My Monthly Diary for August, 2012

August was a busy month.  First off August 1st is my official birthday.  The pound said I was born around June 27th, but they were waaaay off with my age so Mommy and the vet decided to make it August 1st.  Mommy does start telling people I am a year older around the end of June, but we don't celebrate until August.  Normally I get a new toy or some french fries or something on my birthday (my Gotcha Day is a bigger event), but this year I got to go up to Wisconsin!  I think that was a great birthday present. I got to be up there for a week and a half and I got to ride in the peddle boat every day except one when it rained all day.  We went to visit our friend Bob who live on the island in the lake, and I also got to take a short hike and wade every day and chase frogs and have Mommy with me all the time.

 Looking off a bridge on one of my hikes

One day I had been chasing frogs all morning and Mommy was on the dock reading when Mommy said, "Look Merlin!" I thought she had spotted a frog and went searching along the shore, but it wasn't a frog she had seen it was Auntie Naomi and Uncle Fred and Uncle Fred's big sister!  They came for a visit! It is always fun to see Auntie Naomi and Uncle Fred and I had never met Uncle Fred's big sister so that was exciting.  They came down to the dock and Mommy was gathering up her stuff and an eagle landed by the shore to get a dead fish that was lying there.

The adult eagle getting the fish

Then a young eagle came flying up to him begging for the fish and they flew away, but the young eagle came back and landed on the trees behind the boathouse.  Mommy and The Sister went to the edge of the dock to see if she could see him.  Auntie Naomi spun around on the bench she and Uncle Fred were sitting on at the same time that Uncle Fred decided to stand up and the next thing I knew Auntie Naomi was lying next to me on the dock saying, "Ow ow ow!" Then everyone started running around and Mommy put everything away and got dressed and made some phone calls and closed all the windows and doors and then everyone left!  An hour or so later Mommy came back and gave me some dinner and sent me upstairs to bed.  Then really late that night everyone came back with pizza and Auntie Naomi had this weird thing on her arm.  After dinner we all went to bed and the next morning Mommy got up and went shopping for something called a sling and some other stuff and Auntie Naomi remembered to give me my present  (it was a small black squirrel which I played with every day for the rest of the week.). 

Auntie Naomi with the thing on her arm

and Uncle Fred giving me the attention I deserve

Then they packed up Uncle Fred's car and everyone went out for lunch but me (but Mommy brought me back some french fries) and then Auntie Naomi and Uncle Fred and The Sister left!  It was a very strange visit.

Anyway, after that weird visit, Mommy and I had some other visitors.  First off, one night I woke up around 2:00 a.m. and looked out the window.  I thought I saw a big dog in the woods so I barked "Big dog! Big dog!" and woke Mommy up, but then when the thing in the woods got closer I could see it wasn't a dog so I barked, "Monster! Monster!" Mommy said, "Go back to sleep" because she doesn't worry too much about monsters since they are sometimes porcupines or tarps or Christmas decorations, but this WAS a monster.  Then it stood up and I thought it was a person acting strange so I barked, "Creepy human! Creepy human!" then it dropped back down and walked by the side of the house and I barked, "Monster! Monster!" again.  Then I ran to the door and told Mommy we should go chase it.  Mommy said, "I am not getting up at two in the morning to go chasing werewolves through the woods in the dark.  Go back to sleep and we'll track it in the morning."  I didn't go back to sleep for at least a half hour though and instead I ran from window to window snuffling and snorting.  As soon as it was light I got Mommy up so we could track the monster.  We went out the door and there were footprints all over by the side of the house.  They came out of the woods and then led down to where the salt lick for the porcupine is.  The salt lick had been rolled about a foot and the ground where the lick was was all scratched up.  Mommy said the footprints belonged to a black bear, not a werewolf or any other kind of monster.

The other visitors we we had were

 

Baby loons

 

 Pileated woodpeckers who kept banging on the house

 

 And this nosy turkey

That turkey kept peeking into the house and when I would go up to the window to look at her she'd run back into the woods.  Then about ten minutes later she'd be back.  I don't know if you have ever seen a turkey run, but Mommy says it is one of the funniest things she has ever seen and it looks something like this:

On the last evening of vacation Mommy decided to do laundry so instead of sleeping in a bed that night we slept in sleeping bags.  The minute Mommy put them down on the ground I announced the red one was mine.  I left Mommy the little blue sleeping bag though, so I don't know why she was grumbling.

When we got back from vacation Mommy took me to the vet.  I was so nervous my ears were all the way back on my head and I was shaking.  Mommy said, "What are you so scared about?" Was she stupid?  Last year we went to the vet and then on vacation and then we came home and went to the vet and the vet STOLE MY TOE!! I had no idea what the vet was going to cut off this time!  Well, it ended up that the vet wasn't going to cut something off.  Instead I was there to start my laser treatments for my back.  The vet took me into a back room without Mommy, which is ALWAYS scary, and she waved a glowing thing over my back and hips for about a half hour.  I was sore after the first treatment, which the vet said was normal.  The second treatment they waved the glowing thing over my knees and ankles too and I was sore after that one too.  Then after the third one I started feeling really good.  I'm bending my knees a bit and I don't foot scuff as much or knock my toes on the steps when I come in the house.  After that I decided I LIKE these vet visits and when Mommy tells me I'm going to the vet I run to the back door.  I went every-other day for two weeks and then this week I only went twice (although I woke Mommy up at 5:30 on the day I wasn't going because I thought we should be) but the effects of the treatments seem to last.  Next week I'm only scheduled to go once and then Mommy says we'll see what happens.  The only down side is that I'm not supposed to hike after the treatments which is making it a bit hard for Mommy and I to do the fall hiking challenge this year.  I did get one hike in though and you can read about it in my previous post.  I'm hoping it doesn't rain all day tomorrow and Monday like they are saying it might because Mommy and I are hoping to do two hikes this weekend since it is a holiday.