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SaTang and Sparky.
Sparky, by virtue of spending her days at the hairshop with MyeognHee gets the “beauty treatment” and has had her nails painted. SaTang, meanwhile, still prefers the rugged look and a cowboy scarf.
I’ve got some video of the dogs playing at the park but have yet to edit it and make it viewable. In the meantime, a single picture is all I have the time for.
Hope everyone is well. Ta ta for now.
Yesterday I went rock climbing with my usual friends and a few new ones. There’s always people coming and going here. One of the new ones is Vanessa – a native of North Texas, former resident of Dallas and an alumni of my alma mater, University of North Texas. Als0 being a climber, she was a somewhat frequent climber at Stoneworks climbing gym at I-35 and Beltline in Carollton. What are the odds. Half way around the world but from the same place. She’ll probably climb with us again.
Another reunion of sorts was with my dogs. They got to play with one of the litter. We called her “GaMyeon” or “Mask”, but her new name is “Corker.” Good friend and frequent climbing partner Dee is the new mommy to Corker. The pups and their mom, SaTang, played on the mountain while we climbed.
Dee holds her pup Corker while Sparky and Satang pose.
Since having bought the scooter, it’s gotten much easier to get up to the mountain to do some rock climbing. I’ve been up there the last several Saturdays and gotten some great climbing in. I haven’t taken many pictures – seems like I have lots of pictures of people who asses from down below I can no longer recognize.
Getting there, however, is half the fun. In the car, SaTang just sat and watched the world go by, sometimes even sleeping as I drove. No more. Those days are over, baby. She still likes going to the mountain and running around, chasing ground squirrels, barking at birds and begging for handouts from the Koreans who bring their entire kitchen when they climb. If you want to get out and play, you’ve gotta make an effort. And she does extremely well sitting on the floorboard of the scooter.
SaTang rides in style up to Munsu Mountain
In case anyone is worried about safety, she’s wearing a harness and is attached to the bike via leash. If she falls off, I can yank her right back on without choking her. No worries about that, as she’s content just to sit between my feet and lean against my calves.
Sparky, one pup we decided to keep is too little (and too jumpy) to go up on Munsu. She’s cute as hell, but so far hasn’t proven quite as smart as her mama. Our climbing areas have a few meters of walking area between the cliff faces and the next drop-off, but I’m afraid she would just be too curious. We might wait until she’s a little less puppy before taking her out and turning her into a full blown crag dog. In the meanwhile, she goes to MyeongHee’s hairshop where she’s fawned over by MH and her customers.
Sparky, still mostly furball, models her scarf
A last minute cancellation by one of MyeongHee’s friends almost left us holding four dogs. She was going to take two pups and at 9 weeks they were more than ready to go. I had been holding off on serious training as that’s really the new owner’s prerogative. But they needed training or they needed to go. I spent a lot of time over the weekend posting messages and photos on facebook and on UlsanOnline.com’s classifieds trying to get one or more of my many foreigner friends to adopt a dog.
On their last weekend together, the dogs sack out on the sofa together. From left are SaTang, Sparky, SaRang, and GaMyeon.
I found one friend, Dee, who was willing to take on a pup. Dee is a frequent rock climbing partner and serious doggie person. She is also sister to Fin, my partner on UlsanOnline.com. She decided to take GaMyeon, who upon first introductions gave her lots of love and affection – she was supposed to - I trained the pups hard on the “endear” command, just like other owners might teach their dog to “fetch” or “rollover.” It worked great and Dee and she hesitated only a little before calling back and taking her.
GaMyeon takes one last snooze in her bed before I carted her off to Dee’s house.
I had done some hard selling to my students, too, and SaRang is slated to go to set of brother and sister on Thursday or Friday this week. The kids’ mom came to see the pup Monday and will pick her up later after getting all the supplies and puppy-proofing their house.
After learning of the cancellation last week, I took drastic action and had MyeongHee take Sparky to the hairshop with her. She could get better training there than I could here since I no longer get a lunch break to take her out to pee. She’s pretty cute and her hairshop customers all adore her.
Sparky
So this week, it’s been me and SaTang and SaRang. Being the only pup, she’s settled down and I’ve gotten more attached to her. I’ll miss her – but not that much.
If it isn’t raining, you have to get outside and enjoy the day here. It will rain soon enough.
Lately, we’ve had just a few days of non-rain sprinkled in among the rainy or snowy days. Friday and Saturday were nice and on Saturday I took advantage of the weather and did some rock climbing. Awesome day, indeed. I got in several good routes and then headed into town to buy a scooter.
We’ve been operating on one set of wheels for three years and I finally decided I want to be more mobile than just the bicycle I’ve been riding. They’ll deliver the scooter today sometime – and it’s raining again. It’s supposed to rain for the next day or two so I likely won’t even get to ride my new toy when I get it. No big deal of a bike, its used and very cheap and only 125cc. But it will get me around without having to first shuttle MyeongHee off to work just to have the car.
As for riding the bicycle, that’s still a good deal. When I was home in December, Jessica bought me a new pair of jeans for Christmas. They fit great. Now, however, they fit like socks on a rooster. They hang on me. I have no idea what I weigh, but my waist is considerably smaller than it was in December.
We’re down to just three pups now. MyeongHee took the other male and gave it to her nephew. We have the three little females left and she’s everyday changing her mind on which she wants to keep. Two will go to a friend from her hairshop when she’s out of the hospital, hopefully this week.
On the left is GaMyeon(mask) and Gumdongi (brownie). Behind is SaRang (love) and then in the rear is Sparky. I snapped these pictures on a snowy day just last week. Brownie’s feet – all four – are off the ground in a run toward me. He’s off to the nephew’s house as of last Friday.
They weren’t really impressed with the snow. They sniffed it and gingerly walked around in it a bit, but would rather have been inside.
That’s all for now. Take care, everyone!
One puppy went to a new home last night. A couple of English ladies took the biggest male, the one we’d been calling Gulum. They are calling him Davie. He’ll be fine. They’ve been very excited for weeks since they decided they wanted a pup.
MyeongHee cried a little when the puppy left last night. Just for a few minutes. She’s fine today. But the dog that went was her least favorite. We’ll see how it goes with the others she likes much more.
Three more should go this week. The mostly brownish male will go to MyeongHee’s nephew’s girlfriend. And two others will go to one of her hairshop friends. That’ll leave us with just one pup, GaMyeon (mask) the smallest of the puppies. She’ll take her to the hairshop with her and then home every night.
The mother, SaTang, on the other hand has turned into quite a problem. She seems to be having control problems. For 3 years she’s done well about going outside for her potty business. Lately, she’s been scratching at our bedroom door early in the morning to be taken out. But as soon as the bedroom door is opened, she’ll pee. A lot. Last week, it was poo, and I hurried her out to the back veranda rather than downstairs and across the street to the park. She left some poo, but seemed rather upset about it all day.
Today, she scratched at the door and I immediately got up to take her out. She made it outside to the veranda without peeing and I left her there for about 3-4 minutes. When I went to check on her, as soon as I opened the door she came into the hallway. THEN she pee’d – a lot – in the hallway in front of our door. Why she couldn’t have done it when she was outside and she waited until she was semi-inside? Beats me. I’m trying not to beat her.
There’s some dog psychology at work here and I’m not sure what’s going on. Talking to the vet here will not be possible unless I get MyeongHee to do the talking. I still suspect that even a conversation in Korean won’t help – Koreans have a different take on pets than Americans do. They have a different take on psychology, too. It’s subtle, but psychology isn’t among the issues that comes up with pets. No surprise, as psychology isn’t an issue they’ll discuss about people, either. Going to a psychologist is still considered an admission of weakness, or worse, craziness.
Any insight any American readers have on what my dog is dealing with would be appreciated.
They’re six weeks old. A couple of them are ready to go to their new owners. Although it’s possible I might get one more video of them all, this could be the last of them all, and in a sense is already not with Byeol, the little one gone to doggie heaven. Next weekend we’ll take Gomdungi, the little brown one, to MyeongHee’s nephew. Gulumi, the big white male, will go to his new owners this week.
Having said that enjoy, perhaps the last, of the puppy videos.
One of the pups dies this morning. Over the past week or so, they’d gotten pretty active. Each morning when we woke up, they would all clamor to get out of the pen. It had become part of the routine to take one or two and hold them, give one to MyeongHee and give one or two to DongHyun. They’d calm down after a little attention – and we all liked holding the little boogers.
I had two of them on my lap this morning. I was holding them, sipping coffee and reading the news on my computer. One of the pups, Byeol, wandered too close to the edge of my lap and fell. She fell hard. She didn’t get a chance to catch herself on her paws and landed on the back of her head with a thud. She didn’t move. I knew she was hurt bad as blood was coming out of her nose and mouth – not much, but a hit on the back of the head that produces blood in any amount is bad. After a minute she wiggled some and DongHyun rushed her to the animal clinic around the corner. Too late. The Dr. checked her out but within an hour or so she died.
It’s been a sad day here at our house.
Ironically, one of my students gave me a gift for the puppies today. She made a set of pillows for the dogs. She’s just a little girl, only 8 (6 or 7 in our counting) and had just stuffed some cloth with more cloth and wrapped the two ends with rubber bands. They might have come in handy had we had them earlier 
You can’t keep kids away from them. I brought the puppies to the park before I went to work to give them some exercise. Within minutes we were swamped with kids. We used to attract a few kids when it was just me and SaTang, but with her and six puppies we always get a crowd.
From the left is my school owner’s daughter, Nae-Young, the director’s son, Min Joon, Na-Young’s twin sister, Tae-Young, a student at the school who I only know as Tom, and three kids who I don’t know but wouldn’t leave the pups alone. Everybody had a puppy and everyone was happy.
I put some scarves on the pups when they were only a week or so old. Too cute, but the scarves were almost bigger than they were. Now that they’re nearly 5 weeks old and running around they’re much cuter. I couldn’t resist sharing a bit more. It won’t be long before they’re off to their new homes, so I’m enjoying the playtime.
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