We wish you a fuzzy Christmas

To me Christmas means:
Trees... indoors!!
the amazing smell of turkey wafting from the oven
guests! lots of fun people to play with
extra long walks with the guests
snuggle time
presents!

Let's talk about the presents. Okay, I admit, I had a Christmas wish-list. It included a new collar, a bunch of bully sticks and a new ball.
Here I am opening up my first gift:

Don't you know it?! It was a collar!

Next, I looked through lots of other bags, but none of these was for me.


I did get the bully sticks!

And the new ball I was hoping for? Well... I had to share it, but I didn't mind a bit.

Boy, was I a lucky doodle!
Merry Christmas, every one!

Christmas Tree!

We got our Christmas Tree last weekend and it is finally decorated!

It was challenging because the Dutch normally wait until after Sinter Klaas (Dec 6th) to get their Christmas trees. Even though it was difficult, Mike didn't give up the search and managed to find one at a garden store. It had a root ball, but it was no problem to chop that off before bringing it home.

Mmmmm. Now it smells like Christmas!

IKEA Weekend

Mike and Meredith brought home lots of boxes yesterday.

Our new car was full to the brim!

Today I had to supervise Mike putting everything together.

It was exhausting, but at least now there is furniture in our living room.

Moving Day

We've moved!

Today all our stuff arrived from the US of A. It was delivered to our house we'll be renting in Aalst. I had to stay in my crate all morning at the old apartment while the big move happened. It was for the best as I would have been a bit underfoot.

They got the mattress and box-springs through the upstairs window!

All the mover guys drank lots of coffee during the move. The Dutch love their coffee.

It smells like home now.

Amsterdam

Holy bunnies, I'm exhausted today. We had quite an adventure yesterday! First, we rode the train for a long time.

And we had to switch trains a lot. Meredith and Mike were amazed at the delays because they said it should have taken us 1 hour and 20 minutes to get here and instead it was almost 3 hours.

Once we arrived, we had a lot of fun with friends Lori, Brett, and my new friend, Holly.
We went to a dog park!

And it snowed there, too!!!
And Holly and I both got really dirty:

Holly knows how to come when she is called. I don't care to do such things. I'd rather run around until I'm good and tired. Only then will I decide to come.

We didn't see much of Amsterdam because we were a bit worried about getting home with the trains being all messed up. Unfortunately it took us another 3 hours to get home, and several trains, too. It was so cold on the platforms we were all snuggled together trying to keep warm. Once we got back to the apartment, Mike and I played in the snow.

Eindhoven got 3 inches of snow! I guess that's quite a big deal here!!

Hair cut again

Gah.

At least I get a treat in exchange for the torture:

Announcing: OUR FIRST SNOW FALL this season!

Oh my bunnies! It snowed here! Can you believe it?! It doesn't happen very often, so when it does, golly... we enjoy it.

We do whatever it takes to have fun in the snow:
For example, here I am goin' a little bit nutty:

And fetching snowballs:

New Car!

Meredith and Mike were so excited because they bought a new (used) car last night. I guess it is going to be ready in about a week.

Doesn't it look like fun? I can't wait to ride in the back seat!

GLOW

We went to GLOW in Eindhoven together. On the way we ate at a Greek restaurant that was very nice to me. They gave me water with a little bit of parsley on the side as a garnish. How sophisticated!
Here I am under the table:

We enjoyed GLOW a lot. The following videos are of various bits of the GLOW. First, you see me window shopping:


Next, you can see a couple of the fancy lighting displays:


This one was neat because they projected a moving scene onto the building. The portion in the video is supposed to be constellations, I think.

The Bark Theater

Here I am in front of the Bark Theater, one of my favorite places. I'm sure it's called that because they have lots of dogs around there.

As you can probably tell, I'm working on my expressive look. Meredith is the actor in the family but I believe I could do it too. Watch me bite the leash and jump:

Can you tell I'd be great on stage?

Beautiful Day

We went for a walk in the park today. It was a gorgeous fall day with the sun shining through the trees. Everything seemed possible.


Meredith and Mike are so happy they finally found a house to rent. It will not be close to this particular park, but will be close to fields and woods and other fun places for me to romp. Although I'll miss it here, I am sure we'll all be much happier in a house with a yard!

Ridiculous.

So I need a hair cut... is this really necessary?


Argh. How embarrassing.

Goldendoodles in the news

Recently in the U.S. of A. the people there elected a new president. Meredith and Mike were listening to Obama's acceptance speech and I distinctly heard mention of a presidential dog. I fully support the idea of a dog having a prominent position in the government of America. Consider the attitude of a typical dog... when I meet another dog I have one question: Will you play with me? If the answer is yes, we play. If no, we don't play. If only people could be that straightforward and considerate of each other's needs. Think about it. The US says to China, "Do you want to play?" and China says, "Yes." All is good in the world.

But back to the goldendoodle dog news: It turns out that President-Elect Obama is interested (perhaps) in a goldendoodle dog. An article in the The Boston Globe is even titled,
"Goldendoodle talked up as First Dog"
The picture shown in the article is of three goldendoodles, two brown and one dark brown... from behind. While I would recommend such a pose from one dog to another, I am going to guess the people reading that article would have preferred to see the dog's faces.

The article goes on to have some "important" dog person quoted as saying that goldendoodles are not a recognized breed but rather a "mutt". Well, no matter what you call us, we certainly are special. And if the president decides to make one of us a first dog, well, worse things could happen.

Bunnies! Bunnies! Bunnies!

Did you know they sell bunnies at the pet store here? I’ve seen bunnies from Don and Marty’s condo balcony in the yard below, but never up close and personal before. This was my lucky day. Ohhhhh so lucky.

When we arrived, I noticed the bunnies right away!

Aren’t they amazing? Check out this video- they even act like they might be my friends!


Bunnies!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a biking dog!

Mike and Meredith decided to try again to get me to bike properly this past weekend. They were heading to a friend’s house on Sunday so they wanted to make sure I had plenty of exercise before they left me for the day. We started out “normal” (or at least how I’ve biked before):


Meredith then brought out the cheese. I do love cheese. It is almost my favorite food, ever. I say almost because yogurt is probably my favorite, but much harder to use as a reward unless I’m indoors. I can’t imagine Meredith busting out yogurt from her pocket for me on a walk in the park.

The training happened next. Mike biked reallllly slowly while holding my leash, Meredith walked reallllly fast next to us and I ate cheese between them, instead of biting the leash. We did this over and over again and then she said to Mike- go for it- and off we went. Check it out!

Meredith and Mike are so proud of me! I’m a smart doodle-dog!

Sick means no walks

Since Meredith is sick this week I've had Mike walking me in the morning and evening. No daytime walks at all. What a drag. At least I found a way to entertain myself with a rock.



I do love rocks. They are so.... rocky.

How long?

Meredith had to run errands this afternoon and I was stuck in my crate for a long time. When she came back, her hands were full of AH groceries and she was coughing and sounded really sick. We had a brief conversation about the fact that it was high time I went outside for a walk.

M: Listen, Lacey, I don’t feel very well (cough cough) and I need you to wait until Mike gets home from work; he’ll let you out.

L: When is Mike getting home?

M: Well, I don’t know but I just tried to call him at work and there was no answer so he’s probably already left and will be here in less than 15 minutes. Can you wait?

L: I suppose I can wait.

-20 minutes go by-
-Phone rings-

M: Lacey, that was Mike on the phone and I was mistaken- he is just leaving work now and so it will be another 15 minutes. Sorry about that. Can you wait?

L: (legs crossed) I guess so. But I’m really not happy about it.

M: Sorry, I just don’t feel good right now. Please be patient.

L: Okay. (eats dinner, plays with bone, looks out the window)

-30 minutes go by-

L: If you don’t let me out right now, I’m seriously going to pee on your foot.

M: Alright! I’ll let you out. But we have to compromise. I can’t take you for a walk. You’ll have to just do your stuff right in the parking lot on the leaves.

L: I don’t care! Let me out!

Don’t worry, no feet were peed on tonight. She let me out, I went in the parking lot, and we went back inside. I couldn’t believe how long it was taking Mike to get home. Twenty minutes later he walked in the door. “What happened? Are you okay?,” asked Meredith.
“My bike broke.”

From what I could understand Mike decided to pump up a low tire on his bike but ended up taking the tire apart and losing a piece of it. Bummer! So he rode the bus home. But everything turned out okay because he took me for a nice run-walk and I got to bite the leash!

Just when you thought Halloween was over...

I had a marvelous day-after-Halloween. Check me out! Check out my fabulous muuuud! I bet you are wondering how on earth I managed to accomplish this. In order to create this custom muuud-look several important steps must be followed. First, you need to start with a rainy morning. Next, find another dog to play with who slams you onto the ground. Preferably wet, soft muddy ground. Thirdly, run around with this dog until your paws are fully soaked. Here, let me demonstrate:

Now find a big pile of leaves to swim in.

Check out the final product:


And Mike’s initial reaction:

Mike’s secondary reaction:


Dang. Guess I’m back to my old self again.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is Meredith's favorite holiday. As a tribute to this day I agreed to try on all her costumes before they went into storage.

Here are a few examples:



Click here for the whole show!

She has a lot of costumes. Seriously. I had to be very patient and wait for my treat. Mmmmmm... yogurt reward for Halloween costume trying-on. Nothing beats that.