Friday, August 24, 2007

Jail!









Here I am, the beautiful Princess, stuck in JAIL! I wasn't driving badly, I wasn't eating anything naughty, I'm a good little
daddy's grrrl! And yet here I am. At least I'm not alone. Tank and Isaac are here with me. The jail keeper is actually kind of nice. He lets us out into this big, fenced yard 4 times a day and gives us lots of love and water. He doesn't
cook for us though. We all got in the car and drove and drove and drove! We went further than Gooberstan! Dad got some work in this far away town and he wanted to be able to see us every day instead of not seeing us for 4 days. So dad comes and visits every morning and we chase the ring but I hate it when he leaves. He says he has to go to work to buy us dog food. Of course I'm all in favor of THAT, but I like having my papa WITH me. Here's Isaac in front of the jail, with the warden. We were hoping to visit the A04, but their parents couldn't get free.



This is my imitation of Pooka during our playtime out in the big yard. Isaac is thinking of chasing me and Tank's inside getting his prison haircut. You should see what they did to my hair! a buzz cut with the buzz lines showing. I'm punk! It is a lot cooler, though so I can run and play and kick some Newfy butt!

Below we all are hoping to get free. Isaac actually escaped once, but he came back for Tank and I and they closed up the hole. Pretty good for an old man! You can see Tank was getting a bit loopy from confinement. Then the Warden demonstrated how he was going to get Isaac to divulge our secrets, but none of us told him anything! The video is of me kicking Isaac's butt in my best Xena fashion. I did that to Stanley, too! Scroll down to the second to last video in Stanley's post. Finally, after 3 days, dad came with the leashes, we all got in his car and lived happily ever after. Now we're lounging at home. Tank went swimming today but it was so hot he had to get back in the air conditioning. We're all going, one at a time this week. Have fun, everypup!



Thursday, August 23, 2007

Google Earth!





Hey, every doggie! Check out the community layers for the Kansas City area in Google Earth! I put all the fenced dog parks in. The icon I used was my picture, but I don't know if that shows up for everyone or just on dad's computer. If you all did that for your cities it would be a great resource for anyone traveling.

More news about our jail time coming soon!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The Long Wait

Sorry about the long wait for news from Newfland! Dad's been hogging the computer for work. Since we like to eat, we'll have to let him. There's been a whole lot going on that we can't wait to tell you about. Here's a teaser:



Do you wanna know a secret (Ooh waa ohh)

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Training - Updated!

We have a lot of tales waiting to get into this blog, but the desires of our fans come first! You asked about training, so here goes.

First of all, to train others, you must first train yourself. To discipline others, you must have self discipline. To control the life of another, you must have self control. To be a successful trainer, these are the paradigms you live by. Do we live by them? Heck no! We want Pawty time! We say feed us something good and we expect to be obeyed!

So how did it happen? Well, here's the story. First, know your quarry. Our dad is intelligent and expects the same out of us. He named us by seeing what we were like. Rather than forcing his prejudices and desires on us, he looked carefully to see who we were and tried to maximize our potential. That includes genetic potential. Ever since we were old enough to eat food, he made sure there was lots of DHA in our diet. This maximizes brain development. He always had a ramp for us to maximize our joint development. He spent hours researching nutrition and obsessed over every microgram of calcium we ate. All this can be used against him. Of course you have to stay within your subject's capabilities. We knew there would always be kibble, we just wanted better toppings on it.



















Study the above pictures carefully. Look at Princess. (Nanook and Pooka, look at her tongue!) See how skinny she is? Our dad knows there's a window of time in which growth and brain development occurs. Poor nutrition during that time means less than optimal capabilities the rest of our lives. Princess' ribs are showing. That means she's not getting enough calories. What can dad do to get her to eat? Hmmm.....

So she played the biggest role in this scam. But Isaac and Tank helped, too.

Isaac Here with an important addition. These kids think the world started when they became self-aware. Tank, did you ever stop to think who planted that notion of achieving your genetic potential? Before you were born, I played a trick that I knew would ensure great meals for all future generations of newfs. You all know my story, how I went from home to home and was confined in a crate for long hours every day. Well when I got here, after 2 months I grew 4 inches. I was 22 months at the time! That's what got our human dad started thinking that it was so important to take good care of his dogs early on. Let me tell you, growing 4 inches at 20 months was quite a feet! And quite a bit of legwork as well! Ha Ha, I crack myself up!

OK, well, thanks, dad, that was sure clever of you. Now, back to the pictures above. See how cute Tank is? Who could refuse that cuteness anything he wanted? Then the clincher was we all started to eat grass. We'd look into our dishes, poke in there with our noses, maybe gag down one nibble, then slo.o.o.o.o.ly walk outside and eat grass. When inside we'd eat hairballs and whatever little thing was lying on the floor, but not our food if it wasn't good enough. Time's running out, dad. Too bad I'll never be all that I could have been if you'd just fed me properly.

Then, of course, if he did make a good dinner we'd be all over it and when we were done we'd walk up one by one and give him a big lick thank you. Wow, dad, that was awesome! Remember that praise has to be the mainstay of training. We were subtle. Never anything so obvious as a sigh. a little guilt by eating grass, a lot of making him feel like the best dad in the world when he gave us a nice, cooked meal with meat. Then we escalated things a bit. At first, plain ground beef was amazing. Then to get a reward he had to flavor it, and cook it the way we liked it - seared on the outside, rare inside. Eventually he got so good at flavor we started to work on timing. If he took longer than a few minutes to make it, we walked away. It worked, too. (Dad's note - it did work. I couldn't speed up the time it took for their meat to cook, but I learned to speed the cooling. First I added less liquid during cooking. Then I took the pot off the burner when the pot was hot enough to finish the job on its own instead of leaving the pot on the heat until the meat was done. At the end I added ice to speed up the cooling and have the right amount of liquid so it would coat the kibble and not be chunks they could pick out.) Of course what we really wanted was for him to add the meat raw, but we have to accept the limited capabilities of our subject. Eventually we'd walk away from plain ground beef, but that may have done us more harm than good. That got his suspicions aroused. Not only that, but development is fast drawing to a close. So we may have a lot less gourmet dining in our near future. But it was fun while it lasted!

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Iron Chef Dog Food and Barking Our Fool Heads Off!


Our papa is forced to come up with something to put on our kibble every night. We wont eat it plain and we're too skinny as it is. We know he's gonna put the hammer down one day, but we're enjoying it while it lasts. We wont eat the same thing twice in a row, or even twice within 2 days so he has to get pretty creative with whatever is lying around. Tonight he made cranberry-pecan barbeque rice. It was a hit! Princess pretended she wasn't going to eat it, but as soon as she started she couldn't stop! We all licked our bowls clean!

THEN...

Something weird was happening in the 'hood. Lots of odd noises, lots of dogs barking in the distance. We joined in, of course. 'We' not referring to Tank. He pretty rarely barks. There's little to see here, so just close your eyes and let the music penetrate your souls.

Friday, August 3, 2007

Tank's Introduction part Deux


In our last episode, I was born and started growing into the cutest puppy imaginable. Every moring I'd bound out of the puppy room raring to go and ready to chow down! I was almost always first out and first to the food. Until one day...
Much to my dad's horror, I was the last one out, todddled uncertainly toward the food, sniffed it and walked away. He knew I had parvo and took me right to the vet. I had IVs going before I started losing fluids both ends. After 3 days I could go home. Two of the other pups got parvo but we all got to the vets before any vomiting or diarrhea started and we all did well. This is me with my leg shaved where the IV was. After me, Shazaam and Tracy got it, too. So when I came home it was Isaac, dad and I, then the other two joined us. They went from here to their forever homes. After her second shot, Princess came to live with us. I was really glad to see her again. Parvo was a rough thing but it doesn't seem to have stunted my growth any. I'm solid muscle and 30 lbs heavier than my dad, 40 lbs heavier than my mom and only 19 months old!

Of course Isaac was a great dad. He loved to play with me. He let all us pups climb all over him. That kind of backfired on him 'cause as we got bigger we still climb on him. Now that we out weigh him it scares him and my human dad makes me stop. But I really love my dad and stick up for him if there's any trouble, like birds invading the backyard or a motorcycle going by.

I'm a great big brother to Princess, too. I let her win wrestling matches all the time. I love to lick people and if they squeal it drives me wild and I lick even more! I'm also a clever climber. At 4 months I could escape from baby gates that even Isaac couldn't get over. I can push out slats, squeeze through, dig under or climb over. I'm a great talker, too. I've even taught my human dad how to speak some dog. More later - Tank

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Nook's Book

We can't wait for Nanook's book
wont you join us for a look?
Will he write it with such flair
showing off his savoir faire?
Will he write it in the dirt?
We all know you're such a flirt


Readers of this blog are welcome to join in!
We're getting kind of worried about Nanook's mom...