No one's happy with the Beanster today.

Uh Oh, Mom is not happy with me this morning. Ya see, it seems that we were all sleeping soundly last night, including me cuz I was tired from that long day of paddling and swimming. Well, Jenny always climbs on Mom's pillow right next to her after she falls asleep. I was on my blankie with Ali, and Toto was somewhere on the bed. Suddenly there was the LOUDEST boom of thunder I have ever heard. We were all so scared that we all jumped right off the bed, even Mom!! While Jenny was jumping off the bed she used Mom's arm to push off with, and now Mom has a huge line of scratches and black and blue marks all down her arm! And, this is all my fault cuz I didn't wake up and bark and tell everyone it was gonna boom??? I am supposed to know this how?? Normally, I listen carefully after I see the flashes of light, but this boom came immediately after only one, big, blue flash of light. I was just barely opening my eyes when it happened. And, there was no rain or anything. Usually the rain comes and the booms start far away and I gently wake up and then gently sound the alarm. It's my fault that nature was messed up????
Jenny is mad at me cuz Mom yelled at her and it was my job to wake us gently. Toto is really, really mad at me, cuz when Mom jumped up, she must have been in a dream cuz she threw the blanket all around him and picked him up and he couldn't get out of the blanket. He couldn't even see where he was. Ali is mad cuz her beauty sleep got disturbed. Everyone else is mad cuz we woke them up with our panic barks when Mom was scared. We were so scared that Mom had to get up and let us all outside. It was 1 am, way too early to get up!
I don't see a major problem here... everyone fell back to sleep finally when the booms stopped, we all slept late cuz it's Sunday, and cuz it's Sunday everyone can take a nap if they want to. Mom says she hopes we are not gonna be scared of storms from now on cuz she was jumping around with us. No one was ever scared before! All my fault! Not a good day to be the Beanster!

Our Kayak trip

Wow, we had a bunch of fun today!! It was warm and sunny, which was NICE. We paddled and paddled and paddled, and then we stopped on "our" island to eat lunch. I got to finish most of Emma's lunch again. I even ate the broccoli!! I wish we had a four year old... they leave good food!!! She even gave me a cookie. Then we all went swimming. I swam good, and Mom took my picture. After that, we went around on the other side of the pond. There we spied a whole gaggle of geese. It was a Momma, Daddy and a bunch of goslings. Emma's mom taught me that word! Mom quietly paddled us closer and closer and closer. I started barking at them, but they didn't even care. Next we left the geese and paddled thru the swamp. Mom was all excited cuz we found some cranberries growing in there. She said they grew cranberries in a swamp when she was a little kid. After the swamp, we saw a bunch of turtles sunning themselves on a log. Next we spied some ducks, but they were swimming the other way. Finally, we got back to the beginning, and Emma, Skye and Emma's mom went swimming again. I was tired, so I went into my crate for a nap! What an exciting day I had! Mom put three new pictures of me on the page... me fishing, me swimming, and me and the geese. My ear was wet in that one, but it was cuz I was swimming!!! No rain anywhere!

Losing sleep again

Ya know, I just realized why I am so tired every day. I lose more sleep than any dog I know. Like, I can't sleep at night if I am excited about going kayaking. I can't sleep at night if I am having to protect everyone by alerting to the thunderstorms. I can't sleep at night if I have to go to a dog show. I can't sleep at night if Mom is going away without me. I can't sleep at night if Mom is going away with me. I can't sleep at night if I'm not in my own bed (well, Mom's bed, hee hee hee.) I can't sleep at night if Mom can't sleep at night. I can't sleep at night if Toto is coughing (sometimes Toto has a bad cough at night.) I can't sleep at night if Jenny is in prison. I can't sleep at night if Ali is hogging my poodle fleece blankie. I can't sleep at night if Mom washes my poodle fleece blankie. I can't sleep at night if my poodle fleece blankie is too dirty. I can't sleep at night if it's too dark. I can't sleep at night if it's too light. I can't sleep at night if it's too cold. I can't sleep at night if it's too hot. I can't sleep at night if it's snowing (too excited about playing in it in the morning!!!) I can't sleep at night if the wind is blowing too hard. I can't sleep at night if there is a scary movie on TV. I can't sleep at night if it's too quiet. I can't sleep at night if it's too loud. I can't sleep at night if the coyotes in the field are howling. I can't sleep at night if the cats are fighting on the porch. I can't sleep at night if the kennel dogs are barking. I can't sleep at night if I'm hungry. I can't sleep at night if I'm too full. I can't sleep at night if I got too much exercise. I can't sleep at night if I didn't get enough exercise.
Hey, I just realized this would be easier if I just said when I could sleep... I can sleep all day long no matter what!!!

Whew, I am soo tired.

Last night I got hardly any sleep. We kept having big flashes of light and huge bangs. The lights were so bright I could see everything lit up outside! I had to keep climbing up on Mom's shoulder and barking the alert. She was sleeping pretty soundly cuz the pouring rain made the TV station get lost, so it was darker and quiet in the room. Well, darker and quieter until the big flashes and the big booms. Not one of the other dogs was even paying attention, so it was all up to me to keep barking the alerts.
Mom was extra tired cuz we had joined Dogster Plus. She stayed up real late cuz she was going back thru all the pictures on TWO computers and finding ones of us to add to our pages. She kept laughing and laughing as she found some of those really old photos. I saw some of those of me, and trust me, I wasn't laughing!!! I have gotten several expressions of sympathy from my dogster pals who have noticed some of those photos of me, I can tell you! It's not fair cuz both Lukie and Toto came to Mom when they were older, so she doesn't have baby pictures of them to post for all to see. I am very, very cute now, but even I will admit, I wasn't the cutest baby you ever saw. My hair stuck out every which way and I was kinda skinny and runty looking. Not now... now I am getting pudgy!!!
Well, it looks like we are gonna go kayaking again this Saturday, maybe, if the rain and fireworks and booms stop. They've been rattling around over a week now, so they better stop pretty soon!!! I guess it's gonna be me and Toto again, although this time I will stay in Mom's kayak! We both get to go again cuz our last time was so rainy.

New Gifts Just for the Beanster

Check out me modeling my new red and blue Rugby shirt. When Laurie came to work today she brought it for me. People give me gifts lots of times. I am sure it's because I am so cute and sweet and nice. Oh, did I mention I'm also kind and friendly and good looking and smart? Anyway, I do get lots and lots of gifts, expecially clothes. Mom says it's because I am so tiny that it is easy to find clothes for me. She also pointed out that Laurie works at a thrift shop when she's not working here, so the shirt probably came from there. Nah... it still had the tags on it, Mom, she bought it just for me!!! I can tell, no one else even tried it on before. Mom said she didn't think so... she would have bought it for Hilda, not for me. Humph!
Anyway, I GOT it and it fits me and I'm gonna consider it a gift just for me, just like the trophy that Yuji sent just for me and the Beanie cap that Kiwi sent just for me!!!! I like gifts just for me, and I still say it's cuz I am so nice and cute and sweet and all that. Thanks for the gifts everyone, just for me!!!

A Busy, Busy day for the Beanster.

Wow, have I been busy today. We have had a zillion thunderstorms, and my job is to bark the alerts when it thunders so everyone else knows about it. Actually, the whole last three days have been really loud! (get it?) They have been so bad that we couldn't go kayaking. Mom said we could get fried if we were out in a kayak in a thunderstorm. Would that make fried hot dogs???????? Ohhhh, I can't believe I said that... must be all that stray electricity is messing up my brain??
Anyway, the last storm was especially busy... Mom said it must have gotten stuck right over our house. We were watching it (from the safety of her bed, way, way across the room). First it came from the west, then it circled us and came back from the east. I had to keep jumping off the bed and running over to bark at the window. I don't know why Toto is complaining about being bored.... maybe he should help me bark the alarm instead of just lying on Mom's bed doing nothing. He is getting fatter and fatter from all that lying around.
Mom wasn't too happy about the last storm... she was helping us write our diaries and had mine almost finished when the internet went off and the whole thing got lost. Now she keeps saving it and then writing some more so that won't happen again.
Uh oh, here comes another one... gotta go bark the warning!!!!!!!!!

Correction, Mom says I am not a gentleman!

Mom was reading my latest blog and she is now making me write this one. It seems in the beginning I write about what a gentleman I am because I am going to let Jenny go kayaking in my place if it's gonna rain. Yeah, that is true, I am kind of nice that way.
But, Mom said it was not too gentlemanly to hope that Gracie would fall into the pond and not be able to swim. She said it was very mean of me to pick on Gracie all the time. Well, yeah, but you gotta know Gracie. She is different, yeah, that's right, different. Different is not necessarily bad, you know.
Okay, okay... Mom, I am sorry I wrote bad stuff about Gracie. Can I come out of my crate now????

Another Kayak trip

Well, Mom said we're going kayaking again on Saturday afternoon with her friend and Emma. I guess Skye is going with us. I have decided to check on the puter and if there are clouds at all, anywhere, I will respectfully decline and let Jenny go in my place!!! I am such a gentleman!!!! (Actually, I am still drying out from the last trip!!) She and Toto and Chaz and Ali can fight it out... I only want to go if it's sunny and warm.
Today Mom left us home again in the baby puppy pen. It's me and Ali and Chaz, and today she put Gracie in with us cuz it was too hot for the bigger guys (and her) to stay in their outside pen. Well, Gracie is not too bright... she doesn't know if she's coming or going. Anyway, the first time she tried to go out the flapping door, long ago, she did it wrong and it slapped her on the nose. So, now she won't go thru it anymore. I guess Mom doesn't know that cuz we all come in when she comes home. Mom just came over to check on us, and discovered the dog bed all chewed up and the stuffing pulled out, and worst of all, tinkle and doggy doo doo INSIDE in the corner of the pen. Well, she started yelling at all of us. Do you suppose that Gracie did the right thing and 'fessed up??? Nope, of course she didn't. Don't understand Mom... if she just thought about it, she would remember that NOTHING gets chewed up and NO ONE messes on the floor inside when Gracie isn't with us in the pen. Hello... what is she missing here???? While she was yelling at us, me and Ali and Chaz just calmly went out the flapping door and left Gracie inside to listen to Mom. I hope it's cooler tomorrow so Gracie can stay outside with the other bigger guys where she belongs! We don't need her in our clean pen. Maybe she can go kayaking and fall into the pond! Bet she can't swim.

Dog show time.

Today Mom told me she entered me in two more obedience shows and two more rally shows. Scares me! I hope I can remember what I am supposed to do when I get there! Tonight my obedience buddies were here, so I did a little practicing, even tho I am perfect most of the time! It was pretty hard for me tonight. For one thing, Mom was giving me string cheese for treats, and I didn't have my dinner yet, so I was a little overanxious to get the treats. I mean, why sit in front when I know she's gonna tell me to finish anyway... if I go straight to finish I will get the cheese faster, right? And, so what if I started when the other lady said "forward", instead of waiting for Mom to tell me. Again, we will get to the end faster that way!
Also, I was tired. I had played with Chaz and his golden retriever puppy all day long, and, quite frankly, I couldn't stay awake on the sits and downs. It was terrible... I felt my eyes closing, then my head would nod, then I was doing a down and everyone else was sitting. The only thing that would wake me up was the nasty deer flies and sweat bees. They were awful... one got me right on my nose! And, Mom uses that "ain't no bugs on me" stuff, too!!! She kept reminding me that there might be bees and bugs at the show, too. I think she was telling me to tough it out, but I did notice she was screaming pretty loudly when one huge deer fly bit her leg!!!
Ah well, it's over now and I am gonna take a little nap with Toto before I go to bed. Mom said she learned in college that if I dream about doing each exercise perfectly, it will help me do it when I am awake. But, her college days were a hundred years ago, (people years, too!), bet that's not true anymore!!! Catch ya later!

The Kayak Trip

Geez... Mom put the worst photo on my page! I am not soaking wet cuz I got scared that Mom was leaving me and I jumped into the pond to get to her... I am soaking wet cuz it was raining very hard!!! Skye must have been using an umbrella or something to keep herself dry! Yeah, that's it... I really didn't fall in at all!
Anyway, we both went on the trip after all. It WAS raining, so Mom's friend never even came! Maybe Emma would melt cuz she is so sweet she must be made of sugar???? Toto showed off again, he acted like he had been kayaking a thousand times. He didn't even try to hide under the cowl. I went with Mom first... it was fun and we went under the trees every time the rain came. And, she even took photos of me in the front of the kayak. Then, Skye wanted me to go with her, but that wasn't so cool. I LUV my Mom, and I was also afraid Toto was gonna get something special cuz he was with her and I wasn't. So, when we had to go under a tree during the rain, I climbed right out of Skye's kayak and into Moms. It's a good thing she caught me, or I would have been even wetter!!! Toto promised he wouldn't tell anyone that I had fallen out of Skye's kayak before that... I couldn't help it... she made a really fast turn and left me hanging and my nails slipped right off the edge. It was okay cuz I can swim, remember, and no one else saw me fall in, not even Mom.
It was pretty cold out there, so that made me shake and shiver, so finally Mom felt sorry for me and we went back to the car. I really did have fun, but I liked it better when it wasn't raining!!!