We played a lot in the backyard. Miss B demonstrated proper stretching techniques for being lazy.
This weekend is the final weekend of the summer. Next weekend it will officially be fall. In honor of the passing summer, we decided to be lazy all weekend. The puppies are pretty good at being lazy, except that they already have a routine down and know what time we should be taking them for their walk. So we were almost super lazy- with the exception of the required walk. We played a lot in the backyard. Miss B demonstrated proper stretching techniques for being lazy. Miss S decided that laziness should come with a required snack. Dad had been eating a cookie, so she felt it necessary to check his hands to make sure he didn't have more. Apparently there is something interesting in the grass right now because all of the puppies had to check it out. Eventually, Miss M decided it was best just to soak up the last weekend's worth of summer sun.
The last couple of days have been almost Fall-like here. We had lows that were actually in the 60's! If the ground hadn't been wet, it would have been perfect hammock weather. The first day with the nice temperatures, the ground was so wet, that we couldn't let the puppies play too much in the backyard without having to sweep and mop the floor every time they came in. Yesterday though, we were finally able to let them play a little in the yard. We were met by a visitor. The girls played outside for a while. Miss M decided that it was time to go in, and let us know. After the girls had their turn, we let the boys out for a little bro time. Once they took care of business, they stalked each other and took turns playing chase around the yard. All in all it was a good day to play in the yard.
August and September are full of birthdays in our family. This weekend, Mom had her birthday on Saturday. So the puppies had a very full day. We took them for a walk in the morning so that they got their exercise. Then we bathed them and took them with us to Grandma and Grandpa's house. The puppies immediately offered their bottle crushing services. Grandma was cooking, and occasionally Grandpa would go into the kitchen too. The boys decided that it would be best to stick around the kitchen so that they could help in case anything fell on the floor. They love helping in the kitchen. The puppies love Grandma and Grandpa's fridge. It is very puppy friendly with side by side fridge and freezer sections. At the moment, with Blue Bell back in stores, there is even ice cream right at nose level. Mr. C took the opportunity to conveniently smell the ice cream while pretending to be interested in ice cubes. Sunday, the puppies got to help Dad pull up weeds in the yard. Miss M just had one question. With all of these birthdays going on, where was the cake? She didn't believe us when we told her she couldn't have any cake. She was absolutely convinced that they needed cake too. We gave them puppy treats instead.
This weekend, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's for the day on Saturday. The puppies were super excited that they got to go somewhere. They were in their crates while we were getting ready, and Miss S squealed like she had just won a beauty pageant when we opened the crates. They have so much fun going places with us. We stopped by the vet's on the way to pick up their monthly heart worm prevention. Here on the Gulf Coast, with the amount of mosquitoes we have, it's just not a good idea to skip the heart worm prevention. The puppies love going to Grandma and Grandpa's. They got right to work on demolishing the plastic bottles that Grandma saved for them. They also went to work on de-stuffing some of their toys. Mr. M didn't totally understand why Grandma was moving all of the really good chewy toys with the plastic parts. Mom said something about them being for the puppies' two legged cousins, but Mr. M didn't see any two legged cousins in sight. He gave up on the cool toys and went to give Grandpa kisses instead. Mr. M is absolutely convinced that he needs to sit in Grandpa's lap. Grandpa disagrees. Miss S and Mr. C didn't really care about the human toys, they had plenty of stuffing to remove from their own toys. The puppies take great pride in their work. They have a strict No Squeaker Left Behind policy when it comes to stuffed toys. Mr. M got jealous of Miss M and landed himself in timeout for a while. He was sitting in Mom's lap and didn't think he needed to share the lap with her. He was very upset after that and tried really hard to be good the rest of the time. Miss M was shocked that Mr. M had gotten snippy with her and stayed close to Mom for a while. She had a rough afternoon. A little while after her argument with Mr. M, she was minding her own business in the backyard, when a flower pot attacked her out of nowhere. It clearly had it in for her. It was a plastic hanging pot that was resting on the ground waiting for new flowers. The hanger got caught in her harness, and when she tried to run, the pot ran along with her. She tucked her tail between her legs and took off toward the door, trailing the pot underneath her, spilling dirt as she went. Grandma saved her from the evil flower pot. Thank goodness Grandma was there. Miss M didn't totally understand why Mom thought it was so funny. After all, she was in mortal danger. That flower pot was vicious. Mom made up for it by letting Miss M sleep in her lap on the couch for a while.
It's hard to believe, but the puppies are almost finished with their advanced level of puppy school. Where did the time go?!! We really enjoy puppy school, and I am kind of sad that it is almost over. The puppies are very popular at Petsmart. They get attention from all of the employees when we go, and they love their trainer. I think we are all going to have puppy school withdrawal when they are finished. We may have to visit from time to time just for fun. The puppies don't really seem to know that they are about to graduate. It's just been business as usual at our house. Summer is rough, but luckily, there are cats to torment and slobber on, boxes to tear up, teddy bears to de-stuff. Today at puppy school, there were boxes in the store that had been flattened. Mr. M found the boxes immediately and was convinced that he needed to tear them up for Petsmart. At home, he is in charge of initial box destruction. Once he decides the box is sufficiently mangled, he lets the others have a turn chewing up the box. He got to practice the "This way" and "Leave it" commands as we hurried past the tempting boxes in the store. Miss M discovered the toy aisle today. We have been walking down that aisle almost every week since like March, but usually she is looking around. Today, she happened to glance down and notice the bright yellow Kong squeaky balls like she plays with at home. She got super excited and figured those must be for her. She was a little disappointed that we had to leave those in the store. It started raining outside just before time to leave, which was wonderful because it cooled things down to the low 90's instead. You know it's hot when the low 90's is an improvement. The picture below was a couple of days ago. Most of the playtime in the yard has been a little tamer than normal. The puppies burst into zoomies from time to time, but mostly they just chill for a while until we take them back inside. They have developed a new zoomie skill. They run around the yard at top speed and then zoom into the house as soon as we open the door.
Times like these sometimes make me wish we lived further north. Today's high? 1 million degrees. Tomorrow's high? 1 million and 1!
Why must it be so hot? When you're in the house, sometimes you get the feeling that the a/c isn't working as well as it should be. Then you step outside for a few minutes. When you step back in, you realize that the a/c is working fine, it's just that hot outside. Needless to say, the puppies have been getting a lot of use out of their little pool. Here are a few pictures taken over the past week of their backyard fun. They've realized that they can run around and get hot, then jump in the pool to cool off. One thing about summers in the south is that it's so hot you end up being lazy. I see blogs written by people up north with pretty parks full of people and summer evening strolls outside with their dogs, and I feel slightly guilty about not enjoying our area parks more. Then I step outside and remember instantly why we don't go outside more- especially not in the middle of the day. In the middle of the day when the thermometer reads 96, it actually feels like 105. The concrete is too hot to walk on barefoot, so there is no way I would want to take the puppies with their tender inside-dog feet for a walk on that. Plus, after about 5 minutes, all you want to do is drink something cold and stand in the shade. Getting the dogs to come back inside after playing in the yard was difficult in the winter and spring. We would sometimes end up spending 5 or 10 minutes just trying to convince them to go inside. In the summer, you just have to say, "Okay, everybody in," one time, and they are already waiting by the door. It is just plain hot outside right now. Besides that, even if you don't mind dealing with the heat, the minute you step outside most days, you are greeted by a flying welcoming committee of mosquitoes. The closer to the coast you go, the bigger and fuzzier they get. Sometimes you worry about them beating you up and taking your wallet. They are practically the size of the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. Needless to say, once I've been outside in the yard for about half a minute, all of the guilt I once felt about not going to the park just melts away. So what do we do instead, you ask? Inside stuff. Lots of inside stuff. Where there is air conditioning. We went to Grandma and Grandpa's after a trip to the vet last week. It was already time for Mr. C and Miss B to get their 3 year rabies shot that they get a year after their first shot. Mr. C weighed in at a whopping 80 pounds! Miss B was right at 55. Miss S, Miss M and Mr. M weighed 74, 54.7 and 69 respectively. They are all so big already! I'm not quite sure where the time went and how it could possibly be time for the one year booster shot. When we got to Grandma and Grandpa's the puppies went to work on the plastic bottles that Grandma and Grandpa needed crushing. Grandma outsmarted them this time and moved the cat food before they got there. We took them outside several times, but with the heat, the potty breaks didn't take very long. The puppies love visiting Grandma and Grandpa, but they always get so excited that they don't nap as much as they should. They were so worn out that after the early morning potty break the next morning, Miss B and Mr. C slept in until I made them get up at 10! The little ones won't sty still for very long after the first potty break of the day, so if we want to get any more sleep after that, they have to nap in their crates for a while. Miss B and Mr. C gladly sleep very still on the bed most mornings so that they don't get sent to their crates too. The day after the vet visit was a school day, so we let them sleep a while and then got them fed and took them out before getting them ready for class. We learned all kinds of fun things in school. This class we learned physical skills as well as mentally challenging ones that actually tire them out quite well- a very good thing when it is so hot outside. For the past couple of days, we have been practicing their new skills and then playing some outside with the pool in the evenings. We are very proud of Miss M- she seems to have gotten the idea that she should pee before getting into the pool (unlike a certain 80 pound someone). Of course, every time they cool off in the pool, they find a new spurt of energy and someone always starts a new game of chase. Miss M gets impatient with the bigger dogs if they aren't out of the water fast enough and will bark at Mr. M until he gets out and chases her. Then they stop and she chases him. Miss S doesn't like it when the play gets too rough and is constantly trying to make sure that Miss B doesn't get out of hand with the little one. Miss S is so funny. She takes Miss M's toys all day long and would take her food if we let her, but if anyone messes with Miss M, Miss S is quick to step in and handle the situation. She's big enough now that once she grabs Miss B by the collar to pull her away from Miss M, Miss B can't get loose. Miss B has a ton of energy and is very vocal about it. So even though she never actually bites down on Miss M (or any of the little puppies), she sounds like she is getting wild. Miss S doesn't appreciate her cussing like that at all. When any of the other puppies gets a little too rambunctious, Miss S gets right in between the two offending puppies and breaks it up. We used to think she was bullying them, but the more we watched, the more we realized she just doesn't like them to play too rough. All kinds of songs pop into my head when thinking about summer in Texas. Some like it hot, Feeling hot hot hot, etc. I'm not sure I like it quite this hot, but the advantage is that we have plenty of opportunities to play in the pool. I think we are going to need a heated kiddie pool in the winter so the puppies still get to play in the water. Mr. C, who doesn't really like getting into the bath tub or that kind of thing, has no problem getting into the pool on his own now. We can even tell him to go get in the water and he gets right in. Yesterday, even Miss B got in by herself when we told her to. I think they are really starting to understand that when they get in the water they feel cooler. Of course then they are cool and go into turbo mode, zooming around the yard before getting hot and going back to the pool. Miss M likes the water so much that she doesn't even care if the other puppies are zooming around the yard any more. She just watches them from the water. Occasionally she will get out and chase them a little, but then she goes right back to the water. The others will join her and then go back to playing, and she is totally fine with that. I think that if we had a regular in ground pool, she would never get out. I'm glad that the puppies all like the water so much. It works well with the big plan of eventually taking them sailing. I think they would do well with the sport of dock diving, but I am a little hesitant to start them in it because I'm not sure I want them to have an idea that they can just jump off docks- especially later on when we are sailing. I think Miss B especially has the energy to really do well at it. From what I hear, pit bulls usually do pretty well at dock diving because of their energy and power. I guess we will have to give it some thought.
And now...a little bit of fun in our redneck tanning bed. I would lie and say that we enjoy frozen adult beverages in our redneck tanning bed, but really, I don't think we could go near the kiddie pool without having puppies jump in and knock us and our drinks over. So we leave the pool fun to the puppies. We shot this short video while trying to put water in the pool. After this we decided to fill the pool before bringing the dogs outside. Notice how Miss S takes off as soon as she notices that Mr. M and Miss M have discovered the water hose. Yesterday was the 4th of July, and the puppies did not appreciate it at all! We dropped by to visit some friends for a little while, and decided that we should leave the puppies at home. We were glad we did because some of their neighbors let off firecrackers early, and it would have really freaked the puppies out. It's one thing for them to be scared of fireworks while they are safe at home. It would be really bad to have them freak out and get loose in an area that they don't know. The friends have an Irish Wolfhound puppy named Miss K. Miss K is only 3 months old but is already taller than my knee. Once the firecracker fun started, Miss K decided she had had enough and that it would be way safer in her Mom's lap. When we got home, the puppies were totally freaked out. It's actually illegal to set off fireworks in our neighborhood, but I think some of the neighbors may have been setting off firecrackers while we were gone. The puppies were so nervous that they wouldn't leave our sides. They wouldn't even potty at first. Every little sound made them start barking again. Miss M was so nervous, she just stood by Mom shaking. It took a little while for them to calm down. Until about midnight, people would randomly set off a firecracker. The puppies would crowd around us again, Mr. C would start barking and Miss M would start looking worried again. I felt really sorry for her. We took then out for a potty break again a little after midnight, but they just did number 1 and ran right back inside. I suspected that they needed to do number 2 but were too scared to stay outside long and just held it. Miss M slept cuddled up next to Mom all night. This morning, they all went right out and did number 2. Today, we had fun with the kiddie pool in the backyard. We made the mistake of letting the puppies out before the pool was totally full. The little ones jumped right in. Then Miss M and Mr. M discovered that the hose was still on... This is why we can't have nice hoses. We let the puppies play for a few minutes and then took them inside so that we could put more water in the pool. Once the pool had more water and it was a little cooler outside, we took the puppies back outside. At first they were a little hesitant to jump in because the water was higher than they had seen before. Then Mr. M discovered that it was even more fun with deeper water. Miss S and Miss M were both a little nervous about getting in, but once we put them in, they kept going back for more pool time. We think they realized that getting in the pool cooled them down. They all took turns playing chase and then getting back into the pool. Miss B and Mr. C are a little less convinced. We put them both in and they enjoyed it while they were standing in the pool. Before taking them back inside, we put Mr. C back into the water to rinse off the dirt. I didn't have to fight him at all. We told him to get in the water and he gently stepped into the pool. I think we are making progress,
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AuthorFirst time pitbull owners who found two pitbull puppies abandoned on the side of the road and decided to adopt them...And then loved them so much, they decided to get two wonderful mastiffs. Archives
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