The Adventures of Harvey & Pete

What happens when you take 2 city dogs, a meadow for romping, a creek for splashing and no leash?!

Doggy bliss...

you know you're having fun when you have grain in your fur

snack time?

pete: "canon baaaaaall!"

harvey: "umm... i'll wait here. wading is fun."

canon ball again!

and again!

hi friend.

love...

quiet

and finally, a much needed nap after an adventure in the great outdoors

the end.

Every Home Needs a Harvey

I'm a fan for obvious reasons.

Harvey & His Many Hats

When we adopted Harvey we were unaware that he brought more to our family than just a pretty face. Harvey has talents and not just the traditional talents dogs are typically associated with. Yes, he can sit, shake, high-five and lay down, but Harvey has many layers to him, some of which we're just now beginning to discover. Like for instance, he has a keen eye for decor. We know this because every time we leave the house, upon our return he has rearranged all the throw rugs in the house. He feels that they should all be in one room, in a pile, and that he should sit on them. Don't try to put them back though, because this only makes it more tempting for him to move them to their "rightful place."

Harvey also is very handy with daily chores, such as sorting laundry. After you've sorted the laundry once, Harvey feels the need to separate key items from the piles, such as socks, underwear, wash cloths and when he's feeling especially ambitious, sheets. Thankfully he's avoided eating them unlike someone else I know.

Additionally, Harvey is very talented at keeping time. In fact, we no longer need to set our alarm clocks nor worry we'll ever over sleep again. Harvey forbids it. He believes a good day should begin promptly when the sun rises and lets us know this immediately. He could easily take over for a rooster should we ever move to a farm.

And finally, but most importantly, he reminds us of the importance of stopping to smell the roses... and fire hydrants, leaves, grass, trees, other dogs' poo, and anything else we might find on our walks. Thanks buddy!

Dog Walking 101

Whoever said having 2 dogs is just as easy as having 1 has some explaining to do, or maybe they just haven't met Harvey and Belle. Belle is Phillip's "dog sibling" i.e. his parents' dog. While they were on vacation in Costa Rica we volunteered to watch Belle, a West Highland White Terrier. She's not known for being the most welcoming to other dogs... Phillip likes to tell the story of the time she lunged at a Rottweiler's jugular in the vet's office. However, she and Harvey warmed up to each other soon enough. Well, maybe him more so than her. He seemed to enjoy the company, but she mostly just tolerated him. It was a different story on walks though. You would have thought they had been best friends forever. At first Belle would only walk 5 feet behind him, but by the end of the week they would walk right next to each other and sniff the same things, try to eat the same "gutterjerky" as we call it and bark at other dogs together. It got tricky when they had to get down to "business" though as Phillip found out. The trio had paused to let one dog relieve himself and as Phillip performed the dreaded duty that follows, the dogs had managed to tangle their leashes around his legs unbeknownst to him. Just then a car drove by close to the sidewalk and another neighbor walking her dog approached, sending everyone into a frenzy. Phillip went down... poo in hand (thank goodness it was bagged). Luckily he can laugh at himself, just as the neighbor did at the scene and I did when he returned and said "you will not believe what the dogs did." It makes it hard to be mad at them when you're laughing hysterically though. Bad dogs ;)

These pics are from a walk with the rascals around Lake Johnson one Saturday morning. Luckily, no humans were hurt. 

Walking Buddies

 

Belle

 

Duck on a log 

The Name Game

Well, we did it! We adopted a dog and no one else can claim him - we have the microchip to prove it! After scouring through scores of craigslist postings, petfinder postings and visits to shelters and SPCAs, some close by in Raleigh, others way the heck down south, almost to South Carolina, we found him or actually maybe he found us.

Phillip's mom told us about a rescue organization in Wake Forest called Saving Grace. The founder, Molly, goes around to rural shelters in North Carolina and has a way of figuring out if the dog can be rehabilitated and will make a good family pet. She was at the Johnston County Animal Control shelter when she spotted a black terrier mix. She asked the AC how he was taken in and was told that they found him and another dog tied to a tree with no shelter, food or water - how awful?! They approached the owners and they said they didn't want them anyways, so AC took them away. Luckily for them, Molly rescued both of them, not knowing they were brought in together. Unfortunately, due to the high volume of dogs brought in to the shelters, they only have a week to be adopted or else they have to euthanize them. It's pretty heart breaking going into the shelters knowing that this is their last chance. We knew we wanted a shelter dog, but it's hard to tell what they will be like when they're in such a terrifying situation. The dogs we attempted to meet were actually afraid of us and some wouldn't even leave their cages. It's pretty depressing. I definitely have a better appreciation of Bob Barker's spay & neuter your pets campaign.

Thankfully Molly knows what she's doing and works around the conditions of the shelters. So after our application was accepted, we set up an appointment to meet "Freeman" - the name Saving Grace had given him. As soon as we walked through the gate, he came running up to greet us with lots of kisses and a happy tail wagging. He snuggled up to us both when we kneeled down, so we knew he was The One right away and a few minutes later he was ours! That was the easy part... the next part was not so easy. What are we going to call him? He hadn't been at Saving Grace too long, so he didn't know a name yet - our options were endless. It seemed like anytime we were together we were shouting out different names at each other. We'd poll family, friends, co-workers... really anyone who was willing to give an opinion, which people are generally not shy about giving. We finally narrowed it down to a top 10 list in no particular order:

1) Wallace
2) Duncan
3) Oscar
4) Harvey
5) Griffin
6) Roscoe
7) Johnny
8) Buddy
9) Lincoln 
10) Walter

I don't think we even really had a favorite since neither of us was willing to go out on a limb and say "he is definitely a ____." Days went by. Inquisitive emails from family and friends pressed for an answer. Our deadline came and went and we still couldn't decide. Finally, the day of the vet appointment arrived. It was kind of do or die. We had narrowed it down to 3 names - Walter, Harvey and Oscar - but couldn't decide. Phillip made the executive decision to list him as one of the names at the appointment. Afterward he told me the name he chose and I still wasn't sure, so I suggested we call him another name. It still didn't feel right calling him by that name either. By this point, we were pretty exhausted by our sub-par decision-making skills so we would just shout out random names to him and finally one stuck.... (drum roll please)

I introduce to you HARVEY! (which as luck would have it happened to be the name we told the vet) Isn't he handsome?

An Ode to Ollie

Meet Ollie.

This happy fellow came into our lives in not the happiest of circumstances. He was found wandering in a parking lot, wet, covered in mud and ticks and had an injured leg. Lucky for him, my friend Emily took charge and scooped him up to see what was wrong. He had no collar and no microchip, so there wasn't an immediate way to find the owner. She whisked him to the vet, vaccinated him for rabies, got pain meds for the leg, and nursed him back to health. After postings online and fliers around the shopping center where he was found, no one turned up. Emily, knowing our desire to add a dog to our family, setup a playdate for us, and we fell for him instantly. He's adorable, doesn't chew on anything, no accidents in the house, no begging for food, and his favorite thing to do is sleep on his back with his paws in the air. He's the perfect dog. How could we be so lucky!? We sent out pics to family and friends introducing everyone to the new love in our life, and started falling into a routine. Life was good. Until the email came. The owner found him on craigslist three weeks after he'd been rescued. Our hearts fell into our stomachs as that horrible feeling of knowing he was no longer ours set in. We questioned why he was found in such a bad state, where had they been for the past 3 weeks and how did he get away? But we knew he was not ours. We had to give him back. We returned him to the family who owns a farm, where he was born, with 4 other dogs, so we know it's for the best and he'll be very happy to be back with his doggie buds, but it still hurts. We miss you Ollie. You have set the bar high for our next fur-baby, but we know he or she is out there and will be just as happy in our home. Take care buddy.

The Midas Touch

Since Phillip and I do not have a dog of our own just yet, we regularly volunteer to dog-sit. And so, a couple of weeks ago, we had the pleasure of hosting Midas. Midas is a very special Dachshund. He was rescued from a  lady who happened to be a hoarder, and so the first weeks of Midas' life were crammed into a crate with 8 other puppies. Luckily, he does not carry a bitter bone in his body and is one of the happiest and funniest dogs I've ever met.

One particularly funny moment involved our laundry. We had "puppy-proofed" the house, and kept the doors shut to our guest room, which occasionally turns into the laundry staging room. I had run into the room to grab something as I was getting ready for work and Midas was at my heels to see what lurked in this forbidden room. Since I was running late I didn't notice that in the 2 seconds I had been in the room, Midas had managed to grab three pairs of underwear, plop himself under the bed, and chew up (and eat) them all. But how can you be mad at a face like this?

Unfortunately for Midas, I was informed by his mom, that karma does indeed work and he did pay the price (digestively) later on. Poor guy.

Spring in January?

I don't know what's going on with the weather in Raleigh lately, but for once I'm not going to complain! After 2 weeks of freezing temperatures, we finally caught a break just in time for the weekend. Saturday was sunny and in the 60s. A perfect day for a pick up game of soccer for the boys and frolic in the park for dogs. While Phillip and his friends kicked the ball around, I was joined by a friend's dog Ze, an Australian Shepard. Ze is a ball of boundless energy, but was willing to sit patiently for a picture or two... as long as this was followed by a game of catch or exploration of the park.

Mr. Handsome

Ready for that game of catch he was promised.

Focused.

Barking at the soccer ball since he was not invited to play.

But all was forgiven once he retrieved a ball of his own.

 Coaching on the sidelines.

 

And we're done for the day!