Kaiju is about 10 months old. This means he’s fully in his adolescence, the rebellious phase for testing and pushing the boundaries.
Case in point. He’s grown a mohawk. It appeared about a week ago, and does not seem to be going away with brushing. Geez. What’s next? Tattoos? A fake ID?
Yesterday was a big day. I went up and down the stairs for the first time since Feb. 28th!
For all those 6 months, my people carried me up and down the 7 steps of stairs to go outside for walkies. I was small when it started, but I’ve grown 7 pounds since then. They often complained that I was getting heavy, laughed, and gave me kisses.
Chris, the physical therapist, told us yesterday that we could now try the stairs as long as I went slow. My people were sooooo psyched!
I know I’m a bit rusty, but I’ll get better at this soon (and will try to go super fast when they are not looking!)
Kaiju will have his 2nd Flowdog session on Monday.
His first session was on the 5th of August. We were so nervous as to how he would react, to the therapist Chris, or to having to go into an unfamiliar building, being touched, and most important of all, the swimming pool…
Good thing we brought his favorite blue towel (and a rope toy). He let us walk him around in the lobby while waiting, but would go straight back to the home base to sit on afterward.
We had alerted Chris, the therapist, of Kaiju’s shyness via email ahead of time, so she approached him accordingly. When the session began, she ignored him completely for the first 20 minutes or so, and Kaiju hid behind the chairs.
Eventually, we got him out of there, laid him down on his towel, and went through some lessons of manual stretching. All those things we learned, we’d have to do at home every day for the next few weeks.
i feel stupid when i’m dancin’: http://bit.ly/99ev6y
Kaiju Does an Ugly Dance
They bought this thing called Wii Fit and they were having so much fun setting it up.
can someone teach me?
i really wanted that treat…. 
Kaiju has earned the following two new nicknames in the past month.
druggy
Snappy McGrowly: The night after his knee surgery on July 9, he had come home and was quietly resting in his crate. Before we went to bed, we wanted to take him out to pee. We tried to lure him out of the crate with commands and treats. This usually works fine, but that night, the drugged out pup would only raise his eyebrows to look at us, and would not even sit up.
We needed to take him out regardless to make sure he wouldn’t have an accident in the crate overnight. So we put our arms in the crate and tried to carry him out. We had done this many times when he was little, so we didn’t think too much of it….. well, until Kaiju suddenly raised his head, snapped at the hands that were attempting to lift him, and let out some serious growls. We were totally stunned. He is normally a very quiet and gentle dog. He does not mind being held, either. We realized then how scared and in pain he was. We tried not to react, and went ahead to pick him up anyway. Fortunately, once he was held, he was okay. We carried him out to his “spot”. He did his business, got carried back into the crate, and fell asleep again.
Kaiju has not repeated the behavior since that one time, so that’s a relief. But, the thing is, when you receive such an unfriendly response from a cute and cuddly animal that you’ve been close to, the feeling of betrayal kinda shakes you and sticks with you… After we recovered from the initial shock, though, we gave him this nickname. It helps us make light of the incident and move on, I think. Nowadays, we give Kaiju belly rubs, and say “Remember the time you growled at us, Mr. Snappy McGrowly? You were so scared… You’re gonna be okay, though, because you’re such a good boy!”
don't call me p-boy!!
P-boy: It seems that Kaiju’s skittishness has hit new high (or low?).
This past weekend, we needed to get some dog food, so we took Kaiju with us for the ride. He loves short car rides, and we try to take every opportunity to get him out of the house so he can see and smell outside things from the safety of the car booster seat.
When we arrived at the store, we carried him in because he was still not allowed to do much more than potty-break walks. Unfortunately, the setting for the entrance was bad (for him). You walk in and the first thing you see and hear is a laundry dryer going at a full speed. The place is called LaundroMutt. Aside from the nice little shop, it is mostly a self-service dog washing place, so it’s very lively and noisy.
As Paul stepped in and through the washing area towards the shop, Kaiju started peeing in his arms. He did not make any noise. He did not even squirm, so it took us a while to notice the situation. When we did notice, he had already made a wet trail on the floor.
Paul walked right back and out the door immediately, and I took the paper towel and spray to clean up the floor. Ugh. Did he think we’d put him in the dryer? Or was he afraid for all those dogs in the big sinks being scrubbed by their owners? It was quite distressing. This nickname will help us get over it, too, I hope.
copper
This poor Shiba was lost, and found, then mistaken as a COYOTE by none other than the Humane Society, and released back into the wild (= lost again)!
http://www.state-journal.com/news/article/4863825
How does a Humane Society mistake a domesticated animal for a wild one?
I hope she will be found and reunited with the owners…
During potty time, a man asked my humans what the cone was for. they were so tempted to say i was from the future and it received signals.
they look like us…
Chinese Wolves. The puppies look like adult shibas! (Photo by uni_zoo)
I got this from my Twitter friends… Taro gathered images of all the Shibas that wished me well on Twitter, and made this. I am a lucky Shiba Inu.
the cards safely arrived
Hooray!
Gina who entertains us with her awesome Shiba Inu comics on her blog just opened an Etsy store. Yes, those greeting cards she’s been teasing us with on her site are finally available for us to purchase. I was going to tell you which was my favorite, and I couldn’t even pick one!
Go and get them 
there is a woman sunbathing on my toilet!
We took Kaiju to Paul’s parents home for the long weekend. It was Kaiju’s first looong drive (4.5 hours). The longest so far was in February before the injury, and it was about 2 hours away. At that time, it ended up taking a lot longer than two hours because each way was a total puke fest. We had to make frequent stops to clean up and comfort the sickly puppy.
We were better prepared this time. We gave him Cerenia, and had purchased a Kurgo Wander Hammock so cleanup will be easier just in case. He did very well for most of the way. Then, he threw up just 15 minutes short of arriving. It happened as soon as Paul said “we are almost there! 15 more minutes!”
Next morning, we took Kaiju out to the backyard, which is quite large. He was very nervous and scared in the house with all the unfamiliar pieces of furniture and rooms, but as soon as he was outside in this big open space, he seemed happy (but a little confused).
Too bad we couldn’t let him run free. The backyard was pretty much fully enclosed, but his left knee was still injured after all and it had been recommended to us that we restrict his activities.
Paul’s brother quickly became his favorite play buddy in the backyard. Every time Kaiju saw him, he’d get up, wag his tail, and go into a play bow. Luckly, we brought a long leash (30 feet), so we were able to let him have fun and stop him whenever it went on for too long.
On the 4th, Paul’s family and relatives gathered in the backyard for a nice grilling party that lasted for hours. It was a hot day, so we kept Kaiju mostly inside, but when he was outside, he got a plenty of attention. First came the kids who, with Paul’s guidance, managed to get Kaiju to grab little pieces of hotdog from their little hands.
Kaiju even got a little present from the girl who happily brought a flower to him after learning that he liked sniffing plants.
Throughout the day, Kaiju stayed cautious and nervous with anyone new approaching, with his tail down, but he was a good sport nevertheless. And for that, we are very thankful. He even let Paul’s aunt hold him and squeeze him, even though he wasn’t thrilled about it…
Oh, and we were very happy to find out that, at least for now, he was not too affected by the fireworks. The next-door neighbor was going crazy with their backyard fireworks (I heard they blew 2000 dollars in 45 minutes) and it was really loud. We went to check on him several times while it was going on, and found him back in his travel crate and resting quietly, every time.
Overall, the weekend was very successful. A week before going into another knee surgery, Kaiju had a really good time playing happily with Paul’s brother and with another dog, and got a lot of socialization with new people, a new environment, and car rides. It is a bit troubling to know that Kaiju would throw up even with the help of Cerenia, but oh well. I guess we’ll always have to have towels ready in the car.
