Champion of My HeartA dog blog, where everything is a work in progress, by Roxanne Hawn

My friend and colleague Susan McCullough over at The Allie Chronicles sent me this link today. It’s a blog post from Patricia McConnell that addresses the underlying theme of Champion of My Heart: What do you do, how do you feel when a dog you hoped would do X (insert expectation) can’t, won’t, or doesn’t like to do X?

It’s a valid question. But, for today — considering all the other worries and demands on my soul — I’m just happy to hear my lithe, sensitive girl grinding away on what’s left of her bison shank bone from xmas. On a Wednesday, another cold one, she is simply Lilly, the voracious carnivore, and I’m OK with that.

A couple weeks ago, I popped by a craft event at the Grange. (Rural people know. Others can look it up.) And, I would have snapped up one particular item pairing, if the knitter had had something in Lilly’s size. Ready … ? This person had hand-knitted dog sweaters with matching hats for dog moms. It’s silly, but way cute. I would love to have a little matching thing for us girls to wear for photo ops and such.

Ginko reigns as the undisputed sofa captain at Chez Champion of My Heart, but last week, in preparation for holiday guests, I washed and hung out the garage sale comforters that typically cover our furniture while Tom did a thorough upholstery cleaning. That meant our big boy suffered an entire day without piloting the love seat. Check out our ghetto scat mat (as Elayne at Days of Speed is fond of calling homemade solutions). Two words: Bubble Wrap

Loyal readers know I’m not a fan of aversives in general, but it really did no harm. And, it worked, and even if a couple of bubbles popped (I didn’t hear any), it didn’t seem to freak Lilly out.

Me, however? Well, that’s a different story. Ginko paced. He whined. He fussed. He harumphed through the day like the worst doggy diva on the planet. He didn’t sleep a wink all day, and that’s saying something for a big dog who sleeps all the time. We had a rough day.

When things were finally dry, and after I returned the protective comforters, Ginko hopped up and sacked out for hours and hours. He looked so tired. I felt terrible, but a few times of year, we do enjoy seeing our furniture in its natural state.

Most nights, Lilly and Ginko sleep in the basement in their hard-sided crates. The temperature down there stays around 55 degrees year-round. Even on the crazy-coldest nights, like we’ve had over recent weeks, it stays steady. We treat them a bit like birds in that we cover their crates at night with some insulated drapes I once made for our dining room. As an experiment, I used my greenhouse thermometer that’s capable of showing temps both inside the crates and in the basement overall. Here are the results.

The digital thermometer, which can show maximum and minimum temps both inside something and outside it, confirmed that it’s indeed warmer inside the covered crates 59-64 degrees. Outside the crates, the temps measured between 55-59 degrees on a night where it was about 15 degrees outdoors.

After I rescinded my top dog toy pick for the 2009 holiday season because the plastic was too hard and noisy, I went with the Busy Buddy Twist ‘n Treat from Premier instead, as Lilly’s main gift. It came last week, and I’m sad to say it is WAY too easy, even at the hardest setting. The kibble literally pours out. Help?!

I suppose I could smear cheese or get bigger kibble (ours is kind of small), but I’m so disappointed. If there are any tricks to making it hard enough for a dog like Lilly, please let me know.

I feel like the Goldilocks of dog gifts. Too hard. Too easy. Too this. Too that.

Amid the rampant belt-tightening, dogs fair better than human friends and even family in the holiday shopping rush. Human hangers-on and family gift obligations get the heave-ho, but dogs? Well, they remain KEEPERS even in tough economic times. Or, so says, an article in yesterday’s New York Times (Fewer Gifts and Frills …)

The piece by Stephanie Rosenbloom reads, in part:

Of the various retailing surveys chronicling the collapse of materialism, one from American Express found that consumers are more likely to excise certain friends and family members than their pets.

“Dogsand pets are winning in this recession,” said Kit Yarrow, a consumerpsychologist and chairwoman of the psychology department at Golden GateUniversity in San Francisco. “The things that nurture us and make usfeel cared for, they’ve been elevated in stature lately. All auxiliarypeople are out.”

Because of all that’s going on around me, this holiday season will indeed be different from years past. Who is in? Who is out? What can I afford, etc? All questions that flood me … yet, I find myself compelled to buy “just one more thing” for the dogs.

I guess I’m not alone. After all, when I am alone (or at least feel that way when at my stress saturation point), the dogs remain by my side.

An industry expert told me while I researched the history of dog toys that plush toys always outsell other kinds of dog toys — by far. It has less to do with relative usefulness in a dog’s life and more to do with likely impulse buys by the girls who shop for dog toys. (And, let’s face it, in the dog arena, the consumer is definitely a woman.) I got to thinking about this factoid while sewing back together a bunch of plush toys who’ve seen better days.

6. Ducklet (perhaps the most pathetic of all) is what is left from a full-sized duck that dates back to our first dog, Penelope Grace, the Dalmatian. Ducklet is in sorry shape, but neither of us can imagine parting with this sentimental toy. So, I keep patching him up.

When Elayne over at Days of Speed asked about Lilly’s favorite ball, which is apparently all the rage in Chicago, I confidently told her where to find them, how I usually buy several at a time. Yet, I find myself in a small panic. Our local grocery store no longer has these Flexi-Foam balls, which are the ONLY ones Lilly likes. Oh, the trauma.

For his birthday this year, Tom’s mom made a photo album of his childhood snapshots. Featured prominently on the title page is this gem of Tom (approximately age 8), a few sunflowers, a huge tomato and a border collie (named Shep, who was actually Tom’s brother’s dog).

Last week, Ginko cuddled up to Tom on the sofa and sacked out. While *that* isn’t unusual, the fact that he did it with a toy firmly wedged in his mouth was.