Jasper's Trophy Rock

Hi Everyone! Jasper here to tell you about my rock! My friends Kazi (a Brittany) and Libby (King Charles Cavalier) came over to play a couple of weeks ago and they don't like to swim too much so we took a little hike first and THEN came back to the pond. I wanted to show Libby and Kazi how much fun digging is so I started digging by the edge of the pond and found the BEST ROCK EVER! When Mommy saw it she said if the rock wasn't still wet she never would have believed I dug it out of the pond, cause it was so big! It's as big as my head! I admit it was a little heavy so I only carried far enough for everyone to see it. Once I get rocks out I really don't care about them anymore but Mommy kept it and weighed it and she says it was 8-1/2 pounds and I am lucky I still have any teeth left at all. Here is my trophy rock! And my favorite red disk! Today I went digging in one of my mudholes for 2 hours! I hope you have fun things to do where you live.

Fall Mud Season!

Hi Everyone! River here! Me and Jasper are both happy! For me, fall allergy season seems to be over. Of course I had to take 3 weeks worth of pills to recover from all my itching and chewing, and my tail still looks pretty funny with a big bare spot then a pouf of hair on the end, but I am definitely feeling better and I don't even have to wear the lampshade! Of course, there goes my excuse for sleeping in bed with Mommy and Daddy but all in all, I am still MUCH happier.
Now Jasper never stopped being happy because that is just how he is. That is why they call him Happy Jaspy! Anyways, HE is happy because it has rained a LOT the last few days and you know what that means...MUD. Mommy and Daddy were working outside and Jasper dug in his 4 or 12 or however many mudholes that he has going, and he barked the WHOLE TIME. Here is his biggest and best mud hole!

River's New Bed

HI EVERYONE!
Jasper here. Guess what River has been doing again? Yup, chewing. This time on his TAIL and the vet is out of town and Mommy and Daddy are making him wear that lampshade again and he does NOT like it, not one bit. Except...he gets to sleep in the BIG bed. I tried to sleep in the big bed once but I was SO EXCITED that I kept kissing everyone and nudging them to play and stuff and all they wanted to do was sleep but who has time for that when you could be playing? So back in the crate I went.
Anyways, River gets to sleep in the big bed with his big old lampshade on and even though Mommy and Daddy say they don't have enough space with River AND the lampshade, they still let him because if he goes in his crate there is definitely not enough room and the lampshade hits the side of the crate in the middle of the night, then I have to BARK at him, then EVERYONE wakes up.
So, guess who thinks he OWNS the big bed? That's right! And he would not let Mommy make the bed without him this morning, so she just had to work around him. Here is River, owning the bed:

New bones!

Happiness IS a brand new chew bone!

Today's Walk!

Hi Everyone! Jasper here! This morning Mommy took me, River, and Moe for a walk and guess what we saw? That's right. A BIG BEAR! How did you guess?
We were just walking down the road and then this giant bear walked out of the woods ahead of us and stopped in the middle of the road. The bear was looking at us, and we were looking at the bear and we did not make a PEEP because we weren't quite sure WHAT do to! But the best part was after we stared at each other for what seemed like forever, I guess Mommy got a little nervous that the bear was not moving, because she jumped up and down and waved her arms (which is not easy when her arms are attached to 3 leashes) and yelled "Run Bear Run!"
Well the bear took one last look at this crazy scene and took off into the woods and then and only then did we back Mommy up and start barking and jumping too. It was very exciting and of course I wanted to play with the bear and River wanted to go chase it but Mommy decided maybe we should just turn around and go back home after that in case there were baby bears around. That was our walk for today!

Bye to Mabel

River here. Sad news to report - our sister Mabel died earlier in July. Mabel is the pretty girl on the left in the photo. She is now with their brother Max, chasing birds all over the place. She and Moe used to howl together every day at the 5:00 pm siren. If you can't tell, this picture was taken at 5:00 pm! Mabel had a good day, and even took a little walk, but we know she was getting weak and she passed in her sleep the next day. Aunt Susan was really really great taking care of her, because Mommy and Daddy were out of town when it happened.
The REALLY sad thing is how much her brother Moe (in the middle) misses her! Me and Jasper spend LOTS of time outside these days keeping Moe company, because if we don't, he barks and barks. Who can blame him? He and Mabel were together for 13 years, and Max was with them most of that time, too. Bye Mabes! Hope you catch some birds!

what River did today

HI Everyone! Jasper here! Taking a break from my mud puddles to show you what River did to himself today. Mommy was HORRIFIED when she saw this and I don't blame her. I might be goofy and have a few annoying habits, but I would NOT chew my own hair off! I have too many FUN things to do!
So, now Riv has the big plastic collar on which I barked at for two hours til I realized it was River inside there. And he is mad at Mommy for making him wear it and putting stuff on his leg. I hope he gets better SOON because right now he won't even chase me or play tug toy or let me jump on him or anything! Get well soon River!

We had to stay inside for THIS????

Hi Everyone! River here!
We missed writing in our blog, but it's just been busy around this place. We had so much rain this spring that Jasper has SEVERAL new mud holes to bark at and dig in. Mommy says she doesn't care, because a few holes in the yard and having to throw sticks in the pond to clean him off is a small price to pay for keeping HIM busy.
So, today, we really really really wanted to go outside and play but Mommy kept us locked in the house! She wasn't trying to be mean but there was a BIG old TURTLE in our yard and then she reminded me about the LAST time I tried to get the turtle out of the yard, how the end of my nose came up missing. Oh yeah, I did forget about that. It is mostly grown back now. So, anyways, here is the turtle. And of course the turtle took her sweet old time getting out of our yard, but finally she was gone and we spent the WHOLE DAY outside!

Grin Dogs!

Hey! River here! Wondering if me and Jasper were ever as little as the 8 puppies that GRIN (Golden Retrievers in Need) Rescue has available for adoption. www.grinrescue.org You can watch the puppies on YouTube by clicking here and scrolling down: http://grinrescue.org/featured-golden-top-menu/824-iris.html


AND if puppies aren't your thing (we hear they are lots of work, not easy like when me and Jasper got adopted! Oh wait, what was that Daddy? We were a full time job?) you can see lots of other Goldens that need homes, too! Like Wilson! We hope Wilson comes to play with us pretty soon! Here's Wilson:

Mudlucious Plans for Spring

Hi Everyone! Jasper Here! We had company today - 4 Dogs! Mommy says she did what ANY good hostess would do when 4 dogs come to visit - she let EVERYONE go down to the pond to run around and go swimming and get extremely muddy before they had to get in their car to go home. Sorry about your car, Laura!
Anyways, it was MY FIRST TIME down to the pond since the ice melted and OF COURSE I went swimming. Then the BEST thing happened. I found a good place to dig! And BARK. And Dig. And Bark. And Dig. And Bark. Springtime is SO MUCH FUN!
and e.e. cummings never even met me OR my mudholes before he wrote that poem!

"It's a wild, wild life"

Jasper and River here. We are too young to know who Talking Heads are but sometimes Mommy sings parts of Talking Heads songs...like it's a wild wild life...and makes up new verses. And she thinks WE are crazy!
Anyways, lots of wild life around here this weekend! First of all the red fox has been out a LOT - here we are, looking out the window to see if she is still there! When we see the fox we bark and make lots of other noises and run from the door to the windows and back at very high speed. It's fun, even if we DON'T get to go outside and chase.
THEN, there was this big big dog - the biggest dog we ever saw! Maybe a Great Pyrenees? We don't know exactly why they call them Great. We should be Great Goldens! Anyways, we were outside and she walked ACROSS the pond toward us and we barked like crazy but she did not care. Then WE busted through the dog fence to the pond side and then Mommy came out to try to retrieve us because it was going to be bad enough to have a strange and very big dog break through the ice but imagine all three of us ! So we came inside and Mommy stayed out to try to catch her but finally the dog's family came. Turns out SHE busted through HER electric fence chasing deer and then she got lost! EVERYONE was happy that she found her family.
THEN, this morning when we went for our walk look what we saw! Fresh bear tracks, right in our yard! We did not see the bear but we could smell it in the woods...all 6 of us stopped (Mabel, Moe, Us and Mommy and Daddy) and sniffed...well us dogs did...and sniffed... and we are pretty sure the bear was back in the woods a little ways. It's been another fun weekend !

We Got a Package!

Hey, Look what we got! A PACKAGE!

Jasper here. Our foster brother Luke sent us a package! Tennis balls and cookies with frosting and lollipups! Luke is the best. He was the resident dog at our foster home in Ohio and we miss him. He tried to teach me some doggie manners but I was young and wild then and even now I think manners are overrated. But other than that he was a great big brother and he is still nice to us! Sometimes he comes here to camp Run-a-Lot to play! His dog mom and dad are the BEST EVER. They foster other dogs for GRIN and even adopt some of them! Plus they do other stuff like organize things for the GRIN dogs. We miss them lots and hope they come and visit us soon. You should check out GRIN cause they have 9 brand new puppies plus lot of other golden-ish dogs to adopt and if you want to have fun like we do, you might need to adopt a dog. Just make sure they have tennis balls to chew on and lots of dog treats! www.grinrescue.org

Doggie Hangover

River here to tell you I am NEVER EVER eating deer intestines again, well, at least not until the next chance I get. Whew. Rough night. Here I am, first to admit, all hungover from yesterday's overindulgence!

It was kind of worth it though. Susan and Randy took me, Ripley, and Jasper snowshoeing yesterday afternoon. It was 5:00 pm - right around happy hour - and I stopped by a deer carcass that they didn't even see. I ate as MUCH as I could before Susan came looking for me, and that was like "last call"...even though I had already had too much, I thought I better get one for the road, as they say:


Well Aunt Susan and even RANDY thought this was disgusting but I wanted to keep it. Just a little section of intestine to go... I held on tight but finally the snowballs in my paws were the size of softballs so I stopped to get the snow out and had to drop it and Randy got the intestine away. Mommy says thank goodness, because that probably smelled horrible...but I thought it would get even tastier in a day or so. Maybe it was just as well. I guess I really did overdo it because I spent the night and next morning barfing up deer innards (5 times) and boy, did I feel horrible all day. Yup, I felt bad. And Mommy and Daddy were not exactly happy with me.

Now I've got to say, one REALLY bad part of ANY hangover is when you have to be with someone who is all chipper and NOT hungover! That would be Jasper. HE got to go snowshoeing AGAIN today with Mommy while she left ME home in the mud room (in case I had to, you know, be sick again.) Here is Mr. Goody Two-Shoes on his snowshoe outing today. And like I said, I'm never eating deer again...until next time!