Maine Millers

Today was Scout’s first try at doggie daycare.  I thought it would do him some good to go once a week and get really tuckered out.  That was an understatement!  He is exhausted.

I dropped him off at 8:15 this morning and picked him up at 5:00 tonight.  It was like playing at the Bowdoin fields all day instead of just an hour.  There were 6 or 7 dogs there and I guess he did a good job getting a year old yellow lab, Mario, who doesn’t play much to play quite a bit today.  He has just been flopping on the floor tonight, this will be interesting if we continue.  I think more than once a week will be too much for him right now but this will sure take the edge off.  We’ll see what tomorrow is like.

The field is close to 15 acres, the mud puddle is about 8 feet in diameter, why does Scout feel the need to find it and dive in on his belly?  I don’t think we were outside for more than 10 minutes and he just dropped into the mud, and it was clumpy mud to boot.  He was black from the belly down.  Oh well, that’s the way he is sometimes.  It was a beautiful day so he was able to just hang out on the deck and dry off today.  Of course he could have been like Cody, another Aussie that is just a few months younger than Scout.  Cody felt the need to roll all the way around in the mud and then he proceeded to jump on his owner who was wearing white pants.  I guess it’s one of the small prices to pay for having a dog live with you 🙂

Michele was off today and I went in to work to find the third day without power due to the nor’easter we had this week. Anyway, I got a call from Michele telling me that since I was coming back home anyway she needed a BIG coffee. She got up early to make the kids a coffee cake. When she left the room to give Clementine some food, someone who has four feet, decided to become a flour child. Scout had gotten up on the counter and pulled a piece of wax paper with four cups of flour onto the floor, no photos but lots of mess. Needless to say someone is in the proverbial doghouse today.

It’s been a lazy couple of days here in Maine. We got hammered by an April nor’easter that was pretty interesting. Trees down, lots and lots of rain, and heavy winds yesterday some in the 40-50 mph range. Scout and I just hung out. I was sick so didn’t do too much and he was happy to just lie on the bed with me and sleep most of the time. We did venture out a few times since someone needs to relieve himself outside, grateful for that 😉 He would just stand there and point his face into the wind and inhale deeply. It was quite interesting to watch him try to get the scent of something, no idea what though. The walks were brief and fast since it was cold and wet for me, he didn’t care in the slightest, that’s a dog for you. The two photos are a very large tree branch that came down on the neighbors utility wires and is still there 2 days later (close to 100,000 still without power as of this afternoon). The other photo is of our back yard, apparently we have waterfront property, shhh don’ t tell the state or they will raise our taxes. It might be a bad mosquito season again if we can get past the mud season.

I wore him out this weekend 🙂 It’s been a few weeks since we went to play with the other dogs at Bowdoin and this weekend we went twice. He has been laying around most of the day yesterday and today. This is on top of spending a week with friends while we were in Maryland. They have two dogs, a cat, fish, two kids, and Scout for a week. We’re sorry.

Close to 80 degrees in MD and got off the plane and it was 38 degrees. Now we have snow again, 12 inches on Thursday, maybe it will stop in time for the leaves to change colors? At least playing in the snow is more work than playing in the grass. You can see the dogs all lifting their legs higher as they run. We went for a walk around the block tonight and he did really well with the leash pulling and chewing, maybe it was being tired and just going out for a short trip was all he needed. Hopefully we will start agility soon and that will also help wear him out mentally as well as physically 😉