Doggie life back to normal

Hi every pup and dog,

We the dynamic duo aka the "twins" are happy to report our snow is gone and we really loved it and now the heavy rains and flooding so life is rather returning to normal. We have tons of branches and tress down on our property so we are loving to sniff and check it all out. We spend hours doing so, rather frustrating our mom who would prefer we come in after a short period of time. We really went though lots - snow for almost two weeks which is unheard of in Oregon and then flooding and then ice and then flooding again. We have been exercised challenged but are doing OK because Mom is letting have time out for an hour twice a day. We love that. We all had cabin fever. I hope no other doggies need to experience the lack of electricity, no water, no lights or heat for four days and mom attempting to care for sixx dogs who drink tons of water. We wish all of you the best and we survived and loved the snow but it was a challenge.

Two weeks of SNOW !

We are having a bunch of fun playing in the 12 inches of snow we have had for the past two weeks. We go out and run around and stick our noses in it and roll and frolick and have a ton of fun. We do not like to come back in because this is so much fun and are rather driving our human mom crazy. It is suppose to rain starting today so we guess our snow fun time is over. We enjoyed having a white Christmas.

The other challenge to our human mom was going four days without electricity which means we had no heat or water. Luckily mom had stockpiled water and with so many of us in our dog family we drink lots of water. The woodstove provided us with heat and actually it got too hot in the house and all of us were panting.

The super strange day was last Sunday when we had freezing rain most of the day. The tree limbs all over the acreage broke and would fall and sound like a war zone with the noise as they fell. We were not used to that kind of noise so barked as branches fell down. Now the yard looks a mess with all the downed limbs and we have to jump over a bunch of them to even go out the door. They are so heavy that they cannot be moved until they thaw out and can be sawed. We rather love sniffing these new items in our yard.

So we had a very white Christmas which is very unusual for our area. The longevity of the storm was also history making and driving is still a challenge for our mom mainly for her to get in and out of the driveway to go purchase us treats and dog food.

We have a visiting dog with us this week, Cowboy, whose human dad is in Minesota. Cowboy is an Australian Shepherd and loves to go out with us as we run around. He will be here until January 4. We are quite the pack with seven of us.

Hope you had a great holiday and that 2009 is a wonderful woofable year for you.

It's our Birthday Today!

We are two today and our person mom is going to get us something special for dinner tonight. We are calming down and not as energetic so that pleases mom. We still have our daily routine when it does not rain of going out in the acreage and digging for moles and gophers and quite often we catch them to our person mom's dismay.

Our dog family is all doing well. Torch is getting acupuncture for his hip dysplasia and it has improved his ability to walk. Miranda and Bogart play with us all the time and go out to the field and also dig for the moles so we carry in a bunch of dirt every day. Allie is staying in most of the time and getting some arthritis but she still rules and is top dog around here.

Mom has a pet sitting business and one person whose wife recently died is traveling so much that now at night mom brings over Cowboy and Australian Shepherd. Interestingly he takes over top dog position when he is here. Mom has fun watching the doggie dynamics.

We are going to go enjoy the rest of our special day. Hope all you other dogs are as lucky as we are to be so spoiled.

Weekend Picnic with doggie friends and family reunion

We had an exciting Labor Day weekend. We had a bunch of our pup pal friends over and had a paw party. Even our dog mom, Jasmine and our sister Casey came over and had our yearly dog family reunion. We were all restricted to treats but the people had a BBQ and lots of fun on their own. There were other friends who came over too with more pup pals to play with. We spent quite a few hours playing ball and running around the field. It was so much fun and we all got along great. Of course most of us were labs so that probably explains the getting along.

After the picnic we were exhausted and went to bed early because we are not used to so much run and play time and different friends at our home. We suggest you have a pup pal picnic and find out how great it can be.

Our New Brother is here

Hi Pup pals and everyone else in the doggie world,

We got our new brother today. His name is Torch and he is in our family listing. He is 13 and was a guide dog for the blind and we are so honored to have him because they really checked us out, the dynamic duo and mom and our other sisters and brothers to determine if we can give him a happy home. He seems to be happy and we have welcomed him with open paws.

Wow, we are smart because we are labs but this guy came from the cream of the crop of lab dogs and breed and worked for a living for 10 years of his life guiding a blind man and helping him have a semblence of a normal life. We , the dynamic duo just sort of love our play time and digging for gophers and moles and never gave a second thought to being service dogs. We would have flunked, anyhow because we are so energetic. Torch has accepted us and we really have accepted him. Mom is making us be gentle to him because he is older. We hope to learn from his wisdom. It is so nice to have such a great influence in our family. We just love Torch. If you see this check Torch out on our family and give him gifts for his past service. He now deserves the life of a regular dog but he is still a dog who learned to serve . We hope to help him have a happy rounded life in his retirement.

We are excited and pleased

Mom just got off the phone with the Guide Dog for the Blind and they have a 13 year old retired lab who has some medical issues and mom is going to bring him home and take care of him so we will be getting a new brother. Mom took care of other older dogs so she is used to some of the challenges and most families want young healthy dogs. Our mom has lots of love to share to all of us so we are looking forward to Friday when mom brings Torch home.

We have been enjoying nice weather here the past week. It is suppose to get hot so hopefully we can get in our doggie pool and stay cool. Mom does not like to deal with it too much since we drip so much water all over everything.

We had our neighbor's dog over this weekend, a border collie named Brodie. He does not have much of an area to run in so we had him over to check out our 4 acres. In a few weeks our sister Casey and dog mom Jasmine are visiting to run and play with us and the people are going to have a BBQ and share dog stories.

We are just so excited and pleased that we have so many good things happening to us right now. Wish all you pups out there could have the same fun.

Update on Auggie

Hi, this is Savannah writing on behalf of my twin Augusta. Auggie is finally feeling much better and her mouth is not nearly as swollen. I have been helping her by licking her to help her not hurt so much. Luckily she still plays with me and we both have been eating fine.

Yesterday was a warm day - in the 90's which probably sounds like a cold spell to those in Dallas Tx. It is suppose to be hot again today so mom is working from home and that means we can go out and play most of the morning.

Right now we are in the computer room all five of us circled around mom watching her when she does stuff on the computer. We like being close by to make certain we have mom doing the things we like to do. We have her trained well.

Auggie needs to go to the vet

Yesterday, Augusta had a red lip that was rather rough to touch but today my twin has even more swelling. I keep licking it to try to help her but Mom is going to take her to the vet as soon as they open.

It is overcast again but suppose to clear so hopefully once the weather improves we can go out and dig trenches in the acreage and help Auggie forget her mouth.

Mom is working on new collars for us. She does this as a part time craft, different colors and styles to show us off for special occassions and celebrate seasons. It is fun. She sells these so anyone who wants to look at dressed up pets look at www.pamperedpawspetproducts. com. We love to show them off.

We really enjoyed our new fluffy bed last night. We do not know why we tear up the others but this one is so comfortable that mom is going to remove it every time she leaves along with the new cushions she had to make for the sofa. Darn, she is taking away one of our favorite past times but we are adapting to having chew toys to entertain us whenever she needs to go for a while.

Rainy day today

It rained off and on today so we spent quite a bit of time inside. Mom made us a new bed. We had chewed the other one up pretty much because we love to pull out the fiberfill. This one has a series of covers so who knows how quickly we can destroy it.

Mom is ecstatic. She heard from the Guide Dogs for the Blind and will be attending a meeting Monday evening. She has several options - to just puppy sit when other handlers need to go somewhere or to become a handler herself. She is opting to bring in a puppy and be the initial handler. It will either be a yellow or black lab so we will have a sibling for a year to add to our family in a few months.

I am Augusta and somehow I got into something and have a pretty red rash on my upper mouth. Mom does not know if I burned myself on the BBQ last night or if I was stung or if it is something else. I am leaving it alone but it is a bit swollen and crusty. I am acting pretty much the same and was just out for 30 minutes on one of my trench digging missions. The vet said to take Benadryl so I am on that and mom just needs to watch me. She probably will send a question to one of the groups or forums about this. I hope it goes away quickly because it does bother me a bit but other than licking my chops from time to time I am leaving it alone. Savannah is attempting to help my fix it by sometimes licking me. She is such a wonderful twin.

That's all for the day. We have a quiet weekend and hopefully the sun will be out again.

Guide Dogs for the Blind

Yesterday our mom attended the graduation at Guide dog for the blind in Boring OR. It was a very moving ceremony because the people who handled the puppies presented them to the blind person who now uses the dog to guide them to a normal life style.

Mom, who loves us labs was impressed that every dog in the graduation class was a lab. She was given a tour of the campus and they have about 150 dogs in training. You should see the kitchen where they scoop out the dog food and have 150 bowls stacked in a pyramid. Mom got to pet lots of the young dogs and talk to the trainers. She came home and told us she was proud of us being labs and now she is considering being a puppy handler for Guide Dogs since she is good at loving us and socializing us.

We were good while mom was gone and when she came home were able to spend some time outside digging for gophers and moles out in the yard. That made up for the couple of hours home alone.