Duke's First Snow

It's so good to be reunited with my family again!!! I met them in Massachusetts for an extended family Christmas. Have to say, he didn't forget me! As soon as he saw me he ran over to me and peed all over the place (lucky we were outside because it was my Uncle's house). He didn't take his eyes off me the whole time we were visiting.

Anyhow, we stayed with my Uncle Ray who lives in the middle of NOWHERE, Massachusetts (Western Mass to be exact). He was a huge backyard which overlooks mountains, yadda yadda yadda. It's really cool because we can let Duke run around with no fear of cars or whatever.

There was about a foot of hard crunchy snow on the ground and though Duke is weary of ice, he LOVED the snow. Love love love. He couldn't get enough of it. He played outside until he started to shiver uncontrollably and STILL refused to come in. He decided his favorite game was chasing snowballs up a very very steep bank. I didn't get any photos of that game, but here are some of him just playing in the snow in general. It's a shame Pennsylvania doesn't get BIG snows! (okay, so I say that now as I sit inside with my k-cup coffee maker... I really am not a huge fan of snow, which is fine because I got my share, I grew up in Maine).

He would run as fast as he could until he'd get caught in the snow.

Steep hill! (It was actually steeper than this, but you get the idea)

Duke loved the snow, pink ball did not. Usually it is very squishy and squeaks, but the snow prevented it from doing that, it would eventually freeze in a shape and stay like that until we brought it inside.

Caught him with his tongue out!

Duke, the snow bunny?

Christmas Wishes

You know what Christmas means in my family?

Pie. Lots and lots of pie. Interesting day. I miss Fiance and Duke, but I spent the day with my parents and my extended family. My Grandmother cooked Christmas lunch/dinner which was amazing. So Christmas means pie in my family.

Mmmmmm Pie. Pecan, Squash, Lemon, Strawberry rhubarb, Chocolate, Boston Cream, Apple, oh yum yum yum (and yes, we really did have at least one of each on the table!)

Here is the Dukemister after his long hard day. He and the other dogs were left to play outside while fiancé and his family exchanged gifts. My gifts have been placed in a plastic bag and put up high so they don't get marked.

Duke's big gift! An L.L. Bean doggie bed! Cuteness and awesomeness. If you don't have one of these, you are totally missing out. It also totally has his name on it.

Aw, family. Clearly Duke is distracted.

Merry Christmas!

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of the Santa Claus massacres that happened in Southern California last night. What a horrible, horrible, tragedy.

Twas the Night Before Christmas!

So, it's the night before Christmas and I'm still like 600 miles from my hunny and Duke. The countdown is... Thursday, Friday, DUKE & HUNNY day! So excited. They've forgotten ALL about me I swear!

More cell pictures to easy my worries.

"Is mommy EVER coming home?"

I think they are using the computer. Duke has alot of wrinkles. It means he's really super worried.

So worried all he does is sleep! He's spending so much time with Triton and Dinoco that he sleeps in all of his spare time.

Duke got a smart new collar while I was away. It looks pretty sharp from the pictures.

Last one isn't Duke at all, it's my hunny telling me he loves me and misses me! How did I get so lucky to have such a nice family? I hope Santa brings everyone something good whether they were naughty or nice!

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810022085/video/11129352

Here is a trailer for a movie that has a puggle in it! No sound here at work on the computer, so not 100% sure what the movie is about... just that if you watch the trailer there is a puggle!

After being away for 10+ days

Here is the view of another plane (like the one I was on) that took me away from my family for Christmas! I left my fiancé and the Dukemister in Philadelphia to fend for themselves.

Here's some picks that fiance sent me using his cell phone camera.

"Mommy, when are you coming home?"

"Well, if you're not going to be here I'll take your spot"

"It's so much work missing you!"

"Have you seen my mommy?" Apparently when he gets home from visiting Tritan and Dinoco he still runs around the apartment and looks for me in all the rooms. I feel horrible knowing he can't find me and he's still looking!

He's spent alot of time sleeping

And sleeping some more.

Sad puppy!!!

The countdown is 8 days until I see them again! Fiance says Duke is now climbing under the covers in the bed. Hmmm. He is just like a little person. For real real.

Away from my Duke! (and hunny)

So the very sad news is my desktop's (aka ZEUS) hard dive crashed at the beginning of the week. Like complete utter failure, completely gonezoed. It was a 500 gig drive, and it was about 430 gigs full. All my pictures were backed up, which is good, and some other stuff, but I lost a ton of documents and who knows what else. *sigh* Warranties are nice (brand spankin' new hard drive for free) and holiday sales are also nice because I've now purchased a terabyte and a half of backup space so this will never happen again, or when it does happen again I don't lost ANYTHING.

So that being the first tragedy, the second is I will not see my puppy again until after December 27th! Because it is the holidays, I have flown home to Maine until after Christmas. The problem with that is my fiancee and my Duke are left in Philadelphia without me! Duke will be spending alot of time with his Uncles, Triton and Dinoco. When he goes over to their house, he does much running and not much sleeping so he is very very tired when he finally makes it back to the apartment.

Originally they were going to come up and visit me while I'm in Maine, but work things happen and it is undetermined if they will be making the trip up here. That is A TON of days without my family!!!

So unless my fiancee sends me mucho photos of my puppy, the updates will be somewhat limited or dedicated to photos and memories of before Duke's blog (and before the hard drive crash, hrmph).

I picture my boys doing a lot of this together while I'm gone.

(if you could see my finacee's face, he'd be asleep too)

Duke is a Turkey!

It's a bird, it's a plane.... no it's just a flying Duke! He is such a turkey! But just like turkeys, Duke can't really fly.

Finally gave him a bath last night. We couldn't bathe him because of his surgery (had to wait 2 weeks), but we decided that he really needed a bath before Thanksgiving. It was so gross. He was so oily and dirty the water just beaded off him. We scrubbed him though so the Dukester is extremely clean now.

Duke isn't a huge fan of baths, so I didn't dare bring the camera in the bathroom! I got some stuff from before and after his bath though (hense the image above).

He's drying himself on my carpet.

He uses his nails like fingers and grips the carpet to drag himself across it.

At least he smells good now!

Happy to Thanksgiving everyone! I am thankful for my family, my wonderful fiance and our puppy, both bring so much joy to my life!

Happy Turkey Day!

Duke & Work

When we first got Mr. Duke, he used to come to work with me because he was too little to stay at the apartment for so many hours. He used to be really really good when he came, but as he got older he got braver and would sneak around behind my back. This led to trouble with my little puggle!

Last time I brought him to work I tied him up out front so he wouldn't sneak off. Wouldn't you know it, but I went in the back of the shop to do something and I turned around and Duke was right at my heels. He had chewed right through his leash. Great.

He also discovered his voice one day at work with me and barked at everyone who came through the door. His separation anxiety didn't help much either, I couldn't step out for a moment without him yipping and panicking at the door. Our shop is also located right next to a couple restaurants... so perhaps other angry shop owners might make Duke the lunch special.

It is nice having him here. I don't like to be alone at night (or during the dark hours) so he's a friend at those times. Plus it's cute to watch him sit in the window and watch people walk by. Everyone usually kneels down to say hello to him on the other side of the window. People think they are super funny when they peak their heads in and ask, "how much is that doggy in the window?!?!?!" Ha... ha.... It's okay though, I like it when the customers ask me where the Dukester is and how he is doing.

It's been about a month since Duke has come to work with me. I'm hoping neutering will help his problems because it's not everyday that your bosses allow you to bring your dog to work. If only he'd behave!

Here's a shot of him in his bed at work when he was behaving (though I'm sure the expression on his face indicates he just did something bad!).

The Magical Unmaking of the Bed

This is the saga of how Duke cannot stand it when I make our bed. He usually starts by playing with his toys on the bed, then he'll dig and spin and twirl until he's managed to raise the covers some. He then goes head first under them and does the same thing until the whole bed is a mess.

"Who, me?"

Under the covers.

Dig dig dig dig dig....

"What?"

"You think a face like this would do something like that?!"

In other news, his neutering incision is healing extremely well. Hopefully it finishes healing soon because Duke really really really needs a bath. The beagle is definitely coming out!

In the beginning...

Here are some relics! Haha. Day one of Duke!

So the story goes that we got Duke, but we were also recruited to bring Duke's brother to his owner's too. Duke's brother's name is Max.

Fiance and the Dukester. He was the first one we picked up to test his chip!

Max's family says Hello!

Duke smelled like farm, so we gave him a bath in the sink... That may have been the only time we did that.

Duke is the one on the right chewing on his brother.

Doesn't he already look like mischief at 7 weeks?

He only gets bigger from here...

This entry is a tad crude, but amusing.

Duke went to the vet yesterday and got neutered. Everything went better than textbook and he came home yesterday. It's kind of cool because they don't use stitches anymore to close animals back up (humans too apparently according to Dr. Future-Sister-in-Law). The vet actually just glued his incision back together!

He's pretty drowsy, like last night all he wanted to do was cuddle and sleep. This morning he woke up and started to push his ball around then decided he wasn't quite ready to play.

Here are some pictures to, eh, tribute to Duke's bits and pieces that are no longer.

Playin' with the dogs

Diggin' under the couch

Dozin'

Came home from work today to see him. He looked at me with his big brown eyes. And I felt really really bad we put him through this.

Then he rolled over and started playing with his toys and licked me.

He'll be allll good in a couple days. Then it's onto exploring dog parks and making more friends.

NOTE: We took Duke to a friend's apartment tonight, thinking he'd sleep because he was on medicine... nope, ran around like a monkey the whole time, but I'm glad to see it took less than a day for him to get back to his normal self.

Puppy Graduation!!!

Last night was puppy graduation from PetSmart! Duke did really really well.

He just learned how to shake. *Paw*

This was not a required move, but Duke walks on two feet!

Puppy in a hat! He didn't really know what was going on accept for the hat was too big and kept falling over his eyes. Fiance had to hold him so he didn't squirm and eat the hat.

We got a magnetic bumper sticker to show our pride. I think it's kind of like "my honors kid can beat up your high honors kid." Or something like that.

King of the Bed!

Fiance is away this weekend. Which means.... Duke gets to cuddle in bed! Or own the bed. He's funny because when I get up in the morning, he usually stays in bed for another hour or so.

He was totally sleeping on the pillows before I woke him up!