As many of you devoted followers know, my mother has been terrible at posting any new developments in our doggy world. So the good news is that I, Ranger, and my trusty sister Abby, are taking over. With my thinking cap on, I am ready to compose the latest and greatest happenings in our lives here in Long Beach. My sophisticated little sister will be here to help as well, when she's not too busy chewing on her bone.

I have been on a hiatus from my daily run now for a couple of days so I have some extra time on my paws to write. I seemed to have torn the pad on my back left foot, which is causing me to limp, ever so slightly, when I run or get up. So my dad has been washing my foot in a nice warm bowl of water, putting on some healing lotion and hydrogen peroxide which I like to lick off, and wrapping me up with self-adhering elastic tape. My foot looks ridiculous and I hopefully won't have to wear the concoction for too long, but that's the life of a dog.

Before the unfortunate injury occurred, (beats me how it even happened) I had an interesting morning run with my mom. We were out near the 5Am hour, running by the golf course as usual, when I happened to notice something unusually furry on the sidewalk. It was dark outside so mom couldn't see it very clearly. I heard her tell dad that she thought the furry thing was a sock. Too bad for her...but it was actually a dead squirrel... a dead squirrel that I actually got to hold in my mouth for a few short minutes until mom realized that the "sock" had a tail. She made me drop it, and onward and forward we went, while mom kept shrieking and squeeling. If that wasn't enough adventure for one morning, we were almost home when, to our surprise, mom noticed a wild beast heading straight towards us. She thought it was a beast, but I knew it was just a loosey german shepherd buddy that was lost. Mom sure was freaked out though so she started bolting in the opposite direction. I could hardly keep up with her, which is saying a lot, since mom is usually pretty slow. The furry german followed us, but luckily mom was able to outrun the thing and turn the corner, and we made it through the backyard gate safely. We certainly do have exciting morning runs. More to come in the future, but that's all for tonight.

Love Ranger

Just taking a break. All of this writing is making me tired.

Portraits of the pups

Look closely at Ranger's nose. He's the one behind bars. We opened a nice bottle of wine to have with dinner the other night. We set the glass on top of the wine bar- a good 3 feet up in height- and went to cook the meal in the kitchen. A few seconds later, Ranger discovered that he liked wine too. We heard a crashing noise and ran into the living room. Broken glass and fine wine were splattered everywhere, and Ranger and Abby were licking it all up. We sentenced them to an hour inside their kennel while we cleaned and cooked. Ranger has wine residue left on his nose. I wasn't so much disappointed with the broken glass as I was that yummy expensive wine went to waste. What a bummer. Needless to say- we have learned our lesson. Do not leave the dogs unattended with beverages of any type in the room.

Rain or shine- our doggies go out twice a day for a walk. It has really been storming here lately, so we have gotten really good at the art of rinsing, towel drying, and blow drying the dogs. Abby loves the towel dry part. She collapses onto the dry towel, head first, with her booty sticking up in the air. She rubs her face on the towel and tries to bite at it. Her tail happily wags as you dry her off and she looks so pretty when its all done.

Home with the flu!

So last weekend, I was home with the flu. I took Monday and Tuesday off to recover. On Tuesday morning, I was feeling up to taking the dogs for a walk- a walk in the pouring rain! When we got home, I set the umbrella in a chair to dry off and walked inside to grab towels. In the meantime, Ranger discovered how much fun umbrellas are to destroy. By the time I had noticed, the umbrella was already ruined. So I decided to let him play with it. Watch how funny he is when the end gets caught on the patio post. :)

Christmas with Michael and Marla

The holidays were so busy for us. We spent Christmas Eve at my folks' house, eating dinner and opening gifts. We spent Christmas morning at Mike's parents' house eating breakfast and opening gifts. At about 12:30, we went back over to my parents' house because my side of the family was coming into town for Christmas dinner. Michael and I decided that we would exchange gifts with one another on the 23rd. The puppies were right in the middle of all the action. Thank goodness they were tired and well behaved- they hardly got into any trouble at all. They patiently waited on their beds the entire time we opened presents, and only retrieved a little bit of wrapping paper trash.

Ranger really liked my new Ugg boots. They reminded him of an animal he once dreamed of hunting.

Break time!

In the middle of our strenuous day wrapping gifts, I decided we should go visit daddy at work and surprise him. Business was slow, so what better way to kill an hour or so than to play with the doggies. They like to ride in Mike's truck much better than they like the backseat of the Camry. In the Tundra, they have oodles of room and can get situated much easier. It's a lot harder in my backseat with the seats being so small. They make it work though. Daddy was so happy that we came out to the shop- we made his day. The dogs got to run around the wherehouse, slip and slide on the cement, greet the guys behind the counter, and nearly knock over the trashcan looking for any remnants of food. They had so much fun!

Christmas Eve Day!

Michael had to work on Christmas Eve day, so unfortunately, it was me and the dogs at home wrapping last minute gifts all day long. Ranger provided great assistance, picking out wrapping paper and holding the ribbons while I tied the bows. All this hard work really wore him out though, so he had to take a siesta.

Our house is freezing cold, so as I was wrapping, I laid the down comforter out on the floor to keep me warm. The dogs decided they liked the blanket and claimed it for their own before I had a chance to sit down. Abby still loves all things softy. 

I eventually reclaimed by blanket and Ranger and Abby snuggled as we all watched the Today show and wrapped a few Christmas presents.