Phun with Photographs

Portrait of a French Bulldog

(circa - 7 /9/2007)

It's amazing what you can do with pictures these days, isn't it?

Inadvertent sweet-smelling Ceilidh

It's been kind of warm here. That goodness, not as hot as in the West, but warm and sunny nonetheless. And our little dogs love to sunbathe. Not the best thing for little black dogs, but we don't let them lie in the sun for long. A few weeks ago Hope and I got ambitious and spread cedar mulch around where nothing is planted - one reason for this was so that the dogs would lie on something and not get dirt all over themselves and the house. And it's worked. Dax especially likes to lie near the hostas on the mulch. Yesterday Hope told me she had the dogs out and Ceilidh was rolling on her back in the mulch - she was aiming for something nasty nearby, but she missed! So Ceilidh meant to smell like that nasty bit, but instead she smelled like cedar!

Who's afraid of the big, bad BOOM!

We are very, very, very fortunate. None of our dogs is afraid of thunder or fireworks. Which there were tons of last night - our house is center of a fireworks triangle; the high school to the south, the forest preserve to the west and the country club to the east.

All three venues had wonderful displays last night. We could see some of them from the house, but we got out of the habit to going to any fireworks shows when we had our first dog, who was deathly afraid of things that go "boom" in the night.

And there was a boatload of "booming" last night. Even after the finales of the scheduled shows, we heard fireworks going off for a couple of hours. I spoke to a friend this morning who was speculating that the police detonate all the confiscated fireworks (anything bigger than a sparkler is illegal around here) on the Fourth of July. At their own family barbecues.

I can't prove that she's right, but it sounds about right to me.

Dax, and Ceilidh's Ball

I have mentioned that my Boston Terrier, Ceilidh's favorite toy in the universe is her Latex Soccer Ball. The other day it went missing! This was actually not the catastrophe that it might have been, since we're always careful to have at least one spare. Yesterday before dinner she came running into the room proudly carrying the missing Latex Soccer Ball. We knew it was the missing ball since we always put it away after our scheduled play session. We told Ceilidh how clever she was for finding her ball and took it away, promising that we would play with it later. Well, it must have fallen off the shelf because a few minutes later Dax came in with the ball in her mouth! Where was the camera!!! You should have seen Ceilidh's face - her eyes went wide and her mouth went slack - pure astonishment! Like, "But that's MY ball!" No harm - we got the ball away from Dax before either she or Ceilidh got any ideas. We'll see if Dax shows any interest in the spare Latex Soccer Ball tonight during play time...

Just 'cause I think they're cute

As soon as I get out of bed Ceilidh gets in.
Golly was being a bit of a grump last night - can you tell?
Roc - do not distract him when he's watching tv.

I can't believe we let them sleep with us

Every once in a while it occurs to me that dogs are really disgusting creatures.

Especially after a rainstorm, when the earthworms wash up and die in the sun. And the dogs delight in rolling on them.

And when we tell them "GET UP!" they look at us like - "Aw, Mom. You're ruining all our fun."

Golly Went Back to School

I don't know what possessed me on Tuesday. I took Golly to training class. Hope and I are members of the North Shore Dog Training Club - Hope talked about our trial last Sunday - and the club has classes every Tuesday evening. The club was also going to have a short general meeting on Tuesday, so I thought it would be a good time to go to training. And, since it had been a while since I'd taken Golly on an outing, I thought we would guest train in the Novice class. And since Golly has her Companion Dog title I figured this would be a good refresher for her (and me!). She loved it! Sure, Golly was heeling a little wide and her fronts weren't exactly straight, but it's been five years since we'd done any training!

So, now I'm thinking maybe I'll go to some Rally matches and maybe, maybe, even compete!