What Happened to My Hole?

Well, would you look at what someone did to my hole?

Not only did my hole get filled in with a tractor-bucket full of fireplace rocks, but somebody actually build a rock wall along the fence. And planted flowers!

Look at this, Cap. A water garden. And floating sweetpea petals. Whose idea was this?

I'm here to tell you, I'm mighty miffed. This is going to put me behind schedule, cleaning this mess up. This is not at all what I had planned for landscaping. Not one bit. Wasn't on the blueprint. Not in the budget. I wasn't consulted.

At least Glynn seems to like the sweetpea blossoms.

All my hard work, for naught. What's a dog to do? I believe I will have to sit and ponder...

~Tell

Beggars

Okay, first I have to apologize for Mom's Far Side sense of humor in reference to Ruby Tuesday's future. No, Ruby will not end up a medium rare special on the menu. The Vet has confirmed that she will have a calf in the spring after the last show, and she will be living the good life on Uncle P's farm. All she has to look forward to is eating well, filling out and being a mama cow. Good Moos for her.

As for me, my day started out pretty well. I finished the hole I was excavating ahead of schedule, so I started on a new hole in the corner of the yard. Things were going well, and I was just thinking how much faster I could dig with a little Kubota backhoe. I believe I could do some serious damage with one of those. I will talk to My Boy about our budget and see if we can get one. Anyway, my hole was coming along quite well when suddenly I found myself on the other side of the backyard fence! Well, it was time for lunch break anyhow, so I decided to put in a little time exploring. Never turn down an opportunity to sniff out new things.

I hadn't been out long when The Family came home and discovered me loafing about my job. They weren't too happy about the shape I was in, either. I went into some pretty rough brush, and brought a few burrs home with me. These are very tiny burrs called hitchhikers, beggar-lice, beggar-ticks, sticktights, tick clover, or as I sometimes call them, ohshucks stickum tightus. They were thickly embedded, thousands of them, all over me.

There was no getting out of it. I got put straight on the grooming table. This was going to take a lot of brushing to set things right.

You might say I led with the nose.

It took over an hour of brushing to get them all out. Yeah, I lost some hair over this adventure. Then I had to endure a bath, more brushing and fluffing and buffing before I was pronouced clean. Mom says I'm an exasperating pup to live with. What can I say? It's a gift.

Man, I can't wait to get back to work!

~Tell

Ruby Tuesday

My Boy had a surprise for us this week. He put our leashes on and told us that we needed to go outside to the big barn see it. I could hardly wait!

First, though, he made us sit and listen to him. He said we had to be on our best behavior and not do anything silly. As if.

Here we are trucking along across the green grass. This is a very good view of us, though from this angle Mom sometimes has touble telling Who's Who in the Zoo without her glasses.

We stopped for our mail...

When we finally reached the barn, we saw a red Shorthorn cow! This is My Boy's new FFA project and her name is Ruby. Mom calls her Ruby Tuesday because that's probably where she'll end up someday (for those of you across the pond, Ruby Tuesday is the name of a fine restaurant chain here in the States).

My Boy is going to brush her and give her baths, and show her at the county and state fairs. I'm not sure how's she's going to fit in the bathtub, though. Ruby's real name is Queen's Ruby Red. Even though she's got a long pedigree and fancy name, I know My Boy still loves me best!

~Tell

Julie's Pics

My movie star handsomeness has paid off. Julie Chin of our local television news station KJRH has picked moi to be her Dog Days of Summer photo subject for tomorrow (Wednesday). She liked the photo of me roaching in the green grass. That, and my windblown appearance. I will be featured on the morning news show during the weather update.

Ah, my fifteen minutes of fame! The Family is not sure they will be able to live with me after this.

~Tell

Rain, and Lots of It

What do you suppose I heard when I woke up this morning? Rain, and lots of it. It was coming a toad-washer outside. Cool rain, too, and it was only 70 degrees. A welcome break when I'm used to sitting around with my tongue hanging out from the summer heat. Spent the day helping in the kitchen. Notice how shiny the floor is? Cap, Glynn and I did clean-up duty.

We noticed that Glynn kept shaking her head, and you know what that means. A trip in the pupmobile to the vet's office. Seems she had a truckload of dirt in one ear (she blames me for flinging it around when I'm doing my landscaping). Then the vet noticed something unusual.

The vet found a small tumor growing in one of Glynn's ears. It's just a tiny thing now, so there's no immediate concern, but the next time we're in for our dentals we can have it taken care of. And that good ear-washing she got did the trick. No more shaking her head, and she's got that happy smile back on her face. It doesn't take much to keep little sis happy.

~Tell

I Got What I Wished For!

So there I was, endlessly grousing about the lack of wiry pups to help in this area, when what do you suppose we got?


That's right! An Airedale! Rowdy is a nine-month-old pup with impeccable manners. My Family totally fell in love with him while he stayed with us for a couple of days. He got a flea bath, vaccinations, heartworm test and (whisper) neutered while he visited, but did he hold any of that against us? No, sirree Bob. He was tail-waggin' happy the whole time. Rowdy left this morning with a nice lady from Oklahoma Airedale Rescue, and methinks he took a little piece of Mom's heart with him when he walked out the door. What a classy gentleman he was. Good luck finding your furever home, Rowdy. Somebody out there is going to love you!

~Tell

A Rose By Any Other Name

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I am a connoisseur of fine smells. I love to use my nose to discover the world around me. Here's a good shot of my beak...

And another close-up of my smell-sniffer...

One good whiff through the air vent in the pickup can tell me all about the countryside we're driving through. I can tell you if there are there other dogs nearby, or cows and horses, what's cooking outside on the grill for supper, and where there's a super odiferous pile of goop to roll in. The nose knows, you know.

So imagine my surprise when Mom started coming home with a new smell on her. I couldn't quite figure it out, never having come across the likes of it in my whole seven years. It always seems to be situated on her shoulder, sometimes on her arm and once in her hair. I puzzled over this for awhile until I hit on a way of finding out. I asked Cap. You know Cap, he's older than dirt and seen it all. And he told me the answer.

"It's baby burp, pup. Haven't you ever smelled burp before, young whippersnapper?" Well, nooooo, if I had I wouldn't have asked. I haven't officially been introduced to Little Guy yet. Mom says grandbabies are not squeaky toys and she won't let us play together until Little Guy is old enough not to get knocked over. So I'll just have to settle for whiffs of milky baby's breath until we actually meet. That and pictures, which Mom seems to have an abundance of cute ones to share. He does actually look a little like my yellow rubber ducky, doesn't he?

~Tell