Weekend cuteness.

This is what retirement should look like:

Don't mind Mom's mess.  She was doing some house cleaning while I surrounded myself with all my favorite things...  All my squeaky toys!!!!

This is my guilty nose.  That is dryer lint stuck to my nose, which means I had been messing in the bathroom trash..  Mom HATES when I do that.

Mom wasn't sure how I was comfortable laying this way.  She shouldn't judge me.
PS.  I refuse to eat that huge rawhide bone.  Anyone want it?

I'm ferocious..  look at my teeth... while I sleep.

Mom thinks she's sneaky..  she loves when she can see my teeth and not have to smell my breath.

If your retirement doesn't look like this, you're doing it wrong.

Mom gave me a new toy!!!

YYYAAYYY!!!!

Anyone wanna take bets on how long it takes me to destroy it???

After about 5 minutes with my new toy it was nap time.

Making Mom love me.. LOTS

Mom came home from work early today because her internets have been actin weird.  These strange men show up, AND she let them in the apartment!  I'm not her guard dog, so I didn't really mind too much, except that these men weren't interested in petting me, so I wasn't interested in them!  I laid down on my bed in the living room so I could keep an eye on them.  They left after a few minutes, they said they had fixed the issue.  Mom seemed satisfied, so I helped escort them out.

Mom was very proud of me for being so good.  After they left, we laid down for a nap.  I love naps!  When we woke up, Mom started messing around the apartment and she acted like she was getting ready to leave.  She even got my last kong out of the crate, refilled it with peanut butter, put it in the freezer, and pulled the already frozen one out of the freezer for me.  And then.. she hesistated.  I was soooo close to getting my peanut butter kong!  Instead, she decided we were going to go somewhere!  Surprise!

Mom brought a huge bag of treats with her.  I'm not really sure why.  She only gave me 2 the whole trip, but either way, I was excited.  Mom showed me the treat, but I still was very scared about getting in the car.  She put my front paws on the back seat and then lifted me up the rest of the way.  UGH I hate it!  Either way, I got my treat and Mom cracked the windows so I could sniff outside while we drove to the place we were going.

I think Mom was rewarding me for being good while those strange men were at the apartment cause she took me to the public dog park!  They have an area for big dogs AND little dogs.  There were a lot of small dogs in the big dog lot.  Or maybe I'm just really big?  There were a few teeny-tiny dogs in the big dog lot though..  I think they were in the wrong place, but everyone was having fun, so it was ok, I guess.

I had a blast, even though I didn't really socialize with the other pups.  I really am a loner.  Mom was worried for a while that I was going to be lonely as an only-dog, but I think I've put her worries at ease.  I don't really socialize when I'm with other dogs.  I don't feel the need to play with them either.  So I spent most of my time at the dog park, walking around the perimeter of the fence, marking every spot that I possibly could.  I also marked all the trees and benches and I even tried to mark the water buckets, but Mom stopped me.

There were so many dogs, and I wasn't interested in any of them!

My only issue at the dog park was that I kept having the poopies.  I went normal business, then I went poopie, but then I kept having the runs.  Mom wasn't really sure what was going on, and I think she's worried about me.  She is thinking that hopefully, I was just nervous about being around so many new dogs.

Mom could tell I was getting tired cause I had stopped prancing around the fence and I was just moseying along.  I had walked around with some of the other doggies, but we just sniffed each other.  I really am not a player.  I'm a stand there and be petted dog.  Seriously.  When we left, Mom tempted me with a treat again to get in the backseat.  She put my front legs on the back seat and then I surprised her.  I jumped in on my own!!!  For the first time ever!

Mom is super proud of me right now.  She kept saying, "Good Phil!!!  Good boy!!"  I'm sure the people at the dog park thought she was crazy.  (Psst, she is!)  Mom then brought me home and fed me dinner.  She said I made her really proud today for being such a good boy!

I'm really just trying to be good because the other morning I tried to eat Mom's banana (and I did a pretty good job at munching on about 1/4 of it) and I got in the bathroom trash and was eating the dryer lint... all in the same hour.  Mom was definitely not pleased.

I showed her who the good dog is though!!

Meet & Greet #2 - California, MD Petco

Mom took me to my 2nd Meet & Greet (M&G) today.  It was fun and I love meeting my Greyhound cousins.  She used the flashy thing while we were there, which is acceptable since the cute level was increased by 3 since there were 4 Greyhounds in the pen.  There were more when we arrived, but their shift was over and they got to go home!

This time we went to California, MD (which is pretty much the same as Lexington Park, but someone wanted to be difficult)..  Mr. George hosted this one.  He brought his pups, AJ and Jazz, and there was another pup named Bach (short for Bachelor).

I love, love, lovvveeeee gettin pettins.  And there are always so many people willing to pet me and feed me treats at M&Gs.  Mrs. Lisa said I'd be an awesome M&G pup, and I was shinin' today.  I did try to take a treat from Jazzy's mouth, but I wasn't aggressive about it, I just love treats sooooo much!

My only other bad behavior was that I barked at a cat in the crates behind our pen.  Mom very sternly told me, NO!  It's the 2nd time I've barked since I've been in my forever home.  Mom loves that I'm quiet though, she says this way the neighbor's won't complain, despite the fact that I sound like a horse when I walk around the apartment!

Sorry, I got distracted.  Anyways, lets move on to the few pics that were taken.  Mom found some inspiration photos from the VA M&G that was yesterday about better ways to take photos while we're at M&Gs, so next time she's going to bring her better flashy gadget thingy and show you guys she can be trained too!

AJ, Bach, Phil

Jazz was pretty worn out.
Many people LOVED his handmade Giants collar.   Check out more awesome collars here!.

AJ and Phil and Mr. George

This boy just needed to grow another arm to pet us all!
AJ, Jazz, Bach

Phil, either Bach or AJ (sorry can't tell!), and Jazz w/ Bach's family.

I was pretty tired on the way home.  Mom didn't do too good for this photo, but she was driving the Zoom-Zoomer.
I felt like the arm rest was a perfect pillow!  I was tired after so much socializing!

I'm so excited for the next M&G.  Mom hasn't let me know if we're going to the Waldorf M&G at the end of the month yet.  I told her I wanted to go, but she says it depends on how she's feelin.  We're gonna be going on a road trip at the end of this week.  It's an 8 hour drive to NC.  I get to meet my cousins, Judge and Noodles (my aunt Courkie's Dachshunds).  I met several Dachshunds today, so Mom is pretty confident that I will do well around them.

YAY for so many adventures!

Back seat hammock.. just for me!

I'm not a big jumper.  Sometimes I like to pretend and rear back on my hind legs and put my front paws on Mom to show her how excited I am about going outside, but I refuse to jump.  I'm not allowed on the furniture, so there's that.. and the zoom-zoomer (car) is a scary place of slip-and-slides so I don't like to even get into that thing!

Mom still forces me in and I fight her every step of the way.  She's tried to make it better on me, like the first day we came home together she put down a blanket in the backseat for me, which was still really slippery.  Then she tried a different blanket, same story, different day.

 Then Mom tried to be clever.. and put me in the back, back of her Sportage.  Ha.ha.lady.  That didn't work out.  She felt super guilty with me crammed in the back like that.  In the photo I was sitting, which I don't do well or comfortably, eventually I just laid down, but when she put me in the back and closed the hatch, she bumped my head cause I'm just too big!

Find Teh Phil!
Big dog in a little car!
PS.  The slobber on the seat is pretty gross.

Mom then started researching different ways of helping me be more comfortable during zoom-zoom rides.  She'd seen a back seat hammock for pets on Pinterest (she loves that website) and thought that could be a pretty clever idea.  She bought one from Amazon and it was waiting in the mailbox the day she picked me up from Monica's care.  

I like it much better than the blankets or the back.  I can lay down and stretch out comfortably.  Standing up and moving around is still pretty tedious and I shake a lot, but I don't get thrown on the floor anymore if Mom has to slam on the breaks... or when Mom doesn't see the light turn green (cause she's taking pics of me being cute) and she slams on the gas..

So this is how I spend my rides now:

This is what Mom calls my "creeper stare"..  What, Mom?!  I'm just interested in absolutely everything you might possibly do.  Duh.

Fine, I won't look at you for pictures anymore!

These photos might have been the ones where Mom had to slam on the gas before she got honked at (sometimes she forgets she's not still in Bahrain) since the light had been green for several seconds and she was just sitting there not paying attention, holding up traffic.  She can't help how cute I am, people!

Today is my 2nd Meet & Greet at Petco in Lexington Park (I don't acknowledge the line between California, MD and Lexington Park, MD).  I'm pretty excited, but now I need to get to napping so that way I can be ready for all the pettins and treats headed my way.  Mom already prepped me with extra yogurt this morning to combat my room-clearing gas....

Home Alone... part 2

Our days usually goes like this:

Mom's alarm goes off.
Mom's alarm goes off, again.
Mom gets up.
Mom trips over me while she gets dressed.
Mom goes business.
Mom takes me out on a 1/2 mile run/walk (depending on her mood/motivation).
We come back home.
Mom sends me to my house.
Mom makes my breakfast.
Mom gets ready for work while I show her how small I can be when I lay on the bathroom rug.
Mom sends me to my house and gives me my kong with frozen PB in it.
Mom turns on the radio and she is gone for a while.
Mom comes home.
Mom takes me out and begs me to go business.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  Gotta keep her guessin.
We come back home.
Mom has lunch while I lounge around the apartment.
Mom sends me to my house and gives me my kong with frozen PB in it.
Mom makes sure the radio is still on and leaves for a while.
Mom comes home.
Mom changes her clothes.
Mom tells me its time for a w-a-l-k.
We go on a walk/run, I'm pretty lazy and sometimes this lady's motivation level is just to much for me.  Especially when I just want to mark all the bushes and chase the stinky squirrels.
We come home.
Mom feeds me dinner.
Mom feeds Mom dinner.
We are lazy for the rest of the evening.
We go to bed.  Mom says that I get to pick where I sleep.  If I am in my crate when its her bedtime, she just shuts the door and leaves me in my crate, but if I'm in my bed in her bedroom, then she just shuts the door to the bedroom and we have a slumber party (except with me on the floor).

Sometimes before dinner time there are variations in the plan of the day (potd).  Sometimes Mom will go out and come back.  She used to always make me go to my house, but more and more she's been letting me chill uncrated while she's away.  I think she's starting to think I'm trustworthy.

I proved her wrong yesterday!  hahahah!

While she was out, I chewed on the window cover-ers, I put teeth marks in a few and one I broke in half completely!

Then later, Mom was eating an apple.  The miraculously, a piece fell from the sky at me.  It was deeeelicious!  (Mom says a piece fell on the floor and she tossed it at me, but whatever).  Later, Mom went to change her clothes and I found a whole bunch of that delicious apple sitting on the table.  I chomped that sucker down, it was soooo good!  Mom came back into the living room to hear me crunching on something and she realized that I'd gotten apple crumblies all over her rug!

Apparently, Mom was leaving a few minutes after that, but she definitely put me in my house for that trip!  Maybe, eventually, I'll be able to stay out of my crate, unsupervised again...  But chewing the blinds probably won't get me there very fast!

NOMNOMNOM... PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!

Mom deserted me!

Ok, she really didn't desert me.  She left me with a nice-other-doggy-mommy named Monica... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Mom found out her best friend from college was having her bachelorette party this past weekend in Raleigh, which is only a 5 hour drive away.  Mom is silly in that she thinks 8 hours is "too far", 5 hours is "bearable", and anything under 2 is "just fine".  At first, her plan was to bring me with her, but since she was staying at someone else's house, they said there probably wasn't room for me too, which was sad.  I'm not that big, gosh.  Didn't matter none, if Mom was going she had to find a dog-sitter.. and FAST.  She found out that I couldn't come with her on Wednesday night and she was supposed to leave Friday afternoon!

Mom posted on the GEGR forums (<3 those guys) and Monica offered to take me for the weekend.  She suggested that I could play with her son and pups and it would be fun.  She drove all the way from DE to pick me up.  Monica is amazing (and I'm not just saying that cause she might read this, maybe).

Monica got this video of me playing while I was at her house:

Mom picked me up on Sunday evening.  I was torn between pettins from Mom and pettins from Monica.  I started shivering and Mom decided it was finally time to stop yappin and get me home for dinner (and out of the cold).

Mom surprised me with a new present for ridin in the vroom-vroom.  A "hammock" for the backseat.  I really slip and slide when we're riding in the car because Mom's car has leather seats.  Mom laid a blanket down a few times, but she threw me in the floor one day when she had to stop suddenly for a lady backing out of a parking spot who didn't see her and we weren't even going that fast.  Mom was really concerned after that, and she also wanted to try to relieve some of my riding anxiety, so she was hoping this would help.

I was a little uncertain at first.

But I quickly settled in and got comfortable!

Hiiiiii flashy pointy clicky thingy!

Mom has a picture of my half-brother Zeplen with his eyes kinda blinky.  She really liked this one of me.

Ok, Mom, that's enough with the flashy, pointy, clicky, blinding thingy!  I'm cute, we get it!

After dinner, I promptly started my naps.  I was pretty tired from the awesome vacation from Mom weekend and the drive.  But every time Mom would move, I'd be right behind her.  I really missed her.  Mom kept saying how much she missed me, but she didn't seem to appreciate me being behind her all the time.  She said, "Phil, I don't need a doggy shadow!"  Although, Mom softened up later and let me sleep in her bedroom that night.