Country cat, city cat.

Took the dogs for our evening walk. Car turns down the road so the dogs and I move to the side of the road. I glance behind me to see Gandalf, Colt, Alice and Possum slowly move to either side of the road also. The car stops next to me and the window rolls down, the woman driver glances around and says "farm cats?" You don't know how friggin tempted I was to say "No, they're city cats in a survivalist training class".

Tucker with new puppy Sal

The house was pretty much trashed once they were done, but it was worth seeing Tucker, the chocolate Lab, initiating play with the new puppy, after 3 weeks of wondering if he would take his head off. Stanley, the yellow Lab, had no issues adjusting to the new puppy.

Tucker and Sal (this will take you to a facebook video of the two wrestling)

Here are a few stills of the new puppy.

Now, if I could just teach them to wipe their paws, before coming in from outside, and pick up everything they shred....

No fear

Some kittens don't realize how close to becoming a snack they come. My chocolate lab is pretty laid back with the furry felines, but playing in his food dish is not the smartest move to make.

Kitty love

Shameless pet blogging.

pets

Shameless pet blogging :D

Stan and Tucker

Dusty napping

Stanley

For your viewing pleasure, I give you the King of yellow Labs. Stanley :D

He is, of course, reclining on his favorite chair throne .

(A chair which is now more or less his. No one wants to battle the yellow and white hairs.)

Tuckered out

You have all heard the phrase "tuckered out". Well, this is what it looks like. My daughter took this picture tonight, of the pup we have, who just happens to be named Tucker.

first snow pics

Here are the first pics of the season. We will add more when the darn wind dies down. These were taken by my daughter. Click on any of them to enlarge.

cute dog pics

My daughter was playing with the new camera and snapped the following "awwwwwww" moment pictures. Including the one of her and Tucker. (note the actual grin on her face, it is NOT something you see often :P )

How was your Friday?

Well, let me tell you about mine.

I finished making supper around 5:45. Sat down to eat. One dog on either side of me, which is normal. Finished eating about 6:15. Speared a piece of scrap on my fork, to save for the bigger dog, and turned away for 2 seconds to give the pup his scrap, when WHAM, the fork is nabbed straight out of my hand by none other than Stan, the older dog. I jerked my head around in time to see said fork disappear down Stan's mouth. OHHHHHHH $hit. I grabbed the phone book and started calling vets within a 30 mile radius to see what, if anything, could be done. Finally found one 60 miles away, in Appleton. Long drive on a Friday evening, wondering just what this was going to cost. 7:30 I load up the hound and head out. Get on the other side of Green Bay, and get a double whammy. Road construction! Forcing the normal 2 south bound lanes, into one. And pouring rain. (where the heck is ours??) Do you know what it is like, driving through a maze of orange striped barrels, in pouring rain, worrying about your passenger? Fookin' nerve wracking. Get to the vet (with only one wrong turn, mind you) and sit in the waiting room for 30 minutes. Finally get called back, only to wait another 15 minutes for the doctor. Kids start texting as soon as I get in the exam room. (Psychic or what.) (One of those texts came from my daughter, asking if I was sure he swallowed it, because they had found one on the floor. Yep, I know he swallowed it, I saw it go down.) He checks out Hoover Stan and says we need x-rays, to see where the fork was located. A friggin hour later, they bring my dog back. So the Doc loads up his computer, turns the screen so I can see it, and NO FORK! They took x-rays from stem to stern, and it wasn't there. When I explained to him that I saw the fork going down, he said more than likely Stan coughed it back up, and to watch in case he scratched his esophagus doing so. Total cost to moi? $250 and 4 hours of my time between travel and visit. It was worth it. My psychotic hound is worth that and more. I was so dayemed relieved, I almost cried. (Stan is the big yellow one, under the puppy)

So, how was your Friday?

the pup

Every night, right before bed, I take the puppy outside for one last time. We usually end up playing fetch with one of his favorite toys, the tennis ball. Tonight around 10:30, while playing, I realized just how keen his nose is becoming. He did not once lose that ball, even though I was tossing it into the shadows of the front yard. Once, I thought he had lost it, but after almost five solid minutes of nose to the ground searching, he came back with it in his mouth, tail wagging. I think he would make one heck of a narcotics dog, or search and rescue.

ooops

Looks like at this rate, they will have the whole darn body dug up soon.

(note to self, bury them deeper next time)

bone

This is a picture of the bone he is chewing on, with a tennis ball for size comparison.

snack

This is what happens when we get visitors.

Not much left of that one ;)

training the pup

We've been working on training the pup to alert us when someone is at the door. It's not quite as easy as you think with a rambunctious 7 month old lab. His basic commands are coming along fine, but we want a whole lot more from him.
A couple of days ago, he woke from a sound sleep, jumped up off the couch, stood up at the kitchen door and barked. I hadn't heard anyone pull in the drive, so I figured he was hearing things. Imagine my surprise, when I got up and checked, to see a friend of ours coming up the hallway stairs. Tucker may not have heard the vehicle pull in, but he heard the outer door open and close. He may not be impressive enough at his age and size to scare anyone off yet, but give him time :D
Labs were never meant to be attack dogs, which we don't want, but what we do want is a dog who will let us know when someone is here. And labs make great early warning sirens.

(click to enlarge)

Cute puppy video

Tucker sees himself in the mirror. He was not impressed.

cats

This is Chubs, yet another of our cats. He is what I call a semi-long haired fur ball. Chubs is one of our more anti-social cats.

Tucker

This picture was taken by my daughter. The puppy is growing fast. Don't let that innocent look fool you, when he goes into hyper-puppy mode, he literally flies around the house, bouncing off of furniture.

more dog pics

Here's some new pictures of the boys.

Garbage kitty

As I was prepping and cooking for Thanksgiving, I found an unusual item in the garbage. At first I thought I was seeing things. Upon closer examination, I realized I really was seeing what I thought it was. There was a cat curled up, sound asleep, in there. I had been tossing things on top of him as I worked. Why he never woke up I have no idea. This is the same cat curled up with the dogs on the recliner in another picture.