Nov 10, 2008 6:58 AM

Dave is a bigger softy than I am where dogs are concerned. He is the one who gets
up to let them out in the middle of the night. (Which is why they get up in the
middle of the night to be let out, if you ask me.) If Dave's working, they
pretty much sleep through, or I sleep through their noise and they are none the
worse in the morning. I am burnt out this morning because I was late coming home
from the farm and did a perfunctory game of ball with Yukon and put him back in
the crate after his hand feeding. Bonnie wanted out at 11:48 (and she really did
poop). Then 1:48, she wanted out again, and I blearily thought no time had passed.
But Dave was just getting home from his shift. Then 4:30 Yukon was ready to play.
Well, Dave don't play.....he let them all out in the yard for 10 minutes. At
5:00 he did it again, while Dave mumbled something about daylight savings time..
At 5:30, I just got up and started the day. Yukon was out to get that ball with
everything he was worth. He has two tires, one heavy one off a wheelbarrow and
a big lite one off a mountain bike. He "herds" the ball with his tires,
when he is not playing soccer. I feed the girls and pour myself a cup of coffee
before going to play goalie. He is SO ENERGETIC. He can't contain all this
random go-juice of his. When he wags in the crate it is worse than a hundred prisoners
running their cups against the bars. His bony tail not only whacks the crate, the
crate vibrates under the stuff on top of his crate. Sometimes the end of his tail
comes through and he whacks the big head cone from his surgery and it sounds like
a drum. This is underscored by his high pitched whine, scratching and an occasional
bass woof. I had hoped to take a tinsey little nap on the couch when the beasts
had been tamed for the morning, but Penne wanted to puppy-snuggle, a very wiggly,
licky, clawy, effort to get under the blankets.

She does not respond to anything other than her name. She does come when called,
but "no" "sit" "wait" and "back-up" or
"get down" mean nothing to her. Her energy level is UP and her appetite
is WAY UP. You can still lay your fingers between her back ribs but there is muscle
over the first three or four that wasn't there a week ago. (She is laying under
my chair snoring like a horse). She is not playful and may have "dog aggression"....that
might knock her out of the pack. I'm not getting rid of 4 dogs so I can keep
one. (You saw Perro Amore....) I may come to regret letting her on the couch.
She did okay at the farm, staying very close and pouncing on imaginary small animals
in the rustling leaves. She was totally oblivious of two racing chip-monks, but
it was her first time out of the city.

Sally over-did the knee. She was limping pretty badly by Sunday morning. I gave
her a Rimidyl when we got home. she's better this morning, but being gentle
with her porky self.

And now it is actually time for me to get up and feed the dogs and play ball with
Yukon, but its already been done, so there's still no reason to be up now.
Seeing Martin was good last night on the way home from the farm. He has a ride
to Elkhart for Thanksgiving with friends from High School. It is fun watching
him learn the subtleties of college life. He has almost figured out that going
Greek isn't everything he was lead to expect. He doesn't have time for
all the extra activity anyway. If nothing else they'd be using him for his
brain, which is sort of average all of a sudden. His friends who were super-intelligent
in high school are having culture shock (B's OMG!!!) but Martin is just buckling
down harder. He had some German to do last night after our supper. He's tired
and needs the Thanksgiving break. His girlfriend wants him to come shopping with
her the morning after Thanksgiving. Their plan is elaborate, with her pushing the
cart and him, sliding like a ninja between old ladies and grabbing stuff. I've
never tried the sport-shopping challenge. I'll leave it for the young....ha!

Guess I'll take a long medatative soak in the tub. KIM