Max Lost a Chopper

We realized today that Max has lost or broken one of her long teeth on the bottom of her mouth! You can see her remaining tooth in this picture on the right of her tongue. She should have a matching one on the other side and it is gone! We will take her to the vet when we get home and make sure there is no infection or pain or anything. We don't even know what happened. Maybe when she was last playing with Marley? They did knock against each other pretty hard but ye gats!

The Gaff

Maxine went to a late lunch today at The Gaff. It is a briny ocean bar with a pirate theme that serves pizza and is dog friendly. Apparently they had a really wild Tuesday night as the table to the left of where Maxine is standing was a glass table entirely smashed with the glass all over the ground underneath the shell of the table.

We sat on the patio waiting for the pizza watching two old men racing belt sanders down two long tracks. What the locals do for fun!

Beach n Dunes

Maxine had a great afternoon running in the dunes and on the beach. The area we were in today had recently had a fire so you can see all the dunes were burned out. This made it easier for Max to play back there without all the thick brush and thorny bushes usually growing in the dunes.


She also ran on the beach today. Doesn't she look pretty with the big blue ocean behind her?


She wears her bright orange vest for safety reasons - we need to be able to see her when she gets deep into the dunes. She also wears little jingle bells so we can hear her!

Fishing poles, Fishsticks and Fisherman

We all went down to the marsh behind the beach today for Brett to do some fishing. You can see here that Max was curious about the poles and smelling the smells around the fishing gear.




While he was out fishing, we all stayed on shore and read, meditated, flew kites, ate lunch, etc.






Maxine got in on the fun and was given a very large fish stick. I snapped a picture of her eating it right when she sort of threw it in the air and she caught it. If you click on the picture and see it close up it is a pretty funny picture!



When Brett came in from fishing, geared up in his waders and carrying his poles, Maxine went crazy and started barking furiously at him! She was almost scary there for a minute, I thought she might bite him!

Maxine Sits

We caught this strange picture of Maxine actually sitting on her bottom! If you have a dog other than a greyhound this may not seem like a big deal at all. But greyhounds have such tiny little bony bottoms that they cannot sit on them like most dogs without it being uncomfortable. We could not figure out why Maxine was doing this but it makes for a great strange picture.

Beach Sleeping and Kites

We all went out to the beach again today and hung out by the dunes. Maxine ran around like a nut, climbing the dunes and getting lost inside them until we could coax her out. She loves to run really, really fast down the beach.



She dug a small hole here which she promptly got inside and rested in the cool shade for awhile.






Meanwhile, Brett and Jimmy busted out the kites! You can see from their smiles they had a lot of fun with the jolly roger, the seagull and the gecko kites!

Dinner Night One

First night dinner, we had an artichoke appetizer, oysters both raw and grilled (we bought 100 oysters for $30), and a lobster boil with two whole lobsters, potatoes and corn. Everything was served with a dipping butter with lemon, herbs and garlic.



Smores by the fire for dessert.

Boilin', Grillin', Campfire

Our first night in Port A as Maxine makes herself warm by the campfire. Linda and I were so cold from the biting wind we were both in our big coats! After this picture was taken and once the night fell a little bit we put Max's black jacket on. The three girls were warm!


Meanwhile, we had three fires going for our first night of cooking. We brought the great, green egg grill from home as well as our big boil pot. All three were going at the same time.

First on the Beach

While generally we do not put pictures of people on the blog, this picture features Maxine with each of us oddly featured in the photo. Jimmy is obvious, my role (photographer) obvious as well. Maxine is tethered to Brett's feet, peeking into the bottom right corner. The white mug seems larger than it is and holds Linda's needed cup of coffee. They left at about 2:30 AM from NYC to get here!

Maxine curls up with Brett on the beach with a cold wind blowing even though the sky was clear. Sunday is supposed to be the coldest day here so it looks like our February gamble paid off: good weather and no people!

Port Aransas 2009

Another late season Port Aransas trip with a new poop bag installation at the Laughing Horse Lodge. It is all the rage this year and a fine addition to an already wonderfully dog friendly place. We think this is year number five at Port A and year number four at the Laughing Horse Lodge.

This is a great welcome picture of Maxine in front of the lodge. Beautiful sunny day! And Jimmy turning to look at Linda and Brett as they drove up to meet us - coming from New York to Houston, Houston to Corpus Christi, Corpus by car to Port Aransas. Thanks for making the long trip, I am sure it will be worth the long haul!

Hope and Bonding in a Magic Patch of Sun

Sometimes, Simone can be sweet to Lulu.

But only in a sun patch!

Marley's Quest for Cats

It is no surprise that Marley is obsessed with the cats when she is over here. We use gates to maximize the choices the cats have and they are often quite bold (or stupid) when making those choices. Marley just watches them and wonders how she can get closer to them. I am not even sure of her motives, i think it is pure curiosity. What would she do if she "got" one?

Photo Shoot

Look at the pretty girl!

Bored With Bones

The Girls Get Bones

Saturday morning the girls each got a big bone. They were enjoying them and working on them for quite some time. This was a really nice early morning treat! The rain had stopped for just long enough to enjoy them.



After awhile, Maxine went slowly over to where Marley was gnawing on her bone. I didn't know if Marley would get protective over her bone so we watched carefully to see what was going to happen. Shortly after I took this picture, Max grabbed Marley's bone and took it to where she was, now gnawing BOTH bones!

Marley didn't complain or try to fight it at all. They just kind of calmly had the changing of the bones. Awhile later, Marley simply went up and took both bones (one at a time) from Maxine and she had her gnawing session with both bones. Pretty darn funny!

Marley Stays the Weekend!

Lulu vs. Criminal Investigation

Jimmy was studying criminal investigation the other night and Lulu started attacking his book!

Max Sneaks into the Truck

If you look really closely into the open part of the truck you can see Maxine chilling in the back seat. We were not quite ready to go anywhere but Jimmy had been loading up the truck when we saw her from inside. He commented, "Maybe instead of getting a dog house we can get an old broken down rusty car for her to hang out in outside." Pretty funny!

Having the truck in the backyard is a novelty since we just got an automated front gate.

Help With The Taxes

If you have been following this blog at all, you know that if nothing else the Black Radishes are a very helpful bunch. Especially when it comes to things like taxes! I was working on our tax documents tonight and Lulu wanted to play. She sat quietly like this for about five seconds and then she started playing with my pencil, rustling around the papers, moving from one stack of papers to the other, playing with my hair. For some reason, though, when Koof is like this it is very very endearing. Who doesn't want to play instead of doing their taxes or homework?

A Night With Marley Bob

Max and I went over to see Marley last night. Marley was excited to see us. She and Max started playing really hard, boxing like kangaroos, rolling in the grass, mouth on necks, snarling, and of course Maxine's favorite - chasing!



Toward the end of the night, we spotted Maxine (in this last picture) doing her stalking maneuver. She gets really low and still. Marley plays right along as you can see her staring right at her in the picture.




Then Max moves slowly as if she was sneaking up on her, creeping toward her. Then they freeze and stare each other down until one breaks form and just starts playing. It is pretty funny!

Helping

Alas, not much work got done this session!

"Sometimes the help is the kind of help that helping is all about, and sometimes the help is the kind of help we all can do without!"
-Free to Be You and Me