Jenn - hoping you're ok.

Somehow I got roped into planning a state level GIS conference and we are about a week out now. The last couple of weeks have been insanely busy. Most of the storms have gone around us. We've gotten a lot of wind and some pea sized hail out of that last round but that's it. We could use some rain that isn't coming in sideways at 100mph. My rain barrel is about dry. I've moved crops out of the grow room and they are just sitting on the back patio now. We're heading too hot for them to go in the greenhouse in the next few days. At this rate I won't even get to use the greenhouse this year.

We've been testing out the dog park a little more here lately. We had a great play day a couple weeks ago but a bit challenging to figure out if there's a better time to go. The last couple times we've gone after that there haven't been very many dogs and they are mostly ball dogs who aren't that interested in playing with dogs and would rather their owner just throw a ball for them which are boring dogs. We've also got some owners that seem confused on what the dog park is for because they basically just come to the park to walk their dog and won't let their dog get any distance away from them. They can walk their dog on a 6ft leash on the Katy. Doing it at the dog park just confuses and disappoints the dogs who would like to actually play with their dog. Some dog owners are just weird.

We did family Easter gathering Saturday. It was about 70 degrees and we took Kasper since it was a long drive down and didn't want to leave him crated all day. He did great. He's fine with kids. He's nervous of people who act too nervous of him. If someone just walks up and pets him he's good, but the people who slowly offer their hand for a sniff make him nervous with their slow behavior and then he's less apt to let them pet him.

We went to the dog park yesterday and found some dogs who actually wanted to play this time.





I've been organizing a state-wide conference the last several months and it was finally this last week. The month leading up was super busy but I've heard nothing but good from the conference so hopefully the hard work was worth it. It made for a boring week for the dogs since I was gone all of it. We have a cooler and rainy week coming up which won't help things with them either but at least we should be getting back to a little more normal schedule. Now if Kenzi would just attempt to sleep through the night. she's in and out every couple hours and it's pure want and not a need to go out to pee. She's so restless and it's killing our ability to get any quality sleep. We would ignore her but she is very good at making sure she can't be ignored.

Here is a question. Im going to be dog sitting in a few weeks. Whats the best way to do the introduction? Spider has been around other dogs but its been years. I still have some ptsd over squirt and i know from horses that tension becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I thought about walking her, splinter and having P walk his dog tucker and do that several times before tucker comes over. Tucker is a 10 month neutered male border collie/hound mix that is used to going to doggy daycare. 2 summers ago spider met a pit puppy that we would have adopted if shadow had been ok. So her and puppies has always worked out. But what should i look for besides being stiff and the flag tail?

Is Kenzie perhaps beginning dementia? Sundowning? I'm suspicious with Z'ev and his pacing. But most of it is outside, round and round and round the house. And thankfully, he settles in the back hall at night.

Worse, however, at least this weekend, was in house pooping. Usually, it's very sporadic. But Saturday night, oy Saturday night. Wayne went into the laundry room and I here a loud OMG. Then, OMG, there's poop everywhere. As I approach, he goes into the front hall, Another OMG. Then F**k. He steps in it. Comes back, hands me his slipper ( seems that dark oriental rugs hide everything), I'm cleaning up everything and I here another "f**k" - he stepped in it with the other slipper and was now tracking through the house Oh. And way some point, he stepped in it with a bare foot So slippers cleaned, lots of poop bags, paper towel, bleach, dish soap and nature's miracle later and things back to normal. Except hubby is now having fandom poop smells. Later, I ask what he wants for dessert and my charming a-hole says, without missing a best, "Tootsie rolls" Then proceeds to have one of those laughing so hard tears run down his face

Fast forward to Sunday morning, I'm having my first coffee -Z'ev is trying fast to get to the door(here's already been out once) and dropping turds along the way. I rush to get him out, not knowing there's poop along the way, step in one with right foot, the next with left foot... Not knowing, I then track it into the laundry room...I had a few choice words of my own...

@Lostmaniac Kenzi is leash aggressive so I've always put new dog safely in a crate or had kenzi loose in a fenced area and let everyone sniff through fence/crate to observe how things are going. Generally with mine if they are fine there won't be any hitting the fence with feet, growling, barking, or trying to get really tall. If none of that then I will turn them loose together in a small enough space I can grab someone if something breaks out or I can distract if we get too up in each other's business. Since the other dog is a daycare dog it will likely be totally fine and read the body language of your dog fine, so as long as your dog doesn't pursue it it will probably walk away if things get a little too tense. Kasper will create space from a dog if the dog is getting too upset. Daycare has really helped Kasper read a situation.

@amymeme kenzi could have many things. She isn't restless all the time so it could be a bit of dementia, it could be her blood sugar numbers doing something weird every now and then. She doesn't have much eyesight left so there's also potential for nerves when we are in the new moon phase because she can't see as well at night. She also is bad about wanting to reset herself if something gets off. Like if she gets off the bed for whatever reason for some reason she then thinks she needs to go all the way outside, reset herself, then return inside to get on the bed. Like she thinks going outside is what triggers her getting to do something. She will sometimes do the same thing with dinner. Poke me wanting to go outside in hopes that once she comes in she will get to eat. Not sure why since that has never been the routine.

I thought one of the dogs had pooped on the back porch a few nights ago. I was letting kye out in the dark of early morning and didn't turn on any porch lights. When I went to run him off the porch I stepped on something wet and squishy with my foot and was irritated thinking Kye was squeezing them off on the porch. Ended up it was a toad that had been hanging out by the back door watching for bugs. Toad was fine.

@lostmaniac are you really nuts??? Considering the problems you've had with your various dogs do you really think that you can escape unscathed?

@amymeme I'm sorry but write in a way that takes a bad situation and makes it laughable, so please excuse me for laughing.
I have a problem with Sky in that she apparently doesn't know she needs to go until ... so she's crated for the night (I've had one of those midnight mishaps) and when she start wandering we go out.
Avalanche is good, he goes and stands in front of the door ... no problems with him (once I convinced him that marking in the house is guaranteed to get him yelled at!)
But both of mine are getting older (ain't we all!?!?!?) and the youngster is enough to drive us all bonkers!

@aljones im watching 2 boys 7 and 12 for 10 days that i am not related too. Does that answer the crazy question. But i have no intention of letting squirt out at the same time. And shadow has doggy alzheimers and goes out twice a day and otherwise hangs put in the bedroom where its cooler. And when the kids are here he stays put up. So he is a non factor. Splinter is just annoying but he has never met a dog he didn't like. Spider is the wildcard. Squirt has been in more fights with lots of dogs then i can count. The only dog spider has ever fought was squirt. She kicked squirts ass and almost killed her last time. I do know spider likes puppies but a 10 month old is full sized. Me and p are going to take the dogs to the park for a walk in neutral area wed when he gets home from school if its not snowing. On the up side spider loved the boys and if it works out with her and tucker i have a babysitter for spider

Wow that sucks about the dog poop. Shadow is my 3rd dog with doggy dementia. All 3 had totally different presentations. I deal with squirt peeing if i dont crate her. I feel bad about it but she wont outright pee in the crate but i can tell by her blanket she has incontinence issues. Shes also been weirdly antisocial lately. Bit shadow will go to the food bowl 5 times a day thinking its dinner time, even right after eating.

Shadow also does the reorienting himself alot but has lately been getting lost in the yard.

Last Thursday was kenzis 10th gotcha day. Can't believe it's been a decade with this girl. She got me started in this forum while I was looking for ways to better exercise her and work on her leash aggression. No fun foods but she got some frozen broccoli in a little bit of natural non sugar yogurt.

Happy birthday Kenzie.

They finally pushed him in the pool at daycare. Lol

Spider goes to doggy daycare the the 28th. Any tips on what not to do?

Each daycare may have their own routine but the big thing is trust the daycare people to know how to introduce the dogs. They know their individual dogs and will do fine. I also let them take Kasper into the play or staging area first and then leave. If I hand him off and walk away while he is still focused on me he is more apt to act out even though he loves daycare. He just doesn't like feeling like he's being left behind. Better to let him feel like he's leaving me behind to do fun stuff.

TwisterII wrote:

They finally pushed him in the pool at daycare. Lol

This week is back to school week. Daycare has little things they are going to do with the dogs throughout the week that maybe interesting to see. I think "try new food" day is on Tuesday when Kasper goes so that will be interesting. I've tried a lot of food with him. So far no food allergies like Kye which is nice.



We had a couple days of beautiful weather so I worked on the back porch. Kenzi keeps me company while Kasper trolls around the yard.



We met Echo at the dog park a couple weeks ago. She is the most adorable Malamute ever. A happy wiggly girl who likes to roll.



He's getting better about checking the flowers out without eating the blooms off.



He is belly-up the majority of the time.

I love all your pictures but the one with the lilly's brought back memories of young life on grandma's farm. Just outside the front door she had a bunch of tiger lillies ...

Nice pictures, Jenn. Most of my daylilies have now gone by. Walking through the yard yesterday, i was pondering whether mine were considered early, mid or late season and wondering about maybe getting some late season to see if I can extend the bloom season. My two favorites are unknowns - planted what was supposed to be one thing and came up entirely different.

Tis very quiet around here without Z'ev. He is greatly missed and hubby is absolutely devastated.

We finally got someone to fix it shed porch roof. They are slowly raising it and will put proper footers under the posts once it's level again. And fix our pool light post that has the electric supply for the pump. We didn't like looking at a random 12' post sticking out of the ground as the main focal point from the kitchen bay window so we, gulp, planted a trumpet vine there. Welp 20 plus years later that trumpet vine is spectacularly triumphant and the post is now a good 45⁰ off vertical. So a new 16 foot 6x6 is going in a good 4 ft down to below the frost line and buried in concrete. Hopefully to stay vertical at least for the rest of our life span. We shall see. I have my doubts as the ground slants away from the pool. But. There will not be any more vines growing on it! I have a species sambuca growing on the other side that puts out pretty flower umbrels, I may put another on the north side of the post to hide it - seems to be fast growing and ultimate height is more shrubby than tree so the light itself would still be clear of greenery. We shall see - with such a wet summer, everything not eaten by slugs has been growing faster than i can prune back. Of course, would be helpful if my work schedule was more efficient than I've day of labor and 3 days of lame

Growing up we had a trumpet vine that grew happily on our well house. It was there a number of years until the well house needed rebuilt so we cut the trumpet vine back and rebuilt the structure. Little did we know that by hard pruning the trumpet vine it would go into a wild rash of sprouting for survival. My parents fought trumpet vine sprouts more than 40ft away from the original plant for nearly a decade. They got to the point where they cut the original vine down and hit it with Tordon. Still sprouts. Their survival mode is vicious here. Full on invasive species once awoken from their docile slumber. Darn those hummingbirds for loving them so much.

Tigers are in the front yard. They are starting to spread. I had babies this year despite the drought.


My cactus has loved the last couple summers. Hate that it only blooms at night.

Wow! Beautiful tigers and and a blooming cactus?!!? You are blessed by the flower gods.

As for trumpet vine Our Soil and Water conservation district has a tree sale every year. Years ago, trumpet vine, in packets of 10, were offered. We bought 2 or 3 packets. To hide a fence, to climb up the the post and to climb on some evergreens.

Mistake. Big. BIG. BBBIIIGGG mistake. If hubby didn't keep the lawn mowed, the whole property would be covered in trumpet vine. Anybody want one? There are shoots coming up everywhere. We home to the kids that once we die, if they don't keep the property mowed and pruned, trumpet vine will eat the place. It will become the haunted house on the hill

Back to school picture from daycare

I like that!! Best trick = Good Listener. But does he know what to do with it then??
Oh shoot, whoever put that board together has a sense of humour and maybe even knows Kasper.

Nice pic of Mr. Kasper. Happy "school year" Kasper.

I like that his favorite food is anything he can find considering his first week there he ate a stuffed toy and had to have his stomach pumped. lol

Kasper got to paint at daycare last Thursday.



We went to watch some of an air show Saturday and took the dogs. They aren't very interested in watching planes.

Nice pics of the dogs - Kenzi still looking lively. How old is she now?