Lessons Learned the Hard Way

For the last few weeks mom has been leaving me out of my crate when she's running short errands. I've been doing great about being a good girl and not destroying anything while unattended—well, at least I HAD been...

Lately my girl and I have taken to learning things the hard way. The other day my girl got a gift of fruit-flavored lip balm from a friend. She was SO excited! It was her very first tube of "lip stick" (you may recall she's only four years old). The scent absolutely delighted her! I watched her happily put it on her mouth a number of times and figured I might enjoy some on mine as well. Eventually I found it unattended—OOH! ...and the SMELL...! I couldn't resist! And the tube fit so perfectly in my mouth! Needless to say, my devastated girl learned the hard way not to leave fruit-flavored lip balm laying around. Meanwhile, for a few days I continued to learn that fruit-flavored lip balm doesn't digest. Gross.

Then one day while mom took my girl to school, I found TWO of her giant bubble wands just lying around! I LOVE bubbles! Especially when my girl blows them for me to catch and pop! Well anyways, I knew that my girl wouldn't be home for a few hours and I really wanted to play with the bubbles. I had seen her blow bubbles a number of times and thought I'd try to blow some without her. I tried desperately to unscrew the wand from the tube of bubble juice, to no avail. I just couldn't quite get it out! However, I did succeed in chewing up the tube and getting bubble juice all over the carpet. Once my first attempt failed, I thought I'd try again on the other tube. Alas, failure again. My girl was not happy with me when she found out what I'd been up to. She was upset to learn that leaving bubble stuff where I can get it isn't such a great idea. Meanwhile I learned that I can't blow bubbles without her. Mom said she was just waiting for me to start barking or farting bubbles...

Believe it or not, I managed to find my tail in the hot seat again a few days later. My girl has a stuffed animal that she absolutely adores named "Downstairs Dog" (she also has "Car Dog" and "Bed Dog" so no one gets lost, although "Bed Dog" is no longer the alpha dog of the group). She likes to cuddle with "Downstairs Dog" when she's especially tired and takes him to bed every night, tugging on his fur and sucking her thumb (mom likes to tease my girl and tell her that "Downstairs Dog" looks like he has mange for all of the bald patches she's made on him by tugging his fur). "Downstairs Dog" is OFF LIMITS to me, although a few times I have gotten a hold of him and gleefully scampered around the room playing "Keep Away" while my squealing girl would frantically chase me!

Well, one afternoon I found him sitting in the chair waiting for my girl to return from an outing to snuggle and take in their favorite TV programs. He seemed bored, so I thought I'd entertain him for a while. Then all of a sudden... WHOOPS!! ...Well, imagine my poor little girl's horror when she discovered that I had plucked an eyeball off of him. She cried a lot. Mom suggested we change his name to "Ol' One Eye". That made my girl cheer up somewhat and she finally forgave me. Needless to say, she is learning the hard way not to leave beloved items where I can get a hold of them...

So mom has taken to crating me again. I'm not crazy about this at all. Hopefully she will trust me again soon! She tried to take some pictures of me to include in this post since you haven't seen any recent pics of me lately, but I wasn't feeling very cooperative (I had my eye on the cat who was coming into the room I was in).

Looking forward to hearing about your escapades! Hope you're managing to stay out of trouble where you are!

Super Soaker Sunday

"The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog."

—Ambrose Bierce

Crunch, Thump, ...RUN!

I turned nine months old yesterday! Hard to believe how much I've grown in such a short time. I've had a lot of interesting experiences since I came to live with my new family in late March, many of which have been chronicled here. My latest experience has been what mom calls "Fall"...

I've noticed that my yard looks a little different these days—all of the beautiful green leaves on the tree in my front yard changed color and fell to the ground. I love the way these colored leaves smell, and I love munching on them and trying to sneak them into the house after potty breaks, but I do NOT like walking on them!

When I go outside for potty breaks, I try to avoid walking on them as much as possible and seek out a place just off of the sidewalk and as leaf-free as possible to do my business. I don't mind a few leaves here and there, but crunchy piles of them bug me. It just doesn't seem right that so much noise should be coming from my feet!

In fact, when I go for walks, I am adamant about not walking on the iron water meter covers that litter my route. When I was a young pup, I made the mistake of walking on one once and it made a jiggling sound as it shifted slightly under my weight... scared me to death! Now I am sure to make a wide arc around them and quicken my step as we pass. Sometimes mom walks on them and I get the willies when they thump. Imagine how difficult it is to avoid them when they're covered in leaves! UGH...! But I digress...

Thankfully mom got out the rake and lawn mower and pulverized the leaves. Now it's not so noisy when I play in the yard. I have discovered that in a few spots, the mulched up leaves are a little thicker and when I get the zoomies and brake really fast or do hard cornering that I can get them to kick up and spray in the air. Trust me, it's really cool! Mom just shakes her head and smiles. So now that there are no more leaves to smuggle in, I am back to trying to sneak in large chunks of mulch from the flower beds to munch on. : D

Hope you're enjoying fall where you are! I'm lovin' it!