{"id":290,"date":"2009-01-04T04:42:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-04T04:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/01\/howie-my-forgotten-baby.html"},"modified":"2009-01-04T04:42:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-04T04:42:00","slug":"howie-my-forgotten-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/01\/howie-my-forgotten-baby.html","title":{"rendered":"Howie, My Forgotten Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just realized that I never blogged about Dave’s and my first baby, Howie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Howie<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The day we got him, he had to wear the leash for about 24 hours straight and the crate was his home for the first 18 months or so.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or Howard.<\/p>\n

Or Howie-the-Wonder-Dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Howie<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Howie is our 8 1\/2 year old Lab-Chow Chow mixed breed puppy. We got him in August 2000, just after our 5th anniversary, from a shelter in Kettering <\/a>(near Dayton), Ohio. Dave and I were grad students at the time, and it wasn’t hard for us to spend enough time at home to help housetrain Howie. We also had ample time for some good training early on, which is probably the best time investment you can make in a pet <\/p>\n

<\/hint!><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Howie<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We were hoping for a big, Lab-sized dog with Lab-length fur, and we ended up with something closer in size and fur to a Border Collie. Howie is a very calm dog, rather quiet, and chasing rodents is his #1 downfall.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Howie<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This is the scene that Dave and I faced when we’d head out the door to school in the morning…Howie with a toy in his mouth, making us feel SO guilty for leaving him for a few hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before we had human babies, Howie was the one we would spoil at Christmas, he’d come with us everywhere, and before the quarantine rules changed, we were even convinced that we didn’t want to get stationed in Hawaii, we couldn’t bear to have to quarantine Howie for a number of months!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Howie<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Howie would jump the gate when it was just one gate, so we had to use two baby gates.<\/span><\/p>\n

Howie is the most laid-back dog you’ll ever know. In fact, he’s more like a cat in so many ways! He enjoys sitting at a window looking out at the world and he’s a very picky eater. He doesn’t play with toys the way other dogs do — Howie has his favorite stuffed dinosaur and bunny rabbit (from his puppy days) but otherwise he enjoys chasing squirrels in our backyard, and nipping at loose pant legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Howie<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Howie lounging on his “Civil War” dog bed, which I made from leftover material from reenacting costumes I’d made.<\/span><\/p>\n

So many of our boys’ friends, who previously may not have liked dogs, ended up loving Howie to death and would start bugging their parents for pets of their own (sorry Wendy and Julie!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Howie<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Howie (left) playing wth his two dog friends in Florida, Jerome (right) and Moxie (top). We 3 families would trade around dogsitting in FL. This was in Florida, but Jerome and Moxie are now in Ohio.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Okay, so I’m a little biased!)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Howie<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Over the years, Howie has had to take a back seat to the boys. I feel badly at how often we have to leave Howie out of a family outing because having the boys with us was enough trouble. Howie was subjected to years of having toddler boys around, each of our boys had a good 18-24 months of “Don’t pull Howie’s tail!” or “Don’t sit on Howie!” or “Please leave Howie’s dog food alone!”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Howie<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Howie is keeping an eye on the construction workers while we had tile floors put into our FL house, late 2004.<\/span><\/p>\n

This past summer, just before we left North Carolina, we took Howie for a checkup and our vet deemed Howie a “senior dog”. Howie had put on some weight in North Carolina, and he had the worst allergies…his gorgeous coat was definitely compromised while we were living there. I wanted to cry at the thought of our first baby now being a “senior”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2007 06 17 Family Reunion PA<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

One of Howie’s favorite things to do, chase the hay wagon at the Vollmer family reunion!<\/span>
<\/span>
So here are some pictures of Howie for you to enjoy…when I talk about how much I’m going to miss my boys when deployed, Howie is among my boys!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2007 05 01 Howies Birthday<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We had a birthday party for Howie in 2007, Jacob said that Howie needs a cake, so we made one for him, and Howie even got to enjoy a big piece! (No chocolate!)<\/span><\/p>\n

(See how grey he’s getting around the muzzle? Sniff sniff!)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2007 06 17 Family Reunion PA<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just realized that I never blogged about Dave’s and my first baby, Howie. From Howie The day we got him, he had to wear the leash for about 24 hours straight and the crate was his home for the first 18 months or so. Or Howard. Or Howie-the-Wonder-Dog. From Howie Howie is our 8 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[],"tags":[30,14,80],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-4G","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3148,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/04\/howie-2000-2014.html","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":0},"title":"Howie the Wonder Dog: May 2000 – April 19, 2014","date":"21 April 14","format":false,"excerpt":"This past weekend was very sad for our family. We lost our beloved family dog, Howie. He had developed a liver tumor that grew incredibly quickly. We first discovered it in February while he was getting pre-dental blood work done. On Saturday morning, after 36-48 hours of not eating, he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"death\"","img":{"alt_text":"Howie lying in the snow, one of his favorite places to be. This was taken on April 13th. The last picture I took of him.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_9001.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":330,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/03\/howie.html","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":1},"title":"Howie","date":"04 March 09","format":false,"excerpt":"So many of you know and love our Howie-the-Wonderdog.From HowieFrom HowieHowie apparently blew out his knee while running around in our backyard on Tuesday night. We\u2019re guessing he was chasing squirrels, they are the bane to his existence! He was hit by a car while chasing a squirrel in 2002.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"deployment\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":615,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/07\/howie-our-photographic-challenge.html","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":2},"title":"Howie – Our Photographic Challenge!","date":"16 July 11","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo by Fotomom.While Maryann AKA Fotomom was here visiting last week she took a really sweet picture of Howie in our kitchen. \u00a0After she got home this week, she took some time to dress up the picture and wrote a lovely blog post about him and how she made the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fotomom.smugmug.com\/Daily-Photos\/My-Best-Daily-Shots\/i-QzGZBj7\/0\/S\/IMG0734AutoContrastTexture3Cro-S.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3159,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/04\/howie-slideshow.html","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":3},"title":"Howie Slideshow","date":"28 April 14","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a work in progress, but I've been consolidating Howie photos from my Google photo albums into one location. For those photos that are already in Google, this has been quite simple. Select the group of photos, and select \"Copy into New Album\". However, I didn't start using Google\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dog\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2142,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2013\/06\/happy-birthday-howie.html","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":4},"title":"Happy Birthday Howie!","date":"07 June 13","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm over a month late, but better late than never! Happy 13th birthday to our dear Howie. He's still going strong, ironically, his latest medical ailment was an infected hot spot on his tail, of all things (that's for another post). I was in the middle of Operation EAT WHAT\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"birthday\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/harrypottercake.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3155,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/04\/howie-memories.html","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":5},"title":"Howie Memories: It’s Those Little Things","date":"23 April 14","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been 5 days, and I'm pleased to report that we can now write and talk about Howie without bursting into tears. But it sure was a tough 5 days...for Jacob, it was the worst first thing in the morning, when he usually kisses Howie good morning, and at bedtime,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"death\"","img":{"alt_text":"June 2013, at Howie's last family reunion in Lancaster. Jacob loved him so much.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/DSC_2927-1024x677.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}