::A Geek in Korea::

Yoshi gets shaved at home by my wife. She has a razor and has practiced shaving him a bunch of times. She gives him a professional cut at the expense of a little sanity and a few hours of her time. She’s got a system worked out where she used a small lap table that we use to eat in bed extended over our bathtub. Yoshi has no where to go, and she can knock the hair into the tub which we never use. She can clean up in a flash after he is finally shaved, then give him a bath.

She shaved him on Friday. It’s normal for Yoshi’s skin to be a little agitated after the shaving. He usually has a few razor burns or the rare nick that heal up in a day or two. This time, however, his body was much more dinged up than normal. He didn’t get cut, but he had several places on his chest and legs that were bright red.

We put his T-shirt on him for the evening to try to discourage him from itching himself. The idea was that if he had to scratch through his shirt he wouldn’t get the satisfaction and would just quit. Eventually.

On Saturday we noticed that he was still scratching, and much more intensely than normal. He wouldn’t walk. He’d just spend his day itching over and over. We decided to take off the shirt, and when we saw his back we were really worried. His back was scratched to the point of major redness and there was a few spots of blood.

Because of the three day Korean holidays, none of the vets were working. We couldn’t get him steroids or anything to help his skin. It’s pretty crappy to know you need to help your dog, but can’t for multiple days because the doctors aren’t working.

I took off his shirt and kept an eye on him for most of the day. If he was in my lap, or next to me when I had my hand on him, he didn’t scratch. If I let him wander around, he’d go in a corner and scratch himself over and over. We gave him a bath in some special shampoo we had, and he was really well behaved when we dried him. This didn’t do much to calm his skin problems though. While he remained in the sun he didn’t seem to scratch himself much either.

We sat and watched a movie with him, trying to keep him in our control. This morning he sat in the sun and relaxed, but he’s back to scratching himself again. He’ll get some medical attention tomorrow as soon as possible, but he’s got another itchy day to wait.

A few days ago, when we went out to work, we decided it was too hot to leave Yoshi out on the veranda like we normally do. Since the veranda gets direct sunlight most of the day, it heats up faster and stays hotter than the rest of the house. It was already scorching hot, and Yoshi would have been sitting out on that hot veranda all day. He likes to sleep on the cool tiles in the little shade he has, and we give him plenty of water. We also give him some ice if it gets really hot. Even those comforts weren’t enough.

We had few options. Either a “hot dog” when get got home, or bringing the dog to work to sit in the office. It was either that, or let him in the rest of the house for the day. No one could bring him to work, so we were going to have to “Yoshi-proof” the rest of the house.

Since Yoshi is trained to go to the bathroom on the veranda, we kept the sliding door open for him. His water and bathroom remain outside. We shut all the doors in the house and try to tuck away all the extension cords. Yoshi doesn’t chew shoes, but we put all of our extra slippers and shoes away, just in case. We also blocked off access to the garbage can, which he occasionally likes to sniff.

I was the first home when we left Yoshi to have free reign over the apartment. I personally expected a mess. The couch cover would be on the floor, Yoshi sitting as if a king on a throne (his normal posture). Instead, I got greeted with a few yaps as I opened the door, and a spotlessly clean house. No problems whatsoever.

Every time we’ve let Yoshi into the house with the bedroom, bathroom, and computer room blocked off, he’s caused no problems whatsoever. 90% of the time, if someone isn’t paying attention to him, he’s lounging on the couch. When my wife and I take a nap in our bedroom, he’s sleeping on the couch. If he has enough food and gets his walk, he’s very content to sleep there all afternoon it seems. I don’t blame him, it’s a really comfortable couch.

This is a great surprise to us, but we had gotten a good report about Yoshi’s behavior while we had been in Cambodia. We had left Yoshi in the care of a coworker, and she lives in a much smaller apartment. She slept on the floor, and Yoshi slept next to her on the blanket. When he was thirsty, or needed to go to the bathroom, he would go out to the veranda, do his thing, then return to her side. Yoshi also does this when I take a nap on the couch in our apartment.

It’s pretty cool to have a good dog. I wish he wouldn’t bark when the elevator opens or people walk by the door. Then we wouldn’t ever need to keep him on the veranda at all. We’re still trying.

It’s too hot around here. Summer has really arrived in it’s humid, hot, sweaty glory, and we in the household are all suffering for it. My wife is considering paying for an air conditioning install for the apartment, and Yoshi is sitting in front of the fan as anyone else these days. I’m coming back from walks with Yoshi drenched in sweat. I’ll shower, then by the time I need to go to work, I should probably be showering again. It’s just plain HOT.

Yoshi plays favorites with both me and my wife. Most of the time, he can be found at my feet, sleeping. If he’s not bringing his toys over to me for a game of fetch, he’s probably sitting in my lap at the computer. When I go over to the couch, he usually hops right up and sits next to me. I don’t mind. I feel guilty leaving him in the apartment all day when I go to work.

If I’m particularly busy, or have shut the door, he’ll usually sit outside and wait for me to return. Sometimes when I go out on errands, my wife tells me that he’ll sit by the door and wait for me to return. Only after I’ve been gone for a while or have stopped giving him attention will he go hang out with my wife. They watch television together, but if I get up and move around the house, he’ll follow me.

This is probably because she’s got the jobs that are most stressful for Yoshi. While I feed and walk Yoshi, she’s shaving him, cleaning his ears, or trying to keep him clean. We both wash him, but he immediately hops in my lap to be dried. He just likes hanging out with me, but I think it’s more about the food.

Today, while feeling particularly lazy watching some Star Wars Rifftrax, I thought of Salacious Crumb, that little annoying thing that laughed at everyone in Return of the Jedi. You know, the Kowakian Monkey-Lizard Jabba the Hutt had on his sand barge (I’m not making that up. Wikipedia said so.) Having a little underling following you around the house is a lot like that relationship. I’ve always wanted an underling, so I enjoy having Yoshi hang around.

Anyway, if Yoshi is indeed Salacious Crumb, hanging around a more cruel and fatter person, that would make me Jabba the Hutt. Hmm. Bad analogy.

Inspired by the [tag]LOLCAT[/tag] meme.

Yoshi has been getting extremely hot on his walks around town with me in the morning. He had been growing a lot of hair since his last shave three months ago. My wife decided she’d give him a shave herself. She handles the haircare and beauty, I do the running around and playing with the dog. The situation is better for everyone this way.

We usually go to a professional place to have Yoshi’s hair cut, but the last time we paid someone to shave him, he returned with several cuts from the razor. We paid 20,000 won (~$22 USD) for the shave, so having him coming back cut up wasn’t acceptable. He also needed to be at the store a long time to wait for his cut, so by the time he came back to us he was a nervous wreck.

My wife purchased a shaving kit for Yoshi’s paws to keep him from sliding around as he walked in our apartment. She had used it to shave his paws and face when he was getting a little long haired, but hadn’t attempted a complete shave.

She took Yoshi out on the veranda and shaved him down nearly bald. Only his tail, ears, and face have any hair left. She only made a cut on one of his legs, which was much better than the last “professional” cut Yoshi received. Her first attempt at Yoshi’s face was uneven, but she took a second stab (pun unintended) at it and managed to do as well as any professional we’ve gone to since owning the dog.

Yoshi, our dog, has recently gotten his food switched. He was on a veterinary recommended diet of the most expensive (shock!) food available. This was for a skin allergy that he used to have from excess protein in some of his old food. We moved him to a protein free special formula that helped clear up his skin.

He was, however, developing an ear allergy. We don’t know what that is from, so we talked to a vet at a local pet store. His recommendation was to cut off the non-protein snacks for a while and give him a different food. This has duck and potatoes, but is still supposed to be good for his allergy as well. It’s slightly cheaper too.

When we switched food, I didn’t adjust the food amounts properly. His old food was a large round ball, which looked like a cheese puff. This new food is a flattened disc like shape, more like a nilla wafer. (Why do I describe dog food like processed food I ate as a child? That’s disturbing.) I was supposed to give “one to one and a half” cups of one of this new food. I kept over feeding Yoshi for the first week.

As a result, Yoshi’s been dropping poo bombs that are just incredibly huge and stinky all the time. He was like clockwork on his last diet, once a day, every day during our walk in the late morning. Now he’s squeezing them off twice or three times a day. Worse yet, he’s trying to eat them if we don’t watch and clean it up. Ew.

We finally sorted out that his problem was his over feeding. We significantly reduced his meal today, and he’s back to a more normal behavior. Now, unfortunately, he’s developed gas. He used to occasionally silently gas the room while he was on my lap. Now he’s actually developed a sound to accompany it. He’ll drop his ears and look up with a grin as he leaves the room after doing his damage. Both my wife on the couch and I have been gassed in this manner this evening. You don’t realize what’s happened until it’s far too late.

I was the undisputed champion in the household until Yoshi’s little uprising today. At least I gave a warning that let all women and children run to safety. Think of it like an air siren. Now I mark the arrival of him into a room like a challenger to my olfactory supremacy.

Whoever wins, my wife’s nose loses.

I had some guests over today. One of the people in question had a severe dog phobia, to the point where a small dog like Yoshi could make her cry and go hysterical. I’ll never understand this behavior. I put Yoshi out on the apartment veranda. He hadn’t had his walk during the day, so he was a little excitable.

The other non panic prone guest was on the couch while I was helping calm the person down at the dinner table, offering something to drink. The person on the couch looked at me uncomfortably and said, “Your dog…is eating his own poo on the veranda now.”

No sooner had I got out to prevent this, than I had a knock at the door. The dry cleaner delivery, the reason we were waiting at the house had arrived. I had to quickly run to the bathroom, take off the plastic gloves, and answer the door, pay the guy, hang up the clothes, and run back to finish up cleaning the mess from the dog. It was rather frantic, and my guests were taken for a surprise.

After all that cleaning and running around, it’s kind of hard to pick up a conversation about how having a dog is great. Right now as I type it’s a rough sell for me, as my dog has gas from his little “meal” earlier, and he’s stinking up the entire room the computer and his cage share.

When you purchase a dog, you expect to train it. You need to teach it to sit, to wait, to go to the bathroom in the right places. Little do you expect that the dog will train you as well. Yoshi has actually been training me since he took up residence in the computer room for the winter.

Yoshi still uses the water bottle we bought for him when he was a little tiny puppy. Now he can hold a lot more water, so we usually fill it at least once a day. The bottle hangs on his cage, which is located under my desk in the computer room. This means that when I am writing, Yoshi will occasionally come into the computer room and drink some water.

When there is no water in his bottle, he knows what to do. He just sits at his bottle and keeps trying to drink. He’s not being dumb or stubborn. He’ll give me a look that says, "I’m empty. Fill this bottle already."

There is a ball mechanism that blocks the water that goes to the mouth piece. When it is empty, the ball is noisy as he tries to draw water, so I hear him and I realize he needs water. I rarely notice this on my own. Yoshi knows that if he wants water, all he has to do is be noisy when I am at the computer and I’ll refill his bottle for him. It’s pretty cool, because I rarely think to check is bottle every day unless I am at the computer.