Here is Baylee's most recent scrap book page. It was created today using pictures from a few years ago.
On February 13th, 2005 we opened the gates to Buffleopia, home to the Bucolic Buffledog, a.k.a. Buffledog, a.k.a. Taylor and chronicled here at the Damp Dog. Over the course of time, most of you knew him as the Buffledog and for many of the readers here the name Buffledog has become synonymous with the Bernese Mountain Dog breed. After losing Taylor
Gryphon is a very different dog than
Gryphon does bring both exuberance and energy to Buffleopia that we sorely missed with
The boy is also a master thief, a regular klepto-dog! A very stealthy klepto-dog! More than once we have been engaged with a movie or show and he busies himself by gathering up all our shoes, all his toys and all the cats' toys. Then he's emptying the laundry hamper and grabbing the towels from both the downstairs bathrooms as well as from the kitchen. All of these items will then be piled on his bed and at some point one of us will look up and there he will be, right in the middle of his feathered nest with a grin of satisfaction on his face. It is hard not to laugh at this Buffle-wuzzle. What a funny boy!
I was concerned about our wildlife population here at Vulpine Acres and how they would all react to Gryphon’s presence. Giving chase has not been an issue and he merely talks to them as only dogs can talk – deer, fox and, of course, cats. I was afraid that his scent or his spoor would scare some of them away, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, several of the fox and deer are becoming bolder and staying closer even when we are outside. He’s stood within 6 feet of Simon (the alpha male fox) and dropped into the play pose when he saw Buckwheat (the little male deer from last year – who is growing a pretty impressive rack this year) and Buckwheat just looked at him. All three cats have come to a place of acceptance with him with varying degrees of contact. The Vulpine Café remains open and busy and we are much relieved.
So the gates to Buffleopia have once again been opened and Buffleopia is certainly more populated. Though there may only be one Bucolic Buffledog, Gryphon is certainly a Buffledog of the first order. The connection between Gryphon and us was the right call by the breeder and we cannot thank her enough for both her gift and her insight. Let the social lubricity begin!
I am such a wimp. I went to the surgeon yesterday for my first check-up post-surgery, and he removed all the steristrips and some gauze that had gotten accidentally glued to my incision. When he was done, it looked AWFUL and it hurt like heck. The incision looked open again and was bleeding, but he said it looked pretty good. Wha??? I guess that's just my wimpiness talking when I say it do NOT look good! In fact, I had to sit down and cry a little bit after I left his office. Like I said, WIMP.
One of the things I love about our son is that he's always happy. (Well almost all the time.) I guess I've learned to appreciate that quality more and more as one of our other children becomes moodier and moodier by the day (actually, by the hour). But one of the side affects of being always happy seems to be that he has the ability (as most males do) to turn a switch and stop thinking about something unpleasant whenever he wants to. Therefore, he seems to be able to listen to us talk for an hour about how he needs to be more responsible with his things and how he needs to be more trustworthy to do his chores, and he can walk away, bouncing around, singing, and cheerfully forgetting that he ever had anything he forgot to do or there might still be things he needs to do. He has to write lots of sentences today (that's one of the consequences we came up with) and he wasn't happy at first, but like I said, he has the ability to distract himself from thinking about anything he doesn't want to. So the fact that he wouldn't have to write them if he did what he was supposed to the first time doesn't trouble him anymore and now he's happy again. When I called BD this morning to discuss this with him, he said we just have to accept that he may never see the importance of what we are saying while he's at home, but we just have to love him. We both hope and pray this stuff will make sense to him when he's an adult. But I have to admit, it scares me to think this boy will be driving in less than a year.
Baylee's last gymnastics lesson is today and Izzi finished up ballet with her yearly performance on Saturday. Will is spending the night at Zac's. I had surgery last Wednesday and have been pretty useless these last few days, although BD asked me to come up with a workable chore system that I can easily enforce over the summer. (We've tried them before, but hey, never give up, right?) So I started that yesterday and am continuing today. The kids seem reluctantly on board, although William seems to not take it very seriously and his room and the bathroom need some major attention. I was able to take a long walk yesterday. My incision was sore, but it wasn't too bad. I won't be able to run again for a while, though. Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, I have overdue library books, as I was just informed by email today. I can't drive until tomorrow, so I'll just have to pay the fine. Sigh. My life is so exciting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)