Lazy Day

Today was a lazy day for us around here. This morning is just was pour down rain, the sky was dark and in the middle of the day I felt the need to have the lights on inside. So we stayed inside and watched movies on TV. At one point I peered out the window to watch the water flow down the street. The gutters on both sides were full and the corner one house down from us was flooded completely across the road. Even the dogs felt the need to sleep away the day. They went out for their potty breaks but ate inside. They did get a good brushing today, which some like more than others. Our black poodle male Fritz has been sniffing more than usual the tail end of our female poodle Mercedes for the last couple days. So while it was her turn for brushing, I checked her out and found her to be in heat. Just at the beginning of the heat, a little swollen and a little blood. The heat cycle lasts for close to a month. During the first week the female can be moody and will nip at any male sniffing her. Around the 10th day, she becomes more accepting to the males advances and playful displays. When she decides she is ready for mating her tail moves to the side to allow access. The female won't mate unless she wants to and is ready. A few days after the pair is tied or stuck together, she goes back out of heat if the mating was successful. The pregnant mom carries her puppies high up in her ribs until about the sixth week, then they move or drop down where there's more room for them to grow. Waiting for the mom to start showing seems to take forever, then one day you look at her laying on her side and see that she is a little rounder in the belly. A couple days later she is suddenly oh my gosh huge. So anyways, another reason why this seems like a lazy day around here is that our Grandsons are at their mom's for the weekend. About three months ago our oldest son moved back home. He attended truck driving school and is now working driving long haul. How we ended up with the boys is a long story, another posting perhaps. Short story is that the mother of his boys is unable to care for them much less herself. My son is now financially able to care for them, but given the nature of his job, we do. Not that we mind being parents again, it's actually a lot more fun than the first time around. Less stress. The older one is 18 months, the younger 4 months. We are teaching the older one how to correctly interact with the dogs, he feeds them treats so he is use to feeling their teeth. They have gentle mouths being bred originally to retrieve birds without damaging the birds. The dogs are learning to respect the boy's space, he face is conveniently at the same level as their faces. It's a work in progress and he gets a lot of kisses.

Time for Fall and a visit to the Dog Park.

Today is October 3rd, 2009, it seems like Fall is truly here. The nights are colder and the rain has moved in giving us showers every third day or so. Today was a great day. After feeding the dogs and letting them potty. I loaded them all up and drove to the nearest dog park. We love the dog park, everyone was so excited. Too excited, I was so glad that there were no cars in the parking area when I came over the last rise. Someday I'm sure that they will pull me to the ground in their eagerness to get in the park and get busy. So we made it in just fine and once I opened the second gate they were off. They all start running around like the crazy fools I know them to be. I quickly grab a plastic shopping bag stuffed with more bags from the information station and start walking. I wanted to walk the perimeter today a couple of times to see if it helped work out some soreness that I've had for a couple of days. The dogs kind of stay with me. They run out a distance and then run back to me. We get about half way around the 7 acre park and a couple comes to the gate with two dogs. All my dogs take off for the gate and start barking at the newcomers, I'm too far away to do much good. The couple takes their dogs into the small dogs area. Then the dogs run back and forth the length of the fences barking for a while, which wears everyone out a bit. Then they come into the bigger side and start walking around. I stay behind with my dogs to give them a bit of space between us. They get to an area were the land dips down and I can no longer see them. Dutch and Fritz follow them and disappear from my view also. I start walking again and call everyone back to me. The couple run toward the area where the dogs are hiding from my view, I don't heard anything either. My dogs return to me and when I next see the other dogs again they are walking on leashes and soon leave the park. So I didn't get a chance to find out if something had happened. I keep walking around with the dogs. I wish I had check the dog park inventory in my car's trunk before leaving home. I used to be more prepared for the park. The ball chuck-it was missing. I am a pitiful ball thrower, I mean seriously, I'm lucky if it goes 20 feet away. If my dogs could roll their eyes, I'm sure they would every time I throw the ball. So anyways, all we have for activities are walking or sitting at the bench while the dogs vie for shade under the bench. So we walk since that was the plan anyways. So I'm halfway around again and other dog enters the park. This time it is this cute little pit bull. She looks so cute because it looks like someone took a white dog and dipped her in black paint while holding her by her head. So that went okay with her, the dogs were pretty much ran out by then. Another pair of dogs came in and the greeting was nice also. They were big furry beasties. So after that I didn't feel too bad about what happened with the first two dogs, if something did happen. So after an hour and a half we left the park and returned home for dog nap time. I was hoping them to be nicely worn out because I was planning on painting the walls and floor in the dog's room and my adjoining bedroom. I needed them to be happy to sleep while I got this project done. So now hours later I'm enjoying a nice freshly painted room. By the way, as a side note, yes I did say paint my floors. I pulled up the carpet a while back and in the meantime until I can install laminate flooring I'm enjoying having colorful floors. It actually worked out pretty good, I paint the floor with a hi-gloss enamel paint so clean up is easy. One project done, a million and two left. Now that the weather is cooling off my projects move inside. Next on the list is removing the tile floor in the kitchen and installing laminate flooring. It will be nice to have that done. It is a weird thing to explain to people who come to look at my puppies why I'm missing tile on the floor. Though I will confess to installing the tile incorrectly in the first place.