Rocky is a 4 year old boxer. He has been a very loyal dog, and great with our children, however he can be "one big pain in the you know where!" Which brings me to our first story...
We had just brought home our new tiny little puppy right after we got married (Rocky was our wedding present to each other...HA!) and we decided to take him up to the ballfields for Cullen's softball game. About halfway through the game a foul ball hit our tiny puppy directly on the head. I probably would have done better, except for the noise he made. It was awful! I honestly thought he was going to die due to the yelping noises he was making. He was just fine, me however, I think I almost had a nervous breakdown! Maybe the hit to the head in "puppyhood" caused our troubles later on...
Top 10 Rocky Stories:
10. He knocked an entire FULL garbage can down our newly carpeted basement stairs.
9. Escaped our back yard when Hayden was a baby (while it was raining) and I chased him around for about twenty minutes while listening to my crying baby inside. I slipped on the wet grass several times and my neighbor got to witness everything! I had decided to give up and let him run (and hopefully never come back!) when I walked to the front door and said, with little hope of him even listening to me, "Rocky, you want to go inside?" And he stopped dead in his tracks and followed me inside. I could have killed him...
8. Ate an entire, freshly baked, loaf of banana bread.
7. Ate an entire plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, more than a dozen total!
6. Ingested tea bags after I had laid them out on the deck while making sun tea (and then forgot about them). It wasn't the ingesting that was the main problem, it was the vomiting that happened hours later, on our new, light carpet in our very new house. The fact that he vomited tea was the worst part. The stain hasn't come out to this day.
5. Got into anti-inflammatory pills on the Fourth of July one summer, and after speaking to my uncle (a vet) we tried to induce vomiting. We tried several times to get him to drink hydrogen peroxide, which is what they recommend for you to do to get a dog to vomit, and it just wouldn't work. We got online and read that you could throw salt in the back of their throat as another means to get dogs to vomit, tried that, and he threw up about twenty times immediately after.
4. Got into a pack of gum from my purse with xylitol in it, which can be fatal to dogs. Didn't phase him a bit.
3. I had the fortunate experience of taking Rocky to puppy school because Cullen worked late after we first got married. He was the most misbehaved dog in the group. I was jealous of the other dogs who just did exactly what their owners told them to do each time. We limped our way through the six or seven weeks, just to find out that the instructor wasn't planning on passing Rocky! He must have overheard her say this, because at the last class all the puppies put on a "show" of sorts to demonstrate what they learned, and Rocky out performed every single dog there. He won several of the contests, and gave the lady no other choice but to pass him. Good times!
2. Last Easter, we did a family project dyeing Easter eggs. We spent a lot of quality family time together creating our little masterpieces, and even shared Sawyer's name with everyone by creating an egg for him with his name on it. Shortly after I created a lovely display on our kitchen table, complete with Easter grass and a nice glass bowl, Rocky decided he needed a snack, and proceeded to eat every last bit of our dyed hard-boiled eggs. He didn't even leave a shred of an eggshell as evidence of his act. We wondered if this would effect him in any way, so we researched it online and actually found out that eggs are good for dogs, shells and all because they have a lot of calcium! Another note to this story is the fact that Rocky knows the window of time in which he can act: after Cullen leaves in the morning and while I am in the shower. Many of these misdemeanors have occurred during that short time frame in the morning.
1. Also in "puppyhood," Rocky snagged a tube of super glue off of the counter top and glued his mouth shut. We had to gently pick super glue off of the outside of his mouth and nose for about a week!
Sleeping in Hayden's tent
Okay, so this could be #1...just had to share some more...The Wolf's (Cullen's parents) have watched Rocky for us several times while we have been on vacation, and for one reason or another Rocky has decided that he feels the need to poop in their house. HE HAS NEVER DONE THIS AT OUR HOUSE, not even as a puppy! In fact, one time he even pooped on their bed... Hate to even share that one! I have to believe its because someone (not mentioning any names here) forgets to let him out to go to the bathroom, but it could be out of spite towards us for leaving him!
Whether its barking at the dog behind us, wanting in (then back out, then back in to the house, especially while I am feeding a baby), or getting up on the couch as soon as we leave the room, or perhaps its attacking any hand in a glove of any kind, or maybe jumping on our guests for the first five minutes when they come over, or maybe the fact that whenever anybody rings our doorbell he barks like crazy (especially if he knows that one or two children might be asleep at the time), or whining and whining the moment that we finally get to set down after a long day because that's the moment he decides he wants fed or let out, or that we have to put all food of any kind up on top of our fridge or in the microwave out of harms way, or that we can't (believe me we have tried) trim his nails because he flips out....(yes I know that can't still all be one sentence but I tried to make it one anyway)... we still love him and hope to have him in our family for many years to come!
Rocky has won his place in his Grandparent Wolf's hearts! Poop and all! (by the way, he has not had this problem the last couple of times he's come to visit. We've learned some lessons!
ReplyDeleteKris and Cliff
Funny fun times!! I especially like the puppy school story. :)
ReplyDeleteJust to let me know of his dissatisfaction with this post, Rocky caused a heck of a night the next night after this post. He tore off his back toenail, blood everywhere, rushed trip to the vet with both kids, big vet bill...craziness!
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