Recently in Dogs Category

It's been extra hot the last few days.

The animals are blossoming.

People are always surprised to discover that our dogs love to eat fava beans (pods and all). My answer is that yes, they are purebred Labs.

Over the weekend we went to San Diego. The American Library Association Midwinter Meeting was in town, and with it my parents. We took the opportunity to drive down and have a nice weekend at the beach.

The girls took the opportunity to do some dog-beach romping.

We went to Ocean Beach's dog beach, at the end of Voltaire St. This is where we went the last time we visited San Diego, before we got Goldie.

Rosie loves to lie down right in the surf.

After a long day in the car driving down the state, even Goldie was a little crazy in the water.

Nothing like a nice cool dip in the ocean.

For the first ten minutes we were there, there was a lot of running around in the water.

Rosie had an embarrassing moment when she was rolling in the sand and a big wave came in and got her.

After she shook herself off, she moved to a more secure location to finish her roll.

The end result was one happy, sandy doggie.

We could tell we had older dogs now (they turned nine in the fall), because it wasn't long before they were tired and ready to go home.

But they had a surprise in store. On the way back to the car, we stopped by the Dog Beach Dog Wash just down Voltaire St. to get cleaned up.

The dog wash is super-nice. You pay $12 per dog, which includes the tub, aprons, some basic shampoo, and towels, then you can pay a little extra if you want premium shampoo or conditioner. We did standard shampoo, then upgraded Rosie with conditioner to bring out the curl in her fur.

It's a nice way to end a trip to the beach, especially when you have a dog who likes to swim, and even more especially when you have a dog who likes to roll in the sand.

Goldie haz it.

Goldie's not too clear on what exactly a tramp stamp is, but she's trying.

We had Rosie's BFF neighbor dog Beanie overnight, and in the morning we had pancakes. So beanie got to take part in our weekly ritual. She was pretty good at it, but it's definitely much more work to get three dogs to cooperate for photos than it is one or two.

Goldie socked out in the hallway because it was too hot.

This is the look Rosie gives me when I call her name while she's in the middle of stomping on some plant.

I've been really down since realizing on Monday that the kitty was in a downward spiral and we needed to make that vet appointment. So instead of being all sad and weepy here, here are some pictures of the chicks enjoying a little outside time and stuff.

Here we have them in the first few days, playing with a piece of the shipping crate they came in. I used it to test whether they were ready to have wood chips down as bedding (which you have to be careful about, since they might eat them to the point of illness).

Then we went outside.

I think we will be keeping this chick, and I am provisionally calling her Dolly (for Dolly Parton).

We tried some experiments with the dog and chicks (apparently it's very hard to focus a camera with one hand while trying to make sure the chick doesn't fall off the dog's head). This chick is the Silver-Laced Wyandotte, and we will be calling her Janis (for Janis Joplin, because she spent her first few days stumbling around the habitat and falling over her feet).

I've given pet names to the two Barred Rocks who will go to the neighbors. They are Spot and Dot. This is Spot, who has a big white spot on her head.

Here's Rosie admiring the little chicky butts.

This is one of the easter-eggers, which the neighbor's kid calls Stripes. I think this will also be our chick, and I'm not sure what her name will be.

The little outdoor excursions are to give them something to think about that is new and interesting. They had a pretty good time easting weed seeds.

I'm pretty sure that this chick will be going to the neighbors. The neighbor-kid calls her Cornpuff and seems to love her best. She really liked sheltering under Rosie; I think the chicks have decided the dogs are their mommies.

We tried out putting Dolly on Rosie's back to see how she would do:

Given that the chicks hardly ever sit still even without being on fur, she did a decent job of holding still, and Rosie did even better.

This is how I took the chicks out for their first exercise hour: a big canning pot. Lots of jokes about chickens in the stewpot.

Here they are in their habitat with fancy wood chip bedding and their feeder and waterer up on bricks for their convenience.

Another exercise hour, Dot poking around in the dirt:

And Dolly growing out some butt feathers:

You can really see Dot's smaller head dot (smaller than Spot's, of course) here:

I thought the canning pot might be uncomfortable, so we tried out the shipping box they came in for the next visit outside:

Clockwise from top left: Janis (Silver-Laced Wyandotte), unnamed easter-egger, Dot (Barred Rock), Dolly (easter-egger), Spot (Barred Rock), Cornpuff (easter-egger).

So there's really only one name we need to come up with, and in part that has to wait until we're sure which easter-egger is going to the neighbors.

She can't go somewhere else to sleep, because she has to be near her people.