Sometimes I Wish Rita Spoke English!

At least once a week, Rita takes part in this scenario at the beach: A big dog runs up to play, but maybe is a bit too dominant or rough, so Rita gets scared and squeals like the drama queen that she is, when all the big dog wanted to do was play. Invariably, she will later run up and do the exact same thing to a smaller dog. She just wants to play, but she gets so excited that she bops the little dog or chases it too fast, and the next thing you know, she's scared the life out of it and it's telling her off.

Rita flees the big dogs. "Hey! Come back! You said you'd skinny-dip with us!"

Somewhat Wordy Wednesday: Rubble

Today's word on Somewhat Wordless Wednesday is: rubble. Remember those (ugly) stone steps I just photographed Rita on the other day? Well, now they look like this:

Monday Mischief: No Ordinary Rabbit

We are getting ready to have some work done in our backyard, so the other day I was gathering up all the small little animal sculptures that inhabit our yard that I wanted to keep out of harm's way.

Well, moving them all into a pile brought a certain one of them to Rita's attention: the evil bunny.

"What is this thing??"

This little stone bunny has been in our yard the entire time she has lived with us. In fact, she walks past it on her way out the back door several times a day. But she only noticed it once I moved it.

Authors Playing Tag: The Next Big Thing

Last week, Peggy Frezon of Peggy's Pet Place (you remember, Peggy, right - from the Dieting With My Dog book giveaway?) tagged me for a blog feature entitled "The Next Big Thing." This weekly feature, where each author passes the torch on to five others for the following week, is about "The Next Big Thing" that writers are working on, with each author answering the same set of questions. As Peggy said, "What a great way to learn more about an author and discover some new reads." So at the end of my post, I'll tag five writers, so be sure to check them out next week. Thanks again to Peggy for tagging me! 

My next book is definitely a "big thing," to me, because it's been with me, "hounding" me as it were (yes, it's another doggy-related book), for so long now. So, here goes:

Wordless Wednesday: Fall!

I love the fall - this is one time of year that I miss our east coast days. The fall was so great there! But, we really do have fall in San Diego. It's just that we have it in very small amounts. Sometimes you have to look pretty hard for it, but we have a nice little bit of it here on our street:

The neighbor's liquid amber trees. So pretty!

Monday Mischief: The Coyote in the "Window"

Sometimes on Sunday mornings, we like to watch CBS Sunday Morning while we sip our coffees and read the paper. And sometimes the segments are boring (which is why we read the paper while we watch). But there's one segment we always enjoy (and even stop reading the paper to watch): the "Moment in Nature" at the end.

As soon as good ol' Charles Osgood said yesterday morning that they were going to "leave us" with some coyotes in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park, I knew Rita would come over to watch, so I grabbed my iPad to record it.

Strange Bedfellows

Sleeping with the Furry Kids
I got an email from my sister this morning, saying that her back was hurting, from her bed and "from having a dog invade my space. She is so twitchy in her sleep that I'm practically on the edge of the bed trying to keep away from her. What's wrong with this picture?"   

It got me thinking about this picture that I'd seen all over Facebook lately:

"Sleeping with Pets: Expectations vs. Reality"

[Photo from: http://9laughs.com/sleeping-with-pets-expectations-vs-reality/]


I think those of us who let our dogs sleep in the bed start out thinking, "Won't this be nice!? Won't it be cozy!" But the reality is usually anything but.