Kendall's name

I'm 3000 miles away again on another business trip, so I thought it would be a good time to post on the origins of Kendall's name.

Kendall, like the rest of the pets in our home, was named after a physicist, Henry W. Kendall. We looked at many, many physicists' names and decided that Kendall sounded like a girl's name, although I know it's often used as a boy's name, and it rolled off the tongue nicely. Come Kendall...Sit Kendall... While she may not aspire to the high achievements of Henry W. Kendall, we have confidence that she's going to turn into a pretty good dog.

Our cats are also named after physicists. Our first cat, Dinger, named after Schroedinger's cat succumbed to chronic renal failure in October 2006. Our other two cats, Oppenheimer, better known as Heimey, and Enrico Fermi, better known as Rico, are learning to tolerate the presence of Kendall. Rico came to live with us by way of Craigslist, and I have reason to believe he lived with dogs in his former life. He seeks out Kendall's company and sometimes plays with her. Heimey, who has never been around dogs before in his life, is curious but still really cautious.

Kendall, the camping dog

The weather was gorgeous this weekend, so we decided to head out with the new trailer to Champoeg State Park. We didn't have reservations but figured that. because it was the end of October, it wouldn't be crowded - wrong. We got one of three spots left in the entire campground. Turns out everyone else had the same idea.

Kendall had a great time camping. She chased lots of leaves, met lots of people, and met some big dogs. She seemed right at home hanging out at the camp site. We took her for a long walk on her retractable leash, something that's hard to do in the neighborhood, and she walked about 5 times farther than we did - back and forth, back and forth.

She slept in her portable crate in the front of the trailer. Not a peep from her all night long. All the new things must've tired her out.

She seemed to love everything about camping except the fire. She didn't like the smoke or the popping. We had to call it an early evening and head in to watch Juno.

Just Hangin' Out

Just a quick post with a picture from last night. The picture was taken with a phone, so the quality's not that great.

A Beautiful Sunday afternoon

The weather was beautiful on Sunday afternoon so we decided to take Kendall out for some socializing. There was Doggie Palooza going on at the World Forestry Center, but we didn't want to pay to get into the museum and then not be able to see it because we had Kendall with us. We opted for the Lucky Lab Brewing Co. They have a place over in Multnomah Village with picnic tables out front. You can order beer, wine, cider, and pizza and then eat outside. Kendall had a great time hanging out. There were lots of dogs there and lots of dogs and people walking by on the sidewalk.

Clyde ordered a Super Puppy XP on nitro. I got to have a Wyder's Pear Cider on tap! A first. Kendall was good about just hanging out and chewing on her Kong.

BFF

I received an email with this picture attached this morning. Looks like Rico and Kendall have gotten to be best friends while I'm out of town.

Puppies will be puppies

Here I am 3,000 miles away in NJ on a business trip, and I get the call that no "mom" wants to hear- Kendall got hurt, and she's at the vet for x-rays. Turns out Kendall got a little exhuberant while playing with a bigger puppy at Puppy Play Day and ran into an I-bolt at full speed that was sticking out of the wall. C called to tell me she was there, but we're still waiting, many hours later, to hear their assessment. We heard it was a big day for emergencies at the vet. Sounds no different than human emergency rooms.

UPDATE: Many $$ later, we've found out that there's nothing broken. There's a lot of swelling, and Kendall's sedated right now so they could manipulate her shoulder. She was sent home for some loving and sleep along with some pain killers.

Kendall's first day of school

Kendall started puppy preschool last night. There were 6 puppies there of all shapes and sizes and there are three more puppies scheduled to join us next week. Kendall's brother, Riley, is also in the class. They spent about 5 min. running around checking each other out. This was the first time Kendall had been around big loose dogs. She saw a bunch of big dogs at Pinot and Pooch but they were well-behaved dogs on leashes. The big puppies seemed to scare Kendall a bit but after retreating and gathering her wits she was ready to jump right in again.

The teacher, Jen, spent a lot of time talking, which she said was unique to the first class. The humans got some direction on calling your dog. and we were given the assignment to work on sitting, spinning, and paying attention (the dogs - not the humans). We really need to work on paying attention. We saw some improvement today when coming and paying attention was paired with treats. She can sit, lay down, shake, speak, and roll over just fine, but she doesn't like to pay attention when she's interested in something else.

Pinot and Pooch

We all attended Pinot and Pooch this afternoon, a benefit for Dove Lewis, a local animal emergency hospital, hosted by Urban Wineworks. This was a two-day event where you could sample pinots and bring your dog. There were raffles that benefited Dove Lewis and vendors who specialized in doggie wares. You could also get a portrait of your dog done by one of many artists, free with the purchase of three bottles of wine. We decided to take Kendall. She's only going to be this age once; we thought it would be a great time to get her portrait done. Some of the proceeds of the wine sales also went to Dove Lewis. She had her portrait done by Ken Klos, an architect by day and artist on the side. Kendall sat quietly for her portrait even though there were lots of distractions. At times, I thought she was going to fall asleep.

Greta comes to visit

Greta, Kendall's sister, and Julie, the breeder, came to visit on Friday afternoon. The rains have moved in so they had to romp in the family room. Greta is still looking for a lifelong home, if anyone is interested. She's a beautiful tri-color. At first Greta was a bit shy around Kendall, who has decided that she's a growling, barking fiend when it comes to play with dogs her size or smaller. After a bit, Greta found her voice and it was puppy fun all around.