Football,... or any ball,,.... The dude likes to play ball!

 

The dude loves to play fetch.  He could retrieve balls all day long if someone were willing to kick or throw one that long. I always lose interest before he does.  Maybe I should get him a tether ball?  

He's up to 90 lbs, and the vet says he is as big as he can get without being fat.  We feed him 3 cups of "black gold" in the morning, and 3 more cups in the evening.  So far he's been able to burn all those calories off.  Maybe when he's out of the puppy stage he'll need less food, but I'm not really sure. 

Back to normal

Well, the big dog had a long road to recovery, but finally he is back to normal.  Here are a couple recent pics.

The deadly Virus...PARVO!!!

 

Dazed and confused, the big dog is trying his best to fight off the often deadly virus called PARVO!
The first stage is lethargy, followed by loss of appetite, diarrhea, throwing up, dehydration, shock, death.  Right now we are trying to keep him hydrated by force feeding him electrolytes, and giving him shots of ? from the vet each day.  I've read that if treated, dogs with parvo have an 80% survival rate, but if untreated they have that good of chance or greater of dying..  Hopefully we caught it early enough.  We thought he was just trying to pass a small glove he had swallowed about a week ago, but after the glove came out his symptoms only worsened.  The vet confirmed our fears of something bad going on.  In these pics you can see a tired, worn out dog.  The ironic part of the whole ordeal is Diesel probably got the Parvo virus from the vet, you see, we had him neutered last Tuesday.  The poor guy has his manhood taken away, and now Parvo!  He's probably thinking "WHAT NEXT?"

7.5 months

 Diesel on the left is getting chased by his sister Kona.  She came for a play date one day a few weeks ago.  They had a blast.

 Here Diesel is tied up to a stake in the front yard.  I don't like to tie him up that often, but sometimes he wants to be outside just to be outside.  I'm thinking "I don't have a problem letting you out to take a leak, but come on dude, can't you just chill out when I want you to chill out?"  Yeah, so that's why he gets tied up.  We also bought a chain link kennel for when we need to lock him up outside.  While I'm talking about cruel punishments for Diesel, first the tied up to a cable, second, I have a chain link kennel, lastly I have a training collar to help in training Diesel to stay in the yard.  If he goes in the road, or tries to leave our yard, I tell him "NO". If he doesn't listen he gets zapped.  Yep, that's right I shock the dude.  I know everyone has their own opinions about shock collars, and that's nice, but I think it's a lot more humane to shock the crap out of my dog to keep him in the yard than to have a big farm truck mow his butt over.  So that's where we're at with Diesel.  He's a handful, and we love him to pieces, but sometimes he gets shocked, tied up, or locked up depending on the situation.  Most of the time he hangs out in the house with the rest of us.  When he is outside he usually listens pretty well, and avoids the whole shock treatment.  By the way, it doesn't hurt that bad.  When I first got it I was having second thoughts about the whole idea, so I tried it on.  I first put it on my thigh, and shocked myself a few times.  It hurt like hell, but only for a second.  Then I put it around my neck, and that too hurt like hell, so I decided it was probably a great idea, and if anyone gives me crap about it I can use the perfect defense.  I can hear it now.

Nosy Neighbor: "Hey Ryan, how would you like it if Diesel put a shock collar around your neck and zapped you every time you got out of line?"

Me:  "Well I can tell you hurts like hell, because I tried it out one day.  So, if Diesel thought he could maneuver his big paws in a way that would enable him to put a shock collar around my neck, and if he could figure out the remote to shock me every time I got out of line, I guess I wouldn't like it very much, and I'd stop doing whatever it was that I was doing.  There...... boooyaaah, nailed it!  Now get out my yard before I have Diesel lick you to death!"

(Spell check says boooyaaah isn't a word, but I know it is)

 Here comes Diesel, ready to lick you to death.

Just lounging around

It's been a cold start to the year with little time for the big dog to play outside..  I know he's part wolf and everything, but it's been COLD!  I'm talkin 10 to 15 degrees below zero for the lows with the highs barely creeping into the teens.  He tries to tough it out, and it doesn't seem to bother him too much other than his feet.  After a while he'll pick one foot off the snow and lick it as if it hurts, and then he'll pick up another foot and treat it the same.  Maybe I should get him some booties or something?  He seems perfectly content to sit out the cold weather by lounging around, lingering in spots where the sun shines through the windows, or curling up on the lazy boy.   I weighed him the other day at fifty one pounds.  Just 5 months old, Diesel outweighs our 7 year old daughter.  I wonder how big he'll grow.

The first snow

 The big Diesel enjoyed his first real snowstorm. 

16 weeks

One of Diesel's favorite spots is the oversized luv sac.  He's claimed it as his napping spot, and climbs on top when he's ready to chill out.  We've been going on morning bike rides around the block.  I think he likes to run alongside the bike better than the slower pace of walking.  Luckily the weather has been very mild, allowing us to hit the pavement as early as 5:30am.  Even though he barks like a full grown dog he's still just a puppy, and has lots of energy to burn each day.  Usually the bike ride is enough to tire him out for a few hours.
Diesel and I went to the humane society today to get his rabies shot.  While there we checked out the newly built dog park. It was raining a little bit and the only other dog was a large white labradoodle that had no problem showing Diesel who was the top dog.  The two of them had a good time chasing each other around before we headed home.