Thursday, December 04, 2008

she’s only 4.5 months old and already ... !

Ruby is a sweet, sweet dog with, so far, only one significant problem: she likes to explore. It wouldn’t be so bad if she came back when we call her, but she’s not there yet. You can work her back, but it takes a lot of time. Definitely needs her leash or a fenced-in area. She’s very strong and beautiful and loves to cuddle and loves Slink, who finally tolerates her licks.

Bingo, on the other hand, is a sweet puppy too but she’s a character already. She’s bossy. She tattles when Ruby escapes the gate or if Stanley leaves the room—she’s only happy when all of her sheep are together, even the cats. She steals things she knows she’s not supposed to have—she swiped a piece of bread from the counter, for example, and took off with it. She steals the rocks out of my plants (to protect them from The Very Bad Cat Slink) and we find them all over the house. She is ripping the linoleum tile off the mudroom floor (to be honest, I’m glad—the tile is so old, crappy, and ugly I’ve wanted it replaced for years now). She rips up her pee pads, steals my shoes, and has a sock fetish. She has gutted most of the cats’ toy mice. She walks Ruby, which makes Ruby crazy, so they end up tangled together fighting and they forget they’re walking. Bingo also regularly tackles the cats—Slink loves rolling on the floor with her, but Twitch will only put up with about 30 seconds of her nonsense before he yowls to get away or swats her, claws out.

But just when I’ve seen it all, there’s more:

December 4, 2008 - Bingo discovers the windowsill
Bingo climbed on top of her crate and got into the big window! (click to enlarge)

Bingo in the window 12/4/08
Of course, once she got up there she couldn’t figure out how to get down—only way down was forward. She managed to munch on a few leaves along the way, but at least she didn’t tear the curtains down like Slink usually does. (click to enlarge)

I just hope she doesn’t try it when she gets even bigger—and besides, the cats have claimed that window (at least on sunny afternoons). We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Natick with Maureen, Jeff, Kate, and Ben. Good food, good conversations. And we helped work on getting the house ready for my parents’ stay—Stanley did repairs in the bathroom and I sanded and helped clean stuff up and other odds and ends. It’s so exciting seeing more rooms coming to life in that house! We took the pups and both cats. Slink only came out when everyone else was asleep and, of course, didn’t allow Tattoo near him until the very last day. The dogs had a blast. Bingo, of course, tried to boss Tattoo around, but Tattoo was having none of it though he did play with the puppies once in a while instead of growling at Bingo. Ruby bit Tattoo, but he didn’t seem to mind. It was definite role reversal, as Ginger used to act exactly the same way towards Tattoo!

Let sleeping dogs lay 11/29/08
Worked hard, played hard, slept hard. Ruby is keeping watch over Stanley, probably hoping I’d give her a cookie for being so good. Bingo was just snoring away along with Stanley. (click to enlarge)

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Sleeping in a full-size bed is interesting. As you can see, Bingo likes to tuck in. That’s Twitch walking over Stanley’s head to get some cat treats. We had to fight for every inch. (click to enlarge)

The pups got to spend a lot of time outside, more than we intended (see the first paragraph ... ) Bingo just loves it outside.

Bingo wants to go out and play; Ruby just wants to see what Bingo is looking at. 11/30/08
Bingo watching the neighbor boys play football with the goldiedoodle down the road; Ruby just wants to figure out how to get up there and look too. (click to enlarge)

Bingo did find every single “lost” sock in the house. Bet she can’t wait to go back and find more. Ruby fell in love with Ben and Ben’s girlfriend Holly—she was kind of mopey on Monday because he wasn’t here. She’ll see him again this weekend, I think.

NOVEMBER ROSE

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Stanley brought this rose in around November 20—it smelled wonderful, and made the whole office smell lovely. It lasted for two or three days until Slink discovered it and tried to eat it. (click to enlarge)

posted by lee on 12/04/08 at 07:26 PM

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