Nothing new to report, Abby girl has been very good, only getting into a little bit of trouble.  Now that I have said that, watch out, I am sure she will be into some trouble here soon.

We did, however do something we should have not done.  We brought home a 6-week-old puppy.  I know, as if we don’t have enough on our hands with Abby.  Well, she came with a “return if it does not work out” clause. Well, Abby was just too rough with her; she only weighed in, at maybe 2 pounds, and was so tiny.  We were afraid that Abby would break her neck, as Abby kept trying to go for the little ones neck, not being mean at all, just wanting to play like she does with Maggie.

The puppy wanted to play with Abby, and would run and try to get at Abby’s paws, but we had to watch both of them every minute.  We kept her overnight and with tears in my eyes returned her the next morning.  She was a Chinese Crested Powder Puff.  They only get to about 10 pounds so she would have been very small compared to Abby and Maggie.  That’s OK, its nice with just the two dogs, especially with Sweet Abby Girl; she is enough, all in herself.

Well, miss Abby has been on a roll.  A few days ago I was getting ready for bed, I turned on the TV in our room, and apparently I left the TV remote out, yes Abby got it, and chewed two buttons out of the remote, and damaged about six of the other ones.  Well, the two she chewed out of the remote were the most used buttons, which made it difficult to use.  So the next day I was off to Comcast to replace the remote.  No questions asked, gave me a new remote and I was on my way.  All was good for a day, then the following day I was cooking dinner and did not pick up the remote in the family room.  We finished dinner, walked into the family room, and there on the floor was the remote, with the same two buttons chewed off, as well as other ones damaged.  So off to Comcast again with this remote, the lady behind the desk said, Wow what happened?  I just said my dog got it; she just looked at me, and gave me another remote.  I was so embarrassed, and pretty much felt like a dork.  Thank goodness it was a different person who helped me this time.

Well, the buttons on the remotes are silicone, and we all know Abby just cannot resist silicone no matter how small or big, she is going to get at it.  Abby just turned five in May, you would think she would outgrow this addiction for silicone. I just think this is something we will have to live with for the rest of her life.  Oh my

A few chapters ago, I told you about the mice in the back yard that Abby had gotten.  Well, for a while we did not see any more mice, until last week, we actually did not see any mice, but Abby did, and she was going nuts trying to get them.  She was digging and digging to try to get under our back fence into our neighbors yard. Not only was she digging, but also she was pacing back and forth along the fence line for hours at a time getting herself all worked up, and she did this for several days.  While she was digging, I was out trying to fill in the holes with no avail at all.  She would come in for a few minutes and rest get a drink of water and back out to the fence. 

When she would come in her paws of course were all muddy and mixed with water it was a mess in the house.  So this past weekend we filled in all the holes, and got a yard and a half of Medium round rock, and put it down all along the fence under the tree.  My husband and I did this all by ourselves so we were tired when we finished.  We sat down for a few minutes to cool off and rest, when all of a sudden my husband said look there is a mouse.  It came from our neighbors yard, under the fence, and seemed a bit confused as to what the hell had happened.  The mouse went back and forth between the two yards for about a half an hour, while Abby was out there with us, but she did not see the mouse.  So my husband went and got some traps, as the last thing we needed is for the mice to get into the house. We have put them out for several nights in a row, and no luck. We are hoping that, what we did took away what the mice were doing in our yard.  Abby has now settled down, she still will go to that spot but does not smell anything and then goes away.  The plus side to all of this is, is that it looks really good out in our yard, so we are going to do the other side of the yard.

A few nights ago I made Spaghetti for dinner.  After dinner I was cleaning up the dishes and putting food away. The spaghetti was too hot to put in the fridge, so I put it in a glass dish with a lid on it, and set it on the counter as far back as it would go. I thought to myself that because it was in the glass dish with a lid she would not smell it or mess with it, silly me.  I needed to go outside, and water my plants, and I was almost done when I heard this crash in the kitchen.  Well, I knew right away what had happened.  I put the hose down and ran to the kitchen, and there on the floor was a huge mess of spaghetti all over the floor, and my floor matt’s.  I scooped up a big handful of the spaghetti, and put it in the sink, while miss Abby was busy eating as much of it as she could before I told her to get out of the kitchen.

I took the matt outside and hosed it off, went back in to mop up the floor and put the dish in the dishwasher, she did not break it, I think because it must have hit the matt first, thank god.  You know she is pretty smart, she knew I was outside and out of reach, and then went in for the kill, so to speak.  She is so tall, and her legs are so long, she just reaches for the dish with her paws and pulls it forward until she gets it off the counter. I am assuming all this as I have yet to see her do it but I can only surmise that is what she is doing.

My husband was not pleased, as he had his mind set for Spaghetti for his lunch the next day.

Boy I have had a nasty summer cold for the past week or so.  The other night I told my husband that Abby has been very good, maybe because she knew I was not feeling well.  Well, my husband said that was not a good thing to say and I should keep that to myself, because now she will get into trouble, well, sure enough that night she got into a box my husband has on the floor next to his chair where he keeps remotes for the TV and stereo. Not only did she get a remote but she had to get the most expensive remote. It is now missing ten buttons three of which are completely gone, and the rest are in very bad shape and cannot be used. Needless to say my husband is not a happy camper about his remote.

Yesterday I went and bought new toilet bowl brushes with holders. Well, silly me I was not thinking when I bought them, they have what I thought was rubber over the tip of the handle; I am thinking it is silicone, because this morning one of them had been chewed up. Some time during the night she went into the bathroom and got the new brush and had a hay day during the night. My husband found it on the floor in the family room this morning.  I know I will blame it on my cold, yea that’s it….

Well, 4^th of July around here was nerve wracking. Abby shook for 4 days and hid behind a chair in the family room. Poor thing, Maggie was pretty good, the fireworks bothered her a little bit until, the night of the 4^th.  If you remember she is a big girl around 108 pounds.  We finally got to bed around 11:30 or so and Maggie got up on the bed with us.

 I am going to backtrack for a minuet. When we brought Maggie home for the first time she was only 4 months old, and feeling very insecure.  She would sleep curled up around my head so she could be close to me, well the night of the 4^th she did the same thing, only she is just about four years old now and, much bigger. I let her stay there for a while until the fireworks stopped.  She did get down when she thought it was safe to do so.

Well, Abby is her old self now.  The 4^th of July we had a BBQ here for family and friends. My son and his family came bring food and goodies. He brought me some dry rub he wanted me to try, so the other day I was going to sit down for a few minutes and I thought I would read the bottles of the dry rub and the new spice he brought me.  I read the bottles and smelled them, put them down so I could go outside and water the plants.  When I came in the house, Abby had gotten the bottle of the rub and chewed the cap, and broke it.  Well, some of the rub came out of the bottle and on the floor.  She got some in her mouth; needless to say she did not like it at all. I went looking for her, she was in her kennel rubbing her mouth, then went out, and got a big drink of water. Thank goodness there was nothing in there that would hurt her, just spices she did not like.  

I am a bit behind in my stories; its summer time and we have had a lot of company.  On Fathers day, we had a BBQ here for all the fathers in our family, along with the families.  Well, dinner was done and we were all sitting in the family room when we heard a loud noise. My husband got up, and ran to the patio door, and outside, and my son in law and I got up and ran to the bedroom, sure enough Abby had gotten into a drawer that was left open by my father in law and got out a lid to my freshvac containers.  I made it to the bedroom before she had a chance to eat the silicone out of the lid. That in it self was amazing, that we got to her before she destroyed the lid.

A few days later, my husband and I were eating our dinner out on the deck, when again he heard a noise. He got up and went in the house; sure enough Abby had gotten in the sink and had gotten a large freshvac container, and was heading off to her kennel in our room.  There was nothing in the container, I had put it in the sink to wash, but she must of thought there was something good in it.  So my husband retrieved it before she did any damage.

Last Thursday, I was out washing my windows around the deck; I had all my supplies on the table, which included a silicone squeegee. That day was a nightmare, I had to leave while my husband was home for lunch, and so he was in charge of locking up the house until I got home.

I was gone for about 2 hrs, came home, changed my clothes, made sure all my supplies were on the table, and was right in the middle of the windows again, when my husband called, and told me I needed to go back to AT&T, again, to get our phones straightened out, again.  I left in a big hurry and forgot to put up my supplies.  Well, you guessed it, when I walked in the door, there on the floor, was the silicone squeegee, or should I say what was left of it. She had eaten at least half of the thing, and the bad part is it was the one we used in the shower for the glass doors. It was the best squeegee we had ever had.  The next day I was off to find another one at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Went to one store, and of course they did not have it, I had to go back to the one I found it at, and sure enough they had the same squeegee, thank goodness.