Humans are a little odd.

But we like them anyway.  Take for instance, food.  A lot of times, J will be fixing  lunch and Buzz and I will be watching, very closely.  I try to put my ears down into what JK calls the "Seinfeld shower" look. Flat to my head and very beggarly.  But we're not allowed to whine. Usually somewhere in there, we'll get a carrot or two, man, those are delicious. So anyway, Jen will be fixing her meal and she'll say something like, "Oh, this looks soooo good."  Then she'll look at us and say, "But not as good as dog food."  By that, I know our food tastes better, because she would never say that if she didn't mean it.  We're the lucky ones. 

But here's the thing.  One time, K grilled four turkey burgers on the grill. They fixed their plates and went to sit in their narcoloungers and eat dinner and watch TV.  (Seinfeld, probably.  What is with that show, there are no dogs except a couple annoying ones now and then. And Costanza! I'd like to bite him. And I'm not a biter).  Later Ken took his plate to the kitchen and even though I was in another room, I heard him say, "Hon, did you double up your burger?"  Jen was like, "What! No, I just had one."    K said something like, "Well, there's only one left on this plate out here on the counter."  J said, "Maybe you doubled up and you just don't remember." And back and forth.  I think K thinks J really did double up. And vice versa. All I can say is, Buzz is very jealous of how tall I am. I wanted to share. I really did.  No. Really.

Yesterday was a great one for food!  KJ grilled hot dogs (K says he ate them every Memorial Day as a kid). J made potato salad and they ate that annoying cantelope that we ignore if it falls on the floor. 

First, we walked to the boat ramp. Jen had some shampoo in the backpack, because Buzz is still red-dirty and grungy. But when we got there, there were so many fishermen that Buzz escaped the scrub.  To celebrate, he rolled in fresh spoor. Well, I don't know if it was fresh spoor, but I like to say "spoor."  I chased the ball, caught some high bounces, did some swimming, etc.  It was already getting hot by then.

On the walk back, Buzz and I saw a long green snake in the road. It had just gotten run over. I felt sorry for it.  Buzz says in his heyday, he would have killed that thing toot sweet and then he told me, for the umpteenth time, about a flying squirrel he pounced on and killed when he lived in Georgia. I pretended I had never heard it before. 

When we got back - after breakfast -Oh GLORY. The boat, the boat, the boatboatboat!  We went for a long ride.  Jen said it was like surfing crossways on a waffle. Pretty choppy. There were so many boats out, so much wake, that we did a lot of bouncing.  Doesn't matter. I spend most of my time keeping watch out front. If it gets too rough, I just crouch down. But K needs me to be on the alert. It's my job.

Buzz got down on the floor of the boat, and I could tell he was feeling a little seasick, so for a while I left the bow and let him rest his head on my back in the shade.  He appreciated it. JK told me I was a good dog and J petted my foot with her foot. It was a great ride.

When we got back, we got a couple biscuits and JK ate lunch. Or dinner. I don't know. Something in the middle of the day.  I spent the next hour chasing butterflies and bird shadows in the back yard.  There is always work to be done.

JK left for a while and -now this is where it gets good - they brought us ice cream cones!!  Buzz taught me how to eat them, you lick inside the cracker part and then just crunch.  Brain freeze! Then after that, back down to the dock for a little more swimming and JK covered the boat.  And that was our Memorial Day.  I hope yours was just as good. 

So I hope you all check back...Tomorrow I'm going to showcase all my friends, that I have pictures of.  Pretty exciting. I was sooo happy to hear from Oliver and Mae. Ollie - I call those "pelts." But to be honest, you're one up on me, I have never found a rabbit head.  Later guys.

An extra day!

Ken and Jen are hanging out today, it's a "holiday!"  Which means Ken isn't spending time in that room upstairs, where I go to visit him several times a day.  He's always happy to see me, but sometimes he's just talking and talking, to absolutely nobody that I can see. If he's talking to me, I don't get it.  I know "get the ball" and "jump in the lake" and a whole lot else, but when he says "get a price quote" or "jump on that" -? No clue. I look around the room but ususally I just go over to the window and look out, or lie under his desk to keep his feet warm. But I'll keep trying and let you know if I figure out where the pricequote is.  He doesn't seem to mind when I just bring him my babies instead.

My babies?  I never told you about my babies? Hold on a second.

Here's Buzz and me coming in from outdoors, after Jen sent me out to get my baby. I had buried it in some pine straw. This baby here is my absolute favorite. It's a little white dog.  Oh, and that's a bone up there in the corner of my mouth. How I got this baby is actually a pretty good story.  I can tell it if you want. Ok, ok. (I love to tell stories).

Well, it was a day back in late December of last year. KJ decided that Buzz and I would get to go along with them to a town called Savannah, Georgia.  We were going to meet up with Lindsay, Chris, Deb, and Mark.  Deb and Mark are Chris's parents and KJ are Lindsay's.  Deb and Mark had apparently come a long, long way to see Linds and Chris. Wherever "Australia" is. All I know is, I was soooo excited to go in the car!! And so was Buzz.  Jen spiffed us up a bit and then we got put in the back. Buzz just lays down and relaxes, but I can't stand it, I have to look out the windows and because I just know something is going to happen, I can't sit still. At least, not at first. On this day, I spent most of my time hanging my head over the seat so that I could see out that front window and listen to KJ talk. 

Well, naturally I got a little restless around about somewhere in South Carolina. It's about a four hour trip, and a guy needs a bathroom break. So Ken pulled over at some small town and we drove past the restaurants and Starbucks and grocery stores to a big empty lot with just some dumpsters scattered around. Buzz and I of course were just dancing with excitement - "we get to get out!!"  We leaped out as soon as Ken opened the back, and Buzz of course runs right over to the nearest bunch of grass and does his business.  (Buzz is the one who taught me how to lift my leg. Before that I just squatted. He's better at it than I am, but I lift mine WAY higher, I don't get why KJ always laugh at me, but they do).  I was looking for the perfect spot and saw a kind of boxy thing, with clothes spilling out of a slot and  two cardboard boxes full of treasures in front of it.  On the very top of one box was a little stuffed white dog. I couldn't believe someone had left it there for me! I raced over and grabbed it, and since that day, it's been my favorite baby.

Well, there's more to this story. So Buzz came over and asked where his toy was. Jen dug around in the box and found one more stuffed thing.  "What the heck?" she said to Ken. "This is a stuffed scabies mange?" Ken took it and read the label. "Hmm, stuffed microbes. I can't believe they wanted to give this to charity."  And so Buzz got scabies mange.  He hated it, from the second he got it.  He wouldn't touch it or play with it.  KJ just laughed and laughed.  Later on at home, Jen took a picture of Buzz with scabies mange.  

 You can tell by the look in Buzz's eye that he is repulsed by scabies mange. But I found my baby first, he wasn't even looking in the box, so I got to keep it.

Yeah, there's Chris, Lindsay, Mark, Deb, Ken, Jen and me and Buzz. That was such a fun day. We walked all over Savannah's waterfront. I loved those Australian people. KJ bought us these big old dried ham bones to chew on while they ate lunch.  It wasn't hot out, so they put us in the car.  The bones were great, but we were so thirsty by the time they got back to the car that we drank water until we couldn't drink anymore.

Later that day we said goodbye to everyone, and drove back.  Well, of course all that water....!  So once again in South Carolina, Ken pulled over, this time at a fireworks place.  Jen put Buzz and me on leashes and let us walk around while Ken went into the store.  I looked up and saw two HUGE animals. I mean, huge.  I barked and barked, but they didn't move. I tell you, I had no interest in getting any closer, but Jen felt like we should meet.  So she pulled me over (Buzz just trotted along) and told me I needed to check them out. She said, "Maxie,  they're just like a building. Not real animals."  So?!  I still didn't want to go but I hated to disappoint her. And Buzz didn't seem worried at all.  I cautiously approached and man, once I got there, I realized by sniffing that many, many other dogs had also visited these gigantic animals.  It was actually pretty interesting.  Sometimes JK just make me do things I don't want to do so I won't be afraid (left over from my puppy days, but that's another story). Jen said, "They're elephants."  Whatever. Smelled like dog pee to me.

And that's the story of the day I found my favorite baby. I have a feeling today's gonna be a really good day. Catch you later.

I'm going to try harder

It's so hard, with everything going on, to write in here on a regular basis. But it's good for me. Otherwise, how will I remember all these wonderful days?  They are pretty near to perfect. Take yesterday, for example.  First we walked to the boat ramp.  It drives me crazy to think about Ken with the Chuck-it and the ball hidden in his pocket and under his shirt.  I know it's there, I don't know why they think I'm fooled.  I do my best to pace myself to their abominably slow rate, but it's so hard.  My easy trot would be a breathless jog for them - and not to mention, Buzz.  For his age, Buzz does a great job of keeping up. Sometimes he falls back and lets K or J just kind of pull him along - he's told me that he could easily keep up but it's kind of nice to be pulled. They're onto his tricks these days, and usually make him stay in front. Ticks him off.  But he likes the boat ramp, too.

The ramp is about a mile and a half from the house.  One of the roads is pretty busy, and a little curvy, so we have to stay on the leash the whole way, even on the not-so-busy roads - because too many pickups pulling boats come zipping past us.  So yesterday we got there, I did some swimming, running, jumping, and general fetching. K and J got a bit ticked off at me for standing in the water and not bringing the ball.  I like to tease them now and then - I drop the ball in the water and then bat at it with my paws, "this close? you want me to bring the ball?  like about this close?" bat, bat. 

While I was fetching, Buzz got a little scrub in the lake (Jen took off her shoes and socks) because he was all muddy from when I bounced a big muddy ball off his back the day before.  He's still not completely clean, but washing him like that must have perked him up some, because he went a tiny bit crackerdog. 

Little did I know when we got back home, that Macy was coming over! I was sooo happy to see her.  She stayed pretty much the whole day.  We all had to spend a lot of time outside with K and J because they were trimming shrubs and carting wheelbarrows-full of trimmings to the back woods, and their philosophy is that we should be getting fresh air with them. I have no trouble with this but it bugs Buzz. He feels that if he wants to take a nap in his bed, no one should stop him.  He complains to me about it if I sit down next to him.  I got banished to the back yard from the front yard after I chased a butterfly across the street.  Oh I know I'm not supposed to leave the front yard. K and J are constantly saying "Stay here, Maxie. Stay home." and most of the time, truly, I do watch my impulses. But butterflies?? Squirrels?  Are you kidding me. 

K and J quit at about noon. Then Jen turned on the hose - oh, man, it is one of my favorite activities!!  It's like squirrels and butterflies all wrapped into one big old package.  I love attacking that water. Jen took a video yesterday. She says she got some good shots. Here's a still.

It's a pretty good indicator of how much fun I have doing that.  What I like is that they never spray me directly - I just get to attack.  Here's another one.

Check out the rooster tail.  Oh, yeah.  Only a dog that's MOVING is going to get the fur flying like that.  I have to say, though, that nothing makes me more tired - but I never want to stop. Oh, I love water.

More later.  The rest of the day was pretty calm. Us dogs took a nap and JK went for lunch, I guess they had a picnic somewhere (not fair, I would have loved that) and then Macy went home around 4 and we sat out on the porch until I barked at some noises and ran off the front lawn and got banished into the house. Sigh.  More later. I need to take a nap with my head on the air conditioning vent.

Sorry about that

I got a little excited. I will write again in a little while. So much to tell you about. Meanwhile, here I am by some flowers on JK's porch.  Remind me to tell you about the hard time I have been having with that construction site across the street.

So I've been busy

The weather has been getting nicer, which means I've been outside more. There's an endless to-do list that seems to keep getting longer.  Here's how a typical day goes.

Did I tell you I'm sleeping upstairs now, near JK's room? I like to sleep at the top of the stairs, but sometimes, if it's not too hot, I get into the dog bed they got me. The bed has a hole in it, with some egg-carton foam sticking through, but that's a story for another day.

I wake up around 4, usually, and although I try to be quiet, my feet are actually kind of noisy on the carpet.  It sounds like sandpaper scratching wood when I walk.  Not very subtle.  Jen usually wakes up, but she wakes up then anyway, and if I give her hand a lick, she's pretty nice about patting my head.  Ken isn't as aware of what's going on at that hour. 

So then Jen and I usually clump downstairs and she goes over and presses a button on that silver box and then opens the deck door for me. I love the deck, especially in the mornings when it's cool, and because it has a door just for Buzz and me. The door used to be much smaller, for a dog Buzz's size, but when the top of the opening started rubbing the fur off my back, Ken put in a new one that was easier for me to fit through.  It's really nice.

Jen fills a cup with that strong smelling black stuff from the silver box, and then sits down with her computer and I usually just flop somewhere nearby.  If I go outside and bark, she doesn't like it.  I'll be out there barking my howly bark, (doesn't she see what I see? Or smell what I smell?) and she will launch herself out of her narcolounger (that's what they call their recliners. I've seen Jen snoring away in that chair often enough to know why they call them that) and race to the door and call me in a loud whisper, "Maxwell!! Get in here!"  I'm good about running back in.  Jen will lift my chin up so I have to look at her. Then she'll say something like, "The neighbors are NOT going to be excited to have a howly yowly dog waking them up at 4:30 a.m.!"  I have to admit, I hadn't thought about that.  I hear dogs barking all the time and I guess I just don't see why I have to be any different. But Ken and Jen seem to think I should know better. 

So that's the early morning routine.  By six or so, Jen will say to me, "Go wake up Ken." Oh, I love this part!! I go racing up the stairs, as fast as I can, and run to Ken's side of the bed. I put my front paws on any part of him that I can touch.  Their bed is tall, but I do a pretty good job of patting him down, with several slick licks in there for good measure. It works! Ken gets up.

I can feel myself revving up, and though I know they have to drink their black stuff and stare at their computers, I feel like I'm going to go crazy if they don't give in to being herded to the garage door. But no. They just say something like, "Maxwell. Chill out. We'll go, but not right this second." Oh, it's agony. Sometimes Buzz gets up and he and I get into little tussles, just to get their attention. They ignore us.  We are SO on their timetable.  But I try to keep busy until they're ready.

If the door to the deck is open, and I see the sprinklers going, I feel like you would if you were next in line at your favorite roller coaster. I go tearing outside and attack. I can't even tell you how much fun it is to run through those things, snap at the water, race after the elusive sprinkles.  I get completely, totally sopping wet.  It's heaven. I save the shaking-off until I'm back in the house - Jen rolls her eyes and will say, "Maxwell, you have the whole outdoors, so why do you have to do it inside, right here by the window?" Then she gets a few paper towels and wipes it up.

If the sprinklers aren't going, I may find one of my toys, hopefully a squeaky one, and give it a good shaking, close enough to the narcoloungers to call attention to the fact that Buzz and I are WAITING!! It's so hard to keep still.

But no. Jen must now go do her "exercises".  I follow her upstairs and watch as she does a few calisthentics, sit-ups and such, and then...oh joy, wait for it...yes! She opens the drawer, gets out the socks and I dance with delirious abandonment - We're going on a walk! We're going on a walk! She got the socks! We're going on a walk!

Puppydom

At the moment, I'm just waiting to go on our morning walk, keeping an eye out for s.q.u.i.r.r.e.l.s through the living room window. I like to lay with my body over the floor vent. Warm in winter, cool in summer.

It's getting hard to remember exactly what my life was like before JK, which is partly why Jen is insisting on this blog. She says I need to be a voice for Buzz now, too (she doesn't know it, but once in a while I'm going to have Buzz guest-blog if he can stay awake.)

So yeah, I was a pretty cute puppy.  At least that's what I'm told.  I didn't join JK until I was four months old, but here's what my former owner wrote to Jen in an email when J was trying to figure out how old I was.

I am so happy to hear about Maxwell.  Thank you Jenny for giving him a family. I could tell he was a very smart dog by how quickly he understood the cat door (yes, at one point he was once small enough to get through it).  But once he started doing that the cats stopped using it - and then they started using the floor.  yuck!  but not Maxwell's fault.  I totally didn't plan for him, but the story will help you understand. We got him on November 14th, and they thought he was 6 weeks but didn't know.  He was part of a litter of six puppies dropped off and he was the last one, and they told me that this was the last day he could be adopted.  Pretty grim.  The pound smelled so bad that Alexa and her friend Claire were almost sick.  But they washed him and gave  him to us with an old towel.   I have attached some photos i have from Christmas - I left them as JPEGs so please crop me out, it was early am  : )  and you will see how adorable he was even then.  He was "helping" to open the presents and he would not leave the tree alone.  He removed all ornaments he could reach. It was like having a toddler - and i suppose we did. 

I'm pretty proud of my paws in this picture. Look how gigantic they are! I'm a stud!  More later, off to walk.  Jen is going it alone today. Ken's been gone FOREVER....

Hey

I heard Jen tell Ken that I was starting a blog. I'll start it in the morning. I've had a long day.