Tomorrow I will be older & wiser

It will be my first ever birthday tomorrow. My ma says that's when I got my bellybutton. She says she will make me & Lily cupcakes & we will go to a park to play. I am very excited just thinking about it is making me drool.

We got to go to the beach with our neighbor dog Bob yesterday too. I love the beach! I dug in the sand, avoided the ocean and chased my ring all over the place. I even wrestled with Bob and played bitey face with Lily. We got so excited when we could smell the ocean mom says we were "all wiggles & squeaks". The three of us dog types ran all over the beach & met other dogs & kids and slept really hard after that. Mom will post some photos soon.

Dog Heaven

Last night Dad took us to the park and we had a blast! When we came home we were locked out of the house and mom was at work, so she told dad to take us to a pub nearby and wait for her to come home (she works far away). When she came to meet us she had some treats for us! The pawrents had dinner and they ordered a burger off the kids menu for me and Lily to share :o) It even came with celery and carrots on the side. It was so tasty it made me drool.

When we made it home there was a big package for us from Helping Udders and it was full of DOG TREATS!!!! Our mom gave us bully sticks too :o) It was so good Lily and I both got our own 6" bully stick that we chewed up in one evening. We can't wait until dad gets locked out of the house again!

Gotta Mark Your Property

This morning our mom was taking us for our daily morning constitution through the grassy field behind our apartment. She was a little sleepy but she looked down and I had lifted my leg and was starting to pee on her sneaker. I don't know why she got all offended, she's my mom and the world should know she's mine but she put a stop to me before I really did the job. I think she should take it as a compliment but people are weird.

Our dad is the best dad ever!

He bought mom this special book called The Organic Dog Biscuit Cookbook by a genius named Jessica Disbrow. Our mom is not really a cook, like our dad is, but she loves to spoil us. She said the recipes are really easy and even though she doesn’t like meat she made us some amazing biscuits called cold turkey. We think she’s crazy because she only eats fishes, our dad makes the best thing in the world for us – bacon and she doesn’t eat it. They say that I am a food motivated dog, I admit that I drool when I am waiting to get food or even my fangs brushed with the delicious peanut butter toothpaste. Lily is a very patient dog and makes me look like a maniac when there’s treats to beg for but these biscuits were so good fresh out of the oven that the “good dog” Lily tried to climb onto the counter.

Another reason our dad is awesome is because he takes us to a store called Salty’s Dog and Cat Shop that sells a really good thing called beef liver biscotti. I am stuck to the people like glue when they carry it in their pockets and I will do anything for it – and it makes drool run out of the corner of my mouth like a faucet. He picked out some cow bone things for me & Lily and they are awesome! We have been stealing them back & forth for the past two days. He tried to get us bones bigger than our legs but mom put her foot down and said that they would be “too stinky”. She uses that word all the time. Like when we are driving and she’s rubbing my chest and I completely relax and suddenly I am accused of releasing something from my “fermentation tank” apparently it comes out near my tail. Then they start squawking at each other and talking about stink and roll down the windows really fast.

We got to go to the city and stay at our friend Sandy dog’s house although she and her family were on another vacation. There was a giant jar of peanut butter that Sandy left us. Lily cleaned out as far as her tongue would reach. I managed to stick my whole head in there only to discover I could not get it off! It was spooky and I was shaking my head and I whacked my dad and he was shrieking for my mom to help him and she rushed it & then he pulled it off. My mom says sometimes I take years off of her life. Later we got to go to a fenced in dog park with so many dogs of all kinds. I got to play with a malamute shepherd mix that is 8 months old like me. She was a lot of fun! I hid underneath her and raced out to swat at her with my paws and she chased me. I really love to wrestle with the big dogs.

I caused some more trouble when we went to the river with our friend Sophie Dog. She brought a long a floating wubba almost as big as my head. The people would throw the wubba into the water and either Sophie or a lab would bring it back to shallow water, then I plucked it out of their mouths and took it into the grass to chew it. Then a human would take it from me and throw it back into the river and the whole thing would start again. We went to a place called Rooster Rock but I never saw any roosters. When we were playing in the water a little boy came up and I looked at him and he looked at me then he threw his towel down and shrieked and ran away from me so I could chase him. He was really fast and his dad had to chase him while my dad chased me. My mom was horrified I normally don’t pay much attention to children, his mom was laughing and she told my mom that he was terrified of dogs. I had a nice long nap on the way home in the car and sleep on Sophie’s mom’s lap.

My Sister the Mastermind

The older I get the more I realize that Lily really knows just what will be the most fun at the dog park. I never used to like chasing the birds at the park and I thought Lily looked silly running around in circles looking at the sky - but now I really like it. She has showed me how much fun tug-o-war with the frisbee can be. There are some new sheep on property connected to the dog park. Lily showed me how to run along the fence to make the sheep run, it's just like chasing them.

Now I let her chase me and we run in circles and S shapes until I shake her (which is really hard cause her legs are nearly an inch longer than mine) or she flips me over. Usually she flips me over and bites my neck but today I tricked her and ran right into my mom's legs cause I needed a rest and Lily won't get me if I sit on mom's feet.

I hate to brag but I have got a really keen sense of smell and I am able to find stuff to roll in all the time and Lily likes to join in. I really have to give Lily credit for finding the most putrid stinky stuff. She has a couple trails in the woods that lead to some wonderful pungent dark muddy gunk. The best part is that this is soooo strong it doesn't come off in just one bath. I gotta hand it to Lily she is a mastermind.

We had to take a loooooong nap after our adventure.

Bump On My Ear

Well there's a mysterious bump on my ear. It looked like a scab at first and then it grew over the holiday weekend and so my mom worried. I object to the people pawing my ear, but today I got to go to visit my vet friends. They like me a lot I lick their faces and they give me treats. Once I got to go in the back with Penny - who is a big fan of mine - she let me meet all the other people back there and now whenever I go there I wanna get attention back there. So this time after they weighed me I ran through an open exam room and into the back and I had to be chased and captured ;) The vet looked at my ear and she made my mom feel better by saying that I most likely have a histocytoma. This is a benign tumor common in dogs under 3 years of age. I heard it's a watch and wait game where the people watch the bump and wait a month to report back cause it should go away without medicine or anything. That's the best part. They don't have to put anything on it, just take pictures if it changes. So now my mom is not worried anymore and I can relax.

The Crate Escape . . .

Well I don't know who that guy Houdini is but that's what my ma called me. She came home Friday evening to find me greeting her at the door. She was expecting to find me in my crate. Lily was in her crate like a good girl - but I had to meet her at the door. I put my ears back cause that's what I do when I am breaking the rules. She looked all over the house for signs of destruction, accidents and all and none were discovered . . . yet. I managed to get outta my crate before but ma doesn't know how I do it. I can't tell you guys either because if they figure out how I do it they will stop me.

Next time maybe I will be able to tell you what I was able to do while free. I am working on opening the fridge with my mind.

Time flies when you are causing trouble.

Today I woke up the earliest as always. I stare at my ma until she wakes up, it doesn't work on the dad because he sleeps like a log - unless he hears one of us making sounds like we're gonna vomit. I stare at her until she wakes up to pay attention to me. The staring worked like always and then we had a good morning walk by the river to relieve ourselves. We met a nice lady who had a big lab mix, we were sad when they had to go. The best part of the morning is breakfast, I ate so fast I belched that's a compliment in some cultures you know.

We took our walk early today cause it was gonna get too hot outside. I love going to the woods - we get to run on the trail and sniff the news. Lily's favorite thing is to ambush me so whenever she's ahead of me she crouches down & lies in wait. She even does it when the people call me cause she knows that I have to come, she's clever. I got to retrieve sticks from the lake, I even swam a little just to get a stick. Then I met George, he was bigger than me but a whole month younger so I was showing him who is the boss but I keep hearing "Angus OFF". The people don't understand that to be the boss you gotta mount the other dog. I do it even when I can barely reach their waist when they are standing. George knew who the boss was, I got him to chase me a little too.

I took a real long nap afterward. It's been a good day.

Confessions of a Nervous Dog Mom

Well we were at the emergency vet a a couple evenings ago, an hour after our regular vet closes.

Angus was pulling a tennis ball out of the underbrush at the dog park and he made a little yelp and left the ball. He was running around after other dogs like usual. When we got in the car it was obvious that Lily rolled in something FOUL then I noticed something in Angus' eye, it was 2.5 mm in diameter. I was worried about a scratch so we took him to the e-Vet and luckily it was apparently just debris. He got an saline eye rinse and they cleaned out under his 3rd eyelids, an expensive eye rinse overall.

We were at the e-Vet a month ago (a day after her 6 month check up ) because I thought I saw a corneal scratch on Lily's eye. It was weepy she wasn't opening it all the way and the pupil was constricted. Luckily no scratch for her either but she had sustained "eye trauma" probably by running into something or being run into. She got some doggie anti-inflammatories and eye ointment.

Hopefully life will be calm for us for a while!

Victory at the dog park!

Today at the dog park I got to play with Mary. She is a big black lab mix with a white blaze on her chest. I always wanna play with Mary but her mom tells her "No" cause I'm too small - I always try anyway. Today I played tug o' war with Mary and her rope toy. I was having a lot of fun, I used my growl on her and she tolerated it. I even pulled the rope toy away, mom said I was sneaky cause I kept working my way up the rope 'til I could get it, but I got it and I ran away pretty fast. I growled at her when she tried to take it back but my mom yelled at me, so I let her have it and then we played some more. We ran together and she liked playing with me too.