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.

The soccer player

Diesel posing with his soccer ball.

3 months

Diesel is protecting his buddy, the wolf.

11 weeks

Diesel is trying his best to catch a wasp in the grass.

9 Weeks-

Diesel has more energy than two adults and 3 young girls.  I try to wear him out, but I'm the one who gets worn out.  I take him outside with the goal to come back inside only when the dude is exhausted.  It doesn't work.  I walked him around the block tonight, and I'm ready for bed while he's still wanting to play.  Sometimes we wonder what we were thinking getting an energetic puppy that will one day be more powerful than 4 out of our 5 family members. Other times we look at the dude with sympathetic hearts, realizing anything that eats it's own poop can never be bigger than us.   Right now he's a nice dog with a mean bark.  His bark dirties the ears like hearing a nun rant in blasphemous cuss words.  You aren't sure if you should laugh or hide, because even though he sounds serious, you realize something 9 weeks old can't possibly deliver what his bark promises, but you don't want to find out.  I can't imagine how mean he will sound as a big dog.

8 Weeks

Who's idea was this anyway?

It sure would be nice if these cute little puppies came with an easy button. Oh, don't get me wrong, we didn't bite off more than we can chew, and he's not a bad dog. It's just that the girls are a little frightened when he bites their feet and growls like a wolf. Hopefully he will grow out of this puppy phase before he gets to be 100 pounds!

7 Weeks

I wonder if we bit off more than we can chew?

Diesel's new home

We were able to get Diesel on Monday, and it's been quite the adjustment for everyone involved, especially on Diesel's part.. He used to get wild with his siblings, biting, playing, and acting tough. Now it seems he's most interested in playing with my feet. For some reason he thinks it's totally OK to clamp down on my feet. The dude has some pretty sharp teeth. We've got him a few play toys and he likes to bite them, but not as much as he likes my feet! He's going to be an inside dog, so we've started the process of house training him. He's been doing pretty good so far with only a couple of accidents. He spends the nights in the kennel, and takes a trip outside every three hours throughout the night.

6 weeks

Diesel came for a visit today. He still hasn't moved in with us yet. It's going to be a pretty unusual week for us and we didn't want him to change his mind once he got here. We're all excited to have him join our home and hope he's just as excited. Here he is on the left with his sister. The one I call Shakira.

5 weeks old-

We decided to visit Diesel one more time before bringing him home in a week. We thought it would be good for him and more importantly the girls. Diesel was fine, very playful and energetic. The girls? Not so much. They mostly hung out on the trampoline, out of reach from the ferocious little guy. Diesel seemed to have doubled in size from a week ago. Here are some pics of him and his sister.

The Puppy-

Well, it's official like a referee with a whistle. We're getting a puppy named Shaq Diesel. He was born Aug 12th with 8 siblings. His mom is a rottweiler, and his dad is a boxer. We've never had a dog, and our 3 girls are terrified of them.....This could get interesting! Here is his mom the rottweiler.