Hey Sally!  Great to hear from you.  New you'd like the pics .  I hope that you're doing well.

Rene - He gets upset when I leave him with my mom (although he calms down relatively quick she says) and if someone's over at the house and leaves (like Uncle John).  So I think he'll freak out at the kennel when I leave no matter what.  So I think I'll need to walk him back to his "suite" and distract him with some treats like you suggested.  Anyway, I agree that I definitely need to get him acquainted with a kennel sooner rather than later.  I'm going on a family vacay in the first week of Oct., so that's the drop dead date to have it figure out.  But to your point I need to get it taken care of sooner rather than later in case something comes up or I want to go out of town and can't take him w/ before then.  I'm setting a goal to call up the place I used to take Wally and Benny by the end of the week to schedule him for Oct. and discuss with them a gameplan to get Mongo acquainted with them.

Well thanks again to both of you for all of the kind words and encouragement.  I'm glad my story can help, and I'll do my best to check in more often.

Rich (and Mongo)

Hey guys!  I know it's been awhile, but I didn't realize it had been 6 months .  Guess time flies when you're super busy.  So anyway, I wanted to drop by and wish you all Happy Howlidays!  Also, Mongo's been doing well.  I finally did brave taking him to the local kennel, and I'm happy to report that he did really well!  There was no meltdown or resisting to go back in the lobby.  He surprisingly just went right w/ the kennel employee back to his suite.  I booked him for a private room, and he did really well.  So much so that I took him for doggy daycare evaluation the following week, which he passed.  He also did well when he stayed over the family vacay. 

He also stayed w/ my mom for 2 weeks last month while I took a trip to Europe.  He did pretty well at her place, but there was 1 incident which really wasn't his fault.  The first night he was there (when I was flying across the pond) my mom decided to make guacamole, and she unfortunately dropped the avocado pit on the floor which Mongo snatched up.  She couldn't find the pit and made the assumption that he swallowed it, so w/ some help from my cousin took Mongo to her vet.  They X-rayed him and didn't find anything, and get this: my mom found the pit under her lounge chair later on after getting back from the vet.  It's actually a good thing though that she took him b/c while they were examining him they found he had a fever and ear infections.  Surprised by that b/c he really hadn't shown any signs (wasn't digging at his ears or anything), but it was good that they caught it.  So I didn't save as much money as I thought I would by having him stay w/ my mom instead of the kennel, but it worked out for the most part.

Other than that he's been doing well.  I got him a big knuckle bone as an early Christmas gift, and he's been chomping down on that.

Well I gotta run.  I hope everyone is doing well and that you're having a great holiday season!  As always, here's some new pics to enjoy.  Including my failed attempt to try to get him to pose w/ me in front of the Christmas tree

Take Care

Rich and Mongo

Hey guys,

Happy New Year!  Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and as always thanks for the responses and kind words.  Rene - saw your picture from Alaska in the other thread.  Looked like fun, although I have to admit I'm not one for cold weather activities (and neither is Mongo, lol).

Yeah, the Europe trip was great.  Bit of a whirlwind w/out much R&R, but we did see a lot of great things.  As far as bringing Mongo across the pond, I'm pretty sure he's better off staying home.  He wouldn't be able to handle all of the walking and would probably be none too happy about how congested things were.

So Christmas at my mom's was ok.  Spent Christmas Eve at my sister and brother in law's, which is always fun.  Especially watching my nieces and nephew open their gifts.  Mongo was mostly good and was a blast opening his presents.  We just set the bag out where we had his gifts wrapped up in tissue paper, and he just opened one then went on to the next one and so on.  Unfortunately I didn't get any photos as I was enjoying watching him open too much. 

Unfortunately the couple of days after Christmas weren't too good.  My cousin and his daughter moved into my mom's basement, and every time one of them would come or go Mongo would go absolutely nuts.  He had been around my cousin quite a bit when I was in Europe, but unfortunately that didn't make much difference.  If you've ever been around Mongo you'll know that a little of his loud bark goes a LONG way.  Also, he managed to knock over my mom's Christmas tree (he would have knocked it over 3 times, but I was close enough to catch it from falling over twice).  He did calm down quite a bit once they had finished moving in, so hopefully that's a good sign .

Anyway, we're back home now to ring in the new year, and things are nice, peaceful, and quiet.  Here's a couple of pictures of Mongs from "his" chair at my mom's lol.

Again, hope you all had a great Christmas and Happy New Year!

Rich and Mongo