Crating the conehead

I know I said I'd post pictures soon, but I haven't been on my home laptop in over a week and that's the one with all the pictures. I'll try to get to them sometime this week.

We had a nice, mellow Memorial Day weekend. We wanted to go on a hike, but thought better of it after considering all of the trouble Cowboy could get into with a huge cone on his head. Instead we hiked along the Iron Horse trail, which is nice and wide and allows plenty of room for the cone.

We also enjoyed a BBQ at Robin & Glenda's and I got to see little Thomas for the first time. He's about 4 weeks old and such a mellow baby! I'm usually nervous about holding babies that small, but he just laid there and stared at me so it was pretty easy. And it's amazing how quickly Tatum's grown! She's 16 months old and has such a great little personality. Chris and Robin had their own fun watching the Indy 500 and then going through Robin's old sports posters, shot glasses and pennants. Chris needs to be reminded, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's posters."

On Monday, we scurried through the NW Folklife festival as quickly as possible (while grabbing some roasted corn on the cob and kettle korn) to head to the Pacific Science Center for an IMAX movie. We saw "The Alps", a story about John Harlin III's summit of the north face of the Eiger, following the same route which took the life of his father when John was 9 years old. It showed some amazing footage of the Swiss Alps as well as the climb itself. It was especially neat to see while our own memories of the Bernese Alps (and that scary scary north face) are so fresh.

We've been leaving Cowboy alone in the house (rather than in the crate) since he's had the cone. We tried to crate him once, and that was a miserable failure. The cone is so wide it doesn't fit through the door, so Chris had to back Cowboy into the crate and wedge the cone in last. That left Cowboy's head propped into place, unable to move.

Apparently, however, Cowboy figured out a way to move. After less than 3 hours in the crate, I came home to find him still wedged in, but the cone mutilated beyond recovery. I think he pushed the cone up against the front of the crate so that it bent back towards his mouth, and then he proceeded to chew it to pieces. I had to take him back to the vet to get a new cone, and they actually laughed when they saw him. They were amazed at how much damage he'd been able to do in so short a time.

So now we leave him loose in the house. He hasn't done any damage so we were thinking that maybe we can leave him loose when the cone's off. But then yesterday, Chris forgot his sunglasses so we turned the car around after a block and returned home. Chris walked up to the porch and saw Cowboy standing ON the couch (he's not allowed on furniture), howling at the top of his lungs. He was so into his howl that he didn't hear or see Chris walk in.

That little sneak. We had to laugh anyway -- it was pretty funny. But I guess that means it's back to the crate for the Cow once the cone comes off!