This was a game we frequently played when Benjamin & Henry were puppies. The whole purpose of the game was to trick Benjamin & Henry into practicing their Sit, Stay & Come commands, but to do it in a fun way that allowed them to work off their puppy energy.
First the sit & stay while I move away.
Then the come command.
Looks like Benny was a little bit quicker out of the gates.
Almost up to full speed.
Still truckin'.
About halfway there and Benny has taken the lead.
Benny coming into the home stretch, completely blocking Henry from the frame.
Benny finishing strong. You can see his wrinkly skin flapping in the wind and his eyes are fixed on the prize - the treat.
Henry swam so much this weekend, that I am expecting him to sleep for at least the next few days. It was quite hot this weekend, so we were in and out of the pool on both Saturday and Sunday to cool off after working in the yard, cutting grass, etc. Henry played a marathon game of fetch on Saturday and was back at it again on Sunday.
He was in rare form on Saturday and insisted on diving into the pool each time.
It is really fun to watch Henry jump into the pool, but what is even funnier to watch is Benjamin & Luna. They get very worked up when Henry leaps in from the side. They prefer him to go to the first step and then just shove off from there. They feel that is much safer. When Henry is getting read to jump in from the side, Benjamin & Luna are nervous bundles of energy pacing back and forth all while keeping a close eye on Henry.
Luna even goes as far as trying to bite Henry's ankles on his way in.
And where is Sol during all of this? She is staying cool in the shady lanai, shaking her head, saying "Kids!"
I have never met a dog that has so much interest in what others are doing as Henry does. I think it is safe to say that he would win the award for nosiest pug hands down. It is not uncommon for him to just stop and stare at people while we are out on our walks. He will be walking along, see something that catches his interest and stop dead in his tracks. He always takes a couple of good sniffs in the air to pick up any scents and then he just watches. He isn't shy about it and he doesn't try to pretend like he isn't watching. Instead, he stares people down with a look on his face that say, "Watcha' doing?"
The funny part is, that most of the time, the people he is staring at aren't doing anything too terribly interesting. They might be cutting their grass, walking to their car or watering flowers. Nothing that he hasn't seen before.
One day, one of the boys had the bright idea to lift their leg and pee on the screen enclosure that goes around our pool. Since the pugs know that they can not walk through the screen enclosure, they treat it like a wall and they are unable to comprehend that the little holes in the screen let their pee pee go through to the other side of the deck.
When they first discovered that the could pee from the outside of the screen and it would land on the deck they were quite pleased with themselves. It was like they just found out they possessed super powers. They could now pee through walls!
While Batman & Robin think of this as a glorious thing, I’m not too happy with it. I have tried to make them stop, but they have me on a technicality. They are in the yard outside when they go potty! The only requirement I have ever had was that you go potty outside in the yard, I never specified exactly where in the yard.
To deter them from going potty through the screen, I built a little garden next to the screen and filled it with plants. It worked for awhile as the plants became their new favorite thing thing to pee on. But then, the boys changed things up and started peeing on a different part of the screen. I didn’t really want to plant another garden so I got a little bamboo fence that you stick into the ground. It isn’t very long, but it covered the main spot where they like to go potty.
It worked for awhile, but then the other day I spotted Benny doing this.
Come on Ben! Must you? The boy doesn’t have much smarts in other areas of life, but when it comes to peeing on things he is a genius!
The way I see it, I have two choices. Take the easy way out and get more bamboo fence or for once and for all train them not to pee on the screen enclosure. While it does irk me to have to squirt off the deck so often, I keep thinking back to when Benjamin & Henry were puppies and the never ending potty accidents I had to clean up in the house. Those memories make this screen issue seem trivial. This is about as close as they come to having potty accidents and that makes me one lucky woman.
I have 5 animals and, knock wood, they all go potty in the proper places. The only issue is my two superheroes that sometimes abuse their super powers and pee through walls.
On Saturday, after hitting the gym and working hard in the yard, the pool was looking mighty nice. So we drug out all the pool toys and the life vests and spent some time splashing around. The boys were having a good time running around and playing tug with the toys. Henry was his usual self, fetching everything out of the pool. But for Sol, this was the first time anyone has ever been in the pool. So we of course had to see how she liked the pool.
She swam quite well with her vest on. She was a little splashy with her front paws which led to a little extra water getting on her face, but all in all she did a very good job. We were very careful to make sure she did not overdo it on the swimming.
While Sol was fine with swimming, way less nervous than Benjamin & Luna, but not as relaxed as Henry, her absolute favorite thing to do was be held and enjoy the cool water. We took turns holding and floating around with her and she was in her glory! I think we may have to resurrect the pug tug.
I managed to get two short videos of Henry and Sol in action before the batteries in the camera died. First up is Henry and then there is a short video of Sol swimming.
A few days before his birthday, Henry was chewing a rawhide bone on the sofa. He was steadily chewing and I walked to the kitchen to do something. The next thing I hear is a surprisingly loud *snap* sound and when I look in the direction of the sound, I see Henry in mid air like a startled cat. As soon as he lands, he jumps off the sofa and is eyeing the sofa like it just attacked him. I walk over to see what is going on and I see Henry’s rawhide bone along with something white laying on the sofa. I look at the white thing a little bit harder and I notice that it is a tooth! I immediately turn to Henry and he looks fine, other than the fact that he is now afraid of the sofa. In fact, he is so fine that he wants me to give him his bone back so that he can finish chewing. I call him over, make him sit and pry open his mouth. Sure enough he snapped part of his fang off! Exactly, how he did this will remain a mystery, but I am thinking that he got his fang caught in the rawhide bone and used his paws to pull the bone away from his mouth. In doing this, he broke his tooth.
Other than being scared of the sofa, he had no reaction. He even went over to the toy bin and got another bone! There was no blood, and there appeared to be no discomfort on Henry’s part. So I did what any good pug mom would do. I made him get his picture taken with the offending bone and his tooth.
