Wordless Wednesday: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
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Tag Archives: dog photography
Our “Winter Break”
Besides my post about Ryder (who is currently in a foster home right now, yay!), I have not blogged since Christmas. I have several excuses, but only a couple of them are legitimate. Here is the biggest one: We’re moving!
Most of my extra time has been spent getting our house ready to sell and looking for a new house. We ended up buying a new house before our house was even on the market, which added some serious stress to our lives. But once we spent a couple weekends touching up some paint and fixing a few things, we listed our house and it sold in two weeks!The Mr. and I couldn’t believe it when we got the offer in and we are officially moving in just a few more weeks.
While I am so happy about how painless the process was, I am struggling to balance the sad emotions of leaving a familiar place with the happiness of a bigger, newer house. On top of that, I have had to think about the dogs’ adjustment and making everything easy for them through the whole process. In the long run, I think the dogs will love the new house. We have a big fenced in yard, a nice neighborhood to walk in and our favorite trail system connects just minutes from our doorstep. The house is about 20 minutes south of Portland, in my hometown of Old Orchard Beach (and more importantly the home of Lisa’s Pizza and Pier Fries!). So now we will also be about 2 minutes from the beach instead of 20!
Besides dealing with house stuff, our winter break included a lot of snowblowing, playing in the snow, shoveling snow, and oh did I mention snow? 
With all the snow days and work form home days, the pups got a lot of snuggle time in.
Although I haven’t had a lot of spare time to blog, I have kept up on Facebook and Instagram, so make sure you like and follow us there! I will be sharing more about the move later, but for now, here are some of the things that happened during our three months of blog silence (in photos): 
Merry Christmas to All!
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The Mr., Nola, Sarge & I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!
Nola Muffin Monday: My Brother Sargent
When Mom and Dad first brought Sarge to my house (yes, MY house), he was just as much of a pain as every other dog they brought home. I don’t understand why every new dog has to come into my territory and try to tell me that it’s theirs now. It’s not. I am in charge and that is the way it will always be. Sarge tried to show me he wanted to stay by climbing on top of me. I’d have to bark and growl at him to tell him to stop, but he’d still do it! Sometimes, I think he’s just not very smart. Mom and Dad had to help tell him to leave me alone, and THEN he finally listened. He’s such a suck up! But since then, he’s slowly been growing on me. He’s pretty old, and way more slow than the other dogs that stayed here, so he doesn’t bother me as much. He does take my toys right out of my mouth sometimes, which REALLY annoys me, but then he gets in trouble by Mom and Dad (see, he’s not always a saint!). He also is kind of clumsy and knocks things over. Oh, and the WORST thing about him is his tail! I mean, it’s always wagging and he can’t tell how close he is to me so it hits me right in the face. Can you believe it? No respect.
The other day Mom and Dad left with him early in the morning and came back home without him. At first, I was pretty happy; I never get the house to myself! But then I saw that Mom and Dad were sad and worried so I knew something was different. When Sarge came back and he had that funny contraption on his head, I understood. Sarge didn’t feel well. 
Although I can’t say I love sharing my toys with him, I do think he has been the least annoying sibling to share my house with. And, since he’s been here they haven’t brought home any other fosters. So, I figured I should be nice to him when he’s not feeling good so that they’ll see that I like him a little. 
In the spirit of the how-lidays, or whatever it is that make Mom and Dad put up all the lights and put funny smelling boxes under the inside-the-house-tree, I have been trying to make Sarge feel better by snuggling with him. I have realized that he makes a pretty good pillow, and he seems to not mind when I get close to him. I DO appreciate that he doesn’t try to snuggle with me too much; I snuggle on my terms only.
It seems as though the old guy is staying around for a while, and although I will make sure he still knows I am in charge, I guess it’s ok with me.
Wordless Wednesday: Family Portraits
Snood Dude
One of the first purchases I made for Sarge when he joined the M&M&NK household permanently was a jacket and a Sirius Republic snood. As an older gentleman, I knew he would need some extra protection from the cold Maine weather. And, it was good timing because we had just gotten a little snowstorm! Nola loves her snood (well maybe not, but I certainly do!) and she’s even a model on the website! Not to be outdone by his supermodel younger sister, Sarge was just as handsome as can be modelling his new accessory. We chose the football pattern for him, because even wearing clothes picked out by his mommy, he has to represent the Mr.’s passion for the manly sport.
Check out this cuteness:
Thanks again to Sirius Republic for keeping the handsomest elderbull warm this winter!
Sarge’s Photo Shoot: The Old Man and the Sea
“Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
“No one should be alone in their old age, he thought.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Thanks to the amazing Liz Donnelly from Portland Photo Company for the beautiful photos of our old man Sarge!
Trick? Or Treat?
It’s not a trick, we actually have a post! It’s been eerily quiet around M&M&NK lately. So quiet in fact, it’s spooky. Did the mere presence of an actual post scare you? I bet you didn’t expect it! While I haven’t been blogging much lately, I have been spending lots of QT with my two adorable pups. But, I couldn’t bare to let a holiday go by without a themed photo shoot. The Mr. doesn’t like when I put costumes on the dogs, so I went for a more subtle Fall theme. Enjoy!
Happy Halloween from Nola & Sarge!
Oh, and the pups got LOTS of treats while taking these photos!
Nola Muffin Monday: I’m 3!
Hi everyone! It’s been a while since Mom let me write my own posts, mostly because I don’t have thumbs so she has to do all the typing. She also told me to apologize because she was a ‘slacker’ last week and didn’t post a single thing! I didn’t mind though, it meant that she was spending more time with me!
Anyway, last weekend I turned 3 and Mom and Dad had a party for me! I’m going to tell you all about it. Besides all the hats Mom made me wear, it was a good day! 
Mom didn’t go to work so she could spend all day with me! We went swimming in the morning at the lake. Mom brought my life jacket this time and I loved it. It makes me feel so much more confident and I just swim around exploring instead of always just swimming out and going right back in. I even swam out to the float and climbed up on it and sat in the sun with mom for a bit. When I was ready to swim some more, I jumped rihgt off and I didn’t go under! I love my life jacket.
Then, later in the day Memere, Pepere and my Uncle Derek and Aunt Liz came over for a barbeque. I love when my family eats dinner outside, they always give me yummy parts of what they’re eating. Mom always says it’s a bad habit, but her and Dad still give me some when I stare at them long enough.
I also got a ton of presents, like a new collar and a hide-a-bird toy. These toys are my favorite, I also have a rabbit in a hat and a hide-a-squirrel I got for my 2nd birthday!
My favorite present was my bone. It took me an hour to eat, but it was yummy!
Oh, and the cookie, that was yummy too.
Birthdays are so much fun! Toys, bones, cake and all my favorite people….can’t wait for next year!
Swimming and Hiking and Sunbathing…Oh My!
Last week I was on vacation from work, but had no real plans other than to spend some quality time with the pups. The Mr. was traveling for work, so it was just Nola, Sarge and I for three days. I wanted to use this time to do some things with Nola just the two of us. I have been very conscious of her behavior and feelings (yes, I think my dog has feelings, call me an anthropomorphizer if you must) since Sarge has been in the house, and I wanted to make sure she got some special time with just me.
After Sarge’s morning walk and breakfast Nola and I headed out for our adventures. The first day we went to a friend’s camp on Little Sebago Lake, about 20 minutes from our house. Since it was during the work week and early(ish) in the morning, we had the place to ourselves. It was the perfect spot, a private home with a big yard leading down to a sandy area with a dock to the lake. Nola does the best in this kind of environment, she doesn’t like going in the water when she can’t walk in gradually. And, she LOVES to run around with her toy after she retrieved it out of the water. That day was no different, she ran around, swam after her Kong Wubba, and just went all around crazy having fun.
We ended up going back a couple days later and since we had been there already, Nola was more familiar with the territory and she was less interested in sniffing around and more into swimming after her Wubba. I used this to my advantage and tried to get her to actually jump off the dock. I have tried the past two summers to entice her to jump in after a toy, but she just has no interest. Most of the time she’ll run to the end of the dock, see the toy, and then turn around and run into the water after it.
Or, she’ll just stand there and stare at the toy.
You want me to do what?
This time, I was able to get her to jump in from the end by throwing the toy and then jumping in myself. The water was only about chest deep, so I could just plop in and coax her to come too. Of course, using this method I was unable to get any actual photos of her jumping, but she did it, and I was so proud! I think if we had a place like this to go consistently she would eventually feel more comfortable jumping in without me.
Nola and I also went on a hike at Bradbury Mountain. It’s called a mountain, but really it’s just a large hill. I chose a trail that was about 2 miles long to go up to the summit. It was warm, but not humid, and the tress provided a lot of shade, so Nola wasn’t too hot. It was such a nice walk and we made it to the top pretty easily. Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy exploring new places and just hanging out with my dog.
She is such a good leash walker, she never pulled me even coming down. I had a long line just in case she wanted to go a bit further in front, but she stayed right by my side. We chose a shorter trail on the way down because it was getting closer to mid day and the sun was hot!
We practiced some recall, and also ‘up’ by getting onto a bench that was on the side of the trail. She was very attentive, but at this point was getting annoyed with all the posing for the camera I was making her do.
And of course, I spent some time with the Sarge man too. He is less interested in the active adventures and just likes to hang out. So, we sunbathed and napped on the deck.
Although this vacation was more of a stay-cation, I really enjoyed the quality time I got to spend with the pups. I was a little embarrassed when people at work asked what I did while I was off and I said “hung out with the dogs” and they replied “that’s it?”. But really, they are ‘it’ for me. They spend so much of their time alone, waiting for the Mr. and I to come home from work or wherever we happen to be, that I wanted to spend every moment I could with them for the week. They are my life and my loves and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Mr. & Mrs. & Nola Kisses 