February 24, 2012

Three Little Birds

You might recognize the title of this post as a cheery Bob Marley song in which the titular (isn't that a funny word?) birds on his doorstep sing sweet songs and tell him not to worry, "cuz every little thing's gonna be all right."

Sadly, the three little birds I'm thinking of didn't do so well on my doorstep - or not in our backyard anyway. Every little thing was not all right. In fact, every little birdy thing was most definitely B*A*D.

First, a few years ago, there was the teenage-looking (all skinny and dorky) mourning dove that Bailey pounced on when it tried to leave the nest. (Mike had to put it in a bag and bop it one to put it out of it's misery, poor thing! And by that, I mean poor Mike, cuz he was very traumatized by the experience, what with being known as Mike of Assisi after all... Maybe not so much after me telling that story.) The mourning doves were aptly named that day.

Then, last year, there was the little birdie of some sort that Abby plucked out of a bush in our yard and promptly ate--feet, beak, feathers and all. (Amazingly, she suffered no ill side effects!) A bird in the bush may be worth half a bird in the hand (right? cuz a bird in the hand equals two in the bush...), but a bird in the mouth trumps all!

Finally, we come to this morning, when a sparrow made the mistake of flying in our slightly open sliding glass door. I was brushing my teeth when I heard a commotion in motion in our sunroom. The bird zoomed across the sunroom, with Rita in hot pursuit and smacked right into the far window. Stunned, it fell to the floor, and she pounced on it. I was trying to yell, "Leave it!", but that's not easy when your mouth is full of toothpaste! Rita tried to bring it to me. (Um, no thank you!) so I pointed outside and she took it out in the backyard where she tossed it around like a hackysack. Luckily it was an ex-bird by then! I was afraid she'd eat it, but she dug a hole and buried it. Nice of her to give it a proper burial. (Unfortunately, I had the fun task of beating her back out to the hole when we got home from Fiesta Island and digging up and disposing of the bird before she could toss it around some more!)

Today I also took Rita with me to PetSmart. She loves to go in there and look at all the colorful little song birds hopping around in their glass enclosures in the center of the store. She was sitting there, staring at them, fascinated, when she leapt straight up in the air about three feet - about to the same height as the little birdies on their perch. Luckily the glass kept the birdies safe, although they did look concerned. We got out of there after that because I didn't want to find out if PetSmart has a "you eat it, you buy it" policy.

It's a dog eat bird world out there.

Since no post is complete without a photo, here's a pic John took of Rita last week when she met up with Bernie bin Laden and Linda. She LOVES to ride with her head out the window. (We need to teach her to wear Abby's old doggles.)

And here's our latest felting endeavor - a little wooly Cass in his "gladiator suit":

 

February 15, 2012

A Very Busy Girl!

Bunny Rita's been a very busy girl the past few days. This might be a long one because I've been taking TONS of pictures of her.

I Love Lucy
First of all, Rita met Lucy, my nephew and his girlfriend's dog. I think that makes Lucy & Rita cousins once removed. Although these two are more like never-to-be-removed cousins. Rita is probably a month or 2 older than Lucy, and they played hard for three hours straight. Most of my pictures from them playing outside look like this:
A blur or puppies
Action shot!










They seemed to enjoy this...
Inside, they played a "Queen of the Bed" game that went on and on. 
Great-white-shark teeth!
A rare moment of rest

Rita definitely LOVED Lucy and looked very sad when they left. Then she crashed!

Bunny Meets Bernie
You might remember Bernie, aka Bernie bin Laden, from this video I posted of him back in January.Well, Bernie wanted to come down from his home in Orange County to meet Bunny Rita, so the roads were cleared, and the appropriate authorities were warned, and we signed Rita up for insurance (our first time having pup insurance, btw), and the two of them met at Fiesta Island on Monday, along with Linda, Bernie's older and wiser sister.

No, don't follow Bernie! That way lies nuthin' but trouble!
Linda es muy linda.
They were actually pretty tame, I think because Rita was still hung over from her play marathon with Lucy the night before.
A very dirty Rita
Afterwards we went to In-N-Out, which was obviously a huge hit.
"Nom, nom, nom"



"Are there any more Flying Dutchmen?"
Bernie decided to give Mike the kisses he's been missing since Rita is stingy with them.



Then Bernie decided his dad might be jealous, so gave him a bunch too. Below, John demonstrates the appropriate way to receive Bernie's kisses: lips and eyes all clamped tight shut. The only problem is that Bernie then kisses your nose, sealing off your access to oxygen, so that you are forced to open your mouth. But you really don't want to do that, so it's best to just hold your breath til you pass out.


Bernie also decided I needed my makeup washed off - but I have no pictures of that (which is probably a good thing).

Bunny Rita's Special Valentine
Rita also received not one, but TWO special Valentine's from her long distance boyfriend, Rocket. First of all, he sent her a Valentine's care package that included a Monkeydog helmet, a stuffed pink monkey, and some chocolates for Rita's mama. (Which Rita's mama did not share with Rita's daddy...)

If you missed it I explained about MonkeyButts (aka Monkeydogs) here, but basically they are quadpawds who stir up friendly trouble on Tripawds.com to keep the smiles coming on a site that can sometimes be filled with sad news. The Monkeybutts' leader, Rocket (a.k.a. the "MonkeyButt-Bunny Vampire Pirate") has a little crush on MBBunny Rita, so he sent her a helmet. She is ready for battle with those silly Tripawds!

The other special Valentine he sent her was this special video viewable here, which cracks me up every time I watch it. My Rita es muy bonita! Y Rocket es muy macho!


Hope you all had a good Valentine's Day, whether your Valentine is two-, three-, or four-legged (or web-footed or talon-ed or whatever. I don't judge.)!

February 7, 2012

It's Official! (& A Commercial)

She's Ours! 
On Saturday we had our "home inspection" to make sure we are suitable pawrents for Rita. It was fairly intense - full-on white glove inspection while we stood at attention (even Rita). Somehow we managed to pass and now Rita is ours, all ours!

To celebrate, she got a Frosty Paw.
Not sure if this is pure rapture, or just the sun in her eyes...
...Got her some sunglasses in case it was the latter.














She also got a few kale chips*, which (amazingly) were also a hit!

We are still getting to know our girl. She's so sweet! She really is amazingly good - we've had no destruction, no accidents (other than Day 1 when she was, I'm sure, still a little confused about what was going on), and she likes to sleep in with us on the weekends. This makes us very very very very very very happy. I'm pretty sure most puppies are not sleeper-inners, so we are happy to get one who is!




She is not much of a kisser, like Bailey and Abby both were, but she does enjoy her some tummy rubs!
Does this little slut puppy remind you of anyone?

Seeing Abby During Super Bowl
We heard from many people who mentioned seeing a dog that looked a lot like Abby in a Chevy commercial aired during the Super Bowl. We saw it too - and I was even working on my Abby scrapbook (my sis made me a gorgeous scrapbook with pics of Abby plus space to add extra photos) when we saw it. Maybe you saw it as well? It was the Mayan Apocalypse commercial. If not, you can view it here.

"Abby" appears at exactly 19 seconds in and then again briefly at 31 seconds. So cute! She's even riding in the same spot where she used to ride in my car. (Although I, alas, drive a Ford, so will not be surviving the apocalypse - but that's cool.) I think she put on a couple of pounds, eating Twinkies on set between takes. I've since seen "her" again in an Oscar Mayer turkey lunchmeat ad.

The Latest in Wooly Dogs
In "felting" news, the most recent pup that Terry and I attempted to recreate in wool is Chili Dawg. Chili Dawg is a Tripawd who, sadly, earned his wings several months ago. He was such a gorgeous boy, it was hard to do him justice, but the wooly version came out pretty cute in the end. 
Abby sneaks a kiss...






  




Isn't Chili Dawg one of the best names ever for a dog? Especially a red dog??

* Kale chips (don't turn your nose up! You know who you are...Kath) are easy to make and (in my opinion) one of the tastiest ways to eat kale. (I don't really like kale, but it's good for me. The other tasty way to eat it is blended up to where it is indistinguishable in a smoothy. I highly recommend chocolate-cherry-kale smoothies!) To make kale chips, all you do is: tear the kale up into bite size pieces, toss it in a bit of olive oil, lay it out on a parchment lined cookie sheet, sprinkle with salt, and cook for ~10 min (maybe a little more) at 350 degrees. Yum. Salty, crunchy. Nutritious & delicious.