Saturday, August 30, 2008
Lana's Visit

The next canine visitor was also a service dog who also happened to be a golden retriever. Yes another pup from Arizona Goldens LLC. They just keep following me home. I guess I am really that irresistible.

Lana, like Ella wasn't fond of the van. So getting her used to the van was a main goal. We took several short trips here and there. Lana didn't like it one bit and managed to get rather tangled in her leash on more than one occasion. Thankfully my humans' roommate was usually with us so she could help untie poor entangled Lana. Finally the services of a blue plushy toy shaped like kiwi bird were employed to help keep her calm in the van. Kind of like a doggie pacifier if you will. It helped a lot and I'm sure she'll be very comfortable in a van with a little more practice.

Lana was more laid back as I am. This was great. It was good for my human too as we like to sleep in each morning. Lana also loved to run around the back yard with me and we'd race from end to end before coming in for a cool drink and a much needed nap.

I wasn't fond of her constant need to be next to my human. Again, she's mine! However being that she was a tad pushier than the previous pup she did horn in on my lovin' and pettin' simply because she'd stand so close to my human Lana was practically under her feet. Still I didn't feel as threatened with Lana as I did with Ella so I let her get away with more.

Lana also learned very quickly that dogs are not allowed on my humans' bed at night. So as all good canines do, we slept on the floor. Most nights she's join me in the shower to fall asleep then we make our way to the master bed and curl up on the floor near my human. Lana did get stepped on a few times. She didn't fully understand any I don't lay on the floor right next to my human. She figured that lesson out the hard way but she didn't seem to care. Like me she was always thrilled to see the human get up in the morning.

Friday, August 29, 2008
Ella's Visit

Ella, another service dog who also happens to be a golden retriever such as myself, came for a visit. She's one of the Arizona Goldens LLC dogs.

I should have known something was up when she showed up with her own food and supplies. Silly me though, I thought this was just like any other play date. She's come, we'd play ball with the humans then she'd go. She didn't go.

At first it wasn't so bad having another playmate around. She was just another dog that liked to play with me. I quickly discovered that she didn't always like playing with me, but she also enjoyed helping my human. My human! Mine! Yes I tend to get a little more than slightly jealous with other dogs around, especially when that dog can do everything I can do.

My human tried to keep things as fair as possible. She would give me a task and Ella a task. Once we completed them we both got treats. Ella wasn't fond of the van so this limited the places we could go. We spent most of the time practicing at the grocery store and bank. One day though we met with Gretchen and Annie at the Taco Bell next to the store. That was a nice change of place and I do so enjoy seeing both of them. Too bad we weren't allowed to play.

At home I spent my time keeping one eye and one ear open at all times. Every now and then my human would ask Ella to do something while I was in another room or pretending to be asleep. Knowing full well that Ella liked working with my human I felt it necessary to remind her who was the number one dog in the house. So I'd charge in from another room, shove Ella out of my way and do whatever my human had asked Ella to do for her. Ya I'm ornery.

My favorite part of her visit was feeding time. Ella didn't always eat much of her food. This proved to be a problem for my human as I was always willing to finish her bowl when she walked away. At first it was a race between my human and myself to see who would get to Ellas' uneaten portion first. Unfortunately my human wised up quickly and started putting me in the kennel when it was Ella's turn to eat.

One thing I must also say about Ella is that she's a bundle of energy. She'd play and wrestle with me all the time. She'd make the funniest faces and if things got out of hand my human would step in and she'd put on the most innocent looking expression she could muster. I'd like to think I taught her well.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Science Museum

I'm a little behind in blogging. This trip was actually a week ago but it was so much fun I just have to write about it.

My human, her roommate and her cousin all went to the Phoenix Science Museum. Lately the general theme at museums around town as been, bodily functions, of one type or another. Not to be outdone, this museum had an exhibit titled "Grossology".

We did the usual museum stuff first. How stuff it built, how stuff works and the sciences of DNA, reproductions and other such stuff. One room was entirely cross sections of a home. Each part focused on the different parts like foundation, walls, plumbing, electricity, and so forth.

Then we moved in to how the human body works, genetic traits and inheritance, birthing, motion, parasites and such fun stuff like that. This area was crawling with kids. Actually the whole place was but this area was large and could accommodate far more people. As usual I was the center or attention. The humans lost track of how many times "Look a doggie" was shouted from an excitable youngster. Oddly enough the kids were rather well behaved and often asked before trying to pet me. As usual my human did grow weary of telling them why they couldn't pet me so when one finally asked if I bite, she said yes. Word spread quickly among the little ones about the savage beast roaming the floors so they kept clear for awhile.

The adult humans proved to be a bigger problem over all that the little versions. The adults, who should know better and be trying to set a good example, would come up and just start petting me without even acknowledging my humans' existence. This annoyed her to no end.

On the bright side my human did get to see many neat things and because this museum is a very hands' on place she was able to play many of the games too. The birthing movie made her a little queasy however. Now the section on sneezing was fun. I watched a giant nose blow colorful foam balls out at all the kids over and over again as the kids tried to toss the balls back in the nose. I think my enjoyment was due to the total futility of the act yet the children were determined to preserve. Just around the corner from the nose was a skeleton riding a bike. This was no typical skeleton either; it had many fake joints just like my human.

Finally we entered the actual gross part of the museum. The exhibit on Grossology. We were greeted by a very creepy looking robotic puppet and walked through a gaping mouth only to find an even bigger nose! My human and I walked in to the nose only to suddenly realize it was about to sneeze with us in it and we didn't have time to get out. Thankfully the noise and wind burst weren't too scary for me. I'm a brave dog after all. The giant faucet headed man whose nose dripped, now that was a bit scary so I hid behind my human as we went by.

As before this section was crawling with kids and hands-on exhibits to play with. My human helped make one machine vomit, she watched another belch, one was a farting mechanism, oh the things humans find amusing. They played quiz games about the blood types and I'm not talking A, AB, or O here; I mean red, yellow, blue and white blood. They played with a giant cow machine and worked its' rather complex digestive system. A large cat coughed up a hair ball, they smelled the dog sent markers and regretted it. Muhahaha, I especially enjoyed that part. Oh and lots of talk about poop. Types or poop, poop breakdown and even dung beetles.

After all the grossness the humans still managed to have an apatite. Not wanting to pay for an over priced turkey sandwich they decided to walk a few blocks through downtown phoenix to a small restaurant. It was freaking hot outside. My poor little paws didn't enjoy the hot pavement much at all and my human did her best to keep me in the shaded areas as much as possible. I only danced a little due to the heat under my feet.

On the way to the restaurant we found many statues of naked people. I'm not commenting on that part any more than that.

At the restaurant the nice waitress gave me a bowl of water and my human shared a little of her meal with me. It was way past my usual feeding time anyways. Just as I was relaxed and cool enough to nap under the table the humans decided to head back to the museum. Apparently we needed to get back in time to see the show about black holes at the planetarium. It was dark and air conditioned so while the humans stared at the ceiling in delight, I finally got a small nap. Oh I should mention that before the black hole show started a small toddler ram over and grabbed my butt, not once, or twice, but three times before his mom could fully restrain him. I love being irresistible.

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