Our Wish For You

We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas,

And a happy new year.

We wish you a lot of biscuits,

We wish you a lot of biscuits,

We wish you a lot of biscuits,

To snack on all year.

We wish you some squeaky new toys,

We wish you some squeaky new toys,

We wish you some squeaky new toys,

To bring you good cheer.

We wish you a bed to nap on,

We wish you a bed to nap on,

We wish you a bed to nap on,

Till springtime gets here.

We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas,

Please come back next year.

From Morgan, Tsar, Samba, Fudge, Tess, Sky, Lola, Bailey, Noah, Norma jean and Mom, too.

Here Comes The Sun

Today is the Winter Solstice.

It's a new beginning as we head toward another new year.

The days are now starting to get longer.

We're moving toward spring and summer.

We moving toward green leaf buds and sunshine.

Happy Solstice everyone.

We're Getting Close

Wow, what a busy month December is. You'd think with eleven other months to prepare, we wouldn't be scurrying around at the last minute every year.

There's been a lot going on here lately. Fudge has kept you up to date about shopping and baking, but I've been busy, too. Mainly I've been watching over and caring for my injured pups. Here's an update.

Morgan is doing very well. Her knee seems to be healing and though she walks with a limp, it doesn't seem to bother her. She skips rather than running, but she can climb stairs by herself and she's acting like her old happy self.

Samba's foot also seems to have healed. She's running and jumping and not showing any more signs of pain.

Tsar is still on pain meds for his back problem, but he, too, is feeling better. We did run into a little problem with him. He injured his back on a Saturday and refused to eat after that. By the following Friday I was worried and Dr B prescribed an appetite stimulant for him. It worked fast and by that evening he was eating a little. In a couple days he was cleaning his bowl. Now I just have to keep him quiet for another few weeks to give it time to heal.

Bailey went in for x-rays for the pain in her hip . Nothing showed up so we're thinking it's a soft tissue injury resulting from rough play with her sisters. She's taking an anti-inflammatory for a couple weeks and staying out of the running and wrestling that passes for play with my dogs. She is acting much better.

After gifts are wrapped and cookies baked, I get to settle down with a glass of wine and my stitchery. My hand is still not quite well enough to start knitting, but it's getting close. For now I'm sticking to cross stitch and having so much  fun with it. Here are my two newest pieces.

This was a quick little 'Mosey and Me' design.

This piece took longer than usual because of all the beading and charms, but it was so much fun and the little characters are so happy that they make me smile.

Tomorrow we'll make more cookies. That seems to be a popular activity around here.

Smelly Holidays

Hi everybody, it's me again. Mom has been busy getting ready for Christmas, so she lets me write the blog. Besides I have lots of interesting things to tell you.

Today we were very busy dogs. We made Christmas cookies. You start with stuff called dough. It smells great, but you can't eat it until it's cooked.

Mom did the measuring and Dad helped her mix because she has a sore hand. We helped by licking the spoon.

Tsar wouldn't lick the spoon because he thinks everyone is trying to poison him. What a goofball!

Dad did the rolling out part because Mom doesn't like to do it. She says she gets bored. How can you get bored with cookies?

We helped by keeping Dad company.

Even Tsar was interested in that part.

Then Mom put the cookies in the oven and we had to wait and smell them cooking.

Finally they were done. First we made dog cookies. Two kinds! We made apple peanut butter cookies and gingerbread cookies. Oh wow do they ever smell good!

After the dog cookies were done we made people cookies, gingerbread ones. Mom has become very hungry for gingerbread lately so we made some just for her and look what we made...

Portuguese Gingerbread Dogs!

We made lots of them so Mom can have all she wants. 

Making cookies takes a long time, but after dinner tonight we each got to have one of our own homemade Christmas cookies and they were sure good.

Fudge's Shopping Advice

Hi everyone in Blogland.

Isn't this a great time of the year? The big truck men keep coming to the house bringing boxes and some of them are for us.

One of the best things is all the special food that is around the house at this time of year. There are lots of good smells and super tastes, like turkey and especially cookies. We love cookies, both dog kind and people kind.

Today I want to give you some ideas for gifts if you haven't finished your shopping. Every year we give our Dad a gift from us dogs. Mom helps us, but they're all things we think he should have. Here are a few of the things we've given Dad in the past. We can't tell you what we're giving him this year because then it wouldn't be a surprise. Right?

A shirt that shows that he belongs to us is always a good gift.

It's great to go for long walks on cold, snowy days, but remember that humans don't have thick fur and they get cold. If they get too cold they only go for short walks. If you want a nice long walk think about giving your Dad a warm jacket.

Humans don't have very much fur on their hands or ears either, so this might extend your walks.

We love to go for rides in the car, especially to the park, the lake or the ice cream shop. A long time ago we gave our Dad one of these car compasses so we would find our way without getting lost.

Last year we updated that gift with one of these. Now an invisible lady tells us how to find the ice cream shop. Neat, huh?

Our Dad is an artist and one year Mom got him lots of art supplies, like paints and brushes. We got him one of these things so he could learn how to make pictures of us. I don't think he's ever used it, but I'm not sure. Dad makes abstract paintings with lots of lines and splotches, so maybe that's what we look like to him.

We don't give Mom gifts at Christmas, but she says we're her best gift of all, so that's a good thing. Even if you don't do any shopping, be sure and give your Mom and Dad a kiss and a cuddle. They like that stuff. Your pal, Fudge

Strange Human Behavior - Part Two

Hello again everybody, Fudge here.

I'm afraid I have an embarrassing situation to discuss with you today. It will point up how humans really aren't quite as superior as they pretend to be. Let me explain.


In our house we dogs have three water bowls. One is in the garage, one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom. Mom makes sure that they all have cool clean water in them all the time.

Our humans also have several water bowls in the house, but they keep them in little rooms with doors.

When we were all puppies, our Mom and Dad showed us that it was important for us to go outside to pee or poop. We sometimes thought the carpet would do, but they convinced us that we needed to tell them and they'd take us outside. Now this is just fine with us, we like going outside unless it raining really hard.


But our humans, and other humans that visit us aren't housebroken. They pee in their water bowls. Yes, it's a shameful thing to admit, but it's better to get these things out in the open. Now I ask you, what kind of animal pees in it's water bowl?

We like to go in the little room with the humans and observe this strange behavior and once I decided that I would try to please Mom, so I lifted my leg and peed on her water bowl. She told me that it was bad, but I thought she must have misunderstood, so I tried it again the next day. Do you know what she did? She put that horrible belly band on me so that I couldn't pee till she took it off. I really hate that thing, so I never did it again. I guess humans don't like to share their water bowls.


Once Mom caught Norma Jean with her feet in the human water bowl, playing in the water. After that Mom started closing the doors to the little rooms where they keep their water bowls. Now we can't go in there anymore. It's too bad because they have paper to shred in those rooms and that's lots of fun.

Anyway, I've confessed our shameful secret and I hope you don't think badly of our humans even though they've never been housebroken. We keep trying to tell them how pleasant it is to pee on a tree, but they don't seem to get the message.

Have you ever heard of such behavior?
Fudge

Strange Human Behavior - Part One

Hi Everybody. I'm here today to discuss some very puzzling behavior  from my our humans. This is not new behavior, but we dogs have discussed it and we just don't understand why they act the way they do. Maybe some of you have seen the same strange things in your households and can enlighten us.

This is the situation. In our house we have several of these things.

These things usually sit quietly on the table or the desk and they don't bother anyone, but occasionally they make a funny noise and then our Mom or Dad stop whatever they're doing and go pick them up.

They hold the things up close to their heads and start talking. There's nobody else in the room, so we think they're talking to us even though we don't understand most of the words they're saying.

To show that we're paying attention and want to carry on this conversation, we start barking.

When we bark, Mom and Dad tell us to be quiet, so we stop barking while they talk. Then when they pause and seem to be waiting for us to answer, we bark again. This does not make them happy and sometimes Mom goes into the bedroom and shuts the door so we can't hear what she's saying.

So our question is, why are they talking to us with that thing against their heads and why don't they want us to answer? Do your humans do this, too? What do you do? We'd love to hear your explanations of this bizarre behavior.

Your pal, Fudge