Tatum Tot Spice

The Mum says that one of the hardest things about helping me write in my blog is finding fun pictures to post. Well maybe we don’t need pictures every time? But I do like pictures. This is my brother Muffit. He is very cute. But I’m cuter, of course.

I don’t really need any eye creams though because my eyes are just pretty and fine the way they are. Maybe Muffit can use some, though.

Do you know where his name comes from?  Well… I’ll tell you so you don’t have to guess so much. The Mum used to watch a show back in the 1970s (whenever that was) called Battlestar Galactica. There was a robot dog on the show named Muffit. So the Mum thought it was a cute name and named my brother Muffit. He had been named Shiloh and Leopard and some other dumb name too that my Mum can’t remember now. But we all think the name Muffit fits him best.

The Mum and I were just watching the weather-guesser on the news and he said that it is supposed to be really cold the next few days here in Utah in Salt Lake City where we live. It’s supposed to get down to four degrees on Saturday or Sunday!

Me Curled Up

And so to show how I get all curled up to stay warm, I thought I’d show you some pictures! This first one is of me. The Mum says me, Levi, Chase and Muffit can all curl up really nice. But Lucy and Angel can’t really, they just don’t bend. So the Mum and the Dad put blankets on them and get snuggly beds for them so they can stay warm too.

Levi Curled Up

If you don’t know how to curl up maybe there is a toll free number you can call to learn! It makes my belly super warm, and I put my tail over my nose too, to keep my nose warm.

Muffit Curled Up

Levi also knows how to curl up really tight into a ball. Us collies are good at it usually. And border collies, the Mum says, are even better because they are so flexible. But being flexible isn’t all that important… I like being a collie even if we are not as flexible as border collies!  Okay okay… being flexible is kinda important, and for collies me and Levi are pretty flexible and we have pretty good bodies that let us do lots of way fun stuff!

Muffit is kinda silly when he is all curled up, because he does it and keeps his eyes open sometimes and peers at the Mum when she is taking pictures. LOL Muffit is a silly border collie boy! He can curl up into a teeny tiny ball though, because he’s so small, he makes a very small ball.

Can you curl up into a small ball to keep warm? It’s not really that cold in our house though either… the Mum wants it colder, the Dad wants it warmer. So it changes quite a bit. Oh but the Mum is being sick now and that’s why I haven’t posted much lately anyway because she hasn’t left the laptop on for me to post with. But that’s okay, I have been curling up with her and keeping her warm, too!

The Mum finally got some pictures of me playing with Chip! Muffit kinda started it though… and doesn’t it kinda look like we are fighting instead of playing? Chip likes to show all his teeth when he plays, but I’m not fooled! Chase is the same way, I think I’ve posted about that before. Probably before the Mum went on her European cruises.. and left me behind!

I was able to get him good on his neck, and the Mum snapped a picture just at the right time! It looks like I’m biting him and he’s yelling in pain, and he’s gonna whip around and bite me back! But he didn’t, he just played with me back! And Muffit likes playing too. We all have a great time!

He is a fancy sheltie boy with all his long fuzzy hair, kinda like my white sheltie friend Reilly. Fuzzy shelties sure are fun to have around and play with! I wish I could play with Reilly, too. I just get to play with Chip while he is here hanging out with us.

We are all kinda tired now and snoozing after our big play fight!

In the trailer, I just wanted to wear my tiara, and Chase and Muffit wanted to play. And even though Chase looks kinda mean here, he is just being a dork. He plays with all his teeth out! And Muffit, as you can see, is a little bit thinking Chase is a dork, too.

Chase kinda tilted my tiara a little bit… which made me mad, but the Mum fixed it for me. Which is good ’cause I don’t want it to fall off. And we played in the trailer ’cause we didn’t have a xbox 360 to fool with.. we just had each other, and no TV either!

The Mum watched a show on the TV that she called Bones last night.. though I didn’t see any chew bones on it, just dogs barking! And every time they barked, I barked too, ’cause I thought they were gonna come out of the TV and get me! And I had to bark at them to make them go away. The Mum said it was a show that had a lot of things about dogs that aren’t really real, but it did have a good message that people who get dogs need to keep them for ever and ever, even if they get big and they didn’t expect it!

The Mum took me, Chase and Muffit to an agility trial on Saturday. Man we go to these a lot! But the Mum says in the winter we don’t go to as many. We didn’t get to run around much because some hoomans were playing a game called baseball in our regular run around area. Didn’t they know that’s for dogs to run around? I guess it’s set up for hoomans to play that ball game, but really it should have been for us.

But me and Muffit got to go out and visit people and dogs. And the Mum put me up on a table so I tucked up my tail in case it was going to be scary, and a guy called a judge measured where my shoulders were. But they are always in the same place so not sure what that was about. He said I was twenty inches at the shoulder, and the Mum said that was good, so I guess that was good, whatever!

Then we came home and today we are mostly sleeping… the Mum went to go for a swim at her friend’s house but I didn’t want to go, ’cause I don’t swim! Hrm. But we get to go to flyball practice tonight and that’ll be fun. Though the Mum is fiddling with her tv mount for her big flat TV and that’s scary, we hope she doesn’t drop it!

This evening me, Muffit, and Chase took the Mum to flyball practice. Well, she drove, but I wanted to. She made us all sit in seat belts the whole way. She used to just have us in seat belts on the freeway but since her car accident on Friday she is making us always seatbelted in. But I guess we are safer so that’s okay.

We had fun and I got to bunny hop over some fun jumps. The Mum says I’m supposed to run over them but it’s more fun to bunny hop over them! And Muffit got to show off how well he’s doing on the box! He did great! But then when the Mum took his leash off he just wanted to go play with Oreo and not go over jumps. Muffit and me both like other dogs a lot. Chase, he just likes flyball and tugging a lot.

The Mum didn’t bring her good camera so she took these with her cell phone. Her cell phone takes dumb pictures but they are better than nothing. And then the Mum went to the bathroom at the park and said the bathroom fixtures were really icky so she wouldn’t bring me in. Oh well, it probably smelled bad anyway!

So while the Mum was off doing stuff without me Chase and Muffit, we got to stay in the pen. And I decided that I’m boss of Muffit. So I kept him away from having any water, and if I had to tell him I was boss so I’d jump on his back and growl at him. He heheee… I am so smart and tough! The other hoomans at the flyball practice said that the Mum has created a monster (me? a Monster? no way!) and spoiled me too much. But hey, I’m a smooth sable collie girl and I’m the smartest and the bossiest! Though Lucy still thinks she’s boss here at home. I now for sure I am boss of Muffit and I sure let him know!

Anyway.. time to get to sleep now. I’m tired from running around and bunny hopping and eating lots of treats. It was fun though!

Today the Mum took me, Chase and Muffit to a park where we got to bark. I didn’t bark much, though. She said it was a get together thing called Bark in the Park. Muffit barked a lot! Chase barked a little. And I barked some too when we were all in our crates in our shade tent and people walked by. ‘Cause when Muffit and Chase bark I have to bark too, I can’t let them bark more than me!

There were lots of fun dogs there, and a pond where Chase got to go swimming. I don’t really like to swim, I just like to wade, so the Mum had me wait in the crate while Chase got to swim.

The Mum tried to get me to stay in one spot for pictures, but I like to move. She says someday soon I’ll learn that staying is the best, and I’ll get treats for it… but now I kinda get a little nervous still and so I wiggle and stand up and move. And there was no mat for me to sit on and so I didn’t know where I should stay.

But in these pictures you can see the tents behind me and all the people. There were lots of people with treats too, and me, Muffit and Chase got to run around a little bit, but not too much. Chase got to do flyball and he got to do obedience work with the Mum. I got to walk around and eat treats, and Muffit got to walk around too, and the Mum tried to get Muffit to watch her instead of everything going on. But he likes to watch everything going on. But he gets really nervous about it so the Mum says it would be better if he watched her instead.

Anyway, it was a fun day and it’s nap time, now, ’cause I’m tired! It took the Mum a long time to pack up all our crates and the tent and gear and stuff. She needs some custom boxes to load everything in to put it in the car. Us three got to wait and bark in the car while she was packing, that was fun too!

The Mum took me, Chase, Levi and Muffit to an agility trial last weekend. It was fun! Friday and Saturday weren’t as fun as Sunday, though. This was Sunday and we got to run around! Levi stayed home on Sunday ’cause he didn’t want to do agility, and the Mum wanted to make sure he was okay and healthy so he stayed home. So it was just me and the border collies on Sunday.

Muffit and Me like to chase Chase. Chase goes running off after that frisbee thing, and Muffit and I don’t care much about it, but we love to run after Chase!

The Mum had lots of treats, too, which we all like so we go to her after we run and get some. She gives us lots, every time we go to her, so that is fun! Though sometimes I like to sniff around and check other things out, which are really interesting and more so than treats. The Mum says she needs to get me other treats too, because she wants me to think coming to her is more fun and interesting than anything else in the world. Chase and Levi like to go to the Mum, but me and Muffit like to run off and sniff stuff sometimes. But the Mum says we’ll realize, soon, that she is the best thing ever. Well, she’s not so bad, but I wouldn’t let her know that I really like her… I have to make sure it’s kinda a secret!

It was pretty hot that day and we didn’t run too long, afterward we went into our crates and had big drinks of water and then took a bit of a nap. It’s really fun to go to agility trials. I used to be kinda afraid of them, but everyone has Livers, and we can run, and say hi to other dogs, and it’s lots of fun so I like to go!

Me and Muffit!

Wordless Wednesday

Last weekend the Mum took me, Muffit, Chase and Levi to the agility trial. It was a lot of fun! I really like it there. I’m used to it now, and I get to see all the dogs and all the people and eat livers.

We even got to run outside without a leash on. It was fun to run a bit, but the Mum had good treats on her and so I kinda stuck around. I saw Riley again, who I haven’t seen in a while ’cause he has to fix his leg in an operation for an ACL something.. but he’s getting better now.

And then today the mum took me and Muffit to a dog park. I’d never been before but there was a Staffie there who I got to play with even though she was a bit pushy, she was nice. And then she left and the Mum and Muffit and me walked around and peed on everything. Muffit had been to dog parks before, he told me, and he knew all about the double gates and things. The Mum says Muffit and Me are the only two dogs here in the pack that would do okay in those fenced dog parks. I think it was fun!