him the barking seal because that's what his bark sounds like. It's pretty cute. Einstein's deep bark with Linus' higher pitched bark. He's cute.

Linus has been getting braver. He's not afraid to drink from the main dog bowl which has a 2-liter bottle feeding it which makes a burping noise. He used to be afraid of it so we had to have a regular water bowl for him.

We have to sit both food bowls out in the living room but that's because of Einstein. He would completely block access to the kitchen so Linus couldn't get the food. Linus would get hungry enough that he'd start whining. So, with both bowls in the living room I can keep the food dominance under control.

Otherwise they get along fine. They'll lay together. Linus likes to lick Einstein. Do dogs have grooming rituals? Einstein doesn't seem to care & they are cute.

Linus didn't eat my phone!

We had a fun afternoon at the McLarens' playing games & chatting. It hit me that I had left my cell phone down where Linus could get it. After Mom's cell phone with artistic teeth marks, I was concerned about mine. It was a happy surprise to find it untouched. Yay!

He is a sweetheart despite his tendency to destroy phone books & PS2 controllers.
In honor of the holiday, Chris decided that Linus didn't need to go on a walk today. You'd think he'd be a happy dog but instead he's whining & pacing. So I'll blog about more Linus later.

Linus:2 PS2:0

Linus decided to start destroying things again. His first victims were an old Otterbox for my iPod that he hauled out of the basket where I keep chargers & other electronics related stuff. He chewed the circle that covered the click wheel out. He also chewed on one of Chris' PS2 controllers. At least the Otterbox was a broken one. The PS2 controller was actually working.

So, I picked up another big plastic tub. Clearly more stuff needed to be protected & my computer desk was already covered with so much stuff that I couldn't use the computer. So big tub was plopped onto the old big tub and filled with all kinds of stuff to protect them from the chewy dog.

Unfortunately, when we went to Spamalot we forgot to put the other PS2 controller in the tub & he ate it while we were gone. Yes, we were gone a long time. But! We gave them really cool edible Nylabones that they do actually like. Plus we filled each of the "treat" balls full of 1 cup (1/2 of their dinner) of food each. Plus the usual doggy amusements (toys, each other, the dog door, ...)

So we picked up a used controller at the Game Exchange on Main Street. It currently resides in the tub. We also had to pick up a new PS2 memory card as the ones he already had have disappeared into the disaster area that is our house.

We did get our carpet in, sort of. The guy who had written up the order wrote down the wrong names for 2 of the colors. So we got our center blue color & 2 green shades. So we're waiting 7-10 days for the correct shades of blue to come in. Annoyingly since it's the middle color & not one of the corners, we can't do anything with the carpet tiles we have. sigh

Dogs & paint

We painted the computer room this weekend! Pictures are here. This is our first home improvement project. Wow! We're very lazy. ;-)
I had to go back over the baseboards & the windowsill today. The paint is fairly white while wet & with the fading sunlight I missed a bunch of spots. It dries darker so I got in & touched everything up before we lost the light again.

Of course, we had doggy supervision. Einstein's painted self is also on the picture page. Linus was in the room just as much but managed to not get painted. The dogs were pretty bored. Linus started cruising the coffee table. Einstein tried guarding the food. Nobody liked their treats. I finally dug out the toys that you put food & treats inside & then they have to roll them around to get it out. One is a orange rubber ball that gives up it's treats fairly easily. Einstein latched onto that one & was pushing it all over. The other is hard plastic & looks like a blue six-sided die. This one is harder since it's square & sometimes it has to be flipped a couple of times to get the food out. We bought this a long time ago for Darwin. He was unamused. He wound up smacking it off the wall as hard as he could. We put it up & didn't bring it back down for a long time. These toys did help keep the guys entertained. Once we got down to just the baseboards, Chris took them both for a walk.

This morning Linus wanted to play so I threw dogny (stuffed floppy dog with squeakers) and he took off after it. After a couple of tosses, Einstein decided he wanted to play too. He would chase Linus who was chasing dogny. Linus didn't seem to care much. As Einstein played, he got wound up & started barking. Well, barking is just too scary for Linus so he jumped up on the couch. Einstein put his front paws on the couch & barked right in his face. Linus cowered but refused to get up & play. I finally had to distract Einstein. Linus is getting braver all the time so I'm sure that they'll start playing together eventually.

Linus' foster parents came by today. We led them through the maze of stuff into the relatively clean living room. Linus didn't seem to remember them at first & ran out the dog door. We did get him back inside eventually. He laid on the couch & let them pet him. I think Linus recognized them a bit since he did stay & let them pet him. They were so excited to see him. They had an adopt a pet yesterday that his sister Lucy was at. Adopting a rescue dog is definitely more work but the rewards are so great. It's been wonderful watching Linus come out of his shell. Have we been frustrated & down right angry at times? Heck Yah! Especially at 5 am. He's worth all of it though. He's such a sweetie, full of love & bounciness. Lucy is a bit more shy than Linus is but I'm sure that she's worth the work just as much as Linus is. So, anybody want a basset hound to love? Just give them a call or e-mail and ask about Lucy.

Linus playing!

He's finally loosening up enough to play some. He's still a bit leery about playing with Einstein because Einstein barks when he gets excited. However, he's playing with Chris. I've tried but he seems to be more interested in getting me to pet him rather than play with him.

I put a bunch of photos, including a movie clip of him playing with his platypus, over on the .Mac site here. Let me know if the movie doesn't play for you.

I removed the old Linus photos from the Flickr site. I'm going to be using it for a cool new knitting community over at Ravelry but this is the non-yarn site so I won't bore you with it.

Something FINALLY went right today

After an exhausting mentally fatiguing day at work, I came home to 2 happy bouncing dogs. After taking down the gate, I could see into the living room and saw that Linus had NOT chewed on anything! Whoo Hoo!
Einstein did a chewie dance lite (not the full blown chewie dance) with the basted rawhide braid that I left (they each got 1).
Linus did later on in the evening decide to chew up some purple post-its. No, I didn't catch him in the act. I was too tired.