Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Meet the Irving

This is the Irving....


He joined our household last weekend from the Oregon Humane Society. He was described as being "extremely lovable and people oriented, a bit of a lap dog, and a love sponge". He came from California as part of the Second Chance program. He has been in shelters since early August and was not adopted in Bakersfield, CA, so he was sent up here to Portland around Oct 13. We adopted him on Saturday, Oct 16. Bakersfield thought he was a Long Hair Chihuahua... NOT. Oregon Humane Society thought he was a Spaniel Mix... closer. He has an unusual color for a small spaniel. The only small spaniel (other than the cocker) with a blonde coat is the Tibetan Spaniel. But Irving has long legs and a long body, so there might be some Pinscher mixed in. We are guessing a German Pinscher. So for now we are just calling him The Tibetan Love Sponge.

Irving the Tibetan Love Sponge needed a run or kennel. We had nothing for the first night... so he slept in bed with us. The next day we cleared a space and began work.





We emptied and moved the compost bins. Here they are sitting empty in the backyard before they get reinstalled.



We added this fence by using a pre-fab picket length and cut it apart to make a gate and small fence section.



However, we discovered a challenge with the width of the Love Sponge's chest and the distance between the pickets.
Here is a visual representation of the geometry set before us:



.... which means that the line marked with CD can EASILY fit through the line marked with AB. This was remedied by the speedy installation of additional pickets who's line should have been marked with something like "I can't believe that I have to go back to the hardware store again" line.

The resulting fence contains the Love Sponge and still looks rather sharp. It needs a proper coat of paint.... it's raining, so the painting will probably happen sometime in April.... but the run is functional and and is easy to use.





Lot's of nice cedar chips smell great and will hopefully keep the fleas down. Those suckers love damp bark to hibernate in.

1 comment:

3anklebiters said...

he is completely adorable! we are in love with our puppy, who came to live with us in May. She's a border collie, aussie shep, something mutt and completely loveable.