Water woes

Monsoon season plus a pool in our backyard equals a house that cannot stay clean. We've been getting rainstorms every few days, so with the combination of the Newfies swimming and playing in the wet yard, they track water and mud in every time they step back inside. One of their favorite activities seems to be hopping in the pool then rolling around in the dirt. And since they get wet so often, they shed even more than usual, which leads to giant tufts of fur all over the tile floors in the house. Not to mention the wet imprints they leave on the couch or bed after napping.

Having a pool is awesome, but also problematic. Since Thatcher and Boden are in and out of the water every day, the mats are building up in their fur. I've been grooming them every night before bed, and I still can't keep them free of mats. Boden especially. His fur is so thick, particularly around his neck, that it tangles into dreadlocks constantly. Keeping their collars off them helps a little bit, but it's still quite a battle. It takes me at least half an hour per dog just to do a quick wipe down with grooming wipes and a comb through of their whole bodies. I think I'm going to have to start incorporating professional grooming into our routine at least once a month.

And then there's another issue: ear infections. Last weekend, I noticed Thatcher was not eating much and acting a little lethargic. The next day while grooming him, I realized there was an odd odor coming from his ears. I researched a little online and found that those were telltale signs of ear infections in dogs. I called the vet the next day and took him in to get checked after work. Sure enough, he had yeast and bacteria infections in both ears. Apparently, this is fairly common for dogs who swim a lot. I've been giving him medicated ear drops twice a day, and he's back to his normal self. But now I'm trying to be extra careful to dry off and clean their ears after swimming. The vet recommended an ear powder that we should use once a week or so to clear up their ear canals and hopefully prevent any more infections. Lately, I keep thinking to myself how busy people with actual children must be. How do they have enough time in their day to work full-time and raise kids? I can't even keep my dogs clean!

Loving summer

We spent Sunday evening in Thatcher heaven, aka: the dog park. The usual frolicking, splashing, swimming ensued. The nice thing about this dog park is that it's always full of life. Thatcher gets to practice greeting dogs politely, sharing sticks and coming when called. Well, he doesn't actually work on that last one. We do. Zero progress as of yet, but we're hoping for the day when he at least acknowledges that we are present. His favorite activity at the dog park is snatching balls or sticks from other dogs. I'm not proud of this. He's become rather lazy and rarely retrieves anything when we're in public. He loves the chase, but that's about it. So he's learned to wait until another dog has dutifully retrieved the stick or ball their owner threw for them. When they are almost to shore, he'll run out and take away whatever they have (if they let him). Needless to say, he gets growled at pretty frequently. 

To add to this, on the rare times he does retrieve something, he won't let it out of his mouth. He'll just carry it around proudly, looking out of the corner of his eye to see if any dog will dare try and take it back. Many other dog owners get confused, because their balls seem to vanish out of thin air. Unless we apologetically tell them that no, their ball hasn't disappeared, our dog is just hiding it in his droopy cheeks, they never know what happens. Thatcher's just a lost cause. I'm curious to see what different quirks the new puppy will have. Oh, and Thatcher says I can't forget to mention his absolute most favorite thing in the world about leaving the dog park: our ice cream stop on the way home. 

 

The dog days

Eventful weekend. On Saturday we took a 4 hour road trip to visit some of my family. Thatcher came along and loved it. He's an angel in the car, besides the dirt and drool he spreads all over the backseat. His favorite position is to squeeze his head onto the armrest between the driver and front passenger seats. He has to be as utterly close to us as possible. When he was younger, he would often climb onto my lap up front. I have no idea why we allowed this, but he was little and cute back then. So occasionally he'll still try to clamber up front, not realizing that he's no longer the 20 lb ball of fur he used to be. It definitely has made people driving next to us do a double-take, when they see this huge black dog squeezed onto my lap and all hunched over in the passenger seat. 

Rainbow on the car ride home

When we arrived at my family's, Thatcher got to run around and play with their two puppies. By run around and play with, I mean he followed them around hopefully while they pretended he didn't exist.  They are a four-month-old brother and sister pair who have never been separated from each other. They literally live in their own little world. They would start wrestling, and Thatcher would gleefully race over to them and try to get in on the action. But they would just ignore him. Poor fellow.

Yesterday we "discovered" an amazing dog park. It's seven acres of woods and trails right along the river. Swimming + tromping through woods + lots of other dogs = Thatcher in heaven. Sometimes I feel bad for him, because he tries to play with other dogs and they don't always want anything to do with this big, goofy giant. He's too slow to have a chance at fetch with the retrievers, too large to play wrestle with the rambunctious dogs, too oblivious to pick up signals when another dog is feeling threatened by him. He still loves it though. A person there was throwing a tennis ball into the river for his lab to fetch. Thatch beat the lab to the ball once, but then the ball disappeared. We were all looking around for it, before we realized that it was hiding in Thatcher's mouth for the last five minutes.

Water dog?

We went canoing this weekend on a river up north. Bringing Thatcher is really more of a hassle than anything, but he loves water so much that we can't bear to leave him behind. As you can imagine, a large dog and a small canoe has disastrous potential. So instead of worrying about tipping every time Thatcher decides to shift his weight in one direction or another, we always tie two canoes together to help keep more balanced. The problem with this is that Thatcher can never decide which canoe he enjoys riding in more. So he'll climb back and forth, bringing us within an inch of being dumped into the water each time.

Taking my turn swimming with Thatcher

And the water is a whole other issue. Thatcher adores swimming in the river. For about 40 seconds. Then he wants to be lifted back into the canoe. Which is nearly impossible when we're in deep water. Once we find a sand bank and get him back into the boat, literally about 6 minutes pass before he's whining to get back in the water. Must have inherited his indecisiveness from me. And this is the really sad part. Instead of having to hoist Thatcher back into the canoe every few minutes, one of us jumps in the water with him and swims with him. By swim with him, I mean carry him while swimming. He will hold perfectly still, not even try to help and paddle, while you support his weight and keep him afloat. He's a great swimmer and could probably swim miles without any trouble. We've obviously succeeded in raising him to be a good manipulator.

On our way home after a long day on the water

It was a fun trip though. Gorgeous weather, lots of sun (and sunburn). When we got to the landing to load up, Thatcher had a jolly time running around and saying hello to every living creature that came along. An enormous group of a couple dozen tubers got to the landing right after us, and Thatcher dove right back into the river to swim out and see if everyone was ok. At least he's not shy.