{14march2011: styling}

We got an award!  Our dear friends Remi and Sherman and Leroy awarded us with the Stylish Blogger Award!

Thanks Remi, Sherman and Leroy!  You're a few styling dudes yourselves!


So in keeping with the award we need to share 7 things you don't know about Darwin.
1.  Darwin does not like raw chicken.  Cooked chicken she's all for, but try and put a piece of raw chicken in her bowl, and she won't eat till you remove it.
2.  Darwin gets spooked by small (tiny) dogs.  It must be their large personalities, but when we pass a small dog she'll go out of her way to avoid getting too close to a tiny dog.
3.  Darwin is the most high energy Dane we know.  Three hours at the dog park Sunday = ready to go Monday.  All day at day care Tuesday = ready to go Tuesday night & Wednesday.  All day play date with her brother Thursday = ready to go Friday.  Hour walk + hour at the dog park Saturday = ready to go Sunday morning.
4.  Darwin will never be a search and rescue dog.  We play the "hide the treat on dad" game and it's amazing how long it takes Darwin to find the cookie or treat.  It's like she has no sense of smell.  We'll need to video tape it one day.
5.  Darwin's brain has grown from pea size to grape size because she can solve her birthday brain game puzzle by Kyjen in less then a minute.  We'll need to get a more complicated one soon!
6.  Darwin's now eating grain free kibble!  We've recently switched her to Acana Pacifica like her brother Boo eats and can I just say, small poops are lovely!  
7.  When Darwin comes to work with us and we walk around at lunch time, she now prefers to pee as we cross streets.  We'll be halfway through a cross walk and she'll stop and squat right there.  How embarrassing.

And now, we're supposed to pass this award on... but it seems as though almost everyone has got it already, but if you haven't, we'll share it with you!!!

{02march2011: wordless Wednesday}

Birthday presents from Remi and Memphis edition:

Thanks Remi and Memphis for the yummy gifts!

{16feb2011: reunion party part 2}

Did you see the first part of the birthday/family reunion?  Well here's part two!


Once we got the pupcakes handed out and gobbled down, we headed in the park so everyone could relax and have a good time.
Darwin had given Boo Radley a birthday gift of a rubber monkey which he proudly carried through the park (the whole time).

Carrying a monkey makes you a very popular fellow.
{Gino goes in for his brothers monkey}

{Olive (not related, but sister to Kona) tries her turn at it}

{Darwin's turn to try and steal it, while Olive and Porky (brother) watch on. Kona (brother) couldn't be bothered with a monkey}

Darwin was constantly trying to run away from Porky.

But he was very persistant.  

Memphis tried to join in the sibling party time.

And someone left their old yellow lab amongst the group while he barked and barked and barked and barked and barked at the chaos of Danes.  (He was alone, barking nonstop for a good 15 minutes before his owner came back to take him away.)

You can hear the barking yellow lab and see some of the madness in this video.

After a while Porky was distracted by the younger blue, Olive.

He even gifted her with a giant slim trail on her back.

After all of Darwin's barking when he first showed up, Remi was cautious approaching her.

Soon another sister showed up, Sydney!  And her older neice, London. (Sydney's mom's daughter owns London.)

Sydney is so tiny compared to the rest of the siblings (we've met).  You can see how much smaller in this picture (you can also see her neice London in the background with the red collar).

Meanwhile, Porky continued his love affair with Darwin.

And here's more video of the dogs by the water.

Part three to come!

{15feb2011: reunion party part 1}

(446 pictures is a lot of pictures to go through, so we're breaking up Darwin's birthday party/family reunion into parts.)
We were all really excited about the second annual family reunion birthday, so we loaded up the car and headed to the park.

Once we got there I set up the pupcakes (I used the same recipe as last year but made them into cupcakes rather than a sheet cake) and we waited for our guests to arrive.

Remi and his bff (and Darwin's bf for a day) Memphis were the first to arrive.  Darwin greeted them like a diva... barking and barking and barking.  It was her party and she could bark if she wanted to. 

Then brothers and sisters started arriving. 

{Porky behind his dad, Boo Radley and Gino}

Porky isn't fixed and was fixated on Darwin all day long.  You can see from Darwin's face she wasn't too into the incestuous attention from her brother.

Kona and his sister Olive (an 8 month old blue Kristie helped rehome) showed up.

Olive was really excited to see Boo again.

Bella and her little older brother Jefferson showed up.

We were waiting for Sydney and her older niece London (a blue Dane also), but all the dogs were getting crazy barking and wanting to play so we quickly handed out the pupcakes (it was too chaotic to even get pictures) and headed into the park!

Part two to come!

{10jan2011: Christmas goodies}

Darwin made out well this Christmas.  Besides the free treats from All The Best that I regifted and wrapped, Darwin got a lot of other great goodies.

Since we were going on vacation and would be missing Christmas day with Darwin, we opened gifts early (as early as I would let Jason) and Darwin had a hand (or mouth) at opening her own gifts.
Remi sent her a package she couldn't wait to get into.

{bully sticks!!! my favorite (that my mom and dad don't even get for me)!!!}



Thanks Remi!
Yes, we're awful mean doggy parents and don't buy Darwin bully sticks very often, but we can't handle the stink!  We're going to have to try the stink free ones Twinkie recommended.  

{roaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr!!!}

While we were visiting Jason's family Darwin got more gifts from her grandparents.

Her own personalized tote bag and pillow.  I love the tote bag I must say.

Starbarks!  So cute!  And it barks!  Well, it used to bark until Darwin de-barked it.  

We had a white elephant gift exchange and I won Rudolph the red nosed reindeer for Darwin.  Instead of hard plastic eyes, he had a hard plastic nose, and now Rudolph is the noseless reindeer.

We thought Christmas was past, but last week Darwin received another gift, this time from Remi's sister, Nala!

And look at the goodies!  Another bully stick!  And a flying squirrel!

  

Thanks Nala!

All the bully sticks have been consumed and 90% of the stuffed toys have been at least partly destuffed.  The squirrel is the last toy standing!

{11oct2010: Oktoberfest}

A few weeks ago we went to the annual Fremont Oktoberfest.  Sunday was Dogtoberfest, the one day dogs are allowed at the festivities, so we made sure to be there.  I had talked to Remi's mom a few weeks early and they were running the brew-ha-ha 5k so we knew we'd see each other down there.


We were bad dog owners and didn't take Darwin to a park first to wear her down, and so when we got there she was a nut!  She was good walking on her leash, but very hyped up especially when we saw other dogs.  It was embarrassing (note to self, always tire Darwin out before going some place social) to be "those" dog owners with the seemingly out of control barky dog.  
Remi didn't mention it in his blog post, but when we saw Remi, Darwin went crazy!  It was quite a scene, and so we quickly parted ways with Remi and his parents, and went to find a table we could sit at to let Darwin take in all the activities from a distance.



Darwin did get a lot of attention from people walking by.

And even got some funny glances.

After hanging out for a couple hours, she finally calmed down and was able to greet other dogs without barking at them.


She even managed to ignore this cute Australian Shepherd puppy hanging out at the other end of the table from us.

Darwin even eventually LAID DOWN OUTSIDE on the grass.  She never does that!

Since she was behaving herself we thought we'd let her taste some beer and clean up any spills.



What started as a rough outing (sorry Remi!) ended up being pretty fun and we learned a valuable lesson... a tired dog is a good dog.


**just found the official Oktoberfest image gallery and there are a couple shots of Remi and Darwin!  Go to the Dogtoberfest page and you can browse the fun pups that were there.