Two more quick notes from our vacation that we forgot to tell you about -

First, Maggie got a pillow from the new pet store in New Buffalo ("Beach Tails"). We end up stopping in here pretty much every trip now. They keep telling us to bring Maggie, but we opted out of taking "Boots" (Kat took to calling her that this past week) just yet. Anyway, she always ends up with something - usually edible - but she really seems to like the new pillow. Kat picked it up our first night there to try to make Mags feel better. One night as I was going to bed I looked over and she was sleeping with her head perfectly resting on it - dumb luck I'm sure, but it was still adorable.

Second, well, I guess this also involves a Beach Tails purchase. Kat bought some doggie yogurt "Yoghund" for Mags. We gave it to her in a bowl, which she licked a few times before deciding either to move it, or that she wanted to eat it all at once. It was very funny when she picked up the whole chunk of frozen yogurt and jammed the entire thing in her mouth. She looked up with this giant frozen mass in her mouth, which then began to melt at the same time as triggering her saliva glands. Huge drips of now not-so-frozen yogurt and saliva ran down her face before she finally dropped it on her towel. The look on her face during all of this was priceless.

Maggie is doing much better now that she's had her paw-tectors on for a little over a week. Her paws are looking much better, but we're going to give them a few more days before taking her booties away.

We started taking her on some longer walks down along the Marina to town and back over the past couple of days. Maggie was fine with the longer distance and it really helped to improve her mood to be back out and about. Her boots were quite the attraction in New Buffalo.

Everyone we passed either stopped to ask us about them or we heard "Did you see those boots?" behind us - or the kid who exclaimed "Mommy! That dog has shoes on!". Most people I'm sure thought they were goofy, but a few people asked where we got them - maybe Mags will start a trend in New Buffalo and we can make fun of the other dogs in their boots this summer.

We took Maggie to the Michigan City dog park both Thursday and Friday. Thursday was just us there for a while, and then some creepy guy came with his two Newfoundlands. Those dogs were either aggressive or they played very rough. Maggie clearly didn't like the way they were coming at her (she boxed one in the face with her bootie) so we got her out of there. Their owner did nothing to try to control his dogs and didn't pick up after them either. We considered that day kind of a bust - and figured that's what we get for going to the dog park during a work day - that's when you get the creepy unemployed guy.

We tried again Friday which went much better. Some of the friends Maggie made during her first trip to this park were there, along with several other friendly pups. She made a couple moves like she would play but then backed off. Maybe next time when she isn't in her booties she'll come back out and play. She seemed to enjoy the park though and this put Mags in a better mood the rest of the weekend. Oh, and of course, Maggie really just lives for going for car rides, so we probably could have driven her in circles around the block and she'd have been happy.

Maggie was completely fine with the fireworks. When she was at home alone, we turned the fan on which drowns out nearly every noise from outside, so she just slept through those (we can tell when she's been sleeping from her "bed head"). Everyone and their brother in New Buffalo likes to shoot of their own fireworks, so she had plenty of exposure to them on walks. This is another Maggie mystery - you sneeze or make one funny move, she jumps out of her fur - but an M80 going off 100 yards away doesn't phase her one bit. We're not sure if she just equates it to thunder, which she also had zero reaction to, or what she's thinking, but we're very happy that they don't bother her.


Maggie was really in a good mood by the time she got in the car for the ride home. She finished off a tendon that she had in progress over the past couple of days. She drank plenty of water out of her travel water bowl (shown in the first picture). Up until now she's not really taken to that. She even drank some water while Kat was pouring it out of the bottle, which she's never done, but is another one of those normal dog behaviors we love to see.

All of these pics are from the car ride home and our cheery li'l pup.

For these kinds of stories, Kat tells me I should always start with the end - so to start: Maggie is OK and safe at home with us.

We had a very scary incident with Maggie this past Thursday, and while it's a story we don't really want to share, we feel we need to share the bad as well as the good on the blog. As we've blogged in the past, we like to take her out to the local middle school which has a fenced in area and they don't mind dogs on non-school days. This is the park where Maggie met her friends River, Chip and Holly (the other dog from the running video).

The one problem with this park is that it's 99% fenced in, and there are two entranceways that are always open. The first few times we went there, this was a major point of concern, but Maggie never made a move toward those gates and always stuck within 20 feet or so of us no matter where we went in the park. So we became used to the fact that Maggie was always perfect and stuck close to us. We've both taken Maggie to the park by ourselves and it's always been fine - until Thursday.

Kat called me to say her plane back to Chicago was pulling away and that she'd be home in a few hours. Maggie and I were just walking into the park when we said goodbye on the phone. I took Maggie off of the leash like always, but this time she started moving back toward the entranceway.

I still didn't really think she'd go through, but I was nervous that she was even walking that way. I didn't want to startle her by coming after her, so I took a few steps further into the park using words she understands to follow us like "let's go!". Maggie kept walking further away, and eventually went outside the park.

I had to go after her now so I ran out the gate and called after her. Maggie was doing her fast walk away from me and heading north. I ran a little bit, and as I got close Maggie went into full on run mode. Of course, I had on my sandals too, so the clomp-clomp of those couldn't have helped. I don't know what was going through her head, if it started out as play or what, but it quickly turned to panic for both of us.

This is very scary and I'll skip the details. Suffice it to say, Maggie ran across many streets and I could never get close to grabbing her. This total chase lasted probably 30-45 minutes although it seemed like an eternity, through about a mile and half of streets. At one point she ran fast enough that I lost sight of her. Between seeing Maggie run through traffic, and just losing her altogether, I can't describe the feeling of complete desperation, powerlessness and hopelessness. I really thought we'd lost her.

Fortunately, some complete strangers jumped in and saved the day. I never, ever would have caught her on my own. Three or four guys, who didn't know each other either, all jumped in to help pin her down. One guy finally got hold of her collar and I got the leash on her to take her home. I was so tired, relieved and shaken that I didn't really properly thank the guys who helped or even get a good look at them. I wish now there was a way to properly thank them, but I have no idea who they are.

Maggie was exhausted and bleeding - I thought from one paw. I got her back home, some water, some ice packs and then looked at her paws. She'd torn the top layer off of the large pad on all four paws. I took her to the emergency vet on Clybourn. They cleaned her up, gave her a shot of antibiotics and for the pain and gave prescription pills for both as well.

They also advised that we go to Petco and buy some booties for her. They said normally they'd bandage a paw in that condition, but since it was all four that wasn't going to work well.
Kat got home from the airport a little after we got home from the emergency vet and buying her booties, and I filled her in on what happened - it wasn't quite the happy homecoming she'd envisioned, but at least Maggie was at home.

We feel really bad for Maggie and that she's injured, but we're also incredibly thankful and lucky that nothing worse happened to her and that we have her back.

She's been doing well. She is now used to her boots and walking pretty well in them. The first couple days she was incredibly awkward in the boots, her feet were still raw, and she was sore from her run. Her feet are looking much better now, having turned back to black and are already looking tougher. Her back-left paw was the worst and still is lagging behind the others but not by much. She still has at least the rest of this week in the boots.

We're in Michigan all week and we'd hoped to do all sorts of fun stuff with her, but all of that is off the table while she recovers. There's plenty of time for that though in the future and at least she's safe and sound!

We've learned our lesson. Mags is only off leash now at 100% enclosed places (the dog park in Michigan City is 100% enclosed, so we have that). And we have to remember that we still don't truly know her and as "perfect" as she is most of the time, she can still act unpredictably. 99% of the time she'd probably be fine, but we can't take that chance that she'll run again and I don't believe we'll get so lucky again.

Not to be dramatic, but this was the scariest moment in my life thinking we'd lost Maggie or worse. We can't imagine anything happening to her. Next week will be her 5th month with us and we can't even remember what it was like to not have Maggie in our life.

Ok, we've been remiss in updating the blog the last few weeks, so there's lots to catch up on here...

Since we last wrote, Maggie has learned a new trick - getting in the car on her own. As with most of Maggie's behavior, we didn't really train her, she just started doing it. She absolutely loves the car, and now the second we open the door she runs and jumps in. That's great, but the really good trick will be when she learns to get out on her own. There's really nothing like wrestling 58 lbs of dead weight (or trying to get away from you) out of the car. So far she shows no signs of coming close to jumping out on her own though. For Maggie, apparently it's not about the destination, just the journey.

And yes, she's 3 lbs overweight. We overshot, so she's on a little bit of a diet now until she gets back to her goal weight.

Mags has completely given up on going to the bathroom in our yard now. So she has evolved from the dog who wouldn't go, to not going if we were looking, to not going on the leash, to going on the mulch but not with a leash, then sometimes on walks, to now only going on walks. She knows which times of the day we take her in the yard and which times we go on walks, so now if it's a "yard time" she just runs upstairs to bed. So, she just misses that chance to go now. Not sure what her hang up is, but it's not a huge deal now. She'll have to re-learn it in the winter time though.

Two weeks ago our niece, Skylar, got to meet Maggie. We took Maggie on a field trip to her Grandma Lela's for a cookout (we also want her to be familiar with Lela's home in case she has to stay overnight sometime). Kat's brother, Kevin, his wife Shannon, and daughter Skylar were in town for a visit. Skylar was adorable, and very gentle with Mags. Of course, Maggie pretty much just sat there like she always does.

Maggie = 1
Car Safety Harness = 0

As we've reported Maggie's not a huge fan of her car safety harness. I've caught her chewing on it a few times and she has stopped when told. Well, last night coming home from Michigan I thought she was doing some intense grooming when all of a sudden she popped up in the backseat free from her harness. Our little Houdini chewed it in half.

Poor Steve did a lot of research to find the safest harness and now we're back at square one. In the meantime Maggie will be roaming freely around the backseat panting in our ears.

On a positive note we had a great weekend in Michigan with Miss Maggie. On Saturday we were walking thru town when a woman pulled her car over because she wanted to meet Maggie (seriously, things like this happen to us all the time now). It turns out she's a local resident who recently adopted the labradoodle of a friend who passed. We exchanged doodle stories and then she told us about a dog park located within a county preserve in Michigan City. Guess where we went the next day?

So Sunday morning we went to check out the dog park. It's a big, beautiful dog park located within a 112 acre county forest preserve. As usual, we arrived and everyone ran up to meet Maggie (dogs and owners). There was a Beagle that she tried to play with right away, but he denied Maggie and she was a bit discouraged. We kept walking around because we could tell she really wanted to play, but just couldn't find the right dog (all the others were too small, too big, etc). Mags finally gave up and decided she didn't need anyone else to play and just started running wildly around in a circle weaving in and out of other dogs and owners. The whole crowd - owners AND dogs - just stopped and watched. Finally a puppy, Gill, decided to join in and they had a great time running and playing. Nothing makes us happier than seeing her let go of her past and have fun!

We've often joked about Maggie's "prance" of a walk and get comments from people about it all the time. At the park a little girl pointed to Mags and said to her mom, "Look! She walks like a show dog!!" It's like some Rags-To-Riches story - - Ha! Ha!

The park charges a small fee based on the honor system - - it was the best $3 we've spent and we look forward to returning soon.

Post-park Maggie got a very thorough brushing because I'm crazy worried about fleas and ticks. She's had her Frontline Plus treatment, but I'm still worried.

Saturday Steve and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary. We enjoyed a lovely meal at a small Inn near our place in Michigan and spent the entire time talking about our favorite topic - - Maggie!

The Oprah Winfrey Show is re-running their episode on puppy mills tomorrow (Thursday 5/29/08). If you missed the "most-talked about show of the year" please tune in.

After posting, I thought of one other noteworthy moment from the weekend. Today we walked into town for lunch, and Kat stayed with Mags on some benches along the street while I ran into the deli for sandwiches. I ran back out of the deli to get Kat's 2nd choice of bread, since they were out of choice numero uno.

Kat and Mags were in the middle of a photo shoot on the street. Some photographers were in town and claimed (rightfully so, we think) that Maggie was the "cutest dog they ever did see".

I came back out 10 minutes later with the sandwiches, and several people were surrounding Kat and Maggie on the bench. She's a very popular girl.

Some day she's going to cause a car accident. I can't count the number of people we've seen making "aww, look at that dog!" faces and pointing as they drive down the street.