erste freunde

365 days of Penny

We've had Penny for one year now, exactly. She celebrated by getting extra sandy, extra seaweedy and, by implication, extra smelly. One of her favorite beach pasttimes is to pester Oliver, a gentle and docile ("some" would say lazy) golden. Penny is Oliver's annoying little sister, as is clear from the photo. She's a more genial friend in the second picture.

Naturally, Sandra and Charlotte also joined. Charlotte likes the ocean breeze blowing through her hair (the sand kicked up from the dogs' battle royales, not so much). It was the whole nuclear family at the beach.

paging Amelia Earhart

dog days at the park

This year we managed to get doggie tickets to the Padres game. (We had Penny in time last year but didn't know about the possibility of bringing the pooch to the ballpark for a game. Last year's opponent was the Phillies, so it turned out that we were at the game anyway, just sans Penny.)

The game was really an afterthought (as if that needed to be said given that it was the Padres...). Penny participated in the dog parade around the outfield and in doing so helped break the Guinness World Record.

It was also Charlotte's first baseball game. Much like her mother, she slept through pretty much the entire affair. By comparison, she did ask fewer questions, which was a plus.

Penny had her Hugh Hefner look going on account of the stadium giving away free doggie outfits; we were a bit late so all Penny could manage to squeeze into was a blue bath robe.

Charlotte's outfit was the real prize-winner though:

ganz der Papa...!

Die Kommentare, dass Charlotte ganz wie der Papa aussieht haben sich in den letzten Wochen gehäuft... Damit muss Mama halt (erstmal!) leben :-)

Aber ich habe mir sagen lassen, dass es eine rein biologische Überlebensstrategie ist: damit Väter ihren Nachwuchs nicht ganz so misstrauisch beäugen, sondern fraglos anerkennen und mit durchfüttern. (Wobei dafür ja eigentlich momentan die Mama zuständig ist...) Naja, ich überlasse dafür Troy gnädigerweise das Windelwechseln im Austausch - damit er auch seinen "Spass" mit dem eigenen Nachwuchs hat :-)

Und bis Charlotte die Schönheit von der Mama bekommt bleibt sie halt erstmal ganz der... Denker! 

planking

Charlotte seems to enjoy finding the strangest places to sleep. At least up here she can escape the wrath of the wet-nosed one.

July 4, 2011

Click to see how dirty I can get...

The neighborhood here has a block party for July 4th. Residents, including dogs, parade through the blocks and return to lemonade, watermelon, and live music.

Afterwards we walked to the beach. This is the aftermath from Sandra chasing Penny and Penny chasing Sandra. Needless to say, it looks like Sandra was crowned the winner.

Folgers in your cup

Charlotte is in the middle of waking up here. Post-yawn, but pre-hunger crying. 

Waking up is a real process with her. First comes the smacking of the lips, like she's chewing bubble gum. Then comes the twitching. By this point she's switched into light-sleep. Then come the eyes and, sometimes, a smile or two. The lungs wake up last, thankfully.

phone home

E.T.

 

look out world, I'm on my way

This is the photo we used for Charlotte's passport application. She's already visited Mexico, and in August she's going to Germany and Switzerland. So that means she's seen four times the number of countries I saw in my first twenty years. In three months. I'd be wide-eyed too.

Ensenada fish market

The whole family (German in-laws in tow) took a daytrip down to Mexico.

Charlotte did great. Her highlight was the scenic walk through the vineyard where Mama and Daddy got engaged. And the wine-via-milk wasn't so bad either, I suspect.

We bought some fresh fish from the market in Ensenada. Penny, for some reason, absolutely would not go inside the market with us.

Penny at four months

(not) walking (not really) wounded

Penny ran into a patch of foxtails a few weeks back. They're nasty. We noticed Penny chewing on her foot for a few days. She'd walk a few yards and then plop down to chew some more. We cut the hair on her foot to investigate and found little of interest. Nonetheless, when we pulled out what we thought was a hair, it turned out to be a foxtail buried under her skin. About an inch long, we thought we avoided further damage.

We thought wrong. A few days later a new wound showed up a few inches up on her leg. So we took her to the vet. They knocked her out and managed to pull out another foxtail, about three inches long, from under her skin. When we arrived in the lobby to pick her up, the nurse who was watching her sleep off the anesthesia came out to talk. She said Penny woke up and seemed really happy to see her (the nurse). It was a few moments later that she realized Penny could just hear us talking in the lobby and was anxious to show off her shaved leg and wound.

She had to wear bandages, concealed beneath my sock and some duct tape, for a few days. She hated it.

starfish alley

During low tide you can walk pretty far out to sea. When it's a full or new moon, a thin strip of rocks gets exposed. There's a mini canyon running the length of the rocks and it's lined with Starfish. Orange ones, purple ones, blue ones.

that's MY stick

Penny usually plays nicely. Usually. Almost always even.

There are about a dozen regulars at the beach each night, with a fairly clear ranking of who annoys whom. Bee, here, is Penny's nemesis. Compared to the other dogs, Penny and Bee rough-house (or is that ruff-house?) it pretty good.

the most popular gal on the beach

Oh, did I mention that Sandra baked doggy cupcakes for Penny and her crew? She's usually popular at the beach: always up for a romp through the water, king-of-the-hill on the cliffs, or a good old-fashioned game of (seaweed) tug-o-war. But the cupcakes took it to a new level. We, literally, had an entourage following us. Penny shared profusely, partly because I was fearful of what would happen if she was permitted to eat a dozen cupcakes. But she shared nonetheless.

Doggie Cupcakes

Muffins:

• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 3 cups whole wheat flour

Frosting:

• 8 oz. low fat cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup applesauce, unsweetened

Muffins:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F
2. Lightly spray cups of muffin tin.
3. In a large bowl stir together the carrots, eggs and applesauce. Set aside.
4. In another medium bowl whisk together the cinnamon, oats and flour.
5. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients. Stir until well blended.
6. Spoon mixture into muffin tin. The dough will be thick, so you may wet your fingers to press the dough into place.
7. The dog cupcake will not rise very much, so do not worry about over filling the muffin tin.
8. Bake for 25 minutes.
9. Cool completely on a wire rack before frosting or serving.

Frosting:

1. Blend both ingredients with a hand mixer until well blended.

(that's 7 in doggie years)

Penny turned 1 on May 3, 2011, or thereabout. (Disclaimer: we really have no clue about Penny's genealogy; we just make this stuff up.) Penny celebrated with her friends at the beach, sprinting into the waves, rolling around on seaweed, and generally making a mess of themselves. Her peaceful look in this photo belies her extreme distaste for her birthday dunce cap. Let's be honest, though, a dunce cap is certainly befitting attire.

on a platter

We never quite know what Penny is thinking. A fun diversion is to anthropomorphize our lovable little pet. Penny has been great since we brought Charlotte home: gentle, caring, not easily bothered. Or so we think. We don't really know, at all, what Penny's thinking. For all we know, she could be just biding her time until she can get her paws on the 7 pound pot roast. Well, if that's the case, we can only imagine what she's thinking when we placed Charlotte on a serving bowl for a few photos: "Man, now the two-leggers are putting the pot roast on a platter for me..."

6 lbs, 7 oz

Charlotte Sophie

May 6, 2011
12:27 am
6 pounds, 7 ounces
19.75 inches

40 weeks in a minute ten