As Brenda likes to remind me, it was my idea to get dogs and to get two of them.  The boys adore them, and they are good dogs, but there are days I wonder what I was thinking.  It’s also a little mind boggling that the little balls of fluff and I could carry around with one in each hand are now 60 and 70 pounds.  They’re only 10 months old.

Things to bark at, according to Max and Dori

• The Moon
• The Wind
• Where the squirrel was 3 hours ago
• The crossing guard when she blows her whistle
• Stuff in the neighbor’s yard that makes noise in the wind
• People on the sidewalk
• Invisible dog eating monsters that run around the yard at 4am

The dogs get their breakfast at 6:30am, which is ok on school days but not so nice on weekends.  If I don’t get up, Max will let me know it’s breakfast time by hitting me in the head with his head, or by the dog favorite, using his cold nose.

A little while ago I trimmed their dew claws, and I got a little too short on one of Max’s.  Later that day, he started limping and refused to put any weight on that paw.  Naturally we were concerned and were thinking of taking him to the vet.  We figured he must have hurt his leg in the yard somehow.  We finally figured out he was acting this way because his dew claw hurt where I cut it short.  He limped around for three days, because he basically had a sore fingernail.  Max is not a dog that would do well out in the wild.

Dori is vicious– at least if you’re a stuffed animal.  She likes to grab stuffed animals from the boys rooms, then she rips out the eyes, tears off the head, and then rips out the cotton guts.  I’m sure all the stuffed animals live in fear of her now.  She keeps going after Cow Cow and Danger Teddy, but so far they have escaped mostly unharmed.  Danger Teddy did lose his nose

Oh, and I almost forgot.  Their newest game.  Run in the sprinklers in the back yard that go off at 2am, then jump in the bed soaking wet.  Both me and Brenda love this game, or at least both dogs think so.  I’ve had to change the timer so the sprinklers go off in the middle of the day.

Speaking of sprinklers, apparently both dogs have a hatred of sprinkler lines.  Or at least they keep trying to dig them up.  I don’t know how they find them, I guess maybe they can hear the water going though the lines, but they are buried a good foot under the grass and the dogs keep digging holes down to them.

I guess I should have known what I was getting into when I got Golden Retrievers.  One of our neighbors how also has a couple of them, said not to worry, they calm down around 12 years old.

Dori up close

Dori

Another shot of Max

Max

Max sleeping on Mom’s chair