beef at the park 11.17.07

we took beef to the ceasar chavez park again today, this time donning his new camo puppia vest harness. he's quite the model.

here, we get the stink eye.



every now & then we run into Hero, a 1 yr old english bulldog with as much spunk as beef. they chase eachother all over the place & wrestle like crazy.



here is beef pretending to be a bunny



and of course, the rest of the set of park photos from that day.

Beef Talks

Here is beef telling me that he wants his Gingerbread Man toy...

-Mack

Beef at 4 months old

November 7th, beef is 4 months old...and is a little monster



he is also a little angel, as always



here's some assorted pics of 4month old beef

at this point, beef is accepting his training quite well. He sits, lays down, stays ( sorta), plays fetch & has a fairly decent recall. as far as house training goes, the accidents inside have been few & far between. beef is getting the hang of sitting by the door quietly to let us know he needs to go out. we'd like him to scratch the door, ring the bell hanging on the door knob, or even bark to let us know audibly he needs to go outside.

so far, i haven't mentioned that beef & our 10 year old fat cat, Orange, don't really get along so well. orange is old & wants nothing to do with a spastic puppy who wants to wrestle at all hours of the day & night. there have been moments we thought orange was warming up, but he was just getting in close for a better swat leverage. so, we'll see how that goes.

since i work at home in the day, I'm on the computer a lot. beef likes to sit in my lap for sometimes hours it seems, and look out the window. generally this is his afternoon nap, too. in lieu of him going to the crate, ill say "kennel" and hell opt to sleep on the bed or hop in my lap. beef likes to snuggle up & just pass out.

- gabby

Road Trip to Los Angeles

Beef's first trip with us was our ride to los angeles. We stayed with our longtime friend, jason, who has a bullneese (French bulldog/pekeneese mix) pup. Beef & Bruno got along famously & wrestled all night long & all day long. they played so much that when we took him to the dog park, they were too tuckered out to play with most of the other dogs & barely wanted to play ball fetch.

heres a vid og bruno & beef wrasslin



also that trip, we went to the kathanika decompression party. basically, just a party in the desert with close friends. beef stayed int he car for the majority of the time, happily in his kennel. it was a really windy night & day in the mojave & the temperatures were waaaay chilly.

here he is in his argyle sweater happily chewing on his bone, looking like a little angel.



and one of beef & i when we took him out in the morning.

dog park!

october 14th was beef's first trip to the dog park. berkeley has many in the area, but we chose Caesar Chavez first. it was a huge park with green grass & an off leash area with hay bales where dogs can jump & run & go crazy.

here's beef running & jumping on the hay bales, impressing us both!



and beef just looking spiffy walking along the shore with his mom.



beef was so tuckered out on the way home he passed out in daddy's arms before we even made it to the first stop light.




and of course, the rest of the sleepy face pics are here.

Beef at 14 weeks

So beef was born on July 3rd, 2007. he was freshly 14 weeks old after we got him on October 9th.

here is a set of photos taken on October 11th.

At this point, beef in weighs just at 10 lbs. i didn't think to measure him then. His ears didn't stand up all the way, still floppy at the tips, which i loved... looked like this:



he came with all but his last round of shots, including rabies. his first visit to the vet had him checked out just fine & they remarked at how well behaved he was then, too!

here's a few videos of beef learning to sit & fetch.

how it all began...

i found beef online one day in august 2007 from a breeder as i was looking for a boston terrier puppy to call our own. i wanted a male puppy & one with a specific look, a good muzzle, something original in his colorings that would make him stand out from the crowd. I wasn't interested in breeding or showing, so the deviation from the "standard" colourings were what i was after.
these are the first few photos i saw of beef, who was called 'speckles' by his breeder:



i called the breeder, interested also in beef's brother, who had beautiful markings, too. Satisfied after a few conversations, they sent me more updated photos of beef in early september 2007 & i was sure this was the puppy i was going to actually put down the money for & commit to.
after discussing & confirming this with mackenzie, i made the purchase. beef would soon be put on a plane & shipped to us from Missouri. unfortunately, at that time, there was a heat wave happening in the Texas area and beef was delayed week after week because it was too hot for us to put him in the cargo hold of the plane. week after week the breeder called apologetically explaining they'd try again in a few days, but it was still just too hot to send him. While i understood, almost a month was passing since my decision & i was getting impatient.
i joked with mack one day that i should just fly out to Missouri one day & bring him back myself. shortly after making that joke, my mother (who was excited to have a grandpup) suggested i do the very same thing and i began to realize that wasn't the worst of ideas, especially as i continued to check the weather forecasts.
before i knew it, i was on a jet from san francisco, ca to springfield, mo. at the airport, i met the breeder who introduced me to beef. i brought beef's collar & leash & some toys for the flight home. there was some time to kill before the return leg of the journey, so beef & i spent some time in the grassy areas of each airport we stopped at. he was such a good boy the entire trip. apprehensive & scared at some things, including me, we warmed up right away. beef slept in his carrier the majority of the flight, tucked under the seat in front of me. it was during our layover in dallas before boarding that i realized beef snored when he slept...it was so darn cute.
when we landed, mack picked us up at the airport. it was raining & apparently was a rainy day in the bay while i was gone. mack was impressed at how well behaved he was while riding in the car. we put him in the crate after playing with him, walking him & showing him his new apartment & he slept thru the night with no potty mistakes.
this blew our collective minds that beef was instantly crate trained with nothing for us to do except pay attention to his eating & drinking & work on the housetraining part.

-gabby