Mischief Monday - It Scared the 💩 Out of Her

The Scene: The wee hours of Sunday morning, the peeps and pups are sleeping happily in their beds, when suddenly low levels of thunder can be heard.

Our protagonist, Miss Hailey Bug, turns into the fearful pup. She starts pacing, panting and scratching at the door to escape.

The Man lets her out of the room.

She continues to pace and carry on, which causes Phod to become anxious.

The Man gets up to be with her to discover she was so scared she had 💩 at the top of the stairs.

The Man spends the next hour or so trying to comfort her (turning lights on, turning music on, blocking all the places she will try and scratch through).

Phod goes back and forth between the peeps and finally sleeps with the Lady on the bed.

Finally, our girl settles with the lights on, the music on, and the Man on the couch.

She was very tired on Sunday.

There are no thunderstorms in the forecast until Wednesday.  Natural alternatives are being researched to complement her Prozac.

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I apologize for not getting to visit you all as often as I would like. Life is happening and until the flooding/construction is a little bit better I will be losing a lot of my spare time to work. 

Nature Friday - Red Canyon Utah

Besides visiting Bryce Canyon, we spent some time in Red Canyon. Here are a few pictures of this beautiful place.

The Man smelling the tree which was suppose to smell like vanilla or butterscotch

The hosts Murphy and Stanley

The flats joined us

A rare picture of us the people together! 

Sniffer-vising

We had our long weekend last week. Like many self-employed people, long weekends don't always mean days off. They can mean catching up at home, so I brought some paperwork home to catch up on Monday. 

I had finished up with one project that required binders and clipboards brought in from a centre. I set them on the floor beside my desk. I heard the little pitter-patter of toes and looked over to see Lee sniffing the documents. She may have even given the clipboard a little lick!  I laughed and called her the sniffer-visor. (Don't worry, I never left the important work documents alone with her. I would hate to say, my dog ate the data!)

Sniffing Lady's work - confidential information has been blacked out

Wordless Wednesday

A Project Hailey Fail

As you may remember, our Lee is on prozac (the generic form picked up at the human pharmacy) from about April-October every year. She is on the prozac to help her with her severe anxiety cause by fireworks and thunder. (If you have forgotten how severe, in August of 2012 she chewed her way through the wall).

She went back on it in early April. We had our first storm. Short story, I ended up asleep on the couch with the TV and lights on and she ended up in bed with the Man after almost 2 hours of stress. 

I spoke to our vet after this and we decided to try increasing her dose. He said we could double it. We increased it to see. 

The increase caused Hailey to be extra tired and she looked uncomfortable in her body (I think she just felt too stoned). After a short time, we returned her to her regular dose.  I spoke to the vet and he said we could look at an in-between dose and I said let's see.

We just got through our first long weekend of the year which means a lot of fireworks for us. While she was a bit pacy the first night, we let her out of the bedroom and she settled without any destruction. Overall she did really well. So for the time being, we will leave her meds as they are. 

Mischief Monday by Phod

Dear pals,

You know I am the best dog in the world and I try very, very hard to keep my peeps happy and safe. On the weekend, I had to do my safety job. You see the deer are back. Sometimes there can be up to 10 in the yard. 10 intruders. I don't care that my people say they are nice, I see them as intruders. At any rate, Man had taken me out on leash. He did a survey and there didn't appear to be any deer around so he let me off leash. What Man didn't know is that the deer were in the bush behind the house, so I ran after them to give them a ticket for trespassing. 

A sample picture of a deer in the yard

Lee was really not happy I got to guard and she started to bark. The Man was calling me to stop and come back, but I couldn't listen because I had a job to do. Lady dragged Lee back to the house. Man started on the low path behind the house and Lady started on the high path.

Can you spot me in the bush?

It was only a few minutes before Lady could hear the gentle jingle of my tags in the bush. She called to Man that she had found me. Slowly but surely (one must stop to eat some deer poop) I made my way back to her. 

I wouldn't look at Lady

The Man was not happy that I left the yard. He gave me a stern talking to. I pretended to show remorse, but really it is fun very important to keep my people safe. 

After such an adventure I needed a really good nap!

Lady says it was mischief but I think I was just doing my job.  I have found I have been on leash a lot more since!

Lesson, my safety measures are not appreciated by my people.

Your pal, Phod

Nature Friday - Bryce Canyon

I am joining Rosy and the Boyz for Nature Friday.

When I started this blog 8 years ago, I had no idea that it would result in 4 trips to meet other bloggers and their dogs. There is so much negativity on the internet and so much hate - it is nice to have a little corner that has united us with wonderful, like minded people (aka huge animal lovers), who we have no business knowing any other way.

This year, the mini-BAR was in Bryce Canyon, Utah. Utah is now the 25th State I have visited. 

Today, I share pictures from Bryce Canyon itself. 

Me  at the top of the canyon before the first descent

Looking into the Canyon

The Hoodoos

More Hoodoos

The rule breaker . . . one of the trails was washed out (no we didn't go far on the closed path)

The pups that have brought us together - Mabel, Arty, Jakey, Rosy, Murphy and Stanley and of course the Lee and Phod flats

Even more Hoodoos

Me and Man and flat Lee and Phod at the top

Murphy and Stanley's peeps and the Man on our big hike

Making sure we don't get lost

I wonder how long before this Hoodoo falls over

Hiking in Bryce was fun but tough. First, we live around sea level (about 1000 feet above) and in the Bryce area it is 7-8000 feet about sea level. So we were starting with thinner air then we are use to. Second, when you decent into the canyon (which isn't too bad), you go down about 1000 feet. This means you have to come up about a 1000 feet. Third, it can be very steep in places (it is a canyon after all).  I did it twice, and I am going to say, both times that last 500 feet were very hard. I found the second time harder, I think because my legs were sore from the 2 full days of hiking on the previous days. 

I don't think the pictures do the magnificent canyon justice. It was stunning. I am so glad to have had this opportunity.