Category: The Hounddog

the hound

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for those of you who don’t know, we have a 6 year old, black and tan coonhound named Gus. he’s been driving me batty these past few months. he seems to be reverting back to behaviour from when he was 1-2 years old – not listening, extremely roudy, more vocal than normal (he’s usually pretty “chatty” anyway), begging for food ALL THE TIME, and howling/baying whenever we leave the house … a little background on our playful, loving, noisy, silly and very handsome hound: we brought him home at only 6 weeks old (we were told he was 8 but found out otherwise when we received the paperwork with his actual birthdate) back in the fall of 2008. he was (and still is) and extremely stubborn dog, as most hounds are, however, he was very easy to train, go figure! full of energy and always ready to curl up on the couch beside us, he seemed to be a good addition to our little family.

my hubby never had a dog growing up, which i always though was sorta odd, but every situation is different and i’m sure his parents had their reasons. i think for me, growing up on a farm instilled a need for always having some sort of furry companion; as well as the chickens (upwards of 20,000 at a time), or pigs (a few hundred at a time) we always had a house-cat and at least one dog around.

i think on a weekly basis, for the first 2 years that we had Gus anyhow, i told my husband, “this is NOT how most dogs are. Gus is special, and by special, I mean a wild and odd dog, nothing like any dogs I’ve ever had.” as my father likes to say, he’s 90% nose, 10% dog! haha

i feel now, with the little guy growing like a weed (he’ll be 2 in February, ahhhhh!) that my time is spent even moreso, chasing the dog around telling him to leave the kid alone, stop barking, go lay down, stop begging etc etc. it’s rare (lately) that he receives positive interaction from us and i feel terrible. he’s not a bad dog, he’s just frustrating us lately (so much so that my parents will take him out to their house to run around with Lola – their big, loveable, red doberman).

i think we need to invest more time with him, but honestly, i don’t know where that time is going to come from, which makes me kinda sad. going back to work hasn’t really helped the situation. before i was working, i would take both our son and the dog for daily (sometimes twice a day) walks, but i’m just so exhausted now that i rarely feel up to it. no good, i know. with hubby being on midnights, the days that i’m not at work he’s sleeping, so getting the dog out of the house, with the kid in the stroller isn’t always easy – especially because the little guy doesn’t really want to always be in the stroller, he wants to run free!  it’s hard to contrthehoundol a crazy 80lb dog and carefully watch a wild & curious almost 2 year old walk down the street with ease. if the dog (or our son for that matter) wasn’t so energetic, hyper and easily excited, it would likely make things a little less stressful around our house. alas, that’s the hand we’ve been dealt and we’re (somewhat) dealing with it with a minimal amount of sanity.

but i know that one day i’ll look back and say, remember when?

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a girl dog, a boy dog and our little man

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as i sit and write today’s blog my parents are on their way home from a warm & sun-filled vacation in Dominican Republic. it’s been just over a week that they’ve been gone and we’ve been doggie-sitting their 4 year old Doberman, Lola. it’s been a crazy week having 2 big dogs in the house! Lola’s a good sized pup, probably around 120lbs, and our 5  1/2 year old black and tan coonhound, Gus, is between 80-90lbs. needless to say, they’ve had us on our toes a little moreso than our 14 month old son. with my hubby working shifts i’m very thankful that he’s back on days this week because the first 3 nights of having Lola here he was on afternoons and it was a little hectic. it was a mad house with me, the kid, and 2 goofy dogs, especially at bedtime; trying keeping them quiet while i’m upstairs putting the little guy to bed as they both feel the need to “guard” our house from the evil neighbours who happen to just be going home (haha) wasn’t an easy task. funny thing is, Lola normally isn’t much of a barking dog, unlike our awesome (ha) coonhound who tends to give his opinion on everything and constantly “talks back” always needing to have the last word. when my parents dropped Lola off last Wednesday my dad said, don’t worry, she won’t bark unless someone comes over the fence. HA! i can’t wait to tell him about how she turned into a super guard dog while living with us for the past week. we had to keep the blinds partially closed in the front living room just so that she couldn’t see people going by. i’d be ok with the dogs letting us know when someone’s coming up to our door, or on our property etc, but there’s really no need to flip out when someone is simply walking up to the door of their own house, across the street, and 2 houses down.

i’m sure Lola doesn’t think she’s going home anytime soon; for a dog who normally isn’t a “house” dog she seems to be pretty comfortable around here. as soon as the basement door opens she thunders down the stairs to get her spot on the couch and grab a little snooze before having to go back upstairs to her bed in her crate, which i’m sure isn’t quite as comfy 😉

the little man is definitely enjoying having both dogs here! he loves Gus so having another big pup here is just adding to the fun for him. he squeals and chases them around the house, but as soon as one of them turns around to lick him, well, the party is over, lol. i think both he and Gus will be a little lonely when Lola goes home tomorrow and she may be a little disappointed that she has to go back to where she doesn’t have full run of the house.

i’ll be happy to have things back to normal; a little less dog hair to sweep up, a few less footprints to wipe away and only one hound to shush instead of two.