News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

Here are some pictures I took of Apollo today. He was 8 pounds when we got him (6 weeks old), and is about 22 pounds now at 11 1/2 weeks. He looks and feels more than 3 times as heavy!

Looking in through the kitchen window

With his master

He sure is a friendly, good natured guy. He craves attention, loves to be played with and petted. Still likes to nip at fingers, but he’s getting better. Still a long way from house broken.

Derek’s job runs from about noon to 9:00pm, so Gisele and I end up playing with him and walking him on many days.

Derek’s job is going well, he says. He’s on the last week of training, but is actually making lots of calls each day already, under supervision. If you’re late on payments on your Target card, you might be getting a call from him!

Here’s Derek’s puppy Apollo at 9 1/2 weeks old. He seems bigger almost every day.

Here he is in his usual mode — biting! He doesn’t try to hurt and usually it’s just a gentle nip, but his baby teeth are sharp and once in a while he breaks skin.

I can still outrun him, but that won’t last long. He will soon be able to jump out of his 2′-high pen in the kitchen too.

I wanted to get a picture of the roundworms for Richard, but he appears to be rid of them.

Poor puppy! We took him to the vet today for his first visit.

We found out why he has been scratching: Scabies! These are little mites that live in the skin. So he had to get a shot for them, and has to go back in 10 days for a follow-up shot.

Then they tested his stool. Giardia! Well, that’s not too serious, and the infestation wasn’t bad, so let’s not load him up with too many shots today.

Oh, wait a minute: Further inspection of his stool revealed: Roundworms! These are big ugly guys that live in the digestive tract eating the puppies food before he can digest it. More serious than giardia, so give the poor puppy more medicine.

All these things are more or less contagious to humans, and can reinfect the puppy, so we have to clean everything he has touched, scoop all his poop, and wash his bedding in diluted bleach. However, so far none of us have any symptoms, so we’ll probably be OK.

All the girls in the doctor’s office went crazy over him. I told Derek that he was a good way to meet girls, as long as he doesn’t tell them about the parasites. That might be a turn-off!

We drove back up to Snowflake yesterday (through falling snow and slush on the road) and brought Derek’s new Siberian Husky home with us.

We built a pen for him in the corner of the kitchen, and Derek spent the night on the sofa right next to him. In fact when I woke up this morning the puppy was in bed with him, just his head sticking out from under the covers. Both were asleep.

Lots of whining and even a little yipping, as the poor 6-week old puppy pines for his mother and siblings. But he’s getting lots of love and attention here, so I’m sure he’ll be over it in a few days.

Derek still hasn’t decided on a name, and the camera battery died so I don’t have many new pictures, but we’ll try to get some more up soon.

We drove up to Snowflake, Arizona today for Derek to pick out his new Siberian Husky puppy. Here’s the one he chose.

Snowflake is about 20 miles north of Showlow, in the White Mountains. It was pretty cold up there! (OK, almost Siberia is an exaggeration, but for a Phoenician it was freezing!).

We have to wait another week or so before the puppy will be big enough to leave its mother, but he wanted an early choice of the litter. Another family got there just after we did and chose 2.

After half a semester at the U of A, Derek has decided he needs a break from school, so he has moved back home. He’s not sure if he will take any classes anywhere in the spring, but is looking out to next fall. In the mean time, he is (slowly!) looking for a job.

After a couple of weeks in Tucson, he commented to me, “I was sitting in class the other day and the thought hit me: This is going to be my life for the next 4 to 8 years.” He’s burned out on school and wants to do something else for a while.

I can’t be too disapproving. I took off a couple of years after high school, and then took classes part time for the next 6 years, before going back full time. It took me 10 years to finally get my BS. I hope it doesn’t take him that long, but I know for me the travel and real-world experience gave me a greater appreciation for the benefits of an education, and when I finally did go back to school I did so with enthusiasm and diligence.

As parents, we have our hopes and dreams for him, but he has to live out his own life. We will support him whatever path he takes.

Gisele and I are in San Francisco this week — got here on Wednesday, and go back home tomorrow (Sunday).

Staying with Gisele’s sister, Angela in the Richmond district.

Besides eating lots of interesting food and visiting bookstores, nothing exciting going on.