Mistakes Charm

Well, it has happened again. Yoshi got into something he shouldn’t have. Someday Sue and I will learn, but for now, we keep making the same mistakes. We know that there are things that Yoshi will chew on if he has access to them.

Today he got into Aphro’s food, and her watering container. I’m sure Aphro isn’t too upset about the food since it was mainly her leftover crumbles that she doesn’t like to eat, but I am a little upset at the water container. Sheesh. As if we don’t already provide enough chew toys for Yoshi.

I’ve wanted to create a list of things Yoshi has eaten/chewed/destroyed for quite a while. Here is the start of that list.

Plastic Items:

measuring cup
cutting board
ice cream pail
Aphro’s water container
recycling items
flashlight
BBQ scraper brush
container with not-yet-dry red paint
Sprout’s brush

Wood Items:

salad servers
napkin holder

Misc Items:

cat food
cat litter
drain plugs (2 of them)
deck of cards

These lists are not complete. I know there are more, and when I remember them I will update this post. Yoshi is a pretty crazy dog, just part of his charm.

[update 1] added paint container and brush
[update 2] added deck of cards

Pointer Story

What happens when you make a pointer laugh? The pictures tell the story.

Actually this is just Yoshi yawning. I happened to catch him on camera doing this, and thought the shots looked kinda funny.

Flower Duvet

It’s a good thing our pets are cute. They do some things that just make you shake your head.

Here, Yoshi is using a flower pot as a pillow. Yeah, that seems comfortable.

In these pictures, Aphro has situated herself between the duvet and the duvet cover. Just because the duvet cover itself was not comfortable enough, she had to get right on the duvet.

Cheese Treats

Everyone knows I love my dog. Yoshi is a pretty amazing dog. He is fun, quirky, cute, loyal, protective, and energetic.

One thing I have learned about Yoshi recently is that he is also very patient.

Early April Sox and I had some family visitors. They brought their son (let’s call him H) who is just over a year old, and is walking.

At one point during the visit H was eating some cheese. He walked up to Yoshi with the cheese, held it out, rubbed it on Yoshi’s nose, then walked away with his cheese.

Yoshi never did anything. He didn’t try to steal the cheese, he didn’t get up from his bed he was sleeping on, he didn’t even bat an eye. I was pretty impressed by this.

We are after all talking about a dog that let’s me balance treats on his nose (he will do almost anything for food).

Cute Pets

Yoshi Zing

You ever get that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as soon as you realize (or it is pointed out) that you did something so utterly stupid that you will pay dearly for it?

This story started a couple weeks ago. Sox and I were going to paint a bunch of rooms in our house. We cleaned the walls, emptied the rooms, and generally did a lot of prep.

Last weekend some friends came over and helped us paint. We got 99% of it done in that weekend. All we had to do was some finishing touches, and paint our focus wall in the office. We had chosen Cranberry Zing. Very nice color. Very hard to get even across the wall. After 3 coats I think I have finally given up.

The story took a turn for the worse yesterday when we got a call from our dog walker. Seems Yoshi decided to chew on the plastic container (we know he likes to chew things) that I had used for painting the edges of the wall.

I hadn’t cleaned the container so there was some dried red paint in the bottom. Red latex paint. Red latex paint that didn’t dry all the way through.

The dog walker reported that there was dry paint on the carpet so we assumed that meant paint chips. There was that sinking feeling.

When we got home it was much worse than I thought. Paint smears that had dried were on the carpet in the office. Paint smears in the hallway. Smears on the hardwood and tile (easy to clean though), and paint on our couch (as well as a dog bed). There was even some paint on one of the counters (he must have gone counter surfing at one point). Uggh. Remember Cranberry Zing? A nice bright red color.

Down on our hands and knees we scrubbed and scrubbed until it was almost all out. Then I rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned the carpets. Not exactly what I was planning on doing that evening. I would have much rather been putting our things away in our newly painted rooms, but thankfully we seem to have gotten it mostly out. If you know where to look you will still be able to see a bit of red where there shouldn’t be any.

Today I am sore and tired, wondering when we will finally be finished this paint job. My fingers are especially raw today too. I just want to go home and crawl back into bed. Instead Sox and I have a weekend away (with no dog). Something relaxing, rejuvinating, and much needed.

Season Genie

Busy time of year like always. Seems I haven’t made time for blogging, something I will try to do more of.

The last couple weeks are work have been extremely busy. I have worked hard for many long hours. The goal was reached though, so it has relaxed a little. The customer is happy with the product, management was happy with the effort. The worst day I worked from 9am until 4am the next morning. That is a long, tiring day.

This past weekend, Sox’s mom came over for a visit. We went and saw Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash movie. Excellent movie. I really enjoyed it. The focus wasn’t on his music, but about him and his life. It was very well written, well casted, and the actors provided a great performance. I don’t know a lot of his music, but I am more inclined to check it out now.

The Christmas season is most definitely upon us. I am happy to report that I am well into my Christmas shopping for this year. Maybe I will even finish early. That never happens for me though. We got our outside lights up this past weekend, and we are quite happy with them. We did something different that past years, and we quite like it. We bought our tree last night, and tonight it will be decorated. If we don’t run out of steam, then we may decorate the house. I am not counting on that one though.

Also this past weekend was Sox’s companies Christmas party. It was pretty fun, but the food was outstanding. They held it at Sauce (a nice restaurant downtown) again this year. Their prime rib was one of the best I have ever had. Tomorrow is my companies Christmas party at Laurel Point Inn. I am looking forward to it. I think it is going to be a very good time. We have a secret Santa exchange, which is different from the anonymous gifts of years past. Anyone remember the Christmas Cock?

Yoshi has been busy the past couple weeks too. He has yakked on the floor a couple times, destroyed the refill to the diaper genie, and generally driven us nuts every couple days. Who says neutering slows dogs down? They obviously haven’t met Yoshi.

The last thing to note is that I heard about a 1 day course being offered this month for learning digital image manipulation to get it ready for printing. There were only 5 spots, and I managed to get one of them. I am pretty pumped. I have learned from the instructor before, so I am quite excited about the course. Dec 17 is the day. Some of the topics:

Introduction to Photoshop CS
Workflow colour management
Basic raw image conversion
Common Photoshop tools used for image manipulation
Tips & Techniques to emphasize the best in your image
Image prep for print out
Printout of the final images

That will be my present to myself. Merry Christmas to me! 🙂

Immensely Nuts

Today I have a free day off. I am enjoying the day immensely. I am relaxing, doing some errands, cleaning up around the house, and generally just doing relaxing things.

One of those things is walking Yoshi. He had a great romp at the park today, despite getting trapped and lost in a giant bramble bush (he was in pretty deep, so far I couldn’t see or hear him). It was chilly out, but I bundled up well. Now Yoshi is sleeping on the dog bed behind me snoring away. Lucky pooch.

Lucky me too. Work was pretty nuts the past couple weeks. Today is my first day off since November 20. Time to get caught up on life. Tonight Sox and I are going to her companies Christmas Party, tomorrow Sox’s mom comes over for a visit, then Sunday we are having K and JJ join us for dinner downtown, then off to the Theatre to see Stuart McLean.

Yeah, now that is a weekend to look forward to.

Misty Macaulay

Misty, foggy morning today. Yoshi didn’t mind at all on his walk though. Ran and ran and ran.

We stopped on the hill in Macaulay Point Park for a bit to let Yoshi play with some other dogs. All was fine until a ChuckIt was produced. Once Yoshi see’s that thing, no other dog (nor Sox and I) exist anymore. All that exists is the ball that will be released by the ChuckIt.

Peeling him from the ball we continued on our walk, and he forgot all about it. The rest of the afternoon he has spent at my side sleeping. Such a good dog.

Chewer Deck

Today was my day to come home to walk Yoshi. Something about Yoshi that many people don’t know. He is a chewer. Like many pointers he chews when he is bored. Throughout the time we have had Yoshi, he has eaten or destroyed many household items. Plastic and wood are his favorite chew toys. Wooden mixing spoons, plastic cutting boards, wooden salad servers, wooden napkin holder, plastic buckets, 2 sink drain plugs (one he ate the rubber off of, the other just disappeared), and now a deck of cards have all fallen

To be honest, this one was my fault. Sox and I played a game of cribbage, and jokingly I tossed this deck on the ground. I claimed that I wasn’t going to pick it up, but my intetion was to throw the deck away (it was missing a card). Instead I totally forgot to do anything with them. Yoshi got a new chew toy today and it was my fault. Doh!

Beyond that slip up, we aren’t really sure what causes Yoshi to decide to snag something from the counter and go on a rampage. We know he does it when bored, but what makes a dog decide he is bored? We alway leave toys out for him. There is almost always bones or other chew toys for him. What is so appealing about a deck of cards over a nice smoky bone? Just what does run through that little pea brain of his?

muddylaces

Spreading mud since 1975.

Tag: Yoshi