Weigh-In Wednesday

Here’s an update on the family’s shedding. Wednesday morning is weigh-in day. Hairless thinks you weigh less in the morning with an empty stomach. Makes sense.

I arrived just as Queenie stepped on the scale. YIKES! Another pound gained. She claimed she didn’t understand why and that the scale must be broken. But we pups know better. Maybe if she stopped all the mid-day snacking the scale would work just fine. Hairless jumped on next to prove the scale was functional. 3 pounds shed since last week. Yipee! Woo hoo...big deal. He’s got the most to work with.

And now (drum roll please) the biggest loser for this week’s weigh-in Wednesday. You guessed it. Me. Hi Paws all around. Lost half a pound. By far the best average pound for pound. Not bad considering I’ve snacked a little here and there on Buddy’s leftovers. But I’m definitely sniffin’ down the right path. Only 9 ½ pounds to go before I am reunited with Smooch Pooch. Five weeks left. That’s more than enough time.

Morning Exercise

You know that little trick I’ve had up my fur? The one I’ve been practicing every time Hairless takes me potty. Well today I sprung it on him.

Lately Hairless had been remembering to leash me when we go out. It had been a long time—too long to count—since I escaped from the yard. But with careful planning on my part, I realized the first morning potty offered the waggiest opportunity for a clean break. As usual Hairless leaned against the tree while I did my duty. I squatted. Hairless relaxed his grip. Before he could even open his eyes, I bolted after a squirrel. The leash flew from his hand.

Like a Greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit, I tore up the driveway. Hairless—in t-shirt and shorts (Not my fault he didn’t dress for the weather)—followed in hot pursuit. The gap widened as Hairless, four doughnuts removed from an empty stomach, started panting heavily. Forgetting about the squirrel, I dashed through the back yard over to the storage sheds next door. Nothing exciting there caught my fancy so I sprinted over to a large parking lot where a bunch of two-leggers work.

My nose got the better of me. For the next couple minutes I sniffed a bunch of parked cars. For you pups that don’t know what a car is, I’ll tell you. It’s what two-leggers use to get from one place to another. It has four round, rubber legs. Sometimes smoke oozes from its butt. I would have continued sniffing longer if not for the grunting, puffing 300 lb gorilla (a.k.a. Hairless) bearing down on me. He managed to get within ten feet before I took off again.

Racing across the street, I found a waggy snow field to frolic in. Hairless’ two legs were no match for my four. I glided along the snow gracefully while he stumbled clumsily. I built up such an impressive lead that I decided to squat. Now I don’t know if it was just the thrill of being free or the freezing weather that made it difficult to go. It took an awful long time. In fact Hairless got so close he lunged at me. His fingers grazed my collar just as I scurried away again. Falling flat on his stomach, Hairless landed inches away from the surprise I had left him.

All waggy things come to an end and this splendid morning was no different. My stomach rumbled, a reminder I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. “Food before pleasure,” I whined. So I slowed to a trot. Eventually Hairless caught up. He was so winded from the glorious workout I gave him that for once in his life he was speechless. The five minute walk back to the house wasn’t too memorable. Boring actually. When we finally got home, I had just enough energy to scarf down my cup and a half of kibble before crashing with Madly on the couch.

It was one waggy morning.

Itchin' For a Scratch

Who’s growly idea was it to start shedding anyway? Now I think about food 24/7. I’m always hungry. Food...food...fooooooooooood!

So far I’ve been doing well with my 1 ½ cups twice daily shedding plan. Hey! I was honest on my last post. It’s my puprogative to stretch the truth a little. Okay, I’ll come clean. I’ve dipped into Queenie’s stash on a few occasions. Nothing at all like the: tear off all the wrappers—stuff everything in your mouth all at once shovel fest Queenie displays every time Hairless steps out of the room. Haven’t lost anything yet, but at least I haven’t gained 5 lbs the way Queenie has.

One way to cope with hunger pains is a good rub on the belly or a gentle scratch behind the ears. Only problem is somebody else has to do the petting. And when your only companion for most of the day (because everybody else is contributing to society) is Hairless, things can get growly fast.

What does a canine have to do for a little attention? None of my tactics worked this morning. First I sat quietly, staring up at Hairless. He zoned on TV. Fine, I thought. I’ll make myself interesting. I sat up pretty. Nothing! A stretch. A yawn. A sneeze. Nope! A roll on the ground. A quick turn. Three attempts at snagging my tail. Front paws up on the couch. Still no attention.

At this point I started getting barky. Finally Hairless looked at me. But only long enough to declare a bark of his own. “Quiet!” Okay, I’ll just lick your face, I thought. That was met with an unenthusiastic, “Get off.”

A prop. Props are good. Surely Hairless couldn’t ignore me with a ball in my mouth. Wrong again! Not even jumping up, touching my nose to the ceiling worked. What on TV could be more important than me? Then I remembered why Mom gave me my name. So I jumped on Hairless and scratched his arm and pawed at his face. Oops! Apparently that’s a NO NO! Instead of a loving scratch behind the ears, all I got was an hour in puppy prison while Hairless finished watching some two-legger called the Dog Whisperer.

Should I be worried?

Best Pawlicy?

What is the best Pawlicy?

Most would bark honesty.

And because I was "presented" the honest weblog award, I must now bark 10 (bow WOW! that's a lot) honest things about myself.

Thanks to my pup friend Tuffy of Dog Woods, I have now been "blessed" with this waggy (some would say growly) task. Here are the instructions: "When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to said person so everyone knows he or she is real. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have 7 friends. Show the 7 random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with “Honest Weblog”. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon. List at least ten honest things about yourself. Then, pass it on!"

OK! Give me a moment. There's just so many good, HONEST things about me. Oh, I know. I'll start from the beginning:

1. I was given away free to my family. Judging by my gorgeous yellow coat and woofy physique, you'd think they paid a fortune. Not so. Since the acquisition however... $$,$$$.$$

2. I've only had 3, count em, 3 accidents in the house and both were within the first couple weeks of being potty trained. Not even really my fault. Hairless should have been on the ball and gotten me outside sooner.

3. Lucky # 3. It is also the # of times I've been to a drive-in movie. Never fails, I'm wide awake for the first feature but sound asleep beneath Hairless' chair by the time the 2nd movie starts.

4. I'm the Houdini of canines Since living with the family, I have escaped from the outdoor kennel four times (twice by lifting the latch with my nose, once by climbing the fence, and once by jumping on top of my dog house to leap over). Since my early kennel escapades, I've also broken the tie outs twice and pulled the stake out of the ground once. Unfortunately the stake is now cemented in the ground.

5. I beheaded a Smurf. Buddy left a plastic one on the floor. Couldn't help myself.

6. I sleep on the bed. Queenie and Hairless had no choice really. They used to keep me in a carrier. A canine can get pretty fed up with that after a few months. I barked, growled, and yelped my disapproval until the softies caved.

7. Kleenex, paper towel, toilet paper; doesn't matter which one. As long as there's tasty snot in it, I'll be sure to sneak it from the garbage.

8. My longest car ride was over eight hours. For some reason I wasn't allowed to hop up on Queenie or Hairless when they were driving. I only wanted to give them a slobbery kiss for taking me along.

9. Fetch is my favorite game. Not only is it good exercise, it also affords an opportunity to make a run for it, like the time I darted under the yard fence chasing a rabbit. Ended up on the rail road tracks. You should have seen it. Practically gave Hairless a heart attack. Boy was he winded.

10. I'm a barker, a jumper, and a licker. Whenever somebody comes over, I bark incessantly until I see them. Then I jump up on them and lick em to death. Haven't knocked any body down yet, but that's a good goal for 2009.

And now the moment you're all waiting for. The "licky" 7 who get tagged for this humble award. After hours and hours of exhaustive research checking out every post on everybody's blog (oh wait, I'm supposed to be honest). OK after researching a minute or two to see who didn't have this award yet, I think I've found seven blogs. I could be wrong and just missed a previous post and if so, please throw your nose in the air and turn tail. I won't take it personal.

And be sure to check out all of these wonderful blogs below by clicking on their names if you haven't already. Mostly to see if they kept the honest weblog alive, but also to meet some new friends.

1. Baby Rocket Dog and Hootie
2. Frankie the Dachshund
3. Lola the Puggle
4. Tank
5. Sparkles
6. Stella

and finally licky #7
ME! I'd like to do this again and again and again so I'm tagging myself.
7. Scratchy Paw

Bark to ya later.

Digging Holes

To take my mind off food, I spent most of the day with Madly. The little two-legger really keeps me on my paws with his weird creations. Today we played with a giant bouncy ball made of tin foil, rubber bands, and one extra thick coat of rubber cement. It bounced off the floor, rebounded off the walls and furniture, and ricocheted off the ceiling. It never bounced the same way twice.

Such fun, until Queenie got home. Let me explain something about Queenie. She has 2 sides. One; the fun-loving, good natured “boys will be boys” and “dogs will be dogs” side. Two; the side that makes the teeny, tiny, almost unnoticeable hair on Hairless’ head stand on end with a single glare. You don’t want to see this side of Queenie. The anger spews out of every pore as if she were a volcano. Guess which side we saw?

Don’t quite understand why all the fuss over a ceramic vase or why breaking the crystal lamp into a zillion pieces mattered. We had fun! Doesn’t anybody enjoy life anymore?

After being forced to settle down, Madly read me three books. We also watched a waggy movie about digging holes. That got me thinking. If I had the ability to go anywhere and do anything I wanted, I’d pick a place where nothing but dirt and sand could be seen for miles and miles. That way I wouldn’t get barked at for digging holes in the yard. Give me a wagon full of bones and I’d be one waggy canine. If any of you pups have a place you’d like to go, let me know. I’d love to hear what you’d do there. Time for my final cup and a half of kibble. That’ll last all but two seconds. Bark to you later.