New Diet

I seem to get a little more variety than my usual "chicken and rice adult"mix nowadays. I just wait patiently and something gets tossed my way, or sometimes not so patiently and just help myself.

Hmmm...Pictures of me are getting harder to come by nowadays. J and T seem to be hogging all the camera focus. Even time seems to be measured by their arrival! But don't worry, I sneak in on some of the shots and upset the focus. So they aren't stunning poses, but at least you know I'm still up to some good.

At 2 months


At 4 months


Ahhh...these pups can wear me out!

I love snow!!

I love it when it snows. When the flakes are big I try and catch them in the air. I love to snowplow through the snow with my nose looking for whatever the snow is hiding. I try to catch the snowballs E throws at me but they always break-up in my mouth. Snow is fascinating!

Watching the new pups

There are some new additions to our pack. I have the responsibility to make sure they are safe so I stand guard in their doorway to make sure no one gets in or out without a proper search.

Quirkiness

Okay, so I'm going to share with you some secrets of my personality as an answer to a friends blog tag...

#1 - I like poo! Yes I do! I eat it in the morning when A would really rather that I come inside and get in my crate so she can go to work. Now that she's working from home all the time, it's not that big of a deal anymore. And the report from E is that it's a lot easier to gather my poo now that it's usually frozen in the mornings. A adapted this tribute to me...


#2 - I have perfect turnout. It was harder than I though to find pictures of my handsome sit where you can see that my front paws often point out like a ballerina's feet.


#3 - Bones! I don't know what it is but there is just something oh so satisfying about gnawing on a bone and whittling it down over the months.


#4 - Take cover - I find it comforting to hang out under the coffee table, it's my safe zone! But when I get the chance to hang out with the pack just before bed time, I do NOT like it when E throws the covers over my head. I also like to curl up in a tight little ball, tuck my nose under my tail and i have a quirk that I often have three of my four paws all lined up!

#5 - hide and seek - one of my favorite games! usually E does the hiding and I do the seeking (remember the wet butt hiding place?)


#6 - Can't catch me! Another fun game. Kind of goes along with my love of bones. E likes to chase me trying to get my bone and play. When he does get it, I get to chase him while he runs around screaming "Don't eat me!!" Then when I catch him, I like to stand on my hind legs, prop my front paws on his arm and gnaw at the bone even standing up!


Oh wait...you wanted E & A to divulge their quirkies? Well, they are perfectly normal!

And I tag all my buddy dogs from obedience class: Who-boy, Gucci, Teddy, Matos, Mango, and Duke. But somehow I don't think they are as advanced as I am to have their own blogs...I'll have to give them a bark at class.

Fall Time

I love the Fall. A & E rake the leaves and then they throw them into the air and I try and see how many I can catch. So I really look forward to the time of year when the leaves start the change color because that means its almost time for some Fall fun!
Now I know I'm not in this picture but E is such a photography genius that I had to let him post it.
I'm such a good dog to my owners.

Missing Rabbit

I haven't seen that rabbit in awhile but every now and then I pick up the smell of something good. These are some pictures of me on patrol. I keep the yard safe for A & E!

Workn' Hard

I am willing to pitch in where I can around the house. E went up into the attic the other day and I wanted to see what was going on up there. I haven't mastered ladders yet but give it time; I'm a smart dog.

One year!

Lots of fun things happening here with my "pack.". E has been enjoying his new camera so there are lots of photos that have been taken to show my antics. Hopefully he'll get around to sharing some of them soon. But the biggest news is that we've all been together for a year! And as their 1 year adoption gift to me they are letting me share some other news. It's been hard not to say anything since so much that's been going on has been connected to this news. Have I piqued your interest enough? Ok...so here it is... E&A tell me that by the end of January, they are going to bring home two more "pups" for the pack! Littermates of sorts, but they won't be fuzzy soft quite like me - they'll be their own kind of soft they say. They'll be a little E and a little A. Maybe I'll have to call them O and U? That way we'll have all the vowels covered when I refer to myself with I! Okay, so that's just a thought, we'll have to what names they actually end up with...

Rascally Rabbit

A small rabbit has taken up residence somewhere in the back yard and I'm going to catch him one of these days. He's pretty quick but as you can see I am pretty determined.

Oh...that Cheez-It is so mine. Just give me the word and I'll make sure it never sees daylight again.

I'm really not supposed to be doing this but the bed is so much more comfortable than the floor.

So this is one of E's favorite pictures of me. I'm such a handsome guy!!!

Tagged - Not Dog Tags

Okay Roman, you're going to have to move over for just a moment. My best friend from college (and mother of one to whom I was once betrothed) has tagged me to get us out of our rut of waiting for E to get around to posting about all those pictures of fun stuff we've been up to. So here are my memories...

20 years ago: July '88 I attended our first ever family reunion. (I still have the shirt!) My grandmother was the youngest of 11 and the reunion was for all of her siblings and their descendants. We all hung out at a Holiday Inn. My memories of the reunion are pretty vague beyond some dinners and swimming in the hotel pool and the picture that supposedly contains everyone who was there. But what I do remember is that after the reunion I went to Michigan and spent a week with some of my cousins. We listened to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack the whole way there, and I'm sure I hadn't been allowed to see the movie and I had no idea what I was singing about! They took me across to Windsor, Canada - and the border guards almost didn't let me back into the US! Then at the end of the week, my grandma and grandpa picked me up and we headed back home. That ended up being the first of many road trips I took with my grandfather - he liked having me as his navigator!

10 years ago: Summer '98 I was living in the Russian language apartment on campus. Our apartment complex was just around the corner from the home of my "betrothed" so I spent a lot of happy times hanging with him. He was only a couple of months old, so we were heavily chaperoned by his parents. But then again, maybe the betrothal wasn't quite official yet at that time... okay, so truth is most of my time was spent hanging out with A&R and the little guy was a bit of a tag-along. ;-)

5 years ago: In 2003, I had the opportunity to embark on 2 different US Navy destroyers as part of the testing for the development of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. For both trips we sailed from Pearl Harbor, HI - one of the trips stayed within the Hawaiian waters, but the second trip was for about 2 weeks and we went within sight of the CA coast before returning to HI. For my first underway, I had been counseled to take some Dramamine before embarking and if I started to feel it wear off, then I should take another. I never felt it wear off, so there wasn't any motion sickness on my part! Come to think of it, I actually still have some of those tablets! There were only 8, and they were in a handy container, so I've added Advil and Tylenol to the container and along the way I've shared the Dramamine with others who were in need!

3 years ago: 2005 was the half way mark of my participation in the company's (sector level - not corporation wide) System Engineering Associates (SEA) Program. Up to five employees are selected each year to enter the 2-year program. I worked in 4 different business areas, each for 6 months, over the 2 years. The company pays for temporary relocation and puts you up in corporate housing! I however chose to stay in the DC area and didn't travel the country in 6 month increments. 2005 was also the first year that I worked with the YCLs at camp, and I've continued doing that every year since then.

1 year ago: I lost my green ruler! :( Seriously! I loved that ruler and it just up and disappeared one day. It was perfect for checking lines on my drawing reviews, it was a transparent, flexible plastic and it had the perfect set of markers for various size scaling. There are all sorts of fun office politics that played into that time frame too. But it was notably gone before I was forcibly relocated to my 5th desk within the office spaces to allow "construction" to begin immediately. Said construction still hasn't begun and I much preferred the lighting environment of the cube where the entrance opening was oriented towards the window and allowed all the light to come in. I'm still by a window now, but I only get 1/3 of the light that makes it over the cube wall which actually casts a shadow gray area on my workspace where I'm scrutinizing earlier mentioned drawings without my green ruler!

This year: Most of the past year has been filled with the adventures of welcoming Roman into our family. See many of the blog entries for details on his antics.

Yesterday: I got an email saying that I'd been tagged! It was a good thing the email was sent, because I've gotten a bit out of the habit of checking my google reader for blog updates. I also went to a digi-scrapping gathering and learned a little more about how to use the new fangled camera that E bought recently and has been going hog wild with taking pictures. I'm really glad we have a dog. Roman is such a better photo subject than I am!

Today: I'm getting entirely not enough done at work because I'm having too much fun reminiscing. But tonight's plan is to go to obedience class with Roman and see if we can continue to improve his behavior and responsiveness in the presence of other dogs.

Tomorrow: I hope to get more work done at the office, but it seems to be very quiet on Fridays around here. Oh wait, no, I get to go to a fun luncheon tomorrow at one of the other offices so there should be many things going on around me! yippee! Then E and I will head out for our usual Friday "date night" and service opportunities.

Now to pass the tag along... I don't even know who reads this blog!!! Okay - so if you are reading this, then you've been tagged! (And let me know you still happen to check in even though it's been 2-1/2 months since our last post...)

A

Time Well Spent

So E had a few weeks off between jobs. He really liked his short commute but an opportunity came up that was a career move he couldn't pass up. I miss him coming home so early during the day. It means more time in my crate then I like. :(

But for two weeks I had my run of the house and yard as E and I worked on all kinds of little projects. First was the brick patio out back. I really tear up the yard when it rains as I jump in and out of the back door. So E thought we would expand the brick patio that the grill sits on. While E was working on that I did my best stick my nose in the freshly dug dirt trying see if there was anything interesting under all the grass. When I got bored with that I started wrestling with the bags of gravel E bought to put the bricks on. I amazed even myself when I found I was able to lift and move the 50 pound bags!

A few days later when E's back recovered from moving all those bricks he started hanging new closet doors. I didn't see why we needed new doors but humans are a different breed.

The worst project we did was the painting. E & A want to repaint the main floor of the house. That is going to require a lot of prep work. It started with the priming since E had already sanded the wall down after applying putty to hide a few scratches in the wall. I wasn't as invited to help with the paint. Apparently dog fur and paint don't work well together, or so I'm told.
I liked working with E because he is a pretty cool boss. I helped when I wanted to help and took a nap when I wanted to take a nap. I think he needs to learn to delegate more of the work because every time I got too involved he would tell me to relax and not work so hard. I love E & A so I just want to help wherever I can!

R

Another week gone by

Nothing too exciting happening here. E&A say that the spring rains are a bit cooler than usual, but I just find them to be wet! A took a little hop up to Long Island for work, but made it back in time for my class - that hourly shuttle comes in handy! E has put in his 2 week notice with the county and is going to be starting a new job soon. Still not sure exactly which position he'll take, but he's going to have to adjust to the commuting lifestyle again. They say that's going to affect our play times, but we'll still get time to play...it'll just be later in the day when he gets home.

R

Bigger and Better

After all my hard work and creative redesign and modification of my crate structure, E&A have given me an upgrade! It seems that they didn't like the modified style of disconnected welds and bent bars. I mean it was an Incredible Hulk type of statement, even if all that would fit through was my nose! But when I spread them enough that I stretched the latch housing and the latch fell out... Well, their confidence on my containment plummeted. I just miss them so much when they're gone!

Since I'm on the small side for a GSD, it was a bit of a debate if I should get a bigger size in addition to a stronger mesh grid. E really likes how my ears poke up through the top of the crate when I sit in there. But E and A debated about what the crate makers meant by ability to comfortably turn around. After some consideration, they went for the bigger size too! Yippee - it's like being in the penthouse suite!

So after some opportunites to test it out, those vertical barsa don't seem to bend. But my tongue still fits through! I don't want to divulge all my secrets, but I have a little something that I do during the day that leaves a bit of a slobber puddle beneath the latches. E came home early today - didn't tell me that he wasn't going to work. And when he went to let me out, he found that the latches were a bit slimy and didn't lilke that much. Shame!

But my new crate is shiny and bigger and stronger. What dog could ask for more? I hope we can find a happy home for my old crate...maybe my old friends at VGSR could use it? We'll see.

Hide and Seek

We play a high paced version of hide and seek at our place. It seems the E and A do all the hiding and I do all the seeking! But I enjoy it that way. E likes to exploit the fact that I don't see very well in the dark if nothing is moving. Sometimes he'll run upstairs and stand in the corner of a dark room while I run around all over trying to find him. Sometimes he hides behind doors or in the bathtub. I think the bathtub is one of us favorite hiding places. Last Saturday, he got a bit of a surprise in his favorite spot and wasn't able to wait for me to find him. He got a wet butt! Turns out that A had been hand washing some sweaters earlier in the day and there were still some puddles. HA HA!!

The Painting Saga

E&A have gradually been working on painting the house. It has been a slow and long process. The latest region of focus is the stairwell to the upstairs. A took a day off work and taped it all, then Saturday was spent painting. There are square grid details below the chair-rail that were quite the challenge to tape up.

Here is one in-process shot during the taping -

And once again, it seems that I got caught sleeping on the job again. And I'm sporting several of the leftover taping cast-offs while I dream -

And here's an attempt to capture the "after" state. (Sorry the flash washes out the ugly color that we are trying to get rid of, but you get the picture from the contrast shown at the bottom of the stairs)

The baseboards and wall color are next on the to-do list... I wonder when we'll finally get around to that?

He's Got No Feet!!!

Once we finally got to one of the Relaxing Rowdy Rover classes we had some great fun! I don't get to see the other dogs all that often, but I still get to work on all my fun tricks. And occasionally I get to take a peek at the other dogs. Little by little, I get to see more of them. They say it's because I'm becoming more comfortable. (Fooled them! I'll still bark at them all when I get the chance!)

At my first RRR class I had the unfortunate experience of sitting on my water bowl. I didn't think much of it, but Colleen sure thought it was a hoot! She pulled out a little PVC pipe ladder and laid it on the floor and asked me to walk over it. I did that for a while and then she put some loose sticks down to make it tougher for me. Her conclusion - I've got no feet! Or at least I'm not aware of where I'm putting my feet or what is under them. So my homework was to walk all over or better yet avoid walking on various things. E&A put all sorts of brooms and rakes and other long handled things on the floor for me to walk around. They would send me on food hunts among all the clutter. I eventually got the hang of it. But once it came time for clean up, I was all tuckered out. I guess they had some fun while I was resting...