Merry Christmas!

We had a lovely low-key Christmas, as usual. (Well, except for one thing.) Kaline, being a wee rambunctious man, didn't get invited to Auntie Jen's, so it was rather a Juno-centric day.

The night before, Juno, as predicted, was a very good girl at Christmas Eve dinner. She was in total work mode too—at the end of dinner but before we had left the restaurant, Auntie Jen asked to pet her and I said sure. Juno wasn't having it though! She kept politely touching her nose to Auntie Jen's hand and then backing up, like, “Yes, I like you, but I'm working right now so maybe we'll say hi later.” It was precious.

Juno in her ruff at the restaurant.

Mom and I stayed up late watching a movie and having doggie cuddles. Kaline was curled up in my lap/on my chest like a baby. Juno was on Mom, so there was no way to take a decent picture of both me and Kaline. So this will have to do:

Christmas morning dawned rainy and yucky, so I scooted each dog out individually to do his or her business (put them together, and they will take exponentially longer to get anything done), and then they had treadmill time. We headed down for them to have breakfast, and just as Juno finished inhaling her kibble, I noticed a bunch of red dots on the kitchen floor, like someone had been making some kind of jelly dessert and dripped everywhere.

And then I saw the wall in the family room, which had a huge red smear on it. Yes, Juno had whacked her lethal tail hard into the wall one too many times, and now she was bleeding everywhere.

I should probably mention that this has happened before, just not recently. When we first adopted her, her tail tip was totally raw from wagging in her narrow kennel run and constantly bashing it into the concrete walls. She kept busting it open and the vet was worried we'd eventually have to dock her tail. But we were careful for a while, she healed, and all was well. A few months later she bashed it open again following a bath, but again, she healed, and that was about the last time she did that. If you look at her tail now you can see the evidence, two little oval hairless patches.

I commenced a futile search for styptic powder and once that failed, stopped the bleeding with paper towels. I protected her tail successfully through her whole Christmas bath, only to have her thwack it against the doorjamb on her way out of the bathroom. Blood everywhere again.

Mom devised a bandage with non-stick gauze and medical tape. Most dogs probably would have nibbled it off, but once it was on (Juno did not enjoy that process) she completely left it alone. It stayed on the entire day, we had no more bleeding, and it would've stayed on probably through the night, if I hadn't cut it off to let her little wound breathe overnight.

So that was our Christmas drama.

Kaline stayed home in his crate while Juno, suitably spiffy in her Christmas ruff, came along to Auntie Jen's. She was great, following me closely almost the whole time (during dinner she left a few times to go beg and had to be called back). I got some excellent dog related presents, including a new Dremel (one that runs off a charger, instead of batteries—my current Dremel burns through four Double-A's every time I do Juno and Kaline's nails) and a lovely bone-shaped necklace charm. On once side it says JUNO in even, neat capital letters, and on the other side it says Kaline in letters that change in size, capitalization, and location. Pretty much sums them up, no?

Juno got to partake of many different Christmas foods, thanks to Mom, who was bubbling with glee due in no small part to the wine. (Usually one glass is enough to make her fall asleep ...) She got honeybaked ham, non-chocolatey bits of cookie, sourdough bread, baby carrots and who knows what else when I wasn't looking and going, “MOM! Whyyyyyy?!” But hey, she has an iron stomach and she deserves her treats, since she's the best dog ever.

Juno in front of the tree and all the presents. She's the best present!!!

Juno supervises present opening, using the table as a chin rest.

Me and Juno in front of the tree.

Juno and the mini-tree.

Kaline's presents and a good outing

Kaline is making out like a bandit this Solstice. (Happy Solstice, everyone!) His presents just arrived, one right after the other—first a red Cloudchaser (because Juno's is grey), and then his Paco collar. I also got him a Halti, since we were having so many issues with the Infinity collar loosening constantly during the walks, but he doesn't consider it a present. It has a nice padded noseband though and it stays where it's supposed to when I put it on.

Kaline models his new collar. The people at Paco Collars did everything possible to make it nice for his neck.

Closeup of his conchos and "rhinestones."

He and Juno look so freaking cute together in their semi-matching coats with their blinking lights on top. Worked great in the rain today. I still hate rain, even though now I have all waterproof gear (shoes, pants, jacket) and so do Juno and Kaline.

Ready to get out and start the pack walks.

Everyone had long afternoon naps, so when Mom asked if Kaline and I wanted to work in the mall while she shopped and did errands, we were raring to go. It was cold and intermittently wet, so he wore all his stuff, his jacket, his vest, his Halti, his new Paco collar. He looked so cute.

Kaline wearing ALL the gear.

And he was such a good boy! We went to Macy's, Bloomingdale's, the Gap, Nordstrom, Safeway and Kepler's (he went to Kepler's off-duty). He pulled a bit, and tried to rub off the Halti sometimes, but largely he was excellent. We were working on simple stuff: basic obedience when asked, not pulling, not sniffing things, and most of all, settling. He got lots of compliments on how handsome he is and how nicely he was behaving. No intrusive questions, just fun ones. The best was when a lady asked what we were working on today, and I gladly told her. "Oh, puppies," she said.

Settling by the shoe racks.

Ignoring Christmas food and candy.

Down stay next to the escalator.

Kaline hit all the handicap buttons and then as a finale, settled beautifully when we went for dinner at the cafe in Nordstrom. He settled immediately and he didn't get up again until we were almost ready to go. I think he was cold, even in his coat and lying on his cushy mat. I couldn't stop grinning, and that is not a state I have been in at all lately.

At dinner, being a little pro about quietly holding his down.

The little man was quite good in Safeway, though he was a little bit unsettled by these middle-school age boys marching around singing Christmas songs loudly and off key, in a strangely belligerent way. I have no idea what they were doing there—it was like their parents dropped them off and said, "Go amuse yourselves in Safeway, kids." I was kinda unsettled by their singing too. He got over it after a little while (and several treats).

Kepler's he was terrible because he just wanted to go back to the front and get more cookies. But he was off-duty and he'd been working nicely for a long time—it was obvious he'd had it. I was super proud of him for being such a stand-up little guy tonight!

This is why I can't visit collar stores ...

I swear, I went with the purest of intentions. Go to Paco Collars in Berkeley, find an already-made Deluxe collar (two layers for less rubbing on the neck) that I liked well enough, buy it, leave.

Of course, that's not what actually happened. Let's blame Dad.

I was looking through all the collars for sale, and had found one that was pretty good. Tan leather (though I really wanted black), gorgeous conchos with subtle flowers on them with a tiny amber stone in the center, nickel hardware. It wasn't as wide as I wanted, but I was like, this is not a big deal, this will definitely work.

And then Dad steps in, going, "You know, if you're going to pay this much for a collar, you should get something you really like."

"But he needs to have this on his neck now."

"Just a few more weeks in the prong won't kill him. He'll live."

Salesguy looks at me with a little smile, hands me a Paco catalog. Kaline stares up at me with melty eyes. Probably due to wearing the headcollar, but my resistance was at a low ebb so everything felt like a guilt trip. Do you love your puppy enough?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

"Okay, okay, let's do custom."

We are not going to talk about how much this collar cost. Subject is off limits. So let's talk about how freaking gorgeous this collar is going to be.

I found a collar style called the Simon, and tweaked it a bit to make it just right. It has the pretty conchos from the collar I was thinking about buying, but it's black, two inches wide instead of one (and wider will also reduce rubbing), with a nicer pattern of nickel hardware. And instead of all nickel hardware between the conchos, they're going to put a blue rhinestone in the center of each little cluster. Hopefully it doesn't take terribly long. It's gonna be so neat. Plus it should really be nice on his neck—Paco has made collars for hairless dogs, so they know about sensitive doggies. They're even doing extra conditioning for it before they send it off to me. I promise pictures as soon as I get it.

In other news, Dad decided he didn't want to do obedience class today, so I left him with the wee monster and took my awesome girl to class. It was so much fun—I loved having one of the advanced dogs in class again! She did very well, of course, and had herself a great time. She was so waggy and enthusiastic the entire time. And Kaline had a nice morning taking a leisurely walk with Dad. He was super wiggly and adorable when Juno and I came home.

Kaline's been charming our company-for-the-weekend, my mom's best friend Wendy. She absolutely loves him. He is super cute, I must admit! Sometimes he can get a bit overenthusiastic with her, but mostly he's been a very good boy. She's sleeping in my room, so Kaline's her roommate and he's been his usual quiet self in his crate every night. Hurrah.

Juno and Kaline have also been doing a bit better at holding off on the wrestling. (Again, worries over Kaline's neck. Ya know.) If I just say NO sharply right when they start, usually they stop. Thank goodness.

Oh, and don't feel too bad for Juno not getting a Paco collar. She has, currently: a Tigers collar, a Michigan collar, a Giants collar, a 49ers collar, a homemade Menlo Park Legends collar, and my favorite, her 2-inch-wide, beautifully embroidered 2HoundsDesigns martingale collar. And I just got her a Ruffwear Cloudchaser cause my Pro Purchase Plan came through (50% off on everything).