Don't Make Me Open This!

This post goes out to two certain puppies who happen to live on the side of the park known as "Illinois"...
It's me ~ Stormy, Supreme Commander of the Army of Four. I know you are good pups and are just learning the ways of the Siberian ... but you wee ones have been have been pushing your bipeds a bit too far. I was on my own for quite a long time before ending up in the doggie slammer (therefore am a certified Road Scholar), so I know that being out on your own is NOT all it's cracked up to be. This digging out thing must stop! It'll break your bipeds' hearts if anything would happen to you! As Althea said, "...You just need to learn to walk the fine line between your natural instincts and behaving." Know what is harmless huskying around, but do NOT cross that line! Being loose is crossing!!! Don't make me come over there and grab you two by the neck. And don't make me open this..... (see photo)
it won't be pretty.
Now behave yourselves! More or less.

Tail wags,
Stormy

PS: Thanx for saying that I'm cool. I toned today's post down a bit because of that. :)

Dinner Party Preps - Working Dogs!

Woo, everypupper. It's me, Dave. As I'm sure you know, the Siberian Husky is in the "Working Breed" group, according to the AKC. (And despite what somepuppy around here might say, I am a Siberian Husky!) To get to the point of today's blog... I thought I'd show you some examples of just how hard we work around here! Mom and Dad had company over for dinner the other night, and I shot some pix of our work!
First, Amber saw mom going around with a "duster".

"Oh, no!!! Where's Zim?"
She thought the duster looked WAY too familiar and was a bit concerned. Mom rounded the redheads up in the kitchen - all tails present and accounted for. Am felt much better after that.

"Whew!"
Then Zim and I noticed our quilt had just been washed. We thought we should fluff it up a bit.

Mom came in and kept saying, "Thanks, boys. That's a huge help." Her voice sounded a little funny, but it was probably filled with emotion, being thrilled with how much work we were lifting off her shoulders.
"Sure, mom, no sweat. We're a Working Breed, afterall!" I had Am take our picture.
Mom made a foccaccia and needed to put it in the oven. She really should have cleared it with Stormy first - this is her favorite hangout!

Mom commented on how hard it was to reach across her and into the hot oven. Hey, Stormy's just making sure mom gets plenty of stretching in. Gotta keep those muscles loose, you know!? Isn't Stormy considerate?
While I was in the kitchen complimenting Storm on her hard work, I walked over to look out the back door. "Hey! Where did my nose art go? Where are my smudgies???!!?? Stormy, check this out!"

Storm took this picture, then told me I should put the nose smudgies back on the door. "How else are the guests going to find our house?" she asked. Storm is so smart!

Here I am, hard at work, reconstructing my lovely nose art. Pup, did I get tired!
I decided to go uh... pull guard duty in the bedroom for a while. On my way through the living room, I saw my little brother once again doing battle with the evil Dyson. (Our friend Tubey has some cool action shots of Zim from before we started the Ao4 Digest.) Zim is really brave. Look at him, going right up to the evil Dyson!

"Hey! Hey, evil Dyson! Who took all my fur off this carpet?!?!? Where'd it go? Who took it?"

"YOU! You've got it, you evil Dyson! Give it back! Spit it out! What's that thing the bipeds say? 'DROP IT'!"
The evil Dyson wouldn't give Zimmie his fur back, so he worked hard shedding more onto the carpet before the guests arrived.
I know you all can appreciate just how much hard work we put into getting the house ready for the dinner party. I think the guests did - they showed up with a big gift basket stuffed full of things like a box of Milkbones, a canvas sqeaky toy, a Kong bone on a rope, a Souper Size Nylabone, and other stuff! Isn't that cool??!!??
I'm still a little worn out from the other night - best go get some much-needed rest. Woo to you again soon!
Luv,
Dave

The Mad Babushka

Hi everypuppy! It's me, Am today! I hope you're having a happy day full of all good things and I hope your bipeds didn't see the pictures about Zim's idea about being a pirate. I love, love, LOVE my little brother... but ... you know.

Sigh.

Need I say more? But there is more. You see... Davy's girlfriend Frankie has quite the adorable little Labbysister, Madison. Maddie is really sweet and young and she's almost 9 months old! Here she is:

She's very pretty, isn't she? But then she sent me an email with the subject line: The Mad Babushka. Oh, no!!!!!!!!!!! I knew right away what had happened! Her mom reads The Ao4 Digest and saw Zim's Pirate blog... and well... this is what Maddie said:

Hey Amber!

Its me the
Lab-en-stein! Whats all this about sum
Babushka!???????????????????????
;-)

I thought it was something
to eat, when my mom asked me and I
said yes. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmpf

Maddie Babushka

Yikes. Look at what happened! Maddie, I am SO sorry! So is Zimmie. We hope you got a bunch of cookies and ear scratchies and tummy rubs (Dave said Labs like those!) to make it up to you! Poor Maddie!

I sent Maddie's mama a picture of me being fed some chicken - hoping that would give her a better idea.

Beware what you blog about, everypuppy. You wouldn't want this to happen to anypup else, would you?

Love,

Amber

PS: I almost forgot. My very nice friend Althea had an encounter of the pirate kind, too. Why do bipeds insist on doing these things???

The Sad Eyes Look

Zim here, top student at the Stormy Zoluschka Kryschtal School of Siberian Studies. I read my new friend Marvin's blog yesterday; he shared one of his important lessons -- "The Art of Making Cow Eyes". This sounds SO much like one of Stormy's lessons for me - I thought I'd share some pix with you!
When Stormy first gave birth to me, I was a year and a half old. I had a TON to learn about the Ways of the Siberian ~ and Storms was just the mentor I needed!
Here we are, during an early tutoring session. See how little and messed up I still look there? Stormy took me under her paw as soon as I got here!

"Teach me the Ways of the Siberian, Stormy!" I was so anxious to learn! As you can tell, I was taking it all in - but check out this picture:

Look at that LOOK on her face! How did she DO that?!?!? It's what Marvin calls "Cow Eyes", don't you think? We call it "The Sad Eyes Look" - or in Stormy's case (and she's really the only one who has perfected it) - the "Harp Seal Look". Look at the outer corners of her eyes - it's like she can grow her eye liner out or something. Oh, she's so cool. She can tool almost anything out of bipeds with that look. You can really see it in the picture of her eating yogurt - click here, please. Liz Taylor would have done well to attend the SZKSSS... but maybe the timing wasn't right.
So... we're still working on it, but here's a more recent picture. I'm getting closer, don't you think?

There's still so much to learn. But I've got SUCH a great instructor!
Play bows,
Zim

Columbus Day 2006 Discoveries

Happy Columbus Day to all our friends here in America! We hope you'll take time out of your day to remember the discovery of the New World!
It's me - Storms. In keeping with the discovery mode, we thought we'd share the rest of our remarkable discoveries from where the Giant lives! As you'll remember from Am's post from yesterday, we saw an awful lot! Macie and Malechai asked about maybe since the Giant has those Tonka Toys, maybe he dug the hole we posted about earlier and that it wasn't his dog at all. Good theory... except look at what we found!

Can you believe it!?!? Remember what the other hole looked like (see link above), then compare it to this one. This is MUCH larger! Look at how tiny Dad and the redheads look! Yeah... the other one was dug by a Giant Dog...... this one had to be by the Giant himself!
Then I spotted more drinking straws. Remember the ones Dave and I saw before? They looked like the same ones, only the Giant must have moved them. I went in for a closer look.

Yep. Drinking straws. Giant ones!
But then... what do we have here?

I checked them out thoroughly, as you can see. They were like the drinking straws, only skinnier. Ohhh, I've got it. Coffee stirrers. Don't you think?
I was speculating about that when Dave, Guide Dog for the Color Blind, called my attention to even MORE straws! Colorful ones!
"Stormy! Stormy! Come check these green ones out! And look what's in here!!!"

I went over to check out these straws - and to see what Dave could see in there!

Here's what I saw through my straw:

And here's what Davy saw through his:

Ha roo roo roo! It's the silly redheads! (You can click those images for a bigger look!) I saw Zim through mine, and Dave was looking at Ams! Ha rooo! Pretty funny! Those redheads just crack me up sometimes!
So these were just harmless straws, too. Probably for milkshakes, since they're bigger around.
Happy Columbus Day! Get out and discover something really cool in your world!
Tail wags,
Stormy

More Giant Discoveries

Ha roo, everypuppy! It's me, Amber! Oh, do I have lots of news to share!
We went on really long walkies up where the Giant lives yesterday and made all KINDS of interesting discoveries. It'll take two or three days to share everything - that's how much we learned!
We saw a TON of these from a distance. Stormy went right up to one (she's not only really smart, she's brave, too!) to see what it was.

"Hey, roo guys! It's OK. I think they're Giant candy corn!"
We all raced over to check it out.

She was right - it was harmless enough. Zim licked at it and said candy corn isn't all it's cracked up to be.
THEN... do you see what's in the background of that first picture??!!?? Some kind of robots or something! We had to go see what those were, too!
Dad pointed to the writing. Just as I wondered what the writing meant, Dad told us, "It says 'CAT'!"

Oh my goodness!! Robot CATS?!?!? Now THAT'S scary!!!

Zimmie said, "Lemme at him! Lemme at him!" but we knew Dad wouldn't let us get attacked by a RoboCat! And Dave and Stormy were softly "ha roo roo rooing" over by mom. Hmmm. It wasn't a RoboCat at ALL! Stormy said the Giant left his Tonka Toys out! Zim thought they might be fun to play with -

"Oh, no! It's got me, Ammy, it's GOT me! Ha rooooo!"
Zimmie's so funny! I knew he was kidding (or is that puppying?), so I stood to the side and giggled. :)

Zimmie is such a fun little brother!
There's more to come, so make sure you check out tomorrow's Army of Four Digest!
Thanks for reading and coming on our adventure with us!
Love, Amber

Tired Dave, GDFTCB and Frankie

Woo! Dave here! It's been a busy week. Both me and Stormy had our 6-month recheck at the Vet's. We both are in the Senior Care Program; we get VERY thorough physicals and that way if there's anything "questionable" going on with our health, they can catch it quick and fix it. All I know is they give great tummy rubs there and have delicious cookies. The very nice vet lady who I saw even brought a nice blanket for me to lay on while they took my blood pressure. (I didn't notice anything missing, so I'm not really sure if they took it. Or if they did, they gave it back.) My senior student told me I was her bestest most favorite patient EVER! Woo.
I was so tired when we got home, I could barely even think about my job as Guide Dog for the Color Blind. In fact, we went on walkies instead (once my dilated eyes got a bit back to normal!). Here I am as mom's GDFTCB. I was tired that day, too.

When I got up from my nap (I mean from WORKING), I got the bestest surprise! My girlfriend Frankie of Southern California sent me a new picture! Here she is - isn't she beautiful??!!??

She told me this is her under her parents' bed at their Arizona home (they go there just so Maddie the Lab can play in the water!) . The bedskirt is black. Frankie said, "Can you beleive they would get a black fabric bedskirt, with me around? Silly parents...guess they love cleaning white hair against black! Go figure." Wooooo!
Have a good weekend, everydoggy. We hope to do some exploring up in the Giant's turf; we'll let you know if we find anything cool!
Luv, Dave

Falling Down on the Job

We saw this on the internet today. Somepuppy is falling down on the job.
I wonder what Ivy would say about that? I can guarantee you it isn't her yard behind that fence!
Tail wags,
Storms

Pirates Part II

Harrrr, mateys! To continue my tale (tail?) from yesterday.....
It's me - Zim the Pirate. Harrr. After trying to get Dave and Ammy to be pirates, and let's face it, it was kind of a blow out, I asked Stormy. She is SO cool - she's my mentor and she's so smart and I love doing everything she does. I thought she'd be game.

"Stormy, would you be a pirate with me?" I asked. "Please let mom put this bandana on you, OK?"

"Oh, for rooing out loud, Zim."

"Please, Storm?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Yeah, c'mon... you'll look like a pirate! And maybe you could you say something pirate-like for me, Storm? How about saying 'avast ye mateys' or somethin'!"

The picture at left sort of sums up what she thought of that idea.

Then she had to let mom know what she thought of the bandana...

You know... she's got some REALLY good moves, doesn't she?

For some reason, mom doesn't think I ought to ask Storm to play pirate again. And she said this is a prime example of what would have happened with the eye patch and especially the parrot Althea suggested in yesterday's comments. She's probably right.

Until our next adventure........ HARRR, mateys!

Zim... the Lone Pirate of the Ao4

Pirates Part I

Harrrrr, mateys. It's me - Zim the Pirate! My friends Maverick at D'Azul Siberians and Tubey are pirates, too. Harrr. Here's a picture of me in my normal pirate garb.

Don't I look ready to loot and pilage? Harrr! Then I thought I should maybe have an even better bandana for my head. I asked mom to tie my very cool DCU scarf, made from part of one of my dad's old uniforms on my head. Don't I look even better?

Yeah...... I like this one! Let's go out on deck and see if there are any ships approaching! I feel a little pillaging coming on. Harrr!

I got comfy up in the Crow's Nest. I can see everything from up there!
'Course it got kinda lonely being an only pirate. Maverick thought Zavi would make a good pirate.... so I thought I'd see if any other members of the Ao4 wanted to be a pirate. I asked mom to come with me and take pix along the way.
First I tried Dave. He's always game to play and always game to let mom put stuff on him. "Hey, Dave! Say somethin' pirate-like!" "I'm busy, Zim." "Ah, c'mon, matey! Harrr!" "Yeah, yeah... OK... ummm...how about Shiver me timberzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............"

Yeah, well, Dave was busy guarding the bed from other pirates. Maybe I caught him at a bad time.
Amber's always fun to play with! I thought I'd see if she wanted to be a pirate! I forgot she doesn't like it when mom tries to get her to wear anything other than a collar. And she is camera-shy in the house. I asked her "Please, Ammy, c'mon!" so she was cooperative. Make that semi-cooperative. If you can call this cooperating.

Is it just me, or does she look less like a pirate and more like a little Siberian waif wearing a babushka? She let mom arrange it a little better..... but I couldn't even get her to give me a "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum" before she threw it off and hid behind the living room chair. She said I owed her big time. Here's the best picture we got of her:

I think that look was meant for mom........ but I'm not sure.
Anyroo........ this is getting long, so I'll let you know how it went with Stormy tomorrow.
Harrrrr and stay tuned, mateys!
Play bows,
Zim the Pirate

Giant Shredded Wheat - Warning!?!

Tail wags, pupperdupperdoos, it's me - Storms.

We've been reading on some of our favorite blogs that there is nothing worth watching on TV. Quite true, though Zim likes to watch some things. Cut him some slack - he was chained to a tree with nothing to do and no interaction for a year and a half before I adopted him.

I did come up with the idea to the right though -- Tubey TV. That could be worthwhile programming - all Turbo, all the time! Ha ROO!

That leads me to the business du jour. Dave and I took mom up to where the Giant lives yesterday. We wanted to have a quick look, see if we could see anything new, see the Giant or maybe see his huge dog. Here's what we did find. And it's not good news.

This first picture is Dave rediscovering the Giant's shredded wheat. You may recall that Zim was going to try to nab some of them and send them to Tubey. Dave was trying to figure out how to haul some home so Zim could give it to the UPS man to take to Tubes. "Hey Storms!" Dave said. "What's this yellow stuff?"

I took a closer look. "Keep an eye out for the Giant while I read it, Davy!"

I went in for a closer look. It read "caution" ... which doesn't read well for us sending shredded wheats to Tubey. I think the Giant may be on to us! Why else would he mark his stuff with caution tape???

Be assured we'll keep on our toes. We'll keep you updated with any breaking news.

Tail wags,

Stormy

PS: Tubey, Zim is sorry we won't be able to send you any Giant shredded wheat, but hopes you'll understand. Maybe the cool Tubey TV picture will help ease your disappointment?

Giant Dog?

Like the new Ao4 graphics in the right-hand side bar? A big, tail-wagging thanks to Charlie and Opy's dad for putting those together for us! They're COOL!

OK... down to the business at paw. See this picture of us walking our dad? And do you see the giGANtic hole behind us? Well, maybe you can't ... but you can see what used to be in the hole! So you obviously know what we're thinking. The Giant has a dog. And it's just down the street from our house this time -- the evidence of the Giant. Yeah... you can't see it in this picture, but our house is halfway down the street. We're going to have to keep our eyes peeled for the Giant's dog; I'm pretty sure he lets him run 0ff-lead or he wouldn't have been that close to our house, diggin' his hole.

I'll keep watching for him - rest easy. I've got it covered.
Play bows,
Zim

Iditarod Medley

Tail wags, everypup! It's me, Storm. A month or so ago, my mom got in some new flannel fab for quilts - they called it the "Iditarod Medley"! It's got cool sled doggies, polar bears, Arctic Foxes... and all kinds of great stuff on it!
So here's my question... should she make ME a new quilt out of this, or something totally not as good?

Please post your opinion in the "comments" area.
Thanks and tail wags,
Storms