Cooper's Weekend with Grandparents Vogel

This week’s entry is courtesy of Grandma Joan and Grandpa Doug who puppysat while Cooper’s parents went to Stephanie and Eric’s wedding in New York.

What do they say the best thing about being a grandparent is (even if it’s a granddog)? Giving him back to his parents!!!

Things we have learned this visit:

1. We love dogs (and have always).

2. Dogs love you as long as you love them, feed them, walk them and play with them (not necessarily in that order).

3. Our decision to NOT have a dog was and still is the right decision!

We arrived Thursday afternoon to a great greeting from Cooper – really happy to meet us. Little did we know that the little puppy weighs more than 23 pounds and can jump really high. He is always very happy to play with us and leads with his teeth - puppy teeth – very sharp!!

While Cooper’s parents think he does not jump on the furniture – we (Cooper and us) know better, don’t we? In one leap, he was over the recliner (while reclining) and into my lap. And, when Doug was snacking in another recliner and got up, Cooper jumped up and proceeded to smell and lick the entire chair.

First night, at bedtime, no problem going into the crate with the treats enticing him. Second night, no go. He just sat, smelled the treats in my hand, turned his face away, looked at me pathetically, and decided it was not bedtime yet. He just needed a gentle nudge and then no problems the rest of the night. The next night, he retrieved Jeff’s t-shirt from the crate and proceeded to wage war with it, with growls, grunts, etc. So, when the shirt went into the crate, so did Cooper.

Very lucky for me, Cooper mostly does his ‘business’ when Doug is walking him – yeah! In actuality, Doug does most of the walking. I do most of the kitchen stuff and having a dog underfoot or staring at you the whole time is a little unnerving but we survived that too. Here's a photo of Cooper waiting patiently for Doug to come back inside from watering the plants on the deck.

Yesterday, we had our first ‘accident’ – guess we somehow missed the message – luckily, only pee on the small rug pictured above and not on the carpet but we caught him and minimized the effect.

Today, we give him back and while we will miss him, we won’t miss the early morning wake-up whines and we will certainly embrace and covet the quiet of our house.

So, Cooper – see you at Thanksgiving!

Four Weeks Already!

As we get set to celebrate our four-week anniversary with Cooper this weekend, I thought I'd take the time to tell you what an awesome family Cooper has! Not only does he have the coolest parents in the world, but he also has awesome grandparents and a fabulous great-uncle, great-aunt and cousin too!

Cooper's Grandma Joan and Grandpa Doug sent him a "Welcome to the Family" card and then Grandma Joan sewed (with love) three snoods for him! Here are two photos of Cooper wearing his snood for the first time.

For those of you who are still asking yourselves "What the heck is a snood?", it keeps the dog's ears from falling into the food bowl and getting yucky. You can buy snoods, but they wouldn't have the personal handmade touch that Cooper's have. Cooper's snoods are made of fabrics with dogs, Terps logos and oranges on them (apparently there aren't Syracuse University logoed fabrics in Maryland, so oranges had to do!). Here's a shot of the other two snoods.

Cooper also got a fourth snood in the mail from his Great-Uncle Alan, Great-Aunt Lisa and his cousin Jennifer. They also sent Cooper a bag of rawhides, which he loves, and a couple bully sticks, which he REALLY loves! Here's a photo of Cooper with his first bully stick (don't ask me what it's made of because I have no idea...I just know they smell awful when they're being chewed!).

Cooper thanks his extended family for all of the wonderful gifts -- and says he can't wait for Grandma Joan and Grandpa Doug's visit next week so he can get some more presents! :)

Cooper's First Camping Trip

For Labor Day weekend, Jeff and I had planned a camping trip to Reed Bingham State Park in Adel, Georgia. We planned to spend the weekend with Jeff's cousin Nate and his wife Amanda. They live in Tampa, so this park was a great halfway point. However, the trip was planned pre-Cooper and I've only been camping once with Jeff, so we were a bit hesitant to take the trip, but we manned up and went anyway!

Cooper slept the 4+ hour ride to Adel. When I stepped out of the car at the campground to let him pee, I was overcome by gnats. They were everywhere! They were swarming around my head -- especially my eyes and mouth -- and all around Cooper. It was disgusting. Thankfully once we got to our campsite, I sprayed myself with deet and that helped a little bit, but the only real solution was that the gnats disappeared after it got dark.

Here's a picture of Cooper hanging out while we were setting up camp. Cooper really enjoyed the gravel -- he liked to chew on it, dig deep holes in it and even eat it.

Nate and Amanda arrived after Cooper went to bed, so we didn't get to introduce him to them and their German Shepherd named Kit until Saturday morning. Here's a picture of our camp site all set up.

After the dog introduction and breakfast for all, we went hiking on a nature trail. Here are three pictures from the hike. It's shocking that Cooper's in the back of the pack in this photo because we learned he really likes to be in the front of the group with his nose to the ground!

By the time we got back to the campsite in the afternoon, it was miserably hot and the gnats were unbearable. This tent was our only savior from the bugs.

After complaining for a while about the heat and bugs and letting Cooper take a nap under a shade tree (which turned out unfortunately to be a sappy pine tree), we decided to take a trip to the 300+ acre lake in the park. Cooper was so excited to see all that water and wanted to go for a swim. Click here to watch a video of Cooper swimming for the first time. We didn't let him go too far though because there were alligators in the lake!

On Sunday, we decided we couldn't take the heat and bugs for another whole day, so we went home after a morning hike. Here are a few pictures from the hike -- one of Cooper trying to bring a huge pine cone back to the campsite and one of Nate and Kit looking for alligators. I saw my first alligator in this lake -- kind of scary!

Cooper was so exhausted from his exciting weekend that he slept the entire ride home. He got a bath this morning and a good brushing (to remove all the sap from his fur), so he's all clean and pretty again! Cooper's ready to go camping again, but he says he'll wait until it's cooler out and the bugs hibernate for the winter!