11 posts tagged “hugo”

I check Vox almost daily, but I haven't posted.  There's not a lot to write, honestly.  But I did get this cool new camera about 6 weeks ago.  Been playing around with it quite a bit.  I realized I could easily just post some pics with blurbs for an update. 

 

So, the first 1500 pictures were of our "kids".  They were willing subjects.  Two things I immediately loved about the camera: ability to manipulate settings to avoid using the dreaded flash, and being able to shorten my depth of field. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I bought the electric tea kettle from Sur La Table.  Well, you can get it anywhere, I think, but I had gift cards to SLT.  This thing IS everything it's cracked up to be.  Boils a full pitcher of water in 8 minutes, brings water to the perfect green/white/oolong tea brewing temp.  Seriously, it makes a HUGE difference, makes tea so, so... accessible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy had a birthday, which we actually celebrated.  (Seriously, we have to make concerted efforts NOT to let birthdays and other celebratory occasions fly by unnoticed.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, we took a week of evenings and installed a garden bed over this packed Texas clay.  Bought a roto-tiller in the process.  My mom's coming for a visit next weekend.  She's already been informed that she needs to pack her garden gloves and that I WILL be taking her straight to the nursery once she gets off the plane.  Okay, maybe I'll let her unpack first.

 

Oh, and we found out that Hugo likes to eat garden dirt.

 

 

 

 

 Then Easter.  We got together with friends and smashed eggs over each other's heads.  Why?  What did you do for Easter??

Of course, there was major cooking/baking/eating to be done.  I love having friends who love food as much as I do.  I was responsible for the cake.  Thanks again, Epicurious, it was delish.

 

Show us a baby animal.

 

I could just as easily show you a picture of Hugo now, because, even though he's only two, he acts like a big honkin' puppy.

I'm sure Hugo was small at some point.  Simple Biology tells me this.  We just never knew him in a compact form.  When the husband and I decided that we wanted to get a dog, orrrrrrrrr when I finally wore the husband down until he caved and let me get a dog, I had only one condition to follow: it must be a puppy.  You know, for the bonding that goes on between owner and puppy.  :::eyeroll::: Hub was sure that he would only bond with the dog if it was cute.  Nevermind the headache and hassle of having a baby animal around the house.  I guess we just had to live it.

One thing I did know about labs is the two classes of energy.  Didn't know this?  Yeah, it was a learning experience for me too, at one point.  Look around.  Labs are probably the most common dog around still, and you can break them down into two groups: the English style, which is thicker, tankier, and lower energy, and the long-and-lean style, which is a lot more prevalent in the states and can be denoted by well, leaner labs with a lot more energy.  Now, don't get me wrong here, labs are working dogs.  English or long-and-lean, it doesn't matter, they can still go for 3-mile runs and still be game for a good round of fetch in the backyard.  Oh, I really - and I mean really - had wanted to get an adult dog from a rescue.  But, given that I wanted a lab, and given that I was barely getting my husband to go along with it, I needed genetics working for me at that point.  I was a desperate woman.

 

So I called around to breeders.  It didn't take long until I found a wonderful woman, whose entire life is devoted to her labs, down near Austin.  She told me she had a three-month-old chocolate male pup, who had a wonderful middle-of-the-road temperment, but unfortunately also had an overbite.  Normally she didn't sell dogs to people not interested in showing, but here she was with a dog she couldn't show and couldn't breed.  Hmmmmm.  She offered to bring him up for a dog show near us that some of her other dogs were in.  The hub and I drove out to the show, and the breeder showed us to her van (or small bus?) where our Hugo was hanging out.  We were immediately shocked.

33 lbs Hugo was, when we first saw him.  Instead of this cute handful we were expecting, Hugo looked like the puppy that ate the other puppies.  We (or, I) fell for him right away, and the rest is history.  I suppose it bears mentioning that, while it was definitely a slow-to-warm up situation, Hub is completely head over heels for this dog now.  If you've ever met a dog like him, I'm sure you understand. 

I ran 3 miles in 30 minutes this morning without stopping once.  Hot damn!

I'd like to thank:

• My beloved dog Hugo for his undying support and freakishly disapproving stares on the mornings that I don't go for a jog
• The retractable leash that we bought two months ago that allowed Hugo to run at his own pace while still obeying that ever-important leash law
• My Saucony running shoes, without which I might still be having knee issues
• My Wal-mart $10 special Indiglo digital watch (with stopwatch function, ooh ahh) that tells me how long I've been running, and perhaps most importantly - when I can stop!
• My alarm clock, for waking me up at 5:15 every morning
• My doctor, for prescribing my puffer and helping me realize that the reason I haven't been suffering from my exercise-induced asthma for the last 10 years is not a medical phenomenon, but rather an indicator that I haven't actually been exercising in as long.

Seriously though, it was the weirdest thing.  I was getting up every day and running/walking this beginning runner's training program from Runner's World.  I had reached the point where I was running 5 minutes and walking 1 minute and repeating that cycle to fill out a 30-minute time slot without much ado.  The next "bump up", I ran 6 minutes and walked 1 minute for 30 minutes. 

Then, out of the clear blue sky, Saturday, I was supposed to run 8 minutes and accidentally ran 9 before I checked my watch.  I felt fine, so I continued until I needed a little rest.  20 minutes straight I ran that day.  I then walked a minute, then ran 10 minutes home.  What the heck was all that about?!  Who goes from running 6 minutes and walking 1 minute, to running 20 minutes, walking one, then another 10?  Crazy. 

But today I topped it.  Just ran the whole damn way.  The dog thought I was nuts, but still enjoyed the run just the same.  I have never run that far before in my life.  I am awesome.  :)

Ike is going to miss us, I'm sure of it.  I know this because we're actually preparing for it.  They say that if the storm travels its projected path, we'll only sustain Tropical Storm winds here.  Something in the neighborhood of 40-60 mph.  We were advised to bring in our "debris".  Funny that they call it debris.  I mean, up until the point where it's sucked into the sky it's actually of value to someone, right?  Either way, we have a grill - for some reason I'm calling it a barbecue today - that is consistently knocked over by the line-drive winds we get during regular, unnamed storms.  Thus, we stashed our patio chairs and table and windchimes in the garage.  Andy and I walked the grill around to the front entrance of the garage.  It felt a little silly, preparing for a storm like that.  Either way, we have two glass doors leading out to our patio.  I'dve felt stupid if that grill had come crashing through one of the doors tomorrow.

 

With regard to the storm, Hugo has all the anxiety of a button.  He's had a crash-bang couple of days for a dog.  I was making up for my time away from home earlier this week.  Yesterday, he went to Doggie Daycare - which is Disney World (or Disneyland at least) for pups.  They gave him a bath and a nail clip.  Came home smelling like flowers and had a light blue gingham kerchief around his neck.  We took the thing off at home so he could try to regain some of his dignity.

Today, we went hiking.  There's a remote park, north of everything, pretty near here.  I took Hugo for his first off-leash expedition.  He was fabulous.  Our family dog, Trixie, was never good off-leash.  The minute she knew she was free, she took off like a shot and never looked back.  Hugo was a natural.  Sniffer to the floor of the field/woods at all times.  He watched me and followed if I turned to walk another direction.  If he wasn't watching, a simple "Hey, hey!" brought him running.  And my proudest moment, while we were in the woods, he not only stuck to the trail, but if he got ahead of me too far for his liking, he'd stop, crane his neck to look back at me, and wait until I got closer until he trailblazed again. 

There were big low clouds and a few sprinkles looming.  Just a sign that I was doing the right thing by getting Hugo

 out and about as much as I can these last two days.  It might be a long weekend for him, cooped up in the house.

As for tonight, he's made a good effort at his trusty Nylabone, and has subsequently conked out on his dog bed as I write this.  When the wind and rain starts tomorrow, it won't bother him either.  Funny how I aspire to be like him sometimes.    

1. I'm tired.  Okay, I'm cheating.  Lack of rest is never the reason I'm cranky, it's more like the catalyst.  Fatigue is a bad mood enabler without which I would probably be taking all this in stride.
2. I got a bum travel schedule for next week.  I finally got my husband to come with me on my sister-in-law's shower (yes, that shower) next weekend.  We were to depart on a Friday and return on Sunday.  I got scheduled in our plant on Friday.  An hour north of Baltimore.  No way in hell I'm going to be able to make what I need to at the plant and catch up with the hub in St. Louis on Friday night, although I'm going to try.  Just had to break the news that he'll more than likely be overnighting with my brother and sister-in-law by himself.  He's cranky (and tired) too.  This conversation didn't go very well.
3. The owner of Hugo's dog kennel gave me a thorough run-down of why he is a terrible dog when I picked him up last night.  Now, I decided long ago I wouldn't be a parent that defends their kids tooth and nail no matter what the teacher says, but I can't help it.  Her grievances were as follows:
• "Hugo doesn't listen."  They can't get him to sit, down, or stay in daycare.  Know what?  He is a 1-year-old lab surrounded by about 30 other dogs.  He doesn't speak English, and bless him - he's just a little on the slow side.  The hub and I work with him constantly, but he's just not 100% reliable under distraction - even with us.  So I wouldn't really expect Hugo to listen to strangers under heavy distraction either.
• "Hugo guards the water bowl."  I needed clarification on this.  By "guarding" she didn't mean showing aggression to dogs trying to approach the water bowl.  She meant that he lays down, puts his paws on either side of the bowl, and wallows in it.  That's not guarding, lady, he's just trying to swim in a very small wading pool.  She was upset that the other dogs 'don't get a chance to have a drink'.  That, to her was completely unacceptable.  "It's okay to swim in the wading pools outside, but in the indoor water bowls, he is only allowed to drink standing up."  In fact, she demonstrated that she was able to "finally" get Hugo to stand up when he drank by yelling "HUGO! STAND UP!" So now I'm envisioning my dog being screamed at for trying to cool off and not understanding what he's doing wrong.  And it makes me angry.
• "He humps the other dogs a lot."  I ask, "Do you correct him?"  She responds, "Yes, do you?"  I calmly explained that, when we go to the dog park, Hugo does not proposition the other dogs and I can't correct a behavior that I do not see.  I learned awhile back that the whole humping thing is a way for dogs to impose rank on other dogs.  Nothing sexual in nature.  Hugo knows exactly where he stands with us.  When we're around, he is very content just being one of the four-legged rabble. 
  This brings me to a grievance I have with them.  They crate as punishment.  So now, going in the crate is a very negative thing for Hugo.  A problem - since Hugo is crated when we are away from the house.
• "He pees and poops in his kennel."  "Is this a problem at home?" she asked.  Nope.  Never eliminates in the house or in his crate.  "Well, that is a problem here.  We are an indoor facility, and we had to clean up after him 8 times this weekend."  Quite frankly, he's probably afraid of these people and all their yelling.  He's probably confused as to what is "good" and "bad" behavior because it is clearly not a consistent message with what he's getting at home so he just waits until he's by himself to go.  Seems logical to me.
• "He barrels at the door of his kennel when the attendants come to let him out for daycare.  One of them lost a fingernail this weekend."  She's clearly trying to elicit some sort of apologetic or remorseful behavior from me at this point, but I just feebly say, "Okay."  I wanted to say "Then why don't you just keep the kennel door shut until he can compose himself before giving him what he wants?  We make Hugo "Wait" at doors leading outside for us to walk ahead of him." but my tongue was tied.
• "Have you cut back on his food?  He's overweight."  Okay now you're just looking for stuff to say.
• "We're going to have to see some improvement in his behavior if we're going to continue to be able to board him here."  Well, that's one thing I can help you with, lady.  We'll go ahead and cancel our other four bookings we have with you this summer and take our business elsewhere.  He came home to us dirty and smelling like urine.  I am abhorred.

So yeah, I'll get over it.  I'm on my third cup of coffee (although I've switched to decaf now) and I've had an apple hoping that a moderate amount of caffeine and some blood glucose (eh, fructose, whatever) will help shoo away this little storm cloud over my head.

1. Had the talk with my boss.  She was extremely supportive of me applying for this new team's position.  And so I did.  This morning.
2. Hub and I did the weekend up right.  Friday on our half day we went out for a fabulous lunch and caught the Indiana Jones movie.  Felt kinda like we were kids in school again, playing hooky.
3. Saturday we went to a crawfish boil, hosted by some Louisianans.  I had no qualms about taking tequila shots and ripping those little suckers apart and eating their insides (the crawfish, not our hosts).  I'm basically just a heathen at heart.  Or a drunk.  One of the two.
4. Sunday I stepped on the dog's Nylabone and sliced my foot open.  Aside from the fact that I can't continue training (did I mention I'm on a "Couch to 5K" training program?) until this bugger is healed, I'm REALLY hoping that I'm healed enough for my long-awaited pedicure this Saturday morning.  Running be damned.  I have priorities.
5. Sang in church with a mild hangover (note the tequila shots in bullet point #3), and felt like a hypocrite.  It's not the first time.  If only church were on Sunday afternoons...
6. Bought a rug for our living room after a year-and-a-half search.  Hugo thinks this is the best addition to our household since, well, him!
7. Cleaned the ENTIRE house Monday.  Not often that happens, even partially. 

The husband's off in Vegas this weekend for a bachelor party.  In his absence, I've actually done an admirable job (I think) keeping myself occupied.  First off, it has been an absolute GORGEOUS day.  Sunny and cool, temperatures hovering in the mid to upper 60s all day.  This is the atmospheric equivalent of a blank canvas.  The day has so much potential with weather such as this. 

First thing was first, Hugo and I went and got a cup of coffee from McDonald's.  (We're out of coffee filters, and I'm not planning on grocery shopping until tomorrow.)  After the coffee was finished, I threw on some old jeans and an old sweatshirt, tethered the dog under a tree, and did a thorough weeding of the entire yard and beds.  It was the first weeding of spring, and the thistles were HUGE already!  I pulled one out of the ground whose stalk was 1.5 inches at the base and whose main root was about 7 inches long.  Pretty impressive.  Hugo and I went in the house, cleaned up, and piled in the car.

Last week, I'd done a little research and found a nature trail in town that I could take Hugo to.  We drove to the outskirts of town, parked, and walked out to the nature trail.  Wouldn't you know it?  A few paces into the trail, we found a "washed out" bridge.  There'd been some pretty substantial rain last week, so apparently we were flooded.  We improvised.  There is a man-made lake nearby where a LOT of people had come to walk.  There was a paved trail around the walk.  Hugo seemed a little more enthusiastic about the nature trail, but he humored me.  There were plenty of dogs on the paved path that he could wags tails at and touch noses with. 

A little down the paved path, I realized that the paved path bordered the nature reserve.  So, Hugo and I off-roaded it.  I've never been more thankful for being an honorary boy scout growing up.  I had two brothers in boy scouts - one who is an eagle scout, and on family camping trips, they taught me everything they knew.  What poison ivy, poison oak, underground wasp nests, snake holes, etc look like.  First aid.  .  I'd have never led Hugo through the thicket otherwise.  Weeds were up to Hugo's shoulders, but not 10 yards through the weeds, we were out in a clearing.  We found the nature path.  :)  Oh we had a blast.  There was a flooded creek and a ravine.  We were in a cool forest with a tall canopy.  The ground was covered with soft mulch and twigs.  Hugo got a little off leash time to scout as he pleased.  He was a good trooper, always following me in a distinct radius. 

I haven't hiked in God knows how long.  I miss it.  I miss the time to myself.  I've been thinking a lot about this lately.  About self-restoration.  I've been thinking about how I feel like every day I get a little bit taken out of me.  Going to work, running errands, keeping up the house, taking care of the animals.  Some of these labors of love, but still labors nonetheless.  A little taken out of me.  Not a lot.  But over time, it adds up of course.  The effect is cumulative.  I get a little distressed, a little tired, a little resentful.  A little less like the person I want to be.  The only way to reverse the effect is to find a way to restore myself.  After some trial and error, I have recently figured out what restores me: reading, playing piano, and getting away from civilization.  I use the term "restore" because, shortly after we bought the piano, I spent an entire evening after work playing piano or reading a book in a quiet room upstairs.  I went to bed that night with a serene feeling - the feeling of being more "whole".  I can't really explain it better than that.

So yes, it's been a great weekend, and it's only half over.  I'm working on laundry and getting some things put away.  Tomorrow is cleaning and grocery shopping.  Then it'll be time to pick up the hubby from the airport before I know it! 

 

What's the biggest leap of faith you've ever had to take?

Probably not the biggest leap of faith, but we basically bought Hugo sight unseen. 

We decided that we wanted a puppy, and we wanted to get him/her from a breeder.  I've rescued a lot of cats in my day.  Enough to know that you can only really 'know' the personality of an adult animal, and that getting a kitten from a rescue is a complete crapshoot because you have no idea what kind of mental anguish has been inflicted on them until their quirks start to crop up.  Being completely new to dog ownership, we wanted to know that the puppy was coming from a loving, stable home.  We also knew enough to want to only support a reputable breeder that wasn't churning out dogs merely for profit.

That being said, I'd called a breeder from the Texas chapter of the Labrador Retriever Kennel Club to get referrals to some reputable breeders down in our area.  She asked a ton of questions.  Found out that we wanted a pet, and that we didn't have a preference for color or gender.  She told me that she actually had a 3-month old chocolate lab male pup with an overbite.  She said the pup's entire litter had been distributed among her breeder friends to be show dogs.  This guy's overbite didn't make him show quality.  She told us what her going rate was, and that she'd take some money off for the overbite.  She emailed us a couple of pictures.  The hitch was, her ranch was in the Hill Country - about four hours south of us.  BUT, she was coming to the Dallas area for a show that weekend, and she could bring the puppy with her if we were interested. 

I knew exactly how I'd wanted this puppy thing to play out.  Visit the breeder, see where the pup grew up.  Meet both parents, if possible.  Meet the puppy.  Get a feel for their personality.  My desire to have a dog completely blew my rational decision-making out the window.  "Sure!" I told her, bring up the puppy.  So we drove out to her dog show, met her and her other show dogs.  Then we met Hugo.  The story goes on, but I'll stop there.  There are so many times that my husband and I have looked at Hugo and have commented aloud how unbelievably BADLY that situation could have turned out.  We'd committed to a dog that we'd never even met.  So, so stupid, but Hugo is a dream.  It really couldn't have turned out better.

There are so many reasons I love this dog, but one is that - no matter how petrified he is - he will stand sentinel against something that he feels is a threat to my safety.  He is protective of me.  This makes me laugh on a daily basis, because of the things he chooses to defend me from.  Public enemy #1: The vacuum.  This is where my husband and I really realized what he was doing.  I wouldn't say that he's fearful of the vacuum, but more that he has a healthy respect for it.  When it is on, he gives it a wide berth.  But every single time I vacuum, he insists on being in the same room.  The cats more have a "Good luck, I'm outta here" attitude.  But Hugo will hunker against a wall and watch the vacuum with a glance up to my face here and there.  I've tried shutting the thing off and giving him the opportunity to exit the room,  but he never does.  When I finish with one room and move on to another, he follows me.  Throughout the entire house. 

The other object that he watches carefully is the hair dryer.  So we go through this dance every single day.  When Hugo hears the hair dryer, he comes running through the house and plops down across the bathroom to watch me.  But he HATES the hair dryer.

It bears mentioning that Hugo is never, ever aggressive.  He doesn't make a sound.  He doesn't bristle.  He just observes to see if a situation escalates.  There have been two situations where I've seen Hugo give the "back off".  Once was when we were in the kitchen, and I had iTunes playing in the other room.  Pearl Jam's "Rival," which has snarling dogs in the intro before any music starts, came on the speakers.  Hugo perked up immediately.  The sound was coming from the other room.  When I heard it, I immediately started to walk into the other room to change the song.  Hugo darted in front of me and blocked my exit from the kitchen, all the while, facing the other room.  Then he bristled, snarled and charged toward the sound.  Only to find nothing, of course.  Then the confusion set in.  But, boy was I impressed!

The other time was when I was walking him.  We walk in the early morning, before sunrise.  Usually we are out on our own, but one morning, Hugo perked up, stopped walking, then swung around to face the other direction.  His ears were perked, and he pointed his head forward - watching.  All of the sudden, a male jogger came into view.  He saw the dog and diverted his path to give us the wide berth. 

Hugo is a marshmallow, but I'm sure glad to have 80 lbs of pure muscle on my side.  ;)

How often do your pets get a bath?  Is a fun experience, or something you (and they) dread?

Hugo gets a bath about every three weeks in the winter and every week - at least - in the summer.  He L.O.V.E.S. baths.  Revels in them.  I think his father is a manatee.  No, seriously.  Hugo loves all things having to do with water.  I once took him for a walk in the rain, and he laid down in a gutter and let the water flow over him.  I think I saw his eyes rolling back in his head.  You know, come to think of it - he kind of reminds me of Albert Finney's character in Big Fish.  He just seems tied to water somehow.  At least daily, Hugo jumps in our bathtub where he gets his baths, looks at me expectantly, and wags his tail.  Pleeeease?

Here's a picture of the big doof in his baby pool in our backyard last summer.  This pretty much sums it up.