Bucky Turns Fifteen!

We celebrated Bucky's fifteenth birthday last Friday, November 5th. A few days ago, he threw a big fit because his human brother was eating chicken nuggets and would share with him. Since he (Bucky) can't eat most other things any way, for his birthday he got a chicken nugget. I did put a candle in it! 


I didn't get any good pictures, so instead I made this little video to capture his years with us. I shared this with the pug group on Ravelry, and I was very touched by everyone's comments and well wishes for our old pug. He's old and fragile, but not a bit timid because of his short stature or inability to get where he wants to be. He's still our feisty little dog, full of character, full of life.


One thing I learned after 15 years, one can never take enough pictures and videos of our dogs. Enjoy them while you can.

Bucky Napping with a Baseball

The other day I got home and saw this cute scene. Henry apparently left the baseball in the dog bed, and Bucky decided to cuddle up with it. It's the perfect size for him. I bet he had some sweet dreams hitting home runs. We used to joke that Bucky as a batter had the smallest strike zone, and he'd be constantly challenging the pitcher to throw him a good pitch. Then he'd hit the ball three feet away, we called that The Bucky Ball.

Henry in the Press

Humane Society's eNewsLetter came out yesterday and Henry was featured in the Two Paws up section. Click here to see the newsletter, and scroll all the way down to the bottom to see the boy with Dino the big bionic dog.

Humane Society Visit, End of 4-40

Last Friday we went to Humane Society to drop off our huge collection, and meet a few people. I had emailed back and forth with the volunteer coordinator previously, and she wanted us to meet some folks in Marketing. They even arranged a volunteer photographer to take pictures of Henry.

Here is Henry with Dino the socialization mascot in front of the donation center. Dino had hip replacement done by the good doctors at the Humane Society, and of course Humane Society covered the costs too. Henry never had close contact with big dogs before (they are right about the same size, 75 lbs), so Dino was quite a new experience for him. Dino's foster dad let Henry walk Dino for a bit and give him treats. Henry recorded the experience on the 4 Weeks, Forty Blanket blog.

Next to the donation center is a door that leads to the surrender counter. Every time we went to donate someone went into the surrender door with a crate. If you are thinking about bringing a new pet home, please consider the shelter.

To wrap up the 4-40 project, we reached the target on Monday when we picked up from three separate locations. A woman lives in Los Gatos mountains offered to meet us in town, so we met her in the high school where her child was in band practice and which Henry will be attending in three years. Then we went to a home in Almaden for our second pick up. This was through Henry's post on lmtrade, a Yahoo Group I started years ago for Las Madres families to buy/sell/trade household items. A woman responded to Henry's email and offered a big bag of blankets and towels. In the afternoon, we went to our third pick up of the day in Los Altos. This was through Henry's post on a Freecycle group, another big bag of blankets and towels. I think these people really like Henry.

Back in July I told my mom about the 4-40 project, so she collected a bunch of stuff from her friends and neighbors. On Tuesday we went and picked these up. Our final total was 55 blankets, countless towels, sheets, and lots of toys. I'm very happy with what we've accomplished, very happy with how Henry managed the project and made his summer meaningful.

Operation Blanket Update

We are in week three of 4 Weeks Forty Blankets and things are going very well. To date we received 28 blankets, some pads and small rugs, bags and bags of sheets, towels, and even more bags of stuffed animals. We have a visit scheduled for Humane Society tomorrow morning when we, hopefully, might be able to hand some of these items directly to the adoptable dogs.

Now the question is, how am I going to fit all these in my little car?

(Bucky is not invited on the trip, although he certainly would enjoy a romp on the big lawn and the playground that Humane Society set up for exercising the dogs. He was here to supervise our photo shoot.)

Bucky on Vacation

We spent early part of this week on the central coast of Califonia, which we planned to visit last summer but didn't make it since we couldn't find a dog sitter. Now that Bucky is our only dog and with his fragile state I don't trust others taking care of him, he went along for the ride.

The ride he had! Everywhere we went he had fans. We picked restaurants with outdoor seating, and people stopped to admire "your cute old pug". At an icecream shop a girl volunteered to bring a bowl of water outside so she could meet "the cute puppy". The place we stayed was right on the beach, and Henry and Dad enjoyed hours of whacking a paddleball around. To my surprise, Bucky had a great time exploring the beach. He doesn't walk very well, and I thought it's more difficult for him to walk on the soft sand. Instead the sand cushioned his falls, and he really liked all the new smells.

Four Weeks Forty Blankets

Henry and I have August off from camps and work, so we are going to collect 40 blankets for the Humane Society. Henry is mostly in charge of the project, and I'm helping him here and there with ideas and most importantly, driving. So far we have collected eight blankets and tons of stuffed animals. Yesterday we did our first drop off at Humane Society and visited some of the adoptable dogs.

You can follow our progress on our blog: 4 Weeks, Forty Blankets; or our Facebook page in the same name.

Box 96 Finale

Pattern: Box 96 Pullover by Mari Lynn Patrick, Interweave Knits Summer 2010 cover
Yarn: West Valley Alpacas Classic DK Yarn
Needle: US5
Cast on: May 10, 2010
Cast off: July 22, 2010
Notes: After Great American Aran Afghan and Pagode, I was pretty burned out on colors, so I really wanted something simple and plain for a change. This little top was on the cover of then latest IK in blue, so I knitted it in white and added a bit of blue trim. It was a fun, quick knit, perfect for the summer. If you follow the pattern the arrow would be off center, so I changed it to center decrease to make it symmetrical.

DOT Spotlight Rerun

More than two years ago Trinket and Bucky were featured on Dogs on Thursday, and I just realized that I never ran that post here on our own blog. Shame on me. So here it is in full. Remember this was written in January 2008.

Trinket

Trinket is my first dog, the first new member of our little family. Trinket is Chihuahua and Fox Terrier mix; he’ll turn thirteen on January 30th.

Couple of years into our marriage, my husband and I still felt like newly weds, but looking at each other across the dinner table every night was getting a bit dull. We needed something to jazz up our lives.

A local rescue group, CARE, was holding an adoption fair on a Wednesday evening, April 6, 1995. It was love at first sight. The foster mom was showing Trinket to other people, and I followed her around like a puppy. When she got good and tired of that she handed me Trinket, “do you want to hold him?” I held Trinket and Bill signed the contract.

At first we were pretty determined to bring up a presentable good citizen; we changed our minds within twenty four hours. Although we tried very hard to be good doggie parents, our little puppy denied the fact that he was a dog, he insisted on eating with us (our food) and sleeping with us (on my pillow). When we left him home alone in a playpen, he chewed up the lanolin floor.

Trinket used to run circles around the kitchen every night, or leap a few feet into the air and land on a big deck in the back yard. He had so much energy and only had these two big humans to play with. We told him he deserved someone to bug the hell out of him.

Oh did he get what he deserves! In twelve years he endured two rescues, a pug brother, and worse of all, a little human brother. Being the smallest in size, Trinket insists on being the pact leader. Sometimes teeth are shown to enforce the leadership.

Bucky

Bucky is a black pug. He turned twelve on November 5, 2007.

The following “How We Met” story has never been told before. You see, pug people are very protective of their beloved little apple heads and big ears, and we were fearful that someone might consider us traitors of the breed and retaliate.

We met Bucky in the flea market. It was January 6, 1996, first Saturday of the month and we were happily strolling along in De Anza Flea Market, as we did almost every month. 

Someone had two little puppies in a playpen, the boy, the little black one, was still available. The little guy had been lying on the cold hard parking lot for the entire day; all he had was some blue tarp for comfort. Yet he was playful nonetheless, tugging on the tarp, and when someone picked him up, he licked and chewed on girls’ hair. I looked in those big googly eyes and couldn’t put him down.

They were asking for $325, as is. Since it was the end of the day they lowered it to $300, and we took him home, with a flea.

We soon found out his energy level was simply out of this world. He ran around so much in the first two years, we could hardly take a decent picture of him. He was our perfect answer to Trinket’s puppy hood, ha-ha. They are about ten months apart, so Bucky has almost never spent more than a few hours alone in his life. He looks to the big brother for the next action. If Trinket thinks he hears a car is in the driveway, he starts to bark, and Bucky follows, and Bucky doesn’t know why Trinket is barking, and he doesn’t care.

Our four-legged children helped us proof to ourselves that we are indeed capable of keeping small creatures alive; in return, they got the human brother, Henry.

Bucky the lonesome traveler

Life as the only dog has been very nice to Bucky. He realizes that he now has sole privilege of manipulating his humans, especially his mom, and he's taking full advantage of it.

Here he is, at Stanford Shopping Center, taking a break during some busy wondering and flirting to rest his legs on the grass.

Enjoying Jazz on the Plazz, and a back scratch.