Basil's First Year

Mommy got an offer on a free photo book and guess who she made it of? B-A-S-I-L

Since she did it in such a hurry before the offer expired, it's not laid out exactly how she would have done it but ya get the picture. Get it? kekeke

See my photo book here.

Oh yeah, mom is gonna make one of Guinness for his one year anniversary adoption day too.

Oh mom..

Why do you do this to me!?!

Basil 25 Month Update

Basil weighs 25.6 lbs, so he's 1.1 lbs over his average. It's probably because he doesn't get as much exercise as usual since it's been so hot outside. We play with him in the house every evening trying to get him to run back and forth. I take every opportunity to walk him at night if it's not too hot.

At his last vet checkup, the vet says he's doing great and there is nothing else we can do better. Knock on wood - he hasn't had any rashes or itchie break outs in 10 months. Only recently, he's been itching his groin area rubbing his belly against the carpet. That's the most itchy that I have seen him in all this time. It's probably the heat and the crunchy grass outside. We still bathe him once a week and that seems to help most. We don't want to give him allergy medicine.

He's still doesn't love the bath or any water (even the rain). But he's very good in the bathtub and after a bath he's so happy and plays and plays. Basil's auntie Sugar loves the baby pool so I hope to get them together and have Sugar teach Basil that the cool water in a baby pool on a summer day can be a wonderful thing.

We're still scared to cut his nails (for fear of cutting too deep since his nails are so black), so we bring him to the vet almost every month. It's one thing or another. His ears get pretty dirty. We clean them often but I also read you're not supposed to clean them more than 3 times a week. Do all frenchies get such dirty ears?

Latest: It's been a while since I have taught Basil anything really new. He knows "mommy" and "daddy". If Keith asks him, "Do you want to go pick up mommy?" he runs to the door and then to the car. If I ask Basil, "Where is daddy?" he looks around and runs to Keith's office. I'm taking a class at night in Center City Philadelphia and Keith brings Basil to pick me up at night. Basil is so fascinated by the lights of the city.

Things to work on: Basil learned barking at the door from his cousin. It's gotten worse and worse. He never used to care about the door. Then it became a jump and a bark. Now it's getting to be this more ferocious sounding bark and he's fixated on the person on the other side of the door. I watched Cesar Millan's tips. One week soon we're going to take turns knocking on the door and nipping that one in the bud.

Also, if it's not too hot I'm going to bring Basil to the local softball games in our neighborhood. I think it's another great to get him socialized to a crowd. I consider him to be very well socialized but I think a crowd does overwhelm him and he starts getting barky. I just want to make sure he's socialized and not being anxious. If he's obviously overwhelmed, I'll take him home.


Look at that attitude



He's gettin' fresh now that he's a teenager.



But he's still mommy's little boy!

Some of my favorite moments is when Basil falls asleep in my arms.

Basil 21 Months

We've noticed some physical changes with Basil. His face has really rounded out and matured. His shoulders and chest have really bulked up into that bully figure. Since he's nearing the 2 year mark we should start to feed him a tiny more. I weighed him and he weighed 23 lbs so he's lost a little. So that confirms that we should be feeding him more to keep it around 25 lbs. He gets fish and fruit regularly. He is even stronger now in our opinion. When we play he pushes harder and he feels heavier. He jumps and runs through the house like a bull. He's had no accidents in the house! What a good boy! He's been itchy free with NO HOT SPOTS! Not a single one! That could change with the weather so we'll see.

We still love him and he still loves us.

20 Months

Basil has been with us 4 months now. He is completely comfortable with us and has been taking many liberties like jumping onto the couch and begging for food. We have had to reel some of that behavior back in. Some of the newer things he learned is telling him the "heat is on" and he will go running to the vent. He's not barking at people from the car anymore. He does slip every once in a while when he's with Keith, but I'll just put him back in check. As Cesar Milan instructed. Anticipate the behavior before it occurs and keep on it. His new thing is barking at people who approach the front door, so I'm working on that now.

We introduced carrots, salmon and mackerel. He doesn't seem to like the raw food we got him. He gobbled it up and threw up. I left it frozen and cut the food into cubes. He ate it more slowly this time but he still didn't enjoy it.

He has acclimated to the snow and cold weather. He doesn't love the snow the way his neighbor dog friends like the snow, but he'll at least go in it now. During our blizzard, he jumped across some snow that wasn't shoveled and "fell in". He was startled by that so he's hesistant to go out into the snow unless we shovel the side walk. After a while, I got tired of shoveling, but he still needed to go out of course. The solution? I would put a big foot print into the snow in order to show him the depth of the snow. He would walk into my foot print and then go potty.

I found him sitting on our bed one day just staring out the window. There aren't many places where he can comfortably look out the window and we want him to be able to do that. So I pushed an ottoman up to a window for him. Also, he sits in a cushy rocking chair while Keith works from home. That's *his* spot. He will stare out the window from the chair too, but most of the time he sleeps.