Stilettos, Stoli & Scribbles ~ Served With A Twist

I don’t know about you guys, but I think we all need some cute puppy stuff up in here. I can’t bear to watch or read the news these days, and so I distract myself. Or it’s more accurate to say, Fergus distracts me. In the best ways possible.

This morning, because I knew I was going to blog about Fergus, I made a couple of videos and took some photos so you can see how we spend some of our time.

First, the Acorn Game. This also became, for a time, the Pinecone Game, but the pines next to my garden appear to have finally dropped all their cones so that Pinecone Game season will have to wait for next Fall to roll back around. These various objects are hazards for dogs. Well, my dog. The acorns look like treats and when I noticed that Fergus was trying to eat them, I started picking them up by the hands full and flinging them over the garden fence. He promptly started trying to catch me at it, keep me from the acorns if possible, defend the fences as the next fall back position, and finally to leap in the air and try to catch them as they soar through the air. A little like basketball, but with teeth and claws.

This is a bit of what the game looks like from my perspective — albeit just a little rough because it’s not easy to video this game while playing it…

When I noticed that his long, lovely, fly-away hair was getting globs of pine sap stuck in it from the pinecones falling into the garden*, we added the Pinecone Game to this romp.

When Fergus’ little sister, Sophie, stayed with us for several days, she tried to get in on the game, too, but she never figured out what the game actually was — she just ran around like a lunatic. These puppies. Such comedians.

As you can see, Fergus scrambles around in the mulch, sweeps the garden with his tail and just generally gets grubby. We can go a few days with me patiently picking out the detritus from his hair, brushing and combing, but then — like today — it’s time for an honest to God bath. Lucky me — Fergus loooooves bath time. Always has.

Here he is before (teeth and ears brushed, cotton in his ears to keep out water), during and just before we start the drying process, which you can imagine takes awhile with all that hair.

And here are a couple of videos showing said drying process. By the end of the blowout step, Fergus is leaning on me and struggling to stay awake. And then, I get the best — damp — hugs you can imagine. And kisses. Fergus is a great kisser.

And now, because I’m blogging, he’s asleep on my lap as usual, and I’m reduced to typing with one hand, so I’ll stop here.

Fergus After, still slightly damp…

Have a wonderful day, all!

*Ever try to get pine sap out of hair? It’s like gum. If it’s close to his face, say, in the hair on his ears, or around his mouth, I use peanut butter to try and dissolve it out. If it’s on his feet, I found that GooGone works fantastically well, but it has to be rinsed out immediately. For external use only.