Dog Days of Summer

Well, I've now been a dog owner for about a month and a half, and things haven't been exactly as  I expected. First, I expected our lawn to suffer.  I made it perfectly clear to my kids (and Jerry) that if we were to get a dog, that the poop patrol would NOT be a mommy duty.  Well, the poop in the backyard hasn't been a big deal.  She's not that big of a dog, if you know what I mean.  What did surprise me was this:

Instead of a little brown patch everywhere she pees, it's like someone has poured miracle-gro on the lawn.  Too bad you can't teach her to be more methodical in her placement - our lawn now looks like it has some form of chicken pox or something.  It's even more noticeable as the temperatures have been soaring to well over 100° (today's high is supposed to be 113°) and the grass is turning a crunchy brown. 

Speaking of crunchy and brown, Terri bought Oreo a gift in Colorado to welcome her to the family.  Oreo got her very own moose. . . dog biscuit. 

Oh, Oreo! 

POP! 

 

Well, hello there!  Care to come back to my crate for a nice snack? 

The dog biscuit was a nice diversion for Oreo.  Since it's sooooo hot outside, we've been keeping her inside quite a bit.  Most of the time you can find her here:

You can tell when she sees a squirrel or bird though, her stance changes:

But most of the time she just keeps an eye out for intruders:

*Sigh*.  These temperatures aren't fit for (wo)man or dog.  We've been having our walk early in the morning to avoid the heat.   The other day I slept in a bit and didn't walk until 9:00 - and it was brutal.  We play fetch in the house, because it's just too hot outside. 

We've signed up for obedience classes.  In general, Oreo is a well-behaved dog, but she likes to pull at the leash and bark at passing joggers in a threatening manner, so we are going to see if we can do anything about that.  We signed up for a time that the whole family can go, so that she'll learn to obey all of us, although Oreo seems most strongly attached to me - figures, since she's with me most of the day.  She's a sweet dog - who knows, I may end up being a dog person after all.