My Wife...dog training....and me

When I started this blog weeks ago, you might have noticed the title was "Dog's, my wife, family and..oh yeah..me". I've been talking mostly about the impact my dogs have had on my life, especially the passing of my Buddy and the recent addition of Buster.

Today, it's my wife's turn in the spotlight. When I brought up getting a new puppy over a month ago, Kathleen said NO WAY!!. I asked again..she said NO..I asked a few days later, she said no. I noticed the NO was not quite a loud. So..I started looking...LOL. I sent her pictures of cute little puppies. She said no again and to stop sending the pictures. So..of course I sent a few more. Keep in mind, she knew at that time in a few short weeks my son Michael and I were going to be having surgery on our knees and both Mike and Tommy were going to be starting college in a few weeks...and she does have a full time job. So..I sent a few more pictures of puppies for sale I found on the Internet. She said.."if we get a new puppy, I'm not going to be the only one getting up in the middle of the night, picking up the back yard full of poop, training him..etc.." Mike, Tommy and I all said "Of course not..We are all going to help". Kathleen knew full well that she was going to be doing most of the puppy work. But she went along with it anyway. She finally gave me the nod to start puppy shopping. HA!! My plan worked. I knew she couldn't resist those cute puppy pictures. So..here we are, two weeks into having Buster at home. I'm still limping around on crutches sitting up stairs since 5:00 am Saturday morning while Kathleen is down stairs taking care of Buster and Bogey. She was up at 3:30 am this morning, took Buster outside..went back to bed for a hour or so and then up again at 5:00 am. She gets up every morning around 4:30 am to let Buster outside. She's picking up the messes the little guy has made...and still doing all the laundry, picking up the house, helping the boys with their college prep, cooking dinners, making lunches, basically making our house a home...and of course working at her full time job. And she's doing it all without complaining. As I type this I hear her downstairs saying "No biting" for about the 5th time in the last 10 minutes. Buster is getting trained by the world's best trainer. I know..she trained me. Buster doesn't stand a chance. LOL. She's amazing. We are all lucky to have her training us. You too Bogey. Nod and say WOOF!!

Why everyone needs a dog

I started this blog with a comment about why I would want to do this again. "This" being get a new puppy. I know my wife Kathleen was wondering the same thing. We're busy, having three son's, ages 20-18-18, our kids are taking care of themselves for the most part so we've got a little more free time these days. Did we really want to get tied down to having to take care of a puppy? Well..it's been 5 days and I can honestly say it's been the most enjoyable 5 days my family has had in many years. Is it a lot of work? You bet. Do we all need some extra sleep about now? Yep..but Buster did make it ALMOST through the night last night so we can't really complain at all. The best part of having a new puppy around the house is seeing the energy of a little puppy. The look on his face when he tries to catch a fly for the first time. His eyes are seeing everything for the first time. It's also very entertaining to see a puppy make everything a toy. You can buy him the most expensive doggy toy in the world only to watch him play for hours with an old sock or try to pull off a tag from Bogey's bed. Don't tell the mattress police. Mike and I were playing with Buster on Thursday. He was is full puppy mode at the time. Non stop action. The world is his playground. Mike made a comment to me about how much energy Buster has. I told Mike that I think Buster is thinking..."hey, I'm a dog, I've got about 12 good years in this world..I'm not wasting a minute". Good advice for us all. We can all learn something from having a puppy full of so much life around us from time to time. We all have a limited about of time in this world. Let's not waste a minute of it. Go out and make the world your playground.

Here is a quick little video of what I am taking about..I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for reading..

I'm so confused!!!

While I promised myself I didn't want to bring up politics on my Dog Blog...I can't help myself this morning and hopefully while being "slightly" political this morning, I'll still manage to tie it all back to my dog.

A few years ago while filling up my gas tank I was behind a man buying a small bottle of water. He was complaining about the high cost of gas at the time. I think the gas was around $3.50 per gallon. He was being a rather large jerk to the poor kid working behind the counter, like it was this kids fault that gas was expensive. As he was complaining about the high price of gas, he was also paying for that small bottle of water....the price was well over a dollar for that small bottle of water. I remember chatting with the guy behind the counter about how this guy just complained about paying $3.50 per gallon for the gas, yet he had no problem paying about 5 times that price per gallon for a bottle of WATER!!! So...how does this tie into dogs and politics.

This weekend my wife Kathleen took Bogey to the vet for his shots. He also had a few other problems (mostly mental) that we wanted to take care of before we bring home the new puppy in two days. The bill from the vet was almost $250.00. I haven't received my bill yet from the Dr. that performed my knee surgery but I am expecting my Co-Pay to be less than the bill we paid for that trip to the vet. I'm not complaining about the vet bill. She needs to pay the bills. And Bogey is worth it. He's worth it..isn't he? Anybody? A little help? Ok, back to my point...so where I am going with this? Here is my question for the day. We keep hearing about how bad our health care system is in this country (you won't hear me complaining, I love my medical care) and how we need to totally overhaul our medical care system. It's a CRISIS!!!!AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....yet I wonder how many people who don't feel the need to purchase health care...or want to complain about how expensive their health care is...won't bat an eye to spend just as much or more money on health care for their pets. They also think health care is too expensive but will spend more money on a daily basis for a pack of cigarettes, or a six pack of beer, or a cup of Starbucks coffee, OR A BOTTLE OF WATER...than they spend on their own or their kids health care. The priorities of some people in this country need some serious adjustments. How many poor people in this country don't have health care insurance because they claim they can't afford it.. yet spend money every day on things that at the end of the day, make them sick...such as cigarettes, beer, high fat fast food. Poor people in third world countries are dying because they don't have enough food..while millions of poor people in the USA are over weight, smoke cigarettes and drink beer...and still have enough money to take care of their pets, yet can't afford health care for their kids. I'm I missing something here??? Anyone?? Ok, I'm off my soapbox...tomorrow back to dogs. Talking about dogs is more fun, people are confusing...and complain too much. Bogey just said WOOF....without using a teleprompter....and he writes his own material.