A Day in the Life Of High Maintenance

Yesterday morning, we had our first disagreement about where he should spend his day. He thought underneath my bed, while I thought it would be best for him to be in his crate. I've heard some parenting advice to pick your battles, and I decided to let the little man have his victory. Under the bed he went. I put several selections of food down there for him, you know, in case he thought he'd like to eat sometime.
You can't see me if I'm under the bed . Finally, I escaped from that damn camera!

Dammit woman, no pictures, please!

When I got home from work, guess who still had not eaten? Yup, you guessed it. Day number five without anything more than a lick of ice cream. However, he was out from under the bed and waiting for me with a wagging tail at my bedroom door. I swooped him up, took him for a quick little walk in the beautiful weather {which he did NOT want to come in from} and off to the vet we headed for a checkup. The doc said that it seems he still must have a nasty upper respiratory infection, and that's why he has green nose and eye boogers. And...not to mention, that horrendous cough!

Solution??? Two shots: one antibiotic; one cough medicine. Plus, a round of oral pills of each prescription to follow.

Oh, and so sad - he's losing weight at a rapid pace. Hayden says his own new weight-loss management program is going to include spending a copious amount of time with me, since I can apparently make living species lose their appetite with a snap of my fingers. Lil' J-I went from being 12.9 to 11.2 lbs when we were at the vet yesterday.

Solution??? Force feed the little dude. I hate having to pry his mouth open and shove food down his throat, but he needs to be packin' in some nutrition {and calories} if he's going to stand a chance against his infection. So, three times a day, we sit down for meal time. I think he hates me by now!

Hopefully we're close to reaching the top of the hill with this saga and he can work on a speedy recovery from here on out. One problem is his cough medicine he's on, it's a controlled-substance / narcotic. Hey, what can I say, I like to get my dog stoned. A lot. It's a fine line between just making him a little sleepy while working it's magic versus knocking him out completely and not allowing him to discharge the infection from his body. It's a wait and see game, requiring much of my attention.

Solution??? I created a new holiday for the office. Today is Bring Your Dog to Work Day!!!

I don't know who is actually getting more work done. Him or me? I think he really enjoys being at work with me. He can see I'm right here and gets to just lounge around snoozing.

I wish everyday was like today, however I feel that candidates I bring in for interviews may think it's a bit unprofessional to have my dog sniffing at their feet and looking up their skirts. Whatever, I think it would make the work environment that much more friendly and enjoyable. Tomorrow will be back to our normal routine, well as normal as it can be for the dude right now.

{I promise I'll stop talking about the dog...soon.}