Why I Oughta...

It has been over a year since I shared a post about our little Lizzie .  She's still little.  At least...quite a bit smaller than what I remember Maisy being when she was around.   We lost Maisy in the Summer of 2016, so we're coming up on four years of her not being around our family.  It also means that this Summer will be four years since Lizzie joined our family .  She's, ummm, NOT Maisy.  But, she is family.  And that means that she's around with ALL OF US during the whole social distancing period.  I found her the other day up on this bench - where she sits often - enjoying the day's sun.  Everyone copes with quarantine differently, right? 

We give Lizzie her breakfast and water in the morning.  Every morning.  It is part of our routine.  I wake up, go downstairs, let her out of her crate, take her out.  Then we do a food/drink dance.  After she eats and drinks, if I'm going downtown to the office, I shuffle her back into her crate for the morning.  Actually, she runs into the crate herself.  Then, a couple of hours later when Nat and the kids are up and around, they let her out and she has run of the house. She's different than Maisy when it comes to food/drink.  Maisy only ate and drank when you were in the room with her.  We kept her food and water bowls in my office - where she lived.  I'd fill them up every day, but some days it seemed like she would barely eat.  And only eat when we were sitting in the office together.  Lizzie on the other hand devours everything you put down.  On the spot.  That includes water that she guzzles.  So, we do...

Last time we checked in on Lizzie was when she was wearing her third Elizabethan Collar after dealing with her rear end issue.  With the Holiday season in full swing, she's on her way to getting her 'Christmas Cut', so I thought I'd post this photo of her right before we shipped her off to the groomers.  She's wearing her winter coat.  And she's all dirty from chasing squirrels around the yard and up trees.  She hasn't caught one just yet, but she gets close.  I do wonder if the squirrels are playing her.  With the slow walk, staying just out of reach?  She'll come back from the groomer with a shorter coat (and one of those silly bandanas) and be all clean.  Probably a little bit cold for a while while it grows in, right?  But, come January, she'll have some of her fur grown back and ready to take on the winter.  Let's call this 2.25 years old . 

Poor little Lizzie.  She's not even three years old.  But she's on her third Elizabethan Collar .  Or Cone of Shame as we call it in our house.  She spent some time coop'd up in her crate as she recovered, but that didn't stop her from giving me *these* eyes just begging to let her out. The good news is that she is well on her way to being her old self and the convalescence worked just fine. The last time I posted about her was all the way back in the Fall of 2017 , so despite this being not the best situation, she deserved a mention here on the blog.

That's me and little Lizzie posing in front of the sign that reads: Ned's Corner from the movie Groundhog Day that filmed in Woodstock, Illinois.  Earlier this week,  I posted about how I picked up a jar of Glas club Cheese at the Woodstock Farmer's Market and while we were in town , we walked the square and *had to* stop at the corner that Ned Ryerson made famous in the movie.  You remember the scene, right? If you look closely, you'll see a 'for rent' sign in the storefront.  You'd think that someone with the right sense of humor and right approach to business could somehow capitalize on the whole Ned Ryerson/Groundhog day thing, right?  I guess the whole implosion of retail isn't going to make things easy on main street, but with the right mix of businesses, I would think that a place like Stars Hollow errrrr Woodstock - with their town square and all the charm that comes with it, can survive in some way, right? For the rest of the weekend...

Our builder came over after we moved in to take a few photos of the house and as she usually does to visitors, little Miss Lizzie cozied right up and made her presence known.  The result?  This photo that they posted on their Instagram handle .   Adorable?  Kinda.  Maddening?  That, too.

I took little Lizzie out for a walk around Barth Pond  after the kids were put* to bed ( *note...put doesn't mean 'staying' in bed.  And 'put' doesn't mean that Nat doesn't do MOST of the heavy lifting involved with wrestling them into submission each night... ) one evening recently and if not for the enormous piles of goose turds everywhere, it was quite lovely.  There were other folks walking, a few people down at the water's edge with fishing poles and some families on the playground.  The weather couldn't have been better.  The sun was about to set and the water reflected a beautiful blue from the sky.   The summer heat hasn't hit yet, so most everything was green and not yet yellowed. Turns out, the path around the pond is .45 miles, according to a post marker, so a few laps around gets a mile in for me and the dog. With the days being so long right now, this is a nice little way to end the day and wind down.  Who knows?  Maybe we...

We've been able to spend a little bit of time this summer up in Twin Lakes on Lake Elizabeth with the kids and little Lizzie.  I've posted a few times about Lizzie.  First, when we got her .  Then, earlier this spring when we marked her 7 month mark .    She was born on July 21st of last year , so we're coming up on her 11 month mark and there are still some new experiences - including her first trip into the lake.  Our dear Maisy - who Lizzie isn't a pimple on - spent some time up in Paw Paw Lake in Michigan.  We bought her a dog life jacket and that's the one that Lizzie is wearing in the photo above.  Maisy was a good swimmer, but one of the funniest things was seeing her swim in the lake only to haul her out by the handle on her back, on top of the jacket, only to see her little legs keep swimming even though she was out of the water.  Turns out, that's a Cavalier thing!  Lizzie does the same thing. The girls love this big 'yog...

Back in October, I posted about the newest member of our family: Elizabeth Bennet .  We call her Lizzie.  And now she's 7 months old.  Hard to believe.  She's gotten a lot bigger, a little bit smarter, hasn't slowed down one second and is just as much of a lapdog as her big sister Maisy. Lizzie has some problems that Maisy never did including resource guarding and hating...I mean TOTALLY HATING going outside if it is rainy or snowy or even cold.  I almost have to push her outside some mornings.  But, she's getting the hang of things.  And while she's been a total pain the rear at times, she is a lover of a dog who curls up in our laps each night as we watch tv. She's been spayed, so that might have slowed her down a step - but that's it.  Just a step.  She still darts around and if it weren't for 'burst mode' on my phone, I would have never been able to snap this photo you see above. She's no Maisy (and she couldn't be, amirite??...

It was back in May that we lost our dear girl Maisy just shy of her 11th birthday.  I still miss her dearly.  And we kinda tried to fill the void by bringing home a goldfish from RibFest .  BTW...that fish is still alive and well!  And the whole burden of cleaning the bowl has been pretty easy thus far.  Installed a filter, change out like 1/4 to 1/3rd of the water about once every ten days and the thing stays clean. Anyway...back to dogs.  Our dear Maisy was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  And she was.the.best.dog.ever.  First dogs often are, aren't they?   I've talked with a few people and they all say the same thing:  that first dog that couples often get BEFORE they have kids has a special relationship and bond with the family.  They're just different.  Sure, second dogs are great and they're also special.  But just about everybody that I've talked to has said the same thing:  it just isn't the same. And ...