doggie diaries.

Anna Westhoff Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the Dalmatian mix he and his wife, Anna, adopted as a puppy in late 2009. Many readers expressed concern about our post from a couple weeks ago, in which we noted that, despite Pippi's traumatizing experience at the kennel earlier this year -- she got frighteningly sick and lost a bunch of weight -- we decided to bring her there again during a recent vacation. "Please reconsider," pleaded one Doggie Diaries reader. "I don't understand why you would put Pippi back in the same situation that made her so miserable before," said another. Trust us, we would prefer to board her with a friend or have someone come ...

Anna Westhoff Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the dalmatian mix he and his wife, Anna, adopted as a puppy in late 2009. Pippi seems to be back in good spirits after her illness while boarding at the vet's and the hunger strike we described last week. She hasn't yet regained all of the weight she lost, however. That isn't for lack of trying -- we've been giving her all sorts of extra food since then, table scraps, treats, you name it. Though we can still see her ribs, we thought she was doing better. Apparently, we were wrong. Upon our recent trip to the vet, she gave us a surprising assessment -- Pippi remains underweight. She's about 46 lbs. right now, ...

Ben Westhoff Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the Dalmatian mix he and his wife, Anna, adopted as a puppy in late 2009. We recently took Pippi back to the vet for the first time since her traumatic experience boarding there a month back. The poor dog got sick during her stay there -- either owing to missing us, fear of the noisy dog run or a bad reaction to a Lyme disease vaccination (nobody really knows). But upon our return, the workers there told us something we didn't know -- that Pippi refused to eat for much of the time. They had to feed her by hand! Perhaps this is arrogant of us, but we suspect the reason she wouldn't eat is because she missed us. ...

Ben Westhoff Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the Dalmatian mix he and his wife, Anna, adopted as a puppy in late 2009. Last night, in the midst of the most brutal rainstorm of the season so far, Anna took Pippi out to do her business. They were out only for a minute or two, but in between going No. 1 and getting drenched to the bone, Pippi sniffed something on the ground and promptly began devouring it. Anna wrenched the item from her mouth, but then she picked up something else and successfully wolfed it down. Whether these were bits of some old pizza, bagel or shoelace, we'll never know. If you have a dog, you've surely experienced situations where your ...

Ben Westhoff Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the dalmatian mix he and his wife, Anna, adopted as a puppy in late 2009. Pippi fancies herself an athletic dog. When we take her to the dog park or the home of our friends Dev and Lawrence -- who have a fenced-in backyard and a zippity-doo dog of their own named Moose -- Pippi will run around like crazy, chasing balls, sticks, her companions, whatever. She doesn't care, so long as she's permitted to run at top speed, without interruption, for hours. But we recently put her stamina to the test when we took her on a hike through the hills of Harriman State Park, near the New York/New Jersey border. In fact, for ...

Anna Westhoff Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the dalmatian mix he and his wife, Anna, adopted as a puppy in late 2009. We wrote last year about the trouble we had with Pippi's first vet. She seemed to make quick, unfounded diagnoses, and attempt to prescribe everything under the sun. Our new veterinarian is much improved, but we still had an upsetting experience recently when we boarded her there. Anna and I were vacationing in Florida for six days. In fact, we were sitting on a beach about to go kayaking when I got the call -- Pippi had become extremely anxious, someone from the vet's office said, and was vomiting and had bloody diarrhea. Her ...