The dogs have felt left out of the blog...

Ginger loves her toys...but she is so hard on them. She has gone through three large soccer balls..two of which were kindly donated by Paige. She destroyed to tennis ball that Amanda gave her. She took the squeakers out of any of Mike's toys we left near her. She lost the hard purple ball in ball toy I got her for Christmas, as well as a number of Kong toys (I wonder if the fox and coyotes have them now?). Rob recently bought her a new Kong Type toy, that is kind of built like a classic UFO shape. Ginger loves it, and it is entertaining to throw, as it will roll in odd directions when it lands. Ginger however has trouble keeping track of her toys, as she will have one her mouth as she gets distracted by the call of the wild, and will end up dropping it along the way. She hates being without a toy though...which may explain why I caught her laying outside the barn today trying to convince me that the apple between her paws was a ball for me to throw, and not an apple that Joan brought for Rocket to eat...fortunately Rocket didn't notice the two teeth marks and ate the apple without complaint. I love this picture of Ginger that Paige took last year...I call it "Poverty Dog" as she looks as if she is one of the poor kids in South American countries that just have an old soccer ball to play with admist the rubble.

Mike is not as in to toys as Ginger, but he does appreciate a good squeaky toy if Ginger isn't around to steal and wreck it. His favourite game is keep-away...he isn't much into fetch or carrying a toy around aimlessly. He does seem to get a kick out of smelling shoes lately. Every shoe tells a story I guess.

Poor Mike is getting to be an old dog, and he is getting hard of hearing, and his back is getting quite stiff. He can't always hear when a person or horse is coming up behind him, and he can't move out of the way very quickly. He needs some sort of force feild to protect him, but as that isn't possible right now, we all just need to give him a little extra room, time and attention. And if you want to get his attention, slapping your legs seems to be the sound he hears the easiest.

Karen