Pixie now has a new baby brother! Our friend Timmy has a stray Australian Shepherd he adopted, and she recently had puppies. This little guy was born on November 22, 2005, and we got him 12/29/05. He was very chubby, a little clumsy and had bad breath. We consulted a professional naming service (our friend Naomi, the same one who named Pixie), and decided his name shall be Bilbo. He is completely house trained now, and gets to move about the house freely. He even sleeps in the bedroom (still on the floor, he and Pixie will play too much if he gets up on the bed). He will occasionally fetch, come when you call (sometimes), sit and lie down (if he thinks you have treats) and shake hands/paws, and he knows his name. The hardest thing right now is trying to train him not to bite, especially not to bite Pixie when they play.

At first Pixie hated him and hissed and growled at him, and at us for bringing him home. Of course, within a few days they were playing together like a brother and sister should. Maybe hiding from fireworks under the same blanket with Snerk on New Year's Eve helped them bond.

Can you spot Pixie's paw coming out of the box?

Everyone gets a bath every Sunday now and are very well behaved through it all. Bilbo doesn't fit under the faucet anymore (see growth pictures below) so we got one of those handheld attachments for the shower. We got a new blow dryer for pets that's supposed to be quieter than a normal blow dryer. Pixie still doesn't like it, but she likes the heat, so I think she'll 'warm up' to it! Everyone has also been to the vet and gotten all their shots and flea and worm medicine. The latest trip to the vet had Pixie weighing in at 8 lbs. 12 oz.

We have documented Bilbo's growth rate as follows:
5 weeks - 5 pounds.

The making of a monster:



This picture was when he was only about 25 pounds.

Full grown (hopefully):



The latest trip to the vet when he got "fixed" he weighed 58 pounds! We'll keep this measurement system up as long as the incredible shrinking teddy bear lasts, which may not be much longer because the other day we noticed he chewed the nose off.

Bilbo appears to be a very exotic breed. We are calling him an Australian Razorback Monk Terrier of the Highland variety, although three different people have asked if he was a hyena. Jennifer has taken up the hobby of inventing new breed names for him when people ask what kind of dog he is, and my current favorite is "African Poaching Hound (his dark spots are camouflage at night)". He developed the ridgeback feature (real ridgebacks have two 'cowlicks' or swirls in their fur along the spine just behind the shoulders, causing the fur to stand up in a small ridge almost the full length of their back) shortly after he came to live with us, and he is the only one in his litter to have it. He also has double-jointed ears. At first we thought he had two right ears, because his left ear would lay over on top of his head as if it were trying to get to the right side, but then we saw him do it with his right ear too, and realized this was a feature and not a defect. These pictures were not staged (except for one, which should be obvious), we were just quick enough with the camera.

You may have spotted the roadkill talking Scooby-Doo chew toy, Bilbo's new favorite toy that we found while we were on a walk. It still talks and everything, just squeeze its front paw, although Bilbo extracted and chewed the little speaker box from inside, and now it is definitely talking a lot quieter.

Home / E-mail Me / Wedding / Disney Honeymoon / Hawaii / Pictures / Snakes / Juggling & Stilts / Rainbow Jugglers / Philly Jugglers / Stacey / Joey - AME / Brian & Christie / WNOC / Shovelhook / Amy Carr / Sonia / disappear fear / Bet Williams / Trent, Jen & Jordan / Tipp / Pets! / Fun! / Games!