Let the sun shine in!

There’s something about sunshine that makes everyone get a little silly. We picked up Gemma first today and went for a walk and then to the tennis courts.  Gemma is a funny girl, solely

focused on chasing me and grabbing my ears.  But today Gretchen made her cuddle up and get some lovin, all of which Gemma found to her liking.  Taking the picture, although, was a bit more difficult than Gretchen imagined, but it certainly shows the love and Gemma’s goofy demeanor today.

After a romp at the courts, we walked around the park and back to Gemma’s house where we played in her backyard.

The sun made the day pretty warm, so I was feeling a bit tired, but Gemma persisted.  She invited me to chase her, to wrestle with her, and let her bite my ears. I was tired of the ear thing, but she begged and begged and begged in all the ways she knows how!

I was more interested in my ball, as you can see, but Gemma was very patient…

Eventually, I gave in and Gemma pounced (with a twist) when given the opportunity!

After Gemma, Gretchen had a meeting. I waited in the car, but I’m not known for sleeping while I wait.  I watch intently out the window hoping Gretchen will return soon.

I should have rested!

Why? Well, when Gretchen did return, we picked up Monty and then Oshi and Perrito.  Back through the park we went and despite the warm sunshine, no one was playing tennis so onto the tennis courts we went and played some more!

Move over, Perrito, I want to be in the picture, too!

Oshi and Perrito were frisky today. It must have been the sunshine!  They raced around while Monty and I played fetch.

It's low down here, isn't it?

You lookin at me?

Ain't the sunshine great?

And Monty, he was feeling kind of goofy today, too.  He held his tennis ball high in the air and let the sun blind him with its brightness.

He posed for the camera, though, giving Gretchen a cheesy grin!

And after awhile, he rested (or sunbathed) while I played with my ball off in the distance!

After we took Oshi and Perrito home, Monty and I got another nice, long walk at Volunteer Park.  Did I say how beautiful it was today?  Well, perhaps this picture sums it up!

Well, it’s been a week of rain, wind, snow, and sun.  I’m happy for the weekend. A little R and R sounds wonderful right now!

Have fun, play safe, and keep waggin!!

Rubin

Who Nose? Whose Knows?

Gemma's nose!

The human language is funny. Gretchen tells me that there are lots of human languages, that I just know one and I can tell you, it’s taken me a long time to get the hang of it.

For instance, if you’ve read these posts faithfully, you’ll know I struggle sometimes with homophones — words that sound alike but have different meanings.  It’s not that I don’t know the difference between “No” and “Know,” but sometimes my paws get moving so fast at this keyboard, my mind can’t keep up. Therefore, “where” can sometimes be “wear” and “bear” can sometimes come out “bare.” I guess it’s good for a chuckle!

But when you stop to think about it, why did anyone decide to use the word “no” (just for instance) twice?  How confusing is that?

Dogs have no such dilemmas. Our language is based on scent, sight, and sound.  Scent is the most important. Like this morning, I could smell snow in the air and I as so excited to get outside, I nearly went through the sliding glass door in my desire to smell that snow up close. And when I finally got in the backyard, MY GOD, the scents were beyond amazing. There was a cat in our yard and the scent of cat drives me wild!  I ran figure eights throughout the backyard trying to figure out where that dastardly cat raced off, too, but I couldn’t find it. Still, the scent was powerful and made it difficult for me to obey the “come” command.  You’ve got to be kidding? Come to you when I’m lost in the language of my nose?  Please!

You can imagine how excited I was to get to work once I realized we’d be walking in snow!  Our first date was with Ollie and what I love about Ollie is that he knows a good time when he sees one!  He was beside himself when he saw us this late-morning and when we headed to Gemma’s house, he just about dragged us down the street!  We picked up Gemma and headed to the tennis courts and even though there was no snow on the courts, you can see it in the background of these playful photographs!

One...two...three!

Put on the brakes! Breaks?

Can't touch this!

Dog's version of Hip Hop

Who's that?

That's you...well, your shadow, Gemma!

We raced ourselves crazy, but then it was time for Gemma to go home, followed by Ollie.  I think they must be as worn out as I am.

But our day wasn’t over because we walked from Ollie’s house along the ridge to Chloe’s house. I hadn’t seen Chloe for a long time so it was good to visit, though for Chloe, it’s all about the walk. Gretchen brought her special stretchy leash that she wraps around her waist and Chloe extends that leash all the way out as we walk.

Always in the lead

Part of my responsibility is to walk right at Gretchen’s side. Sometimes it’s very hard for me — there are exciting things in the world — but today, after all our walking and playing, I was pretty tired and happy to walk right next to her.

I'm right here!

We made our way around the neighborhood like that — Chloe in the lead and me where I should be– when we came upon the most interesting thing.  It’s hard to see in this picture, but Chole’s looking right at it!

Do you see it on the porch?

A pig!!!

Well that made us both stop and wonder. This did, too.  Humans are funny creatures!

I really want to grab that stick...I mean, arm.

No time for pictures. Let's keep walking that-a-way!

And so we walked from all the strange human things we see everyday, put our noses to the ground (or in the air), and headed back to Chloe’s home.  After she raced inside, I begged Gretchen to take us back to the house — my feet were tired!  She laughed and told me that humans call feet “dogs” and I could only shake my head is dismay.

Until tomorrow,

Rubin (not to be confused with the sandwich in any way, shape, or flavor!)

Leonard Cohen has his Blue Raincoat; I have my Red one!

Gretchen listens to a lot of music when she’s working on her freelance writing job.  Classical music in the mornings, folk at lunch, and then, when it’s time to clean up or cook, she pumps up the Earth, Wind, and Fire or Sly and the Family Stone.  The other day at lunch, I heard Jennifer Warnes sing Leonard Cohen’s classic The Blue Raincoat and I heard this…
“I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I’m glad you stood in my way.”

I immediately thought of my red raincoat.

Today, I had to don my despised red raincoat because, as you can tell from the picture (that was a dud, but demonstrates the rainy weather we’re experiencing) it rained buckets and buckets today.  When Gretchen put the coat on me, I sang the above lyrics in my head to that despised red raincoat.  She kept me warm, though and she kept me relatively dry, so I have to forgive her. But that doesn’t mean I’ll like her tomorrow!

It was not so busy today as many of our clients moved their appointments to yesterday clearing our schedule today.  We started the day with a spunky Perrito and a reluctant Oshi.  That’s because of the rain.  For Perrito, it turned his long hair into a mop and he gleefully rain around the tennis courts soaking up the water!

Oshi, on the other hand, cowered and shook. Gretchen kept him on the leash and walked around the courts making sure Oshi got some exercise. He was not the least bit happy. I offered my red raincoat, but neither Gretchen nor Oshi thought that was a good idea.

Oshi was constantly complaining…”Can we go home now?” He gave us all the evil eye and pulled his leash to its maximum length angling for the door out of the courts and back on the path to home.

By the time we got them home, they were soggy doggies and it took quite awhile to dry them off. Since Oshi and Perrito live next door, we often see Oshi standing on the table in the kitchen (yes, on the table) looking through the window into our window. The other day he actually barked at us begging for a walk.  He wasn’t begging today, I can tell you that!  Rather, he begged and begged to go home!

We headed to Gemma’s house after that and for a moment, the rain stopped. But just for a moment.  Back to the tennis courts we went for a few photos, a few games of chase, and a few tosses of the ball. Gemma liked my red raincoat because it 1) let her see me better and 2) gave her something other than my ears to grab on to!

But that rain came right back and try as I might to encourage Gemma to rip off my raincoat, I was kind of glad I had it on when the clouds opened up again and blew heavy rain on us sideways. We ended up back at our house (Gretchen, Gemma, and me) whereupon Gemma and I wrestled and raced up and down the stairs in an indoor game of chase!

After Gemma went home and Gretchen went off to her part-time teaching job, I rested, warmed up, and sang my own version of The Red Raincoat!

Let’s hope tomorrow requires nothing more than my curly birthday suit!

Until then,

Rubin

Retrospective/Introspective

We have returned after a few days off last week. I think it’s called vacation, but I’m not sure what that means except that we get to do things like play in the snow, play more fetch, eat more food, and sleep late!  If that’s it, then I like vacation.

Unfortunately, life got so hurried before we left we didn’t give Oshi and Perrito their photographic due last week. We walked them on Wednesday morning before we took off and then again on Saturday when we returned. We don’t have any photos from those excursions as the camera was packed away on both ends of our trip, so we took extra photos of them today.

This is Oshi. He’s sporting a new doo these days. Instead of one ponytail on top, he’s got two! Gretchen says two ponytails are called pigtails, but she was unable to tell me why. I’ll need to do some internet research later to find out why.  Anyway, Oshi looks pretty cute in his two pigtails!

Oshi and Perrito were very excited to see us today and I was very excited to see the cat who has decided to spend his time living at Oshi and Perrito’s house.  Orondo doesn’t live there permanently. He just shows up and races out or in the front door when Gretchen opens it. I LOVE that. I get very excited when a cat races by.  I just have this desire to chase it and, well, I don’t know what I’d do with it if I caught it, but it’s so fun to go crazy!  Gretchen refuses to take a picture of my excitement, but maybe one day she’ll capture it.

We went on our walk through the park and ended up at the tennis courts only because Perrito pulled us there.  Oshi wasn’t disappointed and he tried desperately to engage Perrito in a game of chase.

But Perrito was only interested in chasing me…

Oshi even tried lying in wait, though to me it looked more like LION in wait…

Still, Perrito did everything he could to distract me and play chase with him…

But eventually both boys tired and just hung out watching me play.

Oshi and Perrito weren’t the first dogs of the day.  First up was Lucy who was equally excited to see us.  Lucy always chooses the direction we’ll head and today it was up on the hill and down to the park by the tunnel.  It’s a great place to play since there isn’t any traffic and there’s a nice open field in which to play the game Lucy loves the most…you guessed it!

“Look into my crystal ball, Ms. Lucy!” Gretchen has a way of hypnotizing poor Lucy.

But Lucy’s getting a bit more testy with Gretchen and a few times gave her the ole stink eye. “Give me that ball!”

Silly girl.  Even when we were supposed to rest, eat a few snacks and focus on something else, Lucy was solely intent on getting the ball out of the chuck-it.  She even tried to enlist my help, but I was more interested in my snacks!

After we walked Lucy, that’s when we picked up the boys — Oshi and Perrito (see above photos).  After that rousing morning, I thought we’d go take a nap, but Jessica called and asked us to go for a walk with Quillette. So we did.

And who did we run into?  Ms. Gemma!

Alas, Gretchen didn’t bring her camera as she thought it was a pleasure walk not a work walk.  Now she knows — always bring the camera.

Oh well, to fill in here are some photos from my vacation…

Playing fetch in the snow…

Posing alone and with moms…

And finally, my most embarrassing moment…when I made an icy attempt to leap over the chain at the end of the driveway. Gretchen didn’t forget her camera that time!

Thus ends my retrospective of my time away and of today…until tomorrow!

Rubin

THE CHASE…

Dogs like to chase things — balls, other dogs, treats, cats (to name a few) — and since I am a dog, it should come as no shock that I, too, love a good chase. Well, today I got just that — good chases of balls, dogs, and even a cat though the last got me in a bit of trouble.

Our day began with Lucy who is obsessed with one kind of chasing — tennis balls.  We walked down through the woods, over the bridge, and into the park with Lucy ALWAYS in the lead.  She was beside herself while Gretchen unpacked her bag, loaded up the chuck-it (the device she uses to hurl the ball far across the field), and pulled out her camera. By the time the ball was thrown, Lucy was ecstatic racing back and forth across the field with flying glee!

Generally, we can’t wear Lucy out.  She’s tireless in the chase, but today, we finally achieved a tongue out kind of tired, whereas I was down after 15 minutes of the game.

I rested and watched as Lucy raced down the field and back again fetching the tennis ball. The only hint that Lucy gets tired (aside from a bit of panting) is when, on the return (after the fetch) she weaves back down the field sniffing the ground.  In other words, she doesn’t come back as fast as normal and thus, I’m assuming, is catching her breath before the next ball is hurled across the field.  But I could be wrong.

After we dropped Lucy off with her mom, we ventured back up the street to retrieve Ollie.  He’s always so excited to see us we were surprised when he didn’t race into the backyard to greet us.  Turns out his mom was home sick and he was no doubt fulfilling his role as nurse before leaving the house.

Ollie came over to my house for a bit whereupon I tried to engage him in a game of chase around the yard. He wasn’t buying it.  New to the environment, he just wanted to check things out and have a look around.

At first that really frustrated me, but once I settled down, I could see his perspective. I live in my yard every day so nothing is new to me. For him, EVERYTHING is new so he needed some time to take it all in.

We headed over to Gemma’s house after awhile and then walked through the park to the tennis courts. That is where the real chase began. This time, I chased a ball, but soon abandoned my pursuit for the chase of Ollie. Man, is he ever fast (see photo at top of this post)!  It seemed that Gemma and I were always just out of reach of the speed demon.

Soon, I tired out again (I’m getting older) though Gemma, in her yellow attire, rested at strategic moments!

We took Gemma back to her house (hopefully exhausted) and Ollie back to his house (hopefully exhausted though still able to nurse his mom back to health) and then headed home by way of Quillette’s house.  Q-girl was thrilled to see us and since she’s older, we got to go on a leisure stroll through the park back to our house.  Quillette also hurt her leg the other day so we didn’t end up walking too terribly long so as not to strain her leg.

Of course, on the way back home, I spotted a cat and it came as quite a shock to Gretchen when I viciously leapt out to try to grab it.  This, of course, excited Quillette too and well, Gretchen almost fell flat on her face holding our leashes. I didn’t catch the cat nor did Gretchen catch the picture, but you can imagine the excitement of it all!

Quillette came back with us to our house and did what Quillette does best — chase treats!  I swear, she can smell them from a mile away.  Once she’s got their scent, she gives her best begging face (something I’m trying to learn) and we usually end up with something tasty!

We rested for a few hours while Gretchen worked on a freelance job she received that morning, then it was off for one last walk before we took Quillette home to await the arrival of her own mother.

I have to admit, the day — the chasing — made me one tired pup. I ate my dinner with enthusiasm and fell fast asleep on my bed.  A good day by any standards!

Learning About Presidents

Today, in human language, is known as Presidents Day.  Despite Gretchen telling me all about it (she used to teach history, ya know), I’m still a little baffled. Humans choose a pack leader? In my world, you just ARE a pack leader. No one gets to choose. But this is just one of many things I’ve had difficulty understanding about humans.

Regardless, Presidents Day means our work was light today, just Oshi and Perrito, and it also means that both my moms are home for the day.  That’s nice.  In fact, my other mom (Ann) has the whole week off so I’ve heard mention of something like skiing and snow and a cabin.  Putting two and two together, I think this means fewer dogs to walk this week and time up in the mountains playing in what little snow there is.  I’ll take what I can get.

Back to today. It was beautiful out. Sunny, blue, and warm. (I think there is some kind of connection between this weather and not a lot of snow in the mountains, but I need another explanation before I can completely understand it.) We picked up the boys next door and then headed to the park and off-leash at the courts.

Oshi was very happy.

We all were, actually!

Wait…that’s not the picture I wanted. That’s the picture of Blackberry. She’s a dog we met at the tennis courts.  She’s a 5 month old bull mastiff.  You understand what this means, don’t you?  She’s bigger than me (in weight and height) and she’s only 5 months old!

Blackberry came with family in tow.  When Perrito saw them outside the courts, he got very excited and very curious!

Oshi, on the other hand, hid in the shadows of the people and the backpack.  Silly boy.

I kind of understand it though. Blackberry has yet to learn her strength!

We wrestled, but she slimed me good in the game. Oh well. It’s the price one must pay for the kind of work I do.

Personally, I think Perrito’s tongue-out-face expressed what it was like to play with Blackberry!

But it was a perfect day for the adventure…sun, warmth, friends, and all those presidents we appear to be celebrating!

On A Day Like This

I’m trying to figure out what I did wrong.  It all started out as usual and then, well then it all shifted to something terribly different than the way I’d planned.

Friday’s are a Monty day and we picked him up as usual for a short walk and then we piled into the car.  I was excited because usually a ride in the car means an adventue.  I suppose, in some ways, it was an adventure, but not the kind I had hoped for.

We ended up at the groomers, what Gretchen likes to call the “spa” only she doesn’t have to stay there so what does she know about it?

It’s hard for me to explain the spa.  I love going there because there are treats, Lilianna, the groomer is very nice to me, Monty goes with me, and I get to play with all sorts of dogs. But I hate the spa, too, because I get a bath, I get brushed, I get dried by a loud blow dryer and I spend the whole day NOT playing. Oh, and there are other things they do to me that I do not wish to write about!

Okay, I play a little bit. We all run around together in the backyard, but that’s it.  No long walks, no playing fetch, no visiting all the pee spots and smells around the city — all the things I get to do by owning my own business.

But what makes this all worse is that, while I’m at the spa (with Monty) Gretchen is out having the fun that I’d planned for the day.  I’m not sure I can forgive her for this, but while we were being primped and clipped, she went to the dog park. That’s right. She went to the Disneyland of dog parks.  How can this be?

From the pictures, I think she had a really good time.  She met all sorts of other dogs and a few other dog walkers, too.  She even met another poodle named Monty who’d apparently been to the groomer before he went to the park.

Gretchen went to the park to meet up with Veronica, of Hazel’s Dog Walking. She also met Hazel. Wish I had. She seems like the kind of gal I’d really like.

This is Veronica with another dog — one she sometimes walks, but today was out with someone else.  This dog likes to greet people like I do — a walk between the legs — it’s the best way to get rubs on both sides of my body!

And this is Hazel. She’s kind of cute, don’t you think?

And this is Hazel with her mom and a couple of other clients — Jackson and Loki — doing what dogs do best…waiting patiently for treats!

It appears from the photos (all I have to go on since I wasn’t there!) that Veronica is very loved by many of the dogs at the park.

I hope I get a chance to love her, too.

When Gretchen got home, she walked Oshi and Perrito and figured out how to take pictures of herself and the boys while holding two leashes.

Where I am during all of this?  Yep, still at the groomer.  And I thought this was MY business too!  Does this mean that when she goes to the human groomer I get to go out without her?

I bet not.

Watch for photos of us groomed.  I’m sure Gretchen will bring her camera so we don’t feel too left out…

Darwin’s Dog Days

Today, it seems, is a day of important birthdays. First, some guy named Lincoln and then another guy named Darwin were each born on this day in the exact same year, but they didn’t know each other. Gretchen tried to explain it to me, but I got confused. A theater in the Galapagos? What? Evolutionary Emancipation? Did you say Abe or Apes?

Humans. Somewhere something went terribly wrong.

Today we met up with Lucy and Ollie for our morning amble that landed us at the park for a rousing game of fetch and chase.  Lucy, I’ve decided, does three things very well. The first, as you all know, is fetch.  A fiend I tell you, a fiend. 

The next is begging.  I like my treats, but she actually quivers in anticipation.

The last is a sentry bark. She howls at certain people.  I’m not sure what triggers it, but as she waited impatiently for her treat, a bicyclist flew by and Lucy let loose with a warning howl.

Ollie, on the other hand, was happy to play with me. I must admit, when we arrived at his house, I was kind of thrilled too and raced with a wiggle-wag all the way to his gate. By the time we got to the park, we were all over each other and he chased me again and again and again in between the throwing and retrieving of the ball. It was mighty fun.
He, too, is good at waiting for a treat though when it’s offered, he sails skyward as if on a pogo stick.  Hard to capture in a photograph!

It was hard to say goodbye to both of them, but we had Ms. Gemma next on the schedule and she’s kind of fun, too.  So we headed down the road and met up with Ms. Funnelhead.  She was thrilled to see me and even jumped for joy as she chased me around the courts.  Later, we came back to my house so she could have some lunch and we ended up wrestling in the backyard.  No photo as time was short and we had another appointment.

And wasn’t I surprised when we met up with Richard – Ginger’s dad! He’s a dog walker, too so we followed him around and told our life stories. Mine is very short, but his is long and fascinating.  He walked Maggie who I mistook for a cat when I first met her. Not a good thing because cats make me bark in an angry hateful way.  Poor Maggie was frightened out of her fur until we started walking and then she was just fine. I was, too, once I realized she didn’t have a cat’s genes!

Plus, I got to spend the afternoon with Richard and that is always a special treat – and he even has special treats that he shared with me!

Now I’m really tired.  That’s a lot of exercise for one day and after trying to understand Genetic Proclamations and what presidents have to do with precedents, well, I’m mentally exhausted as well. Time for a nap!