"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water." - Benjamin Franklin

Took Dolce on a little evening stroll the other day and halfway through we stopped at a park to play and rest and have some water.  After playing for a bit we took out our water and our little collapsable dish.  While I was sitting in a grass having some water myself I noticed the air was lacking the tell tale lapping sound when water is consumed.  In fact it was awfully quiet in general, never a good sign with Dolce.  And low and behold, upon scanning the park, I found Miss Dolce running off to the other side ofthe playground towards a group of children, with her water dish in her mouth, water still in it!! And barely a drop spilled. I'm not really sure why she did this, what she was goingto do once playing with the children or how she managed to run across the park without spilling it all over the place (especially considering she cant manage to keep food in her mouth while eating at her dish) but nonetheless it was hilarious, adorable and pretty impressive!

Neighborhood Watch

Not much of a story goes with this post except that nightly, the view from our couch is the following...

There are literally a million other things she could be doing and about 50 toys laying around the house she could play with, not to mention the 4 humans in the house who would play with her.  And every single night without fail for about an hour she just perches herself on that couch staring out the window and watch the 'hood and barking at all the clearly offensive, threatening and completely oblivious people, animals and in animate objects the make their way down the street. Seemingly adorable, most definitely inevitably annoying and a complete facade. She is the least tough dog, with one of the loudest voices I have ever seen. All bark, no bite, totally cute!

Look mommy, I did it all by myself!

So for all of you in the Boston area, I have a pet owners trade secret that I recently discovered.  It is a large discount pet warehouse, PetEdge.  They primarily take orders online or over the phone, but they have a warehouse right here in Billerica so you don't have to pay for shipping!  I have found that I can either run over to the store and they have what I need right there, or I can call them up and place an order for pickup at the warehouse thereby avoiding shipping fees!  And pretty much everything is super cheap!  Case and point the Gold's Gym toy she has in the picture cost me a whopping $1.50...and the green Polo Shirt she has on in my other post, Absence and death are the same, was $3.00!! But I digress...

So I have been taking her there with me and picking up little things here and there as she needs them, but this picture was from the first time that we went together and I actually brought her in to the store.  Not only was she pumped to see all the other dogs but she was literally like a kid in a candy store.  She was all over the place sniffing things and attempting to steal toys.  I could just envision myself, "I swear officer it wasn't me, my dog did it!" Well when we went in this time she was very persistent about hanging out in the stuffed toy aisle.  After about 5 minutes of tugging me back to them I just surrendered and let her check them out.  She immediately started picking up toys and putting them in her mouth and after a second or two dropped them back on the shelf.  After a few passes at this she keyed in on that Gold's Gym toy, don't ask why, I have no idea what is so interesting about it.  Normally I wouldn't have an issue with this except that this toy happened to be hanging on a hook about 3 feet off the ground.  Upon realizing that I was unaware of her desire to have this toy she proceeded to jump up on the display shelving and reach for the toy herself.  This is typically something I would giggle at, except that pretty much everyone in the store turned to look and see what had mad such a loud thud down in aisle 5 and I got the much dreaded, "You're child is out of control, they shouldn't be in this store much less the zoo!" look. Naturally I shamefully grabbed Dolce off the shelf put her on the ground and said "No!"  It wasn't two seconds later that I turned around to walk away and she was back up on that damn shelf grabbing for that toy again! At this point I figured better to accept defeat and just give in to her wants so we could hightail it out of there rather then to fight with her over it, because I assure you she is persistent and we'd have gone back and forth like that all day. Well she could not have been happier or more proud of herself.  She was such a little ham running around the store with that thing in her mouth showing it off to everyone in line for checkout. And when we got in the car to head home she insisted it be right by her side while she chewed away on her new treat, as I buckled in she looked at me with a big doggy smile looking so happy and proud and I swear to God if she could have at that moment she'd have said "Look mommy, I did it all by myself!" 

"Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories." - From the movie An Affair to Remember

Well to date Dolce absolutely hates when I put clothes on her. But I really don't care...she is just too darn cute not to play dress-up with, and people keep telling me I should get her used to wearing clothes because she'll probably need a coat to keep her warm when we go out to play in the winter.  So I just keep buying adorable shirts and putting them on her.  So the other day I put this adorable hooded sweatshirt on her...and clearly she hated it.  She literally rolled around on the floor twisting and turning for a good 10 minutes growling away as she tried to rip it off her body.  And once she realized I wasn't taking it off she just layed there looking miserable in  a catatonic state.  So ungrateful! I kept trying to talk to her and coax her to play as a distraction tactic and she was having none of it.  She just kept looking at me and whining and sighing.  So finally we took it off...baby steps I suppose.  Our next purchase is a coat for the fall/rain, so she better get on board...more miserable looking puppy pictures to come!

Tuffy for my Softy!

So Dolce has had this toy, called a Tuffy, since she came to us.  She never payed it much attention at first but I suspect that was because her mouth wasn't strong enough or big enough for it yet.  Well recently she has discovered a love for this toy, which is great.  This company (http://www.tuffietoys.com/page/2) calls their toys the "Tuffest soft toys on the planet" and they seem to be just that.  They have pockets that their squeakers are sewn into and then they have 4 layers of fabrics and plastics (mostly luggage quality fabrics) all sealed together with 7 rows of stitching into a protective webbing on the outside. This is great for strong chewers and "rippers", which Dolce is, evidence being her series of headless and legless stuffed animals strewn about.  Sometimes I feel like I live in that kid Sid's house, from Toy Story, just mutilated toys everywhere, only less creepy, and we're not pyromaniacs!  At any rate, she loves this thing now.  Well one day when I was home alone with her and cooking dinner I heard growling coming from the living room, interrupted by brief periods of a grunts.  After ignoring it for a few minutes I finally went in to see what was going on.  And I walked in to find Dolce playing with her toy, on her face, like this...

She had stuck her face into the hole as far as it could go, so much so that her eyes were squished shut.  And she was just walking around the room blindly chewing on it and then after a moment or two suddenly shaking and shaking it by swinging her head back and forth while she grunted.  It was truly hilarious.  After a while I took it off her face and repositioned it so she could still chew it but actually see what she was doing and every single time she would drop it on the ground and immediately shoved her face back into the hole just as far as it would go. After about the third time I did this she dropped it on the ground, looked at me and made the biggest and most adorable sigh. She looked so annoyed I wouldn't just let her play with it her way.  And finally she came over jumped in my lap and licked my chin for as long as I would let her and then very quietly picked up her toy and brought it upstairs to play alone.  Ann Landers once said, "Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful."  But what the hell does Ann Landers know, I'm pretty sure I annoyed Dolce to no end the day, and she was more then willing to snuggle up and love me anyway because in her eyes, I'm wonderful!

"Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." - John F Kennedy

So a while back, in the end of May, we took Dolce to the pet store to get a few things and while we were there we inevitably stop in the toy section, because God forbid Dolce walk by the toys without trying to snatch one off the shelf!  So anyways we are walking through and we get the bright idea to let Dolce pick out her own toy!  Well she did just that, she picked this long, skinny, pink, stuffed dog, which would be the first of many stuffed things she would have, as they are totally her favorite toys.  And oh did she love that thing!  She carried it all over the house incessantly rubbing the spit soaked thing on us while she chewed and squeaked away.  And then she proceeded to rip its legs off, it's belly open and throw up on it.  I'm pretty sure that was what officially sealed it being hers even if by default because no one wanted to touch it after that. Well after about a month and a half of this I finally had to make the executive decision to take it away from her.  There are only so many times you can do "stuffed animal surgeries" and cram squeakers and stuffing back into their soft, furry sausage casing bodies before its a lost cause. For those who were wondering my surgery limit is 3, that poor stuffed dog looked like the stuffed animal equivalent of Heidi Montag by the time I was done with it! Anyway, it was finally time to toss this dog and since she loved this thing so much I knew we'd have to replace it.  So one Friday after work Dolce and I climbed into the care and headed to the pet store with a mission in mind (and yes, this is what I do on Friday nights now)! After she ran around like a psycho for 15 minutes because she was so excited to be at the store and see other dogs, we hit up the toy section.  And sure enough after sniffing a few rubber bones and squeaky balls she ended up snagging a new stuffed dog, only this time, bigger and red.  Like the ebb and flow of the ocean as quickly as the toy went out a new one came back in again.  As if nothing had changed at all she proceeded to chew him until he was soaking wet.  Affectionately rub it all over our legs in an attempt to show it to us, but not let us have it never let us have it if she can help it.  Then she ripped the legs off this new dog and ripped his belly open, only this time no throwing up.  And so we had a new best friend, a big red dog, appropriately named, Clifford.

"Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering." - Theodore Roosevelt

So I know that I have been absent for quite a while, it has been a crazy and hectic summer.  I know this is no excuse so I promise to continue with the posts and update you guys from here on out!  As you can see from this photo, Miss Dolce has gotten big and you guys have missed a whole bunch, so sit back and relax and I'll catch you up to speed!