day 3: bored

my name is baxter, and i am waitin for my mom 2 come home.

day 2: the plan

Hi, Baxter your roving rover reporter here, reporting to u today from my car. Well, it's not mine really, it's one of my mom and dad's. You might recall that mom left for a trip yesterday and I am stuck here having to count to six before she gets back. I don't even remember how to count to six, so Duk Duk and I decided we are going to drive and see her. It can't be hard, right? Anyways, that's Duk Duk down there. He is gonna work all the pedals and I am going to steer. We figured it would be best on account of Duk Duk bein a duck n all and he doesn't have a license. Me, at least I got my dog tags.

Okay, so r u ready? Buckle your safety belt and let's go! Hmm, why aren't we moving? Duk Duk are u pressing on the right pedal?

Yep, that's the one mom uses. Hmmm...

Maybe we are out of gas. Duk Duk, what do u think?

Beep beep! Service please!

Uh-oh, do u think dad heard that?



This is Baxter your roving rover reporter signing off, uh, a little early. Gotta go.
See ya!

day 1: left behind

"oh no! did mom leave already?? i packed up my stuff as fast as i could!"

double header

dear diary,
today was mom's turn to write but i just had to say that somethin's up, i can just feel it. mom's not sewing and she's doing laundry and i think she is packing and i don't see my kennel anywhere so i might not be going with. can u believe it???

duk duk thinks we should learn how 2 use this thing once we agree on who should work the pedal. don't u think it should be duk duk? i mean he's missin like a whole wing now and i still got all my paws. we figure maybe if we learn this we thing then we can also learn 2 drive and then i am sure she will take us with her. wish us luck!

toodles!
b.

new year, old dilemma

Ahh design work. When I am in the right frame of mind, I could futz for hours designing stuff and poking around online print sites for customizable products and ideas and wondering about the weights of their paper and quality of their printing. And yet I don't have it in me to write most of my Christmas cards or thank you notes on a timely basis.

This time, I figured I'd try to stack the deck a little in my favor and find some motivation in writing belated holiday greetings and thank yous by ordering up calendar cards from an online print shop I wanted to check out. To my chagrin most of their offerings weren't fully customizable but I did find this happy design that I was able to update with an image of the shrimp scampy and some text changes. Plus they're 110 pound cardstock and printed in full color. Doesn't everyone get motivated by that?

And so yesterday, a full three weeks before I even usually start thinking about writing thank yous, the new cards came out, and Baxter and I spent some of our day scribbling missives to friends and family. Now if only I could get Baxter to address them for me...

shrimp scampy

The colder than normal weather has interrupted Baxter's routine. Walkies aren't exactly at the top of his list to things to do when there's ice on the ground, even if it is safely off to the side of our usual walking trail. On chilly day such as this, where Baxter chooses to conserve his energy and bury himself under mounds of blankies, or plants himself by George for most of the day, little kielbasa transforms into the energizer bunny by the time quitting time rolls around and the programmable thermostat kicks on the whole house furnace to prepare the house for the inhabitants it didn't realize were already home. As heat slowly fills the entire house, Baxter ventures forth from his thermal confines, peeking out from around the corner and scamping about in search of his mom and dad, ready to catch up on the day's worth of playing. A little bouncy brown ball of fur, we now affectionately call him shrimp scampy. Another name to add to the ever growing list of names we call our boy.

song of the serger

Hats. Since working with Robin on our crafty adventures, I have realized that people fall into two categories - people who love hats, and people like me who would never think of wearing them. Hat people love Robin's hats, dropping everything to make a beeline for our booth once they've spotted us, same as Baxter would try his best to rush along his potty just to chase a squirrel he's spied from miles away. A primal connection that can't be stopped.

Non-hat people, my brethren, chuckle politely when offered the chance to try on a hat they've been admiring. It's just not a hurdle they're willing to leap, and I totally get it. My disinclination for hats stems from my neverending quest to maintain the miraculous creation that is my 'do. Gallons of gel, hairspray, and perm solution have graced my head since I first decided to work against what I was born with, and I'll be danged if a hat, no matter how beautiful, is gonna mess that up. No hat is going to ruin the only fight I've chosen to pick with mother nature.

A funny thing happened, though. Nobody ever told me there is a silent C in front of the world older, and that as one really does get older, the C becomes less silent. And so as I've grown older, I have indeed grown colder, which is why I found myself trying on what winter hats remained at REI this past weekend, all in anticipation of how cold it's really gonna be soon when Robin and I wander around the streets of New York City in search of all the things that fascinate us and fuel our crafty desires. Begrudgingly I entered, into the world of hats.

There is a bright side, though, to owning a winter hat. Now that I have one, I need coordinating other wear, like maybe a scarf and sweater and who knows what else. And that is how I've spent these last two days, sitting at the serger cutting up sweaters and refashioning other people's visions into my own.

My goals at first were simple enough, a scarf to keep my neck equally warm that would at least kinda go with the colors of my hat. But I can only deal with so much drama while walking the streets of New York, and losing a scarf in the city shouldn't be one of them. So I made this scarflette, a neck tube of sorts, that will I hope will be great for both wearing indoors and out. No long ends to mess with, nothing to accidentally get left behind, just a tidy vision of warmth that I hope to wear without worry.



I'd like to say I stopped there and tended to all the other things calling for my attention, but the song of the serger kept me planted in my seat long enough to finish an experiment that had been brewing in my mind forever. A refashioned men's sweater turned into a cardigan, because pullovers make me look like I've stuffed myself in a hamster tube, and I can't pull off the sausagey look as well as Baxter can. One cut up the middle of the front of the sweater, one cut off the binding on the body, and serge serge serge.



I realize it'd probably be a bit much to wear the sweater and scarf together, but that's what today is for, right? Another day, another sweater. And it all started with a hat.

a fine spot

With so many other options for warmth and comfort available to the little kielbasa, there's no wonder why it took Baxter three years before he discovered the thermal joys of our kitchen floor vent. But find the vent he did yesterday, just in time to be under foot while I started making dinner.

I'm not exactly sure what to do about his new discovery. Whether or not I should hold firm and shoo him away to his kitchen bed to maintain discipline and reclaim my kitchen sink, or if I should succumb to the bewitching brown eyes that plead for me to let him stay there, to let his little body soak up the heat like a bun in the oven, just as his brothers did before him for so many years.

I like to think that as I grow older, I also grow wiser. But situations such as this only remind me that there should be balance between wisdom and matters of the heart. Yeah, he really needs to goto his kitchen bed, but life's too short for anyone to miss out grabbing comfort and joy wherever it can be found. Even if it means I gotta step around the brown bun on the floor.

10,000 mile club

Well it's official, Tiny Chumley is within spitting distance of the 10,000 mile Wandering Wiener Club. A lot of miles for such a little dog, who slept soundly in his snoozer as he accumulated most of these miles on the road.

Not a big deal, I'm sure he thinks. Too bad he can't trade in his miles for rawhide.

dapper doxie duds: kate & allie

Hey everybody! It's me, Baxter, your roving rover reporter reporting again from my home, where I'm happy to follow up on my report about Kate n Allie's dapper doxie duds. You see, after Kate n Allie's mom chose from their selection of winter fabrics, my mom finished both their winter and summer harnesses and sent them off while we were on our trip. Here's a peek at how they turned out.











These are Kate n Allie's winter harnesses. Both are lined with flannel and have an inner layer of bottom weight twill to help the harnesses keep their shape. For texture and interest, my mom embellished Allie's red cotton cable knit harness with a flower my mom made from some velvet, and Kate's blue plaid harness has a flower on it that my mom serged from dupioni silk. That way the girls could sorta dress alike but keep their own identity, know what I mean? Believe me, after livin with 40 dogs, I totally get that.




These are Kate n Allie's summer harnesses. My mom made these from cotton interlock, u know like t-shirt or golf shirt type fabric. She interfaced the fabric and also used an inner later of bottomweight, again for structural sturdy reasons. Mom made the flowers by cutting irregular circles of different sizes out of wide ribbon, and then turned the edges against an open flame to seal the edges and give shape to each piece.





Okay are you ready for the best part of my report? Here are pics of Kate n Allie, first sniffing at their new duds, then getting dressed in their winter wear cuz it's cold out, and then runnin around! I sure hope to meet them one day. They look like fun!!



Well speakin of winter I best get back to sleepin next to George. Brrr it's been cold out, hasn't it? This is Baxter your rovering rover reporter wishing you a very warm Sunday afternoon!

me likey dat: mega beanbag convertible chair

Who knew beanbag chairs came in extra mega, and also convert into a bed? Tiny chumley would have most certainly camped out here during our stay with Jasper's family, had chumley's first aro-aroo experience not happened on the beanbag next to it the first night we were there. As it was, Baxter still managed to swipe some time in one of these cushy fellas whenever he felt confident enough to do so, like when Jasper was nowhere to be found, and after they became better buds. Thank goodness we have no more floor space, else you can be certain one of these things would be on order.

Gimungous beanbag chair for my little boy? Me likey dat!

my thank u note

dear diary,
yay we are now safe at home and everything is where it should be cuz i double checked. mom made me some stationery and i wrote this letter to jasper on our trip home today. do u think he'll like it? anyways, i hope u r having a fine friday night. me, i think i'll sleep some more.

toodles!
b.

border doxie

dear diary,
today was my last full day here at jasper's house and i think we're finally gettin our groove on. i mean there was this one time on our walk when i was trailin behind and he gave me the the stink eye fer goin too slow, but his dad snapped him out of it before he could do anythin more than lock eyes with me. that was unsettling enough, really. but i just froze in my tracks and let out a worried uh-oh whine, instead of aro-arooin it. my mom said that was really good progress. and once he snapped out of it, things were fine. so fine, in fact, that i finally couldn't stand watchin mom play with him when we came back to the house and i joined in on the fun. i'm not sure i'm gonna quit my day job as a wiener dog, but it wasn't too bad bein a border doxie fetchin stuff. i don't see how he can stand doin it all day, though. me, i'd rather chase squirrels.

well i better get some rest so i can help mom n dad tomorrow with our trip home. do u think they'll let me drive?? i sure hope so. goodbye jasper!

toodles!
b

grandma's house

dear diary,
guess what - jasper doesn't like rawhide! i know because i snuck around in his toy box and took some out. he had like, four bones in there and can u believe none of them were even chewed on? his mom says he doesn't know what to do with the stuff and so she let me have it. let me tell you, now that i know this, i'm totally okay with lookin like bangers n mash if it means i get all his rawhide. i sure hope we come back again soon.

anyways, i had a fine time at my other grandma's house. it was nice to get away and be an only dog again, even if i did have to dress up in my new duds to go over there. this is me, hangin out in my snoozer while everyone was havin dinner.

tomorrow maybe they'll let me have more of jasper's rawhide. i can't wait 2 find out.

toodles!
b.

my cousin jasper

dear diary,
this is my cousin jasper. he is a rescued border collie and i have been staying at his house. i wish i could tell you more about him but i've been kinda keepin my distance. yeah we go on walks together and most of the time everything is fine but sometimes when we are home inside, well sometimes i can't help but feel like he's givin me the stink eye and i get a little worried. i even embarrassed myself and ran away aro-arooing a few times when he got too close to me. boy what a mistake that was. that only made him MORE interested in me, can u believe it?









thing is, mom says border collies are natural born herders. mom says when he looks at me all he sees is something that should be herded. like i'm a sheep or somethin.




but, c'mon. he's biggern me and that mighty stink eye of his? well, i really think he's sees me more as this.




yeah that's right. dinner. a tasty sausagey dinner. i would eat that, too, really, if it didn't have my head on it. so, that's why for now i prefer runnin off, thanks, spectacle or not.

i think things will be fine, though. today mom and jasper's mom have been keeping an eye on both of us. and let me tell you, their stink eyes beat out both our stink eyes any day. it's a good thing we love our moms so much.

well that's is all for now. tomorrow i'm goin to my other grandma's house and i can't wait! she seems to really like me so maybe i can get some extra lovin.

toodles,
b.

o the places i have gone

dear diary,
mom says i've travelled quite a distance thees past two days but i sure couldn't tell ya since i spent most of my time under blankies. it was really kinda boring for me. so boring pretty much all i did was sleep or yawn. oh, and kack on water that time i drank from my cup in the car. sometimes it just goes down the wrong way, doesn't it? that's me kacking in the middle picture of the bottom row. i look kinda fierce there, huh?

but anyways, at least i am with mom and dad cuz i can't even imagine what i would be doing if they didn't take me with them. even if there my cousin dog jasper is trying to herd me. i'll have to tell ya about that tomorrow.

toodles!

hugs,
b

please stand by

Today the three of us are leaving in the wee hours of the morning on a grand road trip to visit family. It'll be a first of many sorts for Baxter, first time in five new states, first time staying in a motel, first time he's been on a trip where we haven't arrived at our final destination in a day, first time staying in a house with a big dog in it, first time meeting his other grandma. First time we've taken Baxter so far away from home.

With any luck, the free wifi at the motel we've chosen to stay at will work as promised, and I can continue indulging my OCD daily posting streak. But if not, at least here's this, Baxter's final tiny video from the B. Fonda Workout series, to hopefully tide us all over until I can post again late Sunday evening. Jazz, by the way, is taught by first teaching your pup circle (or left) and back. Once both of these are mastered, then it's just a matter of connecting the two, in this case using a half circle and a full back, almost like leading your dog's nose through the motions of a lower case y. G'head, if you got nuttin to do this weekend, try it. Or even just teach back, which is best done in narrow confines like a hallway or in our case, between a sofa and an sideturned coffee table. It's all about baby steps. Reward for taking one step back, and gradually work to expand the number of steps back, using a landing pad like scrap of carpet or something so your pup knows when to stop. Hey I'm on a road trip here. I probably could use some entertaining stories on your efforts.

Happy Weekend!

year of the cat

If the end of 2009 is any indication of what this year will be like, then 2010 will definitely be the year of the cat. It's not enough that Baxter sometimes arches his back just like a kitty for his morning stretch, or hangs out during the day on one of his many kitty perches to watch the world go by. No, he also tracks and catches bugs, grooms his paws fastidiously, and even prefers cat food over dog food if given the choice. Though he is a doxie, my little kielbasa is, in many ways, a cat at heart.

As if I needed another reminder of Baxter's transpecies tendencies, tiny chumley took it upon himself to make it known once again that he is part feline. Sounds of destruction emanated from the room next door, the muffled chomping, tearing, and ripping that comes when Baxter is busy destuffing a toyfriend. Buh-bye, stuffed squeaky christmas fortune cookie, I figured. We hardly knew thee.

Yet when I arrived at the crime scene to photograph the evidence, a very different picture greeted my expectant eyes. The tidy skein of yarn that I had bought to dye for snowpup sweaters, the very one I had forgotten to pick up when it had fallen to the floor earlier in the day, was wildy strewn about the floor like a spilled pot of spaghetti noodles. In the middle of his pasta pile stood my guilty boy. And christmas fortune cookie sat, untouched, only inches away.

Baxter's fortune cookie toy tag proclaims a promise of many bones to its beholder, but I think Baxter has his own proclamation to make. Welcome, my friends, to 2010, year of the kitty kielbasa.

year end post

As if gray hair wasn't enough to let the world know that I'm getting older, yesterday I found myself cantankerous enough to be almost tempted to write a letter to the editor of our local newspaper. Yep, chalk it up with all the things I already do that tells me in not so subtle ways that I am not as young as I think I am, like moisturize and wear woolen socks and let out a weightlifter's groan when I push myself up from a squat.

I'm actually ok with aging, much as I like to make fun of it. Most all the physical stuff I don't mind because it's what makes me unique and I earned every weird nook, cranny, and wrinkle. But I find it curious and inexplicable that I should end this year bothered by another person's letter to the editor. Perhaps this kind of thing just comes with age, or perhaps it was the blogging that planted the seed from which my voice still grows.

I started Kalyxcornucopia this year on a whim, intending it as a refuge where Baxter's dad could visit for a quick slice of cutie kielbasa pie before returning to the stress and doldrums of work. It never occurred to me that this blog might call out to new friends, new perspectives, and even new creative outlets. All of this, because one day I gave up the notion of achieving perfection, and instead took the plunge, ready or not, and corrected as I went along. A way of life that I think Baxter could have taught me much earlier if I had only listened to what his actions had to say.

This blog, Baxter's life, my life, are all still works in progress. It's hard to imagine what challenges and joys might greet us in the coming year, but I hope we can meet them all with the goofy grace and charm that only a dachshund can bring into the fray. My life, enriched by a seventeen pound fur covered kielbasa, lived one day at a time.

lap dog

dear diary,
it's cold out. think i'll just stay right here.

toodles,
b.

grumpy ears

Our house is gradually showing signs of age. Slowly but surely we are becoming smarter in all the things that need replacing as a house gets older. Water heaters, HVAC units, garage door openers, rotted trim, new roofing, and surely one day new flooring. Whatever deteriorates with time, I am sure it will have needed to be fixed or replaced by the time the faces staring back at us in the bathroom mirror look barely recognizable to the young adults we subconsciously still think we are.

Yesterday night, another thing that needed fixing added itself to the top of our list of things to do. The springs on our garage door sproinged a mighty sproing, a last hurrah that told us it had broken in two and trapped our cars for the night. Baxter ate dinner and slept, blissfully unaware of our situation, or that a stranger would come this morning to give us back our driving freedom.

Little chumley would have stayed unaware had his spidey senses not tingled this morning when he heard, from behind closed bedroom doors, the sound of dad opening our front door. A stranger's voice was all that was needed to put our boy on high alert, though Baxter's rapid fire barking did little other than chase away the morning silence.

By the time little kielbasa made it downstairs, the stranger had moved on to the garage and was nowhere to be found. Signs of the stranger's presence still rattled about in the form of muffled noises barely audible from the family room in which Little Chumley now sat.

My morning nap was rudely disturbed, his ears lamented grumpily.


Thankfully, our garage door is now fixed, with a ten year warranty on the springs that will hopefully afford Sleeping Beauty the full rest he needs. No more grumpy ears, please, for this tired little wiener boy.

my kitchen bed

o how i like my kitchen bed,
it's soft n cuddly and nice for my head.
i like to hang out here
when mom shoos me away from the stove,
like when for instance,
she's making bread.

but sometimes i hang out here
for no reason at all,
other than to play
with my little blue ball.


- baxter, 3 years old, just hangin out

the garden of eden

If dachshunds lived in the Garden of Eden, I'm pretty sure that Eve would have never even had the opportunity to make that fateful apple decision. Nope, her tiny and inquisitive four-legged height challenged furball of a friend would have taken care of all that, chomping into that juicy apple way before any snake would have even had a chance to think about slithering in Eve's direction. Resisting temptation just isn't something a dachshund was bred to do.

Now don't get me wrong, I certainly don't mean to be disrepectul and I'll be the first to admit that all doxies have hearts of gold. But what wiener wouldn't take advantage of an alluring opportunity that's staring them right in the face?

Baxter's fall from the Garden of Eden yesterday wasn't caused by an apple, but rather his new been-stuck-in-a-tin-with-rawhide-for-days-so-i-smell-wonderful Comet the Reindeer toyfriend. Baxter was happily chewing away on a different toyfriend when I placed Comet in a chair, hoping to capture its cuteness forever, before it suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous destuffing. Surely Baxter already knows not to grab things off places uninvited, and besides he was busy killing Bunnito, I figured.

Yet not shortly after I took my first few pics did I find my little green vested friend moseying into frame. Tiny predator left Bunnito high and dry so he could check out the source of that wonderful smell. He paused, keeping a respectful distance from the chair.

Baxter tarried at first, knowing that he shouldn't take things from forbidden places. Wheels whirred in his head as good and bad both stated their case in the judicial court of Baxter's mind.

Just a tiny sniff, the little kielbasa decided. It was a happy compromise that freed his conscience and allowed his little legs to take him closer to this source of wonder.

Just a tiny taste, he next decided. A lick really, in the tiniest of places. Nobody would even notice anything once it dried off.

Well, if my paws never leave the ground, I technically never jumped on anything, Baxter next rationalized as his mouth opened more widely than is necessary to let out his little pink tongue.

Okay, fuhgeddaboudit, this thing is mine. And the gates of Eden came crashing down.

omnipresents

Christmas in our house this year was a tiny affair, a break from tradition with just the three of us quietly celebrating the day in our pajamas, opening presents and then watching movies while the scent of pot roast slowly braising to tender goodness wafted throughout the house. It's not exactly a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting, but I think a scene in many ways that we find just as comforting.

Without the distractions of many people opening their presents as in Christmases past, Little Kielbasa finally made the connection between all that stuff under the tree and what it might mean for him. Food. Toys. And lots of it. In a year where we had somewhat intentionally and unintentionally not purchased a lot for ourselves or for others, Baxter still managed to hit the jackpot, thanks to a package mailed from his great aunt and uncle that contained a stocking bursting with toys and treats. Green plaid tin from mom and dad filled with a few rawhide knots and a stuffed squeaky Comet reindeer? Meh, Baxter's eyes said. I'll get back to that later. What's that I smell in stocking with the paw prints all over it??

And so we opened all Baxter's gifts first, letting him joyfully sniff at all his new goodies before putting the edible ones up high so we could move on to opening our presents. Disappointment for our little boy, that I temporarily staved off by giving him a rawhide knot from his under appreciated tartan tin.



I probably should have figured out earlier that opening Baxter's presents first wouldn't be a great idea. Now clued into the concept of my opening packages and finding out that these things were for him, my little package inspector finished his rawhide quickly and came back, expecting to sniff every present I subsequently opened, just to keep tabs, it seems, on what else should come his way. No matter where I turned on the floor to find an open space to open my presents, there stood my little boy ready to give things a sniff, to claim what was rightfully his by leaving schnoz markes all over it. An uncanny ability, really, to be so omnipresent in the presence of presents. Another doxie superpower mastered by Baxter at the ripe old age of three.

merry christmas

twas the morning of christmas,
and all thru my house,
not an elf costume was happening,
not even a blouse.

my barkings were loud and crystal clear,
open up these dang presents
i smell rawhide in there.

- baxter, 3 years old, anxiously waiting to open his presents

chumley glumley the unhappy elf

dear diary,
so here is the picture from last year's christmas eve. can u believe mom dressed me up as an elf ?? i am hoping that won't happen this year cuz it's totally too embarrassing for words. i mean, u know, what if santa caught me in that get up? plus i am three now and big boys shouldn't have to wear that kind of stuff. i got ladies to impress, right?

well i hope you have a wonderful christmas eve. me n duk duk and the gang are gonna hang out tonight and watch movies and stuff our face with kibble!

toodles,
b.

dear santa

dear santa,
i am tryin to be a good boy and just to make sure i think i will sleep thru these next two days. if u would, please come into our house quietly and try not to wake me up else i might bark at u and even though i'm just doin my job sometimes people don't get it. anyways, please give comet my best cuz he is my favorite reindeer and i hope u don't throw your back out hauling all that stuff around. believe me, i know it doesn't feel great.

your friend,
baxter

ps - some rawhide would be nice.

eine kleine nachthase

There's nothing that'll distract Baxter more than spying a big ol bunny, smack dab in the middle of his pooping grounds. Normally our little boy is fantastic about doing his business, braving the rain, heat, cold, and even snow to quickly and dutifully tend to his duties before bedtime. But not when good fortune such as this smiles down upon our little wolf. Baxter hasn't seen a rabbit for days, much less one as big as this guy.

Big Ol Bunny froze like a statue when we ventured out under the chilly night sky. Holding one paw up in the air while standing on his hind legs, B.O.B would have been practically invisible to me had the backyard flood lights not been on, yet to Baxter the scent alone was enough to make him put on hold the very reason why we went out back. There would be no potty break til Baxter took care of this intruder.

Certain also that I would never hear the end of it from the little kielbasa if I didn't let him go for a run, I put Baxter down on the ground and released him to hunt. Baxter made a beeline for the bunny, who waited to the very last minute to start their chase. High pitched yips pierced the silence of the night as tiny wolf and big ol bunny ran for three tight loops around the backyard til finally, the rabbit squeezed through a wide gap in the fence, leaving Baxter not far behind.

Only after Baxter was certain that B.O.B had left his yard did tiny chumley do his business, begrudgingly giving up nature's duty to answer nature's call. But perhaps out of concern that he might once again be caught with his proverbial pants down, he chose to do only number one, which he tried to perform as menacingly as he could for a dog that doesn't raise his leg. A squat with tail held high and chest pushed out with ears perked, as if to warn anyone who might see this tiny wolf that he was indeed fierce protector of this sixth of an acre of the world.

But any trace of heroic vision would have been erased for those who saw what next he did after we came inside. Just like the kid wrapped tight in his winter wear who got too excited after sitting on Santa's lap, Baxter upchucked the meal he had eaten only hours ago. Mother Nature's way of telling him not to be to get too cocky, I'd gather. Baxter looked at me with a mixture of wonder then disappointment as I cleaned up and threw away his mess, and the sinusoidal line on the oscilloscope that is our life settled back to steady state for the night.

This morning I found Baxter staring out the back door, hopeful that he'll find that bunny again. Eternally optimistic, yet ever prepared to go to war, my little boy waits for night to fall, and he can once again play with his little night bunny.

mine!

Ahhh, Christmas is only four days away and I am back home with no more shows to do this year. This past weekend was a blast despite the minimal foot traffic, but I knew going into this show that I would mostly be in it for the behind the scenes holiday action at Robin's house. And so with her kids and mom, we shopped, made presents, decorated cookies, and even engaged in late night giggles, the kind you get when bearing your strangest secrets on tape, like your most embarrassing moment passing gas. The kinds of things that the kids will remember forever. A fine time, really, that only would have been better had Tiny Tim and his dad been able to join me.

Special thanks to Kate & Allie & their mom for sending this very special green bobo for the little kielbasa! Somehow Baxter knew the minute I opened up the package that this was his, and proceeded whine and wiggle with the deep desire to tear into his new toyfriend. Ah yes, Christmas bliss is upon us.

b. fonda's mealtime workouts, vols 3 & 4

dear diary,
hooray, only five more days til christmas! mom says i should keep working out so i can stuff myself on christmas morning, so here i am doin more stuff. i learned all these moves in beginning musical freestyle except for jazz, which i learned when i was recovering from HGE. u see, i was really hungry and mom had to feed me this canned Purina EN stuff, and i was really bonkers for it. even though it's just chicken n rice, it is dee-lightful. i hope u r having a great weekend!

toodles,
b.


Volume 3: left right front back shimmy shuffle

Volume 4: shuffle jump and jazz

b. fonda's mealtime workouts, vols 1&2

We figured out early on that keeping a young doxie challenged can be a challenge, especially since we had become accustomed to a providing different sort of attention to our geriatric boys. Searching for a good challenge is how Baxter and I ended up in Canine Good Citizen class a month after we got him, with me standing at one end of the training room floor, waving an open tube of poultry flavored canine toothpaste in one hand while motioning at him with the other, while Baxter stood at the other end of the room staring at his strange new friend and wondering why the heck she was saying "come". In the end, we passed the class, and even moved on to beginning musical freestyle, just to make sure we learned enough moves to keep us busy every day so Baxter could work for his food.

It's been over a year since we've formally been in a class, but we still try to practice things he learned from both class and the thing's we've taught him on the fly. Baxter's neck pain from more than a month ago made me realize we needed more movies, more video to document the wonders that our little wiener brings into our life. I made 5 low budget short attention span videos this week, to capture some of the moves our kielbasa practices during mealtime. Here, the first two parts.


Volume 1: down, come, woof, taptoe

Volume 2: bang, roll, rooty, circle

Tomorrow, Volumes 3 and 4.

toy day

dear diary,
can u believe it is supposed to snow today? i think it is going to be a good day to stay inside and chew on my toys. want to join me?

toodles,
b.

the trembling leaves of winter

The last leaves of autumn still grace our oak trees, unwilling to let go and make the long journey down to the ground until early spring. Standing in our backyard, our oaks remind me of hair club for men candidates, with their bald branches on top giving way to the dangling leaf covered lower branches that rustle in the winter wind. It is these branches that the squirrels most covet, the ones that they nibble off to make their nests. These branches with their trembling leaves.

I know Baxter doesn't really get it, how the trees play such an important role in sustaining his backyard entertainment, but sometimes I catch him, all tingly with excitement and trembling all over when he's stuck on the deck looking out into our backyard, and I think he has become one with the trees. Listen closely, that's not the sound of trembling leaves you hear, but rather the sound of trembling ears.

a new frontier

There's a new frontier in Baxter's life, and it's officially called Up. For the last two years, I could easily hide the things I wanted Baxter to forget about or leave alone, just by putting it high off the floor. Special playtime toys would magically disappear when our playtime was over, all with the help from a quick diversionary tactic and handoff to the nearest piece of furniture over three feet tall. My little rube would look at me in amazement as I offered up both hands, empty as could be on both the front and back. Stunned, Baxter would often race off in search of his toy gone amber alert, certain that it was still out there, somewhere, just waiting to be mauled.

I blame the squirrels for opening my innocent boy's eyes to the world Up There. Fooled once when a squirrel took a ninety degree turn up a tree, Baxter might have been fooled again early on, but nowadays there's no doubt that Baxter knows that Up is a fine place to look for things that might interest him, that might have otherwise disappeared.

I figured out Baxter had developed his new superpowers over these past two days, when it became obvious that Baxter's source of evening antsy pants wasn't at ground level and it wasn't by the front door. Nope, there Baxter sat, in the family room looking up at the sideboard, happy and hopeful that I would give him his blue ballie that I had earlier "hidden" out of sight for my height challenged buddy. A fluke, I thought. He must have smelled it, as much as he slobbers on that thing.

The second day, Baxter antsied around the Christmas tree, having spied his Christmas Bunny toyfriend sloppily placed atop a nearby wicker table placed there for all gifts we didn't want Baxter to know about. Baxter shifted his weight from paw to paw and whined ever so gently, an indication of his deep and burning desire to be given time to properly destuff what he knew to be his toy. Hm, how bout that, I thought but quickly forgot about as we played with Christmas Bunny again, now only ten days before he should be actually playing with it.

I finally clued in to Baxter's new superpowers later that same day in the early evening, when I let our tiny hunter romp out back. Squirrels were high above in the treetops, busy making repairs to their nests from the wind and rains we had earlier in the week. And I stood, impressed as I watched my little wolf quickly hone in on his prey, stare up at them, follow them from the ground while the squirrels bounced from tree to tree bringing twigs and branches back to their abode.

Unsuccessful in actually convincing a squirrel to come down for a real romp in the leaves, but exhilarated nevertheless, Baxter came inside from his hunt. And that's when I caught Baxter, looking up with nose held high and sniffing about in the living room. Searching, it would seem, for all the toys and rawhide that have gone missing in his life these past two years. A new frontier of discovery for my enlightened little friend to explore.

digger, part one

It occurred to me that we have no digital pictures of our first dachshund, Digger. I met Digger when he was already an old man, gray faced but still full of life despite the tiny ridge of spine that was already starting to make itself more prominent. He was very spy for his age, though I would not realize this til Kep and Padua reached their own less robust senior years. The old man that Digger was, I hope Baxter will be.

Little DigDog was my first introduction to doxies. I wasn't sure what to make of him, being so low to the ground. He was hard to pet, I remember thinking at first. But nevertheless he was a sweet dog and there was something so easygoing and familiar about his owner that I was sure I would be seeing him again. Digger. And his owner. Who is now Baxter's dad.

As Digger's owner and I started building a relationship, Digger tagged along on our journeys. We would go for walks, with Digger happily trundling about despite the fact that he would misjudge where the curbs were because of cataracts in his eyes, and he would end up jumping not once but twice to get up on the curb, the first time way in advance of the curb so all he did really was just jump for the sake of jumping, not that that was at all what he wanted to do. But Digger was a happy go lucky kind of fella and he took his double jump curb hopping in stride. Just like he did sleeping so hard that his little pink tongue would inevitably peek out of his mouth and he'd eventually have to wake up to remoisten things.

When we journeyed to places where we couldn't bring Digger, and friends couldn't drop in at the townhouse to check on him, we would deposit Digger at the kennel. Being small and older, Digger would be kept in a quiet, small space in the cat section, a humiliation we never really got to see in person though we imagine he ultimately handled himself well. Digger always seemed to have lost weight when we picked him up at the kennel, and he was of course, quite standoffish on the ride home, choosing to stick his nose near the car's floor vent rather than tell us about his stay. When we mentioned on a subsequent visit to the kennel about Digger's weight loss, the kindly folks switched him to canned food and suddenly things changed from picking up a svelte doxie to a picking up a newly fattened piglet. Digger became very happy about the notion of going to the kennel once canned food came into the picture.

There is more to Digger's story, but I'll save it for another day, when I've finally gotten around to scanning some of our favorite images of our first little red. Today, the best I've got is to show you is this, a dusty crafty retro rewind from 1996, when I first messed with polymer clay and first attempted to immortalize our first doxie, white paws and all.



Of course no day is complete without a bit of Baxter to brighten things up. It is still night as I write this post, with Baxter snuggled by George while he sleeps atop his cozy sheepskin. I didn't mean for these photos to be quite so similar in pose but I see now that they are. Life imitating art, I suppose.

crafty goodness: dapper doxie duds & snowpup ornaments

Hey everybody! It's me, Baxter, your roving rover reporter reporting today from - you guessed it - my home! It's been a busy weekend here at my house, not only because we celebrated my birthday but because I've been helping my mom with all sorts of crafty stuff.







First, here's a peek at some of the fabrics mom thought might be good for my blog buddies Kate and Allie. Now kinda like the way my mom likes to dress me in green, Kate n Allie's mom likes for Kate to wear royal blue and Allie to wear red. So mom dug around and found these corduroys & cotton cable knits for their winter harness options. Mom didn't take a picture of the trim, but rest assured it'll be really cool! I can't wait to find out what Kate and Allie's mom chooses.



Next is the new litter of snowpup ornaments we made. This time they are all girls, complete with swarovski crystals on their heads! I like how all their faces are different, just like us real doxies. My mom says she couldn't make two alike if she had to. Hopefully by the time you read this report, they'll be on Etsy but if not, my mom promises they'll be on sometime Monday evening.



Lastly, here is a top secret peek at some things we made to give as presents! Shhhh. Don't spoil the surprise.



Do you think mom will make ME something for Christmas? A dog can be so lucky, since she already made me my birthday crown. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. This is Baxter your roving rover reporter wishing you a Happy Monday!

breakfast in bed

Baxter could hardly believe his luck yesterday when his birthday brunch really did arrive while he was in snuggled in bed. Most days the little kielbasa and I train together with his meals, jazzing and shuffling and tapping and toeing our way through half his meal while he must wait in his kitchen bed until released from his stay for the other half. It's a formula that has worked pretty well, I've found, for bonding and helping him stay the good little boy he usually is. But breakfast in bed? I am sure that's something he wishes he could train me to do more often.