Change of subject - SNAKES

My regular time-wasting, I don't feel like working, I should be doing something else chatboard seems to be down today so you all get to see the new babies.

Old-man Chuck doesn't live alone - in fact even if we leave out the humans he communes with 3 other mammals, 10 neighborhood chickens (worthy of their own post someday), and as of Sunday, 11 reptiles.

Earlier this year we introduced Roxie, this lovely female Amazon Tree Boa

To Jack, our handsome male

We watched Roxie get fatter and fatter but we weren't certain that she was gravid. We are a bit unsure of her age and we weren't sure that we kept her warm enough, so although we both were secrectly waiting for babies to be born neither of us really spoke about it.

On Sunday Jenna came home from a friends and went to spray the snakes (they need to be misted a couple of times a day) and started yelling "hurry, come back here!!! hurry hurry hurry!!!" I am not sure where she thought they were going to go but I did HURRY to see what was going one. We had baby ATBs! Only 2 were alive but they look great. I think the original idea was to sell them but I can't see Jenna parting with them. We need to come up with names for the new babies.

I think Chuck may have been debarked

He have noticed that he has a tiny little squeak of a bark when he wants back in the house, or a cookie or something and we had never heard him actually bark until last night. I accidently locked Jenna out in the backyard (she was in the little studio house in the back) and when she knocked to come in the old man got freaked and started barking. Only it wasn't a bark, it was a series of high pitched squeaky, puppyish noises.

I feel bad for him, his bark doesn't really match his body. He doesn't seem to notice though, as long as he gets meals and snacks he remains a happy boy.

dogs are weird

Settling in

Well we had a rough week with more pooping and some garbage strewing but things seemed to have settled down. I took both dogs into Pet Food Express for baths last weekend and managed to wash and dry them both in under 30 minutes. It was a pretty magical feat and my arms were a bit wobbly afterwards. Mostly because Chuck decided that he was too old for the steps. I had to heave 90 lbs of stinky lab up into the tub and then leave 90 lbs of wet stinky lab out of the tub. Combine that with Harley who thinks bathwater is battery acid and it made for a full body workout in 30 minutes. I should probably do that 3 times a week and count it as my exercise plan.

For your viewing pleasure - new pics of the Charlie Man.

Can I get a little help? It's kind of bright in here.

thanks, that is much better. Nice knitting, this pattern looks great
I am a walrus, goo goo j'goob

I have had labs before - you would think I would know this stuff .....

When we got Chuck he was eating a senior Nutro food and meat wasn't listed until about ingredient #3 - that didn't really work for me. If I wasn't so lazy and had some space for a freezer I would raw feel my animals or I would strap a knife on my thigh and rummage through the woods but until that I reach that point my pets get a pretty high quality (ie EXPENSIVE) kibble. So I did a bit of research and decided to switch Chuck over to a Canidae Senior formula, not the best food but it is pretty good and I like the supplements that it has.

All that being said - Chucks old bag of food had some holes and the new bag was too small to mix the two together in so his food has been in a big black trash bag until I get something else figured out. Last night I am in the office and I hear this weird licky, plasticy, chrunchy noise - I go out to investigate and I see Chuck oh so innocently eating his kibble out of a hole that he poked in the bag. He is so naughty! I am used to Harley who rarely will even swipe food from a plate left overnight on the coffee table. This guy will eat anything he can get to. His food, and the biscuits are now secure and I did a quick survey of the kitchen looking for anthing else that he could possible ingest to create more poop havok on my life. Lets all cross our fingers and hope I found everything. I needed to name this blog Chronicles of Poop!

I was severely punished for eating at Burger King today

I did a bit of shopping after work today and when I was done I was STARVING and nipped into BK before heading home. I felt a bit guilty, I am supposed to be restricting my caloric intake but I figured I would take the dogs for a nice walk and it would all even out.

Oh no - no evening out happened. I was punished. I was informed in no uncertain terms that I would never eat at BK again. BK will forever be linked to the horror that was my kitchen when I arrived home.

See this cute dog?

Well today he decided to rummage around in a box and eat almost THREE POUNDS of dog biscuits. I guess they didn't set so well in his stomach. I came home to piles and puddles and paw prints of poo all over my kitchen. It was a bit overwhelming. On the floor, the dog bed, the oven ....

He is still having a few problems

Oh, to be deaf

At about 12:30 last night I realized that the happiest creature in my household was the old dog. It was hot, he had his dinner late, he never got a proper walk - so it wasn't a particularly good day for him but he was content to lie in front of the fan and snooze while the rest of us were on edge and yelling or muttering.

The old dog is blissfully deaf. The rest of us suffered through hours and hours of neighborhood firework displays and handguns shooting off. We discovered that Harley has a particular bark for each type of fireworks. The little whizzing bottle rockets only warranted a growly rumble but the huge booming WHERE THE HELL DID THEY BUY THOSE THINGS fireworks resulted in a full-on hair up barrage of alarm barking.

Next year we all get Xanax.