We will be back tomorrow

Lady has been very busy with work so she hasn't had a chance to write or visit all our friends. We miss you and we will catch up tomorrow.

We are so excited it is not raining today, we forgot what the sun looked like. We plan on hanging outside once Lady finishes her project this morning.

Happy Sunday!

Feline Friday - Explore the outdoors

Now that the cats are old and I am not so worried about them running away, we have been letting them join us outside, under supervision of course. Here are some pictures of them enjoying the great outdoors. 

Nin

Baggy

Making good choices - by Lady

It has been really, really hot here the past week. When it gets hot like this, it means one thing - thunderstorms. Every night this week we have had one. For people like me who love them, this is great. For creatures like Hailey, who hate them, there is nothing worse. When the rumbling starts, Hailey begins to pace. Her tail goes as tight as it can between her legs. She shakes.  Historically she has also become destructive. Her thunder shirt can help, but given how hot it has been (and we don't have air conditioning), we have been hesitant to use it. Instead she and I have a one sided conversation that goes something like this:

Me: "Hailey I can tell you are so upset. I know you are scared, and I hope you make good choices. Remember to make a good choice." [Note: I know she doesn't understand this, if she did it would be so much easier!]

Thunder - go away - I hate you! 

or me to man if it thundered while we were out: "Did Hailey make good choices?"

By good choices I mean not destroy anything or run away.

Lately, Hailey has been making good choices. I can tell she is trying to find ways to calm down. If we happen to be outside when the thunder rolls in (or anything that might sound like thunder) she runs to the door to go into the house. In the house, she has 3 new favourite hiding places: the downstairs bathroom or Man's office (which we are now leaving her access to when we are out and knock on wood we haven't had any accidents downstairs) and our bedroom closet (which she only has access when we are home). So far, other than a piece of paper towel, she hasn't destroyed anything.

It is sad when the storms hit because I don't get to see my girl. Last night we had thunder around 7. It lasted like 30 minutes. Hailey did come for dinner, but wouldn't go outside. She hid downstairs for 2 hours in the Man's office. Around 9, I convinced her to go outside and she reluctantly did (she really had to go) and then went and hid in the closet.

However, I am very proud of her for making good choices and I tell her this while I love her and offer her treats she is not likely to take when it is storming. I give her points for trying and I hope one day she will not be as afraid.

Wordless Wednesday - The Guard - Zaphod

Traitor Tuesday - by Lee

Sometimes our people leave me for a million years. They always come back smelling funny and they don't tell me what they are doing.

I was looking through the Lady's pictures for a picture of me over the weekend and I found these! These were taken in 2011 when Lady and Man left me and Gemi with Aunt C and went away forever. Lady said she had to go for work (that is a load of . . .). She went away to become a  traitor. I don't know where this Bali is, but I don't like it.

Here are some examples of how she wants to replace me:

A turtle - if they think they could find as much love from one of those, they should bring one of the ones
they keep seeing down the road home.

If they get an iguana, I should get a frog. My Lady doesn't even like lizards. If she saw one in the yard
she would scream, and yet here she is smiling at one. Traitor! 

Ok, Maybe a pet monkey would be fun. It would likely be worse behaved then me, so I could be the favourite.

Lady says to pardon the quality of this picture. It rained so much her camera stopped working so
she bought a disposable one and this is the quality. How can I compete with a baby elephant?

I want to know, do your people act as traitors too?

A very put out Hailey

PS Lady just started looking at the new PhoDography book. She hopes to have a chance to have a good look at it over the weekend and she will tell you all about it!

Mischief Monday - It wasn't me! by Lee

I am so happy to report that none of the real mischief was mine!

Ready, here I come! 

I am so happy it wasn't me! 

Lady says I caused some mischief by going to visit the groundhog. I don't know what she is talking about.

A mischief recap:

Baggy caused mischief when he snuck outside and spent a couple hours there. He doesn't like to leave the deck if the grass is wet, so he was safe but mad.

Emma caused mischief by not listening, by peeing and pooping on the floor,  and by wanting all the love.

The tree caused mischief by running into Zaphod's leg. It is much better. He will get to play ball a little today if it is not too hot. It is suppose to get really, really hot today.  

Auntie K caused mischief by giving the Lady the book below. This means she is going to be taking more pictures of us.

Overall, it was a low mischief week. We will have to plan more mischief for next week.

Have a great day! 

Black and White Sunday - The Queen

The Queen does not feel like being photographed right now, she would like to nap in the sun undisturbed and dream of groundhog chasing.

Thank you! 

No ball?

Yesterday morning Zaphod woke up with a limp. At first I thought maybe his leg was asleep, but he continued to limp. Despite this limp, he wants to play ball. He will still wrestle with Hailey and run after things in the bush.

Because of this limp we are trying to minimize his activity. He was sad when he didn't go on morning walk yesterday. He is the saddest boy ever every time we go out and we don't take the ball with us. He gives us sad eyes. Clearly he thinks he is in trouble. I of course try to explain it to him, but I don't think he understands.

So he is sulking. We are having a disagreement about when he should go to the vet.

We aren't 100% sure what is wrong. We know it is his front left paw. We think it is his shoulder. He did crash into a tree on Thursday when playing ball. Maybe that is it.  We will keep watching him and try and get him to rest, which will be a bit easier since it is raining out again.

Never a dull moment!

Where's Phody? From before the injury, resting after some fetch!

Fight Like a Frenchie

For our friend Benny who is fighting liver cancer.

New Bed

First, thank you for all the birthday and adoption day wishes. Lady spent most of the day doing nothing. She wouldn't even let us read all the blogs we wanted. She said it was her day and she wanted to do nothing so we were doing nothing:(

Secondly, Man ruined one of our beds by washing it after someone whose name starts with "H" and ends with "ailey" peed in it. We got a new bed.

It has been very popular.

pardon the poor quality but I took this from my computer because I was afraid if I got up I would disturb them.
This is Baggy and Lee on the bed

My new bed

When am I getting a turn?

Almost Wordless Wednesday - Celebration!

Today we celebrate the 18th anniversary since Baggy, the first pack member, joined the pack. We also celebrate Lady's birthday, but she doesn't want us to write how old she is. It is a lot!

Happy Adoption Day Baggy!

Happy Birthday Lady!

Enjoying the sun

Living up to his panther name sake

Emma Update

Well it has been 3 weeks with Emma and I thought we should give an update on how she is doing.

I am a princess and I should get all the love. 

The first week we were accident free, then while I was away she started having them and she continued since I got back. It is so challenging because we don't understand the pattern behind these. She can go out and have a huge pee and come in and pee 10 minutes later, but other days/times this doesn't happen. She is use to a life where her dad carries her around or follows her around and at the slightest sign she may has to go takes her out. We don't like a life that allows for this, so we have been using the crate a little more for her, although she tends to scream when she is in it, so it isn't enjoyable for the rest of the house!

The dogs are all getting along well. We do have some slight jealousy if anyone is getting love and attention and the others are not. Those being "left out" come over and demand attention. Most of the time though they play and chase and have a great time. Even the cats don't mind her and Baggy has tolerated more then he would like to admit. He gets his daily Emma kisses without complaining. 

I am a pretty happy girl

Emma is trustworthy enough to go outside on a tie out without it being tied to anything. She generally stays in the front yard and chases Phod and the ball sometimes. We only have to tie her up if we can't be watching her (like when we are having a fire). 

On our walks, Emma is always the best walker. She trundles along and we get in our 3 or so km without her slowing down. She does not stop to sniff as much as our two do.

She is a very snuggly little girl who wants to be held a lot. She is use to being cuddled or played with every moment she is awake and a person is home. She gets lots of cuddles and play time, but not every moment [unlike my brother in law who lives on take out, we have things to do like cook and clean]. I think this has been an adjustment for her, but she has handled it well. 

Overall things are going well, but I admit a 3rd dog sure feels like a lot more work and I look forward to August when it is just our two!

Mischief Monday - the Hole

We are helping landscape

They caused a little mischief this week. While the Lady and Man were sitting around the fire and the girls were tied to the tree and Phod was free to do what he wanted, they dug a hole in the yard. This is our punishment for making them be outside when we were not giving them our full attention. 

Black and White Sunday - Nin

We let the cats spend some time out front with us last week. Here is Nin enjoying the sun on the deck.

To all the Dads out there - Happy Father's Day!

Missing My Dogs

After a 4 day crazy week with not enough sleep, I have trouble imagining why I missed my dogs while I was away. I mean I actually had leg space in my bed and didn't have to rush outside first thing in the morning so no one peed on the floor. In spite of these luxuries, I missed them.

Here is something I find interesting:

On a day to day basis, even a really good Hailey is a LOT of work. Yesterday morning, in a 20 minute period  she snuck into the groundhog hole, she helped load the dishwasher, she took things out of the garbage while I was trying to empty it. She is just into everything. She is very anxious. She has an amazing memory. She is able to go into "Hailey mode" and not hear or see anything that she doesn't want to. I also know that our friends and family find her a lot and people just don't easily fall in love or even like Hailey. She requires a lot of patience and time and energy to love.

How could you not miss us! 

Zaphod on the other hand is easy. Take the ball out when you go and throw it and let him snuggle with you at night (and he has been extra cuddly since I came back, he actually gave me a hug when I arrived home). He is calm. While Hailey is "helping" in the kitchen, he is just laying on the floor in sight but out of the way. Everyone falls in love with my gentle boy, even people who aren't dog lovers. That is just the kind of guy he is.

So you would think that while I was away, it would be my calm gentle boy I missed the most. I did miss him, but the reality was I missed Hailey more. She may suck my life energy somedays, but I love her.  Maybe it is because she requires so much love and attention that I worry more about her when I am gone and miss her more. I am not sure.  At any rate, even though they are driving me crazy, I am glad to be home with them!

Aside: Sometimes it makes me sad that people just don't love my Hailey the way I do. They see the scared, anxious girl or the too excited girl and don't appreciate her other great qualities. However, I admit that sometimes I understand why they have more trouble loving her!

The gift

As we mentioned yesterday, guilt of leaving us (the power of the sad eyes from afar) forced our Lady to get us a gift. 

This is what we got:

Lady tried to make videos of us with it, but they suck, so she is not putting them here.

Hailey solved it in about 20 seconds.

Emma solved it in 53 seconds.

Phod figured it out in about 35 seconds.

Lady was impressed with all of us!

Aside: Thank you for sharing your stories about businesses etc that hire "disabled" people. I don't even really like that term because all of the individuals I work work with who have autism are way smarter then me and they see the world in such amazing ways. It is often communication or a behaviour we would see as "weird" that stops them from participating fully. As we are learning, all the cool people who change the world (Einstein, Steve Jobs etc etc) likely were on the spectrum. 

Here is a video I love about a young man in Edmonton who has started his own business (with some support). To learn about Anthony, click on his name.

Have a great day and we look forward to reading your blogs today!

Catch Up

Today Lady says she has her head screwed on better so we can catch up.

Lady you are boring me with your stories.
Talk more about me!

Lady left last Tuesday for Calgary, Alberta. She went to a conference there and then went to Banff for the weekend. She had a great time.

The conference was a vocational training for adults with autism. Lady is sad that 80% of individuals with autism right now don't have jobs. Many can work or be taught to work, but people don't want to hire them. People with autism are not alone - all disabilities are under employed. There have been some studies that show that when you employ people with disabilities absenteeism decreases, productivity increases, turn over decreases and safety either stays the same or improves. There are some really cool programs in Canada and the US right now. Lady would like to ask all our American friends to shop at Mejers because they have AWESOME programs for hiring people with disabilities and are improving it all the time (some of their distribution centres workforce is 50% individuals with disabilities). Plus they are sharing their model with other big companies like Colgate, P and G, Clarks, Lowes, Best Buy . . . . so there is hope.  If you can, consider employing someone with a disability.

Ok, now we have pushed Lady off her soapbox, she did some cool things while she was away. She went bobsledding. The pilot of the sled was Australia's Heath Spence. Lady wishes him luck at the Olympics in 2014. She said it was fun and not scary although her brain got rattled around a lot.

She also road the gondola in Banff, did a huge hike at Lake Louise (the picture from yesterday was taken half way up the hike) and generally enjoyed the mountains. Lady loves mountains. This is why she lives far away from everything in the closest thing we have here, the Gatineau Hills (which are part of the Laurentian Mountains).

While Lady was gone, we had an ok time with Man. We don't have him as well trained as Lady and he doesn't fall for sad eyes as well. [Also, he would NEVER FaceTime to talk to us like Lady did when she was away]. He did feed us, and brush Phod some, and we got to go swimming 2 times, and he took us for walks in the evening. He did us a huge favour and didn't make us brush our teeth every night. He didn't take us on morning walks (he is not as cheery as Lady in the morning) and he didn't play ball with Phod every time we went out. We give him a C in care.

Overall we were good and didn't cause much mischief. We were so good Lady brought us home a present. We will talk about that tomorrow, cause we think this post is too long.  Have a great day and thanks for stopping by and enjoy some more pictures from the trip.

More Mountains

One of the few flowers Lady saw

Looking down from Sulphur Mountain in near Banff - Lady took the gondola up

A fun mountain picture taken from the car. Lady loves mountains and clouds

On her hike up the mountain at Lake Louise - it was cold and rainy!

Near the top of the mountain at Lake Louise. It was snowing! 

A Hoodoo just outside of Banff. Lady didn't know what a Hoodoo was! 

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Our Lady is back. We are so excited. She got home yesterday afternoon. We all have so much to tell you and we can't wait to catch up on your adventures.

Until tomorrow!

Lake Louise

He wasn't my prince

Lady: Lee, the Man says you may have killed a frog. He doesn't have proof it was you, all he knows that you were with what was left of a frog.

Lee: I won't say if he was alive or dead when I found him. All I will say is he was not my prince.

Lady: O Lee!


Today the Lady is leaving for one week. She doesn't know if she is taking her computer she will decide at the end of the day. She will not be posting blogs while she is away and if she doesn't take her computer, she won't be reading either. If that is the case, see you all next week! We will miss you!

Mischief Monday

The new leashes. Lady bought 4, to have extra ones on
hand incase someone needs to eat them again. 

We had a tiny bit of mischief this week.


Hailey caused mischief 2 times.

Time one:  She may have chewed through all the leashes forcing Lady to get new ones. [Lady forgot to take a picture of that sorry!]

Time two: She helped the cats finish their breakfast.

Hailey helping the cats finish breakfast.
Lady took a picture before stopping her:)

Zaphod caused mischief Saturday night.  Auntie K and her boy [aka her boyfriend] were over as was Uncle Chris. The boy had been to visit but had not been to the lake. The Lady and Auntie K and the boy decided to go for a walk to the lake without any of the dogs. The Lady left Lee tied to a post, and Emma and Zaphod free and under the supervision of Uncle Chris and the Man [who were building the bonfire] while she went for her walk. While standing on the beach who suddenly comes tearing down the hill into the lake, while Zaphod of course. He was not going to miss out on a swim. He went for his swim and Uncle Chris arrived with a leash to walk him home. Zaphod would like to argue that it is really the Lady who caused the mischief by not taking him to the lake in the first place!

Emma caused mischief last night. While outside she and Hailey got tangled. When Lady tried to untangle them, a scared Emma tried to bite her. Because of this Lady had to untangle her in a less then dignified way.

Let's see what mischief we cause this week with Emma here and the Lady away! Happy Monday!

Black and White Sunday - She's Back!

Emma

For the next 2 months and a few days, while my brother-in-law Chris is on exercise for his job in the military, Emma will be staying with us.

She arrived yesterday afternoon and had her best first night here. She did throw up at 5 am - hard to tell if this is because she is stressed or because of all the grass and sticks she was eating when they were playing outside yesterday.

My first task as dog sitter is going to be to try and squeeze a trip to the vet tomorrow because even though I reminded him and reminded him, Chris forgot to go get heart worm and tick treatment for her. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but I am getting on an airplane on Tuesday afternoon for a week, so to make the Man's life easier, I have to try and do this.

Let the adventures of a full house begin!

I will see you in my dreams

I have been blessed (and cursed) with the ability to have amazingly clear dreams. The blessing is that the good dreams are so good and real and enjoyable; the curse is the bad dreams are also so  clear and vivid and can stay with me for days and weeks. In my dreams I see colour, I smell things, I taste things and I feel things.

Occasionally I have dreams with Loki and Gemini and this week I had a dream with our little Loki in it.
My crazy dream went something like this.

Loki was still alive but our Gemini was not [which made me mad because I should at least be able to save her in my dreams, but I guess my guilt prevents this]. He was alive but he was having a 3rd serious health problem. [Loki had an autoimmune disorder and he had 2 'crisis' before dying]. He was at the vet. Our vet had called and talked to the Man and said they needed to keep him for another day.

I decided to walk to the clinic and get cat food [FYI we live 60 km from the clinic I would not walk there]. I arrive and the reception area is more like an airport, there are like 50 people waiting in line. I manage to race to the front of a new line as they open it and order my food. While I am waiting for them to get it, it occurs to me that I could visit Loki while I was here. So I ask if I can do that and they say no, it is too busy. Then I decide I will do something unfair. I ask to speak to the vet. I say I have questions about Loki and I know he is here and I can wait. I know if I ask him if I can see Loki I will get to. [The joys of having a friend who is a vet! I do have some post dream guilt for manipulating this relationship to see my dog, but I think all true dog lovers would].

This picture was taken of Loki in July of 2009 shortly after his liver biopsy. Loki was always an amazing sport at the vet,  I believe in all the tests, blood work (at times bi-weekly) he only growled 1 time and everyone was shocked. He loved the vet and the clinic. However, what he didn't love was me dressing him up and taking pictures of him, so this is why he was very unhappy with me.  I think in the context of my dream he is thinking, you couldn't even dream me healthy, thanks!

While I was waiting they bring Loki out in our cats crate with a big stack of meds to take. I was now very confused because I thought he had to stay. The receptionist said they got the test done and he could go home. They explain that he will need a lot of medication and are worried that we won't be able to handle it. I laugh because in Loki's last year of life he was on as many as 15 pills a day and we had charts and pill storage containers and pill cutters to keep it all straight, so we had done this before. Of course I have walked so I call the Man to come and get me. While I was waiting the vet comes out and I ask why he didn't let us know Loki was ready to come home. He said he sent a new "plasma" email and he guessed it wasn't compatible with our email so we didn't get it. At any rate, he was ready to go with all this medication.

While I never got to hold Loki in this dream because he was in the crate, I got to see his big bug brown eyes and his soft puppy fur (a side effect from the drugs he took when he was dying). It was nice to have that time with him, even if it was only in my dreams . . . . . .

Have a happy Saturday