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Christmas at the Phunny Pharm |
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The five Presto Dogs woke up today to the sights and sounds of a fine Christmas morning. And one of them, li'l Maggie (a.k.a. the Magpie), all of ten months old, is realizing her first Christmas with our family.
Here's a picture of our Christmas tree, sans dogs, as they were too busy checking our the toys Santa had left for them in another room in our house:
 A Phunny Pharm Christmas - circa 2007 The tree is finely decorated with lights and our special liitle glass, plastic, wood and home-made ornaments garnering attention from all. Presents cascade out from under the tree, still wrapped in finery and bows, patiently waiting for their soon-to-be owners to take posession and wear them, drink them, play with them or otherwise appreciate their existence in our home. Delicious aromas waift in from the kitchen, forcing heads to turn in the direction they eminated from. And, surrounding me in various stages of enjoyment were all our dogs, chewing away on the treats Jolly Ol' St. Nick left for them in their stockings last night. As Lily was sauntering by, I placed her on our loveseat, in a contrived pose with Santa:  Lily with Santa - 2007 In a couple of hours, all the wrappings will be torn off the packages, contented family members will be enjoying the fruits of endless hours of shopping at malls and boutiques, and mountains of garbage will have accumuated for a pick up later this week. The dogs will be resting, sleeping on their sides, dreaming of the chewies they devoured, hoping they'll find other goodies waiting for them when they awaken. And the Presto Dog owners will be happy, too, in the knowledge that yet another successful Christmas Day had been experienced by the family, human and canine, at our home. Merry Christmas to one and all.
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Last Updated ( Dec 25, 2007 at 02:23 PM )
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After over five days of relative inactivity, the Presto Dog pack has once again been able to run, cavort and play in their big back yard!
As noted in the post immediately below this one, on Sunday, 12/16/07, we had a precipitation nightmare in the area where we live. Temperatures dropped overnight, and the next day we realized an iced-out, frozen over condition that prevented us from letting our pack run in their yard. But we didn't realize this turn of events until after the five of them were released into their yard where they in no time became stranded in the iced-over yard, unable to get any footing as they galantly tried to make their way back into their home. It took the combined efforts of both me & the Presto Dog bride to gather & rescue them.
Temperatures edged up past freezing today & the ice began melting. In turn, this gave the dogs purchase for their paws and we had another great time kicking a collection of balls around the yard, chasing each other and just having a good ol' time.
Things are back to normal, at least until Mother Nature, Ol' Man Winter or some other ficticious being with none the less the power to cause all kinds of problems in our lives decides to throw another potential knock out punch our way.
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Last Updated ( Dec 22, 2007 at 09:16 AM )
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Phunny Pharm Ice Extravaganza |
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Over this past weekend, we experienced a couple of jabs from Mother Nature. First, she sent us a delivery of about 4-5" of snow. Then, it rained for a while, shortly thereafter followed up by high winds and freezing temperatures. As you can imagine, this led to ice-covered trees, fences and roads, the former two revealing picturesque landscapes, the latter wreaking havoc for motorists and anyone venturing onto the ice-encrusted ground. And with this seque I'll lead into the story I'm gonna share with you.
Because of the nasty weather our five dogs didn't get too much time to play outside on Sunday. The next day, Monday, I had to go to work and didn't get home 'til around 5:00 p.m. or so. I sat down to dinner, dutifully surrounded by our four Shelties and big Collie that always accompany me on such ventures. After all, who can tell when a prized morsel of food just might "accidentally" fall to the floor right in front of one of my expectant friends?
Follwing established tradition, after dinner I arose and put leashes on all my canine companions so we could go out to our large yard and play for a while. Immediately preceeding this I had to go out and see if I could force open one of our 10' long gates that the Presto Dog bride had informed me had been impossible to open as it was stuck by the ice. I went outside, put my shoulder to the gate & had no trouble forcing it open about two feet so we could all get through the gate & into the back yard.
A little lesson in the topography of the home we dubbed the Phunny Pharm. The rear expanse of our property slopes gently downhill. This can be evidenced by the large balls we have on hand for the dogs that always wind up down at the bottoom of the property after I'd brought 'em up to the top. They make their errant trips after the dogs push them or the wind prods them along. Now, it's not a steep hill, one that's not real difficult to traverse. Rather, it slopes on I'd say about a 20-25 degree angle or so, just enough to give one a pretty good cario-vascular workout if you walked from the bottom up to the top.
Geting back to our story, leashes were placed on all the dogs and we made our way out to the gate. When I had all the dogs inside the back yard, I closed & locked the gate & took the leashes off the dogs...and that's when the fun began. You see, each dog then proceeded to gently slide down the hill, slowly of course, since the ice-over grass offered no traction for their paws. After a few seconds, each of them stopped their journeys as they reached a more level stretch of our property. I suppose they didn't think too much of it as they then proceeded to do their "business." At least that's what I thought until I realized none of 'em could make their way back up the hill when they were done!
I had to carefully make my way to each of the dogs, falling myself several times on the slippery ice, and placed their leashes around their necks again. We then made our way carefully back up the hill, with me being ever so mindful that I'd need to immediately release the leash in the event any of the dogs slipped.
At one point the Presto Dog bride came out and I alerted her of our problem. She came into the back yard & heard Dougie, our Collie, crying to be recued! She tried to get to him but she slipped on the ice & ever so slowly skidded down the hill about 20-30 yards or so. It took us about 15-20 minutes to "rescue" all our dogs.
I think it's going to be cold for the next few days. Therefore, we're probably not going to make any of our after-dinner romps in the back yard until we're all able to obtain some traction.
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Last Updated ( Dec 18, 2007 at 07:39 AM )
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About three-four weeks ago, hunting season opened in the rural area we moved to seven months ago.
To be certain our dogs weren't mistaken for wildlife, each and every time they ventured outside we'd put day glow yellow vets on them. The Presto Dog bride found these valuable items in a store where we used to live, when we were preparing for the move to iur new home.
Here's a picture I took of our four Shetland Sheepdogs in our living room right after we put the vest on them, just prior to going outside to play:  Four Shelties In order, the picture shows Maggie, Lily, Declan and Lyric. By the way, Lyric is the mother of Declan and grandmother of Maggie. F/YI, we weathered the hunting season with no accidents.
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Last Updated ( Dec 16, 2007 at 12:26 PM )
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