Memorial Day weekend

They did it!!!! They pottied on the grass!!! We were traveling to Indiana, a 7-8 hour trip, stopped at Wendy's, and Woo-Hoo!! Traveling longer distances with our refined little city girls just became an option.

We started at Mom Sunnie's place where the girls LOVED the back yard. Their retractable leashes gave them a bit of freedom to roam and run. Ginger was hilarious - she kept rolling in the grass. Not just in one spot, but everywhere! And not just one or two rolls, but over and over over again. Several times her body and/or legs got wrapped up like a yo-yo. Very funny. Grandma enjoyed the girls but, as the picture shows, was a bit hesitant to let Ginger go crazy kissing her face. And the more she resisted, the more Ginger tried.

That first night we also visited Rod, DeLila, & the kids. After a walk in the backyard with Lindsey and Mark, Wasabi and Ginger ran 100 mph circles inside the large carpeted house.  All was good until they hit the one patch of linoleum - Abbie turned soon enough but, with the momentum of a freight train, slid sideways into the closet doors.
Next was Dad Sonny's where our quiet girls became barkers.  Wow.  Bruce's kids and Christopher were there and were very patient, taking turns petting them.  Jackie and Ginger built a special little bond - Jackie knew that all it took was a little tummy rub and Ginger was hers for at least five minutes.  Chris & Andrew pretended to be dogs in the basement & got the girls all riled up - they loved it.  And sweet Katie just wanted to hold one of them; but since the dogs are bigger than her lap, it was just tough! 

Reunion at Grandma Millers was fun, too.  The girls were startled at first by another dog, but soon calmed down.  They spent most of the time on our laps, but did make a few laps around the yard with various nieces & nephews holding their leashes.  They walk so well - always want to be side by side, and like to walk right by my side.

Last stop was Mom Miller's.  Again with the barking.  Actually, they were ok until Monday when Barb & the kids showed up.  Ginger had gotten herself locked in mom's office, so she was in a tizzy anyway.  Abbie heard Ginger's tizzy, and that got her into a tizzy.  Together they completely tizzied-out when they saw Bard. And despite her excellent efforts, they never did completely warm up to her. (funny, because Barb was their favorite over Christmas!)    We took a walk around the pond while the grandkids were wrapping up the fishing contest, and came face to face with some cows.  Fearful curiosity on both sides of the fence, but the cows were much braver (size and numbers on their side).  

And, thanks for the new profile pic, Barb!

ginger and wasabi.

Abbie Chasing a Mouse

Ginger Keeping her Figure

Here's a clip of how Ginger eats......and how she keeps her figure.

Sweet Abbie

Running in Circles

Ginger likes zerbers.

No Puppies for our Puppies

It's been nearly one week now since the girls were spayed, and they seem to be fine. It was nearly impossible to keep them under "restricted activity" for the prescribed 4 days! But they are back at full speed now. Bouncing up and down and all around.... YEA!!!

Cute girls

This is shortly after they got done being silly with Photo Booth. See their pictures in my Facebook album. (You can see them even if you don't have a FB account. Just click the link above.)

Happy Birthday, Uncle Bubba!

As we expected, the girls were enthralled with Uncle Bubba (our dear friend, Brad Brown). What we didn't expect was that he would come bearing gifts for them. He showed up Tuesday afternoon (HIS birthday) with a sack bigger than the two dogs combined, filled with specialty doggy treats from an Indianapolis bakery. Everyone was gracious enough to wait for me to get home form work to start the show.

First up: the red truffle. We broke half of the truffle into bite-size pieces, and put it on a plate for Ginger & Abbie to share. By the time Abbie smelled around & ate her first piece, Ginger had devoured most of the rest, and was cleaning up the crumbs. In the spirit of fairness, we broke up the second half, and held Ginger long enough for Abbie to get her share. Maybe we'll try the yellow truffle or a cookie tonight......

Brad and Ginger had a few things to work out. Ginger is very much an in-your-face dog. Brad is very much a protect-my-pretty-TV-face guy. The conflict is quite understandable: I usually have at least one visible scratch on my face or neck at all times - the engineers I work with just don't care. But that just wouldn't work for him. Besides that issue, everyone got along splendidly.

We'd only had one overnight guest before Brad since we got the girls, so it's still a bit new for them. They got startled once in the middle of the night & barked when Brad was stirring, but it didn't take long for them to remember we had a guest. They quickly jumped out of bed, ran into the living room, and tackled him on the couch. "Oh yeah!!! We have company!!! We're so glad you're here!!! We love you, we love you, we love you, and we don't care that it's the middle of the night & you're trying to sleep!!! We want to love you, and kiss you, and play with you!!! YEA!!!!!" After a while, they joined Mark & I back in bed, but periodically went out to remind Brad how excited they were to have him.

The pictures are frames from a funny little video (Mark should be posting the video soon....)

Typical weekend

These pics represent a pretty typical weekend.  Napping, basking in the sunshine, hanging out at the courthouse park, and PJ's on Sunday night.

Just a phase.

Thankfully, the fearful-puppy thing was just a short lived phase.  Ginger seems to have overcome ALL fears of the concrete & the steps. 

They are back to sprinting loops around the house.  Up & across the couch, off the end into the dining room, through the kitchen, into the bedroom, up the steps onto the bed, 1 or 2 loops on the bed, down the steps, around to the other side of the bed & into the bathroom, through the other bathroom, back into the kitchen, under the dining room table, weaving in and out of the chair legs, around the back of the couch, around the end & back up on top....  All of this 2 or 3 times happens in a matter of seconds it seems.

slippery concrete & sisters

Ginger started slipping on the floor once in a while, especially in the “hallway” between the front & back of the house.  As a result, she’s timid in that area now.  It’s pretty sad. She gets stuck on the kitchen rug, not wanting to proceed to the bedroom or into the bathrooms.  Last night we put a small rug in middle of the scary-zone.  It seems to help (most of the time) by breaking the area up & giving her some refuge.

Her new concrete fear also made the new bedroom-stairs difficult.  With enough coaxing, she’d go up.  But it was VERY tough to get her to come down & have to “land” on the concrete floor.   Abbie was actually helping her – it was AWESOME.  Ginger would get half-way down & freeze, Abbie would get right up beside her & show her sister how to take the next step.  She would do it going up & and down.  A small rug at the bottom of the steps helped this too.

This morning, Abbie helped Ginger across the concrete abyss.  Beautiful.  Both dogs were running from the living room into the bedroom.  Abbie climbed the stairs to be in bed with Mark & noticed that Ginger hadn’t kept up.  Abbie climbed back down the stairs, returned the kitchen rug, and laid down beside Ginger.  It looked like she whispered something to her, then they stood up together & slowly made their way, side-by-side, across the abyss into the bedroom & up the stairs into bed.  It was SOOOO cool.  

Karaoke

Ginger was a Karaoke star today! After the girls wore us out at the courthouse square, we took our regular 2nd Ave-Broadway-5th Ave walk.  A girl on stage at a 2nd Avenue karaoke bar stuck her head out the window & asked if she could see our dogs.  When she saw that Ginger was so friendly, the girl grabbed Ginger out of my hands (I still had hold of her leash) and held her up in the air for all of the bar patrons to see.  Yes, she was on stage, inside the bar.  Ginger just played it cool & sang a few lines of Folsom Prison Blues.   Rock on!

Teefers

They both been losing baby teeth like crazy. Both have a lower "fang" about to fall out.

Update: Within an hour of taking this picture, Ginger lost the tooth shown above & Abbie a huge molar.  We've been able to find & save a few, but most get lost. Or maybe eaten???