A Very Good Boy!

It seems like forever ago, but there was a time when Enzo was our only baby. We purchased him just a few months after we moved to Dallas, in early 2004. I had been dying for a dog and we stumbled onto Enzo during a leisurely outing to a pet store. There was a woman holding our puppy in her hands...literally in the palm of her hands...and he looked like a baby deer. :-) We just knew; it was love at first sight. It was not long after that happened that I learned about puppy mills and the perils of buying from pet stores, so while we will only be adopting from now on, I still would not trade Enzo for the world! He quickly became our precious baby (along with Gretchen the cat, aka Mitts, who had been with me forever). In those early days, we were young and living in the city...I would drop Enzo off for "doggie daycare" every single day on my way to work. Yes, he was very spoiled. I also joined a meetup group of Italian Greyhound owners and we went to several meetups at swanky little dog friendly cafes across Dallas. Those were such fun days; utterly and completely different from our lifestyle now as suburban parents. I look back on those days and get a little melancholy...I would certainly not trade my life now, but it is fun to think back to the time when having Enzo was as much responsibility as we could muster. :-) Enzo has not been to doggie day camp since I left work and we have not been to a meetup in ages. There was an event scheduled in Denton yesterday, so we jumped at the chance to take Enzo for some fun with other Italian's. There is nothing cuter than a pack of Enzo's running around all over the place! Colin had a blast chasing everyone and Enzo was a little nervous, but seemed to have a good time seeing his peers. Times have certainly changed, but Enzo is still my baby and still sleeps under the covers with us every night. He may not have his own day care anymore, but he is very well loved!

Here is Enzo, hiding behind Colin and Daddy. You know Enzo is nervous when he chooses to huddle close to Colin. :-) I love how he is peering between them!

Colin LOVED chasing all the Iggies! Please note how small those two black ones are...Enzo is on the big side of the breed anyway, but with all the extra grilled cheese sandwiches these days...he was HUGE in comparison!

A Boy and His Pets

This is my Saturday summed up in two pictures. Ferris Mewler will not put one dainty paw outside the door until he sees his precious Colin is playing outside. He promptly decides he is going to play, too. That cat has no respect for the fact that I feed him. None. He lives only for Colin. As you can see below, the feeling is mutual. At least Ferris is nice to someone. :-)

SHAPES!

Now that Colin is such a big guy, he no longer enjoys merely sitting on his cute "shapes" flooring that I laid down last winter. Lately he has been pulling all the shapes out and thus creating plenty of places to trip and fall. We decided to retire it as flooring and make it into big cubes. Jer made a cute fort out of it (while informing me that boys love forts) and Colin has been playing with them ever since. Those cut-outs are all over my already toy filled little house and I am pretty sure they are going to drive me crazy, but Colin loves them. I think I need a new house for Colin's stuff alone.

I have also been meaning to make a note of how fat my silly dog is now. Jer took him to the vet for his shots and he has gained 3 pounds!! He went from 16 to 19 pounds since Colin started eating finger food that he drops to Enzo. NICE. :-)

The Boy and His Dog

Colin and Enzo shared a lovely snack of Goldfish this afternoon. :-)

Colin gets too close for Enzo

Let me explain these pictures in order:

1. "Just one more second and that tail is mine, Enzo!"

2. "Mom, PULEEZE save me...please....seriously, this kid is CRAZY!"

3. "Who, me? I did not touch that dog."

Colin and Enzo!

Today has been a better day...still not worth much around the house, but I was able to play with Colin more today, which made me feel a lot better. We had a fun day with Enzo...I have not blogged much about our beloved little dog, but he is one of the highlights of our lives. Enzo is an Italian Greyhound who will be four years old next month. He was our first baby when when we purchased him almost four years ago! He was a tiny pup and immediately became the focus of our lives. To this day, Enzo sleeps under the covers with us all night long. In fact, we always get up way before he does...he does not make an appearance in the living room until after 8:00 am! We were worried about the transition for him when we had Colin, but he has been a champ. He adores Colin and is very respectful of him. Until very recently, he did not really pay much attention to the little man. Well, today I gave Colin a Ritz cracker to hold while I fed him lunch in the hopes that it would distract Colin from smearing food all over his face. Enzo immediately figured out that Colin was finally holding food that was of interest to him! Enzo jumped up on eye level with Colin and begged for the cracker! Which cracked Colin up so much that Colin ended up handing the cracker to Enzo!! This happened four times in a row before I gave up on the cracker all together...we were rolling with laughter!

Just about an hour later, I was sitting on the floor with Colin playing with his blocks. Enzo was running around us with his floppy frisbee in his mouth, wanting me to play with him. For the first time ever, Colin grabbed the frisbee out of Enzo's mouth! Enz was so shocked!! Enzo started playing tug of war with Colin like he does with me and Jer!! I kept a close eye on the whole thing and Enzo was more gentle with Colin, but they were tugging it back and forth away from each other! Colin was going crazy with laughter! Enzo then turned over Colin's box of blocks and sat down next to us to play with them...it was simply adorable! Today was the first day that I saw a glimpse of what Enzo will be like with his "boy". I have a funny feeling that we are going to lose Enzo to Colin before we know it!

In more Colin news...as you can see from the picture, his left eye is in bad shape. That is actually not the eye with the blocked tear duct! He has been rubbing the left eye so hard that it is now very swollen and bright red. We took him to the pedi yesterday and he thinks it is probably allergies because the eye itself is fine, it is the skin around the eye that is red. We started on our first dose of allergy medicine today and hope it gets better fast!! It itches the poor little guy so badly!! His cheeks are also broken out, so we are trying to figure out the cause. I bought new fabric softener last week, so I think that may be it. Colin never had a reaction to our soaps or softeners before, so I quit worrying about it. That might have been a bad idea! I tossed the softener today and went back to ALL Free and Clear, so hopefully that is the problem! I seriously doubt it could be the dog or cat since he has lived with them all along and never had a problem. We shall see!!