Lazy Ender

One of my New Years resolutions was to be a better doggy mama. Part of that entails me taking the doggies on more adventures on the weekends as opposed to sitting on the couch and watching tv all day. During these adventures, I began to realize that Ender has gotten pretty lazy in his old age. We would try to play fetch with him, only to have him go lay down after about three throws. Granted that he has always been a bit ambivalent towards us, this lack of activity made us wonder if he even moves at all during his walks. Evidence also shows that he enjoys his "lay down time."



Ender's dogwalker, Lucia, titled this next photo:

"Ender was ignoring Ursula today for his stick. She was not happy about that."


All photos courtesy of awesome dog walker Lucia.

It's been that kind of morning...

Ender and I were on our morning walk when I stopped in front of a driveway to practice one of our exercises. I am working on training our dogs so that when I stop walking, they stop, sit, and look at me. So as Ender sat and looked at me, I hear a deep voice saying "excuse me ma'am."

I literally stared at Ender and thought...wow, if Ender could talk, that would be EXACTLY what he would sound like. Then I hear the voice again and at this point, it was feeling a bit twilight zone-esque, until I realize that the voice was coming from a neighbor who was standing behind me, who's driveway we were blocking.

Is there such a thing?

I saw a commercial for Confessions: Animal Hoarding on the Discovery Channel today. The title of their next episode is "Too Many Pitbulls." Now, I ask, is there such a thing? Haha. Here's the info for the episode:

Too Many Pitbulls
Premieres Friday, Jan. 28, at 10 PM E/P
A single dad believes he's on a mission from God to save pit bulls and a woman tries to stop her stubborn mother's cat hoarding before she ends up homeless. Follow Shane and Sharon as they come to grips with the perils of hoarding animals.

Onto other smells...

Over the past two days, Ender has been farting up a storm. In my googling efforts, I came across something that was too enlightening to keep to myself:

Why are stinky farts generally warmer and quieter than regular farts?

Most fart gas comes from swallowed air and consists largely of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, the oxygen having been absorbed by the time it reaches the anal opening. These gases are odorless, although they often pick up other (and more odiferous) components on the way through the bowel. They emerge from the anus in fairly large bubbles at body temperature. A person can often achieve a good sound with these voluminous farts, but they are commonly (but not always!) mundane with respect to odor, and don't feel particularly warm.

Another major source of fart gas is bacterial action. Bacterial fermentation and digestion processes produce heat as a byproduct as well as various pungent gases. The resulting bubbles of gas tend to be small, hot, and concentrated with stinky bacterial metabolic products. These emerge as the notorious, warm, SBD (Silent-But-Deadly), often in amounts too small to produce a good sound, but excelling in stench.

courtesy of Facts on Farts

What's that Smell?

We came home to a strong odor today. And it wasn't one of those hits you in the face, oh sh*t odors. But a strong, sickly sweet odor...like Maple Syrup?!?!? So then I google "dog smells like maple syrup" and to my surprise, there was more than one search result. So from what I gather, it would be from running through plants during his doggy adventure, treats he's been eating, or he's peeing out maple syrup. But thanks to this lovely post, I think it might just be the plants:

http://girlshikingwithdogs.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-dog-smells-like-maple-syrup.html

Hey Everybody, Walk Time!

Here's the bf with a pack of crazies. Every now and then, we consider quitting our day jobs to walk doggies all day. That is until I find myself with more than two dogs and realize how mentally exhausting it really is.

Why meeeee???

Ender probably asks this everyday. Sometimes more than one day.

Soft Crate

When Barksdale was just a little puppy, the bf took her to work everyday. She soon grew out of her mini plastic crate and was doing so well we bought her a soft crate. We were attracted to the portability but failed to realize that Barksdale would soon come to realize her inner crazy and try to destroy the crate from the inside out.

The Joys of Winter

One joy of winter is the month long winter break at UC Berkeley which results in available parking and a giant fenced in field to run around in.