The Dalmatian Diaries Blog

I think this is one of the longest stretches I've gone without a pupdate. Our house is under massive repairs right now. The dogs have been at daycare most of the time, but with Thanksgiving QUICKLY approaching they are home now. The construction has been a nightmare where it comes to the pups. Debris in the yard, confined to the house, having to walk them for all potty breaks... ugh. The one hugely positive outcome of all this is that Widget has been AWESOME with all the workers!!!! She LOVES the framers. I mean, she cried one day when they left and pined for them for a long time. They love dogs, and she clearly knows it. She hasn't barked at them (up close) even once. She does bark from my office, but it's her "hey, they should be paying attention to ME" bark, not her fearful one. The fact that she loves this group of guys has made her far more accepting of the other workers. She watched them through the glass door - they were feet away - and she didn't bark or freak out. They are making a lot of noise removing the stucco on parts of the house and it's not bothering her much. Now, Browser isn't a fan of the noise. He's a little worried by it. He didn't want to go upstairs this morning because they were pounding on the exterior by the staircase. He's a trooper though - I told him I'd protect him and he believed me and came up the steps

I have some pics of the pups, but mostly it's napping photos. When they nap lately, they nap HARD. I look forward to getting some fun pics of them up again. I do have some but combine the craziness of construction, plus the Thanksgiving madness on CDKitchen.com, well, I don't have a lot of free time these days.

The pups are napping happily right now. The pounding on the house has stopped for the day. They finally got their yard back (after I spent a good 40 minutes securing gates, picking up nails, metal and tools).

Both pups are doing fantastic. They've been loving the amazing fall weather we've been having. They play for a few hours in the morning outside, then come in for some nap time. Then repeat the process for the afternoon.

I had to drop out of Widget's Game Skills class. As you can tell by the infrequent updates here, my time is at a premium right now. Widget has been doing fantastic in her classes but I'm just out of hours in the day to participate. I'm not giving up on her!! We'll still try to work on things during the crazy holidays, but she won't be back in a formal class for a couple of months.

Browser's last vet check showed him CRYSTAL FREE! YAY! He's still on meds for a few more weeks just to be sure but I am thrilled. I am quite sure our water has been the culprit - for everything from his crystals to his tummy problems he had as a baby. I distill their water (bought two counter-top distilling machines) then run it through Brita filters to improve the taste and increase his water intake. It's a ton of work. Distilling takes about 6 hours for one gallon and with two active puppies, you can imagine how much water we go through (which is why I bought the machines instead of having to lug jugs of water home from the store every few days).

I've been taking pictures of the pups still - just haven't been uploading them like I should. I'll try to get some more posted this week.