I was cleaning out my email today and found these pictures in my draft folder - I'm not sure who I was sending them to or when they were taken, but they sure are cute. I do remember us being amazed that Kieran and Fletch were laying on Kieran's sleeping bag together... and noticing that their had been a turning point in their relationship.
For the better part of each morning for the last few days, I've tried to capture the "perfect" picture of the three dog-kids for our Christmas card this year. Apparently, they could care less and have no clue of my intentions.
And as the weather has started turning colder and colder, our gas logs have been put to more and more use. Rowdy, in turn, has decided that the fireplace hearth is (a) the best new place for his bed, and (b) prime real estate for toasting his buns! Every time the fireplace goes on, Rowdy goes right in front of it... and did sit patiently while I snapped a number of pictures.
A mosiac of the weekend's attempts are below:
A couple of Fridays ago, Kevin found this poor puppy sitting outside of a gas station on Nations Ford Rd by itself shivering in the cold. Kevin looked closer at the puppy, and saw that she had a broken phone cord tied around her neck. At this point, he knew the puppy needed a new home and took her with him to his office.
He and his co-worker had to use wire-cutters to get the phone cord off because it was knotted so tightly, and it had apparently been on her for a few days because it left a small sore on her neck. Kevin says she is very friendly and loving and appears to be young, but has no idea what breed she is. He has named her Fozzie, after his favorite Muppet.
We would love to take her, but I think our 3 rescue/pirate dogs would revolt against us. Right now, one of Kevin's clients has her until we can help find her a permanent home. Please email me if you are interested, or - if not - please help by forwarding this to anyone know you know between here and Raleigh who might be interested… or anyone who might know someone else who is interested. We just want to give Fozzie the great life she deserves!
Seems that Kevin can't simply take a seat on the edge of the bed without being bombarded by the kids.
It's quite possible the dogs enjoyed the 3-day weekend better than we did. We woke up every morning and took them to the dog park for a couple of hours to run around before it got too hot outside. We love going there because the dogs are able to get their pent up energy out... but we go regularly enough now that we know many of the dogs by name and people know our dogs. Its a great "social camaraderie" centered around everyone's passion for the 4-legged children.
These shots are from Sunday's trip:
Due to all of the rain and a broken water pipe at the park, there's a huge mud pit near part of the fence. Kieran loves to head right for it when we get there because it cools her off. Notice in the picture above, you can't see most of her back legs or the bottom of her front legs... and it only gets worse when she lays down! One of the other dog owners laughed when he saw that someone from Parks & Rec came out during the week to put cones in the mud pit and commented "They're dogs... they don't know what cones are for... they just pee on them."
Did I mention Kevin won his golf tournament a couple of weekends ago? He brought home a glass trophy that is now sitting on our mantel. And to boot, it was also his career best round - he shot a 78 on a course that he has only played one other time. Even though he was exhausted when he got home, we ran up to our golf club to have dinner that night to celebrate.
So proud of him....
And my littlest boy was so darn cute... waiting patiently for us on the couch when we got home. He was so sleepy!
So here's an interesting find... as I was doing some cleaning and purging yesterday, I came across the vet records that we were given on Rowdy when we adopted him. They were from his first vet visit after the rescue in Greensboro brought him back from Slidell, LA when they went to pick up several dogs who were abandoned after Hurricane Katrina. The visit was in November of 2005 and showed his age at the time as being 18 months. However, his adoption papers show his approximate birthdate as being November 2004. I showed Kevin the papers - and knowing I'm not the brightest star in the sky when it comes to math, but that something seemed off - Kevin confirmed what was right in front of me. Rowdy was 6 months older than we thought... and, in fact, had JUST turned 4!
Here's where it gets a little neater (at least to me)... if we were off by 6 months with Rowdy, his birth month is May. I had picked the day as the 10th since that's my birth date and it would make it easy for me to remember. So Rowdy's birthdate is now May 10th. Well, we KNOW for certain what Kieran's birthday is -- and hers just happens to be May 12th! So now I have 2 May birthday babies who are 1 year apart!
And speaking of... even though I didn't know it was for both Rowdy and Kieran at the time, I got a cake a few weeks ago for Kieran's 5th birthday that all of the pups enjoyed in the garage:
After dinner, Kevin took the remains of the corn cobs he had grilled for us and took those into the garage since the dogs had been begging for them while we were eating. We laughed at how "daintily" (is that a word?) Kieran was eating hers - just like she had been studying the people eat theirs! She would wait for Kevin to turn the cob for her, then she'd take little nibbles in rows. She was doing great... that is, until he started her on a second cob and she tried to run off with it. Here's the video:
Thing #167 I love about my new job: pets are welcome in the office!
Rowdy spent the afternoon with me on Monday and Fletch spent the afternoon with me on Tuesday. This was Rowdy's second visit - Fletch's first. I've tried to pick a couple of "low-key" days to see how they both do and I learned that Rowdy is a great office dog... Fletch, notsomuch. He's a little too anxious and high-strung. Rowdy, on the other hand, pretty much sits still on my desk or lays in my lap the whole time - he's much more well-behaved.
Sharing Cheetos with Mama
And here's another frequent office visitor, Derby:
Derby is an adorable Papillion who comes in with his mom, Nicole, to serve as our bartender. He does an OUTSTANDING job! :)
We also have Sam, a black lab who belongs to Billie; Sophie, a Rottweiler puppy who belongs to Michelle; and Laney, Claire's sister's dog (who comes in with Claire).
A couple of weeks ago, we took the dogs for a doggie playdate with our friends Claire and Mark's dogs. They are building a house on a big lot in Salisbury and have a huge fenced in pen for their dogs to play... so we put our three in with theirs and let everyone wear themselves out! Claire, like me, is a dog photo-aholic and sent me tons of great pictures of everyone playing together.
Claire and Mark have two basenji mixes, Homer and Bernie.... except Homer and Bernie are way bigger than our basenjis. Claire calls them "basenjis on steroids"... so funny! Mark's parents' dog, Holly, also came to play with everyone. I think all shapes and sizes were represented.
Holly (L), Rowdy and Kevin, and Fletch (R)... and Bernie in the left corner
(L to R): Fletch, Rowdy, Bernie, and Homer
Basenji boys! Homer and Fletch (I can't believe how much they favor!)
Everyone wants to be on stage!
At one point, we left everyone in the pen except for Rowdy and went on a "nature walk" through the woods on their lot. Rowdy loves being a nature dog! Kevin let him off the leash a couple of times and although he was very interested in exploring, he pretty much stayed near all of the people.
Rowdy running through a creek... keeping up with the people!
My little nature boy... look at those long legs stretched out!
