It's been about a week or so since the unofficial/official opening ot the Presto Dog Phunny Pharm. And so, you may ask, what's new?

Well, every evening when I get home from work, I first grab a bite to eat. As I do so, five pairs of ever-so-friendly and intense canine eyes watch as I pick up my fork, place food in my mouth, and repeat the process over and over. You'd think I was a composer leading a band or something the way they rivet their eyes on me! (BTW, I have been known to share a morsel or two {or three} with my faithful companions!)

But after several minutes, my repast is over and I utter the five words the pack's really been waiting for me to say: "Who wants to go out?" (Did you really just count the words to see if there were five of them?) A cacaphony of sound are emitted as our four Shetland Sheepdogs named Lyric, Lily, Declan and Maggie and tri-color Collie named Dougie all bark their answers my question. To the best of my knowledge their answers are always YES!

So, five leashes are placed around their necks and they're led out to the garage where I stop for a couple of seconds to put on my outdoor shoes. I then lead the pack to the gate where we enter the Presto Dog play ground. One by one leashes are then removed and soon all five dogs are soon running, barking excitedly and chasing a variety of different colored balls that I kick around for them to fetch or simply chase after.

By the way, I neglected to mention two other items I bring with me as I head out to the dogs' play area. These are a blue water jug filled with a handful of ice cubes and cool, delicious, refreshing water:
 

...and a handful of "poopie sticks:"


The former is to replenish (a.k.a. re-hydrate) our pack after they've been running around like, well, a pack of dogs. The latter are to mark where any of the dogs might decide to recycle food nutrients they ingested hours previously. These brightly-colored sticks are dropped near to where they make their deposits so the offending area can be easily discerned when one of us goes on poop patrol. Hence the name "poopie sticks." They were created after my Presto Dog bride asked aloud if there was some way we could mark where our dogs do their business. I thought about the problem and came up with...poopie stcks.

A second shot of our newest creation...poopie stcks!



Since I took the pictures of these sticks at dusk, you can't really appreciate that they've been spray painted with a liberal amount of land surveyor's day-glo orange paint so they can be seen from real far away. This marks "the area" for clean up later and helps to prevent that infamous squoosh! sound we dog owners dread so much.

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It's Labor Day, 2007, and we're still celebrating the opening of the new Presto Dog play ground. We finished fencing in the whole area & decided to relax by letting our dogs run free around the pasture, chasing balls, butterflies and each other.

Here are some pictures I took as the dogs enjoyed themselves:

Blue's the color of the day! Up above are two agility tunnels, one open & the other a closed chute our dogs have learned to run through.

My son Chris puts the Presto Dogs through their paces in their new play area.

Immediately up above, you can see Dougie, our tri-color Collie, nudge little Maggie onto the "walk-it." This is a piece of agility equipment she loves to course over.


As Lyric the Sheltie relaxes under a white plastic table, Dougie slurps down a drink after a tiring run around the pasture land. See the blue jug? There's another great shot of this important part of our outdoor activities following. Read more about it below...


Each and every time we take a trip out to the Presto Dog play area, we take along a jug of cold water. This is partly in case I get thirsty, but mostly for our dogs, four Shelties & a Collie, who all work up tremendous thirsts as they run around their brand new play area. It's a wonderful jug, performing its chores with nary a complaint. Our hats go off to the jug that tirelessly provides the drink we crave as we expend energy on the Presto Dog pasture land.

Perhaps I should attempt to construct "An Ode to a Blue Jug," similar to the work of John Keats (1884)? Bravo, little blue jug!

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