mattwalters.net

Posts: 2023 Year in Review

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 10:30:20 -0500

This year has really been all about Scout… Raising a puppy turned out to be more than we expected. He’s finally starting to settle on his own at night and will wander off to take a nap once in awhile. We did have to do enforced naps for quite awhile.

We also hosted Thanksgiving for the family this year and deep fried a turkey for the … 10th time I think. I got a new setup this year that seems wildly more efficient than what I had been using (which was basically this). If you ever decide to do this and are having trouble finding a nice space that is both open AND flat, I recommend getting a patio paver to set your cooker on. It gives you more flexibility in placement since you can basically make a flat space anywhere with one – just make sure it’s stable after you set it up.
Work has overall been fine. I moved to a new position (still at the same company) around March/April of this year. As you may remember¹, I generally don’t talk about work here though.

Looking forward to 2024 and hopefully starting to get a bit more back to normal. Between Covid restrictions being dropped and us going straight into raising a puppy at home, etc., we’ve still mostly been staying around the house a lot. It’d be good to maybe take a trip for a vacation vs. a “staycation”.

Year in Review Series

Though probably not since I update here so infrequently these days… ↩︎

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]

Posts: Scout's training

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Scout’s training has been slowly progressing and we’re finding it helpful in general. He now knows:

sit
(lay) down
spot (as in, “go to your spot” / place training)
paw / other paw
stay
recall is getting pretty strong (come)
starting to get the hang of leash walking

We recently started working with a professional trainer with him. He helped us with paw, strengthening stay, recall, and leash walking so far. The trainer has been great for giving us tips on how to simulate distraction and how to somewhat communicate with him and show him what we’re trying to get him to do.

Leash walking really just started this past week but the weather was not very cooperative, so there’s still work to do there. He seems to be getting it, and by it I mean not pulling and staying by us, but definitely still needs work. We’re not looking for a perfect heel from him, mostly just don’t want him to pull us everywhere he wants to go.

We do struggle with getting his attention back on us at times. I think some of that has to do with one of the challenges we’ve been having with diet … Don’t think I mentioned before, but one of the challenges has been that he’s had to be on a pretty restrictive diet because he kept having some … digestive problems.

We think this is from him eating some stuff in the yard, even though we fight hard to keep things out of his mouth. So we really only have his “normal” kibble (prescribed high fiber diet) to treat him with, no real “high-value” treats. We’re not allowed to give him anything other than the kibble. We’ve started slowly reintroducing new things, roughly once a week – which we’re doing because the vet wants to rule out food allergy.

We’ve started with carrots being reintroduced because we freeze whole carrots to give him. They seemed like a safe introduction, and freezing them helps soothe teething. Those have gone well this week. He just had his last vaccine booster, so we’re giving it a day or two and then we’re going to ty to reintroduce his yak cheese chew since he seemed to really like it and it’s something he can really gnaw on. After that, we’ll have a couple options for letting him chew and help his teeth out and maybe we can try to find a good high value treat next is my thinking.

We’re getting there …

Puppy photo tax (this is from his first snow):

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]

Asides: raising a puppy

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

So I recently added some “catch-up” posts about Scout and an album for him.

But it’s now about 2 months in. I just need to say, raising a puppy is exhausting. The “Puppy Blues” are a real thing. He is progressing and learning new things and of course has his moments of supreme sweetness, but I definitely thought this was going to be a bit easier than it has been.

I’ve had dogs most of my life. But most of the puppy raising was done by my parents and when I had my own eventually, I tended towards adopting full grown dogs. I either really didn’t remember how much attention a puppy requires or other puppy’s I’ve been in the house with were exceptionally easy (I think it’s a bit of a mix of both really).

We’re getting there, and we will get there. It’s just turned into way more than, at least I, expected.

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]

Albums: Scout

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 11:57:29 -0400

2023 02 14

2023 03 10

2023 03 15

2023 03 21a

2023 03 21b

2023 04 17a

2023 04 17b

2023 06 26

2023 09 08

2023 09 27

2023 10 09

2023 11 23

2023 12 06

2023 12 16

Chewing on an antler being like a wolf

Christmas gifts

Cute

First day home

Looking out the window

Lounging in the recliner

Lounging

Mischief

Playing with binky

Rainy days

Scouts first snow

Sleeping in the weirdest ways

Sleeping on chair while still small enough

Sleeping

Trying out his new bed

Who is that

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]

Posts: 2022 Year in Review

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Big snowfall in January. Got to use the plow to clean off the driveway and sidewalk which was fun :)

Promoted to Senior Manager at work as part of my performance review.
Brought Scout home

Year in Review Series

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]

Posts: Scout

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 05:00:00 -0400

Today we brought home Scout. He’s 8 weeks old. About a year and a half ago we lost Atticus, and named Scout as a bit of an homage to him / keeping with the theme, even though yes, this Scout is a boy. Atticus was named from To Kill A Mockingbird, and I would say lived up to his namesake with his kindness and loving nature. We’re hoping Scout can one day grow up to do the same. Big paws to fill.

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]

Posts: April 18, 2022

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 05:00:00 -0400

43 trips around the sun.

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]

Posts: 2 years working from home

Sat, 12 Mar 2022 10:46:34 -0500

Today marks the 2-year anniversary of when my employer sent us home due to COVID.

COVID-19 U.S. Stats for 2022-3-12
Total Cases:	79,641,006
Total Deaths:	966,978
COVID-19 U.S. Stats by date

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]

Links: paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx: A supercharged version of paperless: scan, index and archive all your physical documents

Fri, 11 Mar 2022 04:03:30 +0000

A supercharged version of paperless: scan, index and archive all your physical documents - paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx: A supercharged version of paperless: scan, index and archive all your physica…

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]

Links: Netflix categories codes - Find all categories codes

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 21:08:34 +0000

You probably know that Netflix is using a really strange system to categorize it films and tv shows. Here, you will find all secret codes for Netflix !

[Originally published at MattWalters.net]