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The Day-After Doldrums

Can I just say that I hate the term, “Black Friday”? I do. In all honesty, I hate what Black Friday has become. It’s just one more example of the over-commercialization of Christmas.

Not that I am super (or even remotely) religious. But Christmas should be about families and friends sharing and treasuring the time together. Giving gifts if you want to and not because you feel like you have to. Gifts that you choose, that have some meaning or are special in some way.

Anyway… I won’t go on and on.

Thinking about Christmas just puts me in a bad mood. So I’ll talk about Thanksgiving instead, even if it is history.

This is the first time Hubby and I have spent Thanksgiving at the WV place. It was quiet. Very, very quiet. It also happened to be K’s first time here. (Yep, I’m back to talking about dogs again.)

Poor K. She’s only been with us for two weeks. Before that, it was three weeks in a foster home (don’t worry, it was a great one). Prior to that, about two weeks with an older woman who adopted her and then realized K has way too much energy. Before that, a couple of weeks in the same foster home. And before that, she was in a shelter, but I don’t know for how long.

To make a long story short, the girl has been around.

So, I wonder what she was thinking when she was loaded into a vehicle, AGAIN, and taken to a strange house? At least she was with us. But dogs don’t get the concept of a vacation home. And it’s tiny. Way smaller than the MD place. All of the floors are slippery, too. So not only is there no room to run, it’s very hard for the dogs to run.

All in all, K seems to have adjusted to this house well, too. In the picture above, she’s in her new bed. The one that I made too skinny. But all the dogs seems to like it.

Yesterday afternoon, I gave them all some treats. K is on one of the bigger beds in this image.

Anyway, K does seem to like it here, except for the fact that we can’t let her off leash to run. She is one of those dogs that has a super-sensitive nose, and when she gets onto a scent, that’s all she is focused on. So, until we teach her to come when called every single time, no matter what she is doing, she’s going to be on a leash.

I feel bad, because Meg and Belle get to run ahead of us, fast, through the woods. But I’d feel worse if K disappeared, never to be seen by us again.

Speaking of running through the woods… it’s hunting season. That time of year when we make the dogs wear their “don’t shoot me” vests. So no idiot mistakes one of the dogs for a deer. I made Meg and C’s vests, but I haven’t gotten around to making vests for Belle and K. So, Belle had to borrow C’s vest…

… which still says CeCe, by the way. I think C would understand.

Hopefully, before we come back, Belle and K will have their own vests to wear. They won’t be blaze orange, though. I could tell you what color they will be, but what fun is that? Then you wouldn’t have anything to look forward to!

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Don’t Quit Your Day Job

Things have been pretty quiet on the home front as we adjust to life with K, dog #3. She’s actually dog #4. Our first dog, CeCe, passed away just over a year ago. That means we are currently sharing our home with three dogs.

K is the first dog of ours to come from NBRAN, the National Brittany Rescue and Adoption Network. C, Meg and Belle were all adopted through ABR, American Brittany Rescue. Both are wonderful organizations full of dedicated, dog-loving people. They both have lots of dogs in need of a home, too.

When we decided to add dog #3, as a playmate for Belle, we were pretty specific about what we needed. There were no ABR dogs that fit the bill at the time. That’s how we ended up with NBRAN. And I’m glad, too, because we got the coolest little dog.

Anyway… I promised her foster Mom I’d keep her up-to-date with progress reports. I told Belle’s foster Mom that, too, which is one of the reasons you see so much dog stuff on here.

Fortunately for K’s foster Mom, I remembered that Hubby’s camera takes videos. So I’ve been trying to shoot little slice-of-life shorts to share. They are not particularly riveting for the average viewer. But I think my dog-loving friends enjoy them.

I shot the above video yesterday around 2:30 when I went downstairs to make lunch. I thought it was cute. When I showed Hubby, he said, “Don’t quit your day job.”

“What? You don’t like my video?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that,” he explained. “I just don’t think it will have any huge mass appeal.”

He probably has a point. But today, I have nothing better to talk about. So I hope you enjoyed Lunchtime.

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Training Day

Today marks a full week since we adopted K, dog number 3. She’s not perfect (what dog is?), but she is a really good dog. While we are not quite ready to leave the dogs alone for any significant periods of time yet, we don’t have to watch them quite so closely. Hubby and I spent a good deal of time cleaning up leaves (again!) today. The dogs were cavorting in the yard for hours. Not unattended, but not closely scrutinized either.

Of course, if I weren’t already convinced that it was safe, that wouldn’t have happened. But I’ve been watching the dogs so closely all week, I feel like I’ve been monitoring some sort of science experiment.

It’s really neat seeing them together. Just as we’d hoped, Belle and K are ideal playmates. But there is one problem with K. She has a super-sensitive nose. And when she gets on the scent of something, she is very focused. So focused that when we tell her to come to us, she doesn’t always listen.

Which could be a problem at the WV place where there’s lots of critters and no fences. So Hubby has been working with K daily, weather permitting. He’s been working with the other girls, too, since, like kids, they are very jealous of each other. If we do something with one dog, we tend to do it with the others, too.

K does come after being told to stay for a period, but she just sort of mosies along. Hubby hoped maybe Belle would speed her up a bit. He said it sped her up a little bit.

In the photo above, K is still staying, although she did stand up. Belle, on the other hand, jumped the gun a bit. I had to take pictures from inside the house so as not to cause any distraction.

It was nice being able to watch while Hubby did his training thing.

Here they are holding in a “down” and “stay” position while Hubby slowly backs away.

Then, when he blows his whistle, they come. Well, that’s the idea anyway. K needs a little bit of practice. Personally, I think she’s just not completely sure about us yet. She likes us, she’s just not as used to the routine, our personalities, mannerisms, etc., as the other girls.

Meg had a turn, too. She and Belle are both good with the “come” and “sit” commands. But we’ve never really had to use “stay” much. Well, we could have used it many times, but we never needed it enough to enforce.

Hubby says Meg is the best of the three with the “stay” command.

You can really see the focus on her face.

Yep, that is serious focus. Do you think the cut-up bits of chicken hot dogs he’s using as a reward have anything to do with that?

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Horrible Timing

Yesterday was my mother-in-law’s birthday. I did not forget it was her birthday. I totally meant to post a picture of her yesterday and announce her big day. But it was one of those crazy-busy days at work. I think I set a record for consecutive and cumulative minutes spent on the telephone.

Anyway, sorry for posting this late, Mom!

Happy Birthday!

I did remember to call at least.

For all of you out there thinking, “Uh, oh. You pissed your mother-in-law off! Your life is ruined…” She’s not like that. She knows I love her. And I did call, but couldn’t talk to her because her girlfriends had her out and about for the day.

Aside from work, there really wasn’t much excitement around here. But there was no time for excitement because of work. And for those of you thinking I really don’t work all that much because I work from home, or thinking you want an easy job like mine… it ain’t all that easy. And sometimes I work many more hours than I would if I were in a office.

I did manage to get a few cute dog pics though.

Meg sleeps like this all of the time. Belle, not so much. So it really tickles me when I catch her because I just think she’s the cutest little dog in the world.

I saw a lot of this yesterday. I often wonder if, during teleconferences, anyone thinks, “Hmmm. Was that the sound of a camera taking pictures? Who would take pictures during a phone call?”

Meg and Belle promptly ate their rawhides in the family room last night, as usual. K took hers to my office and saved it for later. So, later, while I continued working and K ate her chewy, Belle was jealous.

And now, for my favorite shot of the day…

… our three dogs. L-R, Belle, Meg and K (I think of her as Special K because she’s so sweet AND her coloring, especially her feet, makes me think of a Hershey’s Special candy bar).

Today MIGHT be more exciting. Maybe I’ll have better pics tomorrow. Based on my schedule for the day, don’t hold your breath.

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You Be the Judge

With all this talk of K, the new dog, some folks may be wondering what’s going to happen to Meg. Will she feel left out? Ignored? Shunned?

Remember, part of the reason we decided to add dog #3 was for Meg’s benefit. Belle needed a playmate so she’d quit harassing poor ole Meg.

And you know what? I think it’s working…

Meg gets to mosey around the yard, doing what she wants when she wants.

Meanwhile, the other girls get to run.

Meg gets to soak up the sun (one of her favorite pastimes) completely unmolested…

…while the young girls wrestle like fools in the leaves.

Meg gets to observe, from afar, the chaos around her. And she knows to relocate when necessary.

The young girls also get to hunt. You really should click on the above image to see it large for a better view. Our backyard is full of moles. (I have more hunting pics to share later.)

So, you be the judge. Does Meg look unhappy? Or relieved?

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The Adjustment Period, Part II

I do realize this is the second long post of the day about the dogs, which may seem excessive to some, but there’s a lot going on.

This was the first workday with K here. I was certainly curious as to how that would go. I mean, I need to keep a close watch on things, as I explained earlier. That doesn’t mean I need to make sure I can see and/or hear the dogs, it means I need to be close to them watching them so I can intervene if necessary.

They’re actually doing well. Belle and K are equally obsessed with watching the backyard for critters.

That by itself isn’t a problem. The door they watch from, however, is on another floor at the other end of the house from my office. There weren’t many issues today, but I didn’t want to take any chances. So I encouraged K to hang out in my office with me.

She didn’t seem to mind too much.

I found it sort of distracting, though. Because she snores. And she looked so darn cute.

I just had to take pictures.

I think I may have been getting on her nerves…

I wasn’t keeping K prisoner or anything. I didn’t even have the door closed. The other dogs came and went throughout the day. And I took them all outside every couple of hours. (It’s a good thing I am not super-busy this week. I AM KNOCKING ON WOOD NOW!)

The only issues with K and Belle have been while they’re playing and one or both of them get too wound up. They’re just like little kids wrestling. They can be rolling around, bumping, hitting, biting, etc., but if one gets a little hurt or suddenly scared, they freak out.

With me or Hubby staying close by, as soon as we see things getting too exciting, we make them stop playing for a minute. That’s usually enough to calm things down and they’re back to being friends.

Late this afternoon, after they’d been romping and rolling for a good bit, I could tell K was getting tired. They heard the mailman or something and K took off running toward the front gate. Belle took off after her, body slammed K, bounced off and ran in the other direction.

Meg has learned how to anticipate and dodge this little maneuver, which is Belle’s way of saying “chase me.” Well, K turned around very quickly and chased her. K, who is also very fast, either stepped on Belle’s heel or just scared Belle. All of a sudden, Belle yipped and got this look of terror on her face. Had I not been right there to step in, Belle may have snapped, literally. Which would have pissed K off. Their anger could have escalated quickly.

That’s why, until they get to know each other really well, we have to stay close by.

Don’t worry, though. This sort of adjustment is completely normal. Some dogs can’t even be in the same room together for weeks or even months. I think these two are going to be just fine. Especially since most of the time they play with each other like this…

They’d been chasing each other around the yard, flopping in the leaves. Somehow, they ended up laying in the leaves for a while, just wrestling with their heads. It was very cute.

As for Meg…

She really is perfectly happy watching the crazy little ones tear around the yard. As long as I don’t ignore her, of course, which I won’t.

And she does her share of running, too. She may be getting older, but she still likes to run. She just doesn’t have it in her to be chased by our two little speed demons.