More funky cute dog pictures

Here are some more pictures from pho.to lab.

Hilbert as a globe.

Hilbert, appropriatly as a fractal.

Check out Amazon on Wednesday for a FREE Kindle Hilbert Happy Day book!

One Year Ago Today

Today (March 13) is the first aniversary of the day that Hilbert died.  My heart is still heavy and it still makes me sad to think about coming home and finding him dead in the back yard.  He had been very ill, so I knew the end was coming soon.

I used my FidoFoto app to make a few fun pictures of Hilbert.  They help to cheer me up.

Here he is in a somber Angel picture. 

 

Here he is in a more whimsical one.  This photo was taken in the vet's office when he was already showing the effects of his illness.

 

 

 

Cute Photos

I just downloaded a very nice app for the iPhone and iPad.  It's called FidoFoto and the basic package is free!  It allows you to add a little spice to your doggie photos.  Here are a few of Hilbert, Shoebert and Mini-Bert.

 Hilbert in formal attire,

 Mini-Bert dressed as the clown that she is,

 Hilbert as a pirate,

Mini-Bert and Shoebert ready to get down and party!

New Rat Terrier Kindle book

There is a new Hilbert book available on Kindle!  It's Hilbert's Story Tail Day.

It will be free next Wednesday, January 23.  Remember, every Wednesday is Hilbert's Happy Wednesday on Kindle!

Hilbert Space

In the previous post I told the story of Hilbert and the beer infused slugs. Legend has it that David Hilbert, the greatest mathematician of his time, once said (in German, of course), “Points, lines and planes should be able to be replaced with tables, chairs and beer mugs.” Make that beer mugs full of kibble, please.

Here is a picture of Hilbert space, or is it Hilbert in space?  Or is it just a picture of an astronaut I took from NASA and pasted Hilbert's face on?

For better Hilbert pictures, don't forget that Hilbert’s Happy Day is free on Wednesdays!

Why did the terrier cross the yard?

Last year at this time I was nursing Hilbert as he got sicker from liver failure.  I'd like to share some (in retrospect) fun times.

 

Mankind may never know why the chicken crossed the road, but I learned why Hilbert crossed the yard.

I grew hostas in the shady area near the hedge in the backyard. In the spring, they would be attacked by snails and slugs. One environmentally friendly way that I dealt with these pests was to place bowls of beer in the area. The pests crawled in, but didn’t come out. I assumed that they died happy or at least felt no pain.

One spring day after Hilbert came to live with us, I opened the backdoor and Hilbert ran straight to the back corner of the yard. From where I stood, he was hidden from view behind the bushes.

“Here, Hilbert,” I called. “Time to come in.”

Nothing. No dog, no movement.

“Here, boy”

Still nothing.

I put on my shoes and walked over to where I had last seen Hilbert headed.

There he was drinking/eating the snail/slug infused beer. Lap, lap, lap, crunch. Lap, lap, lap, crunch.

I grabbed him under his belly and carried him inside. I called the vet to see if I needed to bring him in for treatment.

“Uh, my dog was drinking beer. Is that okay?” I explained the situation.

After being scolded for letting him near the beer and being sternly warned to keep him from driving until he was completely sober, it was determined that Hilbert had not had enough to drink to harm him.  And the slugs were probably a good source of protein.

After this happened, I ordered the beer slug traps with the snap on lids that let the snails and slugs in and keep the dogs out.  They worked well and both the hostas and the dogs have done well since!

Do you dress up your pets for Halloween?

Here is Hilbert in his Halloween costume last year.  He is the horse for the headless horseman.

 

 

Here he is the year before as a clown

 

 

Attack of the Cicadas

It is now cicada season.  These little critters, which in Texas we called locusts, live as grubs for seven years then come out to mate, lay eggs and die.  They are out in mass.  Go out just after sunset, stand under any tree and the sound is deafening.

My dogs love cicadas.  It’s like an Easter egg hunt the way they go after the dead ones.  Hilbert was an expert at finding them.

 

We were out walking one late summer morning when Hilbert was just over a year old.  A cicada landed on the ground near Hilbert.  He quickly grabbed it up in his mouth.  Suddenly, it started buzzing.  He spat it out, jumped back, barked at it for a while -as if to scold it for startling him- and then grabbed it up again. After one crunch, the buzzing stopped and Hilbert swallowed it.  After that the fresh ones became his favorites. 

The vet says that cicadas are a cheap and healthy source of protein for dogs.  Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?

Rat Terrier teething

I adopted Hilbert just a week before starting a new job. 

Hilbert was teething when we first got him.  Even though I gave him plenty of chew toys, he preferred my hands and forearms.  People without dogs wondered if I had been hugging rose bushes, but one woman in the HR department was clearly a dog lover.  When I came to her desk to fill out my new employee forms, the first thing she asked was, “What kind of puppy do you have?”
He not only left my arms covered with painful scratches, he also chewed the kitchen wallpaper down through the sheetrock, the legs on the kitchen table and the frame of the sliding glass door.  I still have some of his baby teeth in a jar.

Shoebert wasn’t so bad on the arms and hands when he was teething, but he did find a loose spot on the wallpaper in the living room.  He managed to get his teeth under it enough to get a hold and pull.  He was able to rip off a strip over a foot long!  I think it helped him that he has an underbite.

Intro to Hilbert Continued:

Hilbert spent his first 20 weeks living in a barn.  When Hilbert came home with us it was his first time to live in a house. 
He quickly learned to go out in the backyard to pee and poo or wait until we went on one of our two daily walks.  It was quite comical the first few times it rained.  He would go to the backdoor, go out then run right back in.  He would then go to the front door and beg to go on a walk.  I would hook him to his leash and he would be surprised and disappointed to see that it was also raining in the front!

Here is Hilbert not long after he joined the family.

Welcome to the Rat Dog Pack!  Let me start by introducing you to the pack.

My first rat terrier was Hilbert.  It’s his picture on the cover of How (Not) to Kiss your Dog.  He was a purebred, “Teddy Roosevelt” from a farm near Decatur, Illinois.  Hilbert was the inspiration for many of the more disgusting stories in the book.   

The name Hilbert was very fitting for him because there was a mathematician named David Hilbert who was known for (among other things) posing very difficult problems.  That was my Hilbert, too.

Hilbert died from liver failure at age 13 on March 13, 2012.  He was a very good friend and I will never forget him – especially when I look at the table leg he chewed up as a puppy!