daily sugarhoney: sugarflashbacks

these are from the past few weeks that i didn't get around to posting.

sugarhoney with her almost 4 year old friend. i mean come on!

pouncey is on base.

 (kevin took these last 3.)

"sneeze"

"dazed"

and last but not least, sharing a tongue:

they're all getting along pretty well. eli is still being cordial, sugarhoney respects that. sugarhoney wishes you all a sweet weekend.

daily sugarhoney: sugar swimming

my friend betsy sent me this picture yesterday.

she had to point out it was not a lunch box/carrier, and was in fact a puppy life preserver.

great idea, but...sugarhoney doesn't need no stinking life preserver!

she gets swimming lessons from kevin!

and she takes her swimming very seriously.

very seriously!

daily sugarhoney: sugarbear

sugarhoney sits like a black bear cub.

she sits down, and pushes back with her arms until she's balanced on the back of her butt.

ruewildlifephotos.com

i've never seen a dog do this. maybe it's a female thing?

there's something very yogi/buddha-like about it. 

daily sugarhoney: sugarlearning

sugarhoney is finally kinda sorta maybe possibly getting the hang of housebreaking.

   
she loves to play with her brothers, especially pouncey. they roughhouse all day and snuggle all night.

 2 more weeks until she gets her last set of vaccines and can leave the house/yard.  until then the risk of parvo is supposedly too great.

 on tuesday, i fed them around noon, and then eli and pouncey came back to my office. after a couple minutes when she hadn't joined them, i went to investigate. she had knocked over their giant tupperware bin of dog kibbles and was inside of it trying to eat her way out. she is a total piggycub.  she likes to chew things, but thankfully, unlike her late great brother holden, she seems to only chew them, and not ingest them.

here lie nacho and holden

it's been 7 hours and 22 days, since you took your love awaaaaay.  (nothing compares to nachodoggy).

can't believe it's already been 3 weeks since we brought nacho home and kevin dug a big hole under the grandest tree in our yard.

Only one tree in the sun, it is nachodoggy

it's a giant white oak and it dominates the canopy with its perfect shape.

i put holden's ashes inside with him, so they will be together forever.

kevin's sister so sweetly gave us a gift card to a nursery to plant things around them. he surrounded them with hostas and some flowering shade plants.

we found a perfectly nacho-shaped rock by the river and i painted it as a headstone.

i've gone down every day to say hola to them. i wish they were still alive, but i'm happy they are together again and close by and they will fertilize a beautiful tree.



i love you dogs!

WTF Wednesday - Batdog & Splasheville & Skulls

It's Wednesday which means time again to focus on the whacky!

The Greensboro Grasshoppers minor league baseball team has a bat dog. A black lab that goes out on the field during the games to retrieve balls and bats. 

The first one was Miss Babe Ruth. Since then, they have used Miss Lou Gehrig, and Master Yogi Berra.

I first saw the dogs when they worked the ACC Tournament games for UNC last year. 

Pouncey saw the bitch of his dreams on TV. 

Babe's brother, Master Yogi Berra, is still working for them, even though he got himself ejected from a game for 'relieving himself on the field.'

This article is hilarious: Baseball Insider: It's About Time: First Dog Ejected From Game

If you've been looking for a sign that the apocalypse is nigh, well, here it is. According to the Greensboro, N.C. News-Record, Master Yogi Berra, a bat and ball carrying dog for the Greensboro Grasshoppers, became the first canine ejected from a baseball game when he was tossed by home plate umpire Jason Hutchings during Greensboro's 9-6 loss to Asheville for "relieving himself" on the field.

The story goes something like this: Master Yogi was involved in one of his traditional between-innings routines, chasing down a ball that was sent deep to center field. En route to the plate, he stopped and left a memento of his trek to get the ball right on the field. Hutchings wasn't having any of that, and he tossed the pooch right after the act.

Amidst the turmoil, the Grasshoppers are sticking with their man. Or dog, as the case may be. Team owner Donald Moore said Yogi was fighting through a stomach virus, and then provided what must be one of the most sublime quotes in baseball history.

"When you gotta go, you gotta go," Moore said. "Yogi's had a tough start to his season, and I hope this doesn't get him down. He clearly couldn't control himself out there. He's such a competitor and he wanted to do his duties as he's been trained. We all hope Yogi feels better soon and he returns to us ready to entertain our fans. You know, he's volunteering his time out there, so I hope he doesn't get fined too much (for his ejection). I don't know the Rulebook like the back of my hand, but apparently a dog can't do his business on the field. Let's hope this is an isolated incident, and Yogi can learn from this experience,"

The best part of the whole episode? Yogi is now listed as day-to-day on the team's injury report. Yes, a dog is day-to-day. Something tells us he'll eat some grass and be back out there against Asheville tonight.

By Cameron Smith  |  April 23, 2009

*******

This makes me giggle with glee! 

WTF?! 

Next I have to give a giant WTF to the city of Asheville for closing the wildly popular Splasheville water fun park for the entire heat of the summer this year. I understand things break and it takes a while to fix them, but they need to publicize that the fountain is closed! Otherwise, kids in bathing suits arrive ready to play, are met with a cold hard "BROKEN" sign, dreams are dashed, and parents' promises are unfulfilled. 

The Asheville Disclaimer has called Splasheville "Asheville's Bidet," but I would like to flush city managers down the toilet for how they've handled this. The city website still shows the park as open. 

The local paper ran a story yesterday saying it has been closed for weeks, and will be closed for more weeks. "Splashville [sic] weeks away from opening in Asheville" 

Again, this is fine, but TELL THE PEOPLE. 

WTF?!

Last but not least, here is a crazy t-shirt from the late 80's advertising a mail order skull catalog. 

available skulls include: wombat, muskrat, hippopotamus, and more! 


WTF?!

As with all wtf wednesdays, there are no answers, only questions leading to more questions.

For more vintage wtf wonders (for sale), click here: vintage wtf

daily sugarhoney: sugarnephews

sugarhoney had the weekend of her life. (so far).



my brother and his amazing wife and 3 adorable boys ages 4 years, 2 years, and 11 months (you read that right) came to visit.



sugarhoney got lots of head pats, and only the bare minimum of tail pulls. they spent a lot of time shut inside her crate with her. she chased them around and was completely exhausted when they left.

eli and pouncey behaved well other than when eli swiped and swallowed an english muffin out of the hands of a 2 year old.

we were outside most of the weekend and saw a 6 foot black rat snake, a spider catch, mummify, and devour a wasp in its web, and two box turtles.



we also went to the wnc nature center where nephew #1 delivered the most amazing mountain lion impression in the history of mountain lion impressions.



could a baby be cuter than this? i really can't imagine how. such a smiley, happy little guy.



we had a ball, and now it is time to rest.

daily sugarhoney: sugarplanting

sugarhoney is into gardening.



she is also into using interesting body parts as pillows.



just for fun here's the jolliest picture of eli ever taken.



i love these doggies!

daily sugarhoney: sugarheadrest

the love affair between sugarhoney and pouncey seems to get stronger every day.

 

we're pretty sure she came home with kennel cough, and has passed it on to pouncey via all their making out. kind of like doggie mono.

the internet says it's very common, not dangerous, and can last 3 weeks. they are acting fine, but pouncey is coughing. 

the price of love.

WTF Wednesday - 4.0

Welcome back to WTF Wednesday, the day reserved for celebration of the whacky and the wild.

My vintage shopping has been drastically curtailed of late by an un-house-broken puppy, so pickins are kinda slim this week.

But still, there is always some WTF: here we have a man so dedicated to weeding the front yard, yet so allergic to poison ivy, that he dons a tyvek hazmat suit to garden.

you can order tyvek suits for under $10 each on amazon. they withstand branch and briar sticks. they seem to repel poison ivy, too.

next we have a video that is bursting with FUN. it may make you scratch your head and say "huh?" or it may make you sell your belongings and go on ALO tour.  "Falling Dominoes" (Official Music Video) - made by the indomitable Guadalajara Joe.

now here's a confusing vintage t-shirt i found last week:

 oh seymour, what are you flocking about? 

 

is demi a woman's name? or short for half? is a doctorette a nurse? a med student? hmmmmm....

last but not least, giggling pouncey and sugarhoney think that's a real knee slapper.

WTF?

As with all wtf wednesdays, there are no answers, only questions leading to more questions.

For more vintage wtf wonders (for sale), click here: vintage wtf

daily sugarhoney: sugarlegs

sugarhoney beats the heat on the cool tile bathroom floor.

she keeps it dainty with crossed legs while doing so.

daily sugarhoney: sugarcushions

sugarhoney is doing great. other than peeing everywhere, she is doing great.



she likes to sit on the couch and snuggle. once it cools off, i think she is really going to like snuggling.

i need to get a better picture of this, but she does the cutest hop when she is excited. all 4 limbs are locked straight, and she just bounces up into the air.

this is the basic idea:

daily sugarhoney: sugarkisses

sugarhoney loves pouncey.



really loves him.



especially when he has an ice cube in his mouth.



it's a sign of respect when a younger dog licks the teeth of an older dog.



pouncey digs it, too.

daily sugarhoney: sugarshots

sugarhoney passed her first checkup this morning with flying colors.

she got two big shots in her scruff and did not even flinch.

she weighs 16 lbs.

she met two giant pit bulls who really wanted to play with her in the waiting room and was calm and cool as a cucumber.

she is the mellowest, laziest puppy i could ever imagine.

Sugarhoney the Daily Puppy

look who made cover of the daily puppy today!

go over there and give her 11 puppy biscuits!

i put 20 photos in her album, and it seems to me that they picked 9 of my least favorite to feature. maybe the editors were drunk, or maybe it's a random generator.

anyway, here are some pictures i wish they had picked!


sugarhoney tennis ball


sugarhoney down the stairs


leaping sugarhoney


sugarhoney lies down when she eats


pouncey, sugarhoney, and eli - family portrait

ah well, i am very grateful she is featured at all - and next time on the daily puppy i will know to only upload the pictures that i want them to use!

here's the link again to give her biscuits: sugarhoney the labrador retriever

hola sugarhoney!

well that was quick!

there was a retriever-sized hole blasted into our hearts last week, and we stuffed it with a puppy. i have always said that the only cure for the dead dog blues is puppy shopping, and this weekend i put my money where my mouth is.

like the griswold's pilgrimage to see a moose, on friday we took a pilgrimage 7 hours in each direction to ohio to see a puppy.

I-75 north

kevin grew up with a black lab female - night - and he really wanted another one of those. i grew up with crappy rabbits and really just wanted another lab - any gender any color.

after some sleuthing, we found her online, decided we are crazy but who cares, and set off to bring her home. 

she is black, she is 8 weeks old, and she is bred to be mellow. her mother, princess, looks just like nacho with teats. her father, bear, is a sweet, calm, waggily boy.  we met them both and wanted to take them home with us, too. awesome dogs.

sugarhoney and her mama princess

the clincher was she was born on june 6 - nachodoggy's exact birthday! i mean really.

sugarhoney in the heartland

here we are at a truckstop where she had a drink out of nacho's fiesta bowl.



for all 7 hours, she slept quietly on my foot. at this point, she almost had her name changed to slippers.



when we got home, the introduction went well, and pouncey and eli were cordial, though not yet snuggly.  pouncey finds this exciting.



i am not sure if she is a dog, or a bear cub. what kind of animal is this?



she was not afraid of the river, and jumped in the middle of the rapids. and sunk! kevin was right there, and she scrambled to the side just fine. 



it has only been 2 days, but we are head over heels for this pup. we have a long way to go with house training, crate training, and chewing, but we can already tell she is calm and smart and she has a heart of gold!



nothing could ever replace nachodoggy, but it feels like some sweetness and light has returned to the house and harmonious balance is restored. aaaaahhhh!

with a name like sugarhoney, she has to be sweet