Here’s a calendar with knitted dog sweaters for every month. Some of them are cute, although there are a couple of rather strange ones.
What do you think, should I make Molly a bikini for the summer swimming season? Because, you know, she’s not neurotic enough yet…
The fence is done! Even though the lattice isn’t up under the deck yet, we decided to go ahead and let the dogs run free in the backyard. Oh, my. Murphy was running full tilt around and around, ears streaming out from his head, and Molly was exploring every single fence board to make sure it didn’t harbor any stray C.A.T.s.
I was worried enough about making sure that they didn’t run under the deck (it’s anywhere from 4 to 5 1/2 feet clearance off the ground, and there isn’t a fence on the other side) that I didn’t bring out my camera, but I will definitely have to get some chase pictures this weekend. Molly-of-the-bad-hips was chasing Murphy as though her life depended on catching him. Just imagine a blur of black followed by a blur of gold, and you’ve got your pictures.
Now the dogs are totally exhausted. Even the word “food” can hardly get more than an ear twitch response. A tired puppy is a good puppy!
Study finds dogs understand language. Well, of course they do, as anyone who has lived with dogs will tell you. Molly and Murphy both recognize toy words – “ball”, “bone”, “dolly” – and can follow simple requests to get a particular type of toy. They know the difference between “deck” and “outside”, and will go to the appropriate door when you say one word or the other (in a phrase or not). We spell all kinds of words, especially “dog”, “cat”, “food” and “out”, to avoid crazy doggie behavior. They actually picked up on “f.o.o.d.”, so we now spell it “f.u.d.”. I would estimate that they know about 100 words and phrases. I actually suspect they know a whole lot more than that, but they aren’t letting on!
Yeah, so, tell me again why I’ve chosen to share my house with dogs…?
Destructo-Boy did something so naughty that I can’t even bring myself to write about it in any sort of amusing little news flash. Let’s just say, my sheepy-faced drop spindle and a bobbin for my spinning wheel are now missing chunks of their wooden selves. The yarn on each of those appears to be mostly intact, but may or may not be salvageable – I haven’t had the heart to look that closely.
The dining room gate, which he has learned how to open, was replaced tonight. Of course, I’m not sure I can even open the new one, but as far as I’m concerned, I don’t really care, as long as the dogs stay out of the living room where my wool and spinning wheel live. He’s been sneaking into that room for weeks now, which was sort of cute, because he didn’t destroy anything, just carried around skeins of yarn like they were puppies. Now it’s not so cute.
Here they are: the three amigos. They stay relatively still and attentive if you promise them food…well, until Molly gets bored, Murphy starts jumping, and Oscar runs around to sit on the other side!
I was hoping to get a picture of them when they were laying in a triangle, each touching both of the others, but as soon as I got up from the table to get the camera, three doggies instantly got up too so they could help me with any leftovers from lunch!
I got gauge! And only on my second try! Well, actually, I got stitch gauge, but not row gauge, but I still have to wash the swatch and see if it grows any.
In other news, Oscar is staying with us for the weekend, so I have three dogs chasing each other around the house right now. They don’t really stay still long enough to get any pictures, but I’ll see what I can do.
Well, a small corner of the web has, anyway! Molly and Murphy now have their pages up on Dogster, although I still need to go trolling through my digital pictures to find some more to put up for them. Heck, it would probably be easier to just take more! (Well, it would be easier if my brother hadn’t absconded with my large camera memory card to take pictures with on his cruise. My old 64 MB cards only have room for 18 pictures at a time with this new camera. Ugh.)
So, has anyone used the new version of iPhoto that’s bundled with iLife? It might be worth the $$ if the organization is really as good as they advertise…
I came home to a package the other day that contained these:
Aren’t they gorgeous colors? Thank you Carolyn! Now I just need to buy several more bobbins, because I seem to be about as good at sticking to one spinning project as I am at sticking to one knitting project…in other words, not at all!
My wheel came with 5 bobbins. When I tried to ply the first time, I had the two bobbins of natural wool that I was going to ply, and one of pink wool that I’d started spinning. Now, I am a smart girl, I realized that two full bobbins of singles would produce two full bobbins of plied yarn. However, I didn’t realize until then that one of the bobbins they sent was different. (Well, OK, I had realized it looked different, but I didn’t realize until I tried to use it that it didn’t fit.) I had to do a bit of juggling to finish plying my yarn. So, since I currently have two bobbins of pink singles, one of purple, and one in the mail to be exchanged for the right one, I need more bobbins! (I’m good at justifying these things!)
Oh, and here’s a gratuitous puppy picture. They were being so cute this morning, I had to do a photo-shoot. I still need to play a bit with the camera – it took several shots before I was happy with the lighting and the exposure – but I was more worried about whether they were looking at me, and if they were just going to riot and tackle me for the treats I had in my hand!
Everyone makes such a big deal about Murphy’s law – you know, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Well, we decided that Molly needs her own law – we don’t want to show favoritism, here! So, without further ado, here is Molly’s law:
Anything that can be barked at will be barked at.
(This includes C.A.T.s, the mail truck, deer, cars pulling out of the driveway across the street, cars pulling into the driveway across the street, people walking by, dogs walking by, reflections on the ceiling, noises from the furnace…you get the idea.)
Do you think dogs appreciate music? I recently bought myself some new piano music – Jim Brickman’s Peace – and as I was playing through it last night it got me wondering. My dogs seem to completely settle down when I start playing piano, even if they are in the midst of puppy “zoomies”. My cousin’s dog even howls along to the radio whenever Celene Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” comes on…of course, we’re not sure if it’s because he likes that song or hates it!
Music is such an integral part of my life that I would like to think that the little doggy sighs as they lay down in the living room doorway are due to an appreciation of the music. Either that, or they’re sighing over the fact that I’m in a room they’re not allowed in…