Yesterday was another beautiful winter day. So while the girls and the dogs played, I took pictures until my bare fingers had all the dexterity of frozen fish sticks. (Which took all of ten minutes.) The camera battery and I persevered in the cold because, not only was it was a gorgeous day, but it has come to my attention that I share very few pictures of Trip.  It’s not that I don’t love my dog. Quite the opposite, I’d love to plaster pictures of him all over this blog and then wait expectantly while you tell me how wonderful and handsome he is.  But, taking pictures of Trip is a bit tricky…

Mostly they look like this:

Sometimes they look like this:

Occasionally I’ll get something like this:

But more often they turn out crazy like this:

My dog – he likes to run!  And if Trip thinks running is good, then running when you have something someone else wants is great.

This is Storm.

The thing Storm loves most in the world is balls (and sticks). Storm obsesses over balls to the extent that I worry that our girls will forever be inept at any sport requiring one because we don’t ever let Storm play with balls, or see balls or, heaven forbid, fetch balls. Ever.

No balls.

Trip, in addition to loving to run, is (and I am, of course, totally biased here) a very intelligent dog.

Once Trip has discovered that he is still confined to a mere handful of acres and not allowed to go check out what’s happening three miles down the road, he eventually settles down (relatively speaking) and decides to torment Storm instead.

Since there are no balls – anywhere- he goes for the next best thing. Apples. Where you ask, does a dog find apples in the middle of winter with a foot of snow?

On the tree of course. And if the last apples are out of reach, you just have to jump:

(In addition to his grand intelligence, my dog has an excellent vertical jump!)Ball like object found he proceeds to torment Storm by showing it off (as in above picture) and then racing around out her reach. This causes Storm to bark incessantly, and then get yelled at for barking.

This crazy behavior was not a one time event. Trip has been tormenting Storm with apples all winter.

My dog is a brat.

A smart, high jumping, brat.

Eventually, when Trip is done with the running and the jumping and the teasing, he can be found taking a nap in a sunbeam.

Which is when I can finally get my picture.