Jungle gym

Doggies are too cold to play outside, so they’ve taken over the Living Room.  Good thing I anticipated that…

We arranged the furniture in the center of the room, to provide “running” space between the walls and the couch, two chairs and two ottomans; the coffee table sits in the center of it all. 

It’s a special coffee table, it’s huge (4′ x 6′) and upholstered.

We pushed two ottomans together, and lined them up like a bench to the coffee table, opposite the couch. 

It was a stroke of genius - the dogs can get a lot of speed racing in circles, then leap onto the ottomans. 

This morning, they discovered they could leap from the ottomans to the coffee table…

Princess and the Pea

OK, not a real princess and there is no pea.  But, there are two mats and two blankets…

This is the corner of the garage, the quiet corner, the warm corner, the “see everything” corner. It’s Tiger-dogs favorite place to sleep. Being the older of the two, she always sets Sparkle-dog to do the chores of patrolling the property, chasing things, barking at stuff.

Tiger-dog makes herself available – she can always be found here, without exception while the outside chores are being done by the ever-worried Sparkle-dog.  Although, to be quite honest, we often have to look under the blankets.

Happy Dogs

We hope you all had a wonderful and very relaxing Christmas!

Ours had a little excitement when Tiger-dog got into the gifts under the tree and “sorted” them according to the best smelling and then most tasty smelling. 

Orange!

It was only a moment of not watching her, and “poof” the gifts were scattered, two decorations were off the tree and she was about to make off with that stocking – with an orange stuffed into the toe. 

Orange?  Why not beef jerky (under the tree) or, seven year old cheddar cheese (also under the tree)? 

You and I may think those other treats are more dog-attractive, but for our Tiger-dog it’s bananas first, oranges second, meat third.  Since we had no bananas (under the tree) she went straight for that orange.  I snapped the picture then removed the stocking.  “Daddy” dug out the orange, peeled it and shared it with both Tiger-dog and Sparkle-dog (who prefers christmas cake).

Smelly underpad

Not underpants, underpad.

We moved into an older home this time last year and the carpet was the second item to go after the wallpaper.  (Which ought to be made illegal and the producers, distributors and retailers should be fined and placed into community service stripping the paper and glue off everyone’s walls, repairing those walls, and following up with a personal, hand written apology for having been willfully ignorant of the strippable wallpaper’s non strippable glue.)  Those were dark days.

Back to the carpet:

It looked clean but smelled bad.  When we lifted the carpet we discovered it was actually the underpad that smelled really, really bad and the carpet had been acting as a barrier to the odor.  So, we pulled, rolled and stacked every last little spongy scrap of that underpad and stored it in the garage for haz-mat disposal (it was a rainy week, we had no choice).

Now, if you have a dog and you let it be a dog, you know they love to roll in some pretty nasty stuff.  It’s instinctive, it masks their scent and they can be more successful hunters; so they roll in poo, roll over dead frogs and squished squirrels, pretty much anything that’s not “predator” smelly. 

Including that underpad.

Yep, that’s our uber-dog Tiger-dog lollygagging in that pile of underpad.  She’d been sleeping in it for hours. 

We tried the odor-out skunk shampoo,

We tried Febreze,

We tried the shampoo again,

Finally we just had to live with our happy stinky dog.

And, I found her in the underpad the very next day and No, I’m not that bright, I could have closed the door …

Snowy Day

Can you believe it? Snow this far south!

We had a full day of snowfall and not a drop of accumulation to show for it – the ground was too warm – so, everything just looked glossy.

We know better than to get out onto these city streets; we know how to drive in ice and snow, but most everyone else does not. You can almost run the song “slip, sliding away” through your imagination and add cars instead of people and that would give you a fair estimate of this city’s ice driving capabilities.

We stayed home, the cars stayed in the garage, but someone was missing her daily drive…

Cold, rainy day.

Yesterday was a cold and rainy day, too rainy to pull the car out and work on it. 

Tiger-dog and Sparkle-dog spent the day in bed.  They showed up each time I called them for food but the rest of the day they lazed and goofed around here.  Sometimes they wrestle, sometimes they sparr; occasionally they hop around like bunnies dazzling eachother with amazing moves.

I like it best when they just sleep, mostly so I don’t have to make the bed again, and again, and again. 

Tiger-dog shoves the pillows off the bed.

Sparkle-dog tosses her stuffed bunnies off the bed.

They both sit at the end of the bed looking over and barking at me to come and pick everything up so they can do it again.

I prefer sunny days.

Tiger-dog earns her keep

A few days ago Tiger-dog and Sparkle-dog started to spend a huge amount of time in the shrubbery at the corner of the yard.  “Hey!”  They called, “you gotta smell this!” 

I checked but could not see anything.  A quick inspection around the house and I found little poops in the garage, and we promptly set out the old-style mouse traps. 

“Mice don’t smell that BIG, you got another problem.”  Tiger-dog barked to me.  

“It’s mice, honey, I can tell by their little poops.”  I assured her. 

Tiger-dog and Sparkle-dog’s watch moved from the corner of the back yard to the garage and I checked the traps daily – nothing. 

Because, we didn’t have mice.  We had rats.

Tiger-dog brought one to me and said “See, I told you, they weren’t mice,” and dropped it on the driveway to prove her point.  Then, went and got a drink of water, her work done. 

Smile!

Tiger-dog and the bunnies

Tiger-Dog likes to sleep with her bunnies and pillows.  She likes to sleep all night and most of the day.  She only gets up to eat.  Sleeping and eating are her favorite things to do.  We don’t have pictures of Tiger-dog eating because it is a messy process.  We often feed Tiger-dog and Sparkle-dog outside so the ants can clean up the mess.  We have a lot of ants.

Tornado-pup

Tornado-pup came by to visit a while back, she likes to eat as well, but since she is so fast we never notice the eating part, just the all-done part.   Tornado-pup is very tidy; this is her after lunch.  She looks perfect, as always.

Sparkle-dog's happy to see you

Sparkle-dog is smiling because she knows you are reading this.

Now, go and do your homework.