First Snow

For the past 24 hour it has been slowing slightly. This is actually a rather rare occurrence in the Seattle area. Given Elway's breed, Michele was eager to see what he'd do in the snow. As these picture show, he seems go get along fairly well with the white fluffy stuff. Actually, it wasn't long until Elway was gleefully tearing through the snow, fresh powder flying everywhere.

First Puppy Grooming

Ah, the joy of being a Lhasa Apso. Enough fur to keep warm all winter. Unfortunately, that means being brushed daily. And still having matts. So it was decided that Elway was going to spend some time with the traveling groomer, Chris. He spent 2 hours and managed to not only please Michele (who has strong opinions on how her puppy should look), but made Elway look adorable (and smell great!). People are raving about being able to see his eyes again.

It followed me home!

Elway was trying very hard to convince us that we should adopt a stray kitten for him to play with at home. The perfect little kitty even showed up at work, needing a home. Kitty and Elway were best friends from the start. She slept best curled up with her new furry protector.

Michele decided to bring the kitty home for the weekend, the cuteness of the two together was just too much to pass up. Alas, allergy's got in the way of Elway getting to keep his new pet.



Elway had to say good bye to the kitty after the weekend, but he gets to see her every once in a while. She was adopted by Michele's coworker and visits the clinic and Elway periodically.

Elway is once again any only-puppy.

It was a dark and stormy night...

...when we decided to carve pumpkins. Garrett spent a long time trying to draw a good looking imitation of Elway, but in the end it was Michele who settled on this modern interpretation of the Lhasa Apso form. As Elway's uncertain look indicates, he was none too happy to have this pumpkin sitting on his back porch! Over the three days that it sat there, he barked at it several times and would run by quickly on the way to his daily bathroom breaks in the back yard. To say that he misses that pumpkin would be a gross overstatement.

Elway Gets a 7

Elway has been a great dog. As his name would suggest, he loves watching football and is generally just a great member of the family. Unfortunately the lack of Broncos games on local TV means he rarely gets to watch a Broncos game. However, in keeping with game day tradition Elway, like the rest of his family, finally got his own Jersey. As you can see in the following pictures, it clearly shows his name and number. We did have some brief discussion on whether he should actually have a 7 or double zero on the jersey. In the end we decided that if other people can run around trying to impersonate John Elway with replica jerseys while having never seen Colorado, Elway the dog could certainly be allowed the number 7 on his jersey.

Elway's bad day at work

When clients walk into the veterinary hospital that I help manage, they are greeted by Elway's smiling face. He has quite the following among our clients, many will ask where he is if I have him in the back. He loves his counter spot, watching over me while I work and inspecting all the dogs that come in.

Today started out like a normal day of work for Elway. He raced from the parking lot to the clinic, excited to see everyone and start his day. Unfortunately for him, Michele had made a quick decision yesterday, and he was on the schedule for his castration and dewclaw removal.

Michele stayed with Elway during the procedure, helping out when needed and making sure he was doing ok.

He did really good, and he was awake enough afterwards to protest being put in a kennel. He put up a fight so Michele would cave and let him sleep on the front desk counter like normal.

After leaving work with his new bandages (Denver colors of course) Elway deserved to get extra love. Rough day for a puppy.

Baths, I hate baths

Elway the dog does not like baths. It doesn't matter if he's cold, dirty, and wet already. He wants nothing to do with lukewarm water and his special puppy shampoo. Just look at that face. It's saying, "Get me out of here! How can you just stand there and take a picture? Can't you see I'm getting a bath here?" Somehow we doubt that is going to change with age. His ability to get the one bathing him wet with a well timed shake will increase with hair length, and with added size he will become more and more of a trouble to rinse (It took both Garrett and Michele both working together to get him bathed last time). After all, he did try and "tub break" on more than one occasion. Unfortunately for Elway, it is a long way to the floor for such a small dog. Climbing wet tub walls while covered in slippery suds is also something of a problem.