Tatum Tot Spice

The Mum went out last Saturday and got us this new fun chair. The Dad is kinda scared of it, because the Mom got it for $20 at somebody else’s house that the Mom doesn’t know. So the Dad is afraid it might have something living in there that he is afraid of.

Us dogs have been all over the chair and so far we found some crumbs and some dirts but nothing living in there, so we think it’s a good chair. The Mum said she wanted another chair for our TV room, but nothing that would cost a lot. Because if we chew it up then she says it’s wasted money and that’s no good. I don’t know what money is but it must be lots of food or treats or something because the Mum thinks it has lots of value.

So maybe this chair isn’t good for any free dating but it’s good to play on and to sleep on and to have fun on. It even reclines so the hoomans can be relaxed on it. Though the Mum wants to clean it up a bit because it does not smell like us and we want it to smell like us more.

This is Pearl and she needs a home. Some mean people dumped her in a scary shelter in central Utah a couple of weeks ago. But some really nice people pulled her out and got her to a foster home! She came to visit with us for a half a day, and I liked playing with her. But sometimes she wants to keep playing, and we wanted to stop playing, but she just kept on so I had to growl at her a little bit. But she’s very young and needs to learn stuff so that’s okay.

Pearl is called a color-headed white rough collie. She’s healthy. She has the white gene but Mom says that is okay for collies. It’s the merle gene that can be dangerous. She’s really friendly and loves to play and needs to learn some doggie rules.

If you would like to adopt Pearl visit Sheltie Rescue of Utah’s website and see more about her!

It’s kinda scary when us dogs get lost, we don’t have barcode scanners but we can have microchips since we can’t talk to people in words. So every doggie needs a microchip!

Here is us playing with Pearl:

This is our fun TV room now. Can you find where I am? I’m in my most favorite spot. The hoomans here like that chair spot and so that’s why it’s the most special spot, and so I like it too! And I just fit right and snuggly in there.

You can also see Levi on the big bed he has, and Jet is on the grooming table on his little bed too. These are our favorite places in the TV room when we are relaxing.

Sometimes the Mum does her laundry in that room and puts away her clothes and her carhartt jeans. And Jet thinks it’s great fun to steal the Mum’s socks and take them outside and play tug with them. The Mum says they are cheap toys but then the next day she complains that she has no socks!

My brother Levi is getting old, and he doesn’t like to walk up and down the stairs anymore. And so the Mum and the Dad (well, mostly the Dad) build this cool ramp for him so that he doesn’t have to go down or up the back yard stairs anymore.

The Dad built the ramp and then the Mum looked at it and said that it wouldn’t do. Because it was pretty high off the ground and she was afraid we would fall off. Well I wouldn’t fall off, but Levi might ’cause he’s kinda a dork. So then the Dad pup up sides on the ramp so nobody would fall off.

It took us all a while to realize that we couldn’t go around the ramp anymore to go up the stairs. But I figured it out really fast. It took Levi about three days to figure it out. See, he’s kinda a dork, and the ramp is for him! Jet and Chase and Muffit figured it out pretty fast, too.

This picture is of me sunbathing on the ramp. It has a flat spot right out of the dog door so that Levi doesn’t bend his back going out the door. His back had an icky arthritic bridge forming between a couple of his vertebrae on his spine and so it hurts him. The other day Chase pushed Levi over and then Levi hurts for a couple of days and that’s sad, because I don’t like it when Levi hurts ever. Or anyone else either.

Maybe if Chase had some surge protectors he wouldn’t rush out the back door and push Levi over. But it doesn’t take much to push Levi over, which is sad. Levi was a big strong boy and sometimes I can see the Mum leaking from her eyes because she doesn’t want Levi to get old. The Mum loves Levi with all her heart, as she does all of us, and she wants us all to live as long as she does. I wish we all could, too.

Here’s another picture of the ramp when the Dad was building it:

The Mum has been asking me lately if I still want to do agility. She says that sometimes she gets a little bit tired of having to be so happy to get me to go around the courses and trials. She says it’s a lot of work for her and sometimes she doesn’t have much fun doing it. So she wants to know if I have much fun doing it, or if I’d rather do something else, maybe like pulling a cart like I did at camp. Which was fun and I didn’t have to go fast at all.

I told her that I do like to do the agilities but I like it more when we go and play at the practice area better. The trials are a bit stressful for me and so I don’t feel comfortable running really. I’d rather walk and do all the fun things, but the Mum says to really do it we are supposed to run. But when I get out there I just get worried and I just can’t run when I worry!

Maybe I need some breakdown service when I am out there to have someone help me get moving faster so I’m not so nervous. But the Mum says she’ll never get mad or make me do what I don’t want to do so that’s a good thing. So I think I’d like to keep doing it for a while. The Mum says she can retire in a year and a half and then she can do more practicing with me too which would be lots more fun anyway. I like that she’ll be able to be home more!

This is our little agility tent for when we do agility and need to set up outside. It can be cold and rainy outside, and so we have to have someplace where we can get warm and have our crates and stuff. The little grey tent in the middle is ours. That’s where me and Jet had our crates at the last trial and it was snuggly warm in there. But then again I like it cooler than Jet does. He has a fluffier bed than me and sometimes he wears a coat.

The Mum has a coat for me too but she got it for me when I was lots younger so now it doesn’t really fit much anymore, it’s too tight! But it’s pink and it’s really cool and I like pink, pink is my best color. When we are in the nice snuggly tent waiting for our turn to go and have fun doing agility, we don’t think much about term life insurance, instead we read course maps and eat yummies and drink some water to get ready. Though agility has been rather stressful for me lately, the Mum hasn’t had much time to get us out training, and I do lots better when I can get out training!

So the Mum says this weekend we get to go train doing agility again. Yay! I love to train more than the scary trials. They make me nervous even though I know how to do all the things. They are fun things to do… but I still get nervous. The Mum says maybe she’ll get me a cart and we’ll do carting instead, which I think I would like better.

This picture of me is at camp on the pier again. Because the Mum hasn’t taken many pictures at home anymore. But she needs to take more of me at home very day because I’m a pretty girl! And I don’t need any appetite suppressants because I can eat all I want! Even though the Mum says when I eat a lot I get wings, but that’s okay, maybe I’ll fly!

I did agility again last weekend but I didn’t run very fast. It was sunny outside when I ran and I didn’t really want to run when it was too warm. I did good though and the Mum gave me lots of tuna brownies and liver treats too, which I really like.

I still with that we could go to camp more often because it was fun. This picture is of me, Levi and Jet when we were on our way down to the beach to run around and play. The beach was fun and I want to go back. The Mum says I should learn to swim, though, and I really don’t want to! Just because Levi got pushed off the pier and into the water because I accidentally bumped him… she says I should learn to swim too so if something like that happens to me, I can swim out. I just say, no pushing in the water for me!

Instead I think maybe I’ll buy the Mum some hp laserjet ink cartridges so she can print out all the cool pictures she took of us at camp!

This weekend I’m doing agility with the Mum again. And it’s okay kinda fun, but I liked going to camp better. I want to go back every month, or every week, or just live there, but the Mum says we can’t. We can’t afford it with money (whatever that is) and then it also gets cold and snowy in the winter and the Mum doesn’t like that very much either.

So we are back from camp and we get to go to the park and do agilities and stuff, but it’s not nearly as fun as camp was. Mum says we can go back next year, and play on the pier again, and run around on the beach and in the camp and have fun. But for now we have to live in our house and sleep on the comfy beds and make the best of walks and the park. Which is okay because I still love the Mum and the Dad and the rest of the dogs here and we have fun and eat good food and yum treats.

Maybe we could get a steel drum and do some drum circles in the back yard and call the calm and peace of the forests of Lake Tahoe to visit us here, too.

Today at camp me and Jet got the Mum up super early in the morning again so we could go run around a lot and play. I did all my good play moves for Jet and we ran and zoomed around on our way down to the beach. Can we live here? It would be the best!

Then the Mum and me tried this thing called carting. Or sometimes it’s called drafting. There’s lots of working dogs that do it, and sometimes collies like me, too. The Mum always wanted me to try it but didn’t have a harness or cart at home. So we got to today, and it was kinda fun! And the Mum said that I was the best of any of the dogs, even Levi and Jet! So the Mum says maybe she’ll have to buy me a cart and we can do some carting at home, that’d be kinda fun but I’ll have to get used to pulling the thing around! Maybe I can do some Room Director Jobs and boss people around and make some money to buy a cart!

Here are some other pictures from camp today.