Yummy Treat for Me

Mommy was going through the toy box a few weeks ago and found this toy!  She got a little teary eyed when she did . . . this was one of Hunter's favorite toys as a puppy.  He used to LOVE to eat peanut butter from this toy.  He liked it so much he would bring it and drop it at Mommy's feet to ask for a refill.

I'm enjoying this toy as well.  My toy is filled with cheese and is frozen.  Daddy won't allow me to eat peanut butter (whatever that is).  Dawgs who eat peanut butter before they're a year old could develop an allergy.  That's what happened to Hunter.  He started losing hair on his tail and rear end and Mommy and the vet determined peanut butter was the cause.  Apparently they don't want me to go through that too!  So instead, I eat cheese, the canned spray kind!

I'm not to the point where I beg for more cheese yet, but I am enjoying this toy.  I usually only take notice of food when my big sisters alert me to its presence with their rush to the kitchen.  I'm just going to enjoy this treat whenever I can!

Ruger

My Big Brother Hunter [Ruger]

Mommy and Daddy have now been parents to two black labs and two chocolate labs. They've never had a yellow lab.  When Jenna became available for adoption, they were kind of hoping she'd be a yellow lab so they'd have one of each, but obviously that wasn't to be!  They've never seriously considered adopting a yellow lab.  Luckily for me when the decision was made to add to the family this time, Mommy was adamant about another chocolate lab.  She says chocolates are her favorite (ssshhhh . .  don't tell my sisters!).

Even though I'll never have the privilege of meeting my big brother Hunter, my parents say I'm doing a pretty good imitation of him.  Apparently there are LOTS of habits we have in common!

One of the first things my parents noticed about me and one of Hunter's first noticeable traits is that we both tend to drink LOTS of water at one sitting.  Hunter used to drink and drink and drink some more.  My parents had to call his name to distract him so that he wouldn't make himself sick.  They're doing the same thing to me.  I don't drink a lot during the middle of the day, but I love to fill up right before Mommy goes on her morning walk (often resulting in a bit of a mess to greet her upon her return home) and again at night before going to sleep.  Mommy generally puts the water bowl away around 9PM so that I can't drink any more and to encourage me to sleep all night. Between the ban on night drinking and Dixie doing her part to wear me out before bedtime, I've been sleeping all night since the end of my first week home.

I seem to share my big brother's obsession for mud.  We were experiencing a dry spell until this last week and suddenly we've had several inches of rain that have resulted in MUD where the grass had died off in the heat.  That rain also made a few PUDDLES for me to play in!  When Hunter lived in Minnesota, he created Lake Hunter at the back of the property where all the water ran off.  He purposefully dropped his tennis balls in the mud so he could have the perfect excuse of looking for them.  I haven't tried this yet, but give me time and a big enough puddle and we'll have Playa del Ruger!

Daddy says I'm like Hunter in that I like to sit right in the middle of the doorway.  Apparently this usually happens when he's in a hurry as he heads out to work in the morning.  I'm not sure what the problem is.  I just want to say bye!

I'm doing really well with my housebreaking process.  My parents have a bell attached to the back door that I can ring when I want to go out.  Dixie was trained this way and uses it all the time.  Jenna only rings the bell when she's really desperate!  Hunter wasn't trained this way to go potty.  Instead he learned to go to the door and turn and give our parents the stare down.  If he wasn't noticed, he'd find our parents and stare them down.  I ring the bell sometimes, but other times I just go sit at the door and stare at the bell!  I haven't had to resort to staring at my parents yet.  They're keeping a pretty close eye on me so far . . .

I enjoy eating ice like Hunter did, but I can only handle little chips at the present time.  I'm also into eating bugs!  I can sit outside for at least thirty minutes at a time in the evening and search out bugs.  Hunter had an unfortunate incident more than once when he ate a BEE!  He looked pretty pitiful when his lip swelled up.  So far Mommy has successfully kept me away from the bees!

It's too bad I won't ever meet Hunter.  My parents even accidentally call me Hunter sometimes (of course they call me Dixie and Jenna too!).  I guess I'm more like him than I thought!

Until next time,
The Cutest Younger Brother Ever

Channeling My Big Brother

We've said before that it was a blessing in disguise that our big brother Hunter didn't have to make the move to our new location.  He would have hated the looooong drive to get here and the heat would have been too much for him.  We miss him very much, but our parents have noticed something strange in the past year.  I seem to be channeling several of Hunter's habits (the good ones and the bad ones)!

You may remember Dixie is the one who spent the most time with Hunter. She joined him when she was just a puppy.  I didn't join the family until I was almost two years old.  I only spent about three and half years with Hunter before he passed away.  Some of these strange habits I've "picked up" he didn't even do anymore by the time I knew him!  Weird huh?

Here's a few pictures from my first meeting with Hunter:

Mommy and Daddy have recently been keeping a list of the many ways I've started to act like my brother:  (We don't have pics of everything, so lots of reading involved!)

1. Hunter loved to eat paper (including cardboard).  He'd come running when he heard a nose being blown or the roll of the toilet paper!  I do the same thing with the exception that I don't go into the bathroom looking for paper when my parents aren't in there.  Out of sight, out of mind.

2. He also loved to eat snow!  Me too!

3. Hunter LOVED to play fetch with anything that was thrown.  I love to play fetch as well and don't care what you throw, just throw it!

 Playing baseball with Daddy

 Trying to convince Mommy to throw that giant mangled tennis ball . . .

Waiting on Daddy to throw the pallina in a game of bocce ball . . . 

4. He carried his toys around the house in his mouth.  I do this often.  I even pull Hunter's very first toy (yep, it's still alive after all these years!) out of the toy box and carry it around sometimes.

5. Hunter became very good at trying to predict which way Mommy was going to throw or kick the ball.  She says I'm the same way, and I try to get in front of the ball every time.

6. Hunter had a very strong tail.  (Once he cleared a coffee table and broke a candlestick.  At least that's Daddy's story and he's sticking to it.)  I'm often called Thumper because of my heavy tail.  I've cleaned the coffee table off, but so far I haven't broken anything.  Crossing my paws . . .

7. Hunter wasn't trained as a puppy to ring the bell to go out.  He tried it a couple times when Dixie was learning, but mostly he just gave my parents the stare down until they noticed he was in need.  I try not to ring the bell either.  I prefer my big brother's stare method.  If I ring the bell, it's because I'm desperate!

8. We're all guilty of begging for food at some time.  Daddy could tell Hunter, "Don't beg!" and he'd look away as if he wasn't watching what was happening in the food department.  Hunter watched from the corner of his eyes instead.  I do the same thing!  As if I'm NOT going to notice food!  Ha!

9. When Hunter was an only child, he liked to sleep with my parents.  He would burrow between the two of them and stretch out his legs to push against one or the other to make more room for himself.  I've been told I'm doing this too lately.  I never slept in the bed at our old house, but I've been given a little more freedom here and I LOVE it!

10. Sometimes that burrowing in the bed is apparently disruptive or annoying for my parents.  I can't imagine why.  Hunter soon learned the command to go to his bed and he'd hop off and move to the dawg bed kept in our parents' room.  This is a fairly new command for me, but I know it well!  I'm even using the same bed!  Maybe all of Hunter's habits are sinking in through osmosis???

11. Hunter was famous around our house for his loud moans and groans as he laid down (and that was even before he grew old).  I apparently sound just like him some days!

12. My big brother annoyed Mommy to no end when he came into the bedroom and proceeded to rub himself all along the edge of the bed getting hair and dirt on the dust ruffle.  Mommy said Hunter had one thing going for him that I apparently don't when I do the same thing: he didn't shed nearly as much and his hair blended a little better on our khaki linens than my black hairs do!  [sigh]

13. Last but not least, our parents love both of us endlessly! (And Dixie too, I guess!)

There's a nasty rumor going around the house that a new chocolate lab puppy will be joining us soon.  We hear it's a boy.  Wonder if he too will be able to pick up on some of these family traits???

Inquiring minds want to know,
Jenna


PS: Happy Mother's Day and  Happy Birthday to Uncle W!  And belated birthday wishes to Poppa yesterday.  

PSS:  Today would've been Hunter's birthday too. Perhaps eventually Mommy won't mark the date, but it's not this year!

One Cone Head Coming My Way . . .

Mommy says this all the time.  She recently dragged out some old pictures of my big brother Hunter to show me EXACTLY what this phrase means!

This trip down Memory Lane is because I've tweaked my ACL again!  [sigh]  I'm so sad about this turn of events.  The doctor has said I can't play with my beloved soccer ball for FOUR WEEKS!!!!!

I first pulled my ACL last spring.  After a visit to the vet for some pain killers and anti-inflammatory meds, I recovered and was back to my usual energetic self.  It happened again last summer, but with all the walking we do during the summer, I strengthened my knee in no time.  Mommy was sure this little knee problem was a thing of the past.  Then Daddy took me hunting with him in the fall.  I came home and was just fine, but woke up the next day favoring that leg again!  I seemed to recover within a couple days.  Up until now, I've only limped around while still putting weight on all four legs.  I don't know how I did it, but this most recent time I was truly only moving on three legs.  Mommy was really worried and with good reason.

The vet has decided that I've built up scar tissue on my knee from my injury a year ago and that I've recently strained that tissue.  He wants me to refrain from any major physical activity and build the scar tissue back up since it's helping hold my knee together.  So that means no ball for FOUR WEEKS!  Mommy told me I am to follow the doctor's orders or I could end up like this:

This is Hunter ten years ago when he tore his ACL.  This injury required surgery and weeks of at-home physical therapy.  It was stressful for all parties involved (at least that's what Mommy tells me).

Hunter couldn't use the stairs for weeks following his surgery, so the dining room was turned into a large kennel for him!  Daddy even set up the air mattress and slept downstairs with Hunter since he hated being away from our parents (I know the feeling).

Mommy says it was a loooooooong, sloooooooow road to recovery.  You know what the worst part was?  Besides wearing the cone?  There's a fifty percent chance that if a dawg has surgery on one leg, he'll have to have surgery on the second leg.  Mommy should  have gone to Vegas with those odds because Hunter was definitely part of that fifty percent.  Almost a year to the date, he tore the other ACL . . . I guess on the bright side, he didn't have to wear a cast the second time.  Mommy says there wasn't a bright side.  Well, maybe the fact that dawgs only have two ACLs!

Now I know what it means when Mommy says it's all fun and games until someone ends up in a cone!  I've learned no amount of begging and pleading will coerce Mommy into throwing the ball for me.

In fact, my favorite toy seems to have disappeared recently . . .

Here's hoping there won't be any surgery in my future.  Cross your paws!
Jenna

A Dog's Purpose

Mommy has big plans for the weekend!  She'll be queuing up for tickets to see A Dog's Purpose, the movie based on the best selling book by W. Bruce Cameron.  We aren't sure if there are enough tissues in the world to get her through the movie, but she says it's going to be worth it.  At least she's hoping it will be.  She hasn't read the book, but she says the title alone is enough for her.

She's made us into movie stars by adding us to a mock up of the movie poster.  Which one do you like best?

For reasons I cannot comprehend, Mommy could not find the perfect picture of me for the poster.   She apparently didn't have that many good full-on face pictures of me (her words, not mine).  How can that be???  I'm beautiful!  She kept trying and trying different angles and still isn't totally happy with the results.

Mommy thinks her favorite is Jenna (minus the tiny piece of grass hanging from her nose).  And of course, Mommy couldn't leave Hunter out.  He's the original reason for Mommy's dawg crazy mentality.  But he happened for so many more wonderful reasons too!  She says Jenna's poster is actually tied with Hunter's in her mind.

Are you planning to see it?  Mommy says Jenna and I will have to wait for the DVD.  Why can't we go with her??

Dixie

Possible Solution?

After our last unpleasant food discussion, you should know that Mommy is doing her best to try to alleviate that gross and nasty habit of Jenna's.  The solution, of course, starts with me.  I have to be able to keep my food down.  I'm not getting sick all the time, but apparently it's occurred often enough for Jenna to recognize the signs.

One course of action Mommy took during the summer was to remove my sisters from my vicinity in the hopes that I wouldn't feel pressured to down it quickly.  She tried to have me eat in the laundry room, but that wasn't pleasant for either of us. I won't stay in there by myself, so she has to hang out with me until I'm finished.  Jenna also tried to break the door down which was quite noisy.

Since the laundry room wasn't working out so well, Mommy decided to have the girls eat on the deck so I could enjoy my usual spot.  That actually worked pretty well for me.  And surprisingly, it worked for Dixie too.  Mommy was afraid Jenna might finish her own food and come after Dixie's, but that didn't happen.  I think Dixie's fierce "Stay Back or Else!" growl worked!

I don't mind eating by myself in the kitchen.  I can eat at my leisure and it seems to help keep my food down.  I'm not sure what will happen when it rains or there's a foot of snow on the deck, but that's really not my problem, is it?

Jenna still does her "thing" of course.  She finishes her food and runs to the door to watch me.  I don't let her worry me though.  I'm used to seeing her jump five feet in the air to be let in.

Knowing there will be bad weather days, Mommy has also started supplementing canned food with  my regular dry food.  I REALLY LIKE the yumminess that comes from the can.  I can even eat my meals with my sisters nearby when the can comes out!

We're all crossing our paws that this new food does the trick and Jenna's nasty habit is behind us.  (Everyone but Jenna, that is!)
Hunter


PS: We recently got to partake in some of Mommy's gluten and dairy free pancakes and they were yummy (even if a tad over cooked).  Funny, but pancakes never make me sick!  Yummmmmm!