Frankie

June 15, 2001

Frankie is a 6 mo old black lab. He and his littermates have been in a shelter for several months. Apparently the shelter they were in finds it very difficult to place black male dogs. He weighs in at about 45 lbs or so. Of his littermates, he’s the most people friendly. We brought him home and need to housebreak and crate train him. Overall, he’s been pretty good, he’s had a few accidents in the house, but he seems to be learning.He seems to think he’s the dominant dog in the household. He’s tried to establish dominance with Sheba and Quinn. Sheba would not tolerate it a bit, while Quinn was ambivalent. If Quinn is distracted by the tennis ball, Frankie can do anything, but when Quinn is not distracted, he won’t allow it either. Frankie has tried to play with our dogs, but since they are old and cranky, they only sporadically play with him. I’d assume after a few more weeks, they’ll start to play a little more.

When it comes to food, Frankie is definitely psychotic. Apparently he was only fed once a day at the shelter, so he’s still always very hungry. Whenever he sees food, he’ll go a little nuts and shove his way to get it. We didn’t think it was possible, but Frankie actually eats faster than Quinn. We currently feed him three times a day to try to fill him up. If that fails, we’ll have to try overstuffing him to see if that helps. When you overstuff, you give the dog as much food as he can eat. He’ll probably throw it up, but it might help just to have a full stomach for once.

Frankie Update

After about a week of feeding Frankie three times a day, he finally stopped gorging his food and now he’s just chowing it down like a normal lab. Its amazing how much energy he has; he always want to play and Sheba and Quinn have not gotten any better with playing with him. Frankie did help us realize that there is no way we’d ever get a puppy. Housebreaking, crate training, and entertaining a puppy is a lot of work. To housebreak Frankie properly, he needs to either be in his crate, or monitored at all times while he’s out of the crate. That means we weren’t free to do things around the house if Frankie was out of our sight. However Frankie is very cute and cuddly, and was fun to play with. He was adopted fairly quickly to a family that absolutely adores him.

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Connor

June 4, 2001

Connor is a 3-4 yr old black lab weighing in about 90 lbs, and he probably needs to gain more weight! He was a stray brought into the shelter. When he came in, he was so infested with ticks, that they had even burrowed into a wound in his side. He also had a very bad case of Lyme’s disease. Before he was put on medication, he couldn’t even raise his head to look at anyone. After about a week on the medicine, he was raising his head and thumping his tail. His soulful eyes did their magic, and he was on his way to LRR.Connor is very laid back and low energy. However a lot of that is due to the Lyme disease, since it causes joint/muscle aches, and listlessness. He’s been on the medication for about 3 weeks now, and he will need it for at least 5 more weeks. As each week progresses, hopefully more of his personality will show through. He has tried to wrestle with Sheba and Quinn a couple of times, but he runs out of energy pretty quickly. He’s also not too familiar with how to retrieve a tennis ball. He will pounce on the ball and chew it, but he doesn’t really chase after it, nor does he bring it back to you. He’s a pretty sedate walker on a leash and never strays too far from your side.

He absolutely adores attention. He’ll fall over on his side right next to you and wait for you to pet him. If you stop, he’ll whack you with his paw to tell you to continue. We think he’s probably not had much attention in the past, and he probably spent a lot of time outdoors. When we first got him to the house, he was very unfamiliar with steps and wouldn’t leave the first floor until he watched our dogs several times walk wherever they pleased without recriminations.

Its amazing how similar Connor and Quinn are in both looks and temperament. From a distance, its actually difficult to tell them apart. Quinn may be feeling a bit threatened by Connor’s arrival, however other than asserting the hierarchy of the household, Quinn has been very friendly towards Connor. Sheba, of course, is doing just fine with Connor. As long as she’s always treated like the princess, she has no issues with any of the foster dogs.

Connor Update

Connor has moved onto a new foster home. He became pretty attached to us, so we thought moving him to a different home would be the best thing for him. In the time he stayed with us, his personality started to come through. He became more active and actually had the puppy crazies a few times. He chased Sheba around the furniture, and played tug of war with Quinn. Heaven only knows how many stuffed animals got ripped apart during their play.

We also discovered his love of food. We have a dog food bin that hangs on the wall. Connor figured out how to open the bin with his nose so the food would come out. We had to tape the bin closed so he could no longer get extra helpings of dinner. We also found out that he can jump any fence he can get his front paws on top of. While working in the front yard, I put all three dogs in the backyard. Imagine my surprise when Connor comes trotting up to me. I put him back in the backyard and peeked through the garage window. He showed no hesitation in putting his front feet on the fence and jumping over it pretty easily. This is from the dog who six weeks ago was unable to even raise his head to look at you because of the Lyme Disease.

Every single person who came to our house fell in love with Connor. He was very good while around our friends’ 8 mos old twins. He sniffed one of them, licked their hand, and laid down right by their feet. He loved any stranger that came to our house. If you pet him, you were his new best friend. It was tough to give up such an amiable dog, and I can’t wait to find out who adopts Connor.

Connor Update

Connor has been adopted to a perfect home for him. A principal of a school for mentally handicapped students adopted Connor and takes him to school everyday for the students to pet. Since Connor loves to be pet, and he’s so very calm, this is the perfect way for him to spend the day. I’m sure he’ll be very good for all those kids.

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Winston

May 6, 2001

Winston came to us April 28th. He has a pretty unfortunate story. He was an LRR dog rescued from the shelter about 6 years ago. They placed him in a great home who loved and spoiled him. Unfortunately, his owner had a terrible accident and broke her back. She was able to keep him for almost another year and a half because her daughters still lived at home and took care of Winston. However, when her youngest daughter went to college, she had no choice but to return Winston to LRR since she could no longer take care of him.Poor Winston was devastated. He was totally spoiled and happy in his last house, and he got yanked into some stranger’s house. We’re actually his second foster home. When he came to our house, he was very stressed. The first two days, he spent pacing, panting, and barking at nothing. He also had a few accidents in the house due to the stress. The first night he was with us, he kept us awake most of the night. However, he settled down pretty quickly after about two days.

He’s got some pretty funny quirks. We were told that he can open screen doors, and refrigerator doors if there is a towel hanging from the handle. He accidentally locked Mike outside because he was jumping up on the door and hit the lock. He also loves to play keep away. When I came home from work, he slipped past me through the door. He then proceeded to stay about 10 feet away from us. If I got too close, he would trot away, and if he got too far away, he would come back towards me. We spent about 40 minutes trying to get him back, but he was having too much fun to be caught. A kindly neighbor finally helped us when Winston walked right up to her to say hi. Needless to say, we are now very careful when we open the front door! Another quirk we discovered when we tried to discipline him. When our Quinn barks and won’t stop, we squirt him with water which quiets him down. When we tried to do that with Winston, he would eat the stream of water! He also does that with the hose when we try to water the plants.

Since he’s settled down, a lot of his cuter traits have come out. He’s such a sweet dog. He loves his butt scratches and has these great soulful eyes. He loves to give great big labbie kisses right to your face. He’s 7 years old, but acts a lot like a 3 year old when he’s playing. He does like his naps during the day though. He’s going to be a great dog for someone who’s lucky to adopt him, and I can’t wait until he’s in a solid stable home.

Update to Winston: Apr 28 – May 6th. Unfortunately Winston proved to be too much for us to handle. We only had him for a week, but in that time, he ran out of the house three times and led us on a 40-60 minute chase each time, and jumped through a screen window once. He also exhibited some agressive behavior. He mouthed Mike on the arm when Mike pulled him away from our dog’s food. Also, he growled and snapped at me when I tried to take away his rawhide treat. So we brought him back to the director’s house so she could further evaluate Winston.

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Lady

May 1, 2000

Lady is the first dog we’ve fostered. Although we’ve dogsat several of friends’ dogs, this was a totally new experience for us. We brought Lady to our house March 3, 2001. She adjusted quite quickly to the other dogs and to our house. She LOVES to cuddle and give kisses, and is a total attention nut! If we pay attention to our dogs, she comes right up to us, sometimes stepping right on top of dogs to get her share of attention. Sometimes she’ll even pat our faces to remind us to pet her (Unfortunately she forgets she has claws on the end of her paws).LRR believes Lady is a mix between lab and flat-coat retriever (the same as our Quinn). She’s a petite dog, weighing in at about 45 lbs. She gets along great with our dogs and we’ve caught them horsing around several times. Lady is a very young dog, probably around 1-2 years of age and has discovered chewing. She’s already broken in a pair of my sister’s boots, and one of my shoes. She seems to eat, more than chew, items since we can never find the leftover pieces.

LRR believes Lady has had an abusive owner in the past. We’ve noticed that she’s very submissive around loud voices and sudden movements. She’s also had a problem with submissive urination in the past. Other than those few problems, she’s a total sweetie. She’ll roll over on her back to get her share of tummy rubs and although she’s not a chow hound, she begs with the best of them!

Update, 05/01/00

Lady stayed at our house for almost two months. In that time, she became more confident and much less submissive. She absolutely loved Sheba and Quinn and vice versa. They played together so often, it almost drove us nuts. They always seemed to find the most inconvenient times also; when we were watching tv, or on the phone topped the list. She also found all the holes in our fence, and went exploring a few times, but she always came to us when we called for her.

A great couple came along and adopted her. They already had a black lab they got from a shelter in the past and wanted another lab. When the two dogs met, they hit it off right away. The couple also seemed very taken with Lady and she seemed to like them too. They saw one other lab, but decided that Lady was the dog for them. We think its a great match, and although it was tough to let her go, we knew she’d be really happy with her new family.

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Hawaii Honeymoon

September 17, 1999

Day 1

Most of day 1 was spent in the air unfortunately. Our plane left Dulles Airport at around 7am on Tuesday. About five hours in the air, then a two-hour layover in San Francisco, then another five hours in over the Pacific. We landed in Honolulu on Oahu, then had another brief layover before our 20 minute flight to Kauai. We landed at around 10pm Eastern Time, 4pm Hawaii time.

The Hyatt Regency Kauai is the most beautiful hotel we’ve ever seen. Had dinner at the Tidepools restaurant at Hyatt. Nice setting — the entire restaurant is built on top of a giant fish pond… so the fish swim up to your table and wait for you to feed them. If you throw some bread in, hundreds of fish swarm into the area and even jump out of the water in a frenzy. Kathie’s fish dinner was good, my Filet Mignon was not very good.

Day 2

Didn’t sleep very well… and still on Eastern time. The first few hours Wednesday were spent in an Air Kauai helicopter on an aerial tour of Kauai. We saw many amazing waterfalls, mountain ranges, and the fairly inaccessable Na Pali coast.

After the ‘copter tour we took to the road to explore the East and North coasts of Kauai. The island is only 20-by-30 miles so it’s not a very daunting task. Our first stop was Wailua Falls, which were used in the opening scene of Fantasy Island each week.

As we continued up the coast we passed a number of beaches, but no one was swimming — apparently the surf on the coast of Kauai gets pretty rough, especially in fall and winter. We got our feet wet at Hanalei Bay, then continued on. We took a side road to Kilauea Lighthouse and Wildlife Refuge. The site offered a beautiful view of the coast. The lighthouse at one point in time had the (biggest? brightest?) light in the world, and saved the first mainland-to-hawaii flight from disaster after the plane overshot the Hawaiian Islands and almost ran out of fuel.

Finally we drove back to the Hyatt at Poipu beach. We went out to dinner at Plantation House, in the Poipu Shopping Village. The food was good, and the prices were reasonable! Took a quick look up at the stars that night, which were much more visible than most places we’ve been on the mainland.

Day 3

Ate lunch at Keoki’s Paradise, again in the Poipu Shopping Village. Very good hamburgers and steak fries. Then we loaded ourselves up with SPF-36 sunblock and Off bug repellent and headed to Outfitters Kauai for the “Hidden Waterfall” kayak trip. First we kayaked about two miles down a river — I forget the name, but it was the river where the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark was filmed. We saw the spot where Indy, chased by angry natives, swung on a rope into the river to be picked up by the sea plane. Also saw some amazing views of the mountains and various plants and flowers. Eventually we pulled to the side of the river and hiked a half mile or so into the jungle, past wild coffee and other plants, to a small waterfall and pond, where we did our own rope-swing into the pond to cool off. Then, because we’re lazy and on our honeymoon, a power boat took us all back upstream, towing the kayak’s behind us .

After washing off the layers of sweat, sunblock, Off, and mud, we headed to a nice, but expensive, dinner at House of Seafood, right down the street from the hotel. The caesar salad was prepared tableside and was excellent. Watched the geckos on the ceiling and walls eat bugs as we ate our dinner. Very entertaining!

Day 4

Slept late, then drove towards Lihue and had lunch at Paradise Seafood and Grill. A small, casual place, with good, cheap food (again, good steak fries!). Then we drove West and took Route 550 North into Waimea Canyon — the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. The views were amazing, and we stopped many times to look around and take pictures. The first 3 miles on the road we climbed 2,000 feet. We finally made it to the end at Kokei State Park (altitide 4,000 feet) which normally has a fantastic view of the coast to the West, but we were fogged in and couldn’t see more than two feet. As we started down again, it started raining and we had to put the top up on the convertable for the first time. It was also pretty cool and we actually turned the heat on in the car for a bit!

We decided to take it easy the rest of the day, so we explored the hotel grounds, and went swimming in the various pools, waterslide, hot tubs, and the saltwater lagoon. We stepped out into the ocean a bit as well, though the surf was pretty rough and there were many signs warning about the surf conditions, so we didn’t go far.

We went to dinner at Brennecke’s that evening. It turned out to be a very casual, fairly cramped place with a view of the ocean. The salad bar was pretty underwhelming, and my spare ribs were at best average. Kathie’s seafood was good though (too bad I don’t like seafood!).

Back to the hotel to do some laundry since we’re going through clothes faster than expected.

Day 5

Slept late again (there’s a pattern emerging here), then went to breakfast buffet at the hotel. Very good food, though expensive. Great pineapples and guava juice. Packed up our things, checked out, and headed to the airport for our flight to Honolulu and then to Maui.

Landed in Maui and drove to the Kea Lani Hotel on the south coast. The staff is incredibly friendly and helpful. The hotel looks nice from the outside, but was no match for the Hyatt Regency on Kauai. The inside is another story altogether. All rooms are actually suites, so we had a bedroom (with a TV), living room (with fold-out bed, big TV, VCR, and DVD player), and wet bar with microwave and refrigerator. The bathroom was giant and gorgeous: marble everywhere, soaking tub, open shower, mirrors, twin pedestal sinks… just amazing.

After a quick look around the hotel we headed to Lahaina on the West coast for the Old Lahaina Luau. We had a buffet of various dishes, including the Kalua Pua’a — a 125 pound pig cooked all day in a traditional underground oven. Afterwards the luau began. It was a historical presentation of Hawaii’s past, and was very well done.

Day 6

Drove to Lahaina again. Had lunch at Cheesburger In Paradise. Everything we’d heard suggested that the burgers would be excellent, however they were not very good. Pretty thin, not juicy at all, and overcooked (they didn’t even ask us how we wanted them cooked).

After lunch, we ended up shopping in Lahaina for a couple of hours. If you like lots of little shops with knick knacks, this is a cool area to hang out at. Tons of different shops, unfortunately most of them have similar things (t-shirts, jewelry, souvenirs). However there are lots of galleries in this area. Went into a few of them, but a lot of the artists seem to use the same style of half underwater, half over water with a very “sci-fi” look to it all. Also, if you like restaurants, this is the place to go. There are a lot of different restaurants and most of them sit right by the water.

We stopped at the Hawaii Domed Theater. Its like IMAX but a little more rustic. The movie were about Hawaii and a little of its history. There were only three of us in the entire theater.

After lots and lots of shopping, we headed back to the hotel. We were feeling lazy, so we just ate at the hotel at Caffe Ciao which has a wood burning pizza oven. We got pizza with roasted chicken, maui onion and garlic. Not bad, but they don’t put any marinara sauce on it and the garlic pieces were HUGE!

Day 7

Got up early for the Molokini snorkel trip. Molokini Island is a small U-shaped island off of Maui which is a marine preserve. Great spot to go snorkeling. We went with Trilogy Excursions who fed us cinnamon rolls, hot chocolate and fruit for breakfast. Stopped at Molokini Island and did some snorkeling. Trilogy also does scuba as long as you let them know in advance. The water was so clear with so many different types of fish and coral. Very beautiful.

After about 45 minutes at Molokini, we all got back on the boat and headed to “Turtle Hacienda” which is also called “Turtle Town” (The actual name is Five Graves because there are 5 Hawaiian burial sites at that location). On the way there, Trilogy provided veggies w/dip and fresh homemade salsa (very very good). Once we got to the location, we all went back in for more snorkeling. We saw a few turtles and actually swam with a couple of them too! Its about 30 ft down to the bottom, so we had to keep repressurizing our ears as we went lower down. The turtles were very cute…especially when they came up for air and you could see just the tip of their head above the water.

After the snorkeling, we had a barbeque chicken lunch on the boat. Saw a couple of spinner dolphins while having lunch. They were a lot smaller than we thought they would be. The ride back was pretty wild. We went into a wind line with some pretty large swells and lots of wind. We got some great splashes and the up and down motion was very roller-coaster-esque. We also saw some flying fish on the way back (they really look like they are flying!).

The tour was excellent. If you do a Molokini snorkel trip, we highly recommend this company. Other than a couple of jellyfish stings and some sunburns, we had a great time on the trip.

After the snorkel trip, we came back to the hotel and cleaned off. We went to dinner in Kihei at Tony Roma’s Ribs. Pretty good ribs and buffalo wings. We came back to the hotel and rented Shakespeare in Love on DVD and snuggled on the couch.

Day 8

Slept late, and went for brunch at the Kei Lani restaurant. It was O.K., but definitely not as good as the Hyatt Regency Kauai’s brunch. We spent the rest of the morning lounging around in our room, doing some reading, watching TV, and writing postcards. Made a trip to the local Mailboxes, Etc. to ship all our gifts and souveniers home so we wouldn’t have to carry them all on the plane. Picked up some snacks at the supermarket, then back to the room. Definitely an easy, relaxing day.

Went out for dinner at the Charthouse, which apparently is a chain since there’s one in Maryland. I had a very good filet mignon, Kathie’s fish was good, and they had delicious bread. I got a flight of four red wines to try with dinner. The Pinot Noir and Merlot were the best, and I didn’t really care for the Cabernet or Zinfandel. After dinner we headed to bed early since we had to get up early tomorrow for the drive to Hana.

Day 9

We got up around 6:45 A.M., a little behind schedule, and left the hotel around 7. Stopped for breakfast in Paia at Charley’s, which was very good. They make enormous pancakes. Kathie ordered one macadamia nut pancake with coconut syrup, and couldn’t even finish it. Then we began down the long, slow, winding road to Hana, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world. There are over 600 turns and over 100 one-lane bridges on this 40 mile drive, which makes it very slow going. We stopped along the way at various waterfalls and scenic views. There was also a black sand beach which was interesting — the sand felt like regular sand, but was jet-black.

After we passed Hana the road got even worse — very narrow and even more winding. Eventually we reached Oheo, and hiked around a bit to see some of the “sacred pools”. Then we began the long drive home. Part of the road ahead is unpaved and our car rental agreement forbid us from going that way, so we turned around and returned the way we came. It took us about 5 hours to get to Oheo (with various stops) and 3 hours to get back (express).

When we finally got back to the hotel we washed off all the sun block, put on some skin lotion where we got too much sun (the one problem with having a convertible), and headed to a local Italian restaurant in Keihi for dinner. The food was decent, and the prices were reasonable (since it’s not a tourist trap). Went to bed early again.

Day 10

Our last day in Hawaii, and boy was it a killer. We got up at around 2:40am and headed to the hotel lobby where a tour bus picked us up at 3 to take us to Haleakala Crater. It took us a little over two hours to get there. Haleakala Crater is what’s left of the volcano that formed Maui. The altitude was about 10,000 feet, and it was about 35 degrees F and very windy. We had brought sweaters and jackets, but we were still freezing. We should have brought gloves and hats! The sun rose around 6am and was very pretty since we were above the clouds. I don’t think it really lived up to all the hype we had heard about it though. At 6:15 the bus took us to the very summit of the mountain where we could see in all directions — the Big Island of Hawaii to the East, the rest of Maui to the West, and the Haleakala sheild crater all around us.

The van took us back down and we stopped at the Pukalani Country Club Restaurant for breakfast. The food was not bad, but the O.J. was very watered down and small. We finally got dropped off at the Hotel around 9:45am, just in time to start packing for our noon check-out. After checking out we drove back to Lahaina and did some more window shopping. We had a good lunch at Lahaina Fish Company (I had a teriyaki burger with pineapple on it), then drove to the airport and returned the rental car. After hanging around the airport for hours and eating a light dinner, we boarded our plane to San Francisco around 10pm. The flight was full, so we weren’t very comfortable for the 5-hour flight. Then we spent 90 minutes in the S.F. airport, and flew back to Dulles, arriving around 4pm local time. Boy were we exhausted!

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