Cowdogs Disrespect Us!

First off, we want to apologize for not blogging more frequently. It seems the secretary (Mom) prefers to sit on the front porch and watch the birds and listen to the country sounds instead of blogging. We finally convinced her she could do those things AND blog ... so she is sitting on the front porch with the laptop in her lap.

Okay, now to telling you about what's going on with us.

The cowdogs are disrespecting us! We came out of the house yesterday and this is what we saw! They were just on the other side of the fence!







Can you believe that they would chance getting so close to us fearless beasts? Well we showed them what we are made of ...




They eventually got up and left because we scared them off! But ... they were back today. Total disrespect!

Life as a Country Dog

We've survived our first week as country dogs! We must say, it has been an interesting week. Once we got settled in, we figured it would be like every other time we have come to the country but, on Monday, Mom got up and left all day! We weren't sure what to think of that so we slept. There were some strange noises during the day, so we barked at them. We didn't want anything bad to happen while we were guarding the house. Mom got home safely that night and we got fed so we were okay with how things turned out.

The next day, Mom got up and left all day again! We thought she might stay home because it was raining. She must have looked like a drowned rat when she got to work because she forgot to bring her raincoat. She had to hold an umbrella while she unlocked and locked the two gates she goes through to get to the public road. We were glad to be snug in a dry house!

When Mom got home that night ... it was FREEZING outside! She made us go outside for awhile and we decided it was only the 40(F)s and that was pretty nice for running and barking and barking and running. For some reason, Mom wasn't too excited about standing outside with us. Then she got smart and put on one of the coats that Grandma and Grandpaw have around here.

The next day Mom left AGAIN! We have come to accept that she is selfish and runs off to do fun things without us. She has been coming home with new smells on her. We have been sniffing a lot to get clues but we don't have enough information yet. We did see that she stopped by a store and got a rain-jacket. That was a smart idea because the next morning was nice but it was raining by mid-day. She got good use out of her rain-jacket when she came home and had to come through the gates again.

On Friday we woke up to this ...






Now we know some of you are laughing that we even took pictures of so little snow on the ground but ... it was up to our knees! We have never seen snow so we had to ask Mom about it. We told her it was too cold for us but she didn't do anything about it. There aren't any pictures of us in the snow because we weren't interesting in spending too much time in it.

We have decided huskies are a little bit crazy since they like this stuff ...

Oh yeah, one more thing ... there is something in the distance which we can hear but not see or smell. Mom calls it a train. It comes by all of the time and whistles at us. Mom says we don't need to worry because the train can only go where the tracks are and we are 3 or 4 miles from the track. She said she would measure it for us if we were really worried about it. Do you think we need to get a measurement?

In The Country

Well we made it! We've had our dinner and now we are harassing Mom. She was mean to us! She made us stay in the yard while she unpacked the car. She wouldn't let us go into the house either! She mumbled something about needing to have the door open to the bedroom and Sammy would try to go in there and mark like he tries every time we are here. Sammy just wants any other dog to know he was here too! Is that really bad?

Mom says this aircard is interesting but she will have to get used to not having a cable connection. This one is a lot slower. Oh well, she will just need to proof-read better before she posts the entries.

Copper is worried about our house back in Houston. Don't worry Copper. Aunt Bec said she will go by and watch TV and spend time there. Mom forgot to ask someone to get her mail but maybe Aunt Bec or Grandma will think to do it so no one sees it stacking up. Mom also has an alarm on the house so, if anyone messes with it, the alarm will sound and the police will come to investigate.

Moving Day!

Today we move to the country! Mom starts her new job tomorrow. We aren't sure we are going to like it when she leaves us for the day but we will sleep on it and let you know how we do.

Mom has been running lots of errands like we listed before. She finally got the laptop and the aircard so we are good for blogging even from the country. Today she just needs to pack up all of our stuff and drive to our new home. Can you believe this day is finally here? Of course, we thought we would be moving into our own country house instead of Grandma and Grandpaw's house but that will happen later in the year.

Mom says she has lots to do today so she wants to get finished. If she has time and energy tonight, we will blog from the front porch!

REALLY BIG NEWS

Are you ready? We bet some of you have guessed. We may have mentioned it in a comment or two.

Mom got a new job!

She has been at her current job for almost 12 years. Her last day will be Feb 27. The company was bought out in August and the transition has been a lot of work for everyone. Mom doesn't mind hard work but now they are talking about moving the office (packing/unpacking/farther from home) and reorganizing the whole accounting department. Since we are building the new house, Mom knew she was going to leave sometime this year anyway, so she decided it was time to look for a new job closer to where we are going to live. The land is about 100 miles from here so she wasn't going to drive in every day after we moved! Mom wasn't sure how long it would take to find a job or even if she was going to be successful this year but, she dusted off the old resume and sent it off. She sent it Jan 27, had an interview with the Controller on Feb 2, met with the CFO on Feb 12 and got her offer letter on Feb 13. If anyone is counting, it was the first resume sent out and the first interview for her in 12 years. Mom still knows her stuff and there are people out there who see her value.

This new job will be a real change for Mom. First of all, it is in the business office of a restaurant chain. Mom has never done accounting for food service but she never did accounting for a company with lots of inventory until 12 years ago. She says now she may really BE counting beans! (We call accountants "bean counters" around here.) Mom has also been working in a very formal office for the last 12 years. She has worn a suit, stockings and heels to work almost every day. At this new job, they are very casual and wear jeans. The Controller told her they wear jeans and t-shirts but Mom wonders it that means the company t-shirts. Since she drove up and interviewed on a Saturday, she hasn't seen anyone in the office on a normal work day. Once Mom finds out all of the details, she can go shopping. In any case, she won't be spending as much on office clothes!

Oh yes, some of you are probably wondering, if our house isn't built yet, where will we live? We are going to stay in Grandma and Grandpaw's country house so it will be like we are on vacation every day!! And Mom says now she will be able to watch the houses (ours and Aunt Bec's too) as they are being built. Mom can also clean out our Houston house and put it up for sale. Maybe she can get it sold before our other house is finished. We think Mom would like it if she didn't have two house payments to make each month. Besides, if we get the Houston house sold, maybe she can pay for the new house and she won't have any house payment ... then she can buy us ALL of the toys and treats in Petsmart!! In any case, we are moving to the country because she starts her new job on March 3!

And one more thing. We don't want you to worry that you won't hear from us. Mom bought a laptop computer and got an air card so we can blog from our front porch while we are looking at the cows. She should have done this a long time ago but she says it is better that she waited until she needed it for some reason besides a weekend here and there. That logic sounds a little selfish to us but that is all in the past now. We have our laptop.

So, that's it. That's our big news. Was anyone surprised?

Hanging Around Inside the Country House

We didn't spend the whole time outside when we were in the country. We would usually start the day outside ...



...but we would come inside if it we got cold or if we wanted a treat. Mom wishes this picture was more in focus because she thinks Roxie looks like a sweet little girl here. We know her better. What do you think?



Maggie likes to pick her spot to sleep and just jumps right up. Don't you think this is the perfect Maggie-sized spot to sleep? Unfortunately, Aunt Bec wanted to sit there so Maggie got evicted ... or better, once or twice she got to sit in her Mom's lap and sleep!!

We Had a Visitor in the Country

We are sorry for the quality of this picture but it was taken through a window and window screen.



This is Blackie. He lives in Grandma and Grandpaw's country yard. He can be very bossy! When Grandpaw is working in the yard, sometimes Blackie stands on the deck railing and tells Grandpaw to go away. Our Aunt Lexie used to chase him but he knows where all of the trees are and just teases her. Now she ignores him.

One of these days, we might learn to ignore him too but not yet. (We sure wish Mom would get a good video camera so you can see and hear us in action!)

Not For Our Grandparents Eyes!

When we were at the country, some one got behind the curtain and was acting like a cat. We don't want to get anyone in trouble, so we aren't mentioning any names. If you look at the name of the picture, we tried very hard to hide the identity of the offender but, if you look closely at the picture, you can probably guess it wasn't Roxie or Maggie. Don't tell Grandma and Grandpaw! We don't think they would like this picture!

Our Trip to The Country

Finally, we have some pictures to show you. We went to the country and, even though Mom wasn't feeling well, she wanted to get some pictures of us so you could see how handsome we are!

Mom says this is her "artsy" picture of Andy. What do you think?



Mostly we just ignored her. When we go to the country, there are so many wonderful smells to smell. Here we are all walking along together. Sometimes it's a good idea to say with your pack when you are going over new territory!



Sammy is very brave. He decided to track a smell all by himself! If you have been reading about the other times we have gone to the country, you already know that Sammy is the brave one!



Here is one of us checking out the backyard. See how big the backyard is? Can you see why we love to go visit? We can't wait until our country house is built!



And, just to make Mom happy, we are going to show you a picture she took one night of the moon. We think a picture of Mom bundled up like she was at the North Pole would look funnier but we will humor her this time.

Who Needs Mom Anyway?

Hey! It's us! Mom is at work so we decided to sneak onto the computer and tell you about what's been going on.

Not much ...

We did get our nails clipped. It wasn't too bad. Our doctor told Mom we were a good looking bunch! Mom knows this but it's nice to have someone else notice.

Something happened to the clocks in our house. Mom is sleeping later and feeding us later. We don't really like having to wait to be fed but we can't get the food container open without Mom's help. And Mom is good at putting the cottage cheese in our bowls and we really like the cottage cheese!

We are going to borrow a big chair from Aunt Bec and use it for our Christmas pictures. It is big enough for all three of us to sit on at the same time. Mom will try to get us to stay on the chair while Aunt Bec takes the pictures. That is the same system they used last year and the pictures turned out pretty good. Of course, PhotoShop helped a little bit.

We are sorry there aren't any pictures. They are in the camera and we can't carry it back here and hook it up. That little USB port is too small for us to deal with.

Mom got Roxie and Andy new collars and harnesses. She says the old ones must have shrunk because they are too tight. Mom thinks Sammy may need a new collar too. His harness still fits okay. We don't mind getting new collars. Mom says we can give our old ones to Dachshund Rescue of Houston. They always need things because there are so many dachsies who need to be saved.

Not that this has anything to do with the last subject, but we are almost out of treats. Mom says she needs to go to PetSmart and get more. She will get a new collar for Sammy too. Mom says the people at PetSmart recognize her when she goes there. For some reason she doesn't say that like it is a good thing.

We got our heartworm medicine today! For you doggies who don't have to worry about heartworms, you are so lucky. But the medicine is pretty good. The box says it tastes like liver. We have never had liver so we don't know if it is true. We do know that the treats are yummy and Mom never has to force us to take that medicine!

Mom and Aunt Bec are trying figure out when we can go the country again. It has been a long time but Mom says there are scheduling conflicts during football season. Well NEXT football season we don't have to worry about schedules or conflicts because we plan to live in the country! We will be able to play with Maggie and Jake every day! And you will get sick of pictures and movies of us barking at the cowdogs!

Well, we have to go now. I (Roxie) am standing on Sammy who is standing on Andy so I can reach the keyboard. Someone is grumbling that he knows why I needed a new harness. I need to go teach somedog some manners.

Looking for Cowdogs ...

Hello everydog, cat and GirlGirl!

How do you like our opening picture? It is the same view as in our last post but the sky was threatening rain!

We were telling you about how the cowdogs were missing. We looked all around the yard but there was no evidence about what happened to them.



Andy was working very hard when Mom called to him. Look at him all by himself! What would he have done if he had found a cowdog?



Here is another place that Mom looked for cowdogs. If you look at the end of the road, you can just see the gate that we come through to get to the land. On the other side is the public road. Isn't this a nice place to drive through to start a vacation? (You really need to click on this picture to get the full effect.)



We want to thank all of you for your kind and supportive words for our Aunt Bec. She was in surgery from 10:00 until about 4:00 or 5:00 on Tuesday. She must be a very good healer because they released her at 3:00 on Wednesday! She is staying with our Grandma and Grandpaw. Mom says your babies are always your babies no matter how old they get. Anyway, Aunt Bec is moving slowly and we are not allowed to visit since we get so excited and jump on her. Mom says that would be a bad thing so we have to wait until Aunt Bec can defend herself. What do you suppose she meant by that?

Back From the Country

Hello, everydog, cat and GirlGirl!

We are back from the country.

We had a good time sniffing everything but we were so disappointed ... there were no cowdogs! We didn't see one single cowdog the whole weekend. On Sunday, when we were all packed and driving away, Mom and Aunt Bec saw one cowdog on the other side of the land. Of course, we immediately understood that they were so afraid of us, they kept their distance. It is good to know that we have impressed upon them that we are fercious and to be respected!

Mom took lots of pictures ... even some of us. We thought some of them were pretty enough to share with our friends.

The one at the top is just a picture of the land and the sky and no cowdogs.

This is a picture of some Morning Glories. It was early in the morning ... if you look behind the flowers at the field, you can see the morning mist still on the ground. You have to get out early to take pictures because they close up when the sun comes out.


Here is the front of a Morning Glory.



We have more pictures but Mom wants to get to bed. She is going to work in the morning and then going to the hospital to visit Aunt Bec after her surgery. Thank you everydog, cat, GirlGirl and people for your prayers. We know every little bit helps!

Blame Mom ...

Well, here we go again. Starting another entry apologizing to all of our friends for dropping out of sight. Mom says she has a lot on her mind and hasn't been able to help us be inspiring or clever. She had a two day meeting this week and is just glad to have survived. She is on vacation today because we are going to the country this afternoon once Aunt Bec and Maggie and Jake are ready.

Reina, we got your package! The postal service left a pick-up slip for Mom and it took her two weeks to get the post office. She says if she had realized it was for us, she would have gone there the next day instead of waiting two weeks. We will post pictures of everything as soon as possible. We just love that you are our friend!

Everydog, please say a prayer for our Aunt Bec. She is having surgery next Tuesday. We know she will be fine but a few extra prayers never hurt anyone.

Ok, we are sorry this has to be so short, but we want to make sure Mom has packed all of the dog treats and toys that we will need for the weekend. A dog's work is never done!

Look out cowdogs! Here we come!

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Today is our Grandma's birthday!!

Since Mom is ancient, Grandma is 23 years older than ancient (but she's is still younger than Grandpa). Grandma loves us and pets us and gives us treats and lets us stay at her (and Grandpa's) country house and bark at the cowdogs. What more you could possibly need to have the perfect Grandma?

Oh, and she is beautiful.

And she is smart. She told Mom that the decorated tree was a honey locust. You can pretty much know that if Mom comes back with more information about something in the country, Grandma gave Mom the information.

Grandma had surgery on her knee a couple of weeks ago and is doing her exercises every day. We hope she gets all better. Mom won't take us to see her because we jump too much and we might hurt Grandma if we jumped against her and she fell down. We don't even want to think about how much trouble we would be in if that happened! No, no, let's think happy thoughts!

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Grandma! We love you! Thank you for being so sweet. Thank you for showing Mom how to spoil dachsies. Just one thing, could you teach Mom to be a little sweeter? She has too many rules!

Writer's Block

Hello everydog, cat and Girl Girl.

Sorry that we have been out of touch. We have had a bad case of writer's block and can't think of one single interesting or even semi-interesting thing to say. We do have a movie of the catfish in the pond eating but Mom has realized that all the movie editting she learned six months ago has disappeared from her memory. We will keep on her to pull the book out and learn it again. We know she wants to get a better camera with sound but she hasn't done it yet so that keeps her from being too excited about her movies. And then there are all those great looking movies that Bogart and Pappy's Fella make ...

Anyway, we are healthy and happy and spoiled so don't worry about us.

Since you took the time to come visit us, we will leave you with these pictures of a tree that was growing on Grandpa's land next to the pond. We don't know what kind of tree it is but we thought it looked like it was decorated by nature!

Baby Cowdogs

In our previous post, we told you we would show you pictures of baby cowdogs. But first, did anybody find the black cowdog in the picture? We thought she did a really good job of hiding!

Here are the two baby cowdogs that we saw every day. There might have been other ones but we didn't see them ... especially on the day we were taking pictures.



This little guy couldn't decide what he thought of Mom's car. Whenever the farmer comes over, he brings food. We didn't bring any food for him.



(In case you noticed the background, that is the family cemetery. It was established in 1834 and lots of Mom's and Aunt Bec's and Uncle John's and Aunt Terry's and Uncle Jim's and Aunt Sue's and Grandpa's relatives are buried there. The cemetery was a major reason why Uncle John, Aunt Bec and Mom wanted to buy the land from Grandpa's cousin if she ever decided to sell it ... which she did!)

This little one decided to face off Mom when she was driving down the road. Mom took the picture and then drove around him because he never did move out of the way. By the way, that is our land behind him and to the right.



We showed some pictures once of the food the cows get. Army of Four pointed out that they were giant shredded wheat. We found the field where they grow the giant shredded wheat!



We don't tell as good of stories as Army of Four, but we hope you liked the pictures!

Patrolling the Yard and Find the Cowdog

Okay! now it's time to tell you some more about our trip!

Here is a picture of Roxie and our cousin Jake checking out the fence line.
You have to look for Jake but he is really there!



Andy was keeping an eye out for things happening on the other side of the fence!


Sammy was doing his part too! And Grandpa will be happy to see he wasn't in the flowerbeds!



And guess what we saw on the other side of the fence! There were cowdogs down by Grandpa's pond! See the black one on the right, she is in the next picture. Can you find her?




She's looking right at you!



We also got to see some pretty flowers. This is a morning glory.



The cowdogs have been multiplying! We will show you pictures of the the baby cowdogs next time!

We're Back!

Hello everydog, cat and GirlGirl,

We got home Monday night but things have been pretty busy around here with having to check to see if anything was in our backyard while we were gone. And Mom has been working. And we had really bad weather yesterday so it took Mom over an hour to get home (and it is less than 9 miles between the house and the office).

Anyway, we don't have time for a long post yet. We did take lots of pictures and we have been tagged for our celebrity look-alikes and random facts about Sammy. We haven't forgotten, we just haven't had time to get to it.

Until we do get Mom to help us, here is a picture of the pond on Grandpa's land. Our land is not in the picture but it is to the left with more of Grandpa's land to the right. We took a more pictures of the pond but Mom just wanted to post one of them.



We hope you like the picture! Can you tell it has been raining? Everything is so green and the pond is full, full, full.

We will post more later!

Happy Feet!

We are going to the country!
We are going to the country!
(Don't worry, "going to the country" is a good thing!)

Mom told us we are going the the country this weekend! She is taking Friday off and Aunt Bec gets off work at noon, so we are going Friday afternoon and we don't have to come back until Monday!! We will be able to run and bark and bark and run and run and bark and bark and ... well, you get the idea.

This almost makes up for the fact that Mom and Aunt Bec went to the country on Sunday and didn't take any fur-babies. Mom says we wouldn't have liked being there on Sunday because there were so many people we didn't know. It turns out they had a meeting to go to. Roxie went to the meeting three years ago when she was a puppy. There were some human puppies there that weren't very nice to her and scared her. Mom thinks it is best to just keep us away from situations like that. So, even though we really would have liked to be in the country last weekend, we will think about forgiving Mom once she takes us this weekend.

(The reason we don't have to come back until Monday is because Memorial Day is observed on Monday. Mom and Aunt Bec will make sure they do something to personally observe Memorial Day because we should not forget those who made the ultimate sacrifice.)

Dachsie Abuse! Dachsie Abuse!

We want to report dachsie abuse! Our mom went to the country WITHOUT US!!! We know this because when she got home last night, she smelled like the country. And she smelled like Grandma and Grandpa. And she smelled like our dachsie aunt, Lexie. And she smelled like our labrador cousin, Kaiser. And she smelled like our human uncle, John. And she smelled like our human aunt, Bec. And she smelled like a lot of people we don't know and didn't get the chance to meet because we were at home worried about her while she was out partying in the country. (She smelled like some good food too!) We sniffed and sniffed and sniffed until we almost passed out. Can you believe she would go to the country without us? And Aunt Bec isn't any better. We sniffed for Maggie and Jake and they weren't there either. We are sure there is a law about this kind of behavior. And, if there isn't, there SHOULD BE!

We are going to pout now.