Roberts Family Blog

This week has been full of dog related drama!  It started on Monday night when my parents were driving home to their house after dinner.  There are some dark country roads between our houses, and they spotted a pretty little lab mix doggie wandering by the road.  Well wandering isn't really the correct statement....she was apparently jumping up onto people's cars trying to be let in   My mom, having the big heart that she does, ended up bringing the dog back to their house since she was obviously not afraid of cars and very at risk of being hit.  Once they got her home, they realized she was a puppy, and FULL of energy.  She was tearing around the yard and not listening to any commands.  They didn't have a crate to keep her in (it was at my house) overnight, so we offered to come get her and keep her at our house. 

Of course I immediately fell in love.  She was this beautiful blonde labrador/shepherd mix I think, and she had a heart of gold, and we named her "Blondie".  What she didn't have were manners or training or common sense!  Thankfully, she slept soundly in the crate all night, however the next morning was tough, with her not getting along with my older dogs, and being too bouncy and wild to interact with the kids too much.  Plus, she would take their toys and play keepaway....which I wasn't too excited about.  I made "FOUND DOG" signs and my mom posted them all around the area where she was found, we took her to the vet to have her checked for a microchip (no luck), and called all the local shelters.  Shockingly, no one appeared to be looking for her, which broke my heart. 

A generous friend of mine, who is also a vet, offered to take Blondie for a night, but she had no better luck than I did.  She peed all over the house, stole her husband's wallet and played keepaway, and wouldn't leave her other dog alone.  She was clearly a puppy and her former owners had done nothing to get her trained.  And apparently they had abandoned her on the side of a dark country road.  So...having exhausted all other possiblities, and not being able to keep her for the reasons described above, we finally had to take Blondie to the animal shelter.

My mom had the unfortunate duty of dropping her off, and said it was a pretty unpleasant experience (she called me in tears after the deed was done).  The good news is that she'll be held for 4 days while they wait for her owners to come forward to claim her (fat chance it seems like), and after that she'll be placed into their adoption program.  I believe they can cast a wider net in terms of prospective future owners than I could have.  They'll also get her checked out by a vet, micro-chipped, and up to date on vaccines.  I think she is extremely adoptable because she is very social and sweet, however she needs an owner who is going to have plenty of patience and time to devote to training her.  I feel a sort of weight of guilt about dropping her off, but I feel in my heart it was the right thing to do and that she'll find a great home soon.  I will keep everyone posted, as I intend to call up to the shelter periodically to get updates on our little wild "Blondie".  Here is her picture:

Mom was already emotionally drained by this point, and upon returning from the shelter after dropping Blondie off, she suddenly realized that her dog, Yukon, had wandered into the garage and eaten some rat poison that was laid out!!  Rat poison is HIGHLY toxic, so she rushed him to her vet where they finally were able to make him throw-up the rat poison.  This is the same dog that swallowed a hand towel and required major surgery to remove it 2 months ago.  I swear he has a death wish!  But the good news is that he got it all up and will most likely be just fine, thank GOD!  I'm glad my mom keeps such a close eye on him and noticed when he ate it, because if it had sat in his system for a few days his prognosis would have been much worse.  So much doggie drama.........but as my dad said, the doggie drama will not ever end, as long as we have dogs!

Ok, anyway, onto boy stuff!  What has been going on in our lives....not too much that would excite the blogging public!  The weather has been gorgeous, so we've been getting outside as often as we can.  We all met some friends for a picnic and playdate at the park, and even Pierce got involved in crawling around.  Surprsingly, he can climb the stairs on the playground equipment!  He crawled right up, through the tunnel, and then went down the slide (of course with me holding onto him - but NOT sitting with him - we all remembered what happened to Hayden!).  But wow it's fun to see him starting to be able to do things like play at the park, instead of just sitting in his stroller with puffs and looking on.  Hayden and his buddies Colin and Jack had a great time chasing each other around and flying airplanes.

Hayden is very into the concept of family lately, which I think is very cool and important.  The other day at a different park where airplanes fly directly overhead, my friend Eren had been chatting with her son, Jack, and Hayden about how much they loved airplanes.  Suddenly Hayden told her, "I love airplanes, and I love my family too", just completely out of the blue!  She walked back over telling me what a sweet boy I have, and I had to agree!  He often will pray at night for "my family", which of course also includes Dallas, Lilly and Evi.  When Blondie was going to go stay with my friend for the night to see if they wanted to take her, I told Hayden that she was going to be with her new family.  He looked heartbroken and told me, "No, Blondie is in OUR family".  Awww....talk about feeling like a bad mom for sending the fun puppy away!  But honestly, he is growing into this very affectionate and loving phase, that I can't get enough of.  He'll constantly come hug me and tell me he loves me, and he'll often follow it with, "I love Daddy/Pierce/Grammy/Poppy, too"   The ideas of love and family must be suddenly clicking for him, and he is having fun expressing himself I think.

But along with this newfound affection, I've also noticed that his confidence is growing, and he's becoming much less timid than he used to be, especially with his friends.  I would never categorize him as a bully, but he is definitely testing physical boundaries with his friends.  He'll often say, for example, "Jack, come play with me", and if Jack doesn't follow him, he'll try to pull his shirt, or physically get him to come.  He doesn't understand anything about physical space, or permission.  The boys love to chase each other, and I'll notice that Hayden will sometimes try to tackle to the ground if he catches up.  I know this sounds awful doesn't it?!?  He's such a boy, and I think he's responding this way because his daddy likes to roughouse with him and chase him and tackle him, etc, and he doesn't understand that if someone doesn't want to play that way, that he needs to stop.  He's also into crashing his airplanes/cars/trains into one another, even if the other vehicle is in another child's hands!  So as a parent, I'm trying to figure out how to teach him to respect other children, and to touch them in gentle ways, and not in rough ways like tickling, tackling, pushing, pulling, etc.  What a hard lesson to teach!  It must be quite confusing.  Truthfully, I'm glad that Hayden is assertive and isn't wimpy, but I would NEVER want him to be a bully.  But there is a fine line between being a rough boy's boy, and a bully, and I don't want him to cross it!!

Well Pierce's birthday is fast approaching....only 4 weeks!  And with one week taken up by our trip to Italy, my planning time is dwindling.  I've decided to go with a cowboy theme for the party, and I wanted a cute western themed photo for the invites that my friend Lindsey is making.  So we had a little photoshoot the other day that Pierce was highly UN-impressed with.  I managed to get some cute photos, but he is pouting or terrified in most of them LOL.  He would just NOT keep his "sheriff" hat on either, but actually Hayden loves it and will now refuse to ride Golly Horsey unless his sheriff hat is on, so at least it's getting some use!

Here is one parting photo of my boys enjoying their morning milk and cartoons

We are heading out to ride on Thomas the Train this weekend, so I'm sure I'll be back next week with an update from this exciting event!  Good bye for now.