The Father's Day Finnigan

Finnigan took a stroll through the Ottawa Farmer's Market today.

He looks like a 12-year-old boy; all legs and feet.

Gordie, The Tooth Fairy

We adore Finnigan, of course, but our love for 12-year-old Gordie knows no bounds.

He's the best pug in the world, despite the barking and the peeing in the house over the years.

He's my best friend, toothless and all.

Gotta love puppies: Otherwise you'd kill them

Sorry to Finnigan fans, for not updating this blog in the last week.
It just seemed that most of the pictures were "more of the same".
We've spent the last few days trying to keep Finn from killing himself and/or Gordie, the pug.
Already this week, he knocked himself out hitting the wall while trying to catch a ball, swallowed a chew bone whole causing much consternation on our part and some fabulously shaped diarrhea on his part, and nearly popped his shoulder out of his socket while lunging at me while on a leash.
Because of the whole chewbone fiasco, Scott has had to get up every other hour every night for the past week.
Truly, Finn is a little shit, in more ways than one.
Gordie, meanwhile, has generally adapted from a) having nearly all his teeth pulled b) losing Ming on the very same day c) trying to recover from surgery and trauma d) having Finnigan drag him around by the collar.
Truly, not only is Finnigan a shit, but he's a first class asshole.
Gotta love puppies.
Otherwise, you'd kill 'em.

The weekend Finnigan

It appears that young Finnigan is in a growth spirt.

Some shots of him on a path near Ramsayville Road.

The Daily Finnigan

Finnigan's first trip to the river.

And in the water.

A stick!

The Chew

What's a boy to do? How is he supposed to chew his stogie after the evil toothfairy took away 10 of this teeth?

Here, Gordie gets creative.

The Daily Finnigan

Tea Time

The Daily Finnigan: Conroy Dog Park

Finnigan Pays First Visit to Conroy Pit

Like the groundhog, he sees his shadow. Spring!

 

Around the Maypole

Mud. Yumm!

Gettin' checked out

Later, dudes!

Gordie droppings

It's official.
Gordie is in need of a good head shrink.
Today, he and Finn got into a fight over a chewbone and he shat himself.
Right under the chair in which I am currently sitting.
In an effort to calm the fight, I rolled over his poo and spread it all over.
Fortunately, there is a plastic chairguard under my wheels and it didn't spread to the carpet.
You might think that a pug doesn't make much of a mess, but you would be wrong.
Gordie has big dog poos.
Dr. Oz would be proud. They are perfectly shaped and bulky.
Until you roll over them with a desk chair.
I do no have a photo to accompany this rather disturbing story.
You're welcome.

The Daily Finnigan: New Friends

Scott took Finnigan to the park last night where he met his first friend.

No further comments necessary.

The Daily Finnigan: Pet Sematary

Scary Stephen King hound found at Pet Sematary. Begs for food. Threatens to substitute your left ankle.

Well?

Landscaping

We can only hope that Finnigan was trying to be of use.

Alpha Pug

I was so proud of Gordon J. Blackstone this morning.

Like the canine version of Mickey Rourke that he is, Gordie has taken a number of nasty beatings from his nemesis Huckleberry Finnigan who is on him like white on rice day in, and day out.

Today, the old codger won his first fight.

I heard a hardy yelp from Finn and looked over to see him favoring his left front paw and hobbling around. Gordie had inflicted, it seems, a nasty wound and finally won the title: Alpha Pug.

Good job, Gordie.

Pretty good work for a dog with only one fang.

Finnigan of the forest

Baby's first walk in the forest.

Scott had to tie him to a tree to get the second shot.

Gordie and I stayed home and drank lattes.

Sleeping with the enemy

As usual, I woke up this morning at 5:30 a.m.
I've had a cough for months and if I don't quell it with Buckley's Mixture or a good glug of water, I will pee myself. And we girls know there's nothing worse than coughing on a full bladder.
Too much information, I know.
I gingerly crawled from the bed home so as not to wake the alligator sleeping soundly at the bottom. Usually, I have to wake up Scott and have him hold Finnigan until I go to the bathroom, but this morning the alligator didn't even stir.
Bliss.
As I crawled back into bed, Scott stirred then lept from the bed grabbing his leg. Muscle cramp.
Up he got, along with Finn and thus our dreams of sleeping in on a Sunday morning were dashed once again.
It's not Finn's fault, our sleeplessness.
He is a champion sleeper for a puppy.
I suppose it from years sleeping with Ming, the pug.

Ming, the allergic pug.
Ming, the COPD pug.
Ming, the great shedder.
It's been more than a week and I haven't had to strip the sheets. When Ming was around, we had to change the bed every second night because of the fur.
Most nights, Ming would shake and shimmer, pace and wheeze.
If she were alive today, I would be sleeping on the couch. For the next four months.
That's because allergy season sent her into a tizzy and the only surface where she could settle comfortably was the leather couch.
It's been only a couple of weeks and I miss Ming terribly.
But I am grateful that her replacement is a sound sleeper.

Making up is so worth it!

I'm tired of fighting, Gordie. Let's be friends.

I'm so lonely.

What's a little spooning between friends?

The Daily Finnigan: Dog Wars

It's payback time

For years, Gordie the pug has ruled the roost and set the tone for the household.

When he arrived on the scene, he began a systematic effort to rid the place of any feline presence. As a result, our black cat Cleo had to live in the furnace room for while. Fortunately, we found her a good home devoid of menacing pugs.

Even though Hannah grew to be five times his size, Gordie never backed down from a good bone standoff. Not once. I got in the middle once or twice and I have the scars to prove it. Gordie did the biting with his twisted little pug teeth.

He barked at all passersby and snapped at the mailman. He sucked Ming's ears so hard that when he went for dental surgery, the vet had to pluck out the hairs from between his teeth.

Now it's payback time.

There's a new sheriff in town and his name is Finnigan. The puppy will not leave Gordie alone and so the poor little guy spends most of the day hiding behind my chair. I feel bad, but I'm confident that Gordie will rally and put the little bugger in his place once and for all.

Pug versus baby

I'm glad that my little granddaughter is getting to know Finnigan.
At least she'll realize that all dogs aren't menacing.
Gordie hates the baby and, as a result, I can only visit her downstairs in her parents' apartment. Gordie would kill her, I'm sure if he were left with Skylar unattended and so he is not permitted to be within her breathing space. The vet tech told us that sometimes dogs mistake a baby's cry for a wounded animal and their instinct is to put the child out of her misery.
As a result of this horrifying story, Gordie is banished from the baby's presence.
Too bad. Otherwise, Gordie is a wonderful dog.

When we first brought Skylar home, Gordie was good with her. He'd even sit in the chair beside me. Now he's turned into something like this.

Finnigan is ready for his close-up

I'll admit that I'm a bit of stage mom.
The pugs and Hannah are immortalized on video. They are all over YouTube and Funny or Die.
That's because we think everything they do is cute.
So imagine my surprise when this picture of Finnigan showed up on CTV Ottawa News last night as their picture of the day.

The tradition continues.

Stop Ottawa Pet Killers

Attention, pet owners:

It's up to us to get this douchebag. Keep your eyes peeled.

In the meantime, take this advice. Watch your pet. Don't let him/her eat stuff in the park.

One of my Facebook friends out west reported seeing a Hell's Angel guy bawling his eyes out after taking his cat to the vet after he ate anti-freeze. The cat died screaming.

We must remain vigilante.

Thanks for listening.

People like this deserve to be killed and eaten by dogs.

Please share this post. :)

Everyone says the same thing about Finnigan.

"Goodness," they say. "Look at the paws. You know, he's going to be a big boy."

As if we weren't aware of this fact. As if Finn was the first Texas sized hound that Scott and I have ever owned. I mean, look at those things up there, those paws.

They are practically elephantine.

The oracles in the dog park must have assumed that he was a rescue of questionable lineage. He wasn't. We paid $250 for him -- a steal in my view. We got to see his mother. We got a description of the perp who impregnated her.

So we have a pretty good idea about how he's going to act and what he's going to look like.

Now before you all get all uppity about us buying a pup instead of finding one at a shelter, let's make one thing clear. We tried to rescue a puppy, but all they had were angry or incontinent old dogs. I didn't want a dog who had been whipped by his owner. I had one of those. He nearly took the leg off a jogger, and he ripped the coat off the Sears guy who came to repair the snowblower. I had to put him down for his anger issues.

As for the old guys, they aren't my problem. We already dispatched an old, wheezy dog who was on the verge of incontinence. We didn't take him to the shelter to give someone else the problem.

Besides, we still have Gordie, who pees everywhere.

Nope. We wanted the latest model with the new puppy smell.

And that's what we got. Twenty pounds of wet fur attached to an over-active penis and a pair of nippy jaws.

So if you see me on the street, don't ask if he's a rescue and don't bother with the predictions of size, shape or demeanor.

We're covered.

No puppy is perfect, right?

The notices are in and Finnigan is getting mixed reviews.

"Look! He's the most wonderful puppy ever!" -- Shyla in the basement.

"What's a puppy?| Skylar, the four-month-old.

"Get lost," Gordie.

"He puked on me in the car!" Marissa.

 "Where is my iPhone? Mama Rose.

"Finn, give me those shoes," Papa Scott.

Four out of five stars is pretty good.

No puppy is perfect, right?

Black labs: They eat horses don't they?

Oprah, the female fountain of all wisdom has one piece of advice which resonates with me.
If you know better, you do better.
This advice holds very true when it comes to animal training.
When you're young and busy, you think, "Well, I'll just put down a mountain of kibble and the dog will eat when he's hungry." Or "he's a dog; he won't live long enough to have teeth rot."
Expensive mistakes, both.
Many of my early dogs became very fat because of the first theory. Gordie ended up being three times his proper weight because he just never stopped eating.
And then got bladder stones which cost me $3,000.
Then he got pancreatitis which cost me another $2,500.
The whole dental ignorance on my part was, by far, the worst mistake.
Here is what happens if you don't do dental maintenance on a pug.

Today, I am the proud owner of a vial of 10 of Gordie's teeth, which I'm thinking of turning into a neckace to try to sell to Mickey Rourke so I can pay my son back the $3,000 I owe him.

I've heard Mickey will buy anything.

The vet bill is not the worst of it. Now I have a toothless pug.

A pug who now looks like this.

I've been checking online to see if I can get a grill to keep his tongue in. Something like this.

Finnigan is getting schooled early.
Our new vet, Dr. Dave has suggested that twice a week, we go on a tooth picking expedition, like the birds who eat bugs on a hippo, to get all the grit and tartar off of Finn's teeth.

I was thinking instead of getting him an Oral B electric toothbrush because I bet he'd really like the twirling action.
On second thought, I'll just get Scott to pick Finn's teeth.

We're also watching Finn's diet from the get-go. Dr. Dave says labs are the equivalent of the Dyson 360 vaccuum cleaner, when it comes to food.

So he gave us a kibble dispensing ball, which looks like this.

It's called an Omega Paw Treat Ball and you fill it with kibble and let him have at it. Generally, Finn can only get, like, three pieces of kibble out before he falls asleep or asks to go outside to eat dirt, which is cheaper than kibble. And dirt is probably higher in fibre.

We'll see.

I pray not to wake up to a half-eaten carcass of Gordie lying beside me, like the horsehead in the Godfather.

If that happens, I'm going to let Finn eat what he wants.