Ahhhhhhh!!!

Nov6

A snuggly dog, warm toes and, most importantly, a hot fire in the wood stove …
Tired dog, warm toes and a hot fire! … life is good!

House Breaking vs. Potty Training

Oct9

Jane is in the final phase of potty training. If she were a puppy it would be the time when they occasionally have accidents in the house and it’s usually your fault. Because even though they ask to go out most of the time sometimes they are just too distracted so you still have to be the one to pay attention or you’ll have another pee spot on the carpet.

But I was talking about potty training kids, Jane in particular. So I should say that this is the time when she occasionally has accidents and it’s usually all my fault. Because even though she goes all by herself most of the time, sometimes she is just too distracted so I still have to be the one to pay attention or I’ll have another pee spot in a terrible and ridiculous place.

Which is the main way potty training children is different than housebreaking dogs. (That and kennels. I hardly ever use kennels with the kids.) When a puppy has an accident it pees on the carpet. The only time it won’t pee on the carpet is when it goes on a rug but this will only happen if the rug is so large that it won’t fit into the washing machine. A phenomenon that is annoying but at least predictable.

Jane, has accidents in more unusual places. We hadn’t had one in two days until she crawled inside a locker at the pool. Cleaning carpets has none of the embarrassing factors that weaving through a mass of moms and kids in various states of undress with gobs of pee soaked paper towel does. And for that, I love puppies.

Another two days accident free and Jane, dissatisfied with the five unoccupied chairs, crawled onto the dining room table to play with the Legos. And then flooded it all. Pee on the table. Pee on the centerpiece. Pee on the chairs. Pee on the Legos. Pee on Jane. No pee on the please-sign-up-to-bring-stuff-to-the-fall-party-sheet Ivy brought home from school. A puppy would have peed on the carpet and then eaten that paper, saving me lots of trouble. And for that, I love puppies.

And yes, of course, I love Jane too, even when she pees in really terrible places. (I’m not even going to tell you about the poop – your welcome for that.) I was even going to put pictures of her in this post but then I was having too much fun finding puppy pictures!

Digby Dog

Oct6

Our favorite doggy friend Digby was here for a few days.

We started watching him just over a year ago…

…he’s bigger now!

But that just makes him extra lovable! Digby and Ivy

Storm – The Amazingly Dense Dog!

Aug9

Storm isn’t really a snuggley sort of dog, so much as a the-bed-is-comfortable-and-I-want-some sort of dog.

Many nights, while I am reading in bed, she crawls up and falls asleep near my feet. Which is fine – until I’m ready to go to sleep. I put down the book, turn out the light, curl onto my side and pull the blankets up over my shoulder- and the blankets don’t pull. They are stuck under fifty pound sleeping dog, fortunately I’m an in-shape sort of lady – I’ve got muscles. So, I shove my feet under her hoping to either annoy her off the bed (that works for Trip) or shove her over the edge.

But Storm doesn’t so much as budge.
DSCN8221-(2sm) I was puzzled for a long time how a medium sized dog could grow to mastiff sized proportions in her sleep making it near impossible to push her off the bed. Now, after many nights of study, I’ve got it figured out.

As soon as she gets the slightest hint from me that I’d like her off the bed Storm continues to “sleep” while pushing her head down into the bed as hard as she can and noodle-izing the rest of her body. That way if I stick my feet under her belly or shove at her middle, she is still firmly attached to the bed at both ends. This density-increasing technique of her’s seems to effectively double her body weight – at least.

I always win the who gets the bed war, (you can see she’s on the couch in the photo) but I’m hoping she never teaches the kids her density-increasing technique in retaliation for getting kicked off every night. It’s tricky enough getting those girls out of bed in the middle of the night, if they turned into NFL players in their sleep we’d be doomed!

It took me all week to stay up late enough to get a picture but this is what goes on at our house around one am. I am again linking up with Northwest Frame of Mind and her 1 Day 1 World project. Click over to see who else was up in the one o’clock hour.

Note: For those of you who are sticklers for accuracy (Hi Honey!) Yes, I am aware that the dog isn’t actually increasing her density and NFL players weigh much more than twice what our kids do.

Hay Field Magic

Jul10

It was years ago when I followed the ghostly white patches on my dog through the trail in the woods.

The trees blocked the moonlight and only by occasionally calling out to Piper could I keep her close enough to see, as she guided me down the path. It was the route we walked every night. And as we had done so many nights before, she cut to the side, through a narrow opening in the brush and ran out into the neighbors hay field. I followed, watching my toes, stepping over the fallen log out into the open field and looked up stunned.

The field was a mass of golden lights, slowly rising into the sky.

Thousands of fireflies lit the air. Each of them flashing one long golden stream of light as it rose up into the night, only to settle back to the ground and begin again. A bunch of bugs had turned a humble hay field into effervescent magic. The two of us continued our walk. Piper trotted through the rising lights and I followed, soaking it in, hoping to remember forever the night we stepped out of the dark into a field of light.

It is again just that time of year, the rising one blink fireflies are out. Not as many this year and the white spots on the dog I now follow through the dark run too fast to use as a trail guide. But every year at this time when I see those slowly rising, one blink fireflies I remember Piper and one very special night.

After nine the fireflies came out and I headed out to lock up my birds, camera in hand, hoping to get a picture. Instead I got a swam of mosquitoes up my nose. I decided it was probably better this way. My night time photography skills aren’t up to illustrating this story even if there were enough fireflies in the air. But picture or no I’m linking up with Northwest Frame of Mind again this week. Click on over and see what else people have been up to in the nine o’clock hour!

Shake It Off

Jul7

How was your holiday weekend?

Were you as lucky as we were and able to turn it into a weeks vacation?

A trip with family and friends, canoeing and fishing,

swimming, and running,

kite flying and picnicking,

Yup, we picnicked with our Foosball table- cut the grilling operation out of the picture- everybody knows what that looks like!

fireworks and all?

Are you still in the habit of lazy days, afternoon drinks and delicious dinners?

If so, take a deep breath, savor the memory of reading in the sun and shake it off.

Because, if you are like me, you are home alone with kids used to constant company and entertainment and there’s nobody else around to help with dinner.

The vacations over – Trip shaking -just shake it off!

Happy as a King

Jun26

“The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”

-Robert Louis Stevenson

The yard is bathed in a golden glow as the sun makes it’s way toward the horizon. The kids are swinging on the rope swing and Trip is a happy dog.

The burrs behind his ears (and is that a slug on his head?) say that it was cool enough that he just got back from a romp through the woods. He happily runs up to me to say hello before he disappears again and I’m enveloped in his terrible breath. Without a doubt it’s from the maggoty chipmunk I took away from him earlier. And, while it’s not yet evident in the picture, I believe his happy smile may be seen as evidence that he was already plotting his evening roll in the neighbor’s newly spread ~~sh…~~ fertilizer.

Yes, my dog’s world is full of a number of…things, and he is happy as a king!

It was right in the middle of the seven o’clock hour when I was out taking pictures of flowers in the perfect evening light and my stinky dog came by to visit. So I’m again linking up with Northwest Frame of Mind and her 1 Day 1 World project. Click over to see what else was happening around the world in the seven o’clock hour.

You Know Your Kid Spends Too Much Time With The Dog When…

Apr7

… they start sleeping in the same unusual position.

While Storms preferred sleeping arrangement is upside down in a recliner I’m pretty sure this was the first time Clara slept in one. Perhaps after watching Storm sleep that way so often she just though that was how it was done?

Sadly for Storm her favorite recliner didn’t make the move to the new house so she’s had to adapt her favorite sleeping position for the couch.

I’d say she’s made the adjustment flawlessly!

A Tricky Subject

Feb10

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.