Egg for Breakfast

He did not vomit, but he did not ask for breakfast either. Before my packing was completed, Guinness found the Easter candy I was taking to Greg and his family. He ate the large chocolate covered, cream filled egg I had bought for Greg and Cathi. For certain, he is going to vomit sometime...

Things that go wrong when Mom is busy

I leave for Texas tomorrow, so I had much to do today. Guinness needed a good big walk and got into mud from yesterday’s rain necessitating a bath. In cool weather, I hook a hose up to the laundry room sink to have warm water and bathe him outside the garage. He was too wet to allow in the house, so I barricaded him on the deck in the sun and gave him a large pressed rawhide bone to keep him happy until he was dry. It kept him happy for two hours until it was entirely devoured. He has had them before will no ill effects. Today was going to prove differently.

Interesting items that he stole today included a frozen banana I had left on the counter to thaw for making banana muffins and Greg’s property tax bill from my desk. I bought some groceries this afternoon, but was too busy with pressing business to finish putting them away. The next time I passed through the kitchen, there was nothing left of the new loaf of bread except a bit of the wrapper and one crust.

Caught with a crumb on his face!

He was banished to his crate for overnight as we suspected that he might vomit.

Drenched

It is still March, but we had a teeming April thunderstorm most of the morning. After lunch, the sun was shining brilliantly, it was 51 F, and the grass even is beginning to look green! In spite of the gorgeous day, I didn’t want to take Guinny for a walk outside due to the mud. We headed for Home Depot. After wearing off some energy, I continued driving around town accomplishing some errands. Being a warm day, I rolled the back windows down about 3 inches. One stop was at the bookstore to buy gifts which took some time. While browsing, I heard torrential rains and looked out the window to see the rain pelting down on a strong slant. Surely Guinness was getting wet, but I was not about to soak myself for the sake of keeping a water dog dry. By the time I finished shopping, the rain had almost stopped. I found a drenched Guinness sitting in the front seat. The back seat was far wetter than I had imagined it could be. I dried him off with a towel. Before banning him to the back seat, I saw that there was white fluff all over it. I assumed that Guinness had made mincemeat of his stuffed toy, so I picked it up off the floor to see what he had done. There was nothing wrong with it. I reached back to see what the fluff could be. Hailstones!!! As large as lima beans!!! Poor baby! He had sat through a hail storm. By the time we reached home, some were still not melted, so I grabbed my camera.

HELP!

This waggish humdinger of a dog uses anything he can pick up as a game token. Last night, he picked up a hammer! This morning, as I stood over him, he reached for a glass knickknack! A few minutes later, he tried to take a small briefcase off a table. He is having way too much fun, and this is beginning to get out of hand. We may need some professional advice.

So I posted this on the Labrador Retriever Lovers Yahoo Group:

THE GINGERBREAD MAN

Guinness, who will be 2 in one month, is driving me nuts (though I can't stop laughing at him). He LOVES playing the Gingerbread Man Game of "you can't catch me..." Once he was old enough to stay out of his crate during the day over a year ago, he began this game of turning me into the retriever. We quickly learned what were his favorite objects to steal and kept them out of his reach -- like shoes, hand towles, anything in the kitchen sink, etc. It is a game with him; he is not being destructive (unless we don't catch him with the object and he has time to mutilate it); he loves making us run after him -- literally.

Nina (and Guinness who is in time out in his crate)

What a good idea to post on the Yahoo Group! There are some breeders and experienced trainers on the group that always give great advice.

I learned that Guinness is brilliant! He is a self-learner! What he is doing is called a “trained retrieve.” He just needs to lean to return the object to me with a Give command. They recommended books to assist with this training. Actually, Guinness is a little genius! I don't have to teach him to take something. He learned that on his own! Now I need to teach him to give it back.

Hershey lived to play fetch. Obviously, Guinness lives to play the Gingerbread Man. He would make a great field/hunting dog. All labs need a job. Hershey’s was to fetch objects – especially the newspaper. He was a pro! Guinness’s job is going to be returning objects to me.

After reading more about the training process, I need to suit him up with training collar and leash, then teach him to return objects to me.

It may be a while before we accomplish this. The recommended book is not an easy one to find and is quite expensive, so I need to see if I can order it from the library on inter-library loan or read the essential parts in a bookstore.

The Game Continues

We had a nice long walk on the bike path today, but it did not inhibit his passion for sport. Throughout the afternoon, the rapscallion continued to snatch anything his little eye spied.

Oh, my...

This morning was bright and sunny but below freezing. Great day for the beach! Off we went. It was a glorious walk! No one was on the beach, so I released his leash. He had a marvelous time running wherever he wanted to go! The 20 to 50 feet of frozen ice along the shore is gone. There are only large, dirty chunks of ice piled on the beach about 5 to 10 feet from the water. I walked on the side of them away from the water hoping to keep Guinness away from the lake, but that didn’t work. He went in the lake repeatedly as I screamed, “Come! Come! Guinness, Come! Treats!” He was pretty good about coming on command, so he had free range for the whole length of the beach.

We saw some Longtails in the ship channel and Trumpeter Swans napping in a cove of the lake. A pair of Lesser Scaups were among the Longtails. That is the first time I have seen them up close. Guinness was extraordinarily good to “Wait” while I used my binoculars and took photos.

Since he had icicles all over his tummy, we walked back along the walkway to stay away from the water.

I threw my gloves into the driver’s seat and dried him off a bit before opening the backseat door for him. Before I closed his door, he had my gloves in his mouth. And I thought a good, long walk would slow down the Gingerbread Man? When we arrived home, I took him into the sideyard with a towel to dry him off. He wasted no time in swiping the towel out of my hands and racing around the yard with it. What a character! He keeps me laughing. He had to grab one more thing before going inside: the remains of the decorative cabbage plant which has been under the snow until now. He raced around as if he thought I was going to try to rescue the dead plant.

After running free for most of an hour, he was still full of energy (or was it beans?). He has become a huge male tease. His joy in life is to make me chase him. He pulled my hand towel off the towel rack in my bathroom; as I carried an armload of laundry downstairs, he pulled a towel out of the bottom of the stack. All the while, he is laughing his head off.

Here he is with a piece of mail. He isn’t interested in tearing it apart; he just wants to chivvy me. Finally, he settled down and rested for the afternoon.

Dinnertime

I can’t believe we have done this, but we have. None of our other dogs have ever been spoiled in this way. When you teach a dog Down, with a treat in your hand, you signal to the ground to encourage the dog to lie down to get the treat. The next step is to teach the dog to Stay in the Down position by using treats to reward for a good Down/Stay. I think our fancy dog training school pushed that reward more than any of our other schools. Eventually, you put the dog on a Down/Stay, walk a few feet away and remind them when needed,“Stay,” and walking back up to them periodically to reward them saying, “Good Stay.”

Naturally, dinnertime is a good opportunity to work on this lesson. So we put Guinness on a Down/Stay beside the table and continually rewarded him for staying there. We are now at the point, after doing this for a whole year, that we have to treat him throughout our dinner while we eat to keep him on a Down/Stay. Initially, I didn’t want to waste store-bought treats on this, so I gave him ice cubes. That worked great, until one day we decided to treat him to some carrot sticks. He loves carrot sticks! Now he won’t take an ice cube at all. We never give him food from the table. That is a definite no-no. He might have a scrap as I am cleaning off the dishes at the sink, but never food from the table. At least, we have that much smarts!

Grant is away for a few days, so I was on my own for dinner tonight. Since I had been snacking, I was not hungry at dinnertime (usually around 6 PM). At 7:00, Guinness let me know that it was dinnertime and that he was not going to wait any longer for his carrots.

Too Much Energy

I was away for the weekend at a Crop-A-Lot Retreat, the company I founded! If you ever want a fabulous retreat to accomplish some scrapbooking, go to a CAL Retreat! (www.cropalot.com) They are they best! The new owners put on a fabulous retreat. I spent my weekend working on dog albums. I had created a darling “Genuine Boy” mini album at CKU two years ago. I completed the album with photos of Guinness from 5 days old to a few months old, and carried it in my purse to show off. One day, it was no where to be found. I was sure it would turn up somewhere, but it has not. So I took my class instructions and more of the Genuine Boy papers and recreated the pages to which I now need to add photos again. The second thing I worked on was Hershey’s album. I got a good start on it right after we lost him, but then Guinness was old enough to be out of his crate all day. If I try to scrap, he plays the Gingerbread Man game with my supplies. I have had to cover my paper rack with an old sheet, because he started pulling my scrapbooking paper and cardstock out of my rack. Really attractive, don’t you think? And you will note that the wrapping paper covered box on top, holding pages from classes, had some of the wrapping paper ripped off when it sat on a low shelf. I wonder who did that?

I think I might be able to get back to scrapping now, but maybe not, as you will read…

Due to being away, being tired, being lazy, plus with bad weather for an excuse, Guinness has not had a walk since Friday. Due to missing mommy over the weekend, not having enough activity, no one to play with, and not having had a walk since Friday, Guinness had a potpourri of thieveries: hand towel, portable phone, paper out of trash, important envelope off Daddy’s desk, camera case, seat cushion, and on and on. The funny thing is that he steals something, goes to the dining room, lies down with it, and waits for me to check on him to see what he is up to. Then he grabs whatever it is, and runs around the house forcing me to be the retriever. Destruction is not his goal, though sometimes that happens just from being in his mouth full of canine teeth. I got the message: tomorrow he HAS to wear off his energy with a long walk.

One of Guinness’s favorite things to steal for the chase game is a placemat. When I clear off the table, if I forget to put the placemats away, one will be in his mouth within minutes. Our placemats have been washed recently more than they ever have been.

While removing clothes from the dyer, Guinness often sticks his head in the door to the dryer. As I pulled out a sheet, he stole a placemat and off he ran.

On our walk today, when we reached the ballfield, Sonya, a one year old yellow lab whom we have met once before, was there. They had a ball playing; they would wrestle with vicious looking teeth, then close their mouths and you could see their smiles. They had so much fun.

On our way home, Guinness fell in a mud puddle, and it was only 27 F today. He probably slipped on the icy coating; I didn’t see it happen. I was not pleased. That meant I had to pull out the “clean” hose, hook it up to the laundry tub to have warm water. First, I had to hose out the garage as it was full of winter yuck, but that was a good thing that I was forced to clean the mess. Guinness then had his bath with warm hose water in the garage and was banned to his crate to dry off.

He's no Bonehead

This is another unique characteristic of Guinness: he sorts his toys into one place. Here he sorted all of his bones plus his beloved Santa. Oh, yes! There is another major difference from Hershey. Hershey never had a stuff toy for more than 10 minutes.

Indoor Walking

The outdoor world is melting creating a yucky, muddy mess, so we went for a walk at Home Depot again and than at Petsmart. Even after having some exercise at Home Depot, he went bonkers as we entered Petsmart. He was uncontrollable with his elation to be there. Oh, my… It is a good thing I am not shy, because we definitely are the center of attention.

Petsmart has cat rescues available. The last time we were at the store, there was a beautiful black adult cat that seemed VERY interested in Guinness. He came up to his window and watched Guinness’s every move. He did the same thing today – got up from his snooze to watch this amazing dog. I think he wants to come home with us.

Patient and Obedient

There is one and only one way that Guinness surpasses Hershey: he is very good about having his training collar and leash attached before leaving for a walk. Hershey went bananas until he was old as I tried to prepare him for a walk. He was just too excited to relax for a few seconds. Guinness, on the other hand, stands still and waits while I gear him up. Shocking!

We braved the coldest day of the winter yet and trudged to the bike walk. It was very difficult walking because the path was several inches of packed snow frozen into a slippery mass. The snow beside the path was like a brick of Swiss cheese with deep, frozen footprints which were equally difficult to navigate. No one was around, so Guinness ran freely for most of the walk. He even escaped into someone’s backyard, but came running when called! Good boy!

Crunch, Crunch

We had a beach walk today. Due to the weather (very cold and not easy walking), there were very few people out. As we walked the length of the beach, it was very sunny, though well below freezing. After the 6 or 8 inch snowfall followed by rain and then freezing temperatures, the snowfall was compacted to about 5 inches and frozen solid. We walked on top of the snow with ease. It certainly was easier to walk on the smooth, crusty surface than where people had sunk several inches into the snow leaving frozen sunken footprints making walking treacherous with the landmines that could break ankles. I noted black and white ducks scattered in the lake instead of in their usual bunched together positions. I assumed that they were Lesser Scaups. But, when we reached the ship channel, ice flows were moving fairly rapidly out to the lake. The longtails could not float in peace in the channel. They were the ducks dotted over the lake. As we started a loop back, I spied a purple and white “ball” ahead. Fortunately, Guinness didn’t see it or it would have been in his mouth. It was a beautiful head of a duck, but I don’t know what duck has a purple head with white stripes. By the time we were back on the snowy beach, the sun had begun to melt the frozen snow so that our feet sunk an inch or more with every step, and our previous silent steps now crackled . It is fascinating to observe the changes in nature.

Lots of Pets

I received a call asking if I would like to have my home air quality tested. Yes, in fact, I do want that done. They said that they were doing research and wanted to collect two air samples from our home; could they come within an hour? Sure! Then I checked out the company on the Web and made a call to them to be certain that this was not a boogey man coming to my house. To avoid needing to crate him, Guinness wore his training collar and dragged his leash so that I could prevent him from mauling the person. It was a very nice young man who came and gave Guinness lots of attention, tummy tickles, and ear rubs while he collected air samples.

As soon as he left, we headed out to run errands. After having a virtual blizzard all day yesterday, then rain all night, I did not want to go for an outdoor walk today through the puddles and slop. Our first stop was Home Depot where we could walk up and down every aisle of the store for our exercise. This was our third time to use that store as a place to walk on bad days. Every time, it is a bit better. He was so excited as we walked through the parking lot, even squealing, that he had exiting customers laughing. He did not charge ahead, but walked beside me quite sedately. I had to give him constant reminders, “You don’t have to say ‘hello’ to every one.” “No sniffing.” “Side!” which means he is to walk at my side, not ahead of me. Of course, there always are a few who look at him with a little fear in their eyes. Most find him amusing. If he saw someone that he thought might be friendly, I would have to use two hands to prevent him from jumping on them. Many in the store, sales people and customers, asked to pet him, complimented his good looks, and gave him the attention he craved. Even two young children petted him, and he was very gentle with them. Hurray! They have a lab/shepherd mix at home, so they understand dogs of this size and exuberance. We picked up some light bulbs and a new indoor/outdoor thermometer. I was shocked and pleased with the patience he exhibited while I made my selections! As we approached the self-checkout, a goofy woman, much like myself, was audibly responding to the talking register. She made a big fuss over him, as she has a 160 pound Mastiff at home.

The Gingerbread Man

For fun, I tried to keep track of the items Guinness stole for playing his Catch-me-if-you-can Game this past week: a washcloth, my Uggs (repeatedly), a sponge, the album of Kevin while still in Russia, a Kleenex box, Tupperware, placemats (repeatedly), mail with Grant's health card replacement form, and a glove. Of course, there was the mixing bowl incident, plus I caught him trying to take from my desk an ancient picture of me in my youth! Grant was packing his suitcase and set his underwear out. The next thing we knew, Guinness was running around with a wad of underwear in his mouth. He does keep us laughing!

Morning Surprise

Grant and Guinness were up before me. When that happens, Guinness eventually comes back to bed to rest some more or to tell me to get up. This morning, I was aware that he jumped on the bed, but I went back to sleep. When I awoke and lifted my head to rise, Guinness’s Santa toy rolled off my head. ICK!