The Dingo Chronicles

Greetings and Happy New Year! Well...we survived the holidays! No major incidents to tell of. Lots of goofiness from every angle and plenty of moments we were able laugh about and enjoy the instant it took place. I promise to summarize with a few photos at the end of the post.

As mentioned, Christmas was spent here, the weekend after at Ty's parents', and we kicked the New Year off with an afternoon of skate skiing with the dogs back here at home. They loved it! We go to this great little place about 10 miles outside of Whitefish - Stillwater Lodge - and they have extensive trail that's dog friendly. They romp, play, and run and run and run. It's a good way for us to get some exercise and the dogs to get EXHAUSTED! We've gone back once since then and hope to get up that way many more times before the snow melts. We also ski the Whitefish Golf Course. No dogs allowed, but they have night-time skiing, so we take that in quite often. Luckily, we have this winter-time recreational activity to keep us sane and remind us that there is fun to be had in snow.

However, we're already starting to feel the effects of cabin fever and long for the days when the trails are clear and the grass is green. The dogs seem bored with running and walking the same routes over and over again. I'm with them...I miss the diversity of spring and summer. And since most of our snow is depleting day-by-day and we haven't seen fresh since New Year's, the spirits are not getting any lifting from what's happening outside. We'll get through as we always do, but for now I'll have to dream...dream of vacations in Mexico, California, Florida.... And Hunter and Wally will have to contend with wrestling in the house, slip-sliding their way through the backyard for potty breaks (it's icy out there!), and worst of all - NO SWIMMING - for a couple more months. I think they're grateful for skate skiing and Stillwater too!

Hunter, Wally, and I hope your 2009 is off to a great start! We'll be posting again soon in 2009. Until then, a little something(s) from 2008...

Our tree (with decorating assistance from Rosco...notice the bald spot?).

The Anderson Family

Although I love my bro and his fiance dearly, I'm including this photo more for its chaos factor vs. the endearment. Yes...that's Hunter's nose.

They're always so cute when they're NOT moving. Gotta love 'em!

WISHING YOU ALL THE BEST IN 2009!!!

My girlfriend sent this to me and I have to share. We'll be busy with family these next few days, so probably won't write much. However, look for great photos and updates after Christmas. Wishing you all a wonderful holiday!

By the way...Ty and I are pretty much certain that this could indeed be Wally on any given day.

I'd always considered myself a single-digit kinda girl. I like the numbers 3, 6, 9...ya know...easy to remember, not hard to write, and a bit of character in and of itself. No "partner" number imposing additional influence on its appearance or meaning. Well...that all changed today, when it had been four days...count 'em...FOUR DAYS since the dogs had been outside for any exercise. None! As in nada, zilch, zero. It was today that the number 10 and anything higher became my favorite number. And please...don't put a "-" in front of it. That's just mean.

Hopefully I haven't totally confused you. Allow me to elaborate. As you gathered from my last post, we've been experiencing colder than normal temps lately. Ty and I have decided that anything below ten degrees - unless the sun is out and making itself more than known - we probably shouldn't take the dogs out into the elements. As a result, they hadn't been out since Saturday and let me tell you...the tensions were running high. The casual wrestle session between Hunter and Wally had turned from friendly to snarly. And the Rosco-Wally chase fest went from knocking one or two ornaments from the tree to an unprecedented three or four falling to their death. AND a tree skirt disturbance thrown in for good measure. It was turning desperate here at the Anderson's.

But...finally (hallelujah!!!), the temps started going up, up, up today and we crested at 14 degrees! To make it all that much more enjoyable, it's been snowing all day too! Hunter, Wally and I celebrated with a drive-way shoveling, chuck-it throwing, snow eating (the dogs) fest after work. It was grand. The dogs are now sleeping peacefully downstairs and I imagine we won't hear a peep from them 'til tomorrow.

Thank you double digits! I owe you my life.

Happy dogs, happy me!

If only I could capture the glory of the temp in this photo.

Long time, no chat! Well...my new year resolution is taking affect before the calendar switches over to 2009. I've decided it's been way too long and I've been far too negligent for this to wait. It's time I get back to it. And surprise...a new look to go with it! Hope you like the design.

Christmas is coming up fast, with lots of excitement for our clan this year. The dogs will spend most of the holidays at home this year. My brother and his fiance (a June 2009 wedding!) will travel east from Seattle for a week here in Montana. Their visit will be kinda old school style, as they'll arrive on the train to Whitefish on the morning of December 22. Maybe we can whip up a light snow to welcome them as the train rolls into town. We always have a blast when the Hanzelka's are together and I'm sure this time will be no different. The day after Christmas, we head to Moscow, ID to spend a few days with Ty's folks and his sister's family. New little Ava will get her 1st Christmas rights-of-passage. It'll be fun to have a little one around...the awe and magic of the holiday will start to creep back into our lives as the tiny tot gets to experience all the traditions for the first time.

Yeah...funny how the magic just isn't there with the mutts. There seems to be more yelling and caution that enters OUR lives when the holiday grows near. "Wally...step AWAY from the tree!", "Wally...get AWAY from the ornaments!", "Wally...quit STARING at the Christmas lights! They're not alive...promise!", and finally...facing the near-tears that I've experienced every year since 2002 when I unpack ornaments. Memories of Hunter's first Christmas flash to my mind as I delicately handle the RUINED baby's 1st Christmas ornaments he so thoughtfully picked from the tree for gnawing and munching. Thanks, HUNTER!!! I still hold on to them for the sake that 1) there's sentiment in what's left of those things and 2) I can chuckle about it when the time comes to put the ornaments away at the end of the season. Tears...chuckle...tears...chuckle...it's an emotional cycle I've come accustomed to every year.

To the more immediate happenings around the Anderson zoo, we had a crazy morning that started with the visit of the cable guy, followed by the Culligan man, followed by a visit from my Pops (with coffee...thanks, dad!!!). As you can probably guess, this also meant a morning FULL of barking as each guest came and went. We're working on it, though, and Hunter's getting a little better at controlling his announcement of each suspicious (and non) arrival to our home.

One final note...it's been FREEZING here the past couple of days. Negative 12 the other morning with a windchill that has it feeling much, much colder. The dogs voyaged out with me for a run on Saturday, but Sunday was just too darn frosty for them and I had to leave them behind. Hoping that by tomorrow we'll be back in a normal range so they can get out for some extended exercise (they're getting just a wee bit restless). However, it was pretty funny to watch Hunter literally tip-toe his way back from a potty-stop in the backyard and Wally has been wasting no time at all in the great outdoors.

And since we missed you at Thanksgiving, here's a couple of photos as evidence that we did indeed stuff ourselves...Hunter too.

Okay...I know this is supposed to be a blog about the dogs, but I absolutely CANNOT RESIST posting this. The fact that it made me laugh to the point of tears leaves me no choice but to share the entertainment value of this video. As mentioned to my bro, I think one of the primary reasons this thing made me laugh so hard is because I could see our dumb-dumb cat doing something equally as elegant. Enjoy!

We have (or had) a dog that stinks...bad. Ty and I were standing in the kitchen on Monday night going "what's that smell???". "I think it's Wally...," was Ty's response. He began sniffing at Wally's fur, which was oddly quite the role reversal - usually they sniff us. "Yep...it's him," Ty declared. I replied with "No way! Can't be." I leaned down to contribute to this sniff-fest. Huh, I thought - not bad enough to stink up the kitchen, but certainly not delightful. Right then and there we decided that Wally needed a bath.

You see...we forget that Wally doesn't swim (yeah...he regularly displays some pretty wimpy behavior when faced with the prospect of becoming FULLY SUBMERGED in a large body of water). Hunter, on the other hand, is in the water almost daily. Thus, eliminating the need to bathe him very often if at all. As a result, we've carried over this aloofness towards bathing to Wally. In a way, you could say we deserved what we got. A stinky dog.

So...last night it was time to do the deed. Ty and I debated the best place to rinse the stinker out...the bathtub or outside. Outside would save on cleanup, but the bathtub would confine him to the bathroom and give him minimal places to run. But...given just how dirty he was, we decided that cleanup would not be fun and we both envisioned splatters of dirt-laden water being sprayed across our bathroom walls with each of Wally's inevitable shakes of the body. An outside bath won out this time.

To avoid the "run away" syndrome that both Hunter and Wally exhibit when approached with a hose, I strapped Wally to my body with a leash around my waist and the other end attached to his collar. I must say, it worked pretty well. As predicted, he lunged away from me at the sight of running water, but I was able to reign him in pretty quickly. He submitted, with his head between my legs, to the "torture" that ensued. I wet him down and began to scrub. He shook the suds off pretty often, so my decision to bathe him outside was confirmed as a good choice quite quickly. Once I was done with the suds, I began the final rinse...again with his head hiding between my legs. And then...he was all done and I released him from his confinement. The second that leash was unclasped, he charged around the yard...shaking the water from his scrawny little body after every few steps. He looked at me from a distance with a confused look...afraid to come too close for fear it would happen all over again. As though he was saying "what did I do to deserve that!?!?!?!?" I turned to Hunter with hose in hand (Wally was still wandering the yard in recovery mode) and asked "want a bath Hunter?" His ears perked, as though interested. All it took was for me to turn the hose towards him and he bolted. It was pretty funny. Since Hunter had just gone for a swim 20 minutes prior, I let him go unscathed. This time...hee-hee-hee.

BEFORE


Notice how happy he is...at this point, he doesn't know what's coming.

AFTER

The trauma is over and the smile is gone. Poor dog, but lucky us!

I've decided weekends are gonna be tough to keep up on for blogging, so weekdays for sure I'll post something. The weekend was a busy one for us, and kinda boring for the dingo's. I felt bad for them, but we'll make up for it this week and over the weekend.

Ty and I participated in the Glacier Challenge this weekend and had a blast competing as a 2-person team. We had a ton of friends up in Whitefish taking part with larger teams, so in addition to exhausting ourselves while completing each leg of the race on our own, we had so much fun hanging in Riverside park with friends and taking in the beautiful day. My mom and dad came up to help us with all our gear and water/nutritional support and Danni was also there to help keep things in order and make sure we had the equipment we needed when we needed it. We couldn't have done it without Mom, Dad, and Danni, so thanks you guys!!! Shayla and Molly (my parents' dogs) got to make the trek up to Whitefish with us and got TONS of attention from spectators and participants alike. Hunter and Wally stayed home and got lots of rest and long naps ;). I'll post photos from our adventure when I get them from my parents and Danni.

Sunday involved another early morning for me, as I met up with Danni, Callie, and Iris for a 22 mile trek on the cross-country ski trails near Blacktail. It was a beautiful morning to be out. I would have loved to taken the dogs with me, but despite the obvious fact that the distance would have been too much for them, the overwhelming presence of wildlife in this area (Iris and I spotted a COUGAR out here a few weeks ago, amidst bear tracks, bear scat, and a LOT of mountain lion scat!!!), this was no place for the dogs. Maybe for a hike sometime...with leashes!

Ty and I were EXHAUSTED Sunday afternoon, so we took it easy. Watched movies and lounged. It was great. Ty took Hunter and Wally for a swim and chuck-it session while I was gone in the morning, so they did get some fun over the weekend. Ty had to sacrifice his body to the mosquito-fest in our park nearby so Hunter could swim, but I know it sure meant a lot to Hunter and he appreciated it immensely.

I took today off from work. I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck after the weekend I'd had, so I decided a sick-day was in order. Hunter and Wally snuggled in with me for a long snooze. I must have been tired...slept from 8:00 until 1:30, with a short moment of awakeness around 11:40 when I had to let our very own cougar in from outside (he was howling at the front door as though he'd been out there for days...without food or water. In reality, it had only been 3 hours.) At this point, Wally needed to go outside, so I traded Wally for Rosco as a snuggle-buddy on the bed. Hunter was in it for the long haul and probably could have happily slept until 5:00, or so, had I been up for the challenge.

I hit up the Humane Society for my hour of volunteering on Mondays. The dogs gave me the usual sniff-down when I got home. I think they feel as though I've been cheating on them. Today I helped with cats, so the "you're a traitor" sniff wasn't quite as intense as it usually is.

Ty and I went to see the movie Wanted tonight and had a glorious dinner consisting of movie theater popcorn, Reese's Pieces, and Junior Mints. When we got home we were beat and went straight up to bed. Hunter looked at us like "hey...you just got home...it's time to go to bed already????". I know...sorry Hunter...I'll do better tomorrow. A lunch-time run of 4 miles will be in order with the pups. And I'm pretty sure Hunter will get some swim time. I'll be a better mama real soon, dingos!!!!