Barry Goes Out to Eat

Which restaurant should we go to, guys? I'm feeling like something
with meat.

Twice last weekend Husband and I took Barry with us out to eat. Out door dining of course. The first was on Saturday around lunch time. There's a small Italian cafe in the Little Italy neighborhood of Chicago that makes great salads and sandwiches (they also sell wine, homemade pre packaged pasta and sauces, and of course cannoli). You order, pay and then can sit outside along the sidewalk in front of their cafe. They have iron tables and chairs set up in the front. We figured if Barry got antsy we could pack up our Italian sodas and the sandwich we were sharing and take it home. This was sort of the test run. We wanted to see how he'd do. Plus he enjoys being outside. We also gave him a little bit of prosciutto from the sandwich. He did great. He watched everyone as they walked by, enjoyed a few bites of prosciutto and drank his water.

I'm watching you... Is that cheese you got there?

Then on Sunday we took him to a local bar and grill around lunch time. This bar and grill is right across from our condo so it's convenient. They have a nice outdoor eating section. We sat at the far end away from the street to give Barry plenty of space. Our part of the neighborhood is not as exciting or bustling as the Little Italy area. In fact, we were the only ones eating outside and there were probably only a handful of people inside. We ordered beer and food, and again, Barry did really well. He laid on his side and drank water and ate pieces of the turkey burger patty I was eating. This time was quite a lot longer than the previous day. We had a waitress and waited until after we were done eating before paying and leaving unlike at the Italian cafe where we paid first and had the option to leave at a moments notice.

Since you both had a beer I'll be the designated driver.

I think all in all it went very well. Barry mostly sat and laid down but toward the 35 minute mark at the bar/grill he did start to get a little antsy. He wanted to get moving. Next time I'd bring a toy or a bone for him to chew on, something to keep him occupied. It was pretty successful. I wasn't sure how well he'd do at first but he exceeded my expectations, as he tends to do.

Of course I did great. I mean, look at me. What else could come from this face?

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of our outings this time. I was focused on being in the moment and enjoying the day. I will be sure to take pictures next time.

Now it's nap time. Snuggling on the couch with Dad after
a good meal is tops.

Six Months

He's claimed all of our furniture and our hearts. Pretty corny, but it's sort of true.

It's been just over six months this week since we brought Barry home, since he flipped our lives upside down. I feel like I know so much about him and so little at the same time! He's been a great addition to our household and while he's given us some stressful moments he's returned to us more love than we bargained for. It really does cancel out any of the negative.

First day we brought Barry home.

That being said, I can totally see why someone wouldn't want to have a dog. It's clear that in order to take proper care of a dog you need to put in time and effort and probably a few tears. Well, at least for the Barry types. His excess young energy, his separation anxiety, and the fact that he is a pit bull type. Is it worth it? For Husband and me, yes, it is worth it. It might not be for others, though. I imagine some have a very busy life that just doesn't accommodate for a dog. Some can't afford the training and possible expensive furniture/clothing/floor replacements that many times go with having a dog. For others, they simply aren't cut out for it. All of those reasons are very valid for not having a dog. You are doing yourself and the dog a favor.

They take up all the room on the bed, but you let them because you
love them.

Barry has been and continues to be quite a handful. It's not a bad handful but a very big handful nonetheless. We could train him until perfection is reached. Then we'd need to be totally focused all the time on Barry and only Barry. Once perfection is reached Barry would be an angel and we wouldn't have any of these issues I so often blog about. What is the fun in that, though? While I admire those that put in so much effort, the kind that makes you blue in the face, Husband and I enjoy Barry as is. I mean, we have gone through training for the things that matter most (such as walking down the street without constant pulling) but all in all Barry is a really good dog already. He's cheeky, sure, and rambunctious occasionally, maybe even full-on naughty at times but he's a young dog. We love him like he is. He's mostly obedient, walks well almost all the time, and the majority of our furniture and clothing is fine.

Six months in and I'm head over heals with those sweet brown eyes already. I know Husband feels the same.

That is a baking soda box on the couch, for Barry's latest accident in the back room.
We still love him.

Barry's Bored

I still can't believe you changed the floors without my approval first.

Now that we officially have the solid hardwood floors in our bedrooms, a new dresser ordered and soon to be shipped, and a new bed frame for the spare bedroom that will be picked up this Saturday we have been feeling like everything is coming together.

Barry is, of course, always coming up with new challenges for us. He keeps us on our toes constantly. It actually is like having a child. A very strong, curious, high energy, and fearless child.

Last week (our first full week with hardwood throughout) Barry did well. By did well I mean he had no accidents. We did have to deal with a new preference of his, though. He has decided he doesn't want to eat first thing in the morning anymore. He'd prefer to lay in bed. We've been bringing the food into the bedroom to him to sniff and give him a piece or two - thinking maybe that would encourage him to get up and eat. Nope. Didn't work. Not really. He wants to lay around for about 30 minutes before eating. I can't really blame him for that. Who wants to wake up early just to eat? While Mom and Dad lie in the comfy bed...

I'm just gonna lie here a little longer, okay?

Our reason, initially, for feeding him right away was to give him time to digest so that by the time we took him out on his morning walk he'd go poo and wouldn't have any accidents in the back room. So now, we have him refusing to eat right away. He just won't get out of bed to eat first thing anymore. We thought perhaps we were beyond the accidents. Especially since there were none for a few weeks. I came home Monday to find husband cleaning up Barry's pee. No poo, just pee, but pee can be almost worse than poo on wood floors. He cleaned it up and sprinkled with baking soda and the areas look fine now. We also had to deal with him eating the spare bedroom mattress. The foam inside. Just part of it. My answer for the short term is to cover the mattress with a zip-over cover, flip it over and put the chewed up part at the bottom toward the foot of the bed. So no one will really notice. It looks fine actually. You can't tell.

See? Nothin' to worry about.

There was also the couch cushion he removed, unzipped, and then pulled out some of the foam from the inside and chewed it. He didn't chew the outer couch material, just the foam inside. So maybe he has a new thing with foam? Buttons and foam. I'm guessing he used his precision teeth to unzip the couch cushion cover as well. Our couch cushion looks fine. You'd never know part of the inside was missing. However, our couch no longer has any decorative buttons on the back like it did when we first bought it. Thank you, Barry.

The couch doesn't need buttons when I'm laying on it. I make it more beautiful just
by being near it.

Also, a new thing of his is to not be excited or interested in the KONG stuffed full of goodies when I leave for work in the morning. The KONG was a great tool to distract Barry and keep him occupied for hours after we left for work. Now, he just looks at me, looks at the KONG, and then back to me again. He eventually does get to the KONG because it's typically empty and cleaned out by the time we get home from work. It's just a different routine that I'm not quite used to yet. Rather than Barry picking up his beloved KONG and going to eat it in the back room he just sits there looking at me while I leave. Overall he seems okay when I leave. It's just strange that he's changed it up some.

I like to keep things interesting.

After coming home to all of the things Barry had left for us Monday Husband decided that maybe it would be a good idea to go running with him in the mornings. Perhaps Barry isn't getting enough exercise. Perhaps Barry is bored. One way to help these things is to give him more exercise so he's relaxed and less like a crazy caged animal. We've also resorted to blocking off the back room so he can no longer have access when we're not home. He is allowed back there only when we're home from now on. Otherwise he has access to all other parts of the house. We just can't have him peeing back there. We can't afford to replace our brand new floors that are less than two weeks old! Currently we are using our heavy wooden bar slid in front of the doorway to block the back room. Living in a loft with no doors (except for the bathrooms) is sort of annoying. I don't mind no doors on the bedrooms but this is an example of how having doors would be really helpful.

Our non-permanent solution so Barry cannot enter the back room while we're gone
during the day.

So Husband ran with Barry yesterday morning and again this morning and wore him out. He is still not terribly interested in his KONG when I leave but I'm sure he'll get to it. He doesn't seem to be bothered by not having access to the back room so far. I wonder if that will continue or if he'll start to be upset by it.

We'll see!

Nope, not bothered. I'm super chill...

Memorial Day Madness

On Friday after I got off work the people doing our floors were just finishing up. They were putting on the last bit of finish and the floors just look fantastic! We packed our bags and left for Wisconsin to stay until Sunday to let the floors dry and cure.

The weekend was really nice and relaxing as usual. Barry enjoyed his time outdoors. We went to a park called Petrified Springs. We hiked and even tried to take Barry to the water to see how he would do. He didn't seem to like it or not like it. He was rather indifferent to the water, actually. He stood in it but wasn't phased by it. We probably hiked for about an hour and a half. Then later that evening he got to play with his cousin, Paxton, a golden doodle. They got along well for the most part. They are both big dogs and have a similar energy and so they were both playing rough but it was a normal and natural play.

Barry is constantly in hunter mode when outdoors. Paxton is calm and cool here.

Grandpa wanted to walk both dogs at the same time. I protested slightly as I was worried it would be quite difficult. Both dogs are strong and both dogs pull. It turned out the walk was pretty successful. They both stayed relatively on the sidewalk and were mostly well behaved. I followed behind to take some pictures.

I like big butts. Although, I'd say Paxton's is more fluffy than big.

Barry slept well that night. He played hard with his cousin and hiked hills and trails.

On Sunday we had a cookout with the family. It was a gorgeous day. At around 4:30 or so we packed up and left for Chicago knowing we'd have a long day ahead of us with moving furniture and cleaning surfaces, etc.

After the hour and a half ride back to Chicago we parked on the street behind our building. I was carrying a few bags and having some issues so I set all the bags down to reassess and get a better grip on everything when I looked up and noticed Husband, holding Barry on his leash, looking back at me, realizing I was still by the car. He said something and I looked down to pick up the bags and once I grabbed them I looked up and Barry was running free, leash flying behind him. He'd spotted a squirrel. Husband was momentarily distracted by me and in that very moment a squirrel went by and Barry was able to get free. It happened in a flash.

Barry was running hard on the cement. We were in the parking lot behind our condo building. Barry was running all directions, trailing the squirrel quite expertly. The squirrel would dodge quickly in a new direction and Barry stayed with the squirrel at each turn. Under cars, over the grassy curbs, this way, that way, and then finally Husband was able to grab hold of Barry's leash and stop him. At that point I could already see all the scrapes, gashes, blood, frayed nails. Barry had really done a number on his paws and nails. Each step he took left splotches and patches of blood. A trail of blood behind him coming from his pads and nails.

We rushed into our messy and dusty condo with beautiful new floors and hurried Barry into the tub to clean him. We rinsed his paws and then dipped them in baking soda to stop the blood from pouring out. It helped a little. It seemed to clog some of the open wounds that were bleeding and he was no longer gushing blood. Barry limped and hobbled to a corner of the living room trailing pink baking soda behind him. He could barely walk. He stayed in the corner near the sliding glass doors on a towel for about 45 minutes. I brought him water and we fed him treats. We were beside ourselves. I was devastated. The look he was giving us was torture. There was little we could do for him. We'd cleaned him and helped stop the bleeding.

So we got to work and moved furniture back to its spot. Once we moved the spare mattress into the back room Barry went to the back room and lay there for the rest of the evening while we cleaned and moved furniture. Husband and I moved and cleaned in near total silence. It was a horrible experience. We should have been celebrating our new floors and happily moving our furniture with discussion on if we wanted to put the spare bed here, or there, and where should we put the desk, what kind of rugs should we get, what about a dresser? There was little discussion. Everything was mechanical and depressing. We were only worried about Barry. Each time I went to the back room to check on Barry Husband would be either right behind me or already in the room checking on Barry as if we both had an internal clock set to the same time to check Barry setting.

As the hours went on and after we made Barry eat (with a small dose of aspirin crushed in) he was asleep. He slept hard. He would not get up. I think we realized he would be fine and he would just need to take time to heal up a bit. I still kept going in to check on him but he was out. He barely moved from the time we got home (about 6:30PM) until the following morning at about 8:30AM. At about 1AM he limped to our bedroom to get into bed with us but he was unable to jump into bed so I lifted him up to come into the bed. Now looking back on it I'm surprised I lifted him with such ease. He's nearly 70 pounds of muscle and I popped him into my arms and laid him on our bed.  You could tell he was in pain still. His sensitive paws, jumping at being touched. Awww... Poor guy. It's so hard to see your pet in pain and there's little you can do about it.

At 8:30 the next morning we woke and loved on Barry. Checked his paws and they were scabbed up a bit but still raw and tender. We moved around, got off the bed. Used the bathroom and Barry stayed on the bed. Even though it had been over 14 hours since he'd gone to the bathroom (he didn't get up the night before at any prompting so we just let him sleep rather than take him out before bed as usual) he wasn't interested in moving. I finally pulled the spare bedroom mattress into our bedroom on the floor by our bed so that Barry could jump down relatively pain free.

It's a bit hard to see but he has a small cut on his chin here.

Once we got him outside to use the bathroom he got quite a pep in his step. He was doing a good deal of limping but you could see he was truly enjoying being outside. We took it easy and went on a shorter route but it was so relieving to see him wagging his tail and hobbling along happily.

You can see some cuts on his arms here.

An example of how it painful it must be for him to walk. See how raw that is? Many
parts  of his  pads on  all fours looks like this. Poor guy.

We will have to take it easy so he heals up properly but even today I could see how excited and peppy he was just being outside. He is healthy and heals quickly, as we've seen from other incidences, so we are sure he'll be back to squirrel hunting and occasional pulling in no time.

Barry's Buttons

We still have to put clothes and shoes away when we're gone during the day, so that Barry doesn't tear them up or chew on them. We've gotten used to that routine. Occasionally we might forget something and sometimes come home to find that it's been untouched by Barry. Good boy, Barry! Other times we come home to find the item left out is done for. In the last month and a half Barry has been enjoying left out clothing or clothing he can pull from our make-shift dresser (IKEA cubby thing with decorative boxes in each cubby that contain our clothes). He hasn't been tearing up the clothing, per say.

Mouth breather & precision expert button eliminator.

He has been methodically chewing off the buttons, one by one. Neatly, for the most part. In most of the clothing items he removes the buttons from there is no discernible damage. Save for the fact that those jeans used to have a button to fasten and now they don't. We'll usually conveniently find the missing button(s) lying next to the clothing it's missing from. It's almost like our dog walker is playing tricks on us. Like she is snipping the buttons off of our shirts, cardigans, and jeans and then placing the button next to the item from which it came. Then we find proof that Barry has been doing this unassisted. A few mangled buttons (the cheap aluminum variety giveaway his teeth marks the best), a tear in the cloth where the button held fast and Barry had to respond with additional force by ripping at the item in order to remove the button. I'm just glad Barry isn't eating the buttons!

Barry doesn't discriminate against which article of clothing is next or what type or texture of button he prefers. He likes them all. Decorative plastic gem buttons, metal jean buttons, epoxy sweater/cardigan buttons, or cloth couch buttons. Size is of no concern either. From the silver dollar size couch buttons to the tiny non working jean pocket buttons (I cannot figure out how he's managed to pull this small of button from anything with his huge mouth), he enjoys them all.

I'm seriously considerings these buttons behind me.

Hey Dad. Do you need all of those buttons on your shirt there? If not,  you know who to
go to to take care of any button issues you might encounter.

At any rate, I have a lot sewing to do. Being that the articles of clothing are all still relatively intact and the buttons are all accounted for (thanks, Barry, for making it that much easier for me) I shouldn't have any issues getting this all done.

You're welcome. No buttons = an easier life.

Now that we've got the wood floors in we will most certainly be buying a proper dresser in which to put our clothing.

Happy Friday!!

Pardon Our Mess

On Tuesday our floor contractor and his team started on our bedrooms. We are finally getting hardwood in our bedrooms! Goodbye carpet! Sayonara eyesore (actually, it wasn't an eyesore before Barry)! Once again, the whole process is a little bit more difficult due to living in a condo. Next to, on top of, underneath neighbors. We had to get the project approved once we decided on a contractor (we had four different bids from four different companies), we have to schedule the elevator to be padded at a certain time for materials to be brought up, we had to get the carpet removed off site (can't just throw it away in the condo building dumpster), and we had to notify our neighbors of the noise and smells to come.

Barry's spot in the living area. Those are all of his toys piled under his head.

Barry doesn't understand what's going on at all. He can't hang out in the bedrooms and
we're all crammed in the living area along with all of our furniture stuffed wherever
it will fit.

On top of all that we had to figure out what to do with Barry. Barry is a high energy, young, pit bull type with mild separation anxiety. We also had never taken him to a doggie daycare or boarding facility. We weren't keen on boarding him due to his separation anxiety and his strong feelings of hate towards kennels or crates. In a daycare facility, however, at least he would be able to run around and play with other dogs and not be confined to one spot. Even though we knew this week was coming quickly we still never scheduled to get Barry evaluated. You know, to make sure he's good with other dogs and people. I'm not worried that Barry wouldn't be accepted. I'm sure he would be. He's great with people and dogs. That wasn't the issue. The issue was finding a good place (reading reviews, finding out the cost, good facilities, etc.) calling that place, and making an appointment for Barry's evaluation. It just never materialized. I barely looked into it. I don't know why. It's not like I'm a procrastinator or anything. I just didn't.

Barry doesn't understand what's going on but he's cool as long as he can hang out with us.

Anyhow, Husband has taken off for two days to be with Barry and keep him occupied while the guys work and then the last two days Grandpa (Husband's dad) will come to watch Barry during the day. I mean, it's not like we can just leave Barry there while the guys are working on our floors. Had we done the doggie daycare our problems would be solved, but as I said, that didn't happen. So now, we have two mattresses and all of our furniture in the living area of our condo. We are crammed in and all sleeping next to one another. Grandpa, Barry, Husband and I all in one room together. Living the good life.

All crammed in. It's kind of like camping!