The Dog Days of November

For the past week we have been watching Daisy, a 2 year old, 50 pound "Goldendoodle" (Golden Retriever, Poodle mix). She is a sweetheart of a dog, a gentle giant if you will. I've loved having her here with us, but I think little Emma is absolutely worn out. It will be sad to see Daisy go, but I know she will be ecstatic to her mama and daddy tonight.

The first few days were pretty interesting, - establishing boundaries and such - i.e. "Daisy, don't sit on Emma's head!" and "Daisy, did you just swallow Emma's toy lobster??" and/or "Daisy, did you just swallow EMMA??"

Yes, it has been interesting to reorient ourselves to having a large dog in the house with us. I took them on walks together every morning, and they did really well. They kept pace with one another and walked neatly side by side. It was cold and rainy on Friday evening and Saturday morning, so I took Daisy out for some solo walks. I was absolutely amazed at the ground we covered in the amount of time we were out walking. The distance I can go with Emma in 30 minutes is about 1/4 of the distance I can go with Daisy. But to be fair, Daisy's legs are about 9x longer than Emma's. I've taken them out to the dog park every day so that they can be free to do their own thing. Wrangling two wiggling and excited dogs into the car, out of the car, putting them on their leashes, taking off their leashes, making sure they aren't mauling or being mauled by other dogs in their respective sides of the dog park (big dog side and little dog side) - whew! It has been a workout for me, but I've loved it. Chad, who has been sleeping on the couch all week while Daisy has been snoozing with me, I'm not so sure that he's loved it. But he has been a really good sport, and is glad that we could help out some of our friends by watching Daisy.

Here are some pictures of Goofus and Gallant from the week (from my cell phone, may be a little grainy): Daisy says "Hi!"

"Do we have to get up?"

Snack time, Saturday morning

Nap time, Saturday afternoon