Big baby

I know this isn't chronological, but I just remembered it... The night I brought Mikey home, I left him in the car for a few minutes while I put my other dogs in a pen so that we could all be introduced one at a time. He didn't think much of this plan, and started to cry. He was only eleven weeks old at the time. The same size as the larger Cockers, but still a baby. Jewel has been a mama several times and so when she heard a baby crying went to check on him. I was just getting him out of the car when she came to see if he was alright. She looked all around for the baby that she heard crying. Finally realized it was the large animal right in front of her, and was shocked. She did run over to him and touch him with her nose, then she ran about a yard away and stood looking at him in disbelief. Fortunately for her peace of mind, he stopped crying and focused on checking out his new world. Her look of shock and disbelief was priceless.

Its still August-hot. Has been since June. Very tiring. Sitting inside in the a/c thinking up great outdoor ideas, then go outside just to get something from the car--ick!! way way waywayway too hot to do anything outside. The Great Pyrenees pup is growing and growing. Hasn't had an "accident" in the house for a week or more, but does NOT WANT to go outside in the heat of the day. He thinks its a really bad idea, and his legs don't want to walk, maybe they're melting... Since I didn't have any work today, I thought I'd take Tiger Lily and Mikey to Dinosaur Valley State Park. I also thought I'd go EARLY before it got hot. (I like to think of myself as a realist). We got there straight up 12 o'clock noon. My high tech car informed me that it was 94 degrees. Took the dogs for a walk to the edge of the "blue hole" an old fashioned swimming hole that presumably has dinosaur tracks visible on a ledge which is only seeable from the water. Which is (they say) about 12' deep. We walked down a trail for a ways, and then back to the car where I gave the dogs a drink-- and that was a circus. one of them drinks the bowl dry, I refill it, somebody wraps their leash around it, I rescue the bowl from being dumped over, one of them backs up and sits in the bowl--dumping it ... I finally decided arbitrarily that they had both had enough to drink and led them to the shade of a tree where I studied the map of the park. I'd been there once, about 17 years ago. And I remembered wading across the river trying to see the tracks in the middle of the river. I couldn't read the map today to figure out where those tracks are. The map shows " track site 1" and "track site 2" and describes them. It also shows track sites 3 and 4, but doesn't say anything about them. We got back in the car and drove to the next place, but the dogs weren't cooled off yet, so we drove to another place I thought was the picnic area, but was actually the place I was looking for. Stonework stairs down to the river, large blocks of stone in the river, everything covered with slimy slippery muddy, greeny grayey goo. Mind you, to be fair, where the rocks were out of the water, they were not slippery. However, long before we got down to the river, the dogs were both unhappy and HOT again. When we did get to the river, I had to push Tiger Lily to get her to put her paws in the water. And then she stood with 2 paws or sometimes all 4 in the water. Mikey wasn't going to finish coming down the stairs, he had had it, it was TOO HOT. Finally got him down tto the river's edge and when he got two paws wet, he waded on in and then lay down. I was in the shade of a small tree, so we stayed there for half an hour or so. I had to pick him up to get him to move. He was never going to leave the wonderful river til the sun went down. When he did get up, his left hip and side were greeny, grayey, gooey. So he lay in the shade of a tree next to the car while I had my lunch. Tiger Lily didn't care if it was hotter in the car than outside. There's always the possibility that the car will blow cold air, and take her home.

Mikey's third week with us

This Mikey character is amazing. I thought I remembered watching Mega growing. But maybe not considering how astonished I am every day. He's been here now 3 weeks and 1 day. When I brought him home he was almost 11 weeks old. The same size as the Cocker Spaniels. Tomorrow he will be 14 weeks old. His play buddy, Topaz, now comes only to the point of his hip. There is over four inches difference between them. Neither of them seems to know it yet. Even though Topaz gets very upset sometimes when Mikey falls on him when they are playing. Mikey is not nearly as prone to falling down now as when he first came. But it seems to be part of the game for him, he starts to lean a little and then he goes ahead and falls over. Sometimes this precipitates a lot of noise from the spaniel. I don't know what kind of personality Mikey will have. So far he has been submissive, but he's beginning to know his place here. I actually heard him growling while they were playing today. He hasn't done that before.