(www.meowbarkblog.com) — We came home from visiting family last night to find a white explosion all over the kitchen and living room. We should have known better than to leave the flour on the counter in preparation for tonight’s fried chicken dinner. But honestly, what is appealing about 10 lbs of flour? The world may never know. And my rug will never be the same.

My bedspread will never be the same, either, because about an hour after we got home, Pickles projectile-vomited a disgusting green half-liquid, half-paste mixture all over it. Oh, and have you ever used a regular vacuum to suck up 10 lbs of flour? I don’t recommend it. And neither does the manufacturer, I’m sure.

These dogs are VERY lucky we love them so much. Otherwise, we would be selling them to the circus, I swear. Oh, and did I mention how fun it is to clean flour from every surface in your home two days after getting in a car accident and having limited to no mobility due to back injury? It’s a blast.

Previous episodes:

• My Glasses Case
• Prescription Drugs
• A Framed Photo of the Dogs
• Electronics
• A Wallet

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — Okay, so maybe we were a little bored. And tired. And punchy. And maybe we’d both had a few drinks. That’s probably why we thought it would be fun to tie bandanas on Pickles and Murphy.

Meet Babushka Pickles

Murphy is Too Cool for School

“Take THAT, bandana!”

And that’s probably also why Murphy, after taking it off, proceeded to tear it into five pieces after playing a brief bout of tug of war with Pickles.

Time for a new bandana!

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — I didn’t realize exactly how co-dependent our dogs are until Pickles couldn’t be in the same room as Ty for what seemed to her an interminable period of time. This is from the second day he was home, and it’s only gotten more pathetic:

She just sits outside the office door and cries all day when he’s in with me. I think she’s actually making herself sick with sorrow over not being able to lick Ty for cumulative hours daily. They have started napping nose to nose under the gate, but every time I try to take a picture, they move.

I tried holding her in my lap so she could see him, but she went so crazy that I had to put her back out of the room for fear that she would snag his stitches with her insane clawing to get free.

It’s kind of completely heartbreaking.

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — I think that when Pickles dreams, she’s a black pug, Murphy is a Great Dane, and Ty is a giant whose leg doesn’t hurt.

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King

Because yes, now that we can film everything that happens all day we do, here is Pickles with her limited repertoire tricks. See how she does almost everything with hand signals? That’s all me, baby. I rock at training my dog. Just her, though. The other two couldn’t care less about rolling over or even sitting. Oh well. At least I have one talented child, right?

The secret to training Pickles is threefold:

1. Incessant repetition.
2. Lots of patience
3. An endless supply of treats.

No, really. But probably the best thing we have done with training her is to build on thing she does naturally. Every time she laid down, for instance, we threw a party. “Good girl, Pickles! Down! Good girl! Good down! Yay, Pickles! Down! Good girl!” Same with speaking (it helped when we barked, too, to get her started), sitting, and high-fiving. Rolling over was a little trickier because it necessitated basically yanking her legs out from under her and flipping her manually for a while, but she picked it up fast.

What should we teach her next? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

…but they sure hated the present she brought! Check it out as Murphy and Ty make their YouTube debut (and here’s Pickles’ first appearance on YouTube, featuring Isabel).

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — Watch to the end — it’s worth it.

We were the perfect little summer family this weekend. On Saturday afternoon, we slathered on the sunblock, packed some sandwiches and drinks in the cooler, and headed to Lake Anna with dogs in tow. We’d never been there before and neither had they, so it was quite an adventure.

But when we arrived we realized that in our excitement to get on the road, we forgot to bring any toys for the dogs to play with. No tennis balls, no Frisbee, no chew toys, nothing. Oops. The plan had been to launch a tennis ball 25 feet out into the lake and watch the dogs splash with glee as they chased it. There goes that plan.

But they had a wonderful time all the same. It turns out that Pickles is quite the little water rat, and when she wasn’t careening around the beach spraying sand on everyone’s towels and knocking down babies (she totally did — I was mortified), she was swimming like a champ and cutting through the water so fast that I couldn’t even keep up with her.

Ty did great, too, though apparently he’s afraid of water deeper than his chest. The only way we could get him to swim was to sneak him backwards while he fixated on the Frisbee being thrown back and forth by two guys completely oblivious to how interesting they were to my big-headed baby. Once he realized he was treading water, he panicked and streaked for the shore.

After all our good times, they fell asleep before we even got the car out of the parking lot. Alarmingly, though, they were quite full of energy after only a few hours of napping. Next time we’ll have to be sure we don’t forget the toys!

Pickles and Ty’s cousin, shepherd mix Tequila, enjoys their toys during a recent visit…

…while Pickles naps nearby.