Welcome, Moose

Its only seems appropriate that with the arrival of Moose the puppy that I should revive the Chronicles of Roddick. Who is this Moose character, you ask? Well, that would have to be Matthew Charles Hanna's puppy that he pretty much dognapped from the Humane Society, of course! You see, Moose's story is one of persistence and determination. And of course, frat boy spontaneity. Mustafa Charles Hanna (full legal name) will be a legend, and this is his story.

Thursday, Dec 17th 2009. 4:36PM
New txt from Alex Beeker: "What's your address and landlord's name? Does your landlord allow dogs?"
I know something is up.
Me: "You're adopting a dog for state street?"
Alex Beeker: "Chuck is, we need a landlord's name that allows dogs."
Complete ignorance of concious road block #1, which is that their house does not allow dogs.

Thursday, Dec 17th 2009. 5:07PM
New txt from Chuck Hanna: "So I found the perfect puppy that I would love and care for, but you need to be 21." Complete ignorance of concious road block #2, which is that you need to be 21 years old to adopt a dog.
Me: "Are you asking me to adopt this puppy for you."
Chuck Hanna: "yes."
No, Chuck. There is no way I am going to adopt a puppy for you. It's one of those things you just don't do. It's like how everyone knows not to hold a stranger's luggage at an airport before going through the security scan. No.

Thursday, Dec 17th 2009. 5:09pm.
New picture txt from Dave Moldawer:


Damn. I'm sold. At this point if I said no it would be like telling Chuck, Beeker, and Moldy that Santa Clause doesn't exist. To Chuck, Beeker, and Moldy: if you are reading this, that was just a lie. Of course Santa exists! You can stop crying now Beeker.

Fast forward. Friday afternoon, Humane Society. Adoption fail. Apparently having another dog requires you to bring your dog in for a puppy interaction meeting. They also do call your landlord to make sure you can have a dog. Too bad having an extra dog means paying $20 more each month. Rent fail. I go to work, feeling shitty that I couldn't help them get the dog and that I just wasted 2 hours sitting in a smelly room. Still, I know this is just another roadblock, and I'm sure would eventually find a dog to adopt... maybe after college?

Friday, Dec 18th 2009. 6:10pm.
New txt message from Chuck Hanna:


It's literally 3 hours after we left the Humane Society. Chuck has hijacked the puppy. How you ask? Stay tuned, for Welcome, Moose (Part 2)!

Frisbee Fail

What a Party Pooper!

"Allison, exactly how irresponsible would it be if I crate my dog up in my car... and went to the bar?"

As I sat in Allison's room contemplating fun Tuesday night bar adventures, all I could think about was "well... what about the puppy?" It was one of those situations where nothing, no matter how hard you think about it, seems to be the right answer -- kinda like an LSAT games section question:

There is a puppy who is currently in location A. There is an Asian man and a 20-year old fake-ID yielding woman with said puppy in location A. Friends of both adventure-seeking people are at Charley's, a bar 1.2 miles away. The puppy needs to poop. Do you...
a) Take the puppy home, play, and go to bed.
b) Take the puppy with you, leave it in the car and find a DD after you get blackout.
c) Take the puppy home, walk him, play with him, coax him to bed, change, take a cab to the bar, and find that it is already 2AM, you moron.
d) Realize that having a puppy when you want to go out essentially sucks a fatty.

Though I was one of the arguably busiest kids on campus when I was still a student, one of the biggest issues I have run into with Roddick is actually time management. I mean, it's not just finding time to go on a morning jog or making sure he stops drinking water by 10pm so he doesn't get a doggy UTI holding it in all night. It's the fact that he's seriously cutting into my drinking time and I refuse to tolerate such nonsense.

As some of you know, I landed quite a sweet (legit) job in Ann Arbor, where my hours are 3pm-11pm, Sunday through Thursday (Friday/Saturday off). At first thought, it's a very weird shift... but given more thought, it's the best hours anyone coming right out of college could hope for. Theoretically, I could party until 5 in the morning, sleep a full 8 hours, and still have time to grab lunch before I would have to go, this also means I could literally party every single night. Though I wish I were that big of a party boy, I tend to become a lame homebody at times, so it would be a complete lie to say I drink every night of the week. Four or five times maybe, but definitely not seven.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there is a simple solution for this. If I go out, he'll be lonely. If I stay in, I'll be lame and sad and depressed and suicidal. If we both go out...


Alas, there doesn't seem to be a simple solution to this issue. I've resolved to make a compromise with the pup himself (we've learned to communicate in Esperanto) to mix it up. I have no problems with going home right after work and just relaxing (oh, growing up), but he's also gotta suck it up and be okay if I come back at 2am stinking of the bar and passing out in his crate (surprisingly easy thing to do... don't ask).

So, it's 11:10pm right now I am about to go out. What am I going to do, you ask? After all of this, I've hired a puppy sitter.

-tcoroddick

Pimp Daddy Rod

HERE'S a word of advice: if you want attention from a girl, get a puppy.

I recently brought Roddick to the Michigan-Notre Dame pregame festivities, where it finally dawned on me that my puppy had magical powers to make girls scream, cry, smile, and hit the big O, usually all that the same time. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Ann Arbor or the wildness of game day, WAKE UP, cause you're definitely missing out on life. Home games at the Big House always result in tens of thousands of people drinking from the crack of dawn until they enter the stadium, usually around noon or 3:30pm. What this ultimately translates to are a bunch of drunken freshmen who can't stand and mobs of girls dolled up in personalized maize and blue attire rolling from party to party looking for a good time.

Such large masses of girls have an uncanny ability to spot certain things: ex-boyfriends, the bathroom, the iPod so they can change the music to Britney Spears, and, as I have come to realize, puppies. Like the calm before the storm, you can feel them looking you up and down, eying the leash, then traveling down to a white fluff ball, at which point they will let out a banshee squeal and without a doubt ask, "CAN I PLEASE PET YOUR PUPPY?"

Case in point! Thanks for the picture Patty haha.

Now here's the tricky part, which is something I don't think anyone really thinks about when they assume with dog comes ass. Yes, my dog is a chick magnet, I get it. Yes, he can get the poon-tang to come, sure. But really, it's your job to get it to stay. You only get a 10-30 second window to make your move and get to know a girl --which is probably about the same amount of time at a bar-- before it's too late and she's making out with the guy next to you. Great practice for flirting on the spot, which, let's be honest, everyone could use a little more work in that department.

People have been congratulating me for getting such a chick magnet, even asking to borrow him to score some chicks. Now, before I start pimping out my own dog for everyone's libido booster, you also have to understand that the puppy isn't what will actually get the girl, it's you. Yeah, puppy = pimp, and pimp = cute girls (unless you're in Detroit, trick). However, cute girls + you with no personality = jack shit, so it can't be your only crutch. Much like guys who think that a nice car or designer clothes will buy happiness, they end up realizing that it's really about the person inside that people are interested in. I know, sappy dating advice, but it's true. The puppy is amazing for an ice breaker, but if you're expecting an instant hookup then you might as well just blow yourself, ya fool.

So, in closing, do I think my dog is a pimp? Yes. Has he been the reason for hookups? Maybe, but the last I checked she was with me while Roddick was in his cage, watching (creepy... another blog entry, perhaps??).

Now, before I go into crude jokes about "petting the puppy" and "playing fetch the ball(s)" I think I'll just leave you with a potential Halloween costume for Roddick this year:

At the Beginning...

AS I type this first entry, Roddick, my new puppy, is sticking his wet nose on my computer screen with an undying curiosity as to where the clicking sounds are coming from. He is my first puppy, and yes this is my first blog.

Though I have often chastised people for writing blogs, I guess I have finally found a reason for creating one. In a cyber world where millions of tweets and status updates are posted every hour, I know this will only just one thing you might check after your email-facebook-espn-sporcle routine, but if you do I promise you won't regret it. This will not be a blog of "Roddick learned how to play dead today!" or "Guess what I found in Roddicks poop!" but more so of the insights he has and hopefully will continue to provide me as I raise him. I guess you can call it a version of Marley and Me, but let's be honest, if you've met my puppy he's infinitely cooler. If anything, I will continually post pictures up of my puppy to make your heart melt by sheer cuteness.

I got Roddick at a Rescue Shelter two weeks ago, when he was just 8 weeks old. My father, or as I like to call him, Papa Yu, had promised me a dog if I had gotten into Stuyvesant High School, an elite prep school in New York. Nearly 9 dog-less years later, I think it's safe to say he dropped the ball.

I had just graduated college, traveled a bit, and got a job that allowed me to stay in Ann Arbor, MI. As I got comfortable with my newfound adult life and a thing called "responsibility," I thought it would be the perfect time to get a dog. Yeah, while you still haven't figured your own life out, why be the sole provider of another living being? Best and stupidest decision I have made in years.

Having sent in application after application to adoption agencies with no response, I decided to go on petfinder.com and look up rescue shelters. Not within 2 minutes I found a litter of 6 Border Collide/Australian Shepherd pups waiting to find a home. An hour later, Janie Deegan, a good friend of mine from home, and I were in my car driving to South Lyon, MI to meet the puppies. Needless to say, throughout the entire car ride all we could talk about were puppies, with giant grins on our faces.

When we got there, a tiny white dog with black spots around his eyes ran up to me. All his siblings seemed to give a rat's ass that we showed up. It was a sign he was the one!... or at least, I took it as a sign because I'm a sap for things like that. The process was remarkably easy. Deposit for the night, come back tomorrow to pick him up, $175 in cash (which all goes towards rescue fees). We drove back to Ann Arbor, directly to PetCo, where it suddenly dawned on me that I had no idea what I was doing. Doggy shampoo? Heartworm medicine? Puppy training pads? Shit. I bought nothing but a toy for him to play with on the ride home, and went home with the same thought that occurs after you wake up with your best friends girlfriend in your bed -- you know... "What the fuck was I thinking?"

Luckily, my momentary regret subsided and I got to work. I puppy proofed my new home (which is immensely difficult if you had just moved in two days ago, by the way) and read dozens of websites on puppy obedience training and though I'm slightly ashamed to admit, the online version of "Puppies... for dummies." Armed with newspapers for potty training, a crate to bring him home in, and a towel to keep him comfortable in the meanwhile, I picked him up and tried to bring him home. He wouldn't get into the car of course, so I had him chase me around the yard for 5 minutes to wear him out. Note to self, I need to start working out again... that fucker is definitely going to outrun me one day.

ANYWAYS... fast forward to today. Roddick just jumped on my laptop and attempted to eat it. This is my life now. Anything and everything could be destroyed and everytime he drops his tail could mean an impending whizz of urine on my rug. I've become one of those people that see impending doom around every corner. In other words, now I know what it feels to be a father, except it's moderately okay to let your puppy roll down the stairs and let's just say you can't necessarily do that with a child. Fatherhood has defnitely taught me so many things which I intend on sharing in the coming weeks and hopefully you will still want to read on.

I'm going to try and send this out to all my friends from high school and college, along with the all the interesting randoms I've met along the way. Family and friends, and maybe even coworkers. I hope you all enjoy reading some part of this blog, which after this entry I have decided will be a sort of mix between:

-Ridiculous things Roddick does
-Insights on raising a puppy
-Tips and pointers for future dog owners
-A way to keep in touch
-Photo documentation of Roddick
-Random thoughts on life.

I've never really had a reason to start a blog in the first place, but hopefully Roddick will supply ample inspiration. And to end this blog, below are pictures of the puppy. Welcome to... THE CHRONICLES OF RODDICK!