Exceedingly Mundane

I haven’t posted very many pictures of our dog Beau on this blog in a long time. Mostly, this year, I’ve been using them as my photo of the day over at my Project365 blog. The other day, my sweet blogging buddy Lynne left me a comment that she missed seeing Beau, and would I please post more photos of him? Aww, so sweet! Goodness knows, he’s my furry child and I love and adore him. I take a lot of photos of him, although I hadn’t really lately. But after Lynne left me that comment, I decided to take a bunch. And I have for the last couple of days. I just posted 6 or 8 over at my Project365 blog (you can check them out here and here).

I’ll also put a few more on the extended page… I just couldn’t decide which ones to pick. We think Beau is a great dog, and getting better every day. Tim has been working with him, and he’s more disciplined than ever. He’s doing well on the leash, and in the last 9 days, Tim has been working with him to bring the newspaper in from the driveway every morning. After the first day, he had it. He now goes out every morning on Tim’s command and brings the newspaper inside and drops it at his feet 🙂 Beau is also learning more and more words, and does this cute thing with his head, cocking it to the side, when he’s really listening to you. We’ve also been working really hard at putting more weight on Beau. When we rescued him last fall, he only weighed about 45 pounds. The vet said she wanted him up at least 5 or 10 more pounds in the next few months. When we boarded him in May, I think he lost all of the weight he had gained, over stress of being at the kennel so long. So, I instigated a new plan. I’ve taught Beau that if he finishes all the food in his bowl when he eats, he gets a treat. He tries to pull a fast one on me and comes to get me after he eats, and if his bowl is not empty, I tell him “You Know the Rules”. He will then eat it all, if he wants his treat. Between the new food and the treats, he is starting to put on weight and look a lot healthier. In fact, Tim told me the other day, pretty soon, we are going to have to watch what we give him and cut back on the treats! He thinks he’s going to be too fat in another year or so 🙂

Photos over on my Project365 blog and some on the extended page. Click more…

Beau listening to what I am telling him. He cocks his head to the side if he’s really paying attention:

Beau doing his best “trying to look like a real Lab” impersonation. When we got him, he was so skinny, we didn’t see a lot of Lab in him. As he has gained weight, and if you get him at just the right angle, we think he looks like a lab in the face:

Beau taking a nap. I can’t sneak up on him and take a photo of him asleep, with his eyes closed. He always, always opens his eyes and usually raises his head to look at me:

Beau got his ears cleaned out and got a bath on Wednesday (photos over at the other blog). Afterwards, he finally settled down for a nap on his bed. I love when he curls up and tucks his legs and feet up under him. I’ve posted photos of the poor dog’s feet before – I think he has pretty feet!

Beau is not allowed on the carpet. I put a doggie rug down between the kitchen (tile) and the den (carpet), so he could learn his boundaries. We still keep the rug there, just to catch more hair. Beau tends to come across the boundaries, especially when we are in the den. Every night when we watch TV, he lays on the rug, to get as close to us as possible. I’ve tried and tried to talk Tim into getting laminate in the den and then letting him come in there with us, but he’s a brick wall. He won’t give in. This picture was taken while I was reading. I looked down and his ears were thrown up like a big Doberman’s. I thought it was cute 🙂