Sam is always on the lookout for something new to chew. If he finds it on our walks, he’s a happy dog.

Sticks are good.

Plastic straws, too.

Sometimes a cup.

Or a plastic parfait cup (McDonald’s?)

He’s very proud of all of these things, but he really likes things that flap around when he shakes his head vigorously.

A Doritos bag is good.

His real prize is an old hedgehog left over from when Zeus, my last doberman, was alive.

He will eventually chew holes through this poor, old hedgehog’s skin and pull out all the stuffing. But don’t worry; we have a replacement hedgehog available.

Over the years I have brought home various stuffed animals for Leah, which we keep on a cedar chest in our bedroom.

Sam likes to chew on things.

I think you can see where this is going.

We have left Sam in the house many times since he came to live with us, and he has caused only minimal damage. He has chewed up several socks and a couple of Leah’s bedroom slippers, usually early in the morning when he gets up before us. He tore up a stuffed hedgehog dog toy, and he chewed on a little stuffed gorilla. No big deal. Then on Wednesday when we went for our weekly huevos ranchers lunch, he chewed up the face of the Valentine’s Day doberman I gave Leah, as well as Minnie Mouse’s foot and ear.

There’s not much we can do about it other than try to remember to keep chew-attractive items out of his reach.

Sam has made three trips to the vet’s office in the last three weeks. The first trip was to get him neutered. He had to be at the vet’s office before 9 am and, of course, he couldn’t eat before he went under the knife. We hadn’t taken him anywhere in the truck (we use the truck for the dogs so we don’t get the car quite so dirty), so I had to help him up into the back seat. That trip and the return that afternoon went without any problems. I had to help him into the back seat again, but that wasn’t a surprise since he was still recovering from the anesthesia.

The second trip was a week later to get his stitches out and to get a few shots. Again, I had to pick him up to get him in the back seat. Since he wasn’t going to have surgery, he ate his normal breakfast. And he threw it up in the back seat. He was very quiet about it, so I didn’t know when he did it. He tried to clean it up, but, unfortunately, threw it up again. I had to help him up into the back seat yet again at the vet’s office.

The third trip was Friday for more shots. He ate breakfast in the morning and we took him in around 3 that afternoon. He was not eager to get into the truck, so I had to help him up. When we left the vet’s office, Sam climbed right up into the back seat. I hoped he wouldn’t get sick again, and expected that if he did it wouldn’t amount to much, since it had been so long since he ate. But I was wrong about that. He threw up on the return trip about a mile from the house. And he threw up a lot. It seems that a dog keeps his food undigested in his stomach for quite a while.

So now we know that Sam gets carsick. We don’t know whether it’s motion sickness or nerves. We need to try some trips to places he will enjoy rather than to the vet’s, where they cut and stick him. Zeke and Lucy both love to ride. It will be very inconvenient if Sam can’t ride without getting sick.

But what about the title to this post, “boxsky”? While Sam was getting his shots on the last trip, the vet told us she thought he was a boxer-husky mix, so, “boxsky.” (I didn’t coin that name. I found it online when looking for pictures of boxer-husky mixes.) She said he gets the boxer’s brown and white coloring, especially the streak up his nose between his eyes, and he gets the husky’s blue eyes, ears and general shape. I had my doubts, but when I googled “boxer husky mix” I found some images that convinced me she is probably right. The images are mostly copyrighted, so I won’t show them here, but this site shows images for several boxer mixes, including one boxer-husky. If you google as I did, you can see another image of a boxer-husky mix wearing a pink harness; this dog looks amazingly like Sam.

Here’s a shot of Sam from Saturday for comparison.

People always ask us what kind of dog Sam is when they see his blue eyes. Now we can tell them, but I don’t think I’ll say “boxsky.” I think I’ll say either “bosky” or “huxer.”

I’m going to ask the vet what she thinks Zeke is when we take him in for his shots.