Intoducing... Miss Mocha Chino!

Before I start I just have to say please forgive me for the lack of posts – as many of you probably know, I am a teacher and it is always hectic at the end of the school year! On top of that, I was finishing up three graduate courses and focusing all of my free time on my photography.

Recently, I assisted pet photographer Joseph Frazz, on a shoot that he donated his time and services to at Eleventh Hour Rescue (EHR) in Randolph, NJ. Joe was photographing the beautiful Mocha-Chino. While getting tips from Joe and helping him to get Mocha’s attention, I also took some of my own photos, which I will show throughout this post. 

happy to be out of the kennel

Mocha is a beautiful pittie mix who has been with Eleventh Hour for 2 years and 3 months. She was about 1 year old when she came to the shelter, and is about 3 now. While we’re not sure where Mocha was before coming to EHR, the story is that someone witnessed her being thrown from a moving vehicle (cue my intense rant about how much I f$&#ing hate people). 

Hearing that, you may not be surprised to learn that Mocha is weary of “strangers” (new people) at first. While she is nervous around both men and women, it is more so men. Generally, Mocha needs to meet someone 2-3 times before she lets her guard down and feels comfortable letting you touch her. Yet with just a little bit of time, she will love you more than you could imagine. 

Mocha loves her some Aunt Michelle!

Mocha is what many shelters call ‘dog selective’, meaning that while she isn’t ‘dog aggressive’ (aggressive with all dogs she meets), she needs to be introduced to other dogs properly and safely to see if they get along.

Michelle - who I may have mentioned in my first post as she helped me to adopt Madison – has a soft spot in her heart for Mocha and works closely with her to help to train Mocha and let her see just how great people can be – how loving, and trusting, and wonderful we really are. Mocha has made drastic changes in the years she has been at the kennel, and has become so much more trusting of people. 

At the photo shoot, I quickly learned that Mocha is nothing like Madison, in that Madison would give up anything to be able to chase a tennis ball, and she’d go all day, while Mocha couldn’t be less interested in chasing a ball. I was also amazed to see how well Mocha took to Joe and I (more so me, not to brag or anything ;-) hehe). Leaving Mocha alone, just letting her do her thing while we were present, Mocha would come up to Joe and I, sometimes jumping up to sniff our arm or lick us, or she would come right over and sit on my legs, allowing me to pet her. It was so nice to see how happy Michelle was to see Mocha’s progress, and I was so honored to have it happen with me! 

my face... haha

A few days after the shoot, I returned to the kennel with Michelle to take Mocha out, so that she could get used to me and I could be another person to take her out of the kennel. (Michelle often takes Mocha out during the week, but can’t get there on the weekends. I’m super close to the kennel and usually have my weekends free, so it works out perfectly!) Walking up to her kennel, I noticed a couple things: Mocha loves her “stuffys” and likes to show them to whoever comes up to her, and she smiled when she saw Michelle – something Michelle says she does every time she is able to go get her out of the kennel. 

Mocha liked the "stuffy" that Joe brought so much that he let her keep it :)

Mocha immediately did well with me, she must have remembered me. Michelle and I decided to take her over to my house to run around in my huge fenced-in backyard, as opposed to taking her to the park where she’d have to be leashed. Mocha was loving the freedom – there was a lot of sniffing and running around going on. Interestingly, Mocha also went right up to the slider doors to the basement, where my dogs were on the other side of, as well as the slider doors to the deck, where Jordan’s parents’ dogs were on the other end of. I think she wanted to play!

running free in the "run" at the kennel

enjoying the fresh grass at my house - "you're not a cow, Mocha! Stop eating the grass!"

Aside from sniffing around, Mocha would often “check back” with Michelle (or sometimes me!) to be pet or to snuggle up to us. I could tell that Mocha loves to snuggle up next to her people, which Michelle confirmed – she just wants to be near you. When I drove Mocha to my house from the kennel, she was leaning next to me the entire ride, while I pet her, trying to sneak in some kisses.

Mocha and I relaxing on my swing

I can’t understand why Mocha is still at the kennel after all this time – no dog should live their life in a cage, let alone one as sweet as Mocha. It seems that the biggest issue has been that she is ‘dog selective’. A lot of the people who are looking to adopt Mocha already have dogs. Mocha is working to get over her fear of other dogs, just as she has worked on her fear of new people. Mocha has fans everywhere -- a trainer in Sparta has kindly offered to dog test anyone who has a dog that may be interested in adopting Mocha to see how they get along. Also, once adopted, she has offered 3 free training sessions – awesome! 

However, if you would love for Mocha to be the “top dog” of your house, and are interested in her, please, check this sweetie out by contacting myself, Michelle (I can pass any inquiries along to her), or Eleventh Hour Rescue. You won’t be sorry – Mocha is loving, snuggly, and just adorably playful and is just patiently waiting for her fur-ever family.

silly little girl was rolling around in the grass like a crazed animal

will you be my fur-ever human?

Why, Jax?...Why??

I still remember the phone call. It was March 29th. I had just arrived in Long Island for my former college roommates baby shower (who just so happened to have her BEAUTIFUL baby boy, Brooks, this morning! Congratulations Lisa!), and it was one week from moving out of our apartment (thank GOD). I got a phone call from Jordan. I was surprised, as I hate talking on the phone and so we hardly ever call each other. The afternoon before we had our preliminary apartment inspection. “Well, we lost our security deposit”, Jordan said into the phone. What is he talking about? Oh my god, what happened? What did Avalon say?Turns out our latest puppy, Jax, who we had for 3 months at that point and who was approximately 6 months old, who has never chewed anything in those 3 months, chewed a hole in the carpet. Wonderful.

I was baffled, Jordan was mad, Jax was in the crate. I was also 2 hours away in another state. I asked Jordan to send me a picture and I said I’d figure something out when I got home that night. From the picture he sent me (see below), I thought “oh my gosh, he’s overreacting, we can totally fix that, no problem”. Wrong. The picture was deceiving. When I got home I saw the hole was giant, especially in the middle of our otherwise empty living room. It was approximately 4 x 4” and went straight down to the cement underneath it. Shit, I thought. We were supposed to move out in one week, and had just passed the preliminary inspection, as with my OCD-ness the apartment is pretty immaculate.









I also just really didn’t understand. Where did this come from? I had left that morning and he was fine, and even though I left, Jordan was still home, albeit sleeping. How did Jax go from chewing only on his toys to chewing a giant hole in the carpet? It didn’t make any sense.

I’d come to eat those words. Now, I’m surprised on the days when I come home to find out that Jax hasn’t eaten anything. Since moving into the new place, Jax has chewed more things than I can even think of at this point.

Let me clarify. Jax came from Puerto Rico, living off the streets, to our one-bedroom apartment that really wasn’t too big, and was on the second floor which made house-breaking him near impossible, as the whole idea with house-breaking a dog is to take them out in a timely manner. That’s hard to do when a puppy all of a sudden realizes it needs to pee, and you have to get his collar on (not to mention a sweater or jacket, as we were going through a polar vortex, and Jax who came from the heat of Puerto Rico would shiver and run back inside when stepping outside without the sweater I had to purchase for him), and then take an elevator down two flights of stairs. It wasn’t too fun, especially for the dogs, which I felt guilty about. NOW, we’re living in Jordan’s parents basement. His father works with construction and built an apartment in the basement so they can rent it out. It’s above ground and has sliders into the huge backyard that is completely fenced in, so the dogs can go out whenever they like, without a leash. The apartment is obviously one floor, and it’s an open floor plan, but it’s at least twice as big as the old apartment. You think Jax would be thrilled. You think he’d see it for the upgrade it is. Apparently not.

"All this is for me??"

The first sighting was when I was walking upstairs and saw wood chips all over the step. Peering down, I saw a giant chunk of the crown molding running up along the steps was missing. Besides the fact that we were renting, we were renting from Jordan'sparents who were doing us a huge favor by allowing us to save money while we house-search, so I was pissed. His parents are super easy-going, and laughed about it, thinking it was no big deal and something they could easily fix. We got a gate and blocked off the stairs so he wouldn't be able to get to the stairs anymore (save the time he jumped clean over the gate when he saw me walk over it to get upstairs).

A week or two go by and I'm grading papers at the 'desk' that is up against our sectional couch, and I receive a text from Jordan, "did you see what the little asshole did to my mini-keyboard/controller?" (it's an affectionate term, "little asshole"). I looked over and saw the teeth markings all over it. UGH! That thing was likely expensive, and Jordan used it all the time. Apologized, I did. Stupid Jax.

I had to make a quick trip to Target to pick up my photos I printed to the store, and thought I'd surprise Jordan with a real desk (our 'desk' was an end table that was very skinny). I'll be back in 30 minutes, max, I thought, so left Jax out of the crate.

I know what you're thinking, but I couldn't help it! I hate the idea of a dog spending most of their day  a crate, and I thought we'd be back so soon that he wouldn't have time to get angry or revengeful or whatever it was that was going on with him.

Cut to 2 hours later when Jordan's sister and I got back (oops). Wires all over the floor, I started internally freaking out. There could have been a fire!, He could have electrocuted himself!, What was he thinking?! Thankfully, kind of, it was only Jordan's mouse wire. It's okay, his mouse was fine! .... it just didn't connect to the computer anymore, as the wires were thrown around in little pieces on the wood floors. Damnit Jax.

I think we (I) made it up to Jordan a little bit with the new desk just for him, but I did end up finding out the hard way the mouse cost roughly $90. I'll say it again, damnit Jax.

Jordan and I have been together for roughly 2 1/2 years. For our 2 year anniversary in June, I made him this super adorable (if I do say so myself) "love book" titled "50 things I love about _____ from _____" (imagine mad-libs). It was so cute, and made me smile when I looked back at it, and it wasn't even for me! ...It doesn't make me smile anymore. I found it on the couch, under the couch, on the floor, and in the dog bed. See the aftermath, below. I was able to salvage most of it, but it's most definitely not the same.

Does anyone notice a pattern going on here? It seems to be only Jordan's things that are getting destroyed. Granted, I made the book, but at the time of the rampage, it was Jordan's.

By this point, Jax was only out of the crate at night, when he slept on the couch either with myself (I often fall asleep on the couch at night) or Madison. Then there wasn't much damage he could really do, right? Wrong.

Okay, so it's my fault. I'm an idiot. I admit it. Not even a week ago, I let the dogs outside on a beautiful day (fences are an amazing thing, I'll tell ya), and went to go to the gym. Jordan's sister was out on the trampoline with her friend, and I asked them to put the dogs back in the apartment whenever they came inside. Notice what I forgot? To tell her to put Jax in the crate.

I'm at the gym for about an hour when I get a text from Jordan's dad. "I was cleaning up outside and saw Jax chewing on what looked like a mouse pad. I took him out and then put him in the crate because we left".

GGAAAHHHH!!! What is WRONG with me?! An hour later when I got back, not only did I find Jordan's mouse pad ripped to shreds (thankfully it was free!), but also the papers I had brought home for NJ ASK. For those of you who don't know, I'm a teacher, and NJ ASK is a BIG deal (it shouldn't be, but I won't even get into that). It's the standardized tests that students grades 3-8 take in NJ, and the state is extremely strict about it with students and staff alike. This would only be my second year as an examiner, so I brought home all the information I was given so that I could refresh my memory.

Somehow, though the manilla folder was still closed when I got back, Jax managed to get the packet sitting on top, and rip it apart. Seriously, Jax, paper?! At least the book was hardcover.... what's so fun about paper? Thankfully the packet was just some directions I already knew, but I was beyond broken at this point. When was I going to learn? When was Jax going to have enough already?!

This leads me up to yesterday morning. The morning of NJ ASK testing for the 6th graders. I was sleeping in, rather than waking up to go to the gym, and heading to work early to make sure I was all set for my students. That is until Jax decided to wake me up at 5:30, when my alarm wasn't set to go off until 6:45. I ignored him. Big mistake.

Roughly around 6:30 I awake to the sound of chewing on what sounds like a plastic bottle. I know this because Maddie and Jax LOVE the toys that have plastic bottles inside them. A little too much, as they usually pull the bottles out of the toy. In my sleep-induced haze, I not-so-quickly realized that we don't have any plastic bottle toys right now, and that Jax was up to no good. Jumping out of bed, I see Jax on the couch (although he quickly jumped off, leaving the evidence behind, when he heard me), with our remote control. Chewed up, and pieces coming off. Completely unuseable at this point.

Needless to say, Jax now sleeps in the crate as well. If no one is home or awake and watching him, he's in the crate. I can't even feel guilty anymore. Not only is it incredibly frustrating for Jordan and myself, it also is not safe for Jax.

At one point I wondered if Jax had separation anxiety from me, and that's why he was chewing on things when only I wasn't home. He is very attached to me, and follows me around like, well, like a little puppy dog. But the remote control changed my mind about that. I also wonder if he isn't doing so well with the move, but logically it just doesn't make sense to me. This situation is so much better for him! I also wonder if he has some sort of oral fixation, or if that's even a thing. He chews and eats EVERYTHING when he's outside - plants, grass, sticks, anything he can find. It's exhausting.

I'm taking Jax to the vet this Saturday, hoping to get some answers, and also been in contact with a friend who works at a vet. I'm also contemplating with the idea of a "doggy boot camp" to see if it truly is just Jax "being a puppy".

Has anyone heard of issues like this? Any suggestions? PLEASE?!

Don't let this face fool you....