Recently in Rosie Category

Favaist

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Rosie with a fava bean

People are always surprised to discover that our dogs love to eat fava beans (pods and all). My answer is that yes, they are purebred Labs.

Dog Beach Afternoon

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Over the weekend we went to San Diego. The American Library Association Midwinter Meeting was in town, and with it my parents. We took the opportunity to drive down and have a nice weekend at the beach.

The girls took the opportunity to do some dog-beach romping.

Running into the water at the dog beach

We went to Ocean Beach's dog beach, at the end of Voltaire St. This is where we went the last time we visited San Diego, before we got Goldie.

Rosie lounging in the surf

Rosie loves to lie down right in the surf.

Even Goldie got into the water

After a long day in the car driving down the state, even Goldie was a little crazy in the water.

Happy times with Goldie

Nothing like a nice cool dip in the ocean.

Running in the water

For the first ten minutes we were there, there was a lot of running around in the water.

Waves get Rosie

Rosie had an embarrassing moment when she was rolling in the sand and a big wave came in and got her.

A move secure rolling location

After she shook herself off, she moved to a more secure location to finish her roll.

Happy, sandy dog

The end result was one happy, sandy doggie.

Two tired dogs

We could tell we had older dogs now (they turned nine in the fall), because it wasn't long before they were tired and ready to go home.

At the Dog Wash

But they had a surprise in store. On the way back to the car, we stopped by the Dog Beach Dog Wash just down Voltaire St. to get cleaned up.

Getting washed off

The dog wash is super-nice. You pay $12 per dog, which includes the tub, aprons, some basic shampoo, and towels, then you can pay a little extra if you want premium shampoo or conditioner. We did standard shampoo, then upgraded Rosie with conditioner to bring out the curl in her fur.

It's a nice way to end a trip to the beach, especially when you have a dog who likes to swim, and even more especially when you have a dog who likes to roll in the sand.

Too Much Motion

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Three dogs and pancakes

We had Rosie's BFF neighbor dog Beanie overnight, and in the morning we had pancakes. So beanie got to take part in our weekly ritual. She was pretty good at it, but it's definitely much more work to get three dogs to cooperate for photos than it is one or two.

What?

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This is the look Rosie gives me when I call her name while she's in the middle of stomping on some plant.

Rosie

I've been really down since realizing on Monday that the kitty was in a downward spiral and we needed to make that vet appointment. So instead of being all sad and weepy here, here are some pictures of the chicks enjoying a little outside time and stuff.

Here we have them in the first few days, playing with a piece of the shipping crate they came in. I used it to test whether they were ready to have wood chips down as bedding (which you have to be careful about, since they might eat them to the point of illness).

Chicks playing with packing material

Then we went outside.

I think we will be keeping this chick, and I am provisionally calling her Dolly (for Dolly Parton).

Dolly in the plants

We tried some experiments with the dog and chicks (apparently it's very hard to focus a camera with one hand while trying to make sure the chick doesn't fall off the dog's head). This chick is the Silver-Laced Wyandotte, and we will be calling her Janis (for Janis Joplin, because she spent her first few days stumbling around the habitat and falling over her feet).

Rosie with Janis on her head

I've given pet names to the two Barred Rocks who will go to the neighbors. They are Spot and Dot. This is Spot, who has a big white spot on her head.

Spot on my leg

Here's Rosie admiring the little chicky butts.

Rosie and chicks

This is one of the easter-eggers, which the neighbor's kid calls Stripes. I think this will also be our chick, and I'm not sure what her name will be.

Chick butt

The little outdoor excursions are to give them something to think about that is new and interesting. They had a pretty good time easting weed seeds.

Exploring the weeds and stuff

I'm pretty sure that this chick will be going to the neighbors. The neighbor-kid calls her Cornpuff and seems to love her best. She really liked sheltering under Rosie; I think the chicks have decided the dogs are their mommies.

Cornpuff on Rosie's paw

We tried out putting Dolly on Rosie's back to see how she would do:

Dolly on Rosie

Given that the chicks hardly ever sit still even without being on fur, she did a decent job of holding still, and Rosie did even better.

Dolly on Rosie

This is how I took the chicks out for their first exercise hour: a big canning pot. Lots of jokes about chickens in the stewpot.

Chicks in the canning pot

Here they are in their habitat with fancy wood chip bedding and their feeder and waterer up on bricks for their convenience.

In the habitat

Another exercise hour, Dot poking around in the dirt:

Dot pecking

And Dolly growing out some butt feathers:

Dolly growing butt feathers

You can really see Dot's smaller head dot (smaller than Spot's, of course) here:

Dot pecking

I thought the canning pot might be uncomfortable, so we tried out the shipping box they came in for the next visit outside:

Clockwise from top left: Janis (Silver-Laced Wyandotte), unnamed easter-egger, Dot (Barred Rock), Dolly (easter-egger), Spot (Barred Rock), Cornpuff (easter-egger).

Chicks in the box

So there's really only one name we need to come up with, and in part that has to wait until we're sure which easter-egger is going to the neighbors.

Waiting

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Waiting for Poppy

Noel went to the hardware store, and left the poor, abandoned dogs behind.

Rolling in the Straw

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Rosie had a friend over to play today, and she got so worked up that she had to take a swim to cool down.

Rosie in the pond

Then an after-swim roll in the straw I'm using to mulch the new garden plot.

Dogs and Chickens

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Several people have asked how the dogs and chickens are getting along, and the news is very very good.

A few weeks ago, Goldie had a bout of Kennel Cough, which is basically a dog chest infection. She was very under the weather and spent one afternoon outside with me in the garden, while the chickens were out and about. They all did very well together, and after that, dogs and chickens seemed to reach a certain detente. In part because the dogs realized that chickens produce chicken poop out of their butts, and chicken poop is much better than feathers.

So we get a lot of this:

Liza and Rosie

OK, it's gross. But it's also much less worrying than the dog lunging at the chickens as if to kill them all the time.

Also, the chickens are larger and more able to defend themselves (including the occasional peck on the nose), so the dogs are less inclined to get too close to the pointy end of things.

Hello Joan

We Bought a Furminator

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Fine results from the Furminator

It works very well, indeed. Especially on Rosie's extra-thick coat.

Roofs and Bravery

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During Chicken Exercise Hour today, I slung the aviary netting over the Chicken Yard. That means I can leave the girls back there for an afternoon without worrying about predation too much (a determined predator would be able to get through the net, but they would probably get terribly tangled in it in the process).

Aviary netting over the chicken yard

Everybody is looking very chickenesque these days. You can see here that Debbie's getting her belly feathers in still, but most of the rest is all feathery. She's about five weeks old now. I love the little earmuffs.

Debbie at five weeks

With a few visits to the yard under their feathers, the girls are much more exploratory than they had been. Today they dust-bathed in a different spot (one of the piles of soil from the fence post digging), and explored around the larger compost bin.

Examining the compost bin

The bin is made from three pallets lashed together with brass wire, and it has a certain population of insect life thanks to about two years of service. This was of great interest to the girls.

Debbie looks inside

For reasons I don't totally understand, they seem to all fixate on one area and try to get right there, rather than spreading themselves along the length of the bin. Maybe they think there's something special there. Maybe they're right.

Everybody wants to be in one spot

It was mostly Debbie, though. I think those little white dots are bug eggs, and she was eating them.

Debbie eating bug eggs

Eventually Carole figured out that she could jump up and reach higher.

Carole jumps up for better access

And then Joan joined her.

Joan and Carole on the slat

They're still getting the hang of perching -- check out Joan's death-grip on the slat she's standing on there -- but they're mostly good at it. Occasionally they will try to stand somewhere and just fall over, at which point they flap their wings and try to pretend they intended to fly down anyway.

Joan up high

A recent addition to the equipment is a lid for the transport box so the girls will not fly out halfway across the yard. This meant that the dogs could come over and look, which Rosie was very interested in doing.

Rosie with the chicks

And finally, I added a bunch more movies, of which this is one:


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