Archive for category leo
Balance
I actually did the lines on these photos the other day but forgot to post them. Carolyn reminded me!
Leo is a great example of a dog with overall less ideal angulation, but who is balanced. That (along with personality) is why he could move like a freight train. I had to run to keep up with Leo, because as many times as I tried to teach him to move slower, that just wasn’t his thing. LOL He has flying drive and likes to go as fast as his little legs can take him.
Brady fits into this camp also, by the way. He’s straighter in both front and rear, but very balanced and has good movement and wonderful stamina. He truly is a dog that could work all day long.
Photo Montage
Some random pictures from the past few days. We got our Christmas tree up on Saturday and decorated it on Sunday…Charlie is an ornament hanging MASTER. 
) Here’s a pic of “her” area of the tree. She kept insisting that there weren’t enough ornaments in her area when we suggested that she try spreading it around a bit.
“Honey, why don’t you pose next to the tree?”
“Could you maybe smile? Umm ok, not quite like that…”
“That’s a LITTLE better…”
Leo being, well, Leo.
I don’t know what Lizzie would ever do without Leo around to be her pillow.
A few more pictures in the “Charlie and Dogs” series. As Kate once said, she loves ‘em, the poor bastards. LOL She’s actually REALLY good about petting them gently, and they all like getting attention from her.
Here she’s waving Leo’s paw at the camera for us.
Ignore the bed head please.
Brady has gotten really distrustful of the camera in his old age. After this picture, he slunk underneath the desk behind him as if he thought I would beat him with the camera….?? I have no idea, maybe he’s just getting quirky. Yes, those of you that know him are saying “GETTING” quirky?? )
Speaking of Leo…
Jan, if you are here, DO NOT read this post. 
I think I can say with authority that Leo is a BIG FAN of his new digs. We have a smaller yard here than we did at the last house, but we again back up to a creek and therefore get a good amount of wildlife. I’ve seen skunks several times (oy vey, I wonder how long it will take Brady to get his ass sprayed??), a possum (it IS alabama), many deer, wild turkeys, squirrels…the list goes on. Last night Dave let the dogs out before bed, and suddenly he yells “Leo’s got something!” and he sprints/clomps down the steps in his bare feet after him. I came running, terrified that I was going to be asking all my dog friends how to get skunk smell off of a dog…I’m not sure what I was really going to DO about it, because I’m sure by that time Leo would have gotten it already, but instinct kicked in anyway. So, we get out there and the mighty hunter has caught himself a rodent of some sort. We’re not sure what (mouse, mole, vole, chipmunk?), because it was dark and wet out, but it squeaked in terror every time Leo grabbed it. Because you see, the mighty hunter doesn’t eat his prey. He plays with it until it’s dead and boring, and then abandons it. So he picks it up, tosses it around, lets it *think* it’s getting away, and then grabs it again.
I am actually quite impressed that he caught it. Dave said that he saw him in the yard, ears perked, listening…and then suddenly he took off running and snagged it like 20 feet away from where he had been. I guess those big old ears do work!
Handsome boy
Leo and his buddy Scarlett, at our friend’s house where he is staying. Such a handsome boy he is. Leo and Scarlett pretty much play NON. STOP…I’m sure that after having that madhouse running around for 2 months, our friends will be ready to give him back! And Leo will probably be bored, because I know that Brady and Lizzie don’t play with him THAT much. )
Feeling nostalgic today
I was just booking a photography session with my favorite photographer for after the baby is born. I want to get really nice pictures of us as a whole family. This woman does beautiful work, but is pretty $$$ so we haven’t had pictures done since Charlie turned 1. Ironically, it was also 3 days after Leo joined our family, and I suggested to the photographer that I could bring him to the session. She looked at me like I was crazy, and I tried to reassure her that he was quite a mellow puppy (he was! I don’t know what happened to him!). Anyway, I was just reminiscing and looking back through the proofs….awwwwww.
There were a lot more pictures that didn’t include Leo, but trying to keep it somewhat dog-related…
Sleepover
Friends here have a medium-large mixed ridgeback? lab? greyhound? cur? who knows what that is right about Lizzie’s age. Her name is Scarlett, and Leo and Lizzie stayed with them while we went to Denver this past weekend. They got some hilarious pictures of them:
I love the pictures of Leo on the beanbag. He has amber lighter eyes than Lizzie, if you get confused. I did however think this was great…our friends told us that previously, they’d had a hard time telling Leo and Lizzie apart sometimes. Which I can understand…they aren’t THAT different in color and marking. But apparently, they made the observation while they were puppysitting that “Leo is the one with the stupid look on his face all the time.”
OK Houston, we have a problem
I think I need to back off and switch more slowly. After Lizzie’s barf-o-rama this afternoon, now after leaving the house for a few hours for dinner at Dave’s parent’s house, we came home to the NASTIEST pile of d*arrhea that I have ever seen. Since Lizzie is in a crate, we know it wasn’t her. My guess is Leo, because there were again many parts of crunched up beetles mixed in and I don’t *think* that Brady eats beetles. At least this time it wasn’t on my carpet, and he was actually kind enough to put it on a crate pad that we had on the floor so I could just pick it up and rinse. ) Plus, Brady is the one going through the least amount of diet change because I’m still using up the last half of his bulldog kibble, and just adding stuff to it, whereas the other two I switched to the Evo.
I’ve done lots of diet switching before, but this is probably the most radical change. Either that, or the beetle infestation from last night didn’t agree with their delicate stomachs.
OK, let's see if this works
Nothing like jumping on a bandwagon. Although I’m not quite ready to make the time/shopping commitment that Carolyn is making, we’re going to give the more natural feeding thing a try. I did stop today and buy a bag of Evo…I plan to use that as a base. I then went to Costco and bought a 10-pound box of 1/4 pound frozen beef patties ($19.99), a bucket of cottage cheese ($3.79), and an 18 pack of eggs ($1.79). I’ll look for some other meat sources when I have some more time to shop around. The Evo was $45 for a 35 pound bag. I’m not sure how long it will last, but I’m guessing over a month with only feeding partial. And all of my dogs eat fairly low amounts of food in general…Lizzie, although young, is a piggie who gains weight just LOOKING at food, and while Leo is also young and very active he’s just never required much kibble to keep a good weight.
But still, with only 3 dogs it looks like this will cost me about $100 a month? Maybe a bit less. We’ll have to see. That sort of number kind of hurts after paying only for the cheap Costco food.
My HOPE is that this not only makes my dogs coats nice and is healthier for them…but I REALLY want to find something to stop Brady’s stinkiness. He has had the WORST gas for probably going on 2 years now. It was bad when I was feeding Chicken Soup, and still bad when we switched to the Costco chicken & rice food. Obviously, something about the way he processes food has changed in his old age, because I had fed Chicken Soup for quite a while before this became an issue. He also became a poop eater at the same time.
Eggs
Leo is too…dumb? gentle?…to figure out how to get into a whole egg. He wanted to carry it around all night. The other two heathens were encouraging him to do just that, so that they could swipe it when he inevitably did something stupid.
I used to give whole eggs about once a week on their food, but haven’t done it for quite a while. All this talk of natural feeding has me considering it again, and in the meantime I figured they could have an egg. Brady needs something to fatten him up anyway…speaking of which, I need to have some bloodwork run on him, because he keeps dropping weight for no apparent reason despite me continually upping his food portion. Sigh…silly stinky old dog, anyway.
Pictures
I call this picture…”Leo, summed up”.
