Our Vacation at Home

Levi and I have been home at my parents' house for a week and a half now and have been enjoying the warm weather with plenty of pool time.  Levi's been swimming in the pool almost every day and has really gained a lot more confidence in the pool.  He's even been learning to jump in from the edge.  I tried to get him to go off the edge last summer but he was just too young and scared.  I think he went off once or twice last summer but it was more of just falling in rather than jumping.  He's starting to do a lot better so hopefully when we visit again in August he will improve even more.

One of his first awkward plunges

Getting the hang of it better

Unfortunately, with all of the running around on the concrete by the pool Levi wore down a couple of his hind toenails to the quick and left a trail of little blood spots all over the carpet in the house.  They quickly stopped bleeding but any running around (even inside) would cause them to start bleeding again.  He didn't really enjoy the bandages I made to protect him (and the carpet) and he tore them off in about a half-hour. After that I started making him little band-aids for the toenails that were bleeding to protect them when we went outside.  That helped quite a bit.  His toenails are all healed up and back to normal now.

Levi's protective toe bandages

I've been really proud of Levi because every evening he has been really good at settling down (something he hasn't done very well in the past).  I've been doing some clicker training for settle so it's nice to see that he's learning. 

Tomorrow is our last day here and then we make the drive back up to Davis. It will be nice to get back to our favorite walking paths but we sure will miss the pool.  We'll just have to head to the river in Sac as much as possible to cool down from the Davis heat.

Levi's Big Boy Bed

Some of you may remember that Kobe had a bed that was personalized with his name on it.

In keeping with the tradition I thought it only appropriate that Levi have one too.  I'd been waiting until he was trustworthy enough to not have to have his crate set up in my room all the time.  Well he finally has graduated to a big boy bed and his new bed came last week.  On Friday I took his crate down and put his new bed in its place. 

He seems to really like it and laid down on it right away.  He loves sleeping up against things so I thought he would like a bed with sides like this and he sure does.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do without the crate in my room though, it was really handy to set things on top of.  ;-)

Summer is Here!

Finals are over, the weather has gotten warm (finally), and Levi and I are ready for outdoor adventures.  Thursday after my last final I had an errand to run in Sacramento so I took Levi along and we went to the river afterwards.  He was so excited when we got there and couldn't wait for me to throw his bumper.

We're back at my parents' house now for a couple weeks and then we'll go back to Davis for the majority of the summer.  While we're here we are going to try to take advantage of the swimming pool and go for a few nice hikes.

Levi's Recovery

It's been over a week now since Levi had his surgery and he is back to his normal self.  Unfortunately he still wants to lick the incision quite a bit so he has to keep the e-collar on a little longer than expected.  Hopefully only a few more days with it though.  He actually doesn't seem to mind the e-collar that much and helps put his head through rather than trying to avoid it.  The first day or two he really seemed to be aware of it and made sure to give himself extra room around obstacles.  Now he still knows it's there but he's learned that he can just push through an area and run the e-collar into things (including my legs) and he doesn't seem to care.

He learned pretty quickly how to play with his toys with the e-collar on.  It does make him frustrated though because he can't use his paws to hold the toy down while he tries to rip appendages off.  It's actually been very helpful in the prevention of cruelty to his toys.  Sometimes he'll drop a toy but with his head up so the toy just stays in the e-collar.  It's pretty funny. 

We finally are getting back to normal exercise levels again after I was supposed to keep him quiet for 7 days.  He was so happy to get out for a nice long walk and to fetch his chuck-it ball.  Hopefully in the next couple days he'll be healed up enough to go to the dog park so he can really get some energy out. 

Yesterday on our walk we found a new path on the green-belt that links together two sections.  It has given us a new way to walk which keeps things more interesting.  There is a really beautiful garden that someone created on the path near their house.  We stopped for a few pictures but all I had was my phone so they aren't the best quality. 

It was a beautiful day, finally sunny after the gloom and rain, and the walk just reminded me of how lucky I feel to have these wonderful areas to walk Levi.