#122 Company Outing–Part 2

Mark: Other than that, we had some things we were going to talk about today but they are slipping my mind at the moment. Oh, I think we were, yeah, we were going to talk about my latest addition to my family.

Jill: Gordie.

Mark: Gordie, my dog.

Jill: Named after your street, Gordon.

Mark: That’s right, but it’s just a good name for a dog.

Jill: It is cute.

Mark: No offense to any “Gords” who happen to be listening out there.

Jill: It’s a good people name too.

Mark: It’s a good people name too; that’s right. Like Gordie Howe, one of the most famous hockey players that ever played for Jill: …Canadian. Mark: Canadian, yeah. Anyway, so yeah, we got a new puppy about a month or so ago and we’ve been having lots of fun. The kids have been having lots of fun. Some early mornings, although Jill doesn’t think it’s that early but it’s early for me.

Jill: Mark comes to work yawning now sometimes and he’s not …you’re not really a yawner, usually.

Mark: No.

Jill: You know and you do a lot of exercise and you’re in good shape and stuff but when I saw you yawning the other day you said…blamed it on the dog. You and Kindrey take turns getting up with him in the morning because it’s like a baby. He gets up and he needs attention and it’s earlier than your kids wakeup and earlier than you normally wakeup. You told me it was 6:30 and I didn’t have any sympathy because to me 6:30 is really not that early in the morning.

Mark: 6:30 is very early. It’s not normal to wakeup too early, you know that. Yeah, no, the dog has to go out for a pee at 6:30 or whenever he wakes up.

Jill: But when you first got him you said it was about 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning.

Mark: Yeah, that was really bad. It was like 4:30, 4:45, 5:00 for a few weeks anyway.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: He’s been pretty much at 6:30, sometimes 7:00, sometimes 6:00, but around 6:30 most mornings which really isn’t that bad especially in the summer when it’s light out so early. I mean, at least he’s not waking up when the sun comes out at 5:00 or whenever it comes out, you know.

Jill: Yeah.

I think I heard… my mom got a dog a couple years ago and I’m pretty sure somebody told her, whether it was a vet or whoever I’m not sure, that with the puppies, the babies, they can only go a certain amount of time before they have to go pee, right? They can’t hold it all night long because their bladder is not fully developed yet but, apparently, with each month they are able to hold it an hour longer. So when they are three months old they may only be able to hold it for three hours at a time; although, Gordie goes longer than three hours.

Mark: Oh, yeah, he’ll go from like 10:00 to 6:30.

Jill: Yeah, so that’s not bad, actually.

Mark: That’s pretty good. He’s pretty good about going to the bathroom, like better than any dog I’ve ever heard of in terms of he’s only gone pee in the house like four times.

Jill: Wow!

Mark: And he’s never gone poo in the house. So, like he seems… I don’t think he’s got a…like he must have a big bladder, I don’t know, but he’s really good.

Jill: Oh, that’s good.

Mark: We haven’t had problems there. I remember when we had a dog as a kid, we had newspaper in the kitchen for quite a while that he would be going on. That hasn’t been a problem with Gordie. By the way, Gordie is a half Black Lab, quarter Golden Retriever, quarter Flat-Coat Retriever. I don’t know what a Flat-Coat Retriever is but Jill: Me either. Mark: Anyway, that’s what he is. So, he’s a mutt but he’s great.

Jill: He’s very, very cute.

Mark: Cute, fluffy dog.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: He hasn’t started shedding yet because he’s just a puppy so he’s still cute.

Jill: Yes, exactly. But, actually I noticed, you brought him into the office the other day for a couple of hours and he definitely smells like a dog already even though he’s just a puppy.

Mark: Yeah. My wife, Kindrey, she takes, everyday pretty much, she’ll walk the kids or walk with the kids halfway to school and there’s a park there with a stream and woods. Other people bring their dogs there and they just have a big dog party in the woods, in the creek and jumping in the water. He comes back from that and he’s just beat. He has to sleep for Jill: He’s exhausted. Mark: Oh, yeah.

Jill: He has to have a nap for a couple hours.

Mark: He has to sleep for a couple hours, for sure.

Jill: Oh, that’s great though.

Mark: The more they are in the water too that starts to get them Jill: Smelly? Yeah, yeah, that’s for sure. But he’s really, really cute so I can see why, you know, you can love them so quickly.

Mark: Totally. You know, I remember loving my dog when I was a kid and not really, yeah, he was a little bit stinky, but you don’t really think about it.

Jill: No.

Mark: And then when you don’t have a dog for so long and dogs come up to you, you’re kind of like yeah, kind of a cute dog, but ah, that’s kind of a stinky dog.

Jill: Now your hands smell.

Mark: Now your hands smell and you don’t want them slobbering on your pants, but now that I have a dog Jill: …it’s a different story. Mark: It’s a different story, that’s right.

Jill: Yeah, they are just part of the family I think for most people.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jill: So yeah, he’s great. He’s mellow and calm. He doesn’t bark. He doesn’t jump up. He’s just amazing for a puppy.

Mark: He’s exceptional, isn’t he?

Jill: Like I say, exceptional like the rest of your family.

Mark: Well, that’s right. Yeah, no, we really lucked out though, I think. We have other friends that have puppies and yeah, I mean, you’re just rolling the dice.

Jill: Yes, you don’t know what you are going to get.

Mark: You don’t know what you’re going to get and I think his litter, they were like that. They were just calm and well-behaved. I think the people we got the dog from they own both the mom and the dad and they decided to have puppies once just to see what it was like, so they are not a breeder.

Jill: Oh and sometimes when you go to a breeder there is, you know, they can be puppy mills where they are breeding them far too many times in a year and that’s when problems really start to arise.

Mark: That’s right. They are breeding them too often and they have too many puppies around and they are just kind of let to run wild; whereas, I think these puppies kind of got really mothered and there were kids and they were all over them. They took them out all the time to pee outside and so I think that just from the start they probably got more attention than they’d get at a breeder.

Jill: Right.

Mark: And so I think, I don’t know, maybe that’s part of it and probably the dog’s parents are probably calm; although, certainly when we went out there to visit the puppy the dad had his paws up on the fence barking at us because he kind of knew what we were doing. He’s protecting his family, right?

Jill: Oh yeah.

Mark: Gordie’s dad is big! It’s like a, I don’t know, five-foot fence and he’s got his paws up on the top of the fence and he’s barking over the top of it.

Jill: Wow!

Well, Gordie looks like he might be quite big. He’s grown a lot just in the last couple of weeks even since I saw him last.

Mark: For sure. I think he’s not going to be small.

Jill: No.

Mark: Kindrey went out there and she thought she picked the runt of the litter. He was like half the size of his brothers and sisters, but then we subsequently found out that the runt doesn’t always mean they are going to end up being the smallest. Sometimes the runt can end up being the biggest. It just means they didn’t get as much to eat inside the mom but very often they catch up once they get their fair share, so.

Jill: So he just may be a hundred pound dog one day.

Mark: Oh, I don’t think he’ll be a hundred pounds but Jill: No, most Lab and Retrievers aren’t that big. Mark: Yeah, he’ll be just probably a good sized, Lab-type size.

Jill: Big enough to take on a run or on a hike.

Mark: Yeah, exactly.

Jill: But not so big that it’s kind of out of hand.

Mark: Exactly. Yeah, so, anyway, that will be…it’s fun, it’s fun.

Jill: Now you have a new member of the family for 12 or 15 years.

Mark: I know and it’s amazing how fast they grow. For all you dog owners out there… and I know many of our Linguist members in Japan are probably wondering where my dog pictures are on my blog; I apologize. I’ve got to get some up there for you to see.

Jill: But you won’t have him dressed in any fancy kimonos?

Mark: No, I won’t.

Jill: Like some of our Japanese members do with their dogs.

Mark: That’ right. Boy, I can’t remember who it was now, but it’s amazing some of the detail in the kimono outfits that she makes for her dog.

Jill: Little, little dogs.

Mark: Dogs.

Jill: Dogs I think, yeah.

Mark: I think so, yeah, yeah. Anyway, that’s a lot of fun.