Millie and the Hedgehog

When I get tired of chewing on my squeaky hedgehog.

I use it as a handy pillow for my chin!

I took Miss Millie on a little walk to drop some packages off at Office Depot this morning. She was laying on the desk by the front window looking somewhat sad since Keith left yesterday morning so I thought a walk might cheer her up a little. She is doing better on her walks, not pulling as much on the leash and not barking as much at trucks, bikes, etc. I only let her walk through Office Depot if she has taken her poo on the way over, I don't want a repeat of that time she pood in Petco (but what more appropriate place to take a poo?) and if she hasn't taken a poo, carrying it is.

I keep her on a very short leash while walking through the store because she does have a tendency to sniff at people's ankles with her wet little nose and we don't want any startled shoppers. She likes to sniff at the close to the floor displays as we are quickly walking by, especially the ones that have candy in them, those big bags of M&Ms probably smell pretty good to a dog despite the fact that chocolate is very very bad for them.

Later today we will have our afternoon sit in the front yard if it is not too hot. It's been warming up here and we've actually had to turn the a/c on a few times late in the day. Summer starts early up here!

Millie is Keeping Us All Safe!

From stray bits of cat hair fuzz.

I was trying to clean bathrooms and such this morning and Millie was yap yap yapping in the back yard. I usually go out there to see what's up pretty quickly, but was busy so waited until I was finished, cringing with each yap because there is nothing worse than a dog owner ignoring their dog out there yapping. Sorry, neighbors!

I go out and there she is yapping at a bit of fuzzy cat fur on the patio. Bad cat fuzz!

Grrrr!

Cats And A Dog And Whatever Else Went On This Week

Not a whole heck of a lot actually. Keith came home from his last trip with a nasty cold so he took a sick day and went back to work late last night/early this morning/whichever way you want to look at it. We took the dog to her first vet visit on Wednesday, all the way across town to the vet that the rescue people said to use so that they would pay for her spay. After her spay is done in 3 weeks and her second round of shots is done I don't think we will be going back to that vet office again. Too far away and while the doctor seemed just fine the actual office was very old and funky and half of it used to be a pet supply store but is now just empty shelves. It basically looks like an abandoned office inside of the place. We spent $93 to get her checked over and her first round of shots.

She seems healthy enough and appears to be about 1 1/2 years old so we will just say her birthday is in June. Her weird front leg is just a weird front leg, the vet said that it was probably something that she was either born with or happened soon after and as long as it doesn't seem to bother her and she can run around, no problem. And yes, she can definitely run around. I still can't believe how fast such a small dog can walk.

I had a whole list of things that needed to be done this week but with Keith home napping much of the day and watching TV the rest of the day it was hard to do any cleaning because he was either in the way or sleeping, so...today will be cleaning day as long as I can keep my energy up.

I went and got chicken from El Pollo Loco last night, thinking one dinner for us and leftovers for Keith to take along with him. My piece of chicken was about as dry as the chicken that I make at home but Keith and Millie seemed to enjoy it. As we are talking about not slipping food to the dog that is staring up at us while we eat, Keith is giving her bites of chicken. Which she really liked.

I've had to put the cat toys way up where Millie can't get at them as most of the cat toys are not designed for dogs. She's already torn up a mouse and crunched a jingle ball. I did find some fabric catnip sticks for the cats but before they could play with them Millie was taking them all away.

Millie And Bob The Sad Bear (Oh And We Still Have All Those Cats Too)

I got Millie a couple of the cheap toys from the cheap toy bin at Petco and one of them was a little yellow bear that I have since named Bob after the terribly tasteless but funny joke about what do you call a guy with no arms and no legs swimming in the ocean? BOB of course. That is the first thing I thought of as I watched Millie methodically chew off poor Bob's arms and legs one at a time over the course of a couple of days. Bob's last leg was chewed off this morning. See how sad he looks?

Millie was at one end of the bed today, Harri at the other. Everyone still seems to be getting along okay except for a few grumbles from Pepper, who is cranky and grumbly all the time anyway, and today a hiss from Bear. Millie has found her bark and is going to be one of those annoying yappy little dogs that bark at just about everything. We have barked at kids riding skateboards down the street, cats in the yard across the street, other dogs, but so far no barking at any of our cats, probably since they were here first and she sees them as extensions of us.

We took a short walk today, it being cold and gloomy out and starting to sprinkle. I checked the weather report before Keith left for his train this morning and it did not have rain in the forecast so of course it has been raining all afternoon. Which is good. Because we desperately need rain here.

We have walked every day since Millie came home with us, me doing all the walking of course despite Keith's kid like promise of taking care of the dog. Ha ha. He did walk with us yesterday but only around the block. Millie just loves him, though, he is the fun parent I guess, although she did act like I'd been gone for days this morning when I came home after dropping Keith off at work and doing a few errands. It's always nice when Keith's goes out on a day train so I can have the car once in a while. I just always hope he doesn't come home in the middle of the night like the time I got called to pick him up at 2am after he had tried unsuccessfully to call a cab. The one cab company person who actually answered the phone didn't understand that he was at the BNSF railyard not the Amtrack and he finally gave up on trying to explain where he was. The other cab companies he tried didn't even answer the phone.

Anyway. Life with a little dog in the house does take a bit of getting used to but so far we are enjoying her company and it is nice to have someone so excited to see you when you walk in the door. Unlike the cats who just yawn and blink at you. Oh, were you gone?

Pink Doggy Coat

Last night Joe, Elizabeth and the kids came by for a little while, bringing me a plate of food from their Christmas dinner at her mother's house which I really appreciated since Christmas dinner for me was the corn chowder that I made for lunch. The kids got their presents, Lego sets that they opened up and started working on right away. They have the coolest Legos now, in particular the ones for girls. They are incredibly expensive so I didn't get them the entire mall that costs about $120.00 despite me wanting to play with it myself. I got them each one of the smaller kits, a bake shop and a fruit smoothie shop and they are just amazingly fun looking.

So cool, imagine the lego girls at about 1 1/2" tall and you get an idea of the scale. Tiny!

Keith got home about 4 this morning so having access to the car I went to run some errands and get a dog coat and better harness for Millie. We'll be having our coldest weather of the year for the next 6 weeks or so and don't want little Miss to be shivering on her daily walks. Dog coats cost more than people coats I think. I found her a cute pink coat that didn't have any frilly crap on it like the coat with a tutu hanging off the bottom of it that I saw.

Here she is ready for her walk in her new coat.

It has little fake pockets on he sides and a sherpa collar! So stylish.