After Christmas

So we had a christmas party! Ya wanna see the food?

Start off with M&M's, regular and peanut, Hef's dad "prepared" those all by himself. Also we have the toffee popocorn with the peanuts, CRUNCH! We had National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation playing quietly thruout the party.

In the Fireplace room we had a veggie platter and music.

 In the dining room we had our main spread. My lovey Chef Rabbit & Dip from Shell was featured. Also a cheese plate, and a bread bowl.

 We also had ham, pistachio fluff, crescent dogs, corned beef pinwheels, and the Peanut Butter Pie I talked about before. Somehow once all the guests arrived  I had less time for pictures.

Bandit did briefly came out of her cage and sat nicely with me, until a few people who promised they would not try to pet her, tried to pet her and she barked a few times before I told her "Place" which is basically stay and she went to her blanket and calmed down. Shadow was out for the whole party and tried to steal a ham sandwich from Hef's Dad's Uncle. Hef visited and was properly ooh'd over and petted. Hef's Grandpa on Hef's dad's side loves Hef and Hef hung out on his shoulder for a long while until I got nervous he would pee on Granpa's shoulder so then Hef went back upstairs. It was very nice but as you can tell it has left be lagging behind. Will continue to recap Christmas ASAP.

HOPPY HOPPY CHRISTMAS!

It is a little past 8am here! I got up at 7:20 am and made coffee, while it brewed I peeled carrots, not just for Hef but for our party tray tonight. Here is the mandatory dogs in front of the tree photo! They were not very cooperative, since when I back up to take the photo it moves me closer to the kitchen which of course they assume means I am going to get a treat. It's a pretty cute photo anyhow.

 And here is the Heffy Boy! I had put Bandit away for the night, (she sleeps in her crate) and let Hef have some floor time with the remains of our christmas wrappings. Merry Christmas to Hef!

 Best of all! Santa Paws came and our tree is beautiful. We have a good coating of snow outside and nothing more then a sprinkling in the forecast so traveling will be just fine. Have a Hoppy and a Healthy day!

It's Almost Christmas Quick Update

On Friday our dear friends, who babysat Shadow when we went to Boston, who keep me sane at work, and who we are very happy for, got married! It was right here on our little island at the yacht club. Hef's dad and I had a lot of fun and I am really glad they are married. I know they will be very happy together!

 In other belated news, we got a lovely present in the mail from everyone's favorite blog santa, Shell May of The Raspberry Rabbits! Which of course caused what Shell calls "The Happy Bunny Dance", and that was just from seeing her mailing label on the package!

 Shell is always so sweet to treat our pups and Hef as well!  Shadow and Bandit check out their goodies. One is chicken, sweet potatoes, and broccoli, sounds good to me! Shell also sent some carrot chews for Hef, I tucked them into his stocking as an extra surprise on christmas.

 And for lil' ol' me? Shell sent these adorable S&P rabbits. They are really funny, when I stick them on the fridge they turn upside down! We had kinda sorta look like rabbit s&p grinders but they were really bad at grinding. These new rabbits are great! They will come in handy with all my christmas and future cooking!

Just had to share!

Check it out everyone! There is Hef and Bandit! Everyone calm, everyone cool! Bandit is doing Place which is our trainers version of stay basically. So I used Hef's bunny blanket and put Bandit in Place while I hung up clothes and cleaned up Hef's cage. We had our last training lesson yesterday and we are very happy with the training. In case I didn't mention it or you forgot, Bandit used to push past me into Hef's room and run crazy circles around Hef's cage. Now it is peaceful and she really didn't even want to do Place. Bandit didn't even want to walk in the room! Training accomplished!

10 Days to go! Are you ready?

10 days until Christmas! Are you ready? Yes? Well I don't want to hear about it then! I am such a sucker for holidays and this one should be a biggie! We are having a Christmas Dinner Party and I will admit I am a bit nervous about how Bandit will react to all those people. We are working on Place right now, which is basically Stay on this mat right here. I was discouraged at first because our trainer was showing us some fishing reel type manuever with the leash and we couldn't get the hang of it. So we took the leash off and just point to the mat, much easier and Bandit did really well even with Hef on the couch! Anyhow I heard some of you luckies don't have snow. Here are some of my snow pictures:
I snapped a quick one of the house before work yesterday, of course then it snowed all day so we have more snow!

 This was at work yesterday from one drive-thru window to the other. My camera has a really neat Snow setting represented by a little Snowman in the corner so I tried it out.

 I was trying to capture the kinda "white-out" conditions out there without opening the window and freezing. As luck would have it I can freeze inside the store pretty well too. The heating that covers the back of Wendy's is not exactly working and the high temp on the thermostat was 51 yesterday. Stay warm everybody!

Tree? Check! Other stuff? Not so much!

Yes! We got our tree decorated, its so nice! I still need to mail my christmas cards! Isn't that awful? However we have only gotten a few cards from others so I don't feel so bad. I need a couple gifts still, argh! In other news its cold! Also its snowing and windy, thats not really fun when you work at a drive thru restaurant. However my tree is lovely! I'm just going to curl under a blanket and stare at the tree. I hope my boss doesn't mind!

One Happy Mama

Oh the wonders of remote collar training! Yesterday I walked Shadow and Bandit by myself after work. The way our route is we leave the house which is second to last on the dead end, go up our street, and walk down the other street, turn around and go back, it's kind of an L. On our way back there was a dog in the chain fenced yard of the corner house across the street. It was a little dog, probably ten lbs or so, but in the past that has not mattered to Bandit. Usually she growls and rears and barks, not yesterday! She looked, and Shadow looked but no one barked and we kept on walking. I am just amazed! YAY DOG TRAINING!

Stary Pup Happy Ending!

So as most of you know Hef's dad drives me to work on his way to work and drops me off early. Usually I come in and blog here to you fine folk. Well this morning trotting in front of the building was a beautiful red Siberian Husky. Well, I looked around no owner trailed behind. I got out of the car and a worker at the Tim Hortons' (a coffee place attached to wendy's) was trying to catch him and eventually we got a hold of his collar. I took the strap from my laptop bag and clipped it on to the dog's collar. Then I called the number on the ID tag, but it was out of service. Then I called Animal Control who's number I keep in my phone, and they knew who the owner was! I waited outside in the 19 degree weather and the owner's brother picked him up. The dog, Toby, was happy to go with them and I'm glad to help out. Lesson to learn here? Keep your ID tags up to date!

Training Update

WOW! That about sums it up! We had our first for real training session, on Saturday. It was amazing. We learned all about our Dogtra collar and then go to work. We worked on come/heel and already I have noticed changes. Bandit has not growled at Shadow at all. Shadow growled at Bandit for laying on her tail! Sisters will always fight about something! So we have been praticing the Come command around the house and in the yard, the hardest part is once we start a training session she catches on quick to what we are doing and will just stay heeled. Now when I am home I wait for Bandit to go upstars or somewhere and call her. Results are very quick. I feel Bandit is less like "What do I do? What do I do?!" and more like "Ma, what do you want me to do? I'll do it!" Pretty soon I think Bandit will be giving Rin Tin Tin a run for her money!
As for Shadow? She's going to take a nap!

Feeling like the White Rabbit again...

Ya know the White Rabbit in Disney's Alice in Wonderland? All running around I'm late, I'm late!! Instead I'm going around I'm busy, I'm busy! Christmas is coming so much to do! We are having a christmas night party again, which will be the test of Bandit's training as well as a lot of fun! Here is our tree, we got it last night, its a Fraiser Fir!

 And here is our latest ornament! A little Bandit! Its the only one on the tree since we are waiting for the branches to fall. 

Also, I made Jade's Italian pulled pork, but ya know what I used? Canned zucchini! Yum! And our Island Grocery Store did not have the canned tomatoes Jade recommended, I had to get sauce with Italian herbs, oh well. And I used McCormick italian spices cause I already had those in the pantry.

That's it and it was yummy, we ate it over spaghetti.

And last night while Hef's dad put the tree up I decided to try a Manhattan. It was quite lovely! Also it was very simple, a measure of canadian whiskey, a half measure of sweet red vermouth, and a dash of bitters, stir it up over ice in the shaker, strain, garnish and enjoy!

Did somebody ask for Hef?

I missed Hef too! We had some bun snuggles this morning and we had the good sense to take a few photos for the fans. Take your Hef medicine!

 I am not going to be the one to explain to Hef that his stocking is not hung because we need another stocking hook, but he didn't seem to mind.

 Do you like our christmas tree? I wanted to get a real one last week but we did not! This one works well for Hef though.

"Ok, fill my stocking up now!"