Lucy loves Water, Daddy's Shoes and Ant Hills!

Last evening upon returning home from work, Lucy and I joined the German Shepherd in the yard for a little bit of fresh air. It was a perfect evening! There was a very rare brightness in the sky and it was warm and breezy, felt an awful lot like I remember Spring (Working only from memory because we don't see nearly enough sunshine or warm breezes in Western Pennsylvania anymore!)

I was under strict orders from the hot tub repair man to remove the filter from our hardly ever working, but almost new hot tub when I returned home from work and to give it a good cleaning. (He told me I just had to turn that little bolt in there and it would pop right out- yeah, sure it will- maybe for you! Much to my disgust, I ended up with the whole bolt in my hand, and I was completely soaked after wrestling with that darn filter for 10 minutes.)

My little boxer was thrilled with this chore- anything involving water means "playtime" and her whole entire body wagged when she saw her mommy struggling to drag the hose across the deck. And it wagged even harder when I turned on the water! She couldn't get enough of it, she stuck her whole face right in the water stream- she was completely soaked and I had a great laugh. Of course, after a couple of minutes, she was standing by the door waiting to be dried off. Lucy loves the activity of getting drenched- just doesn't like to stay that way!

I have been very careful not to leave shoes around to tempt Lucy- especially shoes that have shoelaces- because those are just way too intriguing to my little pup. Her Daddy, however, either did not get this memo- or he did not read it- because these pretty tennis shoes have been on the deck for days, and no matter how many time I put them up, or how high up I put them, I always catch Lucy dragging these shoes around the yard and deck! Right now, one of those tennis shoes is at the bottom of the yard, and I know that Rob will be asking me what hapenned to his shoe. I couldn't resist snapping this photo even though shoes are OFF LIMITS! (At least Mommy's shoes are!) She is once again showing in this picture how well she has mastered the "I'm not guilty, Mommy- I was only looking at it..." look!

There is an ant hill about 24 inches long and full of very large ants directly behind the store where Lucy and I go for walks. Most days, she's very content to walk right past the ant hill, but there are days, like yesterday, when the sight off 200 ants rushing about was just too great to pass up. It didn't matter how many times I told her it was time to go "home" or how many dried liver treats I stuck in front of her nose, Lucy was determined to play with these ants. I kept brushing ants of off her and me, but we both walked away covered in ants.

My little pup has been extremely unhappy the last two days. I sense that the vets warning that her "big girl" teeth are coming, is ringing true. Lucy hasn't really even attempted in the last couple of weeks to nibble on my fingers, wrists or ankles, but the last two days, despite the very, very wide variety of appropriate things to chew on, all she has wanted to chew on has been my fingers, wrists and ankles. Last night, she seemed particularly agitated, and I felt so bad for her. I got out of bed and wet down an old washcloth. Lucy chewed for a couple of minutes, and then fell blissfully asleep right next to me- after I turned the ceiling fan on! :)