Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Mr. Bates Loses His Manhood

Chris and I decided to have Mr. Bates neutered; we had Doris spayed a few weeks after we got her. The first thing we learned is that boys are much different than girls when it comes to this surgery. When we took Doris she sat in the car and slept the whole way there and back. She came home, slept some more, and was fine in a few days.
Not the same with this little baby. With Mr. Bates, he whined the whole time we were in the waiting room. They called me at 1 and said that we could pick him up at 4. At 3, when I was just on my way to pick him up, the clinic called Chris and said that we needed to pick up Mr. Bates soon because he was whining so much. When I showed up they were taking him outside and immediately asked me if I was his mother. I walked him back inside and all of the clinic volunteers said is that Bates' mom? They were all beaming that someone was finally taking him home. The volunteer, who gave me his final consultation, handed me a $10 bill. I asked her if he was that bad that they were paying me to take him away. But luckily she laughed and said that I had paid too much. They said that he was not a happy camper and kept barking and whining.
Is that not the saddest and most pathetic face on a dog?
On the way home, he cried, barked, and put his sad little head on my shoulder. I couldn't help but kind of laugh at him.
 Which made me wonder...do female dogs handle pain better than male dogs? Which then brings me to my mother's philosophy that women handle pain better than men. Hmmm....I'll have to think about that one a bit more.
 Doris lying around while Mr. Bates paces in the kitchen.
Mr. Bates must keep his collar on, which he hates, for a week. I'm not sure how that is going to work. Also, he can't be unsupervised around Doris because she might lick his stitches. And, if he needs to go to the bathroom I must take him outside and watch him and then he immediately must come inside. Really wishing we had done this next week when I am out of school and could watch them during the day.
Such a groggy and depressed boy.
He seems a bit normal at home and wants to do everything that he is used to doing. I think he will be just fine as he works that sympathy whine. Just getting us ready for when he have our natural children.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Meet Mr. Bates

We had been looking for a friend for Doris for a little bit now and finally found her a friend, Mr. Bates. Isn't he cute?
We named him after our favorite character from Downton Abbey. Can you see the resemblance?
We found him on Craig's list and he is a rescue dog, like Doris. He is a much different dog than Doris. He is very energetic and jumps on top of us at any moment. Also, he is still a puppy, 9 months old, and has been chewing up and destroying items in our home. We are trying to break him from this habit with his own toys and big dog bones to gnaw on. This is what I came home to last week.
I was not too happy at Mr. Bates for doing this to our living room.

Doris was not too fond of him at first, but she seems to like her new playmate.

 Yesterday, Chris came home with a surprise...
I think he was more excited than me, but we can finally grill!! We wanted one for our wedding, but for some reason never bought one. He was at a customer's house and they were giving it away since they had bought a new one. Chris swiped it up, brought it home, and started the grill. We had chicken sausages with bell peppers and mushrooms. They were delicious and we cannot wait to grill more of our meals.
He is so proud and happy with his grill in front of him and babies at his feet.