Fallin' for Niagara

Hi furiends, did you miss me? I missed you all and am gonna check out what's been shakin' with you lately besides backsides!

I survived my longest road trip yet, 7 and-a-half hours each way...WITHOUT. PEEING. Yep, I held it both ways. My human was sure I wouldn't make it, but I showed her! Rest stops are no place for squatting, thank you very much. Even the relatively quiet ones. I was a good houseguest too, with only one pee accident by the door 'cuz my human was too busy yakking with her cousins to notice me doin' the gotta-go-gotta-go-gotta-go-right-now dance.

I had a great time with Lucy, my human's cousin's dog (so does that make us second cousins?!)!

She is so much fun to play tag with! We tore around the kitchen and family room until I tired her out...she has to work a lot harder on those little legs of hers. She made me miss Twix and Lorenza, 'cuz now I know how cool doxies are to hang out with in person!

When she got tired of my puppy energy (she's 3), or if she thought her humans were paying a little too much attention to me, she'd put me in my place. That's OK; evfurrybody is entitled to be Top Dog in his/her own house, right? She's gonna have her own doggy blog soon; I'll let you all know when it's up and running so you can go say hi.

So, my Family's relatives live near Buffalo, NY, which is just across the lake from Niagara Falls. They decided to check out the Falls on the Canadian side (more spectacular than the American side), and would've brought me along if doggies had been allowed at the venues. I stayed back with Lucy. Which is just as well, since there was no way I was crossing The Rainbow Bridge with them, no matter how safe they say it is!! They ended up taking the Maid of the Mist boat tour, which starts out at the base of the Rainbow Bridge:

They got soaking wet when the boat bobbed next to the Horseshoe Falls, despite wearing this cool raingear they give you. My human's sneakers were making these sloshing sounds when they got back. Can you see how small the boat is at the base of the Falls?

My Family thought the power of the water was awe-inspiring. They did the Journey Behind the Falls, too, where you go through tunnels behind the Falls with openings where the water roars down just a few feet from you. There's also an Observation Deck where you can stand next to the edge of the Falls, buffeted by the wind and water. Here are Girl Twin and Boy Twin getting blasted:

So that's it for my Family's summer trips. School's around the corner...the twins and Little Boy don't want summer to end, but my human is ready for a little peace to descend upon the house.

Oh No! Not "The Rainbow Bridge"!

There I was, drowsily lounging under the kitchen table at dinnertime, when someone said something about a road trip. My ears pricked up when I heard them say I was coming along; yay! But then I heard something that chilled me to the bone: they mentioned crossing the Rainbow Bridge.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I'm too young to do that!!!

But wait...they were talking about going to Niagara Falls...and one of the bridges connecting NY to Canada is called the Rainbow Bridge...whew! I nearly had a potty accident right there under the table; how embarassing would that be?!

So we're leaving tomorrow and I'll be incommunicado for a few days. I hear our hosts have a dachshund named Lucy; I hope we'll be friends!

How to Beat the Dog Days of Summer

We're nearing the end of August and we finally have some real August weather here in the Big Apple area. Steamy, muggy, crank-up-the-AC kind of weather. I guess it beats the never-ending rain we had here in June. And I can always cool off in the pool.

But the best part of the arrival of hot & humid weather is that my human finally caved and let me have doggy ice cream! I've been tortured all summer hearing about my furiends indulging in the stuff, like Golden Samantha, Twix (who got the real hooman stuff, extra-lucky girl!) and many others. I begged my human to get me some, but to no avail. She's so cold-hearted...or so I thought!

The other day, Girl Twin and she were food shopping when Girl Twin's eagle-eyes spotted this in the freezer section:

"No sugar added! High quality protein! All good stuff for Sedona! Please, Mom, pleeeeeeeeeeeze, can we get it for her??!!" I guess my human felt guilty that the rest of the family got to cool down with frozen treats, so she finally relented (Girl Twin's got my back, I gotta remember to give her extra snuggles).

When they showed me the box, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it:

But when Girl Twin let me sniff a cup, I got the idea & couldn't wait to try it. I polished it off in record time (and no brain freeze!)

Here's a clip of my first taste:

BTW, my human was curious about how this stuff tastes, so she sampled it (she tried to get Girl Twin to try it instead, but no dice). She says it tastes like powdered kibble mixed with cream. I wonder how she knows what dog food tastes like...she better not be dipping into my kibble container!

Training Your Human: Playing Fetch

By now, my faithful followers know two things about me: I am a retrieving fool and I love-love-love my tennis balls. If it were up to me, I'd play fetch for hours at a time. For some reason, my Family is not as enthusiastic about fetch. They'll throw the ball maybe ten times and think that's the end of it. So I've had to resort to training them to get them to continue playing...humans can be so lazy! In case your human needs some guidance too, here are my tried-and-true tips:

1. When they're vegging on the sofa in front of the idiot-tube, plop down nearby, head-on-paws, and give a couple nice, loud sighs to get their attention:

2. If they ignore you, mosey on over, place your head on the sofa and give them your most pitiful, oh-woe-is-me expression. Extra points for adding a good whine or two.

3. If they still ignore you (amazing how slow humans can be, huh?), make a big show out of finding your ball. The more ruckus you make in the process, the better.

4. They still haven't gotten the hint? Time to bring out the big guns: deposit said ball repeatedly on one of their body parts. Extremely effective if ball is covered in saliva.

That should do it! It works on my Family every time.

Oh, and don't forget, if they throw the ball where you can't reach it (my human has the worst aim ever), employ the pitiful look-whine combo to ensure they'll go get it. Remember how well this worked when my ball rolled under the stove?

Good luck training your human! Remember, they have very short attention spans (poor things), so keep your training sessions short but frequent. They'll get it eventually.

Wordless Wednesday

Meet Boy Twin

OK, so you've met Girl Twin. This is her other half. He's 10 and is very playful; maybe that's why we get along so well. He likes to think up new and interesting ways to keep me amused.

Boy Twin is a Master Lego Builder and has an encyclapedic memory for cars. His favorites are the Bugatti Veron and the Ferrari F430 Scuderia. My human told him he better do well in school and get a good paying job if he hopes to buy either of those! He is into Classic Rock and likes figuring out how to play songs on the keyboard. So far, he knows Stairway to Heaven, Sweet Home Alabama and Wanted Dead or Alive. He plays tackle football and is very fast.

Here's a contraption he made for me to chase:

He invented "Bite the Water". I love playing it with him!

GoD and DoG

My human came across this short video of an original song with animation which made her eyes really shiny. She tried to embed it in this post but either she's clueless about how to do that, or else Blogger doesn't allow it.

Anyhoo, check it out. Tell me if your human's eyes get shiny, too. What's up with that?!

On The Ball

I think one of the best toys out there has to be your basic tennis ball; do you all agree?

Even better are the slightly-oversized ones that squeak.

The other day, my human heard me making funny sounds and found me in this compromising position:

When I was a wee pup, I was able to fit completely under the stove. Methinks I'm still that size.

Yes, my favorite ball had escaped me and was just out of reach.

"Geez, Mom, would it kill ya to sweep under the stove maybe once a year??"

Yep, humans are good for a couple things! I think I'll let mine stick around.

Wordless Wednesday

You can get your own customized collar like mine from Scruffy Dog Collars. Support your fellow doggy-bloggers!

To Market, To Market...

...to buy a fresh pig, home again, home again, jiggety-jig! So the nursery rhyme goes. Well, no pigs to be bought at the farmers' market we visited this morning, but it was still nice!

This was a different one than the last one I posted about here. This market is in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, and you can see the beautiful Hudson River in some of the pics below. Not as many doggies out and about this time, and the bluegrass band was a little too loud for my taste.

I did meet another Portuguese Water Dog; this area seems to have a lot of 'em! She didn't know Bo, either...what's up with that?

The best part about going to the market on Saturday is that usually means a yummy dinner. My human loves to makes a couple side dishes from the great produce she buys, and serve it with something easy on the grill. Tonight was STEAK! I was one happy pup. I got to chew on some meaty bones...

...and I got to eat the steak scaps from the kiddies...one of the many perks of living with small bi-peds!

Night Swim

I went night swimming for the first time earlier this week! It was a lot of fun and I wasn't at all spooked by the darkness or the pool lights.

Here's a clip of me riding the floating mattress:

And another one of me jumping (OK, stepping) off the deck into the pool. I'm making progress toward jumping off the high end of the deck. My human dad thought he'd "help" by showing me I had nothing to fear (yeah, he threw me off!! My human was not amused. At all.) but I'm still not convinced.

Duck, Duck, GOOSE!

Two goose sightings in a week, I'm one lucky bird dog! This time, my Family took me to Bear Mountain State Park, on the Hudson River about an hour north of NYC. It's kinda a family tradition to go at least once in the summer, when the kids' cousins come to stay with us for a couple weeks. There's a small lake with boats to rent (but no doggies allowed, harumph), a little zoo (ditto, double harumph), picnic grounds & a playground, hiking trails and the coolest carousel around with carved wooden local animals (raccoon, turkey, fox, skunk, otter, rabbit and even a bear, bobcat and cougar, altho' those guys haven't been sighted around there in a long while, thank Dog!).

Unfortunately, with all the cutbacks in this bad economy, the carousel only operates now on the weekend. The kiddies were not amused. So we had our picnic, checked out the geese & took a short hike up the mountain.

That's my human dad. He was tempted to let me off lead so I could chase the geese, but we didn't want to get thrown out of the park. Too bad! I was rarin' to go, as you can see.

We found raspberry & blackberry bushes along the hiking trail! I didn't care for the blackberries 'cuz they were pretty sour, but the raspberries were yuuuuu-meeee!

I even managed to scramble up the (smallish) boulder for a family shot.

All in all, a great Monday! Hope yours was, too!

A Rose By Any Other Name...

...would smell as sweet, as Shakespeare tells us (yes, I read Shakespeare. I told you I was one smart pup!).

Here are my other names, bestowed on me by various members of my Family:

--Done-Done (rhymes with Bone-Bone)

--Doney (Twix already picked up on this one!)

--Donester

--Pup-Pup

--Dynamite Dog

--Domystic Doney

--and my least favorite, Wonky-Eared Girl

Now, I know you all have your own nicknames, so 'fess up! I wanna hear 'em!

A Ruff Day

Today was a ruff kinda day, but in a good way. My Family had a swim/cookout with lots of friends and family, including 11 kids (7 of which were age 4-or-under). Those little ones really wore me out! But everyone commented on how well I played with them, didn't knock anyone down (not even the 21-month old twins) and put up with all the poking and prodding and kisses. But I have to confess, I couldn't restrain myself from pinching some of their food as they walked around ...I say if it's at nose-level, it's fair game!

I also learned a new skill today: riding the floating mattress!




Girl Twin pushed me around and I didn't mind at all, and even sat down for the ride. My human was too busy playing hostess to take any video footage...next time.

By the afternoon's end, I was so pooped, I fell asleep in my human's lap.




My human said it hit her how much I've grown, when she saw that picture of me. I'm not the little ball of fluff she brought home 4 months ago!

I will leave you with something to pass on to your humans, a recipe for a great summer cocktail that was a big hit today:

VODKA GINGER LEMONADE
Boil in a pan 1 C. water, 1 C. sugar and 2 tsp. ground ginger, stirring, until sugar dissolves.
Let cool to room temperature. Add 1 and 1/4 C. vodka and 1/2 C. fresh lemon juice; stir well.
To serve, put about 1/4 C. of mixture in a glass, add about 2/3 C. seltzer water and ice cubes. Stir and enjoy!
Recipe can be doubled to serve a crowd.