My First Hurricane, and Blue

We weathered the storm!! How are you?! I've been thinking about all of my friends in New Jersey and other places, since I have so many friends, and hoping that everyone is okay. So far, Mom and Dad tell me that our loved ones are fine, and so are we. In fact, I only had to do two things to get through my first hurricane without any damage:

1) Sleep in on Mom and Dad's bed on Sunday; and
2) Inspect all of the branches and leaves and other things that don't belong, on our street and our driveway and our yard and everywhere!

Now that the storm is passed, I have to be really good this week, because of the following reasons:

1) Mom has to compete with everyone whose homes don't have power if she goes out to her usual cafes, so she's working at our house; and
2) I chewed through her laptop charger cable yesterday, so she can't work anywhere other than Daddy's desktop anyway. Oops.

Now, I don't have a very hard job, do I?

In fact, my job is great, because so far this week I get to take off a little time every day to hit the park. If you "like" me on facebook, then you already know that I made a new friend named Blue the other day at the park, and he looks like this:

Blue is great because he's a herding breed, too, and he's about my age, so he can run and turn and jump as fast as me. The only problem for me at first was that his legs are so long that he sort of bowls me over, and then I get tired and bite at him too much. Today, though, since it was our second time playing together, I think he got the idea about the leg thing, and he gave me some space so that we could both run together and roll around in the grass with each other. Then I learned to tell Mom when I'm ready for a rest, so that when other dogs run to us she can scoop me up. Here's how I tell her:

I'm not ready to make any commitments yet, but don't be surprised if someday Blue is my boyfriend. He definitely flirts with me more than with any other puppies at the park!

All of this crazy weather and park time has got me ready for extra belly rubs these days :) Who's in?!

The Dog Park, Continued

It's safe to say that the dog park is my new favorite place, especially now that Dad taught me to go in the pool!!

This is a video of the first time that Dad put me into the puppy pool at the park, and you can see how much I love to bite that water, just like I snap at the hose in our yard.  I already told my parents that I need one of these pools at home.. Can you imagine the fun we'll have with that AND the hose?!?

Anyway, sometimes there are a lot of dogs at the park, and sometimes not so many, but I don't mind either way.  I've been there lots of times now, and usually at least one person comes around to tell me how beautiful I am.  They bring dogs, too, but you know how I love new people more than anything.

Here's another video of the places where we puppies can chase each other at the park.  As you can plainly see, I have become an expert of jumping into and out of the pool whenever I want!

I'm also an expert lately at staying awake when I'm really tired, but Mom and Dad say that isn't a good thing, because I can't force myself to stay awake and concentrate on being good at the same time.  Mom's friends from college came to stay with her this week, and I loved them, but Mom said that people can't tell how much I love them when I nip their fingers too much.  Sorry, friends!  I'm growing up to be a big dog just as fast as I can!

The Dog Park

Today was my first visit to the Dog Park!!

It's not far from my house, so I was happy that we could go there on this Saturday afternoon, which is finally a bit cooler than it has been outside. I made friends really fast with this guy:

As you can see, this is an action shot of me taking the inside of a curve in our intense game of chase. His legs may be long, but I'm so fast that he never even won our game. Plus, he's just like me and can run only a little bit less than forever, so when we get tired we can come to a calm truce and still be friends. He's great.

And here's an action shot of his owner relaxing on a bench:

It turns out that this man may have the right idea with his relaxation technique, because, by looking really mean, he spares himself from conversation with any of the crazy folks who linger at the dog park's picnic table and tell weird stories about stray cats in the middle of the street and dog walking as a full-time career.

Anyway, the dog park is super fun, and now that I'm all worn out, Mom and Dad are going to try a new, hip restaurant with their neighbor friends. Thank goodness, they'll get out of here and let me get some rest!

One more thing before I head to bed in front of my fan. Thank you so much for your concern during my time of recovery from surgery. I even got Big Head Benji as a gift from my Missouri grandparents - he's a squeaky dog with a head way too big for the proportions of his body, kind of like me :) My scars are gone, and tomorrow I can finally take a bath, so recovery is going really well and nearly complete. I can't wait to run and jump again.. oh wait.. maybe I've been doing that this whole time even though I'm not supposed to..

Get Well Day

Appropriately enough, my dog days calendar had this little cartoon today:

Yep, I am now accepting sympathy cards and care packages during my recovery :)

24 hours post-surgery, things are going well. I'm such a strong, big dog - I don't even bother my stitches, and I haven't thrown up or anything!

Spay Day

Today is the day of my spay. I knew something was wrong when we all got up early.. We never leave the house together as a family before 8am! Here I am with Mom getting ready to go to the hospital. I don't look that happy because I didn't even get to have any breakfast.

Don't worry, though.. Surgery isn't all that bad. I came home feeling really sleepy, and I've been recovering on this red blanket that I used to love as a tiny puppy.

I'm still not quite sure what to do with myself. Times when I don't know what to do with myself are the times when I like to sit on someone's feet. It's very important to have good feet in puppy life.

Here I am with my Get Wellephant. Maybe you can't tell that he's an elephant from this picture, but just look at his front paw in my mouth, his trunk sticking straight up into the air, and his pom-pom tail right in front of my paw. His pretty pink ear is facing you, and his eyes are looking at the same thing that mine are looking at - Daddy!

I love Get Wellephant already; he's super soft on my great big teeth. If only I could stay awake to play with him more....