Dear Readers,

I hope you don’t think I’ve been ignoring you. It’s just been a busy time trying to fit in all my activities and caring for Momma. After her numerous trips out of town, we are finally getting into our summer patterns again: a little bit of adventure, some embarrassment and a scary moment or two!

Up north to the lake

On Memorial Day weekend, Momma and I headed north to our cabin at Pine Lake. Momma wanted to take Sparky to show it off to her friends and family, but after suffering a panic attack in Duluth when she could not find a Tesla Supercharger and her charge bar had gone into the “orange,” she is understandably skittish about straying too far from home with it. So we took what she now calls “The Tank” and off we went!

Soon after we arrived, Momma’s nephew and family arrived and the fun, and the tormenting of me, started. We had a great time, even with the teasing from the Norgaard males. Here I am hiding under the glider to get a break.

The girls are nice, however, and here I am helping Jenny and Addie plant flowers, giving Jenny kisses and seeking refuge with Addie during a thunderstorm.

Agility update

Momma and I have also resumed our agility training this spring, and I continue to attend an intermediate class. One of the things Annelise and other class participants have finally driven home to Momma is that I need “high value” treats to entice me to engage. So the other day, Momma looked up recipes for dog training treats and found what she thought was the easiest one to make: Doggie Hotdogs. One ingredient. Perfect. How hard could it be?

Well, a little more difficult than one might think. Momma got through the first step okay — cutting the wieners into 1/8″ slices, then cutting them into halves or quarters (which she selected to keep the calories down) for training purposes. Then cooking them in the microwave on paper towels. Where she ran into trouble was that the instructions called for cooking them on high for five(!) minutes, then stirring them up for even cooking and continuing to microwave them for three(!) more minutes.

Now, I think that anyone who has ever used a microwave before knows that nuking the little tidbits of wieners for eight minutes (on high!) would annihilate them, but Momma didn’t seem to grasp that. So she proceeded on course until the little bits were like chunks of charcoal (see photo right). Very low value as treats, needless to say. Having no other choice, Momma made another batch and only slightly overcooking the wieners this time (“I don’t think three minutes is too much, do you, Lina?”), and I had my treats, which Momma proudly announced to the whole class.

By the way, later in class, Momma luckily avoided what might have been her most embarrassing moment ever. Annelise had spotted something near the dog walk and asked, “did someone have their nails done recently?” Momma, remembering that she had just had a mani-pedi that day (and wondering how Annelise knew), almost blurted out “I did,” before she came to her senses and realized Annelise was talking about a dog and a spot of blood from a nail trimming. Not sure we could have ever overcome that one.

A turtle and more

Early Friday morning, Momma took me out to the front yard to go potty, when I spotted a humongous snapping turtle. It was huge and scary and I put on the brakes. Momma looked over at me and asked impatiently, “now what, Lina?” Then she saw him/her/it (I want to be sensitive to the turtle’s preferred pronoun here), and actually screamed and whisked me off to the back yard. This morning we saw the giant turtle laying eggs outside our front door. Oh yippie, thought Momma, a herd of baby snappers!

And then there was this. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Momma got this screenshot of a MN CRIME Tweet from a friend who lives on Crystal Lake. The posting declared that a 3-5′ alligator had been spotted in our lake by the swimming beach.

Well, there goes our summer.

Lina, Housebound

WOOFDA!