Thursday, June 30, 2011

Happy Campers

I'm not sure how I am ever going to move back to my lovely city home in the fall, because the bulldogs are in heaven and by the time summer ends, we will have been here 5 full months. September is going to be a rough transition...

The first week of camp was last week and it rained every single day. My dogs will roll in a puddle, jump in a lake, and splash in their pool, but if there is even a tiny bit of rain coming from the sky, I can't drag them out of the house. This week, it's been much nicer weather, and aside from the 2 hours a day that sports is on the field with a ball (which both Olivia and Griffin will steal and pop at the first opportunity), they are free to roam around camp freely.

Today was sweltering and they were stuck in the house most of the day, except for swimming. They were very unhappy with me, and I felt bad, but the house is cool and I knew that even in my office or outside, they would overheat. Some dogs live in a kennel for hours and hours every day or live on the street. My dogs have a pile of bones, the couch they lounge on all day, treats, freezie pops Nurse Julie gives them every day, visits from staff, and yet, today they were feeling very mistreated. They were brave and managed to suffer through the hardships...

Walk?! Not these bulldogs!!
They ride shotgun and are driven door to door...

Being the boss means that the staff have to be nice, even when
 the activity they are teaching gets interrupted by a sassy puppy...

Loving the beach on a hot day.

At the beach...
Griffin is quite the swimmer
Also loving the beach...



Olivia's favorite time of the day is when she
gets attention from a field full of campers 
Griffin's favorite time of the day is when he is the center of attention

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Exhausted Bulldogs

On Friday, we completed our 10 day staff training. Training was 8am-9pm every day and by the time we were finished, everyone was pretty exhausted, including the Camp Dogs. 

About halfway through the week, I went into my room to grab my pajamas before taking a shower and didn't realize, until I turned on the light, that at some point, Griffin had gotten into bed, under the covers, head on the pillow and tucked himself in for the night. When I turned on the light, he looked up at me like, "turn that off! I'm sleeping!" We have the same routine every night, including a potty break outside and then me lifting both dogs into bed, so I was really surprised and amused. Apparently staff training was wearing him out.

Last night I was finishing up some work, talking on the phone and realized neither dog was anywhere in sight. I walked down the hall and heard snoring. Earlier in the day, I'd washed all of my bedding and when it was clean, I had just thrown it all in a big heap onto my bed, planning to make it later.

Apparently they both decided to go to bed, couldn't get onto my bed and so they went into the empty spare room and I found them, totally asleep, in the dark, snoring. I often wonder what goes on in their minds...

Friday, June 3, 2011

Crabby Camp Dog

This is a photo of Olivia during lifeguard training today. Because my house is one of two tvs at camp, I rearrange my living room for CPR and lifeguard training. I turned the couch around so the dogs could still lay down, and also to make a wall between us and them (it's difficult to practice CPR when a bulldog is licking your face and the mannequin).

This arrangement was NOT pleasing to Olivia. She screeched and barked and jumped off the back of the couch twice, so completely unhappy about her life one might have thought she was being tortured.

After several hours (and being sent outside for time out several times), she calmed down. She had to be touching someone at all times, but she eventually calmed down.

Oh the difficult life of a camp dog...

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Frogs and Dogs...

Olivia "supervising" as we run internet cable
to the Welcome Center
Monday was the beginning of 3 straight weeks without a day off- summer is officially here and we are getting ready for staff to arrive (tomorrow!) and soon after that, campers!

For now, Olivia and Griffin are helping me and the Lead Staff as we organize camp (see photo). Olivia has an opinion about everything and tends to micro manage, while Griffin prefers the technique of attempting to occupy exactly the same space as whomever he is following at the moment. Luckily I'm the boss and so my staff have to be nice to them (also, I have the nicest, most patient staff in the world), otherwise, I'm pretty sure one (probably both) of them would have been kicked by now.

As I am too busy to think of any cute stories from this week, here's one from last year.

Dogs and Frogs
Monday, June 21, 2010

11:30pm, last night. After a very long, exhausting first day of camp, I let the dogs out one last time before I could fall into bed. After a few minutes of hanging out and not going potty like mommy wanted, I went outside to drag them in.

As I walked outside, I must have spooked a very large (like the size of my fist) toad. When Olivia saw it, she became a wild animal hunter and attempted to go after it. Just as I grabbed her, shouting, "no!" Griffin pounced and had the entire thing in his mouth. The thought of one of my babies eating a giant toad is gross and awful, but I also remembered something about toads possibly being poisonous, so of course I was frantically trying to get it away from him. But less than 10 seconds of having it in his mouth, Griffin spit it out himself and then started foaming at the mouth.

Panicked, my first instinct was to run inside to do a quick google search. And yes, my memory was correct, some toads are poisonous. Some are not poisonous, but have really bitter skin to deter predators. Without actually seeing it, I didn't know which we were dealing with, so I dragged Griffin over to the hose and started flushing his mouth out like the website had said to do. Griffin thought we were playing and must not have ever seen a hose before, because he was happily biting at the water stream, flinging his giant, slobber-filled cheeks around, getting both of us completely wet.

There I was standing in the dark, yelling at Olivia to stop looking for the toad, yelling at Griffin to let me spray out his mouth, soaking wet, muddy, frantic, with two wet muddy dogs, hoping none of my staff could see or hear the ridiculousness. It might be funny if it wasn't such a typical experience in my life of insanity...
(epilogue- Griffin is fine, so I don't think it was the poison kind)