Doggie Class and *gasp*

So, as usual, we had our doggie class on Saturday morning.  Instead of traipsing off to TJMaxx or Bed Bath and Beyond, we had been asked to help 'socialize' a puppy.  Us?  Trusted with a puppy?  Seriously?  Needless to say, it was going to be supervised socialization, but we got all prepared.  Because you never know what sort of puppy craziness you might encounter.

Needless to say, we weren't quite sure what to do when we came snooter-to-snooter with little miss Cutie-patootie.

Hi!  My name is Ellie!  Will you be my friend?

With a face like that, how could you not like the little labramix gal?

Truthfully, Miss Ellie wasn't quite sure what to make of us at first... (In her defense, not too many people do.)

"Help!  Get me away from these crazy doodle gals!"

 But we got things sorted out quickly, and she was an apt pupil.

And we got down to the serious business of sharing toys.

Crazy puppy eyes.

And since crazy puppies can be a tad overwhelming, I took a few minutes to get some much-deserved scratchies.

Meanwhile, there were many attempts to wear out Miss Ellie (seriously, this young lady had enough energy to power a medium-sized city). 

Heh.  Doesn't she look all innocent and cute?  It to her forever to figure out how to get the treats out the Holee Roller hanging around her neck!  But apparently we were good in help Miss Ellie get used to other doggies.  I guess if she can handle us, she can handle anyone, right?  Heehee!

Now a final photo from yesterday's class.  Mom wants you to look at this because she thinks I was rather, erm, shaggy.

Me?  Shaggy?  I have no idea what you are talking about.

Well, apparently Mom was talking about giving me a *gasp* haircut.

A what?!?  Just because I get a wee bit toasty inside the house...

Anyhoo, Mom got everything ready, brushed me out, and then took me into the shower.  Um.  Can we skip this part, please?  Apparently not.  Nor could I skip the 'drying' afterward, which included a doggie dryer (like a hair dryer, but it doesn't blow hot air - just regular temperature air - and  sounds like the dreaded Vacula Monster).  Eeesh!  After that, Mom brushed me out AGAIN, and got me up on the grooming table and got to work...

Note Mom's "stylish" grooming garb.  Apparently it has something to do with "doodle hair sticking to everything."  What-EVER.  But her scrub-like thingys did prevent her from looking like a Yeti when we were done.  Although what is up with the face squeeze?  I might have been able to hold my head still without that.  Maybe.

Anyhoo, after 87 hours of grooming torture, Mom finished.  She has decided that doing more than one of us a day is too taxing on her mentals and physicals, so Abby will get tortured next week.  In the meantime, here I am, looking decidedly less shaggy.  At least now you can see my pretty face!

And I don't even have Yeti-toes this time!  You can actually see my tootsies!  There are a few straggly bits that Mom will have to go back and clean up, but for her second time grooming me, I think she did pretty well.  Maybe next week the Hippobottomus will be less shaggy, too!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus

Our Weekend

We had another long weekend with Mom, and we had a great time with lots of walkies and doggie class and all sorts of frisbee time.  Mom had to spend some of her time doing 'domestic' things like laundry and vacuuming and getting her car washed (although she did not remove the snooter prints from her back windows - she thinks they give her car 'character' and we couldn't agree more).  But still...*yawnsville* 

In spite of Mom's domesticity, we still had a funballs weekend.

Doggie class included an 'obstacle course' where we went around Petco looking for all the 'stations' that had signs instructing us (and Mom) to do various things.  One of them required us to obey Mom while she was standing on a ladder.   Let's just say it took a few tries to get this one right...

One of the other stations required us to look goofy, erm, sit for 2 minutes.  (This one wasn't tough for us, but we were being guinea pigs for Jessi the Turkey Hotdog Lady, who is trying to design an obstacle course that can work for her puppy classes as well as her adult classes.)

Here we are sitting by the scary freezer back in the fish aisle.  I don't know what they keep in that freezer, and I'm not sure I want to know!

Apparently, we "lost" two frisbees in the snow this weekend...

"I know it's here SOMEWHERE."  "If Mom didn't throw like a girl, we wouldn't lose frisbees in the first place."

Technically, we are only down one frisbee, as we found another one that had been lost during the last snow...

The one Abby is digging for isn't lost anymore - we know where it is, but it's frozen in the ground, so it will take a little more work before it can be brought back into the frisbee rotation.

We worked on our frisbee technique.

Serious ear-flappage.

This is MY frisbee.  If you want your own frisbee, go dig it out of the frozen tundra that is our yard.

 
Of course, we also got in some quality bitey-face time.  (Hey, when you've only got 3 frisbees in play, you've got to liven things up occasionally!  Hehehe!)

Not that the weekend was ALL fun and games.  We had to make sure Mom got her exercise, too.  We dragged her out on a bunch of walkies.

And since Mom has started taking yoga in addition to her circus circuit training class, Abby thought she would help Mom get a better sense of what she's aiming for in the 'downward dog' pose.  You may need to biggify this picture - Abby has 3 of her 4 feet on the ground, and her head is by her 'rooted' front foot.  I'm just making sure Abby gets the pose totally correct.

And we amused Mom by posing for photos.  Although some of us were not as amused about it as others of us.

"We are not amused."

"Speak for yourself.  I'll always pose for Mom."

"Yuh.  WhatEVER."

Heehee!  We had a great weekend, and are bummed that Mom has to go back to work tomorrow.  However, she'll be trying out her brand new Sylvania SuperBrightAntiMoose headlights that Dad got her for Christmas.  Her little car (the one that was washed this weekend but still has snooter prints... you are paying attention, right?  There will be a quiz later...) only came with standard headlights and since Mom is blind as a bat, ah, can't see very well in the dark, Dad thought it might be a good idea for her to have brighter headlights so she might see any moose/deer/elk/Highway Patrol lurking on the freeway before she hit them/got arrested.  Anyway, hopefully her new headlights will keep her safer!  Have a good week everyone!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus

Our weekend!

First, we sort of had a long weekend with Mom.  When Mom left work on Thursday afternoon it was snowing really hard, and the roads were terrible, and Mom came home telling stories of crawling up the canyon (I-80) and down the backside at 10mph, and people sliding all over the place, and not being able to make it up the hills to our house.  However, Mom's little car is equipped with super-duper snow tires and AWD, so she made it home safely.  But since it continued to snow and road conditions got worse and worse, Mom kept her eye on the weather, and when she discovered she couldn't make it out of our driveway on Friday, she worked from home.  It turned out to be a good choice, as the road were, apparently, in terrible condition, and they shut the university down early (1pm) on Friday.

And Mom DID work from home and got a lot done.  However, being the 'assistance dogs' that we are, we made sure Mom took breaks every couple of hours.  And, of course, those breaks involved taking us out to play in the snow!

See, Mom?  You needed to get outside for a little bit!

Frisbee!

With the snow, it got really cold, which meant shorter but more frequent breaks for Mom!

OSHA-approved assistance dogs at your service!  Heehee!

Mom amused herself by taking lots of photos of us enjoying the snow.

On Saturday, Mom ventured out and discovered that the roads were still in terrible condition - snow/ice packed and since it was really cold (-5F), she decided that we'd skip doggie class this week as she didn't want to be out on the roads more than necessary.   We agreed, as long as we got our frisbee time in.

Mom thinks the Aspen Pet Products people should hire us as product testers.  We agree!

Tensile strength?  Check.

Today was even colder (yuh, really!), so after one brief walk in the neighborhood (during which our tootsies got REALLY cold), we played in the yard.  Apparently Mom's camera wasn't happy with the very cold temperatures, as most of our action photos were a bit out of focus...  But we were having fun!

 

Yes, it was as cold as this picture makes it look!  But we were having fun!

And we continued our frisbee testing.

Hello?  Aspen Pet Products people?  Are you paying attention?

The snow has left us, and in its wake we have wickedly cold temperatures; today we had a high of 8F, and tomorrow isn't supposed to be much warmer.  So while Mom has to go back to work, we'll make sure she's got plenty of pictures of us so she won't miss us while she's crunching numbers and doing other nerdy things!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus

PeeEss:  For those of you snow doggies who are feeling a bit snow-deprived *cough*Khyra*cough*, now that our weather has cleared up, we're winding up the rubber band on AirFiona so we can make some 'mercy flights' and bring you to the land of ice and snow!

New Year, Same Old Stuff!

Which is totally fine, BTW.  Consistency, while being the hobgoblin of little minds, isn't all bad.  We know what to expect that way!

And the new year has not disappointed.  It has brought opportunities to express our love for one another...

And we've gotten in some zoomies.

 And, of course, funballs frisbee times.

 

And doggie class.

This weekend Mom and Jessi thought it would be fun to do some more 'out and about' training, in the eventuality that we might consider more formal training as therapy doggies.  And even if we don't get more formal training, it's fun to go into the stores and see and be seen!

We first went to World Market, where the employees were very thrilled to see us, and we spent several minutes doing the 'meet and greet' thing before we got down to the serious business of photo ops.

First, we checked out what the cool kids are going to be wearing for Mardi Gras.

Heehee!  We are stylin'!

Then, since we had to do something to earn our Mardi Gras beads, we did a little posing on table tops!  Heehee!

After that, Jessi decided she wanted to show the world that we really are lap dogs. Duh.  Of course we are.  Being a lap dog is all about attitude and has nothing to do with size!  Heehee!

Even a Hippobottomus can be a lap dog!

Me?  Well, I'm the Queen of the House and deserve my own throne, thankyouverymuch!

Then we meandered over to TJ Maxx, another of our favorite destinations.  On the walk, Abby decided she wanted to Be Like Mango and hide behind a tree.  We totally can't see her.  Can you?

"I'm all stealth-like."

At TJ Maxx we encountered a few characters who were trying to show they could be as attentive as we are.

Mr. Froggeh was waiting patiently for the next command.  We were waiting for treats.

This white doggie was quite the show-off.  Once he was told to 'sit' he didn't get up for ANYTHING.

Heehee!

Happy New Year everyone!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus