Knitting, with Dogs

Jasper update

Jasper spent a good part of the afternoon at the vet, getting blood drawn and x-rays taken.  Preliminary bloodwork looks ok, the x-rays were a little inconclusive as to whether there was any intestinal blockage or not.  We don't THINK there is, but the next 24 hours will be key.  If he has any more vomiting or diarrhea (especially vomiting) he'll go back to the vet for more x-rays and tests.

He seems to be feeling ok right now.  He was hungry tonight.  I cooked him chicken and rice (bland diet), and fed him 3 times over the evening, about 1/3 cup at a time, to keep from stressing his tum.

So far, so good.  I've got to get a poop sample the next time he poops, but picking up poop holds absolutely no terrors for me. 

Keep your fingers crossed for us. 

Bad dogs

No, not mine this time.  :)  I was reading the recent Metafilter links tonight, and of them was a link to David Kaufmann and his collection of medieval Hebrew manuscripts. 

Now, I don't know much about medieval  manucripts, but I do know that sometimes the marginalia is interesting.  I was looking at this picture, and scrolling up and down and left and right, because the screen on my Eee PC is small, and you  have to do that.  A lot.  (But I'm used to it pretty much by now.  And like John Scalzi said, when you go back to the desktop, you feel like you're looking at a Jumbotron.  But I digress....)

Anyway, as I was scrolling around that image, I saw something that made me smile.  I cropped it out for y'all:

 

Here's how I see this:  the dog has grabbed a chicken and is running off with it.  The farm wife is chasing him with her distaff, with the spindle trailing wildly behind her.

Pretty neat, huh?

Aw, crap.

Bill and Star were sent home from the Greatest American Dog.  I guess I understood it, but I still cried.  Heck, even the judges cried.

But jeezopete -- anybody else think that maybe some of the stuff they wanted the dogs to do last night was DANGEROUS???  I mean, it's bad enough to stare down an approaching elephant, but doing all that stunt work?  Look like Galaxy got hurt, even though her and J.D's performance made me cry too.  They're a great team.

But Bill and Star -- y'all were the best and sweetest, and i wish you'd won it all.  I love you guys.

Oh, and the camera has turned back up, and my sweater is finished.  Pics soon.

Wicked bad dog

Last night I planned to make some homemade coconut macaroons to take to a party today.  I got the coconut, mixed everything up, cooked them JUST ENOUGH in the oven.  As directed by the recipe, I pulled the parchment paper sheet holding the macaroons off the cookie trays, one onto the counter and one onto the top of the stove, to cool.  Then I headed back to the bedroom to knit on a scarf.

About 2 hours later, Jasper and Bouncer were giving me Significant Looks, meaning "We need to go out."   I got to a good stopping point, got up, and let them out.  As I walked back through the kitchen, I thought "WTF???  Where are my macaroons????"

The evidence was in Jasper's fur on the left side of his head.  The little bastard had eaten more than half the macaroons.  He ate ALL of them that were on the counter.  The ones on the stove were untouched, but most of them were on the counter.  :(

So I had to make brownies instead.

In spite of how he looks in this picture, he wasn't at all repentant.

I snapped the picture just as he looked down.

Rotten little counter-surfing dog.  We love him anyway.

Jasper stands on his head (silly video)

Jasper loves his dad.  He doesn't do this for me.  (Links to YouTube.)

I wish I could do this...

Seven Days with Seven Dogs (YouTube video).

Dogs on Thursdays

All this fun happened last Saturday, but I saved the pictures for Dogs on Thursday. 

We all hopped in the car and drove up to Red Top Mountain State Park. The park sits up on Lake Allatoona, up

I-75 north of Atlanta.  Dear Robert doesn't remember it exactly, but that's where we took our first Aussie, Sasha, up to learn to swim. 

Jasper's already a swimming dog, so he got the lion's share of the fun:

Bouncer prefers to wait for him on the bank. I think Jasper's giving him the stink eye here.

Jasper reacts:

Dear Robert and dogs by the lake:

Jasper crossed a little gully on a fallen tree (I don't know how my walking stick got into the picture, dammit.)

Boulder Dogs (Bouncer says "oh crap, I'm slipping!)

One of the less heinous pictures of me:

A good day was had by all!

Camping trip, part 3

We brought instant oatmeal for breakfast.  It only took one bowl for Dear Robert to decide he'd rather have beef stew for breakfast.  Of course Bouncer was ready to help him.

I did actually get in front of the camera once or twice, like here on the beach.

On Wednesday afternoon, subtropical storm Andrea started making herself felt with wind and a little rain.  This picture was on the pier.

But just a little later, the sun came out while we were walking on one of the paved trails.  Don't you love my goofy hat?

We saw some deer. 

And, unfortunately, deer ticks.  The bad news is we found the ticks on each other the day after we got back home.  :(  We hates ticks.

But, as they say in Hawaii, no rain, no rainbows.

See what's at the end of my rainbow?  :)

It drizzled a little on Tuesday night.  After we packed up the tent, all that was left was a little dry spot,

a tired dog or two,

and lots of good memories.

 

Camping trip, part 2

We had a reasonably restful night on Monday.  We had been a little concerned about whether the dogs would be noisy.  Bouncer tends to bark when he gets excited, and they'll both bark at unfamiliar noises and occasionally at unfamiliar people.  And there were folks with a yappy little dog in the next campsite.

There was a little barking, but on the whole the dogs did VERY well.  We were very proud of them!  So we went back to the beach for more walking and playing in the water.

On leash, the two dogs walk like this, side by side:

On Tuesday, there were interesting things to see, like a little white crab (you can't see the crab very well, but it was there):

Bouncer got to play in the water by himself a little:

And Jasper had to do what boy dogs like to do, this time on a dead horseshoe crab:

There was lots of running:

And then we went for ice cream.  Jasper REALLY wanted some.

And they both got some orange sherbet:

But Bouncer wanted more:

I'll finish up with the trip tomorrow!

Camping trip, part 1

I've got lots of pictures, so I'll do this in a couple of posts.

We went down to Jekyll Island for our annual "Take the Dog to the Beach" trip.  We started this tradition with our dog Sasha.  We took her down for 2 or 3 years before she died.  There was a gap the year after she died, but then we got Jasper and took him down last year.  This year, since we only have two dogs, we were able to take them both.  And we decided to camp out, to see how that would work.

Now, I've done a good bit of camping in my day.  Car camping, not backpacking, mind you.  But Dear Robert has only been on one camping trip before.  So anyway, we got our tent and bedding set up (we practiced it beforehand), and it looked like this, nice and cozy.

So then we headed down to the beach for the first time.  The dogs liked it!  Cue action shot:

We weren't sure how Bouncer (the blue dog) would do with the water and waves, but he just followed Jasper's lead and chased Jasper around and had fun.

(I almost caught both of them with all 4 feet in the air there above.)

At one point I turned away, and when I looked back, I saw this:

How'd he do that??? 

:)