Riding in the car, Bean-style.

When most dogs ride in the car, I am imagining that they are either: a) ecstatic to be in the fresh air and ride the whole way with their heads out the window, or b) underwhelmed or even frightened, and just curl up on the back seat and sleep. Of course I don't know this for sure, seeing that Bean is really our first dog. But her way of riding in cars just seems too bizarre to be normal.

She sits with her butt on the backseat, puts her front paws on the floor, and wedges her gigantic head in between the two front seats, resting it on the emergency brake. So that on a recent long car trip to Virginia, I got to see this every time I looked over at Bryan:
It just doesn't look comfortable, does it? You would think that she did not have an entire backseat to herself to stretch out on. Normally she can't do this because we have her in the seat belt, but this was during her recovery period, and I didn't want her to get her leg tangled like she does sometimes. Eventually I caved in and gave her my pillow to rest on:

I am such a good dog-mommy.

Reclaiming the Backyard

This weekend we let Bean start having limited access to the backyard through her dog door. I chronicled her first moments in this fascinating photo essay. Enjoy!

Here her eyes are glowing with the red hot glare of excitement.

She immediately ran to the gate, to see if perhaps we had left it open. Always testing the limits, this one!

Checking to see if any birds have made the fatal mistake of nesting in our gutters.

Still checking for birds, but with gusto.

Resuming her look-out post. The neighborhood can rest safely once again.

Project Recovery: Looking Back (part II)

This post is in honor of a few of the stuffed animals that served as Bean's compaions during her recovery period. Fisrt, there was the big white bear. Bryan brought him home after he cleaned out his classroom from this past schoolyear. Here is Bear, anxiously awaiting his introduction to Bean. As we will see, his anxiety is not unfounded.
The introduction....
And it seems that Bear is a little worse off for meeting Bean. One of his eyes is loose, and he has a droopy lip.
But they soon made up, and Bean placed Bear on his own bed in her recovery pen. Isn't this sweet? I came downstairs one morning and they were just lying like this.
Next up was Pig. We got Pig at the yard sale of some dear friends who just moved to Boston. (Hi Aiden! Hi Havalah!) It was one of Bean's first outings when she was allowed longer walks again. It was also her first yard sale. She was very excited when she saw Pig, and spent her whole week's allowance on him. Havalah was worried that Pig would meet an untimely death. But she let Bean bring her home anyway. As you can see, there was nothing to worry about.
Pig has been been treated with nothing but respect and hospitality.
A great big thanks to Bear and Pig!

Bean the Nurse

Bryan threw out his back today. He has an appointment tomorrow with a chiropractor, but for today he is just going to lie on the floor with pillows under his legs, in excruciating pain. Just so you know, I offered to take him to urgent care, but he decided to rough it till tomorrow.

Bean has assigned herself full-time nursing duties, and has not left his side:


Or his head:

I guess she is just returning the favor from when we nursed her through her recovery. Such a good girl!

Project Recovery: Looking Back (part I)

Now that we have internet access again, I am going to post some more photos I took of Bean during her recovery. This set documents the one and only day that she got to spend a good amount of time outside during those two months.

It was on Father's Day, and I came home from lunch with my sister and my dad to find that Bryan had moved Bean's whole recovery area out to the back porch while he mowed the grass. She was so happy! However, you could tell that she wanted be let out so that she could chase the squirrels, instead of just watching them.

Here she is scanning the treetops for squirrel-related movement:

Here she is staring at house next door. She can hear the kids playing on the other side of the fence, but can't see them:

Here she is, sitting nicely for her momma:

What a pretty girl!