This past Saturday, October 1, marked the 5 year anniversary of Rumble coming into our lives. Most days it feels like he’s been around forever!

Chris and I had talked about wanting a dog for a LONG time before we got Rumble. Like 6 months or more. We both agreed that keeping a dog of any size locked up in an apartment/condo for 8 hours was a bad idea. Borderline evil.

Luckily, I work in a dog friendly office so that wasn’t an issue (at least in theory) so I would be able to bring a dog to work.

Another issue was “What kind of dog?” and boy was that an issue.

First, it had to be an apartment dog, which at the time meant under 20lbs full grown as we were renting

Second, it had to be hypo-allergenic because owning a dog isn’t fun if you’re dead. I am allergic.

Third, it couldn’t be a purse dog! (We’re gay, but not that gay.)

Fourth, it had to be a boy. (We’re that gay.)

So we set out to find the most butch tiny hypo-allergenic dog possible. And that’s not easy. Hence, the Miniature Schnauzer was on the list, and based on their temperament and other factors, they became the shortlist.

We identified a few breeders, made a bunch of phone calls and found DreamMaker Kennels, then of Surr Langley and made contact. Before they’d see us, we had to fill out some paperwork. It was 8 pages of question on why we would make good dog owners and they should let us give them money for a puppy. It was extremely thorough and asked all the questions we’d asked ourselves.

Where will it sleep? What will it eat? What will happen during the work day? etc, etc.

It took us like 3 hours to fill it out. They liked our answers and granted us a visit the next day. At which point Chris met Rumble and that was that.

We looked at about 4 puppies they had, but at some point Chris picked up this one and fell in love. I didn’t get to meet the pup at that point I don’t think.

So, we finished all the paperwork and adopted our championship stock puppy, but swore to never show him. Or breed him. Probably other stuff too, but we were buying a pet, not a trophy.

We made the long trek home by SkyTrain, scared of what was happening the entire way. Then Rumble spent about 3 hours in his little carrier refusing to come out.

We ended up coaxing him out with food (which would set a tone for the future).

Ever since then, Rumble Rose has been a constant fixture in our lives. Most of the time everything revolves around him and his schedule. Feeding (and the inverse), sleeping and playing all have to be accommodated, not to mention vacations, travel, movies, food, sex, shopping, work, television and more.

Yep. He has us pretty tightly wrapped around one or more of this tiny furry paws and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

We finished cleaning up. Everything was returned to it’s rightful spot, garbage was thrown out and recycling put downstairs, the dog got a bath, Chris got beer Corona), we had some ice cream and other bad food, and we hung out.

I was also kicked out of the house for a few hours while Chris worked. He spent many, many hours sorting, organizing, boxing etc while I sat in a Starbucks hard at work on a WordPress plugin. Rumble and Chris had walked me down, sat while we drank a cooling libation (sans alcohol of course) and then they went home.

At several points, we also went on many, many walks across the city, along the seawall etc to take full advantage of the fact that summer decided to return during our vacation! Woot!

We also wrote the email to Mikes Flooring expressing our displeasure in their installer’s lack of care. But that’s another post. A long other post.

Sometime in there, we also finally got to relax. As one is supposed to do on vacation. This made the dog happy as we stopped messing with him, moving things around etc. And he seems to like his new food!

As usual, Rum got his walk and since we’d terrorized him the day before (spending the day driving around), we didn’t do anything too mean. We left him home in his solarium/jungle while we headed out. To Ikea – aka, Land of the Lost. Where we had their $4 breakfast. Actually 4 x $1.00 breakfasts, plus bacon plus drink. This is s decision that haunted us on Wednesday.

The gaping void of the fireplace

The purpose of the trip was to find a new entertainment center/unit/table/bench -thing to replace the horrible fireplace that we had removed. This removal left us with a bit of a mess as it was screwed AND glued to the wall, not to mention tied into the electric.

Yep, ugly, right? About what you’d expect. Paint doesn’t match, hole in the carpet, patches of missing drywall. Not to mention nowhere to put the TV that was previously atop said monstrosity.

So, Ikea proved useless, but we did find a nice area rug for Rumble, a small mat for the fan, a small bookshelf and assorted other things we probably didn’t need.

Then Chris said the horrible words nobody should ever say.

“Hey, do you wanna stop at Walmart on the way home?”

And we did. And it was…. sticky.

But we did manage to find an entertainment center that was quite nice, but didn’t actually exist except for the demo unit. So we moved 4 feet and found another one. And it was deemed perfect. And heavy. Whoa was it heavy. Stupid tempered glass.

Afterward, we spent about 1/2 an hour discussing dog food with Celine at Tisol on the Grandview Highway. The vet had suggested Rumble go on an Kangaroo or Emu diet. $110US per case. I don’t think so.

Instead we settled on NRG dehydrated food as a source of all things different. $30CDN per case. Yeah, that’s better.

The rest of Tuesday was occupied with the ongoing cleanup and also putting together the new entertainment shelves. Ugh. Not bad though, less than 2 hours, only a couple of mistakes. You know that was going to happen with 30 instructional steps on paper, PLUS a 20 minute DVD you are “advised” to watch prior to assembly.

The new entertainment unit

Question: How are you supposed to watch a DVD about assembling the entertainment unit if you don’t have a place to put the TV until you’ve assembled the entertainment unit?

I know, right? Thankfully our laptops work. We watched the DVD at triple speed thanks to VLC media player. Much more entertaining.

So, now we have new floors, new rugs, new bookshelf, new entertainment center and still somewhat of a mess to clean up. This whole “have someone install the floors for you” is not necessarily as easy as it sounds.

We didn’t really have anything planned for this time, but we did take the opportunity to finally have laminate floors installed, to replace the carpet that Rumble had… damaged over the last 4 years. And what a nightmare that’s been.

First thing, we love the floors! They make the place look much better, and even though they’re dark, the house doesn’t feel darker.

Monday morning (officially day 1 since Chris worked Sunday night), starts with us packing EVERYTHING out of 1/2 of the condo into the other half. Packed. So tight that if we closed the solarium door, we may not get it open again. So full that we couldn’t even think about entering the kitchen or storage room.

Even the bathtub got a temporary resident.

Long story short – floors take a long time, even in about 300 square feet. And there will be dust EVERYWHERE if you don’t have an outside space for cutting. The number of Swiffers we’ve used could clean … bunches of space.

Now, Thursday after Monday install, we finally have everything back in order. The changes necessitated the purchase of 3 small rugs, a new TV stand and about 100 little felt feet. We packed the place up in about 2 hours. It took us 2 days to get everything sorted.

It all felt like moving day. At various points it both looked and felt like we were moving either in or out. We even ordered pizza and bought Chris some beer.

The nightmare part is the mess that the installer made. The floors are great, but he managed to make a mess everywhere. Broken baseboards, chunks of floor in the bathroom, purple goop on the walls, smears on the floor etc. We’ve filed a complaint with the company and are anxious to see if they even reply, now that they have the money.

If not, expect a big post about them here, with names and pictures. Yes, it’s a little like blackmail. Here’s a sample photo. Still a bit of mess, but we’re getting there.

Tonight, he demanded to be taken out for an early walk and we obliged. Because we love him and the carpet equally.

We came back, and after wiping him down and toweling him dry (it was pouring rain outside), we played for a few minutes. When he decided he was tired of playing, he got his present and lay down to chew on it a bit.

Exhibit A

He’s not to bright and decided to use the bed as a pillow. That fluff behind him is his otter, but I digress.

So, he hung out here, occasionally chewing on his present, for about 10 minutes. I glanced over to see him getting up and walking onto his bed, and thought “Good, now he’s going to lie on his bed and be quiet for a while.” I then went back to AFV for a minute while someone got kicked in the groin, fell off a trampoline or hit someone with a piñata stick.

I then looked back and realized that the dog wasn’t lying on his bed after all, he had walked right OVER his bed and was now sleeping on the other side.

Exhibit B

Not the brightest dog in the bunch, but he is a lot of fun.

Ah, Monday, bright shiny day, start of a new week, full of hope and promise.

Until you wake up.

Or are woken up 3 times by a dog with a rotten stomach. Then you get home, try taking off your pants (one leg at a time) and immediately slam your foot into the corner of a wall, slide it down to the 3/4″ protrusion of baseboard and rip a quarter sized chunk out of it.

Yep. That was Monday. The picture ain’t pretty. That circle of flesh is holding on for dear life by the tiniest of left-over hinges.

Son of a bitch hurt a lot too, and I limped for the first half of the day.

Dog’s fine though. Chris called me “stoic” at least 4 times, mainly because I didn’t scream or cry when it happened. I’m such a trooper.

One of the other gifts in the box was a super nice (simple) coat for Rumble. We’ve expressed to Dave before that Rumble hates getting wet and with Vancouver Winter upon is, tis the season to be wet.

So we put the coat on Rumble and he froze. No surprise there, he doesn’t handle change or clothing very well. We’ve shown video of him in boots before. Have a look… This is what happened with the coat.

So what’s the miracle you ask?

That was exactly a week ago. As of now, he’s actually walking with his coat on!

Sadly, this proves something bad. It means that anything Rumble doesn’t know and “can’t” learn is either our fault, or simply because he’s hard headed. But that’s not news to anyone who met him.

Yep, another Rumble video has been made.