Getting Better Each Day

Emme seemed different this morning, a little more animated and spunky. I see her getting better each day. She finishes with the antibiotic and the pain pills this evening. Her shaved spot is growing fine little white hairs, kind of like an old man's cheek, and it doesn't look as raw and angry. She spent a quiet night last night with only one episode of scratching.

Yesterday Ken and I stayed home with her all day. We didn't go to church and didn't attend a concert we had tickets for because I didn't want to leave her at home alone. Today I am more confident in her ability to stay by herself without supervision. We have a crab apple walk through the Secrest Arboretum scheduled on Wednesday and I am sure she will be able to be crated and stay alone for two hours by then. Life is beginning to get back to normal.

Always on a Leash

Today is Emme's third day after cyst removal surgery and she continues to heal. She was more restless last night than she has been. We had to talk to her two or three times during the night to get her to settle down and not scratch. Today she is still uncomfortable periodically and wants to be held frequently but otherwise is doing nicely on the pain medicine.

The biggest change is that she can't wear a collar and leash. I always have Emme on a leash when I take her outside. That way I know where she is and I know that she can't take off to chase a squirrel or a jogger. It just keeps her safe. Ken sometimes takes Emme out to play fetch without a collar and leash, but I never do. If she is outside with me, she has on a collar and leash.

Now, obviously, with a giant incision on the back of her neck, we can't put a collar on her. We have been taking her outside to do her business for the last few days without a problem. I was beginning to grow more comfortable with this until this afternoon. A black poodle was galloping around in our next door neighbor's year and I know they do not have a dog. This dog was obviously from somewhere else in the neighborhood and had gotten off the leash. If Emme had been outside, she would have run to the poodle to play and I am not sure what would have happened next. I don't like this. It will be a week or two before Emme can wear her collar and I think I will worry the entire time. Not that worrying will keep her safe. It is just what I do.

And a Hair Cut, Too

Now we are in day two, post cyst surgery. To add insult to injury, I have had to clip some of Emme's hair to make her more comfortable. Yesterday she was flapping her ears in reaction to the feel of the incision and sutures or in an effort to make herself more comfortable. Each time she flapped her ears, some of the long ear hair caught on the sutures. Then she would move her head, pull on the stitches and cry. So Ken held her and I got out the scissors and cut all the hair that was long enough to get caught. So in addition to having a shaved spot the size of an index card on the back of her neck, Emme's ears look a little wonky. I don't care as long as she is more comfortable.

She seems to be tolerating the pain medication well. She is taking that in addition to an antibiotic. She is not nauseous and she is eating, drinking and eliminating without a problem. I know the pain medication is slowing her down. We say something like "Are you ready to eat?" or "Let's go outside and hurry up" and she seems to have to stop and consider what we are saying before she responds. I know the feeling; pain medicine makes me dumb.

Emme spent most of the day yesterday in one of our arms. She and I watched many shows on the "Sick Channel," HD Theatre. I discovered this channel last spring after my surgery and it was a wonderful diversion. Yesterday Emme and I watched a show on rogue crocodiles and hippopotamuses, the sunrise in a Cambodian village (where the sun rose VERY slowly), a show on souping up some one's SUV to make it "hot" and the beginning of a racing show. A rather eclectic mix but entertaining.

She sat in Ken's arms in front of his computer though a variety of Podcasts and many games of solitaire. By evening, she did begin to spend a little time on the floor or up on the couch or a chair seat by herself. We need to watch her constantly because if she begins to scratch, she will stop if she is told "No." Last night we all went to bed and slept through the night. She seems to have made it through the night with out scratching.

So today, we are taking turns on "Emme watch." She wants to be held sometimes but other times she can be more independent. We are still watching her to prevent her from scratching. We are all going to make it through this.

Obviously the photos I used yesterday and today are pre-surgery. I can't bring myself to take a picture of the incision. When it is over and done with, I don't want to be reminded of it in graphic detail.

A Big Deal

Emme's little bump turned into a big deal. She came home with a shaved rectangle on the back of her neck about four inches wide by five inches long, a 2 1/2 inch incision and seven sutures. The skin around the incision is a raw looking and pink and she is miserable. Until her first pain pill kicked in about six o'clock last night she yipped and cried in pain every time she moved. Now she seems in less pain but she wants to scratch the incision and rub it on the rug or furniture. The only thing that stops her is one of us holding her in our arms. So we did, all night last night. Ken and I spent the night in the living room with one of us holding Emme in our arms in a recliner chair and the other trying to sleep on the couch. We traded positions every two hours so we had some relief, but it was a long night. Right now Ken is holding Emme while I shower, dress and check my email. Then it will be my turn again.

On a positive note, Emme came through yesterday's surgery just fine. The vet said that the bump was a sebaceous cyst and he was able to get all of it out. The incision is larger than we expected because the cyst was larger under the surface of the skin than at the surface. It was about the size of a quarter. The surgery was uneventful. The cyst was removed and Emme's teeth were cleaned while she was under.

The recovery is another matter. Emme is miserable and we are trying to keep her as comfortable as possible. This will mean a lot of holding her until things ease up. We had an appointment in Akron this afternoon that we will cancel to stay with her. Today's focus is just on helping Emme heal.

Last night Emme ate a few pieces of kibble from Ken's fingers and this morning he hand fed her again. She has gone outside to hurry up twice since she came home. So all systems are working.

I hope she never has another cyst. I never want to go through this again.

Three Drinks of Hot Water

Rudy loves to drink hot water from the shower. Emme could care less. Her fun is to help us dry our legs after we get out of the shower. As soon as we step out on the bath mat, Emme begins licking our ankles and calves. She keeps it up until we are dry or we send her out of the bathroom. This is like her duty to help when we take a shower.

Rudy on the other hand loves to drink the hot shower water. As soon as Ken or I step into the shower if the door is unlatched Rudy pushes into the bathroom. Then he pushes his head through the shower curtain at the foot of the bath tub. He waits patiently until we fill our hands with hot shower water and hold them at the edge of the tub. He dips his mouth into our hand and laps up the water. We give him three drinks, our limit. I think he would stay there indefinitely and drink. After three drinks of hot water for Rudy, we go back to our shower and he either curls up on the bath mat or leaves the bathroom in search of other excitement.

Why in the world would Rudy consider three drinks of hot water from the shower a treat?

Just a Little Bump

Last fall we discovered a little bump on the back of Emme's neck. We pointed it out to the vet who said we should just take a "wait and see" position. So we waited and the little bump grew from the size of a lentil to the size of a marble, a pretty good sized marble. Over the weekend, it erupted and seeped some clear liquid and a little blood. We took Emme to the vet yesterday afternoon to have it looked at and they said that we should probably have it removed. It looks like a sebaceous cyst but because it grew so much over the winter, we probably shouldn't just leave it there to continue to grow. It is less of a problem to remove a little bump than a bigger one. So Emme is scheduled for surgery on Thursday. Although she will have general anesthesia, it is only a one day procedure. She will go to the vet's early in the morning and return to us before dinner. Just to be cautious, they will biopsy the cyst to make sure that nothing else is going on. I know that the surgery is not a big deal, but I still will be glad when Thursday has come and gone. Think good thoughts for our pup in the next few days.

It's All Right Now

We picked up Emme and Rudy from the kennel yesterday morning and now everything is all right. It was so strange when Ken and I were home and the dogs were still away. Things were too quiet. The upside is that we slept in until 7:30 with no dogs to wake us up. The down side was we missed Emme and Rudy. I am glad they are home and life is back to normal.

Miss That Puppy

Ken and I have just returned from a week at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, and another visit to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. While we were gone the dogs have been at "Puppy Sleep Away Camp" which is not open today for pickup. So Ken and I are home, doing some laundry, downloading digital photographs of our trip and putting things away. And missing Emme and Rudy. We will go tomorrow morning early to pick them up. I can hardly wait. The house is too quiet without them.

Attention to Details

In addition to the wonderful coffee pot that Ken uses to make our breakfast coffee with whole beans, we have a Tassimo coffee machine that makes single cups of coffee. We use it for many kinds of hot beverages: regular coffee, decaf, lattes, tea, and hot chocolate. Every week we go to Canton to take groceries to Ken's parents and take them out to dinner. Almost every time we go, I make a cup of coffee for each of us to drink as we drive across Route 30. Both dogs know this.

They watch very closely everything we do and yesterday when I started the Tassimo, Rudy dashed to his crate. Making Tassimo in the afternoon must mean that we are getting ready to leave for Grandma's and Grandpa's and the dogs will have to go to their crates while we are gone. Some times it is scary how much the dogs notice and how they put these clues together.

I have just finished a fascinating book Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin . Dr. Grandin is a college professor who is autistic and she writes about both people with autism and about animals. In her book, she talks about animals being hyper sensitive to specific details in their environment. I think Rudy and the Tassimo is an excellent example of this.

Position A, Position B

Every morning at this house we have the same routine. Ken and Rudy get up first. Ken takes Rudy out and then makes a pot of coffee. About a half hour later, Emme and I get up. As soon as we come downstairs, Emme has to play "Go Get." I sit on the living room couch so she can jump up next to me and I can pet her. After a few minutes, I say "Go get Ken." Ken sits at his place at the dining room table and Emme dashes over to him and sits down in front of him. She is so excited that she wiggles all around. Ken reaches down to pet her for a while and then says "Go get Mary Lou." Emme dashes back to me, jumps on the couch and gets petted. Then we repeat this over and over until Emme is panting and too tired to jump back up on the couch. Then she gets Big Mama Gorilla for some quiet morning loving.

All this time, Rudy is with one of his lovies. But always in the same location. When we begin, he brings his lovie over by the couch where I am sitting and settles into "Position A." He ignores all Emme's crazy running, even when she dashes right by his nose or occasionally jumps over him. After Emme is done playing "Go Get" I go to my chair at the dining room table for a cup of coffee, my DS, Sudoko and the newspaper and Rudy goes gets up to relocate to "Position B" right by Ken's chair at the table.

Every morning, the exact same routine. Who's in a rut?

Coffee Breath

Emme often has doggy breath but for a while last weekend, she had coffee breath. I noticed one afternoon that she was chewing on something dark and hard. I thought that it was some mulch that she or Rudy had tracked in on their feet.

Both of them love to go into the flower beds and take care of business in the mulch. This makes me crazy because I think this spring I am going to have some deformed tulips or hosta from their deposits. But Emme and Rudy sneak into the flower beds as often as possible and often track little pieces of mulch into the house.

This time however the dark object was a coffee bean. We have a wonderful coffee machine that grinds coffee beans to make a pot of coffee. Every morning Ken makes a pot of this wonderful coffee and we really enjoy it. When we washed the coffee pot the last time, an unground bean must have dropped on to the floor. And Emme found it. I took it away from her, but she had already eaten about half of it. Her breath smelled like Starbucks. This was an improvement.

Two Treats

Emme loves to be up close to my face. When we come downstairs, she stops on the landing and I sit on the second step so my face is even with hers. She smells all over my face, especially my eye lids. I close my eyes and she sniffs my eyes and her cold nose just barely touches my eye lids. I call these barely perceptible touches, Angel Kisses. She also loves to smell my breath when I talk to her. Toothpaste, coffee, garlic, morning breath, all are good for her. She is in love with my breath.

But she never licks my face. She will often lick Ken's face when she climbs up on his lap but she seems to know that although I love being close to her, I don't like her to lick me. So she doesn't. Ken is always egging her on. He says to Emme, "Lick her lips. If you do, I'll give you two treats." But she doesn't; she only sniffs. Until this weekend.

We spent the night at the lake house and on Saturday because I had a commitment in town I left the lake early in my car. Later that day, Ken came home with the two dogs. I was lying on the couch in the family room when Emme came home. She jumped on top of me and was so excited to see me she licked my face. UGH. Dog lips. And to make matters worse, even though he has promised "Two Treats" for months, Ken never came through. Emme finally worked up to licking my face and got nothing for it. So much for "Two Treats."

Emme's First (and Perhaps Last) Marrow Bone

Over the weekend, I gave Emme her first marrow bone and it was a wonderful and an awful experience. We never give Emme and Rudy table scraps or bones. We have read that bones, especially chicken bones, shatter and can do major damage to a dog's throat and intestines. Years ago I read a dog book by Daniel Pinkwater and he said that the only safe bone to give a dog was a beef femur bone. If the bone is sturdy enough to hold up a cow, they are sturdy enough for a dog to chew. So occasionally I began to get marrow bones for Rudy. I would go to the grocery store and have the meat department cut up marrow bones about six inches long. I would take them home and following Pinkwater's instructions would boil them for 20 minutes to kill anything lurking in the raw meat and to make the bones even denser. Then I would wrap them individually in foil and place them in the freezer. Rudy loved these bones and after the initial chew, they would be a permanent addition to his toy box. They would be revisited and chewed again months and even years later.

When we got Emme as a little puppy, I stopped giving Rudy new marrow bones because I did not want Emme to get hold of one. I wanted to wait until she was all grown up. So two marrow bones waited in the freezer for the right time. Well, I decided this past weekend was the right time. Because the bones have a small amount of meat and fat clinging to the outside, I never give them to Rudy inside because of the carpets. I give them to him on the porch at Wooster or on the deck or out in the garage at the lake house. After he has chewed off the outside, they can come inside and they don't make a mess on the carpets.

So the weather was warm this weekend and we were going to the lake. I took these two old, long-frozen bones out of freezer and took them to the lake house. After they thawed, I took a table knife and scraped out the marrow because in the past, too much marrow has made Rudy's stool loose and I didn't want either dog to have a problem. There is still the taste of the marrow inside the bone, but a couple tablespoons of marrow which is essentially fat goes into the garbage.

Ken and I went outside on the deck with a bottle of wine for us and the two thawed, de-marrowed bones for the dogs. Both Emme and Rudy were delighted. They chewed for a long time and really enjoyed themselves. Emme didn't know about these treats and she was impressed with them. After about 45 minutes I picked up the bones, put them in a plastic bag and returned them to the freezer for a return trip when the weather was warm again and they could go out on the deck. Emme was distraught. While we were in the living room, she went to the counter in the kitchen, sat down and whined. She wanted the bone back. It took her a long time to realize that we were done with bones for the day.

As we were sleeping that night, I could hear Emme being very restless. She kept rearranging her blankets and pillow and couldn't settle down. I got up and took her outside to take care of business and then returned to bed. In just a few minutes, Emme got restless again and then went over by Ken's dresser and got sick three times. While I held Emme, Ken went for paper towels and stain remover. Even though I was cautious, the bones were too much of a good thing. Even with the marrow dug out, there must have been enough meat and fat to upset Emme's system. She is used to dry kibble, puppy biscuits, an occasional bite of fruit or vegetable when I am preparing meals and little else. The bone was not something her stomach was used to dealing with. After I cleaned up the bedroom rug, I took Emme to the love seat in the living room and we slept there for about two hours. After I got horribly uncomfortable and my legs were cramped and I was sure Emme was all right, we returned to the bedroom for the rest of the night.

I don't know if I will repeat the bones again. If I do, I will have the butcher cut pieces smaller, about three inches long for Emme, and hope for the best. Emme loved the bones, but I paid dearly for her enjoyment.

Painting the House

Last week we had painters in the Wooster house to paint the downstairs rooms and our bed room and bath room. We knew that two dogs, three painters and many cans of paint was a disaster waiting to happen so we packed up and went to the lake house for a week while the work was being done.

The dogs never missed a beat. They are so flexible. Where ever Ken and I are, is home. They don't care where they are as long as they are with us. There are many differences for the dogs between the two houses: different food and water dishes, different dog beds, different smells, different yards, and different floor layouts. It doesn't matter to them. When they in Wooster, that is home. When they are in Holmes County, that is home. Truly a case of "Home is where the heart is."

New Lovies

Last week when I went shopping, I found two Christmas bears marked down to $3.00 each at Marshall's. They are brown bears with wings, angel bears maybe? and each one holding a Christmas wreath. I couldn't pass them up at that price and they came home with me for the dogs. The bears are about the same size as Emme.

Although both dogs went wild with excitement when I brought the bears into the house, Emme quickly got bored with them. A real lovie to Emme is Big Mama Gorilla, nothing else. Rudy on the other hand is in love and he has one or the other with him most of the time. So we left one bear at the lake house and brought the other back with us to Wooster. Now Rudy has an angel bear in each house.

More Fun to Roll than to Stand

Rudy had a lot of dead hair in his coat after staying at the kennel for a week and a half. Ken wanted to take Rudy to the back yard to brush out some of the hair. Rudy was delighted to go outside, but couldn't resist the snow. As soon as Rudy hit the back yard, he delighted in rolling in the snow. Ken tried valiantly to brush Rudy as he was rolling but it was difficult. It is easier to stand in place when you don't have inches of tempting snow under your paws.

The World is my Popsicle

Emme loves to eat snow. She especially loves to eat crunchy pieces of ice/snow mix. I am not sure how good ice cold snow is for her stomach, so I try to limit her "natural Popsicles." When we take her outside to do her business, Emme has to spend a great deal of time eating snow before she produces. When she goes outside to play, eating snow takes precedence. Forget the ball; bring on the snow!

She is in heaven with last week's snow fall. It remains on the ground and has melted and frozen into hundreds of little chunks. The whole backyard is Emme's Popsicle.

I Don't Do Bandannas

Emme is not used to wearing anything around her neck when she is in the house. When she goes outside, we put on the collar and leash, but when she returns to the house they go in a basket on the porch. With her long hair, we avoid tangles and hair rubbing off by not keeping her collar on 24/7. We also read that you should never put a dog in a crate with a collar on to make sure they never could get caught and choke. So no collar in the house.

When she goes to the groomer, she always returns with a seasonal bandanna around her neck and she is usually insistent that it come off immediately. Today she came home with Valentine's hearts on her bandanna and so far isn't fussing about it. So I quickly took a few pictures. Usually, Emme is insistent that she doesn't do bandannas.

Back to Real Life

We have just returned from vacation. Ken and I spent a week at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. I took a week-long class in quilting from Mary Lou Weidman from Spokane, Washington, and Ken took a week of Woodturning from Troy Bledsoe from Social Circle, Georgia. We had a wonderful time and I took many photos. This week of school was preceded by a weekend in Asheville, North Carolina, visiting the Biltmore Estate and was followed by a weekend visiting nieces and nephews in Georgia and North Carolina. While we were away, Emme and Rudy went to "Puppy Sleep-Away Camp" for eleven days. Now we are all trying to get back to real life.

The dogs are back at home. Many loads of laundry have been washed, dried, and returned to dressers and the closet. A trip to the grocery store will have to happen tomorrow or we are going to wind up eating canned soup, cereal without milk, or steamed vegetables. The cupboard is pretty much bare.

It didn't take the dogs long to remember all the routines. They remembered better than we did. We picked up the dogs at noon yesterday and by nine o'clock, everyone was ready for bed. So we went upstairs to our bedroom, forgetting about giving Rudy and Emme their "bedtime snack." Rudy has a sensitive stomach and sometimes throws up if his stomach is empty for too long, so we have started holding quarter cup of his evening kibble to give to him just before we go to bed. Well, we forgot last night. But Rudy didn't. We settled into bed and Rudy started whining, propping his chin on the mattress and generally being a nuisance. It took us a while, but we figured out that he was telling us we had forgotten the snack. So all four of us got up. The dogs got their snack. We couldn't give Rudy a snack and leave out Emme, so both dogs get kibble. Then we returned to bed. The dogs remember our routine better than Ken and I do. What does that mean?

Stuck in the Basement

Rudy likes to go downstairs in the basement, especially when Ken is working down there. Periodically, however, Rudy doesn't want to come back up the basement stairs. The stairs are open and we don't know if that is the problem. Maybe they look scary to him. We have wondered if it is a problem with his joints that he doesn't want to do the steps, but that never hinders him from going from the first floor to the second floor. Sometimes he bounds up the basement with no trouble. Other times, he stands at the bottom of the stairs and whines and barks. It is nearly impossible to convince him to come back up the stairs.

We have tried calling him, offering him a treat at the top of the stairs, and just leaving the light on and the door open and waiting for him to come up. These techniques seldom work. Rudy just stays at the bottom on the stairs, whining and barking.

Two things have often worked in the past. If we say "Do you want to do for a ride?" or "Do you want to eat dinner?" Rudy will sometimes dash up the stairs. Recently we have discovered the ultimate solution. When Rudy is whining at the bottom of the stairs, refusing to come up to the first floor, all we need to do is ring the doorbell. Rudy cannot resist finding out who is at the door and he runs up the steps. Every problem has a solution. The doorbell is the solution to getting Rudy back up stairs.

The Treat Dance

Emme is so funny when she gets a treat. She has to do the "treat dance." She hops up and down and lunges at the treat. Sometimes she lies down in front of the treat and just silently stares at it. Often she will pick it up and toss it around. Only after she has extracted all the fun out of the treat does she settle down to eat it. This is truly food as play.

Her Safe Place

Emme has a "safe place" in Ken's arms. She loves to be held by him and insists on it periodically. When she gets up in his arms, Emme spends a few minutes licking Ken's fingers or reaching up to smell his face and then she settles down. When she is really settled in, she has her paws tucked into his arms just so. Ken holds her against his chest with her weight on both his arms. She would stay there forever. He holds her until one of his arms falls asleep. Emme's favorite times to cuddle in Ken's arms are right after we have finished a meal and when Ken is in his office working on the computer.

At mealtimes, she is more than content to lie quietly on the rug near one of us. After we are done eating, she seems to know. I don't know if it is because we don't rattle silverware or if we change the way we converse, but she knows that we are finished. She comes up to Ken and whines to be picked up. So up she comes and she rests in her safe place until we get up to do the dishes.

When Ken is at his computer she asks to be picked up. Ken obliges and has to figure out how to continue entering data into Quicken or play Scarab Solitaire without disturbing Emme. I think sometimes, he just gives up, turns on a video podcast and sits in front of his computer with Emme napping on his chest. Everybody needs a safe place.

Back From the Groomers

Yesterday Emme went to the groomer...again. I love having a Bichon and would choose Emme all over again if I had the chance, but there is no doubt that the Bichon Frise has a high maintenance coat. I have settled into a routine of taking Emme to the groomer once a month. That is more often than I go to the hairdresser! I go every five weeks; Emme, every four.

I have been keeping her coat cut short all over. Her body has always been cut short, but I have tried a variety of face cuts. I am happiest with her hair cut short around her eyes and mouth. I love to be able to see her dark eyes and if her hair is not cut short enough, it creeps over her eyes within weeks. I do trim Emme around her eyes in between groomer visits, but I like her face hair to start out shorter. It is also easier to keep her clean around her mouth when it is cut short there also. She gets less food caught in the fur around her mouth.

So I keep her in a "puppy cut." The benefit is that Emme looks clean and cute. The downside is she never looks like the photographs of a Bichon because those pictures are all of adult dogs in a "show coat." Their hair is much longer and is groomed to perfection. So the Bichon photos never look like my Emme. But since I know that true beauty comes from within, Emme is my beautiful Bichon.

So, Where are the Treats?

I keep treats for Emme in the closet in my sewing room. Her favorites are dried sweet potato chews. We started with a bag of "Sam's Yams Sweet Potato Dog Chewz" (frontporchpets.com) that we got from the kennel. The chews looked like slices of the sweet potato cut long ways. They were very hard and required a lot of chewing. We stopped giving them to Rudy because instead of chewing them, he broke them into large chunks and bolted the pieces down. I was afraid that he would hurt himself with the jagged pieces of hard dried sweet potatoes going through his intestines. So I moved the sweet potato chews upstairs to the closet in my sewing room and a few times a week when Rudy was downstairs I would break off a piece of a chew and give it to Emme. When she got the treat, she would do the "treat dance," play with it, pounce on it, throw it up in the air and finally chew it for a long time. She got the chews so infrequently and had such small pieces that the bag lasted two years.

We finally finished the bag and I wanted a replacement. I went back to the kennel and they had stopped carrying the dried sweet potatoes. I looked on line and found a holistic veterinary practice in North Canton that carries Sam's Yams. We stopped there a few weeks ago and instead of buying the same size treats I had purchased originally, I got a bag of "Bichon Fries Sweet Potato Dog Chewz," perfect for my Bichon Frise. They look like crinkle cut french fries but they are orange and very hard. I snap each one in half or thirds, so I think these will last a long time too.

Every time Emme comes into my sewing room she stops at the closet to remind me what is stored on the top shelf. She doesn't get a treat every day, but hope springs eternal. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Christmas Ornament as Dog Toy

Yesterday morning I spent some time taking down Christmas decorations which included taking ornaments off a small tree I have in my kitchen. I thought I had carefully put everything away but after lunch when I was washing dishes, I heard Emme playing with something. She was having such a good time, throwing something up in the air, pouncing on it, and pushing it under the table. I decided to check which toy she was playing with and found it was a NEW toy. One of my Christmas decorations, an embroidered snowflake, was being repurposed. It went from ornament to dog toy. I hated to destroy Emme's game, but I grabbed the ornament off the rug, flattened it out and put it away to let the dog spit dry. One less toy. Too sad.

Dog Walls and Speed Bumps

Emme and Rudy like to nap as close to us and possible. At breakfast, they usually choose to lie down next to one of our chairs. This causes some difficulty when we get up to refill coffee or to make breakfast. It really slows us down as we carefully climb over the canine members of the family.

Emme is smaller and we refer to her as a "speed bump." She slows us down, but we can maneuver around her. Rudy is larger and we call him a "dog wall." Sometimes it is easier to go around him than to step over him. This morning, the dog wall expanded with the addition of two lovies. This morning we had "dog wall plus."

I'll Bite Your Nose

For the most part, Emme and Rudy are extremely gentle with their stuffed toys. Occasionally a toy gets pulled apart at a seam if they play an extremely rough tug game, but for the most part, their stuffies last for years. Periodically, I take the toys in need of mending upstairs to my sewing room, mend the split seam, throw them in the washer and dryer and they are good to go for another long time.

Rudy likes to grab a stuffed toy, wrap his paws around it and mouth it, almost like he is nursing. He has never ripped up a stuffie, torn one apart, chewed an ear off, or severed a limb.

Emme also "loves up" the stuffies the same as Rudy, but she also loves to bite the noses, ears, and any tags that are sewn into a seam. So we have many stuffies that have been mended on parts that stick out. One of her favorite chew spots is the bill of the heron stuffie. I have repaired the toy by running lines of machine stitches over the end of the bill many times and it is still in service. A little used, but still good.

Where's Emme?

You would think it would be hard to loose an active, lively, white puppy. Sometimes it seems Emme is all over the place and easy to see. She usually is right next to either Ken or me at all times.

Occasionally, however, Emme decides that she is going out on her own to explore. She often chooses to do this in the evening and usually the destination is the second floor. One of us realizes that Emme is not in the immediate vicinity. We call. She doesn't respond. She never does. We search and often find her upstairs alone exploring our bedroom or my sewing room. She doesn't seem to get into any trouble. She just seems to get wanderlust and needs an adventure.

Yesterday at breakfast, we didn't see Emme. We called. We looked all the first and the second floor. Then we realized that she was tucked under the cabinet in the dining room. Right next to us. Of course. After she stuck her head out and we located her, all was well. Where's Emme? Right next to us, as always.

Always Room for Jello

For the longest time, we have given Emme and Rudy "dessert" when they finish a meal. We say "There is always room for Jello." Then we take a tiny puppy biscuit, about 3/4 inch long, snap it in half and give one piece to each of the dogs after they sit nicely in front of us.

A few days ago, I asked why we do this. When did we start and why do the dogs get "Jello?" Neither Ken nor I could remember how it got started. It just wound up being a part of the meal routine: they each get a dish of food, piece of cheese with a pill in it, and then "Jello." There is no reason for the dessert. The size of the piece of puppy biscuit they get doesn't constitute any nutritional value; it is far too small. They should be full all ready from the meal they just finished. But now, of course, getting "Jello" is part of the unchangeable routine.

So I decided to stop giving them "Jello." The dogs know that we are doing things wrong. They are incensed that the meal ends without Jello. They watch us to make sure we haven't forgotten something. They do a nice sit in front of the treat jar. They don't like change. Don't we realize that there is always room for Jello?

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from Emme, Rudy, Ken and Mary Lou