Today we got up at the normal everyday time. The dogs, especially Gretchen, have no concept of my plan of sleeping in a little on the weekends. Gretchen gives me a morning wake up call every morning, everyday of the week. So up we get and let the dogs race out of their beds and down the stairs where at the bottom they slide every time. Nails making scratching noises the whole way, thank goodness for laminate flooring. It's a harder surface than hardwood floors. Dogs go out and babies are loaded up in their high chairs. Applesauce is a huge favorite with the littles, they eat it everyday, sometimes twice. Bear gets his in a bowl and a spoon right away so he can get started. I pop in some bread in the toaster and sit in a wooden chair to quickly shovel a few spoons into Cubby's mouth. Toast pops up and gets a coating of fake butter and cut into squares. Bear gets the plate and Cubby gets a couple of squares on his tray to chase around while I prepare the dog's breakfast. In the morning the dogs are spoiled. Or rather they think they are getting spoiled. I grab the stack of metal bowls and fill and stack them with dry dog food and carry them into the kitchen were I unstack them. I run the water for hot water and in yet another bowl I mix a can of dog food with half a can of hot water. I pour a can of hot water into every body's bowl and divide the canned food so there's a little for everyone. See how they think it's so great? It's just enough to flavor the dry food. After everything is all mixed up, take the bowls outside two at a time and place them in a row along the back step. Everybody eats. By mixing their food like this in the morning, I know that everyone will eat. I have a couple dogs that will wander around while everyone else eats "waiting" for their turn. In the mornings when I have to leave for work I don't have the time to wait for them to all eat. The littles and I sit in the sun and watch the dogs eat and have a nice conversation while applesauce is shoveled in. This takes a while but we are in no hurry today, no one is coming to see puppies. After breakfast it's back upstairs with the littles to apply fresh diapers and clean clothes. Cubby gets a bottle and Bear and I set to work cleaning up the puppies areas. Bear is great at following me around and saying "eww poop". Puppies get fed and dogs brought back inside. Now coats are applies to the littles and they get strapped into car seats. We have a some what plan for the day. We are off to Home Depot and Costco. Home Depot is our first stop. We are shopping for a new submersible pump for the pond in the backyard. We seem to need to replace it every year. This time the old one must have a crack in the seal protecting the motor. Every time it is set in the pond it trips the breaker. This time the pump costs $11 more dollars than last time. We also picked up some more pads for the swifter wet mop, a bottle of window cleaner and a glade plug in. Then we loaded back in the car and headed across the street to Costco, convenient. At Costco we got 100 pounds of dog food, kitchen trash bags, toilet paper, peaches and oranges in little cups and applesauce in little cups. Loaded back up and back across the street for chicken nuggets and a fish sandwich for lunch. Got home and Cubby's sleeping like he does every time he gets strapped into the car, so we bring him in and leave him to sleep. Bear and I go out to the backyard and hook up the new pump and start the pond draining, it has a nice green coating of algae from the nice weather we've been having. By the way, two red eared slider turtles and a few big goldfish live in the pond. We do some poop duty and let the dogs out again. They had a nice time enjoying the sun shine and ran around playing with each other while Bear rode around his red plastic bike. The photos above show what my back yard used to look like before dogs, very green, now it's more grey(pavers) and brown(mud). I am planning on a garden again now that the area is fenced off to keep the dogs from digging in the raised beds. We spent the remainder of the day caring for the dogs and puppies. Emma's puppies had a bath and got vaccinated and Hiedi and Mercedes got a baths too. Hiedi usually goes to the VA with her Daddy in the mornings so I like to have her look nice and clean. Mercedes got a little bit of hair trimmed, a bath and an ear treatment. She has been doing the shaking thing again. Someday I'll get the right amount of time between treatments for her. Cleaned up puppies, fed them again and all the puppies got a deworming treatment. The rest of the evening was spent playing with the littles.
