Finlay had an super fun week! He was introduced to the beach and couldn’t hold still…I tried to get one good, in -focus picture of him but with so many great smells a dog cannot be bothered to pose for photos.

We have put the obedience commands on hold for now and are focusing on ironing out a bit of separation anxiety. We noticed that he was having a hard time being in the back cargo area of the car, and when we were on the other side of the baby gate there was a lot of this  happening:

along with whining and barking and crying and the like. Brendan did a bit of research and this is what we found out about helping your dog with anxiety. Hope you find it helpful

Now, we should talk about why I chose this week’s title.

Thursday night after our trip down to the beach and dinner, I began to write my post for this week. I felt like we had had a pretty mellow week and there wasn’t much to report on and then…

AAARRRROOOO! AARRRRRROOOOO! AAARRROOOOOOO!

A constant stream of baying was coming from outside on our patio. This is highly unusual behavior, so I stopped what I was doing to see what was going on. I step outside and wait for my eyes to adjust. It doesn’t take long till I can see a grapefruit-sized shadow in the corner of our patio, moving slowly along the wall. I grab Finlay, put him inside and grab a flashlight.

“It’s a rat?” … but it looks kinda weird, its tail is too short, and its eyes are sunk into the sides of its head, not beady like a rat’s eyes normally are. “It’s a hamster?” but it’s far too big to be a hamster! The ‘ramster’ walks up to me, now less than a foot away, and I have no idea what it is. It seems domesticated, I think about picking it up, or reaching out my hand but then decide otherwise.

Fearful that it is either someone’s pet or that it has friends in the near by forrest areas, I  trapped it under a mixing bowl, but the ‘ramster’ just lifts up the bowl an 1/8th of an inch and keeps wandering around my patio, now with it’s mixing bowl shell.

-great, I’ve given him amor-

I called the apartment complex and left a frantic message, while placing one of my booted-feet on top of the bowl… no reply. So I called my mom, but with my excited explanation she couldn’t figure out what type of critter I had captured either. Then I did what all normal people do after calling the ‘authorities’ and their mother: I posted a status update on facebook.

What can I say, I was desperate. Well, after much coaxing from my mother, and the facebook community, I went back outside and lifted the bowl (now with a chair on top of it to keep it in place) and managed to get a few pictures (at the request of many) before escorting it under the fence and out of my yard.

Here’s a few pictures of the culprit. Do you know what he is? (I know the answer now, but I had no clue then!!!) Anyway, while all this was going on Finlay pranced around the house on some strange type of puppy-endorphins knowing that he had done something right: a puppy super hero, no doubt.

By the time I had fully dealt with the situation Finn had fallen asleep in his bed. Go figure. I guess a job well done is all you need in order to get a good night’s sleep!

Here’s one last spread of pictures from this week.

Until next time,

<3 K, B and little F