Category Archives: Llife with Lloyd

Dog Eats Dip, Pays Price Post-Bedtime

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vegetable-dip-1017305-lOn Thursday Lloyd decided to take things up a notch.  Let me begin by saying that there is unfortunately no photographic record of these events, for which I am eternally sorry and for which I beg your forgiveness.  If nothing else, those pictures would make for better blog posts, so while part of me hopes we don’t have a repeat performance, another part of me is entirely convinced that you will eventually see those pictures here.

First off, Lloyd decided he was thirsty and so he personally drained the toilet of water in our powder room.  Then after a particularly vigorous play with Harvey looked me right in the eye as he stopped to take a leak at the top of the stairs, which I later saw as I cleaned it up trailed off in a crooked, dribbly trail as he managed to choke it off while running away from me and my strangled cries of outrage.

That’s not news, he’s been here before a few times.  The best part happened before I got home.  Here’s how it went down:

Nikki came home from swimming lessons with the boys and fed all of the kids lunch.  While the three kids were eating, the phone rang and she walked to the office to check the computer while she was talking.  At the same time the kids finished their lunch, which included munching on a veggie tray from Costco, I’m sure you have seen them.  This one had a container of salad dressing in the middle, to be used as dip, naturally.  Lloyd had already finished his own lunch in typical fashion; eating and slurping so fast he usually makes it all the way upstairs before burping thunderously.  Every.  Time.  Anyway, the kids left the table, and Lloyd saw his moment.  Jordy found him STANDING on our kitchen table, all four paws, slurping away happily at the veggie dip.  By the time she dragged him off the table, the dip had vanished so completely Nikki didn’t even have to rinse the container to recycle it.  We then decided that the veggies that surrounded the dip were also a lost cause, since we couldn’t imagine the correct amount of washing that would make anyone feel good about eating them.

This would be the end of the story, but it’s not.  Most of us would not be able to relate just what happens to the average digestive system after eating two cups of salad dressing in one go.  I can, however.  The warm, breathy, kibble-and-ranch-scented burps were not what I noticed, but rather the four or five trips we made to the front lawn in the wee hours of the morning.  Neither one of us was very happy to be out there to do that, but I will say that I wager I had the better end of that deal.  To his credit, there were no messes in the house, but our lawn looked like a pasture.

So, there you go folks.  All of this happened in one day.  After some reflection, Nikki and I agreed to hereby increase Lloyd’s food and water ration (again).  His dish is already filled to capacity with each meal, so until I can get him a bigger one I have started feeding him four meals a day…

Our dog food guy loves us.

Backyard Splashy Time

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Lloyd, Harvey and the boys had some much deserved backyard time yesterday in the wonderful sun.  I was sitting on my arse watching them after I came home from work and snapped a few pics with my phone.  I think you can see how much fun they were having, each in their own pools.  The boy’s pool is inflatable and so it’s off limits for Bitey McPunctureton seen here digging his way to the bottom of his pool of water.  Keep digging, Bitey…

digging for something

Then I took a shot of the inevitable results of splashing, you can see Lloyd here in mid-rotation, which makes his ears look stupid.

shakey shakey

Of course after this I had to empty the pool to begin the emptying as supper was almost ready…

Lloyd Update

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A brief update on Lloyd, just for the record.

His height increases week to week have slowed, but he is now taller at the rump than Harvey.  His weight gain this week is pretty remarkable, he’s now 60 lbs, and that means he gained 6 lbs in a week.  The mystery there becomes a lot less mysterious when you know that one day this week Cael helpfully fed Lloyd his lunch and accidentally left the lid of the dog food container open.  We can’t be sure how much he ate, but judging by the amount and frequency of bowel movements that night, I’m thinking he had his fill.

Also, just for the record, Lloyd snores.  Shocker I know.  It was a very cute little rasp last month, but it’s getting louder now, and I can’t wait to hear what it sounds like when he puts on the rest of the bulk.  It’s going to be like sharing a room with a college frat boy, 200lbs of snoring and farting exuberance.  Harvey is downright dainty next to this dog.

I complain, but really, it’s so much fun.

Lloyd’s Love of Water

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As anyone who has owned a puppy can tell you, it’s fairly easy to house-train a dog.  If you control the intake, you can control the elimination.  Don’t allow unlimited access to water, or be prepared to clean up lots of messes.  It’s quite simple.  Lloyd was extremely easy to train, but to this day he is “very motivated” by water.  He loves water.  It’s not that he doesn’t get enough, trust me, he pees every time we take him out and that’s a lot.  It’s just that if he has access to water, he drinks it until it’s gone.  It’s a challenge to him, one that the water MUST NOT win.  This is easily seen when we fill up his pool in the backyard (yes he has a pool, how the heck else are we going to keep 180 lbs of furry meat cool in the summer?).

If Lloyd has his pool full of water, he sees it as his enthusiastic duty to drink the whole thing dry.  He literally drinks until he’s bursting before he will admit that the pool contains more water than is comfortable to drink.  The rest of the water he attempts to absorb with his face, ears, and coat.  This works pretty well, he’s much like a living, slobbering, burping ShamWow.  Pool time requires some planning to run successfully.  Ideally, you would fill the pool and let Lloyd have his drink and romp in the pool which requires much jumping and splashing and pretend digging with huge paddle-sized paws.  Then, an hour and a half BEFORE when you want to have backyard time to be done, the pool has to be drained.  Lloyd is visibly ticked at this, but it has to happen so that the bladder emptying can begin.  This dog can hold a significant portion of that pool in his belly, and it has to start getting out before he can be allowed back in the house.  It’s not his fault, really.  He’s just so full it starts leaking out before he really realizes it.  I have literally watched him pee in the backyard at least 3 times in 4 minutes, impatiently stopping to go in mid stride.  He has no concept of how much pee he has, so it’s a nuisance to have to go so often.

This is the reason that makes it important for Lloyd to not have access to unlimited access to water inside the house.  Unfortunately for us, he figured out right away that the toilets are basically a bottomless water bowl, conveniently located throughout the house.  We have been trying to keep all of the toilet lids down, but with 5 humans and three toilets it’s hard to enforce.  I can tell right away when Lloyd has located a bowl left open.  For one, there’s no water left in the thing, he drinks it down to the limit of his reach.  Indeed, I have found him with one paw inside the bowl, the better to reach to the bottom.  Secondly, the water that is left has been transformed into a viscous, thick substance created with drool containing bubbles that mysteriously never pop, grass bits, and chunks of milkbones or food that have been flushed out of his jowls by the good clean toilet water.  Let’s just say that he isn’t all that subtle.  Then I immediately start looking for him so I can take him outside to begin The Emptying again.

The vet says that a dog his size needs about 2 litres of water a day.  Keep in mind he’s only about 49 lbs at the moment.  We are most looking forward to Lloyd’s growth in only one place:  his bladder.

Lloyd Picture Update

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It was pointed out to me recently that I seem to have hardly any pictures of Lloyd on the blog for some reason, so let’s fix that.  Here’s a little montage of Lloyd so far (who by the way is now 42 pounds):

Lloyd in his default state:

Lloyd in his default state

Lloyd sleeping again:

Lloyd sleeping again

Lloyd sleeping

Lloyd sleeping with his stuffed buddy:

Lloyd sleeping with his stuffed buddy

Lloyd, wait for it, sleeping, but in the bathroom this time:

Lloyd sleeping, this time in the bathroom

Lloyd sleeping with flexed butt cheeks (why? I have no idea) after huge bender:

Lloyd sleeping in the bathroom, flexed butt cheeks

Lloyd and Harvey sharing a chew:

Lloyd and Harv having a chew

Lloyd pondering blurrily:

Lloyd pondering

Lloyd not yet done pondering (if he’s not sleeping, he’s pondering)

Lloyd Still Pondering

Lloyd leaps into action!  He hates brooms:

Lloyd hates brooms

Lloyd singing into the microphone, laying down some harmonies for his new song, I Hate Brooms:

Lloyd still hates brooms

Staircase Dog Tsunami (of horrible slobbery death)

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One thing that has become clear as Lloyd gets bigger and bigger, and mostly stronger, sharing the stairs with an excited Lloyd is taking your own life into your hands.  We use a large measuring cup full of water to track how much he drinks, since there’s just no off switch for Lloyd when it comes to water.  If you are foolish enough to let him see you carry that measuring cup down the stairs to where his dishes are, you had better hop to it before he catches up with you.  If you aren’t subtle or fast enough, then it’s a Raiders of the Lost Ark terror run down the stairs with a tumbling barking avalanche of fur, teeth and spit enthusiastically trying to tangle your legs and carry you down to your death.  Seriously, Lloyd doesn’t come down the stairs so much as he surfs them, maniacally riding them into the wall at the landing where he lands with a whump and a grunt, only to heave himself up and launch down the next flight, using flailing limbs and tongue to carve a path of destruction for anything in his way.

The kids are especially vulnerable and while we haven’t lost anyone yet, it’s probably only due to sheer luck.  We were warned not to exercise St. Bernard puppies too hard when they are young, since their joints and bones are still growing and developing, forget about our own human puppies whose joints and bones are still growing.  I wonder how falling down the stairs 10 times or more each day fits into that?