Dog Update 4

Mac made it through today with no problems again. We think he is past his sickness and whatever anxiety he had from moving into a new place with an established alpha dog.

To honor Mac's rich history with us, I am going to post a picture that Tom put together for us. He titled it Dogforce 1, but I think Brent came up with a much better name, Air Force Deuce.

Barring any catastrophes tomorrow, Mac seems to be cruisin' for a cruisin'... Right down I-90!

Photoshops of Air Force One

At the National Review Online, they had the same idea I did, and some readers submitted some photoshopped pictures. Check it out here.

Dog Update 3

Mac had a great weekend. He was even left out of the cage for a few hours on Sunday while we went down to Aurora (Wayne's World! Wayne's World! Party Time! Excellent!) to go to a home show. When we got back, all that seemed out of place was that Sheila's sandals were now on the couch, and one of the curtains on the front window had migrated over about a foot. No accidents and nothing broken. Not too shabby!

Today, Mac and Bailey went to get furcuts. He was great in the car ride and the groomer said he was good for her, which was a relief. When I went to pick them up, they weren't barking and he didn't soil his cage there either. Ahh, the little things in life!

I will post pictures soon of the freshly shorn siblings. Mac seems to be alot better in the last several days and he seems to be gaining weight finally. So maybe we're out of the woods and now we can concentrate on just having a puppy instead of a sick dog.

Dog Update 2

So Mac is still under our ownership. He had a good day on Friday and throughout the weekend so he received a stay of kennel return. He seems to be gaining weight and his "movements" have become regular and are happening outside of the house, which are both good things. He did have a minor tinkle accident last night, but it was on the tile and therefore easy to clean up. The secret to no cage number 2 accidents seems to be not giving him water while he is in there.

Tomorrow, he and Bailey are going to get furcuts. And, if he makes it through the next few days without dropping deuces throughout our house and his (the cage), he just may have won a round trip ticket to visit SD!

More to come!

Hey Government, Meet Photoshop

So today, the White House ran a "mission" with one of the airplanes that become Air Force One when President O gets on it for a ride. This "mission" was to fly low over New York City near the Statue of Liberty with 2 fighter jets trailing taking pictures to "update their file photo" of Air Force One. They wanted to get the Statue of Liberty in the background of Air Force One in flight. The mission was kept secret, with the FAA and New York authorities knowing on a "need to know" basis, which didn't include the mayor of the city.

To anyone with half a brain, it should have been apparent very quickly that this exercise would be construed as another potential attack. Understandably, they are still quite skittish in New York City when it comes to planes flying low near the buildings.

So, to recap, the White House, in this economy, decided to spend hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars to run a flight that scared the crap out of people just to capture a photograph that could have easily been done by some high school kid with mediocre photoshop skills.

Here is my first attempt using MS Paint, the crappiest of all crappy drawing programs:

Now just imagine what you could do with a real graphic program like Photoshop and some really good stock photography of Air Force One and the Statue of Liberty. I'm sure the government has access to all three of those things. But no, it's much better to just go take a picture of the real deal, not tell anyone, and put Lower Manhattan into a panic.

Way to go!

Dog Update

Mac had a good day today. No accidents so far, but there are a few hours left in the day.

We have decided to rename him. His new name is Number 2. We also tossed around the ideas of McCrappin and McPoopin. Number 2 was the winner because of the Austin Powers reference.

So, How's That Dog Doing?

Well, I've been holding off writing updates about Bailey's new brother because we just weren't (and still aren't) sure that he was going to work out. Three weeks ago, we went and adopted a dog from the same shelter where Sheila got Bailey. He is a poodle mix and is about 1.5 Bailey's. His name is McLovin Smalls. We had to compromise. She wanted McLovin and I wanted Smalls. We call him "Mac" for short. And no, I am not going to calculate 1 Trillion Macs, but feel free to do it yourself!

Here he is, doing his usual thing in crowding out Bailey from her previously owned space.


It has been interesting, to say the least, bringing another dog into the house. Bailey still isn't quite sure what to think of him and her patience has dropped quite a bit on everything. Also, we have had quite a few problems with Mac. First off, the first few days he was here, he had Kennel Cough, so that was the first visit to the vet. He also had problems with uncontrollable number 2. So he was put on medicine and a strict rice-hamburger diet. Once that ran out, we fed him some hard food again and the number 2 problems came back. That was a week ago and he is still having problems. Vet visit #2 came around last Thursday and he got some more medicine. I didn't know this, but apparently you can fill pet med prescriptions at Walgreens. So now, McLovin Smalls Schneider is in their database. Just so he doesn't go and buy any Sudafed and get on a government Meth list!

The last few days he has really been trying our patience. We have had to clean out his cage 3 times and give him baths. Bailey is a busy couple's dream. She needs at most 2 walks a day, hangs out all day outside of the cage watching out the window and has no accidents. Mac can't go 3 hours without leaving some evidence somewhere. So we're getting the point where we may take him back because we can't give him the kind of attention he apparently requires. 6-7 walks a day 2 hours apart.

As for the title to this post, it's an homage to one of the funniest stories that my Grandpa Vic has ever told us. Grandpa is tireless and is always up to something. He can't sit still. Sometimes I wonder if Sheila is his real granddaughter and I came from someone else because she is like that and I am pretty much the opposite!

So to recap the story, way back many years ago when my Grandpa was working at Armour's, one of his coworkers was trying to get rid of a big mean dog and a big matching doghouse. Apparently the dog had a mean streak and the guy's neighbors were done with it so he had to get rid of it. So, my Grandpa, living on the farm thought having a dog out there might be nice, and a good large sturdy doghouse would look good on the property as well. He got the dog and the doghouse chained to the pickup and drove them out to the farm.

Well, when they tried to get the dog down, it started growling and barking and was extremely agitated to have been moved from the city to the farm. My Grandpa wasn't about to let the dog loose and have it attack him or my uncle so he says to Rick, "Get the gun." You can fill in the blanks from here, and that doghouse sure made a great house for all the farm cats that lived out there from then on!

So I guess for a few days/weeks he was trying to avoid the dog's previous owner, but one day they met up and the exchange went something like this:

"So, how's that dog doing?"

"Well, not too good."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"Well... I shot him."

"YOU WHAT?!?!?!?!?!"

To get the full effect of this exchange you have to hear it straight from grandpa, but suffice to say, when he tells that story, we nearly fall off of our chairs every single time, even though we know the punch line.


So, in dealing with our little Mac, I must be honest, we have actually brought up Grandpa's method of getting rid of a problem dog, but rest assured we won't go that route! But we may be cutting our losses and sending him back for someone else to adopt.

We'll be up in SD next week for cousin Scott's wedding and we may or may not have a second dog in tow, you'll have to wait and see!