standard so used to looking at my dogs and there's so much smaller than than the oscar you were on last year and this is your one year anniversary with oscar on the on the show and purpose was to bring  back and have for you to tell the audience what what what's it been like and the impact by having a new job for a year basically the changes in your life the ups and the dials the dues and the downs and and really what you've learned because there are a lot of people in fact i run into them all the time who are thinking about getting a dog for the first time in a long time since they were actually kids right now that they're retired and they think well you know i have time to devote for to my animal so i thought i was really appropriate to bring you on in this to spread that message so let's let's back up a little bit why did you you retired what a year ago the law right june of two thousand and ten and i would have thought you would have traveled a lot and because you have a history of doing the right rate and all of a sudden you said i'm getting a dog and that's because he dropped into my life suddenly ok i had ordered the travel and then  my best friend called me maggie and she said tony my sister called me from toledo and she was looking for a rescue dog a lab black lab because hers had passed away but she found out they had doc since and i had mentioned to her sister once at a funeral that whenever i could i was going to get a doc's and and john because it's the family though i know it's not because i didn't have one when i was a kid and you don't you had so many of them and everybody else in the family even on my mother's side had  and so i went on petfinder and there was oscar and frankie they were brothers and or a couple others that somebody had gone into a puppy mill and rescued these dogs in this organization outside of toledo called animal house rescue and all the people there foster dogs and so he was in a foster home and so i went on and i fell in love with this picture and i emailed the lady back and forth and asked about his personality and she said he was very independent whereas his brother was very dependent and i kind of called people i think you are one of the people i call and everybody told me to take the independent dog since i was a little war in the pen and  so that's we drove out maggie and i drove up to toledo to the woman's house and picked oscar up spent about an hour at her house put oscar in the car and brought him back to get back what was the first the first cha suddenly had a realization of that now that you had had oscar well i certainly just couldn't pick up and leave and go wherever i wanted for as many hours as i wanted because that's what i was used to doing and you know and i had a little body at home and  he was kind of dependent you know he has his little quirks and issues being a rescue pop and a puppy you know sure they go through a tremendous amount of trauma and they certainly in fear and it takes a lot of overcome that i think he  he's very friendly and outgoing as you can see but he is own person and he wants to be the leader of the house and me having been the leader of my house for all these years and not going to give that up too much but i think he has  point i did find that i became a worrier over him i used to in my job i worried about the people who work for me and all the students all the time but now my focus was on him so  and he's very curious and got into things very early on like what for example very early on he chewed a part of this toy off and swallowed it so of course said call the vet and go down but i found out and then he throws those up peas and rocks and thrown those up so i guess the good news is i'm lucky he throws it all up so bad news is i like to sleep in and his throwing up with five o'clock in the morning isn't my thing but i've learned to adapt to them because i love them so much so i remember some of the stories and some of the phone calls for me about the things we got into and how much how many of those ended up going to the  for care actually to to out of all of that because i learn to as you go along i have to watch him i had given him a bully stick to chew on and then i turned around and four inches of it was gone and i knew it was in here so that was in a night run down to the vet so having them give him something to make him throw up and so you were up the whole right so i had to i've actually avoided surgery with him but i make sure there aren't things laying on the floor i can't keep my shoes on the floor with but he teases me with shoes he's not one to chew on the shoes he just likes to tease have you noticed as he's gotten older that some of the stuff is starting to  he's learned his lesson with some things that he won't shoe anymore sort of but he's still a chewer he's a very aggressive chewer so i'm i don't give him a whole lot of toys anymore i found that he really doesn't need a whole lot i think we tend to overindulge like their kids are slow and i found that he doesn't really need all of that so i let him have some play time with the toys but i watch him while he's playing with them and that is the way actually you can just have a toy with a dog and so your knock yourself out you know monitor and make sure that you know he's not ingesting stuff or ripping things apart because some of those really aren't that strong and well just got a good he's got a good group yes he does he took his blanket and there's an a fred edge or around the blanket  zag stitch and i saw him too and chewing and i looked in there just thread hanging and here so i go over to pull the thread out of his mouth before he swallowed it and i keep pulling you know the magician were the guys pulling the scarves out all the time i'm pulling and pulling and pulling in this thread is unraveling in my arms so i go into the kitchen being the the laugh and but they know i'm like a real detail person i get the yardstick and i measure it twenty one feet of thread he had down the stroke so yeah i still have to watch it not a good thing you know and that's just one of his characteristics you know some dogs could care less but so so  before before oscar you had your own routine right so how did your routines change he's had to change his routines for mine i don't know how that happened actually when i first got him he was getting up early in the movie and i'm not a what you would call an early riser at all i don't sleep til ten or nine or anything like that but i'm not a sixty five am person and he's actually adapted to the point that i have to get him up in the morning now he's lazy dog i think it's because he's so high energy during the day and his naps are very short that when he goes to sleep at like eight thirty he's done until nine the next day or so like what's a normal or rooting for you well let's see we'll get up in the morning and depending on what i have if i have a workout or i have a job to do because i do work part time then i keep him in the kitchen he's out of the crate now that was a whole nother experience was creating the dog and then gradually letting him be in the kitchen now he sees gauges in and then whenever i come home we walk as fast as we to kind of get that energy out of it he's anxious to go yes it helps keep me actually in shape he's done wonders for me on that in fact i've been on blood pressure medication for years and it's been chopped in half so i've got an oscar so this is a a great blood pressure reduce or for sure and then after that i'll do some quiet things in the house and maybe watch and monitor him with a toy depending on the weather he can go something for the house i'll do that or if i want to meet up with friends for lunch or dinner i kind of revolve it around his cab interesting change or just before i could take off any time and do anything but now i'm very cause cognizant of him yes i say the same thing all the time if i didn't have the dogs i would leave in the morning and come back when it's time the phone and i need to do that yeah but now i don't fact i turned down a job because he wanted me for over eight or nine hours a day and i'm like a regular and i can't leave him because i don't have anybody to come in and let him out and that type let's say exactly they give you a lot of love and a lot of companionship and they are fun and sometimes they are a hassle at the same time right there but it's true but it does change to change your lifestyle you know it changes the things you can do and not do you had all these years of no animals i mean i remember growing up you had you had a little doxy or big box actually bigger than a brown won the oscar but you went all those years without an animal and suddenly you bring oscar home how do you decide how did you decide what what food to see when you walk into a pet store you see bags and bags and cans and cans and all the stuff how did you narrow in on something that works for oscar my sister's had a couple of gold and retrievers so i talk to her i talk to my best friend and her daughter has rescued two dogs have been very severely injured and she's very much and like kolisch stick and good things and she's done a lot of research and so i called to talk to lives and asked her for some help i talked to you got your perspective on things and i kind of just made a decision i looked online i get scared some dog foods and i knew i wasn't going to be preparing everything at home i knew that that was a given so i went to the next best things and i tried out one with him he didn't like he didn't seem to like it he didn't eat it very well he wasn't it was affecting his stomach so i dropped that one and then i went to this other one and he's been on it ever since and i think he has a very healthy coat we walk every day i play with him out in the yard during the day i try to give him attention how you know they require a lot of it and they let you know when you're not getting it oh last night i was reading the paper and he was like he's a whiner he's a whining wiener i call anywhere and he was whining and i thought what's going on and then i was i said to him  play you know whatever to lay down and then he starts jumping up and pull in the paper i looked at the clock it was five to six and i made dinner for him every night at six so he wanted to know why i wasn't in the kitchen is  my fingers but he's not even he's a very good he's not a he was nippy when he was a pup but i don't it wasn't an aggressive nip i think one of the the neatest things i've discovered is there's kids next door to m neighbors and the young girl is sas and they did with dogs in the neighbor on the other side of them has two black labs one of which is a pop and oscar and oscar was kind of nippy but she can get in there with me and i just kept teaching her how to stay and how to put her hand to let him lick and teach him some commands and it's gotten to the point of she'll come over he waits at the door and when he sees her coming he runs for his little rubber ball he goes to the other and waits for her to come in they go out into the backyard he runs with it wants her to chase he won't do that with me he doesn't want me to chase he wants kate to see he loves her and i think he senses her energy style and her love for him and then they'll just sit on the grass and talk and she talks to him in places he loves her have you have you traveled since you had him yes with him or without him i both know when he was a pop i traveled down to my sister's out to feed him on the way or yes and he was fine yeah so i didn't have to worry about any of that some of the dogs get car sick i understand i tried it with not feeding him breakfast and on our first started he got so hungry during the trip and he never never affected him never really never had an issue because when i go someplace all about stopping a car window and there really not been an issue now i recently just for the first time i traveled without him and what did i do their whole eight days without him and tried him out a night before i left to see what his reaction was and what was excellent and loved it they loved him there i just love him because it only so loudly that has him isolated as he intermingled with other the other thing though with other dogs and he needs that interaction that ok because he's by himself all the time dogs are human but he loves being with the other dogs they can have a daycare there too so every once in a while i'll drop him off for about three or four hours he appreciate your little more so how did you feel being away from him for the first time for a day i was kind of nervous thinkin every night it was a you know was he ok the only thing that i think i worried about him the most was but i have a little fenced in back area for oscar and it connects to a cement patio goes around the cement patio and there's a shed that sits on there and he's been smelling stuff but not linking it to what that animal is so he was up in the fenced area up in the corner barking at a squirrel because he's fascinated with them and he can smell their sense because they jump through the fence and over in through the the poles of the fence so he's up there barking at the squirrel and i see that come down because there's something there he comes running he sees them well the one makes it over the fence as he's coming the other one starts to veer in i had the door open coming for me so i slammed the door and the little thing gets caught in the door so he comes in grabs the back feet pulls it out and runs around the yard with this thing and he's like you know the world this is going right i've got it i got whatever it is and so now don't know it oscar's looking at it and all of a sudden the get up and it runs and each starts to chase again and he goes through the fence and i have a drain pipe alongside the house it went in the drain pipe well he was n know since the one year almost what it will be year at the end of this month good decision oh great decision i know i don't regret it he's given me a lot of tears and a little bit of hard a hard day i found out that i'm a erotic mother and but i like to give him the space and let him play he's fun to play with he is really fun to play with he likes to chase the ball and he loves to tease he's a natural teen he knows where my shoes are and he'll punch the closet door in because it's an accordion type style and he knows if he hits it with his head enough he can open the door he takes a slipper or shoe and you hear him run down the hallway w wakes until i discover it and then he wants to say oh sure and he likes to run around with it for awhile he never damages the shoe or the chipmunk he never damaged the chipmunk and surprising it in the eye of a heart attack but he's very gentle you know he just smiles that he's almost like a retriever in that sense i spoke with your mom the other day and she said i just love the little oscar and i know your mom is about an animal lover by any means  so it's kind of amazing for me to hear that from or you know she's actually petting him and let him in the house he loves to go over her house and explore he loves her yard all new since he just loves going around the yard and so and she likes that because he's happy there and she also my sister has a british cream retriever and she loves splits he's very gentle so she's gotten used to both dogs she has no   be i think they're wonderful companions i think they teach you things about yourself that you didn't know they bring to light but they're an awesome responsibility not unlike having children well sometimes i think it's almost even worse because children eventually grow up these guys dick somebody said to me they stay two forever to two to three for ever so it's absolutely once you realize that that he's not going to grow up mentally like a kid or take on other responsibilities but the nice thing is you don't have to put him through college and i don't ask for the keys of the car it's that most true but not as expensive but  amazing you end up like doing so many things because you have dogs and how what you do how it impacts the dog right you take i go to places not more nearly what have gone just to get him out i went to a car cruise and peters where they had like all the chevy's down at the chevrolet dealer and i walked him around and of course he's a star attraction to lose that many people take them but i had a great time looking at cars that i that i didn't get to ever do before we went to the pas for the cars for the animal people love animals are pretty neat people you know and and they seem to have a lot of compassion and a lot of love and concern and that and that's what i find when i take my dogs out because car cruises like i go to all the time you  know they go right to the dog my girl right to the animal it's amazing when i am i take them on the arrowhead trail here in peters the people that stop and want to pet him and how they naturally get down to his level and then he just rolls right over me toso i took him to them on tour trail walk yeah that we did the twilight walk he absolutely loved that he had a great time full of color around them and a great time cracks me up when i'm up by myself without the dogs and i hear where  adventures and we're on number forty two or something by now and in fact one of the teachers just said to me i like i love reading those oscar updates they make my whole day so just like little quirky positive things  something like that you know that's like he was and he couldn't go out new york and play for a little while this morning because i was rushing him around yeah he was soon as i said we were going to go buddies in the car though he was he was ready to rock and roll so do you think you have you thought why did i have a dog all these years well i knew i didn't just because you're because you write always been busy but you're really kind of busy but i am but i can be part of my very eyes all around him and i have more time i mean i'm doing my part time work and doing what i have to do but it's really about him so you and i wanted to wait to have a dog so i can store really enjoy him spend time with him and he could spend time with me yeah my whole modus operandi so i waited until i had time i just didn't want to not see him all day i love being around him they're fun you know what i want a great great dog every once in a while you feel like ok guys i need a break but right that's what they are fun absolutely so you're always always learning new and experiencing experiencing new stuff but he's a absolutely beautiful dog so i have seen him for several several months actually and he's gotten to be a much bigger dog than i remember his twenty two and a half pounds we thought it was a mini when i first adopted him but he's turned out to be sees a standard docs and yeah he's a small  does have a genetic syndrome with his back legs they are both severely and we consulted with an orthopedic vet and talk we talked about his personality which was a portent of this doctor which i really liked and we talked about how he was getting around but he couldn't run jump play and his quality of life isn't hindered and he's a happy dog so the decision was made no surgery yeah i think any time you c avoid surgery this that's where to go right you know that's what they said you don't know what's going to happen they could affect his personality and that was and there's are tissues and damages that's unintentional when they do the surgery that all kind of things are going to happen right and so i felt i was pleased that the doctor looked at what kind of dog he was in which he happy and with his quality of life being affected so so going to a rescue agency was it was a better way for you to go as opposed to going to a pet store and grabbing so many of these animals out there who need a loving home in a loving owner and companionship and kids to take care of them why not so you would say that if you want to add some excitement and love and joy to your house rescue an yeah yeah yeah hey tony i thank you for coming on to bring an oscar that i wanted i wanted to get an update on yours your of oscar because i know how excited you were to begin with and i'm not too many more green years from last year we'll see you next time we have some interesting shows coming up one on food manufactured as well as making your own coming up shortly so i think it'll be an interesting show as well thank you class thanks for watching us talk healthy pencil see you next time