Tulip

This is Super Cooper with a tulip attached to his collar. He loves flowers. And prancing amongst them. And prancing in general.

Picture taken at the University of Colorado at Boulder

I was trying to get him to drink out of a water fountain. He stuck his head into the stream of water as I turned in on and water gushed into his ear. He's afraid of water fountains now. Oops.

Defect

Tyson came to visit last week. We didn't have anything planned for the morning so this was our conversation:

Tyson: Want me to help you give Cooper a bath?

Me: No, I don't have any shampoo for him; I'll have to get some and I don't feel like cleaning out the tub.

Tyson: Why can't you use your shampoo?

Me: Well, Cooper has senstive skin and needs that oatmeal shampoo.

Tyson: *Bursts out laughing* Sensitive skin?! Are you serious?! That dog shouldn't even exist...

It's true. Everything about poor Cooper is defective. He has a ventricular defect in his heart, on the right wall, has severe seasonal allergies, food allergies, sensitive skin, and failing kidneys thanks to the ventricular defect. Mother Nature didn't want him to survive and yet, here I am defying her. Take that, you bitch. At least he's neutered so it's not like he can pass his crappy genes to generations of underbred shibas.

**The ventricular hole in his heart is a birth defect; his heart never formed fully when he was born. His parents were actually well bred and his litter was healthy. Cooper just got the shit end of the stick.

Cooper watching tv

I can't get mad at him, he's too cute.

Tricking Cooper

It's allergy season which means Cooper is itchy, miserable, swollen, and bitchier than normal. Every morning after I take him out, he gets a spoonful of peanut butter with two benadryl tablets hidden in it. Most of the time he eats it without a problem but sometimes, he spits them out or flat out refuses the peanut butter and makes angry face and angry noises at the spoon from the confines of his kennel.

As he isn't that smart, it's pretty easy to trick him into eating it although it is frustrating as hell when you're already running late for work.

Me: "Cooper, want some peanut butter?"

Cooper glares at the spoon: "NO!!! It makes me sleepy!"

Me: "Are you sure? It's good..."

Cooper: "NO! I DON'T WANT ANY!"

Me: "Fine, I guess it's all for me then...NOM, NOM, NOM, NOM, NOM! MMM!"

Cooper: "What are you eating? Give me some!"

Me: "Oh I don't know, you said you didn't want any...NOM, NOM, NOM, NOM!"

Cooper: "No, I do, please!"

Me: "Ok" :)

Cooper: "Ohhhh...I'm sleepy..."

Game. Set. Match.

Counter surfer

I don't know what's up with Cooper lately but he's been leaping onto the kitchen counters and dragging whatever food item down and ripping apart the plastic and eating until he's full. Normally, he's never done this and the only time he stole food was if I left it on the ground for whatever stupid reason. It's gotten to the point where I have to lock up Cooper in his house when I leave for work or wherever.

Corey think it's because of Cooper's diet and he's hungry all the time so he tries to steal food. Either way, it's annoying and although I have been feeding him a tad more, I don't think it'll make much of a difference. Cooper is now sick and had diarrhea for the last couple days because of all the food he ate.

He ate a lot of carbs; he ate 3 bagels and a couple slices of bread. As he's allergic to wheat and corn, he is now miserable and itchy and it's probably the reason why his bowels are in such havoc.

Cooper farts

Whenever my first dog Sari farted, she'd be terrified and start looking for a place to hide. Mostly because whenever she farted my mom would spray cologne or something to cover up the smell and Sari hated the way the cologne smelled. Sometimes if you farted she would look at you and then at the cologne bottle and back to you and back to the bottle. Silly dog. She also showed shame; like she was embarassed to have passed gas.

Cooper on the other hand, is completely shameless. Sometimes when he farts he stares at his butthole like, "Hm, that's where it came from? Weird..." Other times he groans and lays on his side. Most of the time his butt is facing me and I always get a terrible whiff of it. He is completely unapologetic and if I scold him to get away from me, he gives me a look out of the corner of his eye like he's saying, "Hey, I don't make a big deal when you fart so you hush up."

A couple times he farted and it actually made a tooting sound. The first time that happened he jumped a mile and stared at his butt in wonder like, "WOW!" Then he did that cute little head cock thing and it almost looked like he was laughing.

Cooper's super...sometimes

I've been feeling down lately thanks to my asshole family. Last night I had one of the worst phone conversations with my dad and he made me cry for hours. Normally when I cry, Cooper gives me this weird look out of the corner of his eyes and slinks off into his house and leaves me alone. He's such a boy...

Anyway, last night Cooper stared at me while I was sobbing on the phone with the most tender expression I have ever seen on him considering Cooper has the same blank eyed stare for every moment of the day. I was expecting him to jump off the bed and into his house but he stood up and sat next to me and leaned his head against me. Well, I think he wanted me to pet him but it was comforting all the same with him leaning up against me. And then another surprising thing happened: Cooper licked my face.

Cooper is not a licker. Sometimes he'll tentatively lick your hand if you smeared peanut butter on yourself while scooping out the last remnants out of the jar. He never licked anyone's face unless they had food on it. So it was weird having Cooper lick the tears and then snot off my face while I tried to push him off. I don't know if he did it just so he could lick snot and tears off my face and if that's the case, I never want him to come near my face again. Either way though, it was just nice to know that Cooper cares about me.