So, J. Edgar Dogg came home yesterday and today he escaped…I got him back, but not until he had aged me a few years.

His neck has always been as big as his head so his collar has always been pretty much a ceremonial thing from which to hang his favorite tags, but I didn’t realize he had gotten so adept at slipping out of it. He Has! I cant take him back outside again until I get a harness from which he can’t easily escape. I’d say can’t escape but that would imply certainty and certainty is not possible when you are talking about J. Dogg.

What happened was I took him outside first thing this morning as he has become accustomed while with Dale but I don’t have a big fenced yard for him to run in so I had him on a leash attached to his collar and when he got tired of being forced to go where I wanted him to go, he slipped out of the collar and ran for the tree line. This time he made it without running into anything and for about 20 minutes he explored the neighborhood. I sat on the edge of my deck for a while after he left hoping he would find his way home but when I went inside to contemplate my options my landlord, a very nice man named Mr. Patterson came to my door and asked if I still had my dog. He was running free in the middle of the road and Mr. Patterson feared Dogg might become a "Road Rug" if we didn’t catch him and bring him home pretty quick.

One note here; The road in question is not a super highway, in fact it supports about five cars per hour in traffic and is so bumpy nobody goes over thirty miles per hour on it, but it only takes one pickup truck to squash a dogg. especially a dogg as dumb as J. Edgar Dogg.

I followed Mr. Patterson in my van as I thought Edgar would recognize it and maybe come to me but Edgar loves everybody so once he was tired of running free he was ready to come home. In fact, when we found him he was scratching at the door of a trailer that looked remarkable like ours…only on the wrong side of the park. When he saw me in the van he tried to jump up in my lap and we got him safely into the van and safely home again. I put him in his room, fed him his breakfast and came out here to write this.

Like I said above, I’m going to come up with some sort of harness to lessen the chance of his getting away again. I think I went from 57 to about 65 very quickly this morning.

Cheers,

Uncle Dave

I am sitting here at my computer with J. Edgar Dog’s chin resting on my knee. He is a very happy dog and I am a very happy human. Through a serious of unforeseen circumstances he is better trained, more mellow, much better socialized and in general a more laid back dog. His agoraphobia is gone, he likes going outside, he walks on a leash, he goes up and down stairs, he doesn’t jump up on people and he hasn’t zapped anybody with a stun gun in at least a couple months.

Living at my nephew’s house for two months has done him a world of good.. He had 4 other dogs to play with, a big yard to run in and a 15 month old baby who liked to see how far down his throat he could reach to contend with. He spent most of his days outside and only came in to eat and sleep. He got along fine with the other dogs only chased the cats if they let him and never even scratched the baby. I am very proud of him.

I’m proud to be his pet human.

I’m still getting better. The occupational therapist and physical therapist coming twice a week has helped a lot and I am doing all the exercises as directed on the off days. Still pretty weak but life is much better and the future looks bright.

In the very near future I will once again be moving this Blog, this time to my own web site which is @ http://www.dncramer.com/BLOG/ more info as it becomes available……..

I better go now before all this sunshine and happiness rots my teeth.

Uncle Dave

Jen’s Birthday

You know, I’ve had more visitors in the last couple weeks than I had in the year and a half I have lived here. Of course most of them are Home Health Care personnel. The important thing is they are visitors. They tend to make me work while they are here but that is not a bad thing as I need to get stronger and more coordinated and they are helping with that.

J. Dogg will be coming home this week so I am very excited about that. I’d have him here now but Dale and Jon have been dealing with some sort of stomach flu that I do not want to contract and I will need their help to bring Edgar home.

My shoulders and sternum have been giving me a lot of pain lately but nothing I didn’t expect and all the wounds are healing up nicely. In some ways I am more healthy than I was before all this started. For one thing, I am no longer dealing with constant chest pain from a poorly functioning heart and my stamina is much better than it has been in years. I am still weak from the other ailments I deal with but it is a lot less overwhelming than it has been for for the las few years.

Today is my daughter Jennifer’s birthday. She is….Oh well, you can ask her but suffice it to say her age makes me feel very old.

Happy Birthday Jen!!!

Well, my typing skills are deteriorating so I’ll stop for now.

Cheers,

Uncle Dave