Hi Renee and Sally!

Thanks so much for the response and kind words.  Glad to hear that you guys are doing well.

So to answer your questions:

- Yes, there's been some Mongo stories, but for the most part it's been more of the same - cavaging onto things he shouldn't on walks, throwing a fit when I (or my mom) leaves the house or goes downstairs at my mom's.  He didn't knock over the Christmas tree this year, so I guess that's progress lol.  One thing he did though is get kicked out of doggy daycare at the kennel in Oct.  I never got full details, but from what I was told he was aggressively trying to leave the yard w/ the "lunch dogs" and then went after some of the staff when they tried to take him to "time out".  I'm guessing what happened is he was tired/hot and wanted to go find a nice, cool place to lay down inside, and when they wouldn't let him do that he got upset about it.  So since then it's just play times/walks for him at the kennel which he seems to do ok w/, at least so far.

- When he got sick it was after a 1 night kennel stay in Aug.  He vomited once a night for 3 straight nights, so I worked from home the next day to keep an eye on him and take him to the vet in case he got sick again.  He didn't that day but did the following day around noon, so I decided to take him in.  Unfortunately my vet was booked up, so they recommended taking him to an urgent care.  They diagnosed him w/ having an inflamed esophagus and sent us home w/ an anti-nausea pill and to put him on Omeprazole (Prilocec).  Unfortunately not long after getting home he threw up again not long after I gave him the pill, so it was back to the urgent care vet.  Where this time around they took X-rays and thankfully/frustratingly found nothing blocked.  So they gave him an anti-nausea injection w/ the same recommendation for Omeprazole and sent us back home.  Also, told to hold off feeding him and only give him a little of his food that night then slowly increase over the next couple of days.  He was fine for a couple of days then one night after his walk vomited multiple times.  It was really hot that day, so think he might have gotten overheated despite me taking the usual precautions of going well after sunset, shorter distance, and stopping for water breaks.  Fortunately I was able to get him in to see the normal vet the next morning where we were sent home w/ more anti-nausea pills and told to put him on a bland diet (boiled beef and rice) for a few days and minimize his walks while it was still hot out.  Also, told to continue w/ the Omeprazole.  This worked for the most part although he did get sick at my mom's when I picked him up after vacay, so I put him back on the Omeprazole (the prescribed days ran out of that when I was gone) and he was fine after that.

Also, a bump on his right elbow had formed.  I was cleaning it and putting Neosporin on it, which seemed to be helping.  The urgent care vet gave me an antimicrobial and antifungal spray to use, which again seemed to be helping.  But then it grew ~10x when he was at my mom's for the week when I was away.  So back to the vet for that, where they weren't sure what it was and took some samples and sent to the lab.  Turns out it was thankfully only infected hair follicles, so with a course of antibiotics and the spray it went away.

- What Mongo is sitting on when he's looking out the window is a love seat that sits under my front living room window.  He really likes sitting there as did Wally and Benny (his Boxer predecessors).  What he's wearing in the one pic is his court jester Halloween "costume" that was hand me down from Wally.

- He is pretty good about sitting/laying on one side of the couch which leaves me plenty of space on the other side.  He does sometimes lay down in the middle where I have to make him move so I can have a seat.  Although if I want to switch spots w/ him then I have to bribe him off of the coach w/ treats.

- The bed's a queen, so it's big enough for both of us as long as he doesn't try to hog it.  Typically he sleeps at the foot on the opposite side that I do, so it's not a problem.  Lately though he seems to prefer sleeping on the couch and really only comes up ~half the time despite my encouragement to do so w/ reminders that not only is the bed more comfortable but it's one of his jobs to keep my feet warm at night lol.

- Mongo for the most doesn't seem to be effected by the cold, which is not surprising b/c he's pretty much built like a walrus lol.  One thing he doesn't like is his paws getting wet and cold, but after ~2 days after the big snowfall this past week that didn't seem to bother his either.  At least on our walks.  I'll try to get a good pic of him in the snow, but it might be a little challenging.

- My mom's doing pretty well.  Thanks for asking.  She did hurt her knee, but still gets around pretty well for her age (78) with just using a brace.  My dad actually passed away in 2018, so a couple of years before Wally did.  My mom still has the same dog Berkely, which is the one that got into it w/ Mongo when he first visited my mom's.  My sister actually watches my mom's dog for her whenever Mongo and I come visit.

One funny dog story from the holidays that you'll probably appreciate is on Christmas Eve after we finished opening gifts my sister's 14 year old Pug peed on one of my niece's gifts which as a Hello Kitty character pillow/cushion thing LMAO.  This of course was a tragedy of mass proportion, but worked out ok as smell and stain came out in the laundry.

Well think that's it for now.  Thanks again for the responses.  Hope you have a great rest of your weekend and a great week!

Hi Renee.  Now you know why I went with the abridged version initially lol.

Yeah, obviously happy that we were able to get him through his illness.  It was definitely super stressful.  Not only from him just being sick, but as I mentioned before it got pretty close to where I would have had to likely cancel my vacation to Disney World.  And I was one of the drivers in the group, so it would have messed the other guys up too.  Anyway, he luckily got past it enough so that my mom could watch him.

Yeah, not knocking the tree over was good.  Although he did spin it around a couple of times.  And the dog peeing on the Hello Kitty plush incident happened at my sister's house, so Mongo wasn't there.  Although I don't think he would have peed on it.  Maybe cabbaged onto it to try to claim it as a toy.  Not to jinx it, but he's really good at not going in the house and hasn't had an accident in forever.

And yeah, I'm not sweating him getting kicked out of doggy daycare.  In hindsight doggy daycare probably isn't for him as other than his walks he doesn't really spend too much time outside.  I can keep boarding him there, so that's good.

Well the national championship game is about to kickoff so I had better get going.  Thanks again for the kind words and here are some more pics to enjoy.  I really like the one of Mongo giving me the side eye when I'm trying to take a selfie.

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