Petal’s not the only one…

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Marquie

We’ve all seen pictures of Petal barking, right? We all know how much that girl loves to talk.

But what about Lassie? What about my well behaved gentleman?

He probably never makes a sound. He’s too well behaved and dignified.

3.25.2012

Wrong.

He’s quite the rebel.

But it’s April!

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Marquie

When I looked out the kitchen window this morning I saw this:

Weather, I don’t know if you realize this, but… it’s April.
When I said “April showers bring May flowers” the other day, I meant RAIN showers not snow showers!

We’re not so sure about this.
Normally we love snow, but lately we’ve been enjoying some really lovely spring weather and the snow just sabotaged it!

“This is getting old.”

Petal seems to be pretty happy with it though. She was bouncing around in it this morning.

“YAY! Snow!”

Ella is not a happy dog. She’s tired of this cold weather and this snow!

“Aaahhh! The frozen white fluff is back! Let me in!”

When I went out to get the Collies after their morning potty break I found Lassie like this:

One of his eyebrows was made of snow!

“This isn’t fun anymore. Let me in!”

“I know I was excited before, but… my nose is frozen!”

Happy Saturday! I hope your weekend is warmer than ours!

Annnndd… ACTION!

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Marquie

A collection of running/action shots for your viewing pleasure.

Or perhaps mostly mine. ;]

Either way, enjoy!

Preparing for Easter

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Marquie

The dogs have been preparing for Easter in the past few days.

They’ve been preparing in a… disturbing way.

Disturbing how?

Well, I’ll let the dogs do the talking.

“Why are we doing this, Ella?”
“Because, Petal! This Sunday the Easter Bunny is coming and this time, we’re gonna be ready.”

“Are you sure we should be harming poor little bunnies, Ella?”
“This bunny we’re practicing on may be harmless, but the Easter Bunny? That’s one mean, evil, conniving little bunny! He terrifies children and forces them to search for his eggs! Bunnies don’t even LAY eggs!”

“But wait, Ella! Before you hurt him, I heard the humans saying something about the Easter Bunny leaving candy! We like candy!”
“He leaves CHOCOLATE, Petal! POISON!”

“Let’s get him.”

“Give me the bunny, Ella! When will you ever learn that it’s all just for fun and games for the humans? The Easter Bunny won’t cause any harm. Stop filling Petal’s head with nonsense!”

Happy Saturday! Have a lovely Easter Sunday, keep those chocolate bunnies out of your pet’s reach!
They’re poison I tell you! Poison!
I, however, will be eating as many as I can get my hands on.
;]

Running shots

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Marquie

I absolutely love getting pictures of the dogs in action. I love it when they run laps around the yard. I think the way they move is beautiful and I’ve always been jealous of four-legged creatures (yes, I was one of those kids who liked to walk and run on my hands and knees (how did you guess?! ;P), I also kept my fingers curled into my palms and called them my ‘paws’ and nearly everyday I had my Mom put my hair up into two high pigtails or as I called them: puppy dog ears). To run like that would be so great!

Here are some action pictures I got about a week ago.
Enjoy. :]

Wordless Wednesday: If my dogs were horses.

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Marquie

But first, I must interrupt this Wordless Wednesday program to bring you…
WORDS!
In the form of promoting and letting you all know about a wonderful fundraiser that’s been brought to my attention.

The Barkers Dozen (an organic and eco-friendly dog treat company based in Chicopee, Massachusetts) has launched a fundraiser for a beautiful rescue dog in need, Daffy. Daffy is currently suffering from a mysterious, undiagnosed disease and The Barkers Dozen has put together a fundraiser to help Daffy get the care she needs.

Through the month of April, 50% of profits made from treat sales at The Barkers Dozen will go to Daffy and her owner Ingrid.
Plus, if you use the promo code “DAFFY” at checkout, you’ll get a special thank you gift!

You can read more about the fundraiser here: “Dollars for Daffy” Fundraiser Launched
You can read more about Daffy here: Barkers Buddy: Daffy
And you can purchase some treats from The Barkers Dozen here: The Barkers Dozen

Now is a great time to get some goodies for your dogs! ;]

Now back to being wordless.

Making treats in just 500 easy steps!

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Marquie

Just kidding.
There aren’t 500 steps.
But today I did make the dogs some treats.

Treats that they are anxiously waiting to freeze.

Here’s what I did, but first note that…

It’s not really a recipe, just me grabbing things the dogs love, mixing it up, and stuffing it into a few Kongs. lol!

But here it is anyway.

Step 1: Find yourself at least one hungry pup.

This girl always has something on her nose.

Petal will do.

Though, please note, that she’s not a good food critic. She’ll eat just about anything you give to her and she always looks like this when something’s being made in the kitchen.

Anyway.

Step 2: Get the Kongs out.

Hopefully you don’t have more Kongs than you have dogs. I’m still not sure how I ended up with four Kongs when I only have three dogs.

Step 3: Gather together some Peanut Butter, Yogurt and Apple slices.

Oh, and don’t forget the Honey*.

*Honey not pictured because I forgot it.

Step 4: Add desired amount of yogurt to a bowl.

See how amazing it looks?
Too bad it doesn’t taste amazing. At all.
But the dogs enjoy it.

Step 5: Add desired amount of peanut butter.
This you can eat!

Step 6: Mix it all up!

Step 7: Add apple slices! Or whatever fruit your dog enjoys. Just so long as it isn’t grapes or raisins.

Step 8: Start spooning it into a Kong!

Step 9: As you’re filling the second Kong, remember about the honey that you forgot and quickly add that in! Mix it up and pretend like you never forgot about it.

Step 10: Place Kongs in freezer, because frozen treats take a little longer to devour and thus they keep your dog busy longer. ;]

And no, I have no idea who will get that fourth Kong…

Step 11: Look at this face and tell him he can’t have them yet because they need to freeze first.

Then let him lick the bowl clean because you feel guilty for denying the poor starving Collie some food.

Then when the girls get jealous, you’ll have to let them lick the spoons clean.

Leave the treats in the freezer long enough to get good and frozen. Then pull them out when the dogs are destroying the house or have worked themselves up into a barking frenzy because the wind blew a tumble weed down the street. Or maybe you just got back from a walk or playing outside and your dog needs to cool off. They’ll have a tasty, distracting, and cold treat and you’ll have a few minutes of peace. ;]

New neighbors

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Marquie

Yesterday the dogs noticed something peculiar going on next door and they made sure everyone in our house, and anyone near by, knew about it. We all went to the window to see what all the fuss was about.

Our neighbors across the street were moving their four gorgeous horses across the street and into our next door neighbors’ yard; the yard that backs up against the side of our yard.

We think the horses are going to be living in that yard temporarily while (it looks like) their owners re-fence their own yard.

So, for now, the dogs have some horses on the other side of the fence to bark at and sniff!

Thank goodness these horses normally live with two border collie mixes and they seem to be fairly use to the barking. They don’t seem to mind it too much. They also don’t mind nosey little Petal Collies sticking their slender little heads through the fence to get a good sniff of them.

Ella didn’t join us for this meeting. She gets a little crazy around horses. Okay, a LOT crazy. I think she might be afraid of them. And with Ella going crazy and being nervous and stressed + Petal being crazy excited and crazy curious + Lassie trying to herd them, it would have made for many hysterical dogs.

It was also windy and freezing cold yesterday (you’ll see the lovely storm clouds that brought us some snow and power-outage in the photos) and Ella was not happy with the weather. I didn’t think it would be very nice of me to combine her least favorite things. So she stayed inside the warm, horse-free, house.

Anyway, on to the pictures!

“What’s this? When did those horses get there?!”
“Time to investigate!”