livingwithalab

Mike and I made steaks and french fries for dinner a few nights ago.  Allie kept a keen vigil in the kitchen while we prepared our dinner, and then she followed close behind to make sure we did not drop anything or get out of her sight. 

As usual, I left a few french fries for the big lug-nut.  Mike and I took our plates to the kitchen, and I gave Mike my plate for him to give Allie the french fries.  Well, Allie’s exuberance caused Mike to drop the few fries into her water bowl.  She stared, perplexed, at the submerged fries, but she could not figure out how to get the fries out of the water.  She tried to drink the water so that she could pluck them out, but that did not work out.  She next tried to use her paw to dig them out, but again, that did not work.  After having a long laugh, I came to her rescue and plucked the fries out and gave them to her, and she didn’t seem to mind that they were waterlogged and a bit soggy.

Allie is in rare form today.  I told her a moment ago that even a blind person could tell that she is a blonde (my apologies to any blondes who may be reading this blog.) 

Mike left for work at 6:30 a.m. this morning for work, and normally Allie comes downstairs and waits until he leaves, and then she high-tails it upstairs to resume her beauty sleep.  Well … today she wanted to play after Mike went to work, but I wasn’t feeling well enough to rough-house with her. 

Around 11:15 a.m., I took Allie downstairs and fed her.  It was her usual routine – she goes outside, comes in and eats ¼ bowl of dog food, dances around to tell me that she wants back outside, and then she comes back in around ten minutes later and finishes her dog food.  After eating today, she was still acting “hyper,” so I knew she needed a distraction.  I located a hidden tennis ball and gave it to her.  She ran around the house like a crazy dog, but when I wanted her to come upstairs, she would not bring the ball.  She’d drop the ball and run upstairs, but when I told her to get the ball, she’d run down the stairs, pick up the ball and lay down with it.  This went on several times before I grabbed the ball and carried it upstairs – with a very eager blonde following me.  I guess she can’t do two things at the same time!

Here is a short video of Allie …

Recently my Mom made us several bowls of homemade vegetable soup.  Mike and I both heated our bowls in the microwave, and then we took our soup to the living room so that we could watch the Penguins game.  We both sat down, and I sat my plate and bowl on a pillow, and placed the package of crackers beside my plate.  Well, “McSneaky” tried her sneakiness by trying to steal my entire package of crackers.  She definitely got points for craftiness, but I caught her before she snagged the crackers.  She knew she was busted, and without saying a word, she went to her bed and laid down until we were finished eating.

When Mike and I took Allie to the vet a week after we adopted her, she weighed sixty-two (62) pounds, and she was very thin through the hips.  Within a few months, she got to her present weight of around one hundred (100) pounds.  We very rarely fed her table scraps – she ate one bowl of dog food (Dog Chow, Pedigree or Kibbles & Bits) a day.  She’s healthy-looking now, and she gets enough to eat, but that doesn’t stop her from pursuing all avenues of human food. 

One day I was walking from the kitchen to the living room, carrying a McDonald’s cheeseburger, when a very sneaky yellow Lab stole the cheeseburger out of my hand and swallowed it in one bite.  From that day forward, Allie got the nickname “McSneaky!”   

Stay tuned for more of her sneaky attempts on food …

As I’ve posted before, Allie is as sweet as can be, but she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  It’s no matter to us – what she lacks in intelligence, she makes up with curiosity. 

One night I had finished a can of Coke, and had thrown it in the small bathroom garbage can instead of carrying it downstairs to the kitchen garbage can.  Well, the next morning, our “retriever” came sauntering down the stairs carrying the crushed Coke can.  She tried to hide the can because she knew that she was doing wrong, but we caught her red-handed (or is that red-pawed?).  She had the look of a kid caught with its hand in the cookie jar!  I went upstairs to find the garbage can flipped over and garbage strewn about on the floor.  We didn’t need Gil Grissom from CSI to investigate – Allie was conspicuously guilty.  Guilty or not, it was a funny incident, but from that moment on, all food wrappers and containers are taken downstairs to be thrown away.

Here is a picture of the very mischievous Allie.  She is relaxing on her bed (we bring it downstairs in the morning) after an afternoon of mayhem.   Click the link below for the photo.

Allie

As the title implies, Allie does not know how to swim.  Yes, that’s right – my husband and I found the only Lab on earth that does not know how to swim.  She likes to go in water, but only if it is less than a foot (12 inches) deep. 

Mike carried Allie into a swimming pool last summer and I held her by the back so that her head was above water, but she panicked – well, that’s an understatement – she freaked.  If Mike and I both hold her up in the water, she’s less afraid, but she tucks her back legs up close to her body and will not try to swim.  We believe that her abusive, previous owners traumatized her with swimming, among a host of other things in which she was abused. 

So, when it is hot outside and Allie is outside with us, we lightly spray her with the garden hose, and she is just fine with that!

When we first got Allie, she was housebroken (thank God), and she knew how to sit on command.  Well, I was determined to teach her an new trick – shaking hands.  I got out the milk bones, or as my husband calls them, “cookies,” and set out to teach the big lug nut her new trick. 

Within minutes she had the trick of shaking hands down pat.  No problems.  She was so proud of her accomplishment that whenever Mike or I was around, she would throw a paw in the air in our direction, as if to say, “look what I learned!”  The funniest part of all of this is that whenever she has been naughty, she will sit down and throw a paw until you take it, regardless of how stern the reprimand she is receiving at the time.  I guess she figures that if she does something good that she was taught that she’ll be off the hook.

Tuesday was a very anxious day for Allie.  She woke up early in the morning and noticed that both Mike and I were awake.  She tried to persuade Mike to get out of bed, by doing her cute routine (giving him very sad brown eyes), but Mike was not ready to get up.  

About an hour later, Mike got up and took Allie downstairs to go outside.  Unfortunately for Allie, it had started raining.  She took one step onto the back porch, turned around and ran back inside.  Allie hates the rain and usually refuses to go outside, and Tuesday was no exception.  She waited and waited until her bladder was about to explode, and then and only then did she run outside to pee.  It’s amazing how long she can hold it – over 24 hours with no problem.