Day 302 - schedule click. Clunk.

The sanitation engineers are here--dead armadillo cleanup on aisle seven.

 
With no prompting or hullabaloo, Izzy is eating her supper.  On time.  To the bottom of the dish.

So, great.  After months of trying to get her to understand the schedule, she gets it for once--and tomorrow I'm going to change it .  Maybe I won't.  If yahoo maps is right and that Anime festival turns out to really  only be an hour drive from here, maybe I'll come home in the afternoon; jog; walk and feed the dogs; and then go back.  It's not like there's anything there I want to do.

Day 300 - dog walking good

 No dog news.  Looking back at old posts, I can't tell that I ever reported how well Izzy's walking on a leash now.  I won't say it's show dog perfect, but as long as I give her a second and make my requests perfectly clear, she goes.




Nostalgia for fall, soon to be over....

Day 299 - back to routine

They got their walk back.  An especially long one, too.  Didn't feel like doing anything as sensible and esteem-building as jogging, so I skipped it and took them on my weekday jogging route instead.  You can't call it exercise, for me--too many stops.  For Zack, maybe--he's limited in the leg department.

Day 298 - dog no training/bad owner

Dog delays.  Children rule.  Mondays stink.


I had to take Callie for a school supply run this evening, so the dog walk got pushed back to 7:30.  They got their smell in, business done, and just a tiny bit of exercise.  So they love me again.

I have nothing interesting to post, so here are some birds availing themselves of our water supply.  I think the one on the right is a Harris' Sparrow, but with a cheap camera, you can't be sure.

Don't be misled by the ladder--usually a ladder in the front yard means someone is working on a home improvement project.  At our house, a ladder is just a ladder.

Day 297 Autumn peppers

Peppers rule!

They can struggle through 100+ degree days of summer and still be happily fruitful in the fall.  I watered them intermittently but only intermittently--most days they wilted badly in the summer sun and only came back to life at night.  Freeze is the only thing that will stop them.







I'm trying to amass the willpower to spend a few hours in the garden, getting a bed ready for turnips.  It's not going to happen this weekend, but that's okay.  As long as I plant the seeds while the ground is warm enough for sprouting, they'll grow all winter.

Izzy and Werewolf got their claws cut today.  Sort of.  Izzy fought me every minute and I forgot the Dog-Singerer trick.  Werewolf wasn't happy to let me touch his front left paw.  He even whimpered a little, but I wasn't twisting or pulling or doing anything bad.  So I didn't get a good cut on that one.  I'm thinking of trying again tomorrow...with bribes.

Day 296 how can she be so sweet and still so annoying?

I was working at home this morning and she didn't eat a bite.  Not one bite.  I even gave her a second chance later in the afternoon.

What is this lovely bug?  I've been calling it an "assassin bug" but there's an awful lot of different kinds of them...is it?

Day 294 - it's how we live

Welcome to my house of horrors.

Re dog training: I didn't get her to take a treat from my hand yet, but I did get her to eat a dog biscuit.  Hurray.

Day 293 - hush!

Mongolian pork chops (free-range, local pork), dipping sauce and Julia Child's braised spinach.  Feast for one!  (One human--don't tell the dogs.)

Day 289 - she's a working dog again

Why the heck am I so happy that it's only going to get up to 90 degrees tomorrow?  Is 90 degrees like, a cool front?  90, for heavens sake.

I've been living in Texas too long.

Little dog don't care--he sees a puddle of water, he jumps in it.  I'm glad someone's finally using the doggie pool.

Stressed out dog today by proving she can walk on a leash with a big, noisy trash can rattling along beside her.  She got used to it after a minute but if we do the routine again next week, I bet she'll balk even more at going up to it.  I should do it every day.

Day 289 - dang the dog

What is the deal with this dumb dog?  When I sit at my computer, three yards away from her cage, she lays down in the cage and takes a nap.  But if I go into another room, it's not five minutes before she's coming out to check up on me.   Is she such a creature of routine that she "remembers" when I'm at the computer, she's supposed to snooze?   Is she just comfortable, hearing me at the computer?  Or is she just plain nosy?

I am so looking forward to when I get time to clean up the dining room, haul away all the junk, clean the floor and rearrange the furniture.  I'm going to move her cage over a little, so she can see me as well as smell&hear me.  But it probably won't matter.

Day 287 why why why

I let them in early last night because there was a little thunder.  I meant to put them out again after the rain passed through but it never passed through.  So what do you expect?

Yep.  A serious attack of diarrhea on the dining room carpet.  I don't know why, either--she's been exceptionally regular about leaving a massive dump on our daily walks and no signs of diarrhea.  I can't believe it's the (slight) change in routine...?

Day 286 - cool hah

The weather forecasters are saying high of only 90 by Saturday.  Dang--if it's that cool, I'll have to start working outside again.  With a sweater on.

I guess I should consider myself lucky to have a dog who'd rather come visit me in the bathroom than eat her breakfast.  This morning I tried to feed her early so she could eat while I was getting ready.  It failed epically--ignoring her tasty food with beef chunks and chicken broth on it, she came and snuck up behind me while I was brushing my teeth.

Day 285 - candy from strangers

Working on taking the treat again.  I spent a small eternity in Petsmart today and came up with two different flavors of treats that had meat as the primary ingredient.  Then I stopped at Kroger and bought a pack of string cheese.

So...the result?  No progress to speak of.  She wouldn't take it, of course, but after I gave it to her by putting it in her cage, she brought it out and lay on the blanket to eat it.  Then she saw me and ran back inside, leaving the treat in plain sight where Zack promptly acquired it.  I took it away from him and gave it back to her.  Finally, after a couple of minutes, I heard a soft crunching.

Real bacon might do the trick but I won't buy CAFO bacon and I didn't feel like making a trip to Local Yokel.  Whole foods market has pasture-raised pork, too, but it always seems to take forever to go there.  I'll check it out later this week.

Day 281 - learning a new trick

We've started the regimen.  Daily--or maybe twice daily--I'm going to give Izzy a treat from my hand and she'd going to take it.  Even if, like tonight, I had to kind of squeeze it into her lips until it was more-or-less attached to her fur.  What the heck--it worked.

Day 279 - pampering the sweet sixteen

Late but long walk today.  I got home late from dropping off Callie at a friend's house.  Of course that means I didn't get to go jogging, so I gave the doggies the extra time.

Now here's the problem--three or four teenage girls are sleeping over on Friday night.  What to feed them for breakfast?

Preferably it's something that can be purchased the day before.  I wonder if Whole Foods Market bakery has something to fit the bill?  I'll have about an hour to kill on Friday night...that's an idea.  If the bakery can do a decent bagel, plus some cinammon rolls or something, then I can fry up some bacon and do eggs on demand.

Day 277 - play time

All of the dogs were playing together, in the house today.  I was working in the front room with Callie and the guys were outside, so I guess that means, play time!

It's a nice sound.

Later, when I was sitting at the computer, I noticed Zack at my feet dreaming--feet twitching like he was running in place--little squeaky barks that didn't quite come out.  And then later still, I heard Werewolf woofing in his sleep.  So the question is this--will I ever hear Izzy sleeping so comfortably that she can dream out loud?

As soon as I get the dining room rearranged, it might happen.  But right now I'm stuck working Callie's room.

Day 274 - lamenting the heat

When did I start the mandatory dog walk in the evening?  Sometime in April or May, it looks like.   It seems like forever ago, but it wasn't really.

But now it's permanent--they expect it and won't settle down until they get it.  Today--walking in one hundred degrees temperatures at seven p.m.--I realized that in about three months, this won't be an abominable chore but a pleasant walk in the cooling breeze.  Just three months.  Maybe four.