Introducing Addison Williams

Meet Addison. Steph and I have a dog for all intents and purposes. Long story short, we adopted her from her cousin Chris, who adopted her from the Winnebago County Animal Services.

We couldn't resist when we met her. She is probably one of the most trusting dogs I've ever met. She hasn't growled at anyone so far. She does bark when someone enters the room and then immediately runs up to see who it is. She follows that with a wagging tail and sometimes a jump up for a kiss.

It's definitely no boxer, but I'm happy. She gets along with other dogs, but Gizmo, my parents dog doesn't like her. In fairness, Gizmo doesn't like any dogs.

We're actually not sure what kind of a dog she is. We were told part lab, part retriever and part boxer. One things for sure though, she's 100 percent crotch sniffer.

She is quite possibly the neediest dog I've ever seen. I can't leave her side farther than five feet and she has to follow or begins to whine and howl. Kind of nice to feel wanted, but I can see that getting old pretty quick.

As I get more photos I'll post them here.

Separation anxiety

So after one day and one night with Addison, this is what I've found. She's very needy, almost like a baby. You might say, "well, yeah! Duh. What did you really expect?"

No, I don't think you really understand. I can't be in a different room than her for more than 10 minutes without her whining and barking. Until I left her in the garage for a few minutes yesterday, I hadn't really heard her bark or howl. That's all she does when I'm not five feet from her. It got so bad that we had to lock Gizmo in my sister's room and lock Addi in my room to sleep for the night.

As soon as we put her in my room, she laid on the floor and went right to sleep. I did a little research on it and found out she has separation anxiety. It usually stems from a long stay in a kennel, which I would have to say is the case here.

I don't think there is going to be a real good way of combating it until we get into our house in the following week. She's going to have to stay with Chris until we can take her there. I just hope she doesn't get him evicted in the meantime.

I also learned she's pretty smart. After about 25 minutes of working with her I've already taught her two commands. She already knew how to "sit." So I worked from there. I taught her how to "stay" and "come."

Everytime she wouldn't stay, she wouldn't get a treat. Everytime she waited for me to say the words "come" she would get one. It didn't take long for her to catch on. I'm hoping to add more commands as we go, but I don't want to rush her too much. Especially because she'll be going back and forth between Chris and us.

Thank God she's already house trained too. She slept all night right next to my bed, woke up in the morning and whined a little to go outside. I knew she had to go to the bathroom too because I could smell it. She's got a little bit of a gas problem. As long as the gas doesn't turn to anything else, we'll be just fine though.

Yes I'm Alive

Gizmo has an identity crisis. He thinks he's a grey hound!


So what have I been up to you ask? I'll be honest. Not a lot until this last weekend. If it can't be downloaded or played on Xbox I haven't been doing it. Can't figure out if I'm depressed or just lazy. Anyway here's the quick run down from the past couple of weeks:

1. Work at Pizza Hut a lot!
2. Had my alumni weekend.
3. Be lazy.
4. Freelance job in Chucktown
5. Photo conference in Wisconsin.
6. 2 interviews for jobs this past week.
7. Finish my photo essay story.
8. Another freelance job tonight.

I'll try to keep this brief even though I need to update much more if I get time later. I had two interviews for jobs earlier in the week. Both went well and I'm hoping to get one or possibly even both the jobs so I can decide. The first was at the Northwest Herald for a videographer position and the other was at the Midweek in Dekalb, Ill., for an editor position. Both would be excellent oppurtunities for a journalist. I should know by early next week.

I did a freelance job for Visual Image Photography in Charleston last week at the IHSA State Journalism Finals. It was nice to see everyone that was down there and to see the new talent coming out of our high schools.

From there it was directly back home for a conference with my grandfather in Wisconsin the next day sponsored by Herff Jones. Two best things out of the whole thing was the auction and the return of motivation. The conference got me fired up to do photography again, but the other thing is I actually got a light, a background, a super clamp and a fog machine all for under $45. (Excellent deal).

I have another freelance job tonight for Clark Brooks. Hopefully I can get a few more jobs from him if possible before I have to move up north. If I get anything interesting from it tonight I might post the photo, but no guarantees. Hopefully this really breaks my lazy slump and I can get some stuff done.

And for the closing note, I graduate tomorrow. Not excited too much. Just going to go through the motion for the sake of my parents and grandparents. I'm sure I'll be happy I did later, but I just don't care at this point. Don't know if I'm being apathetic or bitter. Maybe I'll be excited about it tomorrow. Anyway, check back.