Sunday, March 9, 2008

What a mess!

This is the mess I came home to Thursday night. We let Max tear up his toys like this because we don't want him to tear up our stuff. I hope that is not teaching him anything bad. He is still a puppy who likes to chew. My friend sent an email while I was gone and told me the following. "I called the house last night and forgot that you were gone. I talked with M for a bit and he said Max was sitting on the couch, staring at the door, waiting for you for 30 minutes. When we were talking, he started to do it again. I thought that was so sweet, that he was missing his mommy." That brought a smile to my face. Max met a friend while I was out of town. M took him for a walk and came across another black lab about the same size as Max. He was 1 1/2 years old and his name was Will. He said they played together about 30 minutes or so and had a good time. Maybe we'll run into him another day.

Friday afternoon I took Max to the vet. We have noticed him limping just a bit and wanted to make sure everything is alright. Our neighbors who had a yellow lab a month or so older than Max had to put their dog down because he had hip dysplasia. When that happens, they can't do surgery until the dog is full grown which is at least one year old and sometimes older. Their puppy was whining everytime he walked around so he would have been in pain that whole time. Ever since then, I have been hoping that won't happen to Max. It is common in labs. Anyway, the vet doesn't think we have anything to worry about for now, but he recommended giving Max fish oil to help with his muscle and tissue development. He said sometimes the socket is more shallow than the bone. He also said this would be almost fully developed between 8 and 10 months so we just need to watch him to see if we see any other signs. It's hard to know because Max hardly ever yelps about anything...even if you step on him by accident. When we got home from the vet, I took Max for a walk. He has started running at you and will run into your legs if you don't move out of the way. This is not fun. So on the walk he started running toward me. I tried to move out of the way but was not fast enough. One minute I was standing up, the next I was lying flat on my back. I hit my head and my back. Falling is not fun as an adult...it's a long way to the ground even for someone only 5'4". I am glad no one was around because I am sure it looked funny. I expected to have a bruise the size of Texas on my bum, but I just have a tiny little bruise. It is definitely sore though. I need to work on my reaction time I guess.

Saturday we went bowling with some friends from M's work. It was their anniversary so we then took their 1 1/2 year old son home with us so they could go to dinner alone (they have 4 kids so this is a rarity). He was only with us for about 3 hours. She told me when she came to pick him up that we were his first babysitters outside of family. She had wanted to call us multiple times to see how he was doing. He is one of the happiest babies I've ever seen so we had a good time. Max did so well around him, too. He really wanted to eat the boy's peanut butter sandwich and crackers which were on a blanket on the floor, but he minded very well and left the boy and his food alone. If we ever have kiddos, I think Max will be a great dog around them.

Even though we mentioned the time change at least half a dozen times Saturday, I forgot to change our clocks back and we missed church this morning. It was a pretty lazy day, but it was nice. I think I needed the extra sleep because I slept until about 9:30. Losing an hour seems to make a huge difference. I guess at least that's out of the way until next year. This is a picture of Max from this morning. No matter how small the amount of space, he thinks he will fit. Isn't he a cutie (That cannot be said of me. How do I even do that with my chin?)?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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WAMM said...

It's fun to see how many of the same things you guys run into with Max as we ran into with Bexar. I think letting him destroy his toys is a great idea. We have always taken the approach of making sure Bexar had plenty of toys since they are easier to replace than shoes and furniture. Toys can get expensive too, but still cheaper than house stuff. Bex had a similar problem with his hips at that age. The vet told us almost the exact same thing. Bex also used to smash into our legs alot at that age. He has mostly stopped that, but when he is playing with another dog I sometimes have to take a defensive stance. He has almost blown out my knee backward a couple times.