Feel Like Complaining

The empty spots in my April schedule filled in nicely, which was cool. This guy was kind of a last minute booking. His Mom moved to town a month ago and needed to go back home to pack up the rest of her stuff. Bear is a 7 year old English Black Lab, which is bigger than than a regular Lab. He loves playing with a ball and has lots of energy. Tony really likes him and is enjoying his company while I'm out at Sasha's. There are not many dogs that he will get on the floor to play with but he will for Bear! We also had a repeat in Scotch, just for the weekend. I missed most of his stay though since I was gone. I really hate that. Sometimes I tell clients I will be gone, sometimes I don't. I realize the family is totally capable of taking care of a dog, especially a repeat. Even though I am working myself, I still feel responsible and don't like to be gone.  I figured once the bruises healed from my accident, I'd be raring to go and get back to my norma...

We all met at Mom's last Monday to say goodbye to younger Brother. He has retired from being the manager of the Huskies stadium. Their house sold in less than a week. They gave away or sold most of their household furnishings and are moving to Arizona. They've had a home there for awhile, slowly making it theirs in anticipation of it being their retirement spot. Older brother and his wife had a busy winter traveling and are now in town for maybe the summer. He's already crabby and wants to go, but she has medical appointments to take care of. It was hard to sit there and listen to their adventure stories and possibilities of meeting up next year to travel together. Brothers haven't necessarily been close because they are 10 years apart in age, so listening to both of them now about their new lives had me feeling quite left out. Awhile back, I casually told Mom that I felt kind of abandoned and she admitted she felt the same. Although her health is pretty good fo...

We had Spike with us for nine days and for a first-timer, he did really well. With one exception of him peeing on my chair (why is it always my chair?) upon arrival, in front of his dad, he's been really great. He's a 12 year old Australian Cattle Dog and obviously loves his treats. He loves walks although his dad says he keeps walks short because of his arthritis. I believe walking is actually good for arthritis and a few more walks wouldn't hurt him at all. Chasing a ball is probably his favorite activity but he's not overly obsessed with it. He will just lay around until somebody gets up, then it's treat beggin' time! His family has already booked him again for July and we're looking forward to it. I've got some really large gaps in my schedule and it's a little concerning. Usually things are pretty full by this time of the year. We had another cancellation from a woman who booked even before the meet and greet. Her dog was a Keeshond which...

Since I've had a little extra time on my hands, I've made a few things. I saw a tugging toy online made out of fleece and it looked really strong but I wasn't sure how it was made. I remembered the spool knitters of long ago and started looking online. This one has two ends, large and small. I got a fleece blanket and cut one continuous strip about 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide. By the time I was done knitting, I ended up with a 10 foot rope. Then I tied knots and fashioned it into a 3 foot toy. Not all of our dogs like tug toys but we're excited to try it out to see how it holds up. We still have plenty of fleece so will try to figure out another way to make another toy. I love beef jerky but it's too expensive to buy. I had researched making it once but the idea fell by the wayside until recently. One website in particular was very informative and had lots of recipes. I studied everything and made our first batch last weekend. We decided to do Teriyaki first but I ...