I ask Leecy if she could go by Wabash Antique and Feed to pick up some wild bird food.  I gave her 60 bucks the night before and I said I would give her more money when I got home.

Somehow, Leecy spends $180.00 on bird food.  Okay, it’s for the birds, all is well.

I get home and give Leecy $110.00, two fifties and one ten.

Leecy apparently sets the money on the table and while I’m feeding Coco (African Grey Parrot) I hear a bunch of curse words and Leecy telling me I need to train the dog better.  I ask her what happened.  She shows me a fifty and points at Sascha (German Shepherd).  I ask her where the other fifty and ten are, and she says “your stupid dog just ate it!”

I start laughing.  I said it could have been worse, I could have given her all twenties, or dollar bills.  Leecy is not laughing.

Leecy then tells me I need to go make Sascha poop and get the money back.

I told Leecy I can’t just make Sascha go poop, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow and hope it comes out.

Leecy tells me I need to give Sascha something to make her regurgitate the money.  I said I can’t do that.  “Let’s just wait until tomorrow and see if we can find it.”

I notice Leecy still isn’t seeing the humor in this, so I said I’ll go outside and pick up the dog poop so it will be easier to find tomorrow.

Whereas Leecy may not be feeling too confident she will get the $60 bucks back, I remain hopeful.  Why?

Because Sascha has a fetish.  She likes to eat paper, especially paper towels.  I don’t know why.  Perhaps it’s the fiber content.

Also, that “fiber” content occasionally gets a little stuck and Sascha waddles over to me for help.  I, being the animal lover that I am, always help Sascha when she has these little problems and give the “fiber” a gentle pull, then all is well.  Sascha, for her part, always seems quite appreciative when I help her out.

So, I remain hopeful Leecy will get her $60 bucks back tomorrow, and I also will have my camera ready to photograph the ordeal:-).

In the meantime, if you know Leecy or see her, tell her everything will come out alright.

I’m sure she’ll appreciate the sentiment (after she strangles me for posting this:-)

For those who don’t know, or don’t want to hunt within the blog, Sascha is my German Shepherd that I have imported from the Czech Republic.  She’s 6 years old.  She loves to follow me everywhere.  She also tends to love being outside, no matter how hot it is.  I’ve never quite understood why a black coated Dog would want to be out the in sun, but Sascha loves it.  She’ll just grab one of her many toys (she’s never without a toy nearby), find her a little shaded place in the grass, and lay down.

You might notice how her left ear is a little floppy.  That’s because a couple of years ago she either was stung by a bee, or perhaps bitten by a spider and her ear became really inflamed.  The vet ended up have to cut part of her ear to let some of the fluid drain out.  It’s never seemed to bother Sascha one way or another.  Oh, and Deliah (our adopted kitten) likes Sascha’s floppy ear the best.  Apparently it makes for a better toy than Sascha’s other ear:-)

Sascha Laying In Grass

Sascha seems to be the most bonded with Delilah as she follows her everywhere and licks her at every opportunity.

On the other hand, Maggie, being true to her character, doesn’t seem to care one way or another about another animal.  It’s people she’s most interested in.

That is, until Delilah decides to go in between the dog’s crates!  That’s when Maggie starts whining, probably asking why she has to be in a crate when the kitten doesn’t:-).

Kitten Bonding With Dogs

She and Chloe get along great, as well as her and the dogs.  In fact, her favorite playmate (other than Chloe) seems to be Sascha, my German Shepherd.

We also got her a new toy today.  I think she likes it.  She carries it around the house.

Delilah Jumping After Toy

Delilah Jumping But Misses Toy

Sascha Comes Flying Back To The Pool Stairs

Sascha has no concept of half speed or just slowly moving through the water.  She has to attack the water, she rush back as fast as she can so she can go back in.

Sascha Prepares To Pouce On The Water

You can see from the picture above, there is no graceful jump for Sascha.  She has to jump in the pool like she’s going to destroy anything in her way.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve probably bought 100 bags of mulch, 50 bags of topsoil, and 50 bags of potting soil.  Needless to say, my back is getting a workout and I’m not getting any younger.  Today, I purchased another 10 bags of mulch, 10 bags of potting soil, and 4 bags of humus peat.  I dreaded unloading this from my truck, wheeling it to the backyard, then spreading it around the yard.  I tried to call my neighbor and see if his 12 year old son was interested in earning some extra money.  Nope, his son was busy.  So I wondered what I could do to make it easier to unload all this stuff and transfer it to the backyard.

Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head.  Sascha (my German Shepherd) is a working dog (both of her parents were working dogs in the Czech Republic) and she loves to have some type of task to do, so what if I put on her harness (previously used for protection training) and had her pull the mulch and soil into the backyard for me?  Sure, each bag of this stuff is 40lbs, and Sascha weighs around 80lbs, but it’s worth a try isn’t it?  I normally load 4 bags in the wheelbarrow so surely Sascha could pull a couple of those right?

I’ll now let the videos mostly speak for themselves.

In this first video I just put two bags of mulch in the cart since I wasn’t sure Sascha would even know what to do much less pull her entire body weight.

Okay, so on the first try Sascha got a little excited and ran over some rocks which knocked the cart over.  Did you notice her tail wagging?  I think she was starting to enjoy this.  Of course, so was Leecy who was laughing in the video.

On this second video clip, Sascha seems to be getting the hang of it.  She seemed to be real excited doing this work (as you can see when she jumps on me).  However, I made a slight mistake.  I should know that when Sascha is in “working mode” that is NOT the time to lose focus, or let her lose focus, which is exactly what I did and what she did.  If you watch the end of this video, as soon as Sascha jumps up on me, she (for whatever reason) took a little nip at my arm.  That’s the first time Sascha has ever bitten me and I view this instance as my fault.  She just got a little too excited and I didn’t keep her focused.

In this last video clip, you can see that Sascha is in the groove.  Her tail is wagging, her ears are down and she is very focused.  I don’t even have to really say much to her.  That’s Leecy at the end of the video clip saying “she must know where the divots are” as Sascha avoids the drainage line in the grass and instead goes around it.

During the last trip, Sascha was actually pulling 3 bags of mulch which is 120lbs.

So what do y’all think?  Pretty cool huh?

Even though Maggie is 8 years old, when it comes to water she thinks she’s still a puppy.  One of her favorite things to do is to take a giant running leap when a toy is thrown in the pool (Remember, you can click on the picture for an enlarged view).

Maggie Diving In Pool

On the other hand, Sascha goes into the pool because Maggie does.  She does to chase toys in the pool, but she doesn’t take a giant running leap like Maggie does.

Sascha Retrieving Toy In Pool

Notice how calm Maggie looks, not a care in the world.

Maggie Swimming

Compare Maggie’s calmness with Sascha’s chaotic swimming.

Sascha Swimming