Ah, the joy of living close to wildlife. A stray dog had been frequenting our yard to dig, poop, and eat that poop. So I dial up Oakland’s Animal Control and they bring over a large wire cage and a can of dog food. No sweat. I figure the hungry dog would be trapped within minutes of catching the scent of food.

Wrong. It was smart enough to eat some of the food but not trigger the cage door to close. Nothing happens for another day or two and then suddenly, the rest of the dog food is eaten, but the trap hasn’t been tripped. Another call to Animal Control. “Toss a piece of meat in there,” is their suggestion.

I wanted results so I busted out some sausage for the cage. What dog could resist sausage? I’m convinced I’d catch something so I put the cage over in the dirt and mulch since I didn’t want an angry animal crapping all over our deck. Well, some smartass decides to dig into the dirt, get under the cage, and eat the sausage through the cage rather than going in. Wonderful.

So the cage goes back onto the concrete with some more sausage. I get woken up at 4:00am by Tam mumbling something about a trapped baby skunk. Skunk? Hell if I’m going out there to deal with that. I go back to sleep. Sure enough, we caught ourselves one sausage-eating skunk, much to Xander’s delight.

I felt really bad for the Animal Control team who had to come out to free the skunk. Not a fun job and no pleasant way to do it. Lots and lots of garbage bags were used to block the spraying. On the plus side, they caught the dog somewhere else and got it back to its owner.

Kayden went in for her 5 month checkup and reconfirmed that she’s a big kid.

• Weight: 17 pounds, 3 ounce (90th percentile)
• Height: 26.5″ (90th percentile)
• Head circumference: 16.75″ (75th percentile)

The big news is the doc gave the green light for her to start on solid foods. She was beside herself with joy. And again, I use the term “solids” very loosely. She slurped down that gnarly looking rice cereal mess with the quickness. I still remember Xander’s first few tries with solids…he didn’t quite know what to make of it all and a lot of it was running out of his mouth. Not with this one. She was attacking the spoon and getting highly impatient with the slow delivery of food. It got to the point where Tam was letting her drink out of the bowl. Well, what can I say? She’s definitely a Shih.

Here she is doing a food dance.

Kayden pointing to where the food goes.

And for the main event, Kayden eats…apparently it’s a spectator sport.

Two words: careful neglect. Plenty of that going on in this blog. So here’s a massively overdue update.

First, here’s how Kayden sized up three weeks ago on the massively lucky date of 8/8/08 (Olympics, anyone?) for her 4 month checkup.

• Weight: 16 pounds, 1 ounce (95th percentile)
• Height: 25.5″ (90-95th percentile)
• Head circumference: 16.5″ (75th percentile)

So she’s still doing pretty well in the eating department by holding steady in every category from last time. Here she is laughing evilly at something…don’t ask me…just stand back.

Kayden really, really wants to eat solid food. Every time she sees us eating, she smacks her lips and lunges at whatever food is in grabbing range. Xander, you may need to learn how to eat faster. Just warning you now.

It’ll be a few more months before we can actually give her solids, so in the meantime, it’s maximum gnawage on anything she can get a hold of. Toys, fingers, sleeves, and in this case, giraffes.

It’s a good life for Kayden and it shows.