Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



You are here: Home / Archives for Recreation / Our Puppy

My dog goes nuts over cardboard

by

My Labrador Retriever has a cardboard box fetish … ok, well anything cardboard or paper it seems.

It all started a few months ago when I was replacing a box of soda crackers and noticed Midnights interest in the empty box. I let her take it and off she carefully tottered to her doggy bed in the living room with the long box covering most of her muzzle and her eyes. I’m surprised she didn’t bump into any furniture as she took her treasure to her special place.

Now whenever she sees us carrying a box or paper she wants to have it for herself. We don’t let her tear things up very often, but occasionally we’ll give here a cardboard pop case or a cereal box. I guess if our recycling container started to get too full she’d come in handy … we could give here all the paper and cardboard stuff and let her tear it up for us and make it smaller for the recycling container. LOL

She’s actually tearing into a Coca Cola box right now while we’re trying to watch TV. She’s noisy as she tears so we have the TV volume up quite a bit. At least she’s having fun and it will keep her busy for about half an hour.

I don’t have a picture of tonight’s activity, but here’s one I took a few weeks ago of Midnight tearing up a cracker box:

Black Lab chewing box

At least she’s well behaved – she won’t help herself to a box or the mail, she waits until we give her something – thankfully!

Have you ever had a dog that liked to tear up cardboard and paper?





Recovering from a busy weekend

by

I think I’m still recovering from the weekend! Man did we do a lot of stuff!

On Saturday we decided to visit some of the buildings in the Toronto Open Doors event. We started with the Don Jail – an empty unused jail that dates back to the 1800’s which will soon, oddly enough, become part of a hospital. It was the last chance for the public to see the inside of the building for free.

Unfortunately the lineups were over three to four hours long so we decided to purchase tickets for one of their upcoming Ghost tours of the Don Jail. So sometime in the next month or so Chris and I will be going on an evening tour of the jail which is said to have many ghosts.

After not getting into the jail we decided to visit this old bowling alley that had just reopened. They had the old Brunswick five pin bowling pins that worked on a string system. We got to see how that worked and were offered free bowling. We didn’t bowl because we decided to go to Tod Morden Mills which was also participating in Open Doors Toronto.

At Tod Morden Mills we went into the art gallery and East Side Players theater – we got to see the theater control room as well, and then we visited some of the old houses on the property. We also took a walk on the wild flower trail there and I took some photos.

When we got home I finished planting some of the annuals that I’d purchased oh, about two weeks ago, and then Chris and I had chicken, sausages and grilled potatoes on the BBQ.

Sunday was spent doing more work in the garden. Chris cut the lawn and I planted some seeds and also reseeded the lawn.

Then yesterday even though it wasn’t really the weekend it always feels like it since Chris has Mondays off we did a little more yard work and took our Lab Midnight to the vet for her annual shots. She’d woken up early yesterday morning and threw up. She does that sometimes … I think it’s because she likes to try to eat weeds when we take her out for walks. No matter how hard we try to get her to stop doing that she always finds grass or some weed to bite at.

Anyway … her vet check up was good. She’s healthy. No worms, no heart worm and the vet was pleased with her shiny black coat.

I liked having such a busy weekend, but my body didn’t! I think I’m paying for it today. I feel like I took a handful of weight loss pills or something. My stomach is growling, I’m hungry … but everything I eat is going through me at high speed! Not good. Oh well … I’ll probably feel better tomorrow if I take it easy today.

So how was your weekend? I know that my American readers celebrated Memorial day – I’ll bet that many of you had family and friend get together’s, BBQ’s and went to see fireworks.

It’s so warm it feels like summer!

by

It’s so nice here this week! Last week it was so cold, you’d swear it was still early Spring! Now it feels like July here in Toronto! Right now it’s 28 C and with humidity if feels like 30 C (86 F) and it’s supposed to be fairly warm over the next week or so too.

We’ve been spending a lot of time outside now that the weather’s nice. The weekend was cool – close to freezing! However I still planted most of the annuals that I’d purchased. Now that it’s warm out I’m sure my new plants are loving it.

Midnight, our Lab, is loving the weather too. She keeps ringing the bell we have attached to the door so that she can go outside and play with her toys. We don’t mind, we want to be outside when it’s this nice too. I mean, who knows – it might get cold again! This is Canada after all!

Are you having warmer than normal weather in your area too?

We’re having a barbecue tonight – chicken grilled over mesquite. Yum.

Dog toys disappearing like socks in the dryer!

by

Ok, I think just about everyone has done a wash and ended up with missing socks – probably several times, right?

Well I think I’ve discovered something else that has that strange disappearing phenomenon. Dog toys, in particular, around here at least, white nylabones.

Back in December or early January Midnight was playing with the nub of her nylabone and then it seemed to just disappear in thin air. By nub, I mean it was just the end of what had been a foot long hard plastic bone – maybe the size of a small orange.

We searched the house looking under tables, chairs, the couches and in all the corners. It didn’t turn up. Then we thought that maybe it might have fallen between the couch seats (our loveseat, couch and lazyboy have a total of five reclining seats) so we searched all of the nooks and crannies in the couches and still didn’t find it.

Then we started to wonder if maybe she’d swallowed the darn thing. Labs will eat just about anything and even though it was probably a little big to swallow I suppose it’s possible.

Four or five months have gone by and we still haven’t found the bone nub. If Midnight did swallow the plastic bone she’s shown no signs of problems – not that it would be good to have a large piece of plastic bone in her stomach of course …

Fast forward to earlier this week. We bought her a new bone sometime in January and she’s been working on it ever since. Surprisingly the bone was still close to it’s original size, but the ends were worn, one in particular had a sharp arrow like point.

Just like the last time, one minute she was playing with it on the floor and the next it was gone. Where – who knows …. but again, I think it must be in one of the couches. We’ve searched, but we can’t find it. This time I’m 99% sure that she didn’t swallow it … it was just too big … if she did try to swallow it I’m sure she wouldn’t have been feeling well after doing so!

I think our couches are becoming like dryers … just like washing and drying socks – you never seem to get an even number back and with the bones, it seems that we lose ever second one we buy her. Where the heck do they go? Man, searching for lost dog toys is harder than one of those Wall St jobs I think! LOL

For those of you with pets or even kids for that matter … do you find that toys just suddenly seem to disappear without a trace? Have you ever found toys that have been missing for ages? If so where? Maybe your answers will give me some hints as to where to look for Midnight’s bones.

This dog truly sleep walks

by

Most dog owners have probably spent a little bit of time watching their dog sleep … I know I’ve watched Midnight, my 19 month old Labrador Retriever, sleep many times. My dog seems to dream quite a bit – especially if we had a good “dog” day such as a trip to the beach where she could play with other dogs and go for a swim.

Not only does Midnight snore while sleeping, but she’ll wag her tail, move her feet around as if she’s walking or running, let out the occasional whine or even some quite barks. I don’t think she’s ever woken herself up from her active dreams though.

As funny as my dog is to watch sleep at times she’s never made me laugh out loud as much as Bizkit did in this video! Bizkit literally ends up sleepwalking – it’s a must see video!

Watch Bizkit dream and sleep walk … the video is only 23 seconds long and it’s well worth your time … oh and put your drink down first! You’ve been warned. LOL

Has your dog ever sleep walked?

Meta

Search this site

Tags

blog blogs camera Canada Chris computer crohns dinner dog Family flower flowers Food friends funny garden Gardening Green Thumb Sunday Health and Fitness Health Fitness and Beauty holiday home Home and Lifestyle house husband IBD Inflammatory bowel disease Internet Music neighbors pain photo photos plants puppy Shopping sick sleep spring Toronto TV Video visit website Wordless Wednesday