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Boring Blogs and Pup Tents

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As I write this, I’m waiting for Jennifer to arrive to steal take home Rumble. He’s the first one to leave the nest (and since he’s smack in the middle of his ‘let’s chew everything in sight’ phase, Sean has been making noises about packing his little suitcase for three days now). Everybody else leaves on Saturday or Sunday.

It’s occurred to me that, while I have puppies on the ground, this blog becomes an awfully boring place to be. I turn into one of those God awful new mommies, constantly rambling on about how kyooooot their kids are, and waving photographs in the face of anyone who’ll stand still for more than ten seconds. Of course, the fact that my babies are kyooot might have something to do with that, but it doesn’t change the fact that I really need to learn how to balance ‘other’ stuff with rambling on and on and on about adorable puppies and their cute little noses.

That said, here come some more photos. Suck it up — you can always go read Salon or something.

Sean and I took his dad to Ikea the other day, and while I was there I snagged an awesome little toy for $6 – a nylon ‘pup’ tent. I think it’s actually meant for cats, but I could instantly see what fun the puppies would have with it. Little did I know that someone else in the house would instantly claim it for their own.

Tessa in the pup tent

Of course, the puppies weren’t about to let Grandma Tessa have the entire tent all to herself. They immediately came over to find out just what was so fascinating in there.

Come out, grandma!

Eventually, when three puppies were crammed in there with her, Tessa decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. After that, one of the pups decided that the interior of the tent would make a nice place to poop. It’s now been retired to the utility closet until I can figure out how to get the smell out of it.

Thor says

The rest of the photos are over on Flickr, as always.

What dogs do when they're bored

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Delilah in the SnowWe have a lot of snow up here in my neck of woods. You, wherever you are, you think you have snow – but trust me, you don’t.

I have snow so deep, the dogs can’t get out the dog doors.

Snow so deep, the dogs can climb over the five foot fence around the dog areas, because the drifts are that high.

Snow so deep that when Delilah looks for her poo spot, all you can see are the tips of her ears.

Snow so deep that they close off all the roads for 24 hours at a time.

That, my friends – that’s the kind of snow we have.

There are a few bad things about this amount of snow, other than the oh so obvious things, like ‘it sucks, and so does shoveling it’. The dogs, for instance, are bored out of their skulls. Even my lazy Frenchies are experiencing cabin fever, especially the perky gals I fondly refer to as the Hellion-ettes : Bunny; Tula; Fanny and Paris.

The Hellion-ettes enjoy a good romp or twelve, and a little bit of snow doesn’t stop them. The operative word there is ‘little’ – this influx of snow has done a fine job of stopping them from getting further than the ten foot runway I keep cleared outside the dog room door. For half the day, in alternating periods of time, the dogs are shuffled between the family room, and the dog room. The dog room is well stocked with amusements – treat balls, kongs, nylabones and hooves, but all the toys in the world can’t make up for the limited outdoor play space the dogs have been putting up with lately.

The good news is that bored dogs are well able to invent their own pastimes. The bad news is that they rarely invent games that their people enjoy equally well.

Sean was upstairs gathering wood for the fireplace when he yelled for me to check on the dogs. “They’re up to no good, I can hear them dragging something around.”

I walked in and found Fanny and Bunny lying on their donut beds, peacefully chewing nylabones, and looking at me with expressions of pleasant incomprehension. I shrugged, and went back to finish my work.

Five minutes later, Sean yelled at me again – “I swear to God, it sounds like they’re tearing something apart in there. Go check it out!”. I sighed, and went to have another look. Again, two innocent dogs, looking at me with innocent faces. I ignored the sneaking suspicion that they were snickering at me as I left the room, and walked back to my desk.

The next time, Sean didn’t need to yell at me – I heard a crash banging racket coming from the dog room, and the sounds of the dog doors flapping back and forth. I decided to pop outside to see what they were up to, and, since I’m not stupid, I decided to bring the camera with me.

I’m glad I did.

Fanny pulling the downspout through the dog door

This is Fanny, coming out the dog door, as Bunny disappeared back into it.

That piece of beige metal? That’s the downspout off of our house, which Bunny had been trying to drag inside through the dog door. Fanny was apparently her cheering section, but the fun wore off when she heard my yelp of anger.

Here’s Fanny, bolting for the safety of the house. You can barely see her, but Bunny is peering out of the dog doors with a worried “Oh crap, she caught us” look on her face.

Fanny heads for the house

I’m thinking of investing in some treadmills for the Hellion-ettes – and for myself. I’m going to need some serious training to be able to keep up with the trouble these girls get into.