A sunny Thursday

Dazzle's latest game is going from one toy in the yard to the next, often with a different toy in his mouth. He also "places" his toys around the yard and makes the rounds to "check-in" on them :-) Run up to a toy, shove it with the toy in his mouth a few times "ok, that's one's still good" move on and repeat with the next toy till he has visited all of them! Sometimes he incudes his brothers in the "shove it with a toy to see what happens" rounds- they aren't amused. They mostly try to stay out of his way. Then, after careful consideration and much product testing, he selects a new toy to carry in his mouth and makes the rounds again to see if the new combo has any different effects. LOL
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I mowed the yard today and while I was mowing the dog's part, I had the dogs all locked in the house. Dazzle stood vigil by the back sliding glass door and brought several different toys to the door as "offerings" hoping one would entice me back inside. "MOM! LOOK! I haaave your favorite toooooy!" :-) LOL
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After I finished mowing their yard and moved the mower back outside the fence, I went inside to get something to eat and you would have thought I had been gone a year! He was all OVER me, SO happy to see that I had survived my encounter with that machine of death. Once the dogs were back in the yard and I started mowing the rest of the property, he felt the need to tell me all about the dangers and beg me to come back to the safety of the yard by barking non-stop. Though thankfully that only lasted about 10 minutes and he ran out of warnings and pleas. Then he gave up and went to play with Bear. They had a great time of over an hour's worth of wrestling, chasing and just laying in the yard relaxing together. When I came back by the fence to get to the garage, he was perfectly fine with the mower, didn't bark, but did get excited because he thought I was going to come back inside. Every time I went in the garage to get something to help me clean the mower, he ran in all excited, then a minute later he was back at the fence. "Aren't you coming in?" Then back inside, back outside...
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When I did come in, I got a more normal greeting and that's when we had our play session in the yard. He has learned to dunk his head to his ears in the dog pool to cool off! Comes up dripping water with a silly Mali grin on his face that makes me laugh. And his favorite toy is any ball with a hole in it that he can squeeze underwater, fill it with water, and squirt me, his brothers, himself, the grass, other toys, etc. Yesterday evening he brought it inside and soaked my lap! "Just trying to share the fun mom! You don't have to yell!" "I saw you laughing too, you can't stay mad at me!"
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When we came inside, he did his usual "throw himself at the floor and collapse flat out on his side" and he's sleeping by my feet now. Amazing what 5 hours of exercise will do for him. LOL Of course it only takes 30 minutes of sleep to get him ready to do it all again!
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When I posted to a talk list this morning that I was going to go mow the yard today, someone said "you mean you haven't taught Dazzle to mow yet?" I told her last season he was too little to reach the peddles, but I hope to have him doing the mowing by mid-summer. :-)
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I wish!
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I took his weekly measurement today and after 3 weeks of staying at the same height, he grew a 1/2" last week! So now he's 23.5" tall at the shoulders.
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