Quimby has gotten big, and he loves to tear down bamboo.

This is Samson (the 3rd one we’ve seen, but hey it’s an awesome name). Samson is Quimby’s brother!!! It had been nearly a year since they had seen each other, but after a few minutes they seemed to remember. I took a bazillion photos of them playing, they are so similar and so different at the same time. It was a truly awesome experience, his owners are really nice and have a great home for him. He has a huge lawn to play in, and gets to get outside a lot! Much more to come this week, but here’s a general vibe of what happaned:

You can tell that Quimby was bigger. He probably had close to 20lbs on his brother, but interestingly enough Samson dislpayed more dominant behavior. Apparently Samson’s comfort zone is at home, wheras Quimby seems to find comfort everywhere, with everyone. I will post more similarities / differences tomorrow.

Updates:
Quimby’s nose splitting was no big deal according to the vet. Awesome.
He is getting super fast, and good at commands.
He lets you hold him all day long.
He is getting along with the cats better, although every time I pick up Lily, as soon as I put her down, if Quimby is in the room, she runs over to him and slaps him around. Literally, no claws, just smacks him all up. It’s like clockwork. I’ll have to film it for next week.

Have and Halloween suggestions for Quimby’s costume?

Tomorrow, the Poganddog of the month will be announced!!!

Quimby has passed the rocks or so it would seem. He’s been eating them when he gets bored, or so we think. My guess is that if we stuff him with enough treats when he’s just doing his thing, he will be fine. Last night at dog school, we were doing a ping pong exercise where two people call the dog from 15 feet away and and reward with treats when the dog listens. Since Quimby had not been to the dog park, he had lots of energy, and immediately took off trying to get to every dog and spread the word of his rebellion. He is really, really fast when he wants to be. I’m going to try to get some footage of this next time we head over to the dog park.

As far as other Quimby updates, he is getting really good with some commands. He has sit and down as separate things, and is doing much better with his come command. His lip issue was nothing to worry about, as the vet said it was totally normal. All in all, he is SUCH a good boy.

I have decided I want to try to give information about dogs to people who may be thinking about getting a dog, or people who have a dog. Kind of a doggy news feature. I plan on using my experience with Quimby as a base for these lessons/open discussions. I may be asking for help and advice in this column as well, and hopefully I can even get some guest writers on board! If you are interested in contributing in any way, or just want to submit an awesome dog story, let me know.

I have been living with Quimby for about a month, and what a month it’s been! He was house trained from the start, so that was fantastic. The only time he had an accident was my fault entirely. I had been upstairs and he was whining in the music room. I thought he just wanted out of the room, so when I let him out he left a steamer on the living room floor. When I came out of the music room he was sitting next to it, and he looked at me in the saddest puppy eyes ever, so i gave him a big hug and let him out. Since then it hasn’t happened again. He is truly a great dog. He loves people and will lick your face all day if you let him. He has never barked or growled in anger, and he would be a perfect hospital therapy dog.

He is attending a weekly class right now and he seems to be doing well. He does not listen or recognize his name as well as I would like, but considering we called him 3 names before settling on Quimby, I’m not surprised. Hopefully this class will help us learn how to be good doggy owners, and he will become the awesome dog that I know he is going to be.

There are two issues that are cause for concern right now. The most dire situation is the fact that he eats rocks. This is not good. He also eats basically anything on the ground. There a couple of ways to get him to not do this, and it’s important it happens for several reasons. Rock eating is not uncommon, but it can lead to intestinal blockage, which can cause all kinds of problems. He already got backed up which caused him to puke 4 times on Sunday. Once at home, twice in the car, and once in the doorway of the emergency clinic. The clinic told us what was up, and that we had to starve him a little to just let the blockage pass. They gave him a water shot (water injected under the skin), which made him look like a body builder.

Quimby After Water Shots

Hopefully we will try some techniques and let you know what works in order to stop him from doing this. I wasn’t able to find any good ideas online other than muzzling, and covering lots of rocks with hot pepper, which seems like it would just attract more critters.

The other issue came up last night. His nose/lip has split down the middle. There was a seem there before, and I was unaware it could split like that. It doesn’t really seem unnatural, but it is a little freaky.

Quimby Last Night

Again, I could find no information on this online what so ever, so I will ask the vet today and let everyone know next week! Have any ideas for dog stories? I’m always open to suggestions! Leave a comment and let me know what you think of this feature!

UPDATE:
Here is a closer look at the nose thing I was really describing:

How did I not notice this when I cropped this photo and posted it on Facebook?