Not Particularly Photogenic
Nothing extremely new or original in these photos, but there’s a couple of nice shots.
This one is a new fave of Auggie, though:
Look at all those flyaways! Yikes! He’s in need of a good grooming.
Proving Me Wrong
I got in trouble with Auggie, because I went outside with him and planned to take some photos, but he wasn’t doing anything fascinating. “I guess when you’ve had a dog for three and a half years, everything he does ceases to be cute and new, so you don’t really take as many pictures…” I said to Auggie.
“Excuse me? What??” Auggie said.
“I can still do cute things.”
“Like this! See? Put me in a wagon and I’m instantly adorable.”
“OMG what just happened??” I keep telling him he’s fat.
I told Auggie he looked like he was up to something. “I’m ALWAYS up to something,” he says.
“Yeeeees, I know I’m still cute.”
“Bring you the ball and sit?”
“Okaaaay!”
“What’s that you say? Oh, you think that’s cute?”
“Is this cuter?”
“Yes? Cute? You liked that one? Good.”
The moral of the story: Don’t tell Auggie he is no longer cute unless you’re prepared to deal with the consequences.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 8
For week 8, we move up to four oxers. The pattern is vertical, oxer, oxer, oxer, oxer. Jump heights are still set at 10 inches and distances are still 90 inches for Auggie’s two-stride length per the calculations in the book.
He learns a lot faster in this video than he has in previous weeks. By the last jump in day 1 he’s running smooth and fast – save the last jump, which he still stuttersteps up to. On day 2 he drops a few bars, but notably, during jump 5 he actually doesn’t stutterstep up to the last jump! I have no idea what the difference is, because he goes back to doing it in the next jump and during all of day 3. WEIRD DOG.
Hopefully time will even out the issue here. I’m the kind of person who likes to know the “why” behind stuff though so I’d really like to know WHY he is still stutterstepping the final jump and only the final jump. I may never know, but I would LIKE to know, haha.
Auggie and a sheep
Forgive my baby talk. We were having a really good time outside today, just hangin’ out, bonding… enjoying my day off together. (And DANGIT I’m sunburned.)
This is the sheep. It was $5. It’s about the same size as Auggie.
Hmmm…
Auggie isn’t really impressed by it now. When I first brought it home I set it outside his crate and he just sat there, staring at it until I finally gave in and opened the crate to let him out.
Okay now he’s laughing at me.
And the rest of the pics from today (not all that exciting):
BLEEEARGH
Easter Egg Hunt 2009
It was nice and sunny outside, warm enough that I just needed a jacket – so OUTSIDE WE GO for the egg hunt this year! I had the camera but was slightly less inclined to throw myself on the muddy ground for photos the way I can lay on the living room floor and get photos whenever we go the egg hunt indoors, so my angles are a little different than usual.
This egg was hidden inside the gator’s mouth – I didn’t get a shot of him knocking it out of the mouth to pick it up.
Cookie treats inside the eggs!
Ohhhhh egg.
Nosing it over to me so I can open it for him…
…until he decided it was easier to open them himself.
This is the third year we’ve done an egg hunt, and this year he was pretty good at remembering how to open the eggs with just enough to pressure to pop them as opposed to actually chomping down and breaking them. (He broke a couple the first year… oops!)
EGG NOM.
MORE EGG NOM.
All the eggs are in the basket! He wouldn’t sit nicely next to them so I gave up and told him, “Fine – get up and do something cute with the basket.”
Which means he pushed it over with his paw.
Yeah okay, I admit it – that’s pretty cute.
Trying to open them again in case he missed a cookie somehow…
He still wouldn’t sit down nicely next to them. But okay that’s pretty cute too.
He nosed the basket over to knock the rest of the eggs out…
…and resumed opening them to make SURE they were really empty.
You see, he doesn’t trust that when I say “No, the treats are REALLY gone,” that I’m being honest. I don’t know why. I’ve never lied to him.
About all the treats being gone, anyway.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 7
Week 7 is a series of five jumps with three oxers. The pattern is vertical, oxer, oxer, vertical, oxer.
LOTS of stutter-stepping as he tries to navigate this series. About halfway through day 2 he starts to even out as he figures out how to adjust, though during his fifth run he ends up stutterstepping WAY too close up to the bar and has to pop up over it… and if you pause it at just the right moment he’s making a hilarious face as a result. Day 3 goes pretty well, but I notice that he’s consistently stutterstepping up the last bar. I’m not really sure why that is – if it’s a matter of him not seeing another obstacle beyond the final jump, so he makes some kind of weird adjustment for some reason? I honestly can’t figure out why he would do this. It’s interesting, anyway.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 6
In week 6, you add another oxer. The pattern is jump, jump, oxer, jump, oxer. Since I had the pattern as jump, jump, oxer, jump, jump during week 5, I simple added my second oxer to the end of the chute. Hopefully that means my pattern during week 5 was correct!
Hey, check it out! My new fencing is up!
Let me explain exactly what is occurring during day one – the jumps are secondary to the other lesson that is going on here. Earlier that day, I learned some bad news and ended up having an anxiety attack (in the middle of work, to boot!) I came home that evening practically in pieces, stressed out, not sure how to deal with the situation I’d been handed.
I didn’t think about this when we went out to do our jumps.
Auggie completely and totally picked up on me being an emotional mess, and did not want to disconnect and go jump out away from me. I had to make a change in my emotional state to get him to go ahead (it helped that it was pretty funny that he pulled off the jumps like that to come back to me…) Clothier has you do two sets of three jumps with a fifteen minute break in the middle, so after the first three jumps and out break, I basically had to pull myself together and knock it off, or it was going to affect my dog and his performance.
This video really shows something about the relationship we have with our dogs, and how they can pick up on things and it changes their demeanor, their performance. Imagine if this were at an agility trial and we were working on a full course instead of just through a jump chute… he would NOT have been a happy Auggie if I were trying to put any kind of distance between us!
I ran out of SD card space on day 3 again so another clip is missing. During day 2 and 3, we have what looks like a serious setback here, because Auggie’s back to stutterstepping – a LOT. But at this point in my working relationship with Auggie, I know what’s going on here: the rules have changed so he has to figure it out again, and when the rules change, Auggie decides it’s better to resort to stutterstepping. That’s how we got to this problem in the first place.
I’m running with him or constantly moving in just about all of these runs because I’m watching his footing really closely. If you watch the day 2 video, you can see how his jumping changes even within the one video, within six runs. It’s kind of impressive, but again, I’m really hoping this is just a part of the learning process rather than being something where he’s not going to actually have confidence when it actually comes to an agility course where all you have is one shot to get it right. This is only week 6, we still have lots to learn, so no sense worrying about it yet.
(Oh yeah, and check out all my newly striped jumps in the day 3 video! I spent all Saturday afternoon with several rolls of multi-coloured tape, striping my standards and jump bars.)
Week 7 is three oxers. Ai yi!
Naturally Jumping Method – Week 5
Week 5 is the first week with oxers. An oxer is as wide as it is tall – in Auggie’s case, since we are still using 10 inch jump heights, this means I have two 10 inch jumps that span 10 inches. The book doesn’t tell you where to put the first oxer, so I guessed and put it as the third jump. All of the jumps are still spaced 90 inches apart; in this instance, jump 2 is 90 inches to the first bar for jump 3, there’s the 10 inch spacing between jump 3’s bars, and then from the second bar of jump 3 to jump 4 it’s another 90 inches. For the oxer stage of the program, that 90 inch spacing will stay constant.
It’s a bit hard for him to nagivate that oxer at first. I started putting our broad jump/spread jump word to it (“big jump”) after the first crash into it and he did better after that. This might be cheating because it requires me to be there cueing him to adjust for a larger jump, so he’s not really learning to look at the jump and just adjust on his own. But it makes sense for agility to me – competitors I know all use a word like “big jump” or “go big” for spread jumps, doubles, and triples to cue the dog “There’s a longer than usual jump coming up – adjust!”
During the second day, he crashes into the oxer the first time, but on jumps 2-6 he doesn’t make the same mistake again.
I don’t have day 3 videos because I screwed up with the camera. As the video says, the day went pretty much the same as the other two videos here, though.
Naturally Jumping Method – Week 4
Week 4 went pretty good! Moving the jump heights up to 10 inches didn’t seem to throw Auggie off much at all, so I’m glad. All of the jumps are still set at 90 inches apart.
During day 1, I ran with him on all of the jumps. Every now and then he does knock a bar… but Clothier says not to worry about dropped bars. She says it is a natural part of the process of re-learning how to jump and that every time they knock a bar it helps them think stuff over. I’m not sure why I don’t have all 6 jumps recorded – I must have had another issue with my memory card.
Day 2 was REALLY windy – apologies for my camera wrist strap blowing into the shot during one jump! I was worried the wind might throw Auggie off a little, but he did fine.
For day three… there is a reason I only have five jumps shown here and it’s not a memory card problem. But I’ll talk about the video itself first! My mom was operating the camera and she made a few observations. Auggie still stutter-steps up to the very first jump before he gets into the rhythm of the last four jumps. The first jump is the bar he usually knocks, as well – probably because of the inefficient jumping.
I tried a few other things with these jumps, including sending him ahead (wasn’t sure if he’d do that, but he did!) and standing right at the end to call him through. Usually when I call him through I’m standing back several feet and sometimes even run backwards as he approaches to build up his drive, so that was a little different for him – but he’s pretty much unphased by it, which is great!
Another thing I’ve been noticing is that he hugs the standard pretty tight. Clothier wants the dogs to run and jump in the middle of the jump, but because Auggie has done agility training for so long he has learned how to hug the standards and try to make things a little more efficient when it comes to turning, crossing, and so on. When I run with him or am behind him, he always takes the last jump right over the middle because he’s in the process of turning to me – if I’m right ahead of him, he doesn’t make that change and stays to the side, hugging the standard. I’m not exactly sure if I should be concerned with this or not. My instinct is to not be worried about it…
NOW… why there are only five jumps shown in the third day. My mom was working the camera for me that day because it was raining – just a light drizzle, but still raining, so I asked her if she would come out and stand over the camera with an umbrella so my camera wouldn’t get wet.
Right before we did our sixth jump, it started POURING down rain. I’m standing there going “Oh holy crap – hurry Auggie, hurry, go through the jumps!” I’m flailing around with training treats in my hand, trying to get him back into the channel to run through the chute, and for a split second Auggie stands there, tries to blink the rain out of his eyes… gives me a Look, and proceeds to run back to the house – leaving me standing out in the pouring (did I mention it was COLD RAIN?!) rain, yelling “YOU GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE BRAT AND DO THOSE JUMPS!!!”
Thus, there are only five jumps in the video… because Auggie was standing up on the deck wanting to go inside and refused to come out and jump one last time.
Here, have a picture of my dog, after I came in and toweled off my hair and had to change my clothes because I was soaked through.
Look how proud he is of himself. Brat brat brat BRAT! He later asked to go outside, and when I opened the door and informed him it was still raining, he proceeded to go out in the still pouring rain and prance around going “La la la, I’m playing in the rain, la la la~” BRAAAAAAT!
Oh yeah – I bought a ton of PVC and spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon in the garage, listening to it thunderstorm outside and cutting pipes down. The two jumps at the beginning are my “Junior AKC” jumps from Toys R Us, and are now four feet wide, so they match the rest of my jumps (finally!) and I am now all set to add additional bar jumps to create an oxer for the coming weeks of the jumping series. I need to break out my coloured tape and start striping stuff again!
Sadly, it is quite cold again today. The beautiful spring weather has been replaced by… well, icky spring weather.
Blaze Comes To Play
How did I not post these? A few weeks ago, Blaze came over to play. Blaze belongs to Auggie’s breeder, and we “borrowed” him. It was FREEZING so we ran inside and outside over and over again – outside playplayplayplay inside so I can warm up outside playplayplayplay inside so I can warm up, repeat.
Blaze says “Oh hai. You’re the cookie lady. You have cookies in your pocket.”
OH BOY LET’S PLAY.
Auggie’s favourite game of chase. These pictures are really hilarious, because Auggie was running at top speed, and Blaze was kind of just loping along behind, like “La la la I chaaaase yooooou~” and Auggie’s going “OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG WHEEEEEEE!” the whole time.
Blaze is all SERIOUS BUSINESS and Auggie’s like “I LIEK TO PLAY BALL.”
Wheeee!
Poking around the yard by himself. Auggie was off that way somewhere. *waves hand*
Blaze was gonna get the ball…
…but it tastes like Auggie-breath. Ewwww.
So Auggie has to carry the ball back to me.
Thinking about getting it again – BLEH TASTES LIKE THAT DOG.
Running with a ball or a toy in his mouth is rather Default Mode for Auggie anyway…
Having a blast.
OMG WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE QUICK LET’S GO SEE
More running around having a blast, Auggie still running around with the ball in his mouth because he’s a tennis-ball obsessed dork.
“Do you want the ball Blaze? You want the ball? YOU WANT THE BALL?” He says “OMG YES I WANT THE BALL *sproing sproing sproing*”
I GET THE BALL wait it still tastes like Auggie-breath.
Auggie is so darn happy to have another dog to play with it causes him to levitate.
They were both very interested in gobbling up snow.
Mmmm snows.
THE END.
Naturally Jumping Method – Week 3
We’re into week 3 now, which leaves the jump heights the same, so we’re still at 8 inch jump heights.
He does VERY well the first day! Jump 5 is gorgeous! I’m starting to see real improvement. During day 2, I realized I forgot to put my memory card in, so I didn’t catch every jump we did. I also decided to try running with him to see what that did… I’m running funny because I’m in my snow boots and they aren’t exactly the best thing to run in, so it seemed to throw him off just slightly at the beginning. Then he kind of decided to ignore me and focus on the jump, and he did a lot better! During day 3, I started just running with him to watch his strides more than really running to run with him, so I’m getting a really good look at just how his strides are. Runs 5 and 6 are really great!
During Week 4, we will move the jump heights up. My jump cups for the two jumps I built (the final two you see in the chute) only go every two inches, so I’m going to have to move up to 10 inches instead of gradually moving to 9, then 10… I hope it’s not going to throw things off too much.
Next week is also the final week in our 8-week long agility classes, and I think I will stop for just a bit… give Auggie a few weeks to work on his jumping and nothing else. Once he starts to improve and the weather warms up, we’ll pick up again, probably going to private lessons back out at his breeder’s place! Gotta work on those contacts, too.
Natural Jumping Method – Round 1
I meant to start last week but things kept coming up. So as of yesterday we are in week 2. Week 1 is getting dogs used to jumps/jumping multiple jumps; Clothier gives people who have dogs used to that sort of thing, IE flyball, permission to go straight to week 2. We don’t do flyball but Auggie IS used to jumping a ton of jumps in a row, so I went ahead and skipped to week 2.
Please forgive my very ghetto jump chute… I am in the process of trying to decide on some kind of fencing to build the other side, and until then I’m using my two ex-pens and the plastic playpen I’ve had since Auggie was a wee puppy. Also please forgive some of the camera angles… I know it’s hard to see a lot of the jumps. I was still trying to figure out the best way to shoot the videos.
Some details: per the measurements and formula in the book, our distance between jumps is 90 inches. I had a lot of trouble deciding on what height to start working at, and ultimately I decided to start at 10 inches (Auggie normally jumps 12), and if it seemed that was too high to move down to 8. The jump heights were all set at 10 inches during day 1. During day 2, I went ahead and moved the jump heights down to 8 inches after the third jump. They will remain at 8 inches for a while.
During day one, he basically stutter-steps the ENTIRE length of the chute. I apologize for not having all six jumps filmed, but my mom was helping me and by “helping” I mean she was putting her terrible camerawork to use. Only four of the videos she shot were any good, so those are the four jumps I show.
By the sixth jump on day 2, he actually appears to run the length between the jumps (it’s supposed to be two stride lengths) instead of stutter-stepping the entire length between jumps. He’s still not taking normal stride-lengths; he still stutter-stepped just about the whole length of the chute. But he is smoothing out a little.
Day 3 gives us some better results and he really begins to smooth out more. There were multiple times that I could count the two strides between jumps. Day three was encouraging to start seeing progress already!
More Snow Pics
I meant to post these last week; right after I accepted that we wouldn’t be getting any decent snow, we got decent snow. We got more yesterday, even, and will get more tomorrow. Of course, it does me little good when I’m sick. Now that I think of it, standing outside in the snow taking photos of your dog is probably not the best way to get better, either. Oops.
Anyway, here we go!
This was the night we got the snow. I left work, raced home, let Auggie out immediately… but still didn’t really have enough light to get good photos. The few that turned out are pretty cute since he plunged his whole face right into the snow.
Sound effect: PLOOMPH.
These were taken Saturday afternoon, once I got out of my all-day class. It was about 4PM so the sun was starting to go down, but I still had some sunlight. This is how Auggie plays best. He will fetch, yes, and wrestle and tug… but he loves, loves, LOVES to run.
Specifically he likes being chased. He gets a kick out of me going “AAAH’M GONNA GETCHA” and starting towards him. He’s like a little kid, going “Eeeee hee hee!!” and running away squealing or something.
I’d like to make Auggie a slot car and race him on a track. Wheeeee!
The next day, Sunday. I stood out there, feeling sick, nose dripping with snot, hollering “RUN, AUGGIE! RUN RUN RUN!” And he ran.
He ran so far away.
This photo reminds me that I should live every day with Auggie’s mentality. That is… “WHEEEEEEEEEE!!”
Okay, to me, in this one he looks like he’s going “Huff… huff… can I stop running now? Huff… you’re right, Mom, I did get fat… huff… oh God I’m out of shape, huff… why… why…” I later found out that my dad, who thought he was doing everybody a favour by feeding Auggie breakfast the two weeks he was off work for Christmas, had been over feeding him. I KNEW IT. I knew he was fat. See, I wasn’t just being mean – he was being overfed and he really DID get fat.
Anyway, that was a month ago and I’m pretty sure Auggie is back down to his regular weight now. He got a bath last week and his body shape under all his fluffy fur looked correct to me, so I think we’re good.
Okay, I got some cute Auggie + snow pictures. My Midwestern winter for 2007-2008 is now complete.
Not-a-lot-of-snow Pics
A few days ago, I looked on The Weather Channel to see how the weather would be for the weekend. The front page reads in ominous letters, “BIG FREAKING SNOWSTORM COMING RIGHT FOR THE MIDWEST WHITE DEATH IT’S AWFUL!” (Okay not that exactly, but you get the idea.)
Unfortunately, upon checking our local forecast, I discovered this big snowstorm was actually only going to hit the NORTHERN parts of the Midwest. You know, like Chicago isn’t getting enough snow anyway, right? Of course, it didn’t really give a decent snow when I was IN Chicago, but it sure is snowing there now that I’m back in Central Illinois.
It’s almost mid-January and I’m resigned to the fact that we probably won’t get a good snow here this year. We MIGHT get a blizzard around Valentine’s Day… that happens on occasion, though we had one two years ago or so and I think we’re good for another 8 years until it happens again. So I’m not counting on it.
Therefore when I looked out the window today and saw big snowflakes floating through the air, I bundled up, grabbed the camera, and hauled Auggie outside for snow pictures… less than an inch of accumulation or not.
I attempted some Auggie-running shots, but he wouldn’t run unless I threw the tennis ball.
I shoot action shots on auto-focus, and in the unfortunate case of snow, the auto-focus seemed to be more interested on… the tiny little snowflakes rather than the DOG bearing down on me.
I threw the ball a total of three times; Auggie only retrieved it a total of 2 times. He was far more interested in searching the backyard for rabbit poop and trying to eat it. Therefore all of the rest of these photos are rather static.
“Shake off first, Auggie. Auggie, shake off. Shake off. Auggie…”
Nope. He insisted on going inside with all that snow on.
And now, some blooper photos…
I love when people are like “Oh your dog is so handsome!” No he’s not, he’s an idiot.
I frequently catch shots of my dog burping. Like this one.
The Auggles Return
For those of you that have George Thoroughgood in your music library, I recommend you put some on now.
I stopped at PetSmart to pick up a tiny harness for The Mythical Harley since they are on sale this month, and while I was there I spotted something that I absolutely, completely, and totally NEEDED for Auggie.
It was this:
So I took Auggie outside, dremelled his toenails, clipped his whiskers and trimmed up his feet, then stuck this shirt on him. Well, the shirt just needed something more… so… I brought out the Auggles.
Ahhhh, my Auggles!
Pretty nice day for a motorcycle ride, actually. A bit warm, but overwise lovely.
“HI MOMMY I HAVE GOGGLES ON.”
Grimly surveys his backyard… I mean, his turf. (Oh God, his dreadlocks… he needs the hair behind his ears thinned out again…)
All is well on the turf! Smile time!
He could do with a shirt that reads “Bitches Love Me” too. Right after I get that one that reads “I’m A Boy Dog.”
People don’t believe me when I tell them “Bad to the Bone” is his theme song – but YOU guys understand… don’t you? DON’T you? I mean, c’mon. Just look at him.
Tuff guy.
This is like some kind of badass Elvis lipcurl. I am related to Elvis, so maybe it rubbed off on Auggie.
He came up on the deck to get a cookie.
Can has cookie plz?
And now I present to you the newest Favourite Auggie Photo/Best Representation Of Auggie’s Personality In One Photo Ever:
There you have it. Auggie in a nutshell.
Playing in the Leaves
We were going to head out to the Farmer’s Market this morning, but didn’t get to. So instead, we played in the leaves in the backyard!
It’s lovely weather today.
Auggie is rather proud of himself. For what, I’m not sure, but he is indeed proud.
Warning: Dog Never Stops Smiling.
Pounce into leaf pile in three…
two…
one!!
Knuckle Bone For The Knuckle Head
After a lot of consideration and recommendations from other people, I decided it would be a fun treat for Auggie to get him a knuckle bone. He has some tartar built up on his teeth that I cannot get at to scrape off (his top tooth closes over the bottom tooth RIGHT where I need to scrape) and I want to do whatever I can to avoid having him need a tooth cleaning at any point in his life.
So I requested the butcher at the grocery save me a knuckle bone, and I went to pick it up yesterday.
The bone is BIGGER than Auggie’s head – but why should that stop him?
Fancy Auggie gets his raw meat on a plate. (I couldn’t think of a good reason to take it off the styrofoam from the butcher before he started chewing it.)
Auggie says “What do I do with this? Do I… lick it?”
“Ohhhh, I do THIS!!”
“This is delicious!”
“Ommm nom nom nom nom”
“Now I nom on this side of my mouth!” (That’s right, buddy, get those teeth clean on BOTH sides.)
“Sinew is a delectable treat.”
It’s gotten nice and filthy by this point…
Dirt is just like sprinkles!
I gave it to him for about fifteen minutes, then washed all the dirt off it, chucked it into a plastic bag, and stuck it into the freezer. He’ll get it again tonight, and hopefully after a few days he’ll be able to start really getting to work and getting his teeth nice and clean!
I just got a new camera!
Holy crap I don’t think I could be any happier!! I wish I’d bought this thing YEARS ago!! Some of these were even taken by my mom, who always always always takes blurry photos. She was so excited that she could take photos and they came out clear.
Barking at the neighbor. GRRRRR BIG TOUGH DOG.
This. is. hilarious. I cried laughing. WHY IS HE SQUINTING. I think he felt like I was going to poke his eye.
Glamour shot Auggie!!
This is Auggie’s emo puppy impression…
Auggie Plays Outside
Today I took Auggie outside to play with his brand new frisbee.
This is his new frisbee! It was a dollar at my favourite land of dollar goodies… Target!
Okay, frisbee is really just like fetch, because Auggie doesn’t know how to catch the frisbee in his mouth.
Auggie gets a drink from the garden hose, because I forgot (again) to bring out his new outdoor water dish.
This is Auggie’s transformed stage… he turns from Regular Auggie into… SOGGY AUGGIE.
My little smiley guy.
Laying underneath the bush to chill out for a little bit.
My little guy. If only his front wasn’t soaked in this photo!!
A visit from Cousin Dogs
My sister decided that her family was good for using when you’re going out of town and dropped her two dogs off here with us.
Auggie went NUTS when they showed up… instant zoomies. Zoomies that pretty much didn’t wear off until long after they left today.
Kota is the old man on the left; Happy is on the right. Technically, he’ll be 8 in January, so I guess they’re both old men… but it’s hard to think of Happy as anything as a puppy.
Auggie, sniffing around with Happy. Happy didn’t want to play too much, and also both Kota and Happy have gotten FAT since they moved out, but they got to play a little bit. Mostly they just did this together.
If you asked Auggie what he wants to be when he grows up, he’d say “Kota.” Kota is his hero. He loves him and loves to follow him everywhere.
More sniffing around… last week it got below freezing twice, so we opened the back of the yard up at last. So there was plenty of rabbit poop to “clean up.” Gag.
More Auggie with his hero Kota. Kota looks a bit pissed here – the sun was in his eyes.
I just think Kota is the handsomest old man in the world. He was really lovey and clingy this weekend, and I did get him to play with me last night, so he was in a good mood.
He was in such a good mood, actually, that he didn’t want to leave when my sister came to pick him up… he refused to get off the porch. Then, when she finally lured him out to the car, he refused to get in the car…
Happy, looking mildly photogenic after a good brushing from me once they got here.
A good one of Happy. He’s so clearly going gray in the face, especially over his eyes… but he’s still a little puppyhead.
And finally, I thought this was hilarious. My sister claims her dogs don’t like crates, but for the last several months they lived with us, we crated them when we were gone for various reasons. So they came this weekend, and I got the crates out… and they both leapt right in them. This happened first when I was tucking everybody in to bed last night, and then again before I ran out for lunch today… Happy and Kota tried to share the same crate! Don’t worry, I didn’t leave them in together…
Now they’re gone, and Auggie is sad… and tired from his non-stop zoomies…
Seasons Changing
Some nice fall-ish outdoor shots from today…
Auggie “stacked,” for a thread on a dog forum I belong to. Back legs are a little too far out, but a pretty nice shot anyway! He is nice and freshly bathed/groomed here, too.
I stick my tongue out at you!
WITHOUT the bratty tongue sticking out.
Swimmy Puppy
A lot of you are probably familiar with ARTLIST, the company that produces The DOG photos. There’s a bunch that they shot without the extreme fisheye lenses, and one was of a sheltie with a floatie ring on.
And then I saw these floaties at Wal-Mart for 88 cents.
Cuteness abounds.
Growing Like A Flower
He just keeps growing – becoming less of a puppy, and more of a dog. His coat will continue to change for at least another year.
He’s awfully happy all the time, though.
I sit with my paws crossed!
