Calendar Time

I love October. My wife and I started dating in October, got married in October, our favorite holiday is in October, plus hockey starts in October, what more do you want??

Sorry, back to the dog thing. So, it brought me great joy to flip over the calendar to October and see Liam, Voight in harness, and our friends' (and area leaders' puppy), Mika as the picture for the month (my wife keeps telling me to write about Mika and her special place in my heart, but that will have to wait until a later time). Enjoy this picture from the 2007 GDA South Bay calendar, featuring three of the prettiest black dogs we know.

For the rest of the story, well, we will let Jenny take care of that.

The Dark Lord and Voldemoof

With all the Harry Potter hysteria going on - yes, I (Amy) finished the book, Matthew's speed-reading it right now - I take you back to a few weeks ago when we hosted Jenny and Truman over at our place for a little puppy shuffle time. Figuring that everyone was tired, we took Tai, Truman, and Paige to see The Order of The Phoenix.

We must refer you back to the LAST time that we took Tai to the movies, one of us has STILL not seen all of Pirates 3. We figured that that was a while ago, he's so much older, it will be fine.
He did not have an accident in the theatre. Yay. However...during the movie, Hagrid's dog Fang (a very cool looking Neopolitan Mastiff, BTW) barked on-screen.

So did Tai. So did Truman. Off-screen. (Paige lay there like a bump on a pickle.)

The poor people in front of us jumped (they must have thought they had surround sound), but at least they had a good sense of humor. And then it happened again. And again. Finally, Jenny and I got wise and decided that everytime Hagrid came on the screen, or any type of creature, dog-like or not, we would bend down, ready to give the quick correction.

We spent the last hour of the movie in the hunched-over position. So because Jenny had decided that Truman belongs in Slytherin (and we know that usually Houses run in families, Sirius Black aside) where else to put Tai than the House that spawned Snape, the Lestranges, and of course, Tom Riddle?

Sure, he LOOKS all sweet and cute, but....Tai is none other than.... The Dark Lord!

the brothers

It's Monday. The day of our puppy group's monthly meeting, however Tai is too young to attend, so he gets to stay home with dad. As an added bonus, his brother Truman is also going to be staying with us for the evening.

OK, by show of hands, if you had to pick one of the following to describe what the boys did for the majority of the night, how many of you would pick; played, wrestled, or just acted like boys? How may of you would pick; slept and laid around?

The correct answer is:

They slept. After an initial battle of trying to get two 7 week old labs to sit and wait for their food and the subsequent relieving afterwards, this is how they spent the majority of their night. There were a couple bouts of playtime, more as the night wore on, and by the time that Mom and Jenny made it back, the boys were out of food coma and romping happily in the kitchen.

My (Our) Tai

My Tai. TaiDown. Tai'ed up.


However you want to call him, the T litter came home yesterday. Below, left to right, are: Thatcher, Trooper, Tia, Tori, Tai and Matthew, and Truman and Jenny.


He is adorable. Beautiful. He's at least eleven pounds if he weighs anything, has big fat paws, a short muzzle, and a big blocky head. He also has several small white markings - like his "big sister" Paige. He has two small marks on his chest, under his arms, three of four of his paws... and (ahem) "racing stripes" down below!

At first, he was holding back, calmly surveying the cooing people as they each got their pups. Once we walked to the grass to try to "get busy" for the first time, he began to show that he has some spirit. And the spirit was moving him to eat grass. And his leash. And Matthew's beard.

Don't get me wrong, it's all adorable puppy stuff, we just haven't seen it in so long!

It took a little while to get home, as it's fifty miles from the school to home, AND traffic going anywhere on a Friday in Southern California is bad. Tai calmed down after about five minutes of fussing, which we have discovered is par for the course with him, and promptly fell asleep on Amy's feet.

He came home and began to explore the living room, his living room crate, and the outside, as well as his two new "packmates" - our cats, Beeker and Flash. Fortunately, he met the calico Beeker first, who is the more tolerant of the two (smoky tabby Flash has been known to hit first and ask questions later) and so far, no fireworks. He also discovered some of his toys - the tennis bone, the rope and jack (thanks Tina and Ron), and his froggie. There was brief froggie (a rattling puppy toy) wrestling, but Tai gave up after froggie kept winning.

He was TIRED. He slept most of the evening and was only active for a little while before bed. He transferred to the bedroom crate just fine... and only got up twice, so we're only slightly sleep deprived. His schedule is about three and a half hours, so up at two, up at five, up at seven thirty.

Today, a friend, Salem, comes to play while Matthew and a friend go to get our Paige as well as two other pups from their breeder evaluation and then Tai gets to meet his Big Sister Paige.

We're pretty sure she is going to be so excited as if to say "Oh, boy! You got me a puppy, and it isn't even my birthday!" (she loves the little ones).



More to come. But in the meantime, enjoy!