Sunday Walkie

After such a cold, dark (smoggy from all the inversions) winter, it is such a joy to see blue sky (photo taken from our driveway)!

The mountains still have snow but it is almost gone around our neighborhood!

Hey - it's my neighbor Benson!

 Benson just wanted  to say "hello". His name really isn't Benson (it's Buddy) but that is what we named him.

Where's Stanley?

Oh, there he is!

Dad & Stanley when we went on our walk to practice hands-free walking and running.

Whoa - what is THAT??

Sheep and little lambs!

That's the thing about walkies, you never know what you'll run into!

Ball/Leg Update:  I have really been suffering without my ball.  Mom says it is hard for her too.  She was talking to Goose's mom today and glad that Goose's mom knew how hard it was for us (Mom said she felt validated).  But, after we got back from our walkie today Mom watched my walk and she thinks my little "skip" is going away and I am nearly symmetrical!  I'm not sure what that means and why it makes mom happy cuz I still have to wait until June before I can play ball again.  Stanley's knee is doing good too and has not popped out.

CGC Vest Update:  We received our vests.  Mom is all silly and says we look cute in them.  But, we had to reorder the patch cuz the other one didn't fit.  So we can't post a picture until we get the new patch.

Mom's Falling Update:  Mom went skiing yesterday and fell 4 times.  No abrasions but her butt hurts.  Me and Stanley are just glad she didn't break a hip cuz she is very old.


Murphy

We Are Family

At our house everybody brushes their teeth before they go to bed at night.  Those blue tooth brushes are mine and Stanley's.  That's how it is in our family, everybody has a spot on the bathroom counter.

Murphy

Changes Are In The Air!

We are noticing changes   Mom says that we are "pulling away" from winter.  I thought "pulling" was a bad thing but now she says it is a good thing.  English is very confusing.  Luckily, since me and Stanley got our own computers, we can "Google" stuff we don't understand.  Sometimes we even translate it into French.  Sometimes that is just easier.

The snow is almost all gone in the back yard.  The front yard still has about 6" in it.

Do you see what I have in my paws?

I found a stick that I left on the lawn last fall.  It is seasoned just right . . . 

Dad went out to the little wheelie house today and installed batteries.  Mom said in a few days, after a few bad weather days pass, she is going to clean up the little wheelie house for our trip.  Me and Stanley are very excited!  We are making a list of all our stuff we need to take with us.

"Mom should I tell our friends about our hands-free leash practice?"

We went for a walk with our hands-free leashes again today.  I am happy to report mom is doing much better!  I stayed on her left side and she stayed upright.  I am not sure what that means but she said to write it.  I'll Google it later. Last time I think mom did not take our hands-free leash practice very seriously because we were just walking along the road and she decided to lay down right in the street!  When she does that at home it means she wants to play so me and Stanley jumped on her.  I hate to say it but then mom said some HBO words!  Humans are so confusing!  So I was glad mom did better today and we even ran 2 times!  Not too long because she wants to make sure she can stay on the right side of me and what she calls "upright".  She said her abrasions are better today.  I'm not sure what "abrasions" are but I think you put them on cereal.  (Stanley is Googling it for me.)  Anyway, Stanley was practicing with dad and he did good too.  Mom says we'll practice lots more.


Murphy

Wordless Wednesday

Dogtur Visit Results

Me and Stanley went to see Dogtur Eddie today.  The good news is that we can start running but we can only do it on flat, no hills.  We wonder if there is such a place? The reason we cannot do hills is because of some other troubles.  The dogtur thinks my "skip" is because I have chronically strained my shoulders from chasing the ball (explosive motion) and then skidding on slippery floors.  He hopes in a couple months they will be back to normal. If not then he will take a picture.  I will just tell him mom already has 87 million pictures so use one of hers.  Right now he said it is sore and inflamed and that I don't even fully extend my front legs!  But in the meantime I cannot play with my ball AT ALL!  He said, "Three months - no ball!"  I cried when he said that.

Stanley has troubles too, worse than mine.  His knees pop out really easy (he has bad tracks).  The dogtur said eventually he might need an operation on his knees!  He also said this situation makes him susceptible to ACL (or some other letters like that) problems. "But we are just pups I shouted!"  Then the dogtur said if we stay lean and take a pill for our joints it will really help.  He also said we should swim a lot. So that is what we will do . . . run . . . swim . . . take pills . . . no ball.

Stanley's bad tracks.

Murphy

A SPI In The House!

As you already know, our pawrents are planning to start running with us soon.  So they started looking on the Internet for a hands-free leash.  Mom says she does not want to try and run while holding onto a leash.  They looked at several but the one that really caught their eyes was the SPILEASH Hands Free Leash.

Mom and Dad were already familiar with the SPIBELT because they have them for running.  It is a belt that when empty totally collapses but will expand enough to hold lots of stuff (SPI stands for Small Personal Item).  Mom likes it cuz she says you can't even feel you're wearing it.  The other thing that interested them about the SPILEASH is that it comes in different sizes (lengths).  So mom wondered if the SPILEASH people might be interested in sending us some samples to try out and evaluate on our blog.

The nice lady at SPILEASH said she would be happy to send us some leashes to test.  Today we received 2 leashes, one in each of the 2 available colors.  The red one is the "LONG" length, it is 7 feet long (including the part that goes around the waist).  The black one is the standard length of 6 feet (including waist part).  The waist is totally adjustable.  This next photo shows the adjustment for the waist.  It is well built and seems it would have no problem holding up.  You can see the pouch (with the zipper) is totally collapsed down to the same width of the webbed belt portion (1" wide).  The webbed belt runs behind the pouch so the strength of the leash isn't compromised.

The pouch is big enough (since it expands) to hold important things you need when walking or running with your dog.  I told mom to fill mine with some milk bones, dried beef liver, and poop bags (she LOVES saving up my poops, I think she must put them under her pillow).  She said she might put her cell phone in it too.

This is what the whole thing looks like.  The snap is heavy duty, Dad liked that.

Stanley and I wanted to model the leashes so you could get an idea of how they looked with a handsome mini Goldendoodle attached to it.  Mom made me cut her out of the photos because she ran 13 miles today and said she looked "like crap".  Personally, I think she looks beautiful every day.

This is Dad and Stanley with the LONG leash.  The leash can be put on to have the dog on either side.  Do you see the loop near the collar?  That is a hand grip.  Of course we have good enough manners that our pawrents would never need that (remember the ink is barely dry on our CGC certifications), but other dogs might need it.

This is me and mom.  At first we thought maybe I should have the longer leash since I am shorter but it might be long enough that I will get tangled up in it.  Mom likes me to be next to her so we are going to start out with the standard length but we will test both of them to see which we prefer.

This is the hand loop but once again, I have manners so I told her she would not need it.

We're going to put the leashes through the test and we'll review them in an upcoming post.  So far we are very happy with them.  Mom said she  thought of lots of other things to use them for besides running and walking and is excited to see how it works out. We'll take them with us when we take our upcoming vacation to Zion National Park and test them for hiking too. We expect our review will be near the end of the month.

Just so you know, we were not paid for our endorsement and we are not affiliated with the SPILEASH company.  If anyone wants further information, their web site is HERE.  The leashes retail for $29.99.


Murphy

Pee Ess - Me and Stanley are going to the dogtur tomorrow.  Mom wants to make sure that the little "skip" in my gait is nothing to worry about (I have been like that "forever" and still run lightening fast!) and Stanley needs to make sure he is fine for running too cuz sometimes his leg pops out weird).

Hair Stealers

It was 50 degrees today so lots of the snow is melting.  Luckily, me and Stanley worked really hard last summer to dig a zillion holes in the yard and now they are filling up with mud.  YAY - our plan worked perfectly!  Before we came to live with our pawrents, the yard was all green and landscaped.  But we've eaten bushes, ripped out flowers, and pulled out newly planted trees (we just call them sticks) and so now it looks so much better!  With the weather warming we'll do lots more "yard work" too!  We got plans!

This morning, just like mom said, we went to the hair stealers place. Mom said she LOVES our long furs but we were getting too dirty.  We think she is VERY wrong but she got all pushy about it!!  Anyway, here is how we looked after our furs got cut:

Pretty handsome, huh?  I have to admit that my new cut does show off my sleek body.

Stanley looks all muscular and fit too.  Oops, a little smudge under his chin . . . 

I always liked Stanley's smile!

Don't look at our butts.  Oops, tiny spot on our feets . . . 

I posed for this one.  I do this when I stalk Stanley.

One of the many holes in our yard.  Dad fills them up and we dig them out.

NOTHING tastes better than a sip from a mud hole!

You can see I am still over-the-top cute!

"No worries Mom, I'll wipe my paws when I come in!"

Yes, a Doodle's work is never done.


Murphy