Echo & Me

Here's an updated shot of Echo sitting beside me. This should give you a prety good idea on just how big he's getting!



Also some pics of the football in Buffalo the other weekend. I didn't take many and didn't bring it into the game because of the crappy weather, but it gives you an idea of some of the mayhem happening in the parking lot. The pictures don't nearly do it justice. Remember that this is only one parking lot which is not even part of the stadium lot, and it didn't get quite a full as last year seemed to. The stadium is way in the background to the left of the second picture below.

edit

I was told that it's the "Wellesley Apple Butter and Cheese Festival". Not Apple, Butter, Cheese. Apple butter. As in, apple-flavoured butter. or something.
Anyway, they had fun, apparently!

ramblings

The busy weekends continue... Last weekend was actually a really nice one as the rain held off and it warmed up a bit. I got most of the lattice up on the fence as a result, so I was pretty pleased with that. And the football game was fun. The Jet's won, so Chris was happy -- first time they won for him since he started going to them. It rained a bit and was really windy so that wasn't great, but it was a fun time.

Tonight Marnie and I are heading to Toronto for the harbor cruise and meeting with her friend Jane for coffee before we set sail. It should be fun! My friend Chris is watching Echo for us while we're gone -- he'll get to experience the one hour of "crazy" time Echo has been doing every night for the last few weeks. I hope he doesn't wreck or eat anything on them (2 cats to go after)!

Then tomorrow morning Marnie wants us to take Braeden and Echo to the Wellesley Apple, Butter and Cheese festival (Wellesley is 10 minutes from Baden), but I don't think I'll have time as I have to pack and get ready. I'm leaving for Savannah, GA for a week. Hopefully the weather will be a lot nicer than it is here! It's been really cold this week -- we actually had FROST this morning on the roof tops! winter is definitely coming... :( I'm looking forward to the trip, but not as well. It's a long time to be gone from Marnie and Echo, and I really want to get some more done in the backyard before it just gets too cold. Also, I'm going to miss Dad's Open House on Sunday. We both missed the get together at Teresa's house with Dad last weekend because of the football game. Maybe when I get back we'll have family over for dinner. It's been too long!
I am kind of looking forward to seeing first hand how much Echo grows in a week. Everyone who sees him has the "wow" factor if they haven't seen him in a while. He is definitely a "big dog" now, but still very much a puppy.

The Weekends Are Nuts!

I'd like to know when the weekends "slow down". I don't remember a weekend this year where we just relaxed and did "nothing". It's been either working on the deck/fence going away somewhere, or running around doing something else. Crazy! The kind of weekend where you sleep in and laze-around (the Dog took care of that option), then maybe watch TV for a while and eat breakfast at noon. I miss them! And I don't think they'll be back for a while, if at all. :(

Last weekend I had a baseball tournament on Saturday - we lost in the semi's, and then we worked in the yard on Sunday.

This Saturday I am hopefully going to be able to finish the fence on the one side -- yes it's STILL not done (I might take a day next week to finish up some stuff), but it's also calling for rain all weekend, so who knows if I'll even get stuff out of the garage? We decided to purchase cedar lattice for the top so that it semi-matched our neighbours side and started to put that together last weekend but then ran out of day light. Damn winter months! While getting that at Rona, Marn noticed that they had all their trees and shrubs 50% off of their already on-sale prices, so we stocked up on some plants for the backyard side garden. Marn split our daisies and black-eyed susan's and dug up a few other things that were getting crowded in front, and moved them to the back. It's going to look nice next year if it all survives!

On Saturday night we are baby-sitting for Dave and Candace for a few hours and then either that night, or 6am the next morning heading to Burlington to meet up with friends because we're going to Buffalo to watch an NFL game. Buffalo Bill's vs. N.Y. Jet's. We did this last year and it was a lot of fun - especially the tailgating party. You should see the gadgets and food and beer people bring to this thing! It's almost better than the game itself. Anyway, our friend Chris is a huge Jet's fan, so this is the one time a year that he gets to see them. It's also fun watching the Bill's fans bad-mouth him because of allegiance to the other team. :)

Next weekend, we're taking a Toronto Harbour Cruise on Friday night because Marn could get cheap tickets through the hospital, and then I leave for Savannah for a week. We've had these tickets for a while, and meant to go in the summer, but kind of forgot about them. Next weekend is the last weekend that they run the cruise and the last weekend that we can go, so we better dress warm!

On the Echo front, he is getting big and strong - about 70 lbs now and taller than most (all?) labs we come across. He's skinny, though. Labs are short and fat. Echo's tall and long and skinny. He's also showing more and more "puppy tendencies". Things that he just didn't do a month ago. Let me give you a few examples:
- eating rolls of toilet paper off the holders.
- eating used tissue paper out of the washroom waste baskets.
- still eating lots of mulch from all gardens.
- for no apparent reason, gets a huge burst of energy and starts tearing around the house like a crazy dog barking and growling around furniture and his crate (this is REALLY funny to watch, but he sometimes gets too out of control and we have to hold him to settle down). Marn calls this his Witching Hour.
- he's getting "hand-hungry" again -- mouths our hands when you pet or reach for him. He never bites hard, but it's annoying.
- humps only Marnie, and on occasion his stuffed animals (just last night he did that). He hasn't humped me yet.
- pulling a LOT more on walks now and is wanting to sniff and check everything out, especially if there are people or other pets within sight (even 300 yards away).

We start level 2 training with him near the end of October which gives us a little less than 1 month to continue with the level 1 stuff. We need to work on "come", "stay" and walking on a loose leash a lot more.
And finally, we have to either take or find a really good picture of him to send in to our trainer. She's putting together a 2007 calendar of her 'clients' and asked us all to send in pictures. She really likes Echo, so that may help him make it! Pics are due mid-October. I'm not sure if we're going to go for a "themed" picture, or what, but we're only allowed to send in one. I think with the fall season here, it'd be easy to take a nice photo with trees and their leaves changing colour in the background.

Loose Change - 2nd Edition

I highly recommend that you view this video. You'll need an hour and 20 minutes to see it, but it's worth every minute. I came across it last night before bed, but didn't see it all, then just watched the last 30 minutes or so.

You've probably seen the short clips of the conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the pentagon, but this goes way beyond that. It's really well done, although a little fuzzy to read the text at times and the narrator is not great. I am now a believer that the US government and other "high profile" people had prior knowledge about 9/11 and that they know WAY more than they are letting the public see. Especially about the theory of the two towers being Controlled Demolitions. I know, hard to believe, but the official stories out there just don't add up.

Loose Change - 2nd Edition

Champion Puppy

Echo just completed Level 1 "puppy class" this past Thursday and you'll never guess how he did. Well, assuming that you didn't read the title of this post... he finished 1st! Ok, so that doesn't really mean that much because only 4 of 8 dogs came out to the last class, and it doesn't mean he was the best. The instructor had a little obstacle course set up where we had to perform certain things with the dog. Walk a figure 8, sit, down, stand, stay, "come", and other things. Well, he finished that course the fastest of all the other dogs which is pretty unbelievable because he's so slow and dopey compared to most of the other dogs. Anyway, we were proud "parents"! :)


I also wanted to post some updated pictures because he's getting so big now. He's 4 months old and now is 63 lbs. Weighed him tonight, so that's pretty accurate. He's eating 6.5 cups of food per day which should hold pretty steady for a bit because we're still moving him to a new food which is a little more nutritious (and expensive).

Here is Echo posing on the deck and showing off the completed side of the fence as well as showing us his new game of running out in the backyard, taking a mouthful of mulch and then avoiding us when we try and grab it from him.... fun game - not! He inevitably eats too much and barfs because of it... If we ignore him, this is what happens. So like "bad" parents, we semi-bribe him with a cookie to "come" so that we can take the crap out of his mouth.
Anyway, he's really starting to look like a Dane now, and people are finally saying, "hey is that a dane puppy?!" when we're out on walks.