Raising Freeze

Freeze, Hayley's black Labrador puppy, will turn 1 year old next month. Daily we are amazed and surprised that he has made it this far. Freeze is trouble, that's for sure. He is stubborn, determined, perpetually hungry and clearly doesn't have a fully developed brain as yet. Freeze eats things that in no way could be mistaken for food. Freeze chases cats and then pays the price since cats are smart and have sharp claws. Freeze wakes the kids up early if he is bored in the morning and they get mad at him. Freeze escapes from the house, pulls on the leash and thinks everything in the house is his toy. The only good things about Freeze are that he is cute and that he is potty trained. Those are his saving graces. We have never had a dog like this before. It's one of those cases where we can say if Freeze had been the first dog we had then he would have been the last. We read books and watch videos and try to train the rascal. I *think* he is making some progress but it might be wishful thinking.

This day Freeze had to join us on a trip to drop off some books and curriculum for a homeschool book sale. He had eaten something inedible and although we were pretty sure it was no longer stuck we didn't exactly know where it went after it ceased to be stuck. Unsticking is is yet another long tale involving the entire family, Internet searches, tongue depressors and flashlights. It may never have been stuck but he coughed hard a few times and we just weren't sure. The re-assuring part is that we knew there were two veterinarians on the route we would take to drop off the books. Thus we had a good chance of being within reach of emergency help if needed. Anyway, that is why Freeze joined us for a trip that day, we didn't want to leave him home in case he did have something stuck in his throat.

Freeze seemed all better once in the car he didn't like being in the back seat though and kept trying to get up front with all his might.


I suppose he wanted to drive.


Freeze enjoyed the outing and by the time we were home we felt that whatever had caused the choking incident earlier had resolved.

On to the next adventure with Freeze.