When my sister was born, I was miserable.  In fact, she had to stay in the hospital for a few days so when my parents came home without her I claimed a huge victory.  When she eventually did arrive, I pushed her bassinet out onto the front porch and shut the front door.  True story.

Thus far, Melvin is handling oldest child syndrome much better than I did!  I mean sure, he has a general look of disgust on his face, and every time Jake snorts I see the hairs on Melvin’s back twitch.  But all in all, Melvin has been a flippen rock star!!!  Of course, his new brother is still on the other side of a baby gate so…

Speaking of the gate.  How in the world do people live the double life that is necessary to acclimate two dogs into a household.  I give Melvin a treat and then go into the mudroom to bond with Jake.  I snuggle with Melvin on the couch but can feel Jake burning a hole into my skull watching us. Is this why parents of multiple 2-legged children get nannies?

It took a few days weeks months for me to love my sister. It was that life changing love that gave me divine purpose. Melvin and Jake may or may not ever feel that for one another, but for now, I’m just happy that we are — so far, so good!

Also, Jake had a vet appointment (for a much-needed bath and ‘butt area grooming’) and the following was said to me:  “at first we were surprised how many nipples he had, then we thought perhaps one was a hernia but as it turns out, he just has a really, really pronounced belly button’.

Dogs have belly buttons, this I did not know.

Meet Jake!  Jake is a 5-year-old French Bulldog who is super adorable and funny as hell.  It seems he may not have been to the vet very often in his previous life. He has Ehrlichiosis (tick born infection), so that is something I’ll be discussing with the vet at his wellness appointment this Saturday. Other than that, he makes ridiculously loud noises that shake the house.  Jake has been his name for his whole life.  I was hoping to not know his name so I could use one of the  many names that comes to mind when I look at him,   but I do know and when I call “Jake”, he comes running. His name, is Jake.

You will recall that Melvin and Jake met a few weeks back and that it went well enough for me to want to adopt Jake.  The re-meet was not what I would call joyous, but it was fine. We are doing the separation approach for a few weeks, especially since I have to travel for work this week.  So for now, Jake is in the mudroom during the day and in my room in a soft crate at night, while Melvin of course has full house access. Melvin is sure to alert Jake of his run of the house by passing by the mudroom several times a day to say ‘ha, ha’.   The boys see each other through a baby gate and they have been doing fantastic with this set up.  When Melvin does drive-bys. they both get an A+ for acknowledging but not reacting.

They have also successfully been on walks together so that is also a huge step in the right direction. During their first meeting a while back, walking together was something they did splendidly so  while I could walk them both separately, I was hoping to have them reconnect on that activity and it seems to be working out for now.

Next week we will move to separation mode when I’m at work and tie down for Jake when I’m home.  Baby. Steps. Indeed.

And here is big brother.  He doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Everyone knows, big dogs are better and cuter AND allowed on the couch.

We were approved!  Little Man (still not his name) is here and we are taking it sllloooowwwwwww.  Here are photos from our road trip.  I drove and he slept, sitting up even.  More to come, including his name…

She just took these pictures of me to document my ‘last days as an only dog’.  All I can say is that I hope time starts standing still.

I have had Melvin for just over four years and have been asked several hundred times about what’s behind the sad face.  I always say, ‘that’s just his face’.  When I first got him, I fell in love with his sad expression.  I had met him, I knew how exuberant and outgoing he was, so I didn’t feel too terrible about enjoying his weepy expression.  In fact, his mopey face, is part of the joy of my every day.

If you ask me what Melvin is allergic to, I will tell you it’s easier to list out the things he is not allergic to.  On the ‘not allergic to list’ would have been his flea & tick collar.  But that item has jumped ships.

Melvin cannot take most oral treatments due to allergies to many fillers found in tablets and chews. This includes heart-worm/flea/tick medication thus we use topical Revolution.  Revolution does a great job at heart-worm protection but only a so, so job at flea & tick prevention, thus we have always supplemented him with a prescription flea & tick collar.  A few weeks ago we found out that the company that has been producing his specific collar no longer makes it.  So we switched. He almost immediately started itching but since it was still fake fall here, he was itchy in general.

Luckily, since I’m addicted to Sirius Republic dog collars and switch out his collar every few weeks, I was quick to see just how red and raw his poor neck was becoming. I ran him over to the vet, they shaved his neck and after some Animax he’s healing nicely.  Tick collar is off and he’s now on two topical treatment for heart-worm, fleas & ticks.  Check. Check.

We are one step away from ‘dog in a bubble’ status.

While I know that Melvin loves pillows, it never really occurred to me that giving him his own human style pillow, would save mine from being…molested.  I don’t know why it took me so long to figure out.  It’s the little victories!

Apparently she wants another dog.  I know what the problem is, I’ve just been so wonderful and charming and lovable that she now needs more.  What is She, a junkie? How greedy.

I want it made very, very, very, very clear – I want to be an only dog.  The end.

What if she does not have enough love to go around?  What if we run out of food?  What if the government mandates you can only have one dog and she has to choose.?  Man oh man, there are a billion ways this can go wrong.

How can I stop this?  I pooped in the house during Sandy’s visit, She just cleaned it up and forgave me.  I mess up her bed everyday, she laughs.  I drool, shed, fart, bark, lung and take up the whole bed.  She just keeps loving me and wanting another dog to do more of the same.  Is she insane?

My one saving, hopeful thing is that she said ‘it’s not for sure’.  She applied and someone else could too so maybe this will fall through.  I don’t like to see Her disappointed but I can live with it on this one issue.  I mean did She not hear all the noise that dog made?  I’m not even sure he’s a dog, he could be a pig.

Signed, Melvin.  The ONE and ONLY, FOREVER. Amen.

PS.  I’m not sure who she is trying to fool, that may not be the original black rolling box but me eyeballs knows what this means:

As a dog, I can’t vote.  Now that I think about it I have very little power to make any decisions about my life (except those decisions that tend to get me in trouble). But you get to yield some crazy power today and choose the leader of the free world. Whoa, that blows my giant mind!

She’s a Demolition Cat. Wait, that can’t be right, if she was a cat I’d have killed her by now.  She’s a lib for all.  Whatever, she believes that everyone deserves to marry the one they love (pretty sure she votes this way for me since I’m a dude who happens to prefer other dudes) and She also believes in being the boss of herself (including her own body). She can be pretty power-hungry but I sorta get this one.  Apparently there are a lot of reasons she hopes our state turns blue but regardless, she is pretty sad that my Bark Obama t-shirt is too tight for me this election.  Whatever, that t-shirt clearly shrunk.

She believes in the right to vote, choose your man (and one day your woman!). She says vote your heart and that voting is sexy. So come on people, getcha sexy back!  

He left the mohawk on ALL NIGHT.  What. A. Bad. Ass.  He almost made me like Halloween.