Tag: dogs

July 2024

July 9, 2024

Gracie and I have fallen into a routine during these blazing-hot summer days. Typically, we’ll have a long outing mid-day to the swimming hole in Chesterbrook. Gracie LOVES the swimming hole. While there, I stand at the edge of the creek and toss her favorite orange ball into the water. She swims to retrieve it, carries it back, drops it near me, and wades into the water to wait for the next toss. Then we repeat it 30 or 40 more times.

She recently developed a new aquatic activity: she dives for rocks. I’ll toss a rock into the stream, Gracie will plunge in after it, dive under the surface (she resembles a duck with her head underwater and her behind in the air), grab a rock (any rock she finds – rarely the one I tossed), carries it to shore, and carefully searches for a spot where she deems as the ideal location to set it down.

If I didn’t get tired, she’d probably be happy retrieving her favorite ball and diving for rocks all day long.

July 17, 2024

It doesn’t get much better than this for a Goldendoodle! Gracie enjoying quality time with belly rubs from Aunt Tina…

July 28, 2014

Diving for rocks…

June 2024

June 25, 2024

Several readers of my blog have asked me about the less frequent Gracie updates over the past several months. Well, the truth is, there have generally been fewer unexpected things to write about. When Gracie was a puppy, remarkable incidents were happening all of the time – weekly, daily, and even hourly! But now, notable happenings tend to be rarer.

But yesterday, we did get a surprise. Gracie was selected by the staff as the “DOG OF THE WEEK” at Lucie’s Barkingham Palace! For this grand distinction, my loveable noodle got her name emblazoned on a sign in Lucie’s lobby and had pictures taken for posting on Facebook. I’m such a proud parent!

Click here to see the Facebook post where it says: “This super sweet doodle, Gracie, is a frequent flier here at Lucie’s! She’s always so excited coming through the doors, and loves to see all of her four-legged and two-legged pals! She was ecstatic to learn that she’s this week’s Dog of the Week!!”

Photos are also below.

May 2024

May 2, 2024

Gracie and I took a trip last weekend to Delaware for the annual Doodles in Dewey event. I had heard about this event from someone last year, so I decided to try it out this year. It’s sponsored by Paws for People and held during the last weekend in April with fun dog activities just for doodles*. I booked a pet-friendly hotel near the beach and we hit the road!

On Friday night we arrived in time for the dog costume parade where dozens of doodles donned in varied, colorful costumes, strutted up and down the Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk with their owners. Gracie didn’t participate in the parade but enjoyed it as a spectator. On Saturday, we went to the main event – a doodle doggie romp on Dewey Beach. The weather was cool and cloudy, but it didn’t dampen the excitement for the dog owners and the hundreds of doodles playing on the beach. I let Gracie off-leash and she had a blast. She romped with other dogs, chased tennis balls, played in the water, strolled along the beach, rolled in the sand, dug holes, sniffed out horseshoe crabs, discovered seashells, and received countless belly rubs. She didn’t want to leave.

Lots of pictures from the weekend are below.

*Some clarification, in case you are wondering about what defines a “doodle.” You can take any other breed of dog and cross it with a poodle, and – BINGO – you have a DOODLE. Most of the time you can figure out the combination of the doodle by the crossbreed name. A few examples: Goldendoodle, Labradoodle, Aussiedoodle, Cockapoo, Bernedoodle, Huskypoo, Schnoodle, Sheepadoodle, Saint Berdoodle, Corgipoo, Pugapoo, Dalmadoodle…the list goes on.

Slides from the costume parade:

Slides from Beach Day:

May 18, 2024

Early this morning I took Gracie out, fed her, and then I decided to go back to bed for a bit. I settled under the covers and it started to rain. As I began to drop off to sleep, I listened to the soothing sounds through the open window as the drops splashed onto the surfaces outside.

I woke up about two hours later. Gracie was sleeping soundly at the bottom of the bed. I got up and wandered to the kitchen. As I stepped through the hallway I saw a ripped-up plastic sandwich bag and foil fragments covering the carpet.

Apparently, what I “thought” were the “soothing sounds of the rain splashing” were, in fact, Gracie shredding the bags of doggie treats I had placed on the counter yesterday. While I slept, Gracie had pulled the treats off of the counter and then ate an entire bag of dog kibble (hence the foil fragments), two dog cookies (the ripped plastic bag), and a braided chew stick.

Bad doggie.