We're Baa-aack!

I couldn't resist. I just started to look through the 631 photos I took on vacation in the U.P. last week (yes, I may have a problem) and one of the first shots was this stellar catch of dogs at play. Yes, Lexi is completely in air, like Lucy. JB and I have talked about doing a vacation top 10, so I will post more photos as we post our list, but I just had to share one...

(the girl in the photo is JB's second cousin, Clara. Or first cousin once removed. Something like that. A nice girl.)




Oh my gosh. I just found more "dogs having fun." Agh. Will have to do "dogs having fun" post.

Oh, yeah, and we humans had fun, too. :)

Dog Wrangling

We're dog wrangling this weekend.

Olivia is thrilled.










(And not the least bit scared that the dogs are playing Wrestle Mania on her blanket.)

Loony Lu Lu

Lucy is a Looney Tune. Since bringing Olivia home her temperament seemed to changed for the better, but lately she's been up to her old antics again, so perhaps she was just in hibernation mode for the winter.

On Wednesday I leaned down to give her puppy pets when at the same time I smelled and saw death. Streaked down her puppy fur. Where the heck did she find a dead animal? I wondered. She had only been cruising around our very small yard, and I would have noticed a dead animal there.

Nonetheless, I marched her downstairs to the tub and a bit of Drama Clean shampoo. Generally after a bath Lucy will run into the living room to dry off (after I have thoroughly towel dried her--apparently this is not good enough for her). She'll do these running dives onto her side and then wiggle back and forth on her back in an attempt to rub off the water. It's quite a loud ordeal, as she dives into the floor with great zeal.

This time, however, I guess she wanted to try air drying instead. This consisted of running wildly around the house, throwing herself into the ground at regular intervals, and then racing into another room. Downstairs, upstairs, downstairs, back upstairs again, round and round. Leaping onto furniture only to leap back off--a sort of Lucy-style hairdryer, I suppose.

Did I mention that Olivia had JUST fallen asleep?

So this lunatic dog is wreaking all sorts of havoc and I don't really want to yell at her because that, too, could wake up the baby.

Instead, I ignore her and pick up a can of WD-40 and spray the squeaky hinges in our side door. The squeaking had gotten quite out of control, though JB claims he never noticed it.

When Lucy sees me at the door she gets really excited and stops her flying dog antics. She instead jumps up and down excitedly at the door, thinking I'm going to let her back out. That I'm going to let her back out, as a wet dog, to roll into the death again.

In order to oil the hinges on the door, though, I have to open and close it several times. Each time I open, Lucy braces herself, muscles tense, waiting for me to give her the "release" command.

As I open the door I look at her. She's ready. Her muscles are about to jump out of her skin. She sees me open my mouth, words start to come out. Her muscles leap into action because the only plausible thing I could be saying at this point is, "Free." In the split second her body starts to move toward the door she hears, "Sit!"

Agh!

So she starts to run backwards to sit down. Then I change my mind because her sitting there will be in the way so I decide to also say, "Go back upstairs!" This further confuses the dog, and we get into this little dance of me saying, "Sit! Stay! Go upstairs!" while opening and closing the door several times, and her little doggie body trying to respond, while at the same time trying to sneak outside before I holler another command. It was quite exasperating, but it seemed to help her dry off.

So we get to an understanding. Lucy is sitting by the door, not going out, no matter how many times I open that door. Then I slip outside to look at the hinges from that angle and she bolts out right after me.

Devil dog!

Devil clean dog with damp fur ready to absorb dead animal guts!

Yes, Olivia is still asleep, and her bedroom is at the back of the house and she will probably hear me yelling, but I have to do it anyway.

Lucy races to the garage, her latest hangout, as there is a chipmunk that lives in the garage walls that is constantly vexing Lucy by hiding in them right as she's about to catch him. But she hears me yell her name and she turns around.

It's a doggie vs. master standoff. Her legs are spread, ready to run, I can see her little heart pounding at the exileration from escaping. She's watching me, waiting for me to falter. I stare her down. I say to her in a low voice, "Lucy! Come!"

She stares back, considering the distance between her and I. There is enough space, she decides. Without breaking eye contact, she drops one shoulder to the dirty cement, and then defiantly ROLLS INTO THE DIRT.

I race after her. "Lucy, NO! STOP!" As I reach the garage she runs around the car, now thinking that we're playing a game of chase. Eventually she bolts to the backyard, to the freshly laid, wet wood chips that JB put down last night (and where, I later realized, the dead animal remains must be).

Lucy is ready to roll and I'm ready to murder.

I guess I must have gotten my Dog Whisperer voice right because when I say, "Sit!" she does, and waits for me to scoop her up. Fortunately she did not get that dirty from rolling in the garage floor, so she did not need another bath.

Thinking that all is well, I let her shoot off into the house. She quietly disappears somewhere and I'm left with a few moments of peace to finish the project that I'm working on for Austin and Lauren's wedding present. Marian and I have put our heart and soul into this gift, and I was doing my final part, which involved writing something very neatly and beautifully in fancy script. I had written this thing out several times, trying to get it just right. I had finished what I thought was the final draft and went looking for it. I had asked JB to proofread it for me before I made it official, so I went to our bedroom to find where he laid it.

Lucy was already in our bedroom, perched on the very edge of our bed, looking out the window, on "Squirrel Patrol." She was perched on the edge of the bed, right where JB had left my beautifully written project.

And Olivia is sleeping in the room next door so I really shouldn't be screaming right now.

But really, dog, COME ON!

Fortunately for her, before JB left for work he said that I should redo the writing with a different font, so Lucy had not wrecked anything.

It is also fortunate that she loves my sleeping baby, and happily plays with her and lets Olivia pet her. So I will keep Lucy and not kill her. For now.

Tree Rats

Spring is HERE people! At least for a few days. Last weekend JB raked the yard of leftover oak leaves and now we can see bits of green peeking out all over our garden. The sad thing is that there are still oak leaves left on the ground (only about a few, but annoying all the same) and even more still in the trees. Never willingly grow an oak in your yard! I picked so many acorns out of our garden that I started to wish that they could be sold on the black market. A nickel an acorn would make JB and I set for life. A friend suggested we spray paint them gold or something and sell them to Michael's as a craft item. Sadly, I don't even think Michael's would want our acorns. And apparently the squirrel army that has amassed in our backyard can't even absorb them fast enough.

They are quite the fat and happy bunch, as they have acorns for life, plenty of tree branches to play in, and a dog that merely chases them away, but never catches them.

I've watched fierce old Lucy lately. She's wicked fast. Fast enough to catch just about any squirrel. So why hasn't she? She's a scaredy cat! She will shoot off after those tree rats like a rocket, and once she's close enough to bite them, she literally hits her doggie breaks (the mulch in our gardens spraying into the air) and lets them get away. Or she'll run past them and circle back, pretending that she was too fast for her own furry good, unfortunately causing her to squander her chance at a squirrel sandwich.

Whatever, Lucy. You don't fool me. And I don't think you fool the squirrels, either.

Those squirrels are even luckier that they don't live in the country around here. Rural squirrels are lean and sinewy, but these city dudes are plump and juicy looking. And after a recent Meijer trip (the Cascade Meijer, again, mind you!) I'm thinking these guys wouldn't make it very long beyond the safe confines of our nutty backyard.

JB, Olivia and I were making our way down the checkout lane a few weeks ago when Olivia started to get fussy. JB pushed the baby in the cart to the end of the lane to pick up our groceries as they got bagged and to try to pacify Olivia. I was chatting with the clerk, a woman with short blond hair who seemed to be in her 40's. She chuckled as she scanned the giant plush squirrel that we were getting for Lucy, which we needed to replace the smaller squirrel that Lucy had removed the legs of. Old squirrel couldn't really put up a fight without any legs so JB and I agreed that it was time to let him go to the big oak tree in the sky. But Lucy wouldn't let us get away with that until we offered a replacement.

JB sees the clerk with the toy and hears me say something to her. Then she says, "....we cut the tails off and our dogs LOVE it!"

"Huh?" JB wondered. "Why would you buy a plush squirrel and just chop the tail off for your dogs? Wouldn't they choke on it?" (This is paraphrased, but as JB is downstairs right now, I'm giving you the general idea.)

Then he hears, "Our cats and our dogs, it's like catnip to them!"

He finishes bagging our groceries, I pay, and we leave. Later that night I said to him,

"Did you hear that the checkout lady was saying to me today?"

"Sort of..."

I told him the story and he cracked up.

After the woman scanned the stuffed squirrel, she laughed, and I said, "I know, it's a weird toy, but our dog loves it."

"No, I'm just laughing because it makes me think of our dogs. See I'm from the country, and out there--now this may sound weird to you--but out there we kill squirrels and eat them. So what we do is when we get a squirrel we cut the tail off and give it to our animals. Our cats and our dogs, it's like catnip to them! It's got that real gamey smell. And when they shake it, you know, it shimmers. They go crazy for them." Her eyes lit up as she told me. Watching dogs and cats fight over a squirrel tail must be quite entertaining. Actually, I'll admit that I'd probably get a kick out of it. While being disturbed at the same time.

I laughed. Then I wondered what "country" she was from, and why she was working in the CASCADE Meijer and not the Lowell or Ionia one. She's quite lucky that she had that conversation with ME, a girl from another hickville. And while I do not identify myself with squirrel eaters, I respect a person hunting for his meal. Well, I think I draw the line at rodents, but whatever. I just hope she doesn't open up like that to everyone, because people could complain and she'd have to hunt twice as many squirrels to make ends meat. Too bad shooting guns in the city is illegal, because if she stepped into my backyard, she could have a squirrely hayday.

And a few hours later, apparently so would her cats and dogs.

1.) "Once upon a time I was shopping at the mall with Annie.
And this was last Tuesday."

This was the start of a story that I was relaying to JB last night. He told me to post this on the blog.

2.) Dog sitting is over. Uneventful! Well, except that Maggie is so old that our hardwood stairs are tough for her, so JB had to carry her up at night for bed. Lucy was unnerved by this and barked loudly at JB when he picked Maggie up once, so he punted Lucy (don't worry, she's fine). She didn't bark at him again.





3.) Sister Annie has moved back home. Boo! She got a job as a store manager at Macy's in Port Huron, so that's good, but this means that she's gone, and we miss her.



4.) Since Spring is coming, along with a muddy yard, Chewba got a haircut. She looks like a puppy again! She is also feeling just as energetic as a puppy and yesterday when Marian, Olivia, the dogs and I went for a walk in the old orchard, Lucy raced around like a little jackrabbit. Run, run, run!!! Both Lucy and I were quite muddy after the walk, because even though it's only 20 degrees outside, the sun was making the path muddy. Marian washed Lucy's muddy paws before we got in the car, but my jeans would have to wait until I got home. A few minutes into the car ride I smelled it. Poop. Agh! The car STANK! Since Lucy's paws had been washed I assumed it was me. It was almost unbearable. At first I thought it was dog poop. But it had this "woodsy" feel to it. So I decided it was deer poop. No, that wasn't it... Hmm...

I considered just what kind of feces was making me feel so nauseous as I drove down Burton with Lucy sitting happily in my lap, a big adventure behind her. Then it hit me.

I wasn't smelling poop at all.

It was dead animal.

And it was all rubbed into Lucy's back, which was 6 inches from my face.

Agh!!!

"You stink, Baby Lu!" I told her. She did not react. I think she was too busy dreaming about the Drama Clean shampoo waiting for her at home. :)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, to you and yours. May you be as thrilled over a $3 gift. :)

Naughty-cute

Last night after I brushed my teeth, I told JB that I was off to bed. "I better get in the bedroom soon because I think Lucy is in there and I gotta make sure she's not peeing on the bed," I told him. (Though it's been a while, she HAS peed on our bed--NOT COOL--so she is usually banned from our room unless supervised.)

JB said that he saw her in there and she hadn't peed on the bed. "But she is doing something naughty-cute," he told me. "You'll say you're mad, but I think you like it."

I marched into our room, and this is what I saw:



She is laying on MY pillow. And JB was right: it IS naughty-cute. Of all the places in the bedroom to lay, she chooses MY PILLOW, probably because I'm the mom and she loves my smell. This is sweet of her to love me like that, but really, I lay my head there, dog. And apparently when I'm not around, you lay your butt there. I was not mad this time because fortunately, I had given her a bath since earlier that day she was doing this:




Lucy is digging to China. She is quite fervent about it, as you can see. As a matter of fact, I need to quit blogging right now because I just realized that I've left her outside for quite some time and I am concerned that she has resumed excavations (she's been awfully quiet out there) and I really don't feel like giving her another bath...

Hilton house wrap-up

A few notable moments from our stay at the Hilton:

Photographing plants:

Marian asked me to photograph her peonies as they bloomed, and of course I couldn’t resist shooting her other flowers, too. I was greatly intrigued by what I called “space needle” flowers. They were flowers without petals. I
took many photos of them. When Marian returned this weekend I commented on them. “Oh, those are aliums that have already bloomed and lost their petals,” she said. Agh! I’m a lame brain! I thought she had some rare funky species of outer-space flower or something!

Killing plants:

One of my jobs was to keep her indoor plants, front porch plants, back porch plants, garden plants, and vegetable garden plants alive. Most things that were planted in the ground survived. The potted plants did not fare so well. See this beautiful one? Yeah, it shriveled up by the time I was done with it. Marian was good natured about my murders and was also very patient as she taught me (again! I’m a slow learner) about how to care for potted plants. I am determined to get it right! (Says the girl who killed almost all of her own houseplants this last winter when she was sick!) I also was so unobservant that I totally missed the chipmunk and groundhog infiltrations in her vegetable garden. I could blame it on pregnancy brain, but honestly, I think the problem is my general “blondness” that rears its ugly head once in a while.

Breaking Appliances:

The water heater broke with a week left to our stay. And they don’t make that kind of heater anymore, so the new one will take almost 2 weeks to come in. Of course, the water heater broke on the day that we had out-of-town friends stay the night. Bathers were subject to what my family calls “Lake Superior washes.” Eee! I was not one of those bathers. I am not brave. I went to my own house for showers when I could.

A few days later, after a really long day of hard work, I sat down to watch an hour of TV before bed. And the TV broke. Agh!

So there we were, out in the an old antique house, no hot water, a broken TV, no normal internet or normal working computer. We were roughing it! Haha.

After that I was afraid of some other catastrophe—you know, things come in threes. I kept a wary eye on the dogs, lest they befall doggie malaria or something. I certainly was not going to let a dog be the third blow!

Dog watch:

Marian said that I could cut Maggie’s hair. I was so excited! I love stuff l

ike that! And Maggie was a total peach about it. She LOVES people attention. Here is a shot I took of her before I trimmed her mane. Look, it’s Aslan!! J (Maggie is not a natural model like Lucy.)

Here are some shots of the dogs playing “Launch.” (For a gross story about a Launch game snafoo, read “Ruiner of Fun.”)

Birthday boy:

JB celebrated his 28^th birthday. Happy Birthday, Jeddie!

I tried to be a good wife by making him his favorite cake: spice cake with homemade pneuka frosting (a brown sugar frosting). Well, his birthday fell at the beginning of water heater drama and I was just crazy busy and ended up jacking up the frosting—I didn’t have enough to spread around and when I tried to spread it farther, I ended up pulling up part of the cake and it got smashed in the frostng. I told him that I had made him a Kindergarden Cake, because it looked like a Kindergardener made it. He said that we could just make more frosting and put that on. So we did. It still turned out looking like this:

The Ruiner of Fun

One of the dogs’ favorite games to play at the Hilton is tennis ball chasing. It goes like this:

I get out the tennis ball slingshot. Lexi and Lucy go beserk with excitement. They both spring off all fours straight into the air, several times, until I can get around to shooting a ball. It is quite impressive to see Lexi do this, since she weighs about 90 lbs. She really gets some air. Lucy jumps so high that her head hits the slingshot and if I’m not careful I could shoot her in the face.

I shoot a ball. Lexi takes off like a speeding bullet, but Lucy shoots off like a firecracker, way outrunning her, and gets the first tennis ball. She races back to me before Lexi has even turned around and tries to make me want the ball.

“Haha! Look at me! I have the ball you just threw! And I’m not giving it back! Chase me, I dare you!”

I launch another ball. Lucy again beats Lexi to the ball, but since she already has a ball in her mouth, she can’t retrieve this new one. Lucy races back to me with the original ball in her mouth, still taunting. Lexi gets the new ball and brings it back. And drops it like a good dog. And I launch it again.

We go on like this for quite a while. Lucy basically is running in a circle the whole time, delirious with excitement. And Lexi plays catch with me.

So on Tuesday we were in the middle of a game when Maggie, the old geriatric dog, saunters out of the woods to take a dump in the middle of the yard. In the middle of our play area.

Why didn’t she do that in the woods?!???

I felt like I was in one of my slow motion nightmares, where your body just won’t move fast enough to divert the horror that is about to take place in front of you.

Lexi and I are in a dead heat to reach Maggie. I tell my legs to run faster, but they don’t. I holler at Lexi, but it’s not loud enough. Lexi has dropped the ball and is racing with reckless abandon toward her prize. I am too late.

I don’t know why I kept running to get closer to the crap pile. It’s not like I could ever outrun a lab. And before I can avert my eyes they are accosted with the grotesque scene of Lexi gulping down hot, steamy, fresh dog excrement. Purely vomitous. I scream and yell, but she doesn’t give a shit, no pun intended.

Then she trots back over to me so that I can throw another ball for her to fetch.

“You a-hole! I am not touching another ball that goes into your mouth! You ruined play times! YOU wrecked it! Why did you do that?!???”

I can see Lulu in the background, still holding on to her ball, a quizzical look on her face. She wants to know why we’ve stopped playing. She wants to still run! I tell her that Lexi has ruined everything.

All the dogs are oblivious of what just happened. I trudge back to the house, demanding that they follow me. In their eyes, I have wrecked play time. I am the bad auntie-mother who makes them go inside and lie down.

In their doggie eyes, I am the ruiner of fun.

Drama Clean

This is Lucy’s new favorite thing. She LOVES Drama Clean shampoo.

At least, that’s the only explanation I can find for her actions. Every day (with the exception of Sunday) that we have been staying at “The Hilton,” Lucy has gotten so dirty that she has needed a bath—sometimes twice in one day. It’s got to be the shampoo. At our house Lucy uses Bunny Shampoo, which is supposed to be nice on pet skin. But at the Hilton, she gets people shampoo, which leaves her fur smelling and looking way more glamorous.

Her favorite stunt that requires a bath afterward is rolling in deer poop. She loves deer poop more than dead animal (I am grateful for this). If she rolls in dead animal, she will get one long streak down her back. But deer poop is a wonderful thing, if you ask Lucy. It is worth rubbing your whole face in. It is worth rubbing down both of your sides. It is The Shit.

Yesterday when I got home from work, I praised the Lord that Lucy did not crap in her pen while I was gone. She is touched in the head and freaks out when we leave her alone. And I won’t get into the details, but the dog food at the Hilton affects her bowel movements in a disgusting way. So cleaning up her messes is dreadful. “Praise the Lord! Thank you Jesus!” I hollered as I did a little Pentecostal rejoicing dance next to her pen. I’m sure she thought I was crazy. Yeah, well at least I don’t crap my pants everyday like you do, Lucy!

Not having to clean a dog pen allowed me to spend some time outside having fun. I brought out a blanket and laid in the sun, reading a good book. The dogs all came over to me to say hello, and then wandered off to do dog things. For Maggie and Lexi, the older dogs, this means basking in the sun, casually perusing the yard for the stray bunny or groundhog. For Lucy, this apparently time for a hot date with deer poop. I had forgotten this and was happily reading my book until she sidled up next to me, REAKING of filth and was brown all over.

“Excuse me, mother (said in a Brittish accent, for she is a Brittish dog), but I’ve had quite enough fun for one day. Do you mind if I lean against you on your nice blanket while you read your book?”

“Lucy, you stink! Go away!”

“What? I think I smell quite wonderful. But if you insist, we can rub some Drama Clean shampoo into my fur. Here, let me sit really close to you unti you’re ready to do so.”

“Go away, Luly! You are a stinky dog! You an animal and you are disgusting!!”

She finally gets the message and walks away. I return to my book for a few blissful seconds until the rankness enters my nostrils again. If that dog is trying to touch me again, I’m going to kick her ass! I think. I look around. She is not near me. No, she is standing 15 feet away, her nose lifted to the air, enjoying the sweet breeze that I am downwind from. I can see the wind ruffling her fur. She is in heaven. I am ready to commit murder.

But I am determined to read my book for more than five minutes. I tell myself that the dog bath can wait and that she might as well get all her “poop rolling” kicks in now, while she’s still dirty, which she does. She happily returns to the poop, wherever it is, a few more times.

Why didn’t anyone tell me that SEVERAL poop rollings are way harder to wash out than one?!??? It was nasty. I had to wrap her in a rag towel just to transport her to the utility sink upstairs. It took at least two applications of Drama Clean and I had to use my nails to scratch the poop off of her face. GRRR!!! Afterward, I could still faintly smell the gross. I decided to wait for JB to return to give me a “clean enough” verdict, since I have a superwoman sense of smell. He said she was fine.

Sigh…she’ll be fine until today, when mama deer or baby deer or some young buck’s fresh pile beckons her name. Tonight we may just have to try shock collar therapy…

Leaping Lulu

Lucy has finally been able to enjoy the freedom of a fenced-in yard. Our yard has been fenced on all sides but the front. A few weeks ago JB and his dad erected a fence to go across the front of the house on the right side, but we had to be a little more creative with the driveway side. Our driveway is flanked very closely by the neighbor’s fence and our house, so there is no way to get a gated fence in there and still be able to fit our cars down the driveway.

JB had noticed some neighbors doing this, so we copied them by buying a little doggie fence thing that we can stretch across the driveway when we go outside with Lucy, but can easily move when we need to pull a car in. We’ve considered ourselves lucky that Lucy is terrified of inanimate objects, especially ones that can move, like the gate. We took a gamble with the 2-ft high fence, as it was cheaper and easier to transport in and out of the house.

And it works. Lucy is afraid of the thing. And really, she doesn’t care about getting out, because there are far more fascinating things in our yard, like squirrels, birds, and this little chipmunk that lives in the wall of our garage that she is determined to catch, etc. She also doesn’t like being away from JB or I, and since we’re usually in the backyard with her, she’s quite content.

I’ve been a bit sick lately with stupid pregnancy crap, and on Tuesday I had overworked myself making a pie for Grandpa Hunt’s birthday (he and Grandma came over that night), making a nice dinner, and cleaning up the downstairs for company. When JB got home, Lucy and I went out to meet him. I was exhausted and so glad to see him.

As we are talking by the car, Lucy hears children’s voices out front. She races down the drive, barreling toward the gate with break-neck speed. “She’s totally going to smash into the gate and have a meltdown!” I think.

Then it happens.

The impossible that is totally possible with Lucy, the circus dog.

She leaps. Her little doggie legs spring her puppy-sized body into the air and she sails over the fence to sweet freedom.

Oh no!!

I start to walk quickly toward the fence, because my wardrobe of flipflops and extra long pants, coupled with my breaking-down pregnancy body, won’t let me run.

The piercing screams of terrified little girls fill the air. They scream and scream, certain that Lucy is going to eat them alive.

JB is still standing there, in shock, I think. I turn to him and say, “Get your ass out there!! You’ve got tennis shoes on!!!”

The screams continue, and I am afraid that the girls’ parents are going to come out of their houses and club our dog to death for frightening their children.

When JB gets on the scene, Lucy has not left our yard. He calls to her and she stops barking and sits down for him. The little girls are across the street, all in a tizzy. They’ve met Lucy before, but that was when she was on a leash, and not running at them full tilt, barking like a mad dog. JB apologized and said, “She won’t ever hurt you! She’s a big scaredy cat!” The littlest girl, about 7, said in a polite voice, “Well, I was bit by a dog before and I didn’t know what was going to happen!”

I felt awful.

JB brought Lucy across the street to meet the girls again, and she was all sweetness and tail-wagging. The girls pet her and JB tried to reassure them.

No parents came out with clubs.

We’re safe. For now.

But now Lucy has found our kryptonite. And anyone who knows Lucy knows that she could even scale a three-foot fence, or probably even a four-foot, if she really wanted to.

I’ve been keeping a wary eye on her. Every time she trots down the driveway I call out to her, and she comes back. But I can’t keep that act up forever. And I’m really worried about the day that she sees a stray dog and jumps the fence to yell at it. And the stray dog murders her.

I told Lucy that we’re going to have to string barbed wire across her gate now. That she’s been sanctioned to doggie Alkatraz. I don’t think she gets it though and I really don’t feel like taking care of a doggie with barbed wire cuts on her belly.

Sigh…

Pukah and her Toys

JB and I noticed the Lulu’s toys were all a little worse for wear. They have all lasted pretty long—save for her plush toys, which get destroyed pretty quickly.

Yesterday I went to Pet Smart to replenish her stock, since she had extra allowance money this month (she gets allowance for food, vet, and toys/treats). I was a little disappointed with the selection, since they did not have exact replacements for her favorite things. I got this blue tug toy but could not find another apple like the one my Granny gave her two Christmases ago. Lucy adores that crazy apple even though the squeak is now gone and it is holey and deflated.

When I came home with the bag she immediately knew I had special things for HER and would not take her eyes off of the bag. She was weary of the blue tug toy, as it didn’t come in the normal shape she’s used to. But the massive rawhide bone was the source of MUCH joy. I love watching her with her giant bone because she’ll carry it from room to room, walking sideways to get it through narrow doorways, etc.

Then JB came home. With the apple. It was a total stroke of luck that he found it in a pile of toys at Meijer.

She flipped out. JB said that when he produced the toy she leapt straight up in the air SIX times in a row, which he has never seen before. You’d think he has just opened the door to a magical room full if infinite dog snacks, just for her!

Lucy does two kinds of leaps. One is a four-banger—she will use all four legs to leap straight up (this is her “excitement” leap, for instances when she gets a new toy or is about to go outside) and the other is a two-banger (used for catching things), in which she springs up using only her hind legs. The four-bangers are funny because it looks like she has invisible springs on the bottoms of all her feet—kind of like Pepe LePew springing through the fields. I don’t have a photo of this yet, but I’ll get one!

Here is Lucy leaping last weekend (a two-banger). She jumped and ran so much that day that she had grass stains down the backs of her legs.

She loves to jump!

Dog wrangling

This week JB and I are watching Lexi (Lucy's BFF) and Maggie. Dog wrangling is never boring. Tonight I tried to get a good shot of Lucy and Lexi play-fighting, but Maggie made them knock it off before I could get a better shot. A better shot of Lucy leaping off of our bed and lunging into Lexi. You can't tell here but Lucy is suspended in air. I was cracking up.