playing hide & seek

Our oldest daughter loves her puppies. The real live one and her webkinz ones.

She also is always up for some fun, so when no one else is around she gets her favourite dog to play along. After a few tries he learned the rules of hide and seek.

It really funny to watch them play this game. She makes him lie down in the kitchen, tells him to stay and covers his head with an old rag. Then she takes off and hides. While he patiently waits. And waits. When she is ready she calls out and he comes sniffing. They will play this over and over. When he finds her, he gets all excited and runs back to the kitchen for the rag, which starts the game all over.If I show up during the game I get recruited to help Jesse hide...behind couches and doors, under pillows and blankets and as tucked away in a corner as possible for an 80 lb dog.

Silly but true! I love childhood and their imaginations.

It all started when....

I was talking to my brother last night and then he passed the phone over to my SIL. Somehow we got into a conversation about our aging dogs. I made the comment that "old man" couldn't even jump off the tailgate of our truck the other day and that Rick had to lift him off. We have noticed him aging alot lately. When he gets up he is stiff and slow, hesitates to go down stairs and just isn't the bouncy boy he used to be.

The problem was that my oldest daughter heard the conversation and took it very much to heart. She landed up crying, sobbing actually, in the bath last night. The thought of losing him at any point makes her come unglued. She loves her puppy that much. We have told her that he might live a long long time yet. He only just turned 11.

After that conversation I had to leave home because I was meeting some friends for a movie. When I came home later that night I went on the rounds to tuck everyone in before I headed to bed. When I went into Bugsy's room there was Jesse sleeping on her blanket on the floor. Apparently she couldn't sleep and needed to be near her dog.

The funny thing was Jesse looked at me like he belonged there.

He looked at me like he had always slept in her room.

He looked like he definately wasn't going anywhere.

I smiled and slid him back onto Bugsy's blanket and thought I wasn't going to mess with a girl and her dog.

I do wonder however where Jesse might be sleeping tonight?

i've lost my children

Today we set up a tent in our backyard! Everyone needed a change of pace as we have been in summer holiday mode for quite a while. The first part of the afternoon was great. There was a little rain but nothing much. For most of the afternoon they played very happily while they coloured and read.

Jesse, our dog, stayed close to the tent all afternoon but never went in!

All of a sudden the weather turned. Okay, I saw the storm coming over the mountains but I thought it was just rain! Our dog rain for cover and then things got a little ugly!

It was kind of like a good prairie storm with the wind whipping through and a good ole downpour! However, the downpour turned to hail in a blink of an eye. It got so loud outside I had to yell to see if the kids were okay.

They were! Boo-boo said "It was the funniest day ever!" So what do I know? Here I was a little worried they would be stressed because they were caught in the storm and they weren't at all!

Now all is peaceful again and I am left with little reminders of the storm that passed! Kind of like life is sometimes!

a four year-old fascination

Boo-boo seems to think that picking worms
is much more fun than picking rocks!
This morning while we were doing yard work
we kept losing her attention to the poor cute worms.
"Aw, look-it Mommy, aren't they cute?"
Hmm?? Nope!
I can handle picking up worms and slugs with my gardening gloves,
but there isn't anyway I am going to hold a pile of slimy wriggly ones in my bare hands.
Yuck! Aren't things like this suppose to be left for the boys?
Here is our yard work. We had a whole section of dead grass. My hubby had shovelled the snow off of it this winter and consequently there was a lot of winter kill. I raked out all the dead grass and moved a whole pile of soil to cover it. Unfortunately it was full of rocks and was a way bigger job than I intended.

At least it is done now and ready for grass seed. Our dog likes it too!

complaining about her BFF

Today my oldest daughter had a complaint about her BFF.
"Mom, Jesse isn't being any fun today at all! I made us a fort and he doesn't want to play! What's the matter?"
I am not sure how many of you have a golden retriever. If you don't, you might not understand the love of their life. Their BFF my just be a plain old tennis ball. It can keep our dog happy and distracted for a very long time. If he is chewing it, I wish you luck trying to get it. Unless you are wishing to play fetch until your arm is ready to fall off.
It was when Jesse was in the middle of loving his tennis ball that my daughter thought a fort might attract him. All set up, ready to go! Yet she can't convince him to move an inch. I personally think he has gone into selective hearing mode.

I thought I would try to get his attention. For one moment he stopped chewing and checked out what was up. Just one brief moment.

Because the next second, he was sinking his teeth back into that yummy, wet, slobbery tennis ball.

Like really can't you just taste the goodness! I need to close my eyes and just soak it in!

Now I am sure that he has gone to a far away, happy place and is just loving the moment. Poor dog he really does have a rough life!

Look I can chew laying down!

Even upside down! Oh yah!

After realizing her BFF was still completely ignoring her, someone thought a little love and kisses might change her dog's mind!

What? You are still there? You still want me to play fort? Oh man, do I have to?

Guess who won? And who looks happy now?

doggy dilemna

On Easter Sunday a friend and I went for a walk. The afternoon was beautiful and we both wanted to catch some of the fresh air. While we were walking we approached a fence and didn't see the danger that lay behind it until too late. My friend called out "dog" and I turned to see a dog coming at mine. It made a quick attack and then backed off a little. We yelled at it to go home and I checked my dog over. I thought my dog was okay, but I was wrong.

I hadn't been putting two and two together the last few days either. It was the little things that I wasn't putting together. Like he wasn't coming to greet us at the gate. He didn't eat supper last night and looked really glum. When I brushed him yesterday his underbelly looked wet and matted. I thought it was odd at first, but then thought it was probably because the ground is still so wet. When I brushed him, he whined and grabbed at the brush. He never does that. Yet still I didn't clue in! Today we came home and my oldest daughter went to play with him and he wouldn't chase the ball. She asked what might be the problem and I didn't have an answer. She came running in about 10 minutes later though and said he was bleeding. She can be a little dramatic, but this time she was right.

He has a gaping hole on his left belly by his back leg. Right in the area the other dog bit. I guess I missed it because of its location and all the fur that a golden retriever has. I feel sick about it! It was all green and gross and will need several stitches.

My question is what to do? I called the town bylaw enforcement officer. I was walking our dog on a leash on town property. The attacking dog was off its property by at least 50 m. The owner came out, called him and went right back in before anything could be said.

Now the bylaw officer said I have two options:

1. File that the dog is an "aggresive" dog. This means it has to wear a muzzle at all times, be leashed whenever off its property and a whole other list I can't remember
2. Petition that the owner's of the dog pay the vet's bill and they get a slap on the hand?

What would you do? I hate being confrontational and dealing with messy things. My questions:

• has this dog bitten before?
• will it bite again?
• what if one of my children had been with me and had gotten in the way, would the dog still have attacked? Would it bite a child, my child? What would I do then?

I feel sick about it and confused!