Minga is 2 Years Old Today

Craig put part of Alisa's toy on Minga's head to serve as a birthday hat:



Alisa removed the hat, but then put it back on:



Minga's favorite activities are riding in the Jeep, playing fetch, swimming, and walking/running in the woods and creek:

Incredible Sense of Smell

We all know that dogs have an incredible sense of smell, right? I am able to see it first hand when throwing objects for Minga to fetch. Even if I touch a small stick for 2 seconds with just 2 fingers, Minga will hunt it down in the woods and bring it back. She won't stop hunting until she finds the exact one I just threw. It's amazing and fun to watch. Sometimes it takes her awhile to find it, which is good because then she gets more exercise running around. We usually open the front gate and then throw things off the back of the main balcony so she can get the most exercise while fetching. She stands with us on the balcony and sometimes watches where the object lands and then runs so fast along the balcony, through the gate and then turns and tears down the grassy hill to the back yard to find the object. If she's been searching for awhile with no luck she will stop and look up at us. We encourage her that the object is still out there by saying, "Go get it...where's the stick?" and then she continues hunting. Most of the time she dashes through the creek at least once to cool off.

It's apparent that she doesn't search based on sight because when we throw the red frisbee for her she will sometimes run right past it (where it's obvious to the eyes, but she won't notice it). She will eventually come back by it and pick it up.

Minga Update

I haven't mentioned this before, but when Minga eats in the morning she gets some food in her mouth and chews it while walking around the kitchen island. She walks counter clockwise every time. She does this after every bite for awhile and then leaves the rest for later. So funny! When she finishes her food later (sometimes right before bedtime) she usually just stands at her bowl and chows down without moving. Minga weighs 80 lbs now.

Minga has mellowed out some in her second year of life. She is really good with letting Alisa pat her, pull at her ears & flesh and even climb over her. When Alisa was starting to scoot on her belly over a month ago, she'd reach for Minga's paw and Minga would move her paw away. Alisa would reach again and Minga would move it away again. This went on and on and was fun to watch. It gave Alisa a reason to scoot and later crawl! Since Minga is a large dog who doesn't know her own strength, we have to keep a close watch when Alisa is sitting by her legs because if Minga starts rolling around on her back, her legs go flying and often she comes close to kicking Alisa across the room. She has been good about not touching Alisa's toys. The only time recently that she has touched a forbidden toy has been when Alisa offered it to her by holding it up to her mouth. Minga will usually just nuzzle it with her nose but sometimes she nibbles at it. She stops nibbling when I say "No" so that is great. Minga is very funny and exciting to Alisa. She loves having Minga nearby. Sometimes she tries to get Minga's attention when she is across the room by letting out a couple of high pitch "aah!" sounds. So cute!







Comparing hand to paw:



In August, Craig cooked spaghetti while Minga stood nearby hoping to catch any food that fell. Unexpectedly, the garlic Craig was pressing shot out of the press, over the counter and into Minga's eye. Her eye watered a lot and swelled up. Craig rinsed it out with water and Minga ran to another room of the house to recover. She was fine by the next day and from then on whenever she smells garlic, she doesn't go near or stay in the kitchen.

Minga's right eye wouldn't open very far until hours after the garlic was rinsed out of it:



In October, Minga went into heat for the second time. She bled for 3 weeks her first time (last December) and this time she bled for 2 weeks. Most dogs bleed for less than a week so maybe next time she will drop to just 1 week (one can hope). The diaper we bought her last time was too messed up to use again. It was a little too big anyway (even though it was supposed to be her size) and kept falling down--ew! We bought her a smaller one and it worked great...didn't fall down at all. Because she urinates frequently when in heat, it's too gross and troublesome to put her diaper off and on for potty breaks if we were to let her inside all day. Therefore, we ended up keeping Minga outside in the fenced yard during the day and put her diaper on and let her inside during the night. We made the mistake of leaving her diaper outside (not on the ground, but still within reach) one morning after removing it and she chewed it while we were out for a few hours. That happened the second day after we bought it so it was quite upsetting (after all, she ruined her fancy new denim diaper). We ended up duct taping it and it still worked because we put the sanitary pads in it like normal, but on top of the taped part. Ha!

Here is the duct tape repair job on the diaper:



Minga has skin problems that flare up here and there. During the worst of it, she is itchy, gets red sores on her belly and loses lots of hair (mostly from her belly, but also other scattered patches on her legs where she has been biting a lot. We've tried a few tests (as suggested by the vet and others) to see what the issue might be but we still don't know (no, it's not fleas). It would cost hundreds to have the vet do an official allergy test. For now, we give her medications which help (they aren't cheap though).



Minga loves the ocean:





Minga's bed is under the stairs and for a few nights during one week she rested with her head on the bottom stair:





Stretching while chewing bone:





Minga's dirty head from playing outside:

Minga's Birthday

Minga turned 1 year old on March 13th. We bought her a new rubber bone and a new collar with matching leash (the pink one was just too big...she didn't grow into it like we thought she would). We wanted to buy her more than one toy but we knew she'd just destroy all the other toys we had to choose from. Petco sent her a birthday card and a $3 off coupon. Craig really got a kick out of that.

We have lots of little lizards on our property and Minga loves trying to catch them. We didn't think she'd ever get one because she had tried many times and failed but she did eventually start catching them. That was sad so we have discouraged her from hunting them ever since because these lizards are really cute and remind me of geckos.

Here she is on the office balcony on February 2nd happily watching a lizard:







And then she jumped on her hind feet to try to reach the lizard that is climbing above the screen door:



Minga on March 2nd resting in the yard after running around like crazy and swimming in the creek:





She loves chewing sticks, of course:



Minga fell out of the Jeep in our neighborhood the day before her birthday and scraped her face up pretty bad. It was bloody like this for a day or two but then cleared up quite nicely and the hair eventually started growing back in (you can still see a bit of hairless skin there to today if you look closely and we are hoping the hair will finish growing in). I wasn't there when it happened but Craig said she jumped right back in the Jeep after it happened. She didn't yelp or cry or even act bothered by the injury. Thank God her eye wasn't injured!



Here she is on her birthday with her new bone:

Recent Happenings

Craig shaved his head on January 15th (it's an annual thing, though usually occurs in the summer so it was long overdue). He also ended up shaving his gotee completely off (something he hasn't done since 2000)! It took me several days to get used to seeing his chin again. He really does look different (and much younger) without the facial hair. He did it so he can look more professional when he visits a school this semester for his research and also in anticipation of baby Alisa (she would grab and tug hard on his gotee if he kept it). This picture makes him look like a crazy guy who is pulling his hair out in chunks:



Last Saturday we took Minga to the dog park and met our friends Keith & Karen there. They just got a dog (named her Devin) so we wanted to let the two dogs have some fun together and with others. Minga spent much of the time at the dog park racing around like a chicken with its head cut off. Usually she spends more time sniffing and roaming with other dogs, rather than just running by herself. She has a great time no matter what she does there. After leaving the dog park, we took the girls to the nearby pond and Minga went swimming (fetching sticks in the pond) for quite awhile. Devin didn't want to get in the water so she watched from dry land. Then we took them home and went out for dinner at a little Italian place by our house. Keith & Karen came over after a bit and brought Devin so she could play with Minga. Minga is younger and more aggressive than Devin, but eventually Devin wasn't so timid and the two were soon playing tug-o-war with a braided rope. They had a blast and we enjoyed watching them. Minga was very sad when Devin went home.

The next day she was still sad and also very sore. She wouldn't sit down all day and her tail just hung down limply. We first noticed the problem when we asked her to sit and she started to but then stood back up. She tried several times but just wouldn't sit all the way down so we realized something was wrong. We figured all the swimming (she uses her tail a lot for that) and romping with Devin really worked her muscles. Her tail was a bit better by the next day as it would perk up occasionally for an excited wagging. By Monday, she was back to normal.

Here is Minga with her limp tail:



I realized I can now easily rest bowls of food on the top of my belly when eating in the living room. Pretty cool!



We saw this trash-filled car at Borders last Saturday and just could not believe it. The whole back seat was piled high with trash (wrappers, magazines, newspapers, cups, etc) and the front passenger seat was piled up to the window with the same. There was even some on the driver's seat and floor. The whole car was greatly weighted down by all that trash...the exhaust pipe was so close to hitting the ground. It was all so disgusting and we can't imagine why someone would do that to their car?! They obviously don't ever have any passengers.



The city workers came this week and replaced the old run-down manhole covers in our yard:

Feels Like Spring

My old home town of Tulsa has been hit hard with an ice storm. The weather there is around 25 degrees for the daytime high and will be like that for at least the next few days.

Not so in Tallahassee! We are having a warm spell and it feels like spring. It has been (and will continue to be) 75-80 degrees for the daytime high. So nice! Minga and I went for a walk down the street and then walked around the yard today taking pictures. Well, Minga ran around the yard rather than walked because she is a hyper puppy. She absolutely loves running around outside the fence and jumping in the creek every few minutes. There are plenty of sticks and roots for her to drag around and chew on.



Creek behind our house with the average amount of water in it:



The rye grass Craig planted is quite tall now. It makes the yard so nice and green. He planted 2 bags and didn't bother to buy more to finish because it's just a winter grass and we just needed it on the hill mostly to slow down the erosion during heavy rains.



The 10 wax myrtle bushes we planted to create a hedge someday haven't grown too much yet (the grass may become taller than them soon):



This stuff is starting to grow again and cover the manholes that were exposed when we had our land cleared...we thought about planting stuff here to hide them but we may not need to:



We were pleasantly surprised to see some daffodils and other flowers sprouting up near the house:

Home Again

We made it home safe and sound. I was worried that I'd be very uncomfortable during the ride home since I had been gradually becoming more uncomfortable over the past 3 weeks (like I had some back pain just from driving around town), but again I had no problems. Craig is a driving machine and did most of the driving (as usual).

Minga was exceptionally well behaved so I think her first heat matured her a little. Also, having to leave her outside alone a lot at my parents' house helped with her separation anxiety. She didn't whine when Craig got out of the car to pump gas, which is a first. We ended up actually eating our meals in the restaurants and leaving Minga in the car by herself because she just sat there and didn't whine. It was truly amazing.
Minga loved sticking her head out of the window while we were driving...we let her do that when we were going 50 mph or less (it was too breezy for us when we went faster that than with the window down).



We had a good laugh when we first got on the road to drive to Tulsa because Minga's window rolled down and she casually stuck her head out. I thought Craig had rolled it down for her but he looked at me and asked if I rolled the window down. I said no because I don't have control over the other windows like the driver does. He said he didn't do it so I looked back at Minga and saw that her paw was right on the control on her door. We laughed and joked about Minga rolling her window down on purpose when really she didn't even know she is the one who did it. Can you imagine if she did do it on purpose? There would be a battle of the window during the whole trip unless Craig locked the control so she couldn't do it. Ha!



Our house was in good condition upon our arrival (we didn't have anyone check on it while we were gone) and actually smelled like when we first moved in (that new paint smell). I thought it would be stuffy and stinky from being shut up for 3 straight weeks. The bright green grass is very tall now and makes the yard look so much better. We have yet to buy a mower.

The weather has been 65 degrees during the day (35 at night) so I went for a lovely walk yesterday afternoon. I was sure tired and a bit achy by the end of it (an hour in our neighborhood, which has many hills) but after I rested for a bit I felt great the rest of the night. I plan on walking again today. I haven't been exercising lately (it's always so hard to get started!) but I think I can keep it up now. I have a prenatal DVD I can do as well.

Visit to Tulsa

HAPPY NEW YEAR! To explain my lack of posting during the past month--something changed where I could no longer post to my blog until today. I finally found a fix online to the "Access Denied" error I was getting. I found the answer in a Google group (another person was getting the same error) and just had to change my FTP path slightly. Now it works! Maybe the change was made because they now offer a new Blogger version through Google. I haven't switched to the new version yet because I've heard that there are some problems. Anyway....

We've been in Tulsa for 3 weeks visiting friends and family for the holidays. We ended up bringing Minga with us because the dog sitter cancelled on us the day before we left. It turned out to be for the best because Minga started going into heat the day we left. We suspected that she would be starting soon because she is 9 months old and was suddenly whining to go outside in the middle of the night (several nights in one week and several times each night) and wasn't eating like normal. Sure enough, she started bleeding the day we left for Tulsa. Luckily, we had bought her a doggie diaper with the padded inserts so we put that on her during the car ride. Even though we had bought the appropriate size for her weight, it seemed too big because it kept slipping off as she moved around in the car. We had the whole back seat covered with an old blanket so we ended up just leaving her diaper off since the blanket would catch any drips. She only bled a handful of drops each day, but it's enough that you want to keep a diaper on her whenever she's inside so you don't have to clean up her mess.

I can't tell you how many times we had to pull up the sagging diaper as Minga excitedly wagged her tail and romped around for each family member and guest that came into my parents' home! We didn't buy another one or add velcro to the one we had so we could pull it tighter because we kept thinking she only needed to wear it for one more day. Well, unfortunately for us she bled at least 10 days longer than most dogs for a total of 17 stinkin' days! Hopefully it was only long because it's her first. We haven't talked to the vet about it yet. All I can say is we had to wash the diaper several times because it was so rank due to the blood that didn't make it onto the padded insert because the diaper kept slipping. What a joke!

We have been staying at my parents' house in the nice guest room. My brother Greg has the room downstairs (he's going to undergrad at ORU but living at home now) and the other extra room was occupied by my sister Karen for a few days around Christmas (she has an apartment in town) and then by my brother John and his wife Lindsay and their 4 kids when they came to visit for 4 days after Christmas. So, it was a full house and full of laughter and fun!

I've worked in the office every day except for holidays (gotta keep those paychecks coming!). The computer at the office is much faster since I don't have to access network documents and spreadsheets through a VPN connection like I have to do when working from home in Florida. It's nice to see my co-workers again (rather than just hear them on the phone or read their emails). Also, it's very nice that my supervisor stressed that I could come and go as I please since I'm now considered an independent contractor (I get paid by the hour now). That allowed me to take long lunches to visit with friends or finish Christmas shopping.

We decided to stay in Tulsa for such a long time so we could see all our friends and family. However, there were a few friends we didn't get to see (mainly because they were out of town for about 12 days during that time). Sorry we missed seeing you! We were busy almost every night, which is a lot for us because we are used to and enjoy just staying home by ourselves almost every night (we are homebodies and need lots of downtime). We had a great visit though and were quite relaxed because we didn't have cooking and cleaning of our house to worry about. A big thanks to my mom for all those wonderful homecooked meals! We visited with many friends, played many board games, saw several movies, went out to eat many times, hung out at a couple of coffee houses, went to a few parties, played with the nieces & nephews and my sister, cousin and mom hosted a baby shower for me. Good times!

The only stressful part of the trip has been the Minga situation. Since she was in heat we had to keep her away from other dogs. We didn't get her fixed because we want to breed her with another pure lab when she's older. Part of the fence in my parents' yard had been taken out some time ago so the lawn guys could drive their large mowers in easily, so Craig went to Lowe's and bought a section of a picket fence and put that there. It didn't quite reach all the way across but it deterred Minga from leaving the yard. I've read about how male dogs will jump fences and do just about anything to get at a female in heat so I knew that section of fence wouldn't deter them. I worried and prayed about that quite a bit. I guess there just weren't any unfixed male dogs roaming about because we didn't see any on the streets or in the yards nearby. Thank God!

Minga is still too hyper when there are other people around so we kept putting her outside during the family gatherings. We just had to keep checking on her to make sure she was still there and that no other dogs were there. She threw up on my parents' new Berber carpet one day after someone fed her some roast beef scraps (I warned them not to give her too much). The puke was very liquidy and soaked right into the carpet. It was so hard to clean! The other carpet in the house was easy to clean, but not the Berber. My mom had an extra section of the carpet by the back door as a floormat and Minga managed to puke inches away from it but not on it. If she would have puked on the mat we could have trimmed off the dirty section or just thrown the whole thing out instead of scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing. Oy!

We drive home tomorrow and go back to our normal lives. It's about a 16 hour drive with food and gas stops. We are going to drive 12 and then stop for the night at a pet friendly hotel. We did that on the way to Tulsa and it worked out well. We were both tired after 12 hours and couldn't have safely made it another 4. I was worried that I'd have a rough ride because of my pregnancy but I didn't have any problems. We stopped more than usual so I could walk around to get my circulation going and avoid getting blood clots in my legs...Minga sure enjoyed the many opportunities to run around. Craig actually had to go to the bathroom more than I did because he was drinking lots of coffee. I urinated at every stop but never really really had to go and we never had to stop just because I had to go. Craig is usually so anxious to get to our destination, but he was so relaxed on this trip that it just made my day. He and didn't rush me at all and actually suggested that we stay at one rest stop for several more minutes because it was nice outside.

Craig's classes begin again on Monday. This semester he only has 3 and they don't start until 4pm.

Dog Dreams

We have some good laughs watching Minga nap sometimes. She dreams a lot and is an active sleeper. Her muscles twitch, her legs move and she whines or barks (muffled barks with her mouth mostly closed). When she was a lot younger she would do the suckling motion with her mouth (dreaming of momma, I assume). Whenever she barks a lot in her sleep we can't help but laugh because it's just cute and funny for some reason. It would be interesting to see what she's dreaming.

Last night was the first time I can remember hearing Craig talk in his sleep and actually understanding what he said AND remembering it in the morning so I could tell him! He very clearly said, "Good girl, Minga! Good girl." Haha! How sweet. We dream of her and I'm sure she dreams of us too.

Our Little Angel

Minga is being a total angel today! She didn't whine at all in the morning. This is her first day to be able to run free like a dog since her injury so you think she would be going crazy with excitement. But, she's not. I took her for a walk this morning and she behaved better than ever before! She didn't try to walk ahead of me and she didn't really react to other people or dogs when we passed them (that is, she didn't do her usual jumping up and down, panting and tugging at the leash to run after them). She kept her head high and didn't sniff along the ground like usual. Dogs behind fences were barking like crazy and she just kept walking. Oh, she made me so proud!

The only time she didn't keep walking was when we passed someone's Halloween display. There was a carved pumpkin with a hat and straw for hair, a scarecrow and a skeleton that looked like it was coming out of the ground. She was so scared of that display! I got her to calm down though and she gradually and cautiously walked over to it to sniff it. Then we moved on and the next time we passed it she just kept on walking. Way to go, Minga!

I think this is her Guam Day present to me. What is Guam day, you ask? It's a day Craig made up. It is the day before your birthday because it is your birthday in Guam then due to the international date line. So, you can celebrate for 2 days instead of just one! We love birthdays.

We have many nicknames for Minga. It's cute when our friends, parents and even the guys who are building our fence use one of her nicknames. Some of them are: Ming, Mingy, Mingert, Mingamos, Minga Bergman, Ming-Pong Ming-Pong, Mingtropolis, Minga Mae, Mingaroo, Mingarooski, Puppins and Slobberdonovich.

Minga is about 65 lbs now. Her black coat has always been shiny and gorgeous (our friends Mark & Beth recommended in the beginning that we feed her the healthy Nutro Natural Choice dog food and we have). We discovered that she loves ice cubes and the vet says they are okay for her teeth. What a cheap treat! She now runs to the kitchen whenever she hears me rummaging around in the ice bin.













I think her front legs look funny when she lays like this:



Minga is so tall when she stands on her hind legs now! She still jumps up on people (that's like her one bad habit, or puppy sin, as Craig calls it). That is a hard habit to break because she just gets so excited to see anyone and everyone that she jumps up to greet them (this is really bad when she's muddy!). The guy who repaired our washer said we should stick our knee out quickly when she jumps up and that will hit her chest and knock her back on her butt and eventually she won't jump up on anyone because she will get the point. It worked for him and his big dogs. The problem with that is that Minga no longer jumps up on me because I catch her before she does and tell her to "Stay down" and she does. (If strangers only knew in time to tell her to stay down they wouldn't be jumped on either.) So, that leaves Craig and everyone else to give her the knee. It's hard to get everyone else to do that though ("Hey Mailman, just stick your knee out and knock her down with it!") so who knows how we will break her of this bad habit.



The other day I felt like I was using "The Force" on Minga. She was out on the office balcony and I was sitting at my desk. She decided that she wanted to come back inside so she started jumping up on the sliding glass door and barking. I said, "No" and stared at her. She stopped for a minute but then continued. So, I stuck my arm out and pointed at her and gave her a mean look but didn't say anything. She immediately sat down and then quickly layed down and just looked at me. She stayed like that for awhile. Some time later she jumped up so I did the same thing and she responded in the same way. Even later that day I was able to just look at her with my arm outstretched and she obeyed. But, once I thought about how it was like I was using "The Force" I lost my powers because I kept laughing every time I tried it thereafter. I cracked up so hard and Minga just stood there staring at me. She could tell I wasn't serious anymore. It was fun though and I had a few good laughs.

Speaking of a few good laughs, I had a few when I looked at the many pictures we have of Minga where one eye is green like a zombie or robot something. It's always the right eye, so I think something's going on there and we should maybe fear for our lives because "it" will one day take over her and then us.



What a dirty zombie dog!





Oh, and another thing about Minga that makes me laugh...sometimes she will be whining about something (like wanting to come into the bathroom with me but she can't because I shut the door). She will whine for a bit outside the door and I will tell her, "No". Then she'll lie down and as she does so she lets out a really funny whiney sigh. It is such a funny sound and it makes me laugh every time!