Theo's October Surprise

We live in a rural area and our mail comes to a box on the road at the end of the driveway. We don't get a lot of mail and we don't bother to pick it up every day unless we are expecting something. I did stop today on the way back from a walk and gathered up a couple days worth of mostly junk mail. As I was closing the mailbox I happened to notice a slip of paper that had gotten pushed way in the back. I had almost missed it. I was one of those notices that the delivery person leaves when we get a package that won't fit in the box. They would normally bring a package on up to the house, but our gate is always closed. I wondered how long it had been hiding in the back of the box, but it was just dated yesterday. I wasn't expecting anything but I went to the post office in Palmyra and exchanged the pink slip for a long narrow box from Amazon. It was addressed to me but I hadn't ordered anything recently so my interest was piqued.

I slit the tape on the box using my car keys and laughed out loud to myself in the parking lot. It was a ChuckIt toy, a tennis ball thrower replacing the one I had recently broke. I had mentioned it in a blog post just a couple days ago, and a replacement just showed up out of the blue. There was no packing slip or anything to indicate who it came from, but I have a guess. Anyway, thank you, from myself and especially from Theo who is lost without a ball being thrown for him to chase.

We went out to the pasture, along with Max, Trooper, Clyde, and Toquima and played some ball. Theo and I played ball. Trooper ran to the front fence as he always does and barked at the neighbors and chased cars up and down the road. Toquima went hunting in the brush, for small animals presumably. I had to hunt for him a couple times because he disappears in the thickest brush he can find. This is the dog who got quilled by a porcupine on a hike in the Great North Woods a few years ago. It's easy to see how that happened given his penchant for hunting small animals in a thicket. Max sort of split his time between the various dog activities that were happening. Clyde ran and bounced around with no particular agenda.

Theo encountering Clyde as he's returning the ball.

Happy Theo

Trooper immediately heads for the front fence when he
gets out to the pasture. All that room to run and all he
wants to do is bark and neighbors and run the fence line
when cars come down the road. Drives me crazy.

Multitasking Max, running fence with Trooper with ball.

Toquima is in the picture, believe it or not.
You may be able to spot his tail. That's how
I found him. He didn't get in a lot of pictures.

Clyde is a goofy Dane.

This is Clyde jumping over Toquima,
who was not amused.

Clyde being temporarily stationary.

His coat is still a mess, but he's put on weight and really
looks a lot better than he did. 

He has nice new black fur on the ridge
of his back and the old dead brown stuff
is shedding off irregularly from his body.

Max and Theo

Trooper

I have to ride out on the mower and chase Trooper back in
when I want to get him back to the dog yard.

Clyde bouncing over Trooper

Here's a pretty good picture of Clyde in the sunshine. You can
see that his weight is pretty good now. The coat will fix itself.

And these are from the walk I did today with Serena, TJ, and Maya.

Serena's footprint, the only good thing to come
from all that rain we had yesterday afternoon
and evening.

All three dogs walking very nicely in the bike lane. (I still
pull them fully off the road when any cars pass.)