Welcome home committee!

Well any dog owner knows when you are gone for part of the day, and come driving down the driveway you always have a welcome home committee. These two are the Official welcome to Coffee Lake Farm Greeters, Tootsie and Smarkle, they meet me about 50 yards from the house and then run alongside the truck, or in front of it sometimes.

They anxiously await for my door to open and then both of them have their feet on the rocker panel and their heads in my face, welcoming me home each and every time I am gone, for work or otherwise. It is great to be so loved

The next thing they do though is make sure they sniff around, to make sure I don't have some leftover lunch sitting close by. Since I am in my truck for work a lot, I eat on the go, so a few french fries or part of a sandwich, may just be laying around, is the thought that races through their little heads! If there is of course, they get it, which of course makes them even happier.

Tootsie is our whiner, she is constantly whining, about going out or coming in, and since she is older she really doesn't like to be outside unless, I am outside especially when it is cold.

Smarkle, is just pure puppy energy, she runs to do everything, when she follows my lawn tractor around she runs ahead and then runs back then ahead again, checks on if Tootsie is following, bothers her then runs way ahead to where she thinks I might go, if I turn she runs back twice as fast. Needless to say I wish she would share some of it some days. Her other passion is to retrieve of course, and we have numerous tennis balls floating around the yard, although many of them are under a foot of snow or in a pile of pushed up snow now. With the cold, they become frozen round ice cubes with her slobber on them, so now she has opted to play fetch with an old plastic batting cage softball size ball. Which is hard, but doesn't collect moisture and stays relatively clean. So if I stop in one place to long when she has the ball it ends up rolling between my feet or over them. Nice thing about this ball it rolls good on the compacted ice and snow of our plowed out yard, meaning it goes a ways before she can slow it down to pick it up! But of course she runs faster to pick it up, and then slows down on her way back to relish the prize she has retrieved. The problem is she can do this for along time, before she gets tired and it's to cold to stand around and play fetch, but we do a little every night!

When, I do my chores outside, they follow me around, and Smarkle, is always trying to get Tootsie to wrestle or play by chewing on her collar or grabbing on her back legs, but Tootsie just ignores her for the most part I have tried to minimize Smarkle's efforts by keeping her busy with me playing fetch or just petting her as we walk around the yard.

When I come in the house, they come into the back porch where there beds are, and I go to my treat bin that is outside and bring in a treat, and after they sit for me, which is like lighting fast, they get their treat and start crunching on them immediately. After that they settle down and a lot of times Smarkle will cuddle with Tootsie for a nice nap or the night!

There will be many more posts on these two.

Weather today about -5 overnight last night and about 15 above today, sounds the same for the next few days, maybe even a little warmer during the days!