Pooches: Dogs, Romance, & Practicality

Several months ago, I read this article in the New York Times describing how outrageous rents, housing costs, and expired leases often force people in the city to move more quickly into relationships. It was only recently that I realized that having dogs can also force people to make drastic decisions about relationships.
See, when E and I first started dating, Miss M and I lived in a 1-bedroom apartment up in the Lincoln Square neighborhood. I had to take a 45 minute bus ride--between waiting for the bus and morning traffic--each morning to get to the school where we both taught. At the same time, E owned his place and lived a mere 1 1/2 miles from school. Before we could do anything together, I always had to make sure Miss M was accounted for. It became this huge ordeal where we would either have to go all the way up to my apartment to feed and walk her, stay there, and make the huge trek back to school in the morning; or, we would pick her up and she would stay over at E's place, and I'd have to figure out how to get her back home. Many of our early dates were actually spent transporting Miss M around town.

Since Chicago transportation is unforgiving, we thought it was easier to just let Miss M. move into E's place. And I followed shortly after. Here is Miss M in the early days making herself right at home:

I justify it with the fact that E and I are practical people and we knew we were going to get married, but Miss M definitely accelerated our relationship.
How does this compare with everyone else's experiences?

Daily Walk: Positive Pitbull Recognition

I've realized that I've been writing a lot about the frustrations of having a stereotyped breed of dog, and I haven't been focusing as much on the daily affirmations we've been getting during our walks. Maybe it's because we live in a more diverse neighborhood. Or maybe people's perceptions of pitties really are changing. On the average walk, many people will tell us what beautiful dogs we have. They will also stop us to pet or talk about our dogs, and whole tables in the outdoor seating area will crane their necks to check out the pooches. You would think we were walking goats the way the people in the outdoor dining areas stop and stare.I decided to keep track and this is what happened on one of our hour-long walks just this weekend:

Two passing cars yelled to us about having "beautiful dogs"
Four passing people told us we had "beautiful dogs"

We were stopped twice by people asking what types of dogs they were.
A child asked if she could pet them and the pooches proceeded to give her kisses.

We heard 3 different people refer to them as "twins".

A man stopped us to start a conversation about his 6 year-old pitbull.

Another man stopped us to tell us how he had a dog that looked like Mr. B, he ran back to his car and produced a puppy mini-Mr. B.

Mr. B was referred to as a "monster" and a "beast", but I think the people that said it actually meant that as a complement.

Three different times people did some type of gasping in fear and running out of our way.

And fortunately, today, no one tried to buy them or solicit an "indecent proposal".

I realized while we did have some negativity, we had so many more positive interactions. It's nice to see such a positive response to our pitties.

I'm just not sure if this response is because of the area we live in, or if the overall perception of pitbulls is more positive. What does everyone think?

Pooches: Mr. B's Whip

Mr. B is such an excitable dog that he is normally wagging his tail.

Usually, Ms. M's face is the victim of his whipping tail, but there are times that A and I feel the force of his whipping tail. Whenever we come home, his tail seems to whip full force and we can hear it hitting all sorts of inanimate objects. One problem is that these objects are usually really hard, and they damage the tip of Mr. B's tail. Whenever he is bleeding, we try to stop his tail from wagging without much success.

Here is Mr. B running around and whipping the kitchen table and other furniture with his tail.

Pooches: The Bovine Dog

Since the majority of our year is like this, Chicagoans make a huge deal of the nice weather. We have several parks where people pack in when the temperatures rise. Just check out how Wicker Park looked the other day:Before I got Miss M, I would spend many a day hanging out at the park reading. I would always see happy people with their dogs, and I envisioned one day bringing my own dog the park who would lay quietly next to me as I read. I thought I might even be able to lay on my blanket and use her as a pillow. Is it far-fetched to use a dog as a pillow?
Little did I know, just like my dream of having a dog who would run with me didn't work out, Miss M. had "park issues". The first time I took her to the park, she refused to sit still and would sit around trying to chew the grass. Which wouldn't be so bad if she didn't get excitable and every so often grab and chew her leash before going back to actually eating the grass like a cow.I erroneously thought that I just needed to bring a toy or something to keep her occupied. The next time I brought one of her favorite freezer-meat bones--these are the same bones she would love to chew on for hours. This worked for about 20 minutes, then she actually would leave her meat bone to chew on grass, then go crazy again and do all kinds of play bows actually trying to "play with the grass".
I would put her in a submissive position and lay on her to hold her down. It's kind of embarrassing, especially when I would run into people I knew.
I thought she would grow out of it. She doesn't do as much of the play bowing, but she still has an obsession with eating grass. Even when we find a lawn on one of our walks, she has to stop and eat the grass.
Does anyone else experience this with their dogs? Is there some other way I'm not thinking about that I can condition her to sit quietly in a park?

Pooches: Deja Vu Mr. B

Both Ms. M and Mr. B get really excited whenever we come home. The funny thing about Mr. B is that he gets so excited that he runs around the house and runs back to his tepee. He'll wait there until we release him from the tepee. If I'm sitting in the living room, Mr. B will run around me when he is released, jump over an ottoman and head back to his tepee. Then when I release him again, he'll do the same thing.

I wonder what this says about a dog's memory?

Pooches: Sidewalk Space and Dog Etiquette

Living in the city, you need to be prepared to deal with tight quarters. Even though we live in one of the more residential neighborhoods in the city, on our block alone there are probably 60 families and 19 dogs. This doesn't even count the random people and pooches passing through. Our block looks similar to this one:
Living so closely with other people, we're always aware of our sidewalk space and interactions. I always make sure the pooches are only on one part of the sidewalk so other people can pass by. I am aware that some people might be afraid of the dogs, so if they look fearful we'll step aside until they pass.At the same time, I expect other dog owners to be just as courteous. Our Pack just wrote a really good post about proper introductions; basically it's the idea that some dogs just don't like each other and they should never be forced to meet head-on. Our pooches also know walks are for training, and it's not a time to play. If we did let our dogs meet and play with other dogs all the time, it would condition them to get excited whenever they saw another dog. Plus, it would be dangerous to play on leash because the leashes could get tangled. For these reasons, I am very diligent about giving other people their space. We often cross the street to avoid head-on meetings, and I would hope other people would be as courteous.
Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. The other day I was walking the pooches and Miss M decided to go poo in the middle of the sidewalk. She had her back turned, and Mr. B was sitting next to her. From further down the block, a guy was being pulled down the street by a large "designer dog". As he approached I asked him to please wait and not approach my dog's turned back. Instead of listening to a small girl walking 2 dogs, that happen to be pitbulls, when she asked not to come near her dogs, he continued to let his dog pull him forward responding "It's ok, my dog's friendly" as his dog proceeded to smell Miss M's turned back. Of course, Miss M. made a correction as this dog snuck up on her, and Mr. B bounced around making scary noises. To this the man replied "You shouldn't be walking violent dogs" which made me so angry that I told him he should have "gotten an instruction manual when he designed his dog". I know what I said wasn't nice, but I was so angry that this man approached me when I asked him not to and he was insinuating my dogs aren't well-trained.
A similar situation happened a couple of days later, when I actually took my 2 dogs to step aside down the sidewalk as we were waiting to cross, and a man let his shepherd come lunging and snarling at our dogs, letting his dog go half-way down the sidewalk before going back his original way. I thought I was imagining how inappropriate it was until another woman walking her dog noted how that was completely unnecessary.I know my dogs and I don't like to put them in uncomfortable situations. Unfortunately, it seems not everyone who frequents our neighborhood is dog savvy. On one hand, I want our dogs to be good breed ambassadors showing people how family-friendly pitbulls can be. On the other hand, this makes random people want to approach us and I really don't want to deal with the excitement, leash pulling, and reverse conditioning; it's almost like I wish those people were afraid of us so they would just leave us alone.
Does this ever happen to other people? If there isn't enough time to explain why I don't want my dogs to be introduced on walks, how else can I deal with these types of people?

Chicagoing: The Concrete Jungle

I never really noticed flowers and nature until I moved to Chicago. Mainly because we don't have a lot here. But, I really think this lack of natural nature that has made us a city obsessed with greenery and flowers. While we are a city of amazing architecture:
At street level, all the sidewalks and medians downtown are filled with flowers:
We have huge concrete sidewalks for outdoor dining, but by law all outdoor dining establishment must have flower boxes surrounding their borders:
We also have an amazingly beautiful lakefront:
Perfect for taking photos of the pooches. Here's "Senior Picture" Mr. B:
And pensive Miss M:
Best of all, we have many flower-friendly neighbors. Our daily walk has become much more fun seeing all the beautiful flowers by the houses:
Even though most of us don't have "yards", people still have plenty of container gardens:
Container gardening is huge here. Our neighbor across the way has an amazingly large front porch, which they supplement with all kinds of nice flowers. Here I am spying on them as they get ready for the season:
I'm always in awe of how lush our neighbors can grow their flowers. We have been doing well growing herbs, but our flowers are sparse. This is our outdoor area from last year, and you can probably see the flowers looking a bit thin:
I'm not much of a gardener at all, but I was hoping to get advice from everyone. Our deck gets a lot of bright sun in the morning, but shade for the rest of the day. Does anyone have any good advice for making it less of a concrete jungle?

Pooches: Puppies v. Adult Dogs

Mr. B was already a full-grown 5 year-old dog when we adopted him. We were very adamant about getting an adult dog, and we didn't even look at puppies. When I was discussing this with a friend the other day, she told me she was very adamant about getting a puppy and wouldn't even consider looking at a full-grown dog. This was probably the first time it occurred to me that we were very closed-minded about adopting puppies, and some people might not know all the benefits of adopting adult dogs.
There are benefits to both puppies and adult dogs, it just depends on your lifestyle and what you're looking for.
Here are some benefits we found when we adopted our adult dogs:
1) You already know what you're getting. It was really important for me to have a dog with a good personality, and I thought it would be hard to tell the differences among puppies. See, when I was growing up I was in charge of picking the family dog. We went to look at the "Free Puppies" and I remember the reason I chose my dog, Benji (yes, this was the '80's), was because he came up and licked my hand. He was a good puppy, but even despite all the 4-H training we did with him, he grew up to be a crazy and neurotic dog. I didn't want to make that mistake again,and I knew I couldn't handle that kind of energy in the city, so I definitely wanted to know the dog's personality before I adopted them. Imagine that you want an energetic, fun dog and you end up with this one:Even with all the training available, you won't be able to change a dog's personality. I actually chose Miss M, who was a 2-year old dog at the time, because she was engaging, loved people, and loved dog-training. When choosing our second dog, we wanted to make sure he was submissive enough to put up with Miss M's bullying. We didn't want to deal with any adolescent Alpha issues. Luckily, Mr. B turned out to be the perfect submissive dog:2) I didn't want to deal with potty-training issues. Being adults, our pooches came already potty-trained. This was huge for me because I didn't want to be out on the dark streets of Chicago in the middle of the night, where the rats roam the sidewalks and suspicious people are in the alleys, with only a tiny puppy to protect me.
3) Adult dogs are often overlooked. We knew there were so many adult dogs looking for homes that are often overlooked because they're not as little and cute anymore. We knew there would be many amazing adult dogs who often have to wait longer to be adopted. Miss M's rescue group, New Leash on Life, has been successful adopting out many amazing "Senior Dogs" ranging from 9+ years. Plus, most of the time if an adult has made it through the rigors and numbers of a shelter system, you know they're going to be a good dog.
At the same time, I definitely understand the benefits of adopting puppies. Besides being cute, there are a couple of reasons I wish we had our dogs since they were puppies.
1) Care issues. When we met this dog, he was already 2 years old and had the whitest teeth ever. His owner had been brushing his teeth since he was a puppy, so he was already used to it. Miss M. had a problem where her nails had never been trimmed properly as a puppy, so she had these huge monster nails that were really sharp and hard to cut.
2) We will never know how cute they were as puppies. We always wonder what our pooches looked like as puppies. We found this picture and we imagine this is what Mr. B looked like when he was younger:
And Miss M. would look a little like this, except more smooshy and brindle:3) We would have them longer. Though our neighbor with Puppy B did have 2 pitbulls that lived to be 16 and 17 years-old, so we're hopeful.
How have your experiences been? What other pros and cons do you find having puppies or adopting adult dogs?

Cafe Schwang: Smores & Peanut Butter Mini-Cupcakes

Every month my friends have a type of "Girls Eating Club": everyone cooks something and we all get together at someone's house to eat. All of my friends are amazing cooks, so it's fun to eat their food. I'm not much of a cook, so it's also a bit of pressure for me to come up with something good to bring.
I just discovered this website which has the most amazing cupcake recipes and photos. Since E was kind enough to buy me a mini-cupcake maker for Valentine's Day, I thought I'd try my hand at trying some new cupcakes.
Knowing how much Mr. B. likes to help out, we loaded him up in his backpack and headed for the grocery store.

Usually when we go on our walks, Mr. B gets all excited and wants to play with other dogs. But when he wears his backpack he knows he has a job to do, and remains focused. We even ran into Little Puppy B but Mr. B remained focused on his job and didn't even try to play with him.
Back at home, Miss M. took her usual clean-up duty in the kitchen.
I decided to make an easy version of the Peanut butter frosting cupcakes with a chocolate mix base and peanut butter frosting. I also made mini-Smores cupcakes with the chocolate cupcake, marshmellow frosting, and ginger-graham crackers on top. Miss M. was quite proud of her participation in crafting the cupcakes:

The Smores were good, but the peanut butter frosting was great! They were both kind of gooey right after I made them, so it's probably better to put them in the fridge for a bit before serving.
Of course, Miss M. was really, really interested in the cupcakes. While she's always gotten super close to the cupcakes, this time she just had enough. Right after I took this photo her tongue came out and licked the cupcake. I guess the peanut butter frosting was really, really good.

Chicagoing: Miss M's Chicago Tribune Debut & Anti-Cruelty Society's Bark in the Park Fundraiser

Check out who made their debut in Sunday's Chicago Tribune! Here is Miss M. giving me a high-five during the Anti-Cruelty Society's Bark in the Park Fundraiser.
Notice Mr. B. also making a cameo in the corner with his signature profile look. We didn't even realize we were in the newspaper until our friends alerted us that we were nestled among other "related" stories of random attacks and drive-by shootings.
On Saturday we attended the Anti-Cruelty Society's annual Bark in the Park Fundraiser. The event gathers approximately 3, 500 people, with their pooches, to take a 3.2 mile walk along the Chicago lakefront.
It's fun to see all the different types of dogs. Some dogs were too tired to make it the whole way, so they were lucky enough to be pulled in carts.
Some pooches wore outfits, like this Cubs fan:
It was fun to walk along the lakefront:
Serious Mr. B even let loose a little to frolic among the native Chicago "flowers":
Here are E and Mr. B crossing the finish line. Afterwards they had a bunch of tents with information and samples for the pooches. We also attempted to beat a World's Record for the most pooches in a "down-stay" in one location.
It was a very family-friendly morning. On another part of the lake they were having Mayor Daley's Kids & Kites festival. They had all kinds of crazy big kites, people on stilts, and booths to make your own kite.
Miss M. mugging for the camera. All those little dots behind her are kites:
Despite fancying himself an athlete, Mr. B passed out in the car.And of course a 3 mile walk was way too much for Miss M. She became smooshy-faced in the car and slept the entire next day. Little did she know she was about to become a local newspaper celebrity....