Gabby

May 18, 2002

When Gabby came home with us, we fell for her right away! She’s a really adorable dog, with lots of cute “puppy” traits. She’s probably around 18 months old. Probably the first thing we noticed about her was that she was very mouthy. She’d nibble your hands, ears, anything she could reach, to show affection. We’ve been trying to break her of that habit and she’s gotten much better. Gabby’s also a voracious chewer. The first day we went to work and left her in her crate, we came home to find the dog bed in the crate torn to shreds! She’s chewed up virtually indestructable hard rubber dog toys, and tears through stuffed animals in minutes.

Gabby is very submissive to a stern voice. A “NO!” will have her crouching on the floor and smiling at you. She’s still growing and has a very healthy appetite. She doesn’t generally go on furniture, but will jump onto the bed for a few minutes when she wants some attention or affection. Speaking of affection, she’s like most labs, and can’t get enough! She’ll roll on her back for her belly-rubs, and complain if she doesn’t get enough. You may be wondering how she got her name – it turns out Gabby is also a “talker”. She doesn’t usually bark, but she talks in a calm, quiet voice. Sometimes it sounds like she’s honking like a goose, which can be really funny!

Posted in dogs   Leave a comment »

Sophie

April 14, 2002

We got Sophie soon after she came into the LRR system. The director actually only had Sophie for a few days to check temperament and get her fixed and tatooed/microchipped. Sophie was a stray taken in by the shelter. She already had some basic obedience and knew sit, and down. She was only about 50 lbs, so definitely quite a difference from Webster. However she was also a big lapdog. She loved nothing more than to snuggle right next to you and lay on her back while you just keep petting her. When she first came here, she was quite timid, but I think playing with our dogs, she’s learned a lot more confidence. Whoever had Sophie before LRR really spoiled her. When we first got her, she didn’t really eat her dog food much and would be the first in line for our human food scraps, so we think her last family probably gave her lots of human food. However she learned pretty quickly that if she didn’t eat her dog food, she was going to go hungry. Now she eats her food almost as fast as our dogs do. But she still begs like a champ.I think she’s the first foster we’ve had that’s shown absolutely no interest in the tennis ball! I find it so hard to believe. When we first got Quinn, he wasn’t interested in the ball, but after a while, he started to love it, so I figured after a little while, she’d start to show more interest in retrieving….nope, not at all. She does love to antagonize our dogs when they’re fetching though. She’ll run right at them and body slam them if possible and block their way back to us. It irritates Sheba to no end, and Sophie has knocked Quinn down a couple of times because of his bad leg. But she settles down after about 10 minutes of playing and will just wander around outside sniffing things.

We’ve noticed that she seems to want to move up in our family pack hierarchy. She keeps trying to dominate Sheba and she’s marked a couple of times in the house, but crating her during the day seems to have fixed the problem. Sophie is such a silly girl and is definitely a velcro dog. She’ll stick close to whoever is at home. She climbs (not a good jumper) onto any couch or bed you’re on to lays right next to you for security. Whenever we’re petting a different dog, Sophie will come right to us and butt her way in for her share of attention. She loves to sleep on the bed, but due to the alpha issue with Sheba, we make her sleep on the floor. It is a bit of a struggle. I’ll get on the floor and coax her off the bed. As soon as I get off the floor she’ll use that time to jump right into the bed. It usually takes about three tries before I can hop into bed without her jumping in first.

Sophie has definitely given us a couple of humorous stories. One time she was crawling under our bed to probably get a dog toy and got stuck halfway! Mike had to lift up the bed while I pulled her out. She was just fine, but it was a bit ridiculous. Then a couple weeks late, we woke up in the middle of the night to Sophie whining and moaning. I wasn’t sure what the problem was, so I got off the bed to see what happened. Apparently during the night, she had wiggled around the blankets and wedged herself half under the bed again (back end this time)! So I pulled her out gently and she went right back to sleep…silly thing. She also seems to have no problems with water. I was in the hottub on the far side and Sophie came up to the tub. She saw me and jumped right into the water! I grabbed her and lifted her out of the tub, but she didn’t seem to mind her dunking at all. Actually, when I moved back to the other side, she looked like she was getting ready to jump back in again!

When Sophie came to us, she was a bit timid and so I think she attached herself to me pretty quickly. I love giving tons of attention to our dogs, so she probably loved all the petting and kissing she got. But it got to the point where if she couldn’t find me in the house she would become frantic. She wouldn’t leave my side even if someone was pulling pretty firmly on her leash or collar. Since she got so attached, we thought it was a good idea to move her to a new foster home. So we moved her on Sunday and got our next foster dog.

Looks like Sophie is going to get adopted this week by an elderly couple. They came to visit her at our house and really liked her size and personality. They seem like really nice people and I’m sure Sophie will love the attention she’ll get as the only dog in their house.

Posted in dogs   Leave a comment »

Connor

March 16, 2002

I think LRR was meant to have Webster. About a year ago, LRR saw Webster in a shelter and wanted to rescue him, but another person adopted him from the shelter before LRR could, so off he went to his new home. Unfortunately the new owner wanted Webster as a junkyard guard dog because he was black and big (over 100lbs), and I guess the owner thought Webster looked pretty mean. However Webster is a lab after all, so he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Webster was put outside in the junkyard to guard, but the junkyard got broken into a few times and he probably didn’t do anything more than bark and wag his tail. The owner figured if he didn’t give Webster any food or water for a few days at a time, that would make him meaner, but that didn’t work, so after about a year the owner brought Webster back to a different shelter to try to find a meaner dog. Fortunately there was an LRR volunteer at that shelter at the same time and recognized Webster so LRR ended up taking him!The first time all of us saw Webster was at the LRR Christmas party in December only a day after he had been picked up from the shelter. Poor thing was so frightened by all the people he stood around shaking the entire time. However he really loved all the petting and attention we all gave him. LRR found out he was heartworm positive and treated him. He’s doing just fine now and probably needs just one more treatment in June to finish it all off.

We got Webster in February. He is a gigantic lap dog! He weighs about 105 lbs and all he wants to do is crawl as close to you as possible for lots of petting and loving. He is huge though, because when he jumps on me his paws rest on my shoulders and he’s as tall as me. That makes him quite an effective counter-surfer! We’re used to dogs going up on the countertops to check out food, so we’ve always just moved all our stuff as far to the back as possible, but that doesn’t work for Webster. We went out for a quick trip to the grocery store and when we came home, everything that was on the counter was on the floor! Including what used to be chocolate donuts (I’m sure Sheba and Quinn cheered him on and helped finish up the donuts) and even inedible items. We’ve started to put all our counter items into cabinets and shelves so Webster can’t get to them anymore.

He is quite gentle though and plays pretty well with Sheba and Quinn, more with Quinn than Sheba. We think Webster must be going through his puppy phase again because he is a voracious chewer! He ripped apart a stuffed animal that’s made it through about 4 other dogs before him and it was gone in about 10 minutes after he got his jaws into it! He also made a pretty good dent in our rubber flying saucer, which we thought was indestructible! And the weirdest thing is that he goes after all our rubber doorstops! We’ve had to take them all off (and hope our doors don’t get damaged) so that he doesn’t put them all in his mouth. He is an absolute sweetheart though.

Webster is now in a great new home with two brothers (water spaniels) and great humans. After they got Webster, they went to three different pet stores that same day to find him a crate that fit. They absolutely adore Webster and I’m sure he loves his new home. We can’t wait to see him at the reunion picnic in May!

Posted in dogs   Leave a comment »

Brock

August 22, 2001

Brock is a 3-4 yr old black lab mix weighing in at about 75 lbs. He’s probably mixed with a little bit of shepherd which you can see in the ears and the coat. Brock’s previous owner found out he was in the shelter, but was unable to pay to get him released. His original name is Broccoli and he’ll actually respond very well to both names. He is housebroken and crate trained. Brock is a low energy dog, but gets along great with other dogs. Currently Brock and a dog we’re dogsitting will literally play for hours. He will play with other dogs if they want to play, but he is just as happy to sit by you and get lots of hugs and kisses.Brock is actually the most affectionate lab I’ve ever met (so far). He truly believes he is a lap dog and will do just about anything to get his whole body into your lap. His favorite trick is to come up to you, put his head as far into your lap as he can, then flip over on you to get his belly rubs. He loves to give kisses, but he’ll also give love nibbles when he gets a bit excited, especially on the ears.

We believe that Brock was fed human food from his old owner since he plants himself very close to anyone with human food. Also, he doesn’t eat dog food very fast, and will sometimes have leftovers (which is up for grabs for the fastest dog in our household). Brock is a bit overweight and needs a little bit of exercise to work some of it off. He will retrieve balls, but he will get distracted outside and sometimes forget to bring the ball back to you. He walks pretty well on a leash, with only a little bit of pulling. We’ve tried to take him swimming in a pool with little success. We persuaded him into the pool once where he did swim around, but was unable to convince him a second time to come in, and he ignores the kiddie pool we have in our backyard.

Brock is actually already spoken for, but we were still working on an ear infection which is almost fixed. So unfortunately we won’t have him for much longer. We’ll miss him a lot, but the new home he’s going to has a 9 month old puppy that he can play with all day, and then Brock can flop down for hugs and kisses from his new family.

Posted in dogs   Leave a comment »

Cedar Point

August 1, 2001

July 30, 2001

We hit the road around 9 am for what turned out to be a pretty boring 7-hour drive. Mike hooked up the portable GPS receiver to his laptop with some mapping software to show where we were and keep us from getting lost. Plus he put 15 hours of MP3s on the laptop and used a tape adaptor to play them in the car. We stopped twice, once for breakfast and once for gas, and arrived in Sandusky at about 4 pm. We checked into the Comfort Inn and lucked out getting a king bed / non-smoking room. The room was pretty clean and decent-sized, and was one of the least expensive we could find. We’d probably stay there again.

Since Cedar Point Park has discounted admission after 5pm ($22 instead of $39), we decided to go check it out. The park is pretty impressive, and has 14 coasters. The newest one is the Millennium Force, which is almost 400 ft high, has a first drop of 80 degrees at 95 mph. We first headed to Demon Drop just inside the park entrance, which is a ride that brings you up about 150 ft and drops you for about a 1.5 second free fall. Definitely terror inducing when you are just hanging at the top waiting for the car to drop. Then we went on the Raptor, which is a suspended steel coaster. The wait was only about 15 min long. The Raptor was amazingly smooth with lots of tight turns, twists, and corkscrews. Mike says that coaster was his favorite. We tried the Iron Dragon that looks like one of Cedar Point’s older coasters. Each car is suspended, so there’s some movement that is independent. The first half was pretty lame, but the second half was okay. We then headed to the Mantis, a steel stand-up roller coaster. We’ve tried the Shockwave in King’s Dominion but we weren’t impressed with it. However, we decided to give the stand-up another shot. While the Mantis had more twists, turns, and loops than the Shockwave, it was still very bumpy. Then we hit the Mean Streak, which is a wooden coaster. The coaster was pretty cool. It had a lot of angled turns that seem to speed the trains up a lot. Plus the ride is much longer than most coasters that we’ve ridden in the past. Of course since it’s a wooden coaster, it was still pretty bumpy. Then we headed towards the Millennium Force. We had to wait an hour and a half and by the time we got on the ride, it was completely dark outside. The coaster was great! They bring you up the hill pretty fast and when you head downhill you’re going over 90mph. The ride also has a lot of tilted turns where you are not quite upside down, but you’re definitely sideways. It helps that the chairs are open on the side so you feel very exposed and vulnerable while on these turns. The ride was definitely worth the wait. We rode the Raptor one more time then headed back to the hotel. Coming in the evening on Monday was a very good idea since a lot of people had already headed home so most of the rides didn’t have very long waits. Other than the Millennium Force, we didn’t wait longer than 20 min for each ride.

July 31, 2001

We decided to do another half day at Cedar Point Park since it worked out so well yesterday. So we slept late and went for an early lunch at Max and Erma’s. It’s a lot like the typical restaurant (Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, etc), but the food was better than expected. Then we headed to Soak City, which is the Cedar Point water park. The lines were pretty long and the park was definitely not as big or nice as Blizzard Beach in Orlando, though they had some nice slides and two lazy rivers. Actually only one of them was a lazy river – the other was Renegade River and had lots of waterfalls, rapids, and a wave generator, which made it pretty cool. The slides were average. After only 2 = hours we were finished and headed back to the hotel. We headed to Brown Derby Roadhouse for dinner. It’s a typical steakhouse with peanuts and yeast rolls. The steaks were pretty good, as was the shrimp. The ribs weren’t that good though. Then we headed back to Cedar Point for the evening. Unfortunately Tuesday was actually more crowded than Monday. We went onto the Disaster Transport, which is an indoor bobsled ride in the dark. Mike wasn’t too impressed with it; I thought it was ok especially since some parts were pitch dark. Then we headed to the Magnum XL-200, which used to be the highest roller coaster until they built the Millennium Force. I liked the ride a lot, it had some pretty good hills and tunnels in unusual places. Next ride was the Gemini, which is a wooden coaster that races two trains at a time. I think either this or the Magnum was my favorite ride. For a wooden coaster, it was remarkably smooth. Plus we were in the back seat, and the speed was great. The car came off the track a couple of times, which popped us out of the seat. Then we headed back to the Millennium Force. The wait was again an hour and a half, even though we got there an hour earlier than Monday night. We ended up riding at dusk so we could see the tracks. I was quite amazed when Mike put his hands up halfway through the ride and kept them up the rest of the way! We finished and left the park about an hour early.

July 31, 2001

We decided to check out the islands on Lake Ontario. We took a cruise on the Goodtime I tour boat. The boat left from Jackson Pier at 9:30 and headed to Kelley’s Island. Kelley’s Island is the largest American island in Lake Erie. We rented a golf cart and visited Glacial Grooves. It’s a small area that shows grooves left behind after a glacier went over it. Unfortunately the larger area was destroyed due to quarrying years ago. We then took a leisurely drive down W. Lakeshore Dr, which paralleled the shoreline. We got back on the boat and headed to Put-in-Bay, which is on South Bass Island. We rented a golf cart there also. We grabbed lunch at Pasquale’s, which is a casual Italian restaurant. Their pizza was good; the crust was good, but there was a lot of cheese and sauce on it. We stopped at Crystal Cave and Heineman Winery and went on a quick tour of the winery and the cave. Crystal cave is basically one large room with full of crystals, so it’s considered the largest known geode in the world. It’s quite cool in the cave and its full of bluish crystals. We also got to try a cup of wine at the winery. I tried the sweet belle and Mike tried the Chablis. The sweet belle is the sweetest wine they had (with the exception of the ice wine, which is a dessert wine) and the Chablis was a semi-sweet wine. Both wines were pretty sweet. Next stop was the Lake Erie Island Historical Museum where we saw models, photographs, and artifacts of different ships and boats that have traveled on the lake. Last stop was Perry’s Victory & International Peace Memorial. It’s a huge Roman Doric style column that was erected after a victory over the British navy in 1813. It was also a monument of the international peace between the US, Canada, and Great Britain. I have to admit it looked rather odd to see just a giant column in the middle of the sky. Then we headed back to Sandusky. Since we were leaving in the morning, we took it pretty easy the rest of the evening. After all the walking in the last few days, I am looking forward to heading home and relaxing for a couple of days.

Posted in vacation   Leave a comment »