The First Snowfall of '09

I've experienced change this week. After several years of lackluster snowfall in Sevier County, we finally got some pretty white stuff. While we didn't get a lot of snow, it was still very pretty. And it's still laying around in a lot of shady places. There's an old saying here that snow that sticks around for a few days is just waiting for more snow.

Sofia, Tiger, and I had fun in it Monday.

Sofia wasn't sure whether or not she liked the strange white stuff. I threw her snowballs, but she got very upset when they disappeared on the ground. She tried to dig up the yard to find the balls, but luckily it snowed again and covered up her mess.

Tiger was much calmer about the whole situation.

Today, two days after the snowfall, there was plenty for Tig to lay in on the front porch.

Tig's preferred spot on the back porch. The end of the back porch is Tig's temporary home since his kennel was destroyed. He loves to stick his nose out and watch the snow land in his neighborhood.

A shot of the second round of Monday's snowfall from my cell phone.

A Sofia Sunday

Why I love Sofia:

Sofia is very talented, as you can tell. She's 11 months old now. She knows how to quench her thirst. She unscrews the cap by herself and gets the top of the bottle in her mouth. The challenge is currently getting more water into her mouth than she does on the floor. She doesn't really mind a big puddle of water on the floor because she can always lick it up.

Her new talent is standing upright on her hind legs with no support for about 10-15 seconds at a time. She loves to stand upright in her kennel with her front paws braced on the fencing. When she's inside and doesn't think I'm looking, she likes to brace the front paws up on the counter or table to see what's out to eat.

But this past week, she pulled herself upright to check out the counter without getting close enough to brace her paws on it. She did it on two separate occaisons. She stands there and looks around for 10-15 seconds. I've been giving her a bit too much people food. I think that's confusing her. She assumes that two-legged, upright creatures get to eat her favorites like corn bread and green beans and roast and chicken all the time, so she needs to be an upright creature inside too.

The other night I started Made of Honor with Patrick Dempsey while Sofia was in the house with me. It was just us girls and the tv. She was having fun rolling on the carpet and rubbing her side against the couch. Until Patrick Dempey's character, dressed as Bill Clinton, climbs into bed with an unsuspecting woman who was not the intended Monica Lewinsky. The unsuspecting woman screams in the movie. The unsuspecting Sofia jumped up growling. She barked and growled and ran around the house to the door. She demanded to be let outside. She sniffed the driveway a minute to assure herself that there was no threat. Then she came happily back inside. Now that's a guard dog.

Marley and Me en espanol

Hace un rato vi un libro de un labrador travieso. Marley and Me esta escrito por el dueno del "peor perro del mundo" y un escritor estadounidense. John Grogan cuenta su relacion con Marley y como Marley estaba involucrado en cada paso de su matrimonio.

Como duena de Sofia, mi labradora chocolate, entiendo mucho de lo que escribe Grogan. Tambien estoy muy contenta de que mi Sofia no se porta tal mala. Pueda ser super-necia a veces, pero al menos no come el sofa como Marley.

Ya tengo planes de ir a ver la pelicula de Marley. Ojala sea mejor que otros libros que se convierten en peliculas.

Marley and Me

I just finished reading Marley and Me. I started it several weeks ago, but about halfway through I got sidetracked by Twilight. I had meant to read Marley for a while now, but the impending release of the movie provided me with motivation to read the book. I'm really hoping this is a better book to big screen adaptation than Twilight.

As the owner of a chocolate lab, I can identify with a lot of John Grogan's woes. Marley's antics make Sofia's stubborn spells seem like no big deal. So what she ran all over the yard with a dead blue bird in her mouth yesterday while I chased her in the freezing cold wind storm? At least I've never had to "search" for a necklace she swallowed.

I have a feeling movie theaters could really sell some tickets if they let dog owners take man's best friend to see this movie.

Sofia's Christmas Album

I am admitedly one of those loonies who thinks dogs are substitute children. I really wanted to make Christmas cards with a picture of my husband and I with Tiger and Sofia. I'm running out of time, so I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the family pic will have to wait till next year. But then tonight I got a brave moment and decided that maybe I could just put a cute pic of Sofia in front of the Christmas tree on the front of a card. I mean, wouldn't a pic of a beautiful chocolate lab be pretty cool?

Then my problem became getting her to sit in front of the Christmas tree. When I said sit, she sat wherever she was. I wish I had reinforced tree in her puppy vocabulary. The treat in my hand was more interesting, but at least she was in the general vicinity.

I think all the hard modeling work made her a little bit sleepy.

It really wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. She only grabbed one ornament, but it had already fallen off the tree. She triedto hide the evidence for the picture.

Bottom line: I think I'll skip a photo Christmas card this year. The glowing eyes look like they belong on a Halloween card instead. But at least I have an "album" of Sofia's first Christmas.

Beware of Puppy's First Toy

I think this first toy gave Sofia a subconscious message about her role as a hunter. She LOVED this duck. It's only fitting that a chocolate lab's first toy be a Remington duck, right? Sofia's parents are both duck hunters down in Southeast Tennessee. So I thought it only fitting to get this for her first toy.

Problem is, those hunter instincts have been going strong from the beginning. At nine months now, she has already engaged with a doe, almost engaged with a neighborhood cat, and tonight she chased a neighbor's baby goat around its yard (she's bigger than the baby goat). Plus she ate her first bite of deer meat last night, so I'm worried about what the rest of the winter holds for my little hunter.

Baby Sofia

This is Sofia at about 7 weeks. The first few nights were kinda rough, but she only cried when she had to take a trip outside. Her house training days were easy. She went through a phase of biting toes and chewing on the table cloth. She soon moved outside.

Sofia

Sofia is my chocolate lab. I brought her home from the breeder on my lap when she was 6 weeks old. She thinks she's a little person. She's now almost 9 months old. I think she's the smartest dog ever. Well, she might be the 2nd smartest dog ever behind my dad's black lab, Mr. T.