The new hanging spot

After taking Maki to the secret dog park for a little while we have came to realize that they can be pretty dangerous places for dogs. We've had a couple of experiences in which Maki was bullied and could have been hurt. So we have decided to only take him once in a while to dog parks. This forced us to find another place to exercise him in a regular basis. In one of our walks near our apartment we found a great field by the water in which he can be off leash and just be Maki!! This place is great (except for one thing which will be mentioned in a little bit), he can chase sticks and balls and once in a while there are other dogs which he can socialize with. However his favourite exercise is to chase birds! he loves to chase birds around... needless to say, they always beat him. One his friends at the field is a dog named Dashi, he is very cute and plays with Maki when he feels like it but is never annoyed by him! This place has been great until recently when Maki decided it was time to eat as much grass as possible! He would not stop eating it... after a while Dashi's owner, whose name I can't remember, mentioned the danger Foxtails can present to dogs. This was enough to get Maki coughing and gaging for the next 5 hours. I proceeded to go to Capoeira since Elizabeth didn't want to and when I came back the little guy kept caughing and gaging. After Elizabeth's research we decided to go to the emergency Vet around 10:30pm.
Whe we got to the Vet, there were three other people waiting. One was a really loud man with no manners who was speaking on the phone about how he was there because her friend was putting her dog down... he was pretty annoying. The second person was a nice younger lady who was very polite. The last was a incredebely rude old lady who ended up snapping at the nurse on duty because she had to wait a long time in an emergency room (??). After waiting one hour and thirty minutes we were allowed in one of the rooms. A nurse came in and did the initial check up. On a side note, Maki is really indiferent about having his temperature taking through his rectum, which I found surprising since he is very annoyed by people trying to touch his mouth. Bacl to the story... after the nurse we were greeted by an incredebly upbeat doctor. He was too upbeat for being one in the morning. Ater checking Maki up he suggested that the best option was to inject some steroids to make the inflamation of the tonsils go down. This would probably make the gaging an dcoughing go away. When asked if there were side effects, he said genrally no...

We got home and went to bed... around 4am I hear Elizabeth wake up and speaking. I am a very very deep sleeper... so I am completely out of it. After a minute or two I come to realize that Maki had an accident in his cage, he had peed. I proceeded to take Maki out to releave himself. We go back to bed and later in the morning he had another accident. After some research we found out theat there are some side effects to the steroids... increased thirst and incresed peeing... so much for the Vet.

As of now he is just getting the steroids out of his system by giving us lots of kisses and just being a dog. Overall he has been a great puppy, and we can't be mad at him at his last accidents, since they are not really his fault. We still correct him, but we know he is not being stand off-ish or anything like that.

The weekend is upon us and we are currently researching for dog friendly bars... so hoping it works, it should be an interesting night.

Last treat for you guys... video of Maki playing with Dashi!! Enjoy!

- Daniel