12-12-2010 My 11th Birthday

Today I turned 11 years old.  My name is Dannii Houdini, as I am a great escape artist! Which makes mom very worried at times.  She promised me something real good in my breakfast bowl, but it didn't happen.  She said that we were running late to get to the dog park as we were meeting our friends. So, she said that she would make it up to me at dinner time.

I am such a good looking dude!  I really like the girls and they like me too.  Well, most of them do. The one's who don't, I don't know what their problem is.  Just look at this face.  What's not to like?
  (mom, you better be quiet)

I just don't want mom to tell anything bad about me, especially on my birthday. I'm not perfect, but then nobody is.  I am who I am.

 

This is a very pretty little tri girl named Lola.  We all met her for the very first time.  Her owner's had just moved here from the state of Washington.  She's 5 years old.  This here is Zak, and as you can see she is growling at him for him to stay away from her.  Zak doesn't listen, he is in your face kind of guy.








This is me walking next to Lola, she's leery, but at least she's not growling at me, which is a plus in my book.  I let her have her space, but I did let her know that I thought she was very cute.  She has a very nice tight tail, just the way I like 'em.  My own tail used to be very, very tight.  But when mom would have to make me move at night, so I wouldn't kick her, she would grab my tail and turn me around. Now my tail is not so tight anymore.

This is our favorite picnic table, and there was no one sitting there!  So, we all ran and jumped up on the table, and I was yelling to mom to hurry and take the picture. She can be slow in taking pictures sometimes, and hardly gets us all facing in the same direction, but she must have been listening this time, as the picture turned out pretty good.  You can see how foggy it was because you can usually see San Francisco right behind us. We're a pretty good looking bunch, don't ya think?


I got sardines in my dinner bowl for dinner.  I have never had sardines before.  Boy, they were very good.  Mom gave one piece to Jenna and Zak, and all the rest to me and mixed it in with my kibble.  I asked her if we could have sardines every night, but she said no.  She said then that they would not be a treat and then I would probably get tired of eating them everyday.  I don't think that would happen, but she said that it would.  Jenna's 9th birthday is on the 21st, and I asked her if we were going to have sardines for her birthday too, but she doesn't know yet. It might be something else.  We hope not, sardines are very good!  We also got doggie ice cream.  Mom said it wasn't really fair (even tho it was MY birthday), not to let Jenna and Zak have some



I am sacked out by the wood stove after dinner. Does this picture make me look fat?  Please don't tell me yes.  I don't want to hear it.  Mom says Zak is getting fat "again", and "again" she is going to have to put him on a diet.  Hopefully, not me. I don't want to get any less food than I already get!

I got too hot laying that close to the woodstove. Usually, I can stay that close all night, but for some reason, I got kind of warm and had to move. Jenna is behind me, closer to the woodstove.






Over all, I had a pretty good day.  When we got home, mom had to bring some things in from the car. Us dogs were already in the house, and when mom went to make another trip out to the car, Jenna and I got out! Poor Zak got snagged by mom and didn't get out the door quick enough. She kept an eye on us the whole time, but would not chase us. Jenna finally gave it up and returned to mom when she called her, but I kept running. About ten minutes later, it was no longer any fun, and I came up to the door to be let in. I thought mom would be really mad at me, but she wasn't.  She just said that she hoped I had a good time.

That's about it for now.  You all come back again, now hear?

My Birthday 11-30-2010 (A day late)

It never fails, when its my birthday, mom always forget to let me write in the blog!

 This is my birthday picture.  I wasn't too interested in the camera, I was checking out the cat that was standing behind mom. 

I got eggies in my breakfast bowl along with my kibble. It was very good.  I love eggies.  I had to share with Dannii and Jenna, but I got more eggies than they did.  Just don't tell them, ok?

Mom also took a close up, but she cut my left ear off!

She does that sometimes.  She doesn't take very good pictures, although she would like too, but if you ask me, I think she waits too dang long!  She's got an ok camera, but if she snaps pictures one right after the other, it will only save the first three.


Mom and her son, went out side to cut some wood for kindling (we got a wood stove), and when mom came back in, she didn't shut the screen door all the way, so all three of us dogs got to go outside, and run for awhile.  Mom was not too happy about that, as all three of us headed up to the road.  Thankfully no car's were coming. We just kept running around, we would run back down our driveway, and around the house, chasing the cats, then we ran back up to the road.  Jenna and I were mostly following Dannii, where he went, we went.  Mom got her keys and came down the road to look for us. Again, Jenna and I thought maybe mom was going to go somewhere without us, so she stopped and opened the door, and Jenna and I jumped in.  Dannii however, wouldn't come, but he did go back down the road towards the house. So mom just drove us home.  What was up with that?  We thought we was going to get to go somewhere!  We wouldn't have gotten in the car otherwise!  Not fair. Course then she put the leashes on us and took us into the house and all the while, Dannii is still outside, running!  Mom kept watching him, and decided to let him run off the energy. He never went back down to the road. He was mainly chasing the wild cats up the trees in the back field.  He finally got tired of that, and since Jenna and I was in the house, he decided to come back. He was at the front door and mom just opened the door (son had ahold of me and Jenna so we couldn't get out), and Dannii just came in the house...............pleased as he could be!  That should have been me............it was MY BIRTHDAY!

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Happy Halloween (even tho its late)

This here, is Dannii.  I did just have a tee-shirt on him that says "Will do tricks, for treats"; but it didn't show up too clearly, as its on the back.  The tee-shirt has gotten too big for him, and the neckline was down to his shoulders!  So, I put Zak's so called "costume" on Dannii and took his picture.











This is Jenna.  Its too bad you can't see the top of her head for the smiling pumkins!  She didn't care too much for the so called "hat" but she kept it on long enough, so I could take her picture.

This here is Zak, and no he doesn't look too happy.  He did not like having the mo-hawk on his head, but he did sit still long enough so I could get his picture.  Just too bad, he didn't put his ears up!













We had 11 basenji's show up for our annual once a month meet-up at Point Isabel.  Do you know how hard it is to get 11 basenji's into one picture?  This here, at least show's 8 of them.
It turned out to be a beautiful warm and sunny day. I had been praying all week for it not to rain on this Sunday.  We have had rain off and on ALL week.  I just didn't care what kind of weather we had, just as long as it did not rain!  GOD, is so good, that he gave us the most perfect day, warm, and no wind.  Just beautiful.






Jenna decided to get her close up taken.  I have to tell you, that she got seperated from us at one point. I had a lady come up asked if one of my dogs had on a orange pumpkin jacket. When I said, yes. She told me that Jenna was way back in the opposite direction that we had come from.  So I turned around to go find her, and she was standing with some people, and when I called her, she just looked at me, like she was in trouble, or something.  I gave her a good rub and told her she was ok now. She didn't leave my side for the rest of the day.

 
This here is Zorro, he's 8-9 months old now.  So very cute.  I like it when Perry brings him to these meet-ups, as he's the one to get everyone to do the basenji-500!









This here is a very old, old friend from about 45-46 years ago!  Neither one of us was 21 yet, so this had to be back in 1967 when we first dated.  His name is Lyn, and he lived back east in Missouri for many years.  I had found his son several years ago, and asked him to have his dad give me a call, and we had been in touch off and on, ever since then.  He moved out here to Hayward (about an hours drive from me), to help out his sister who has a few health issues.  This day was the first time we had seen each other since 1967!  The little pup he is holding is "Angelique", and its too bad that she didn't turn her head around so she was looking at the camera.  Dannii (who has his tee-shirt on), is standing right behind Lyn, and looking down at something.  Two old farts, 45 years later.  Who would have guessed?

It Rained today

Mom knew better........she just knew better, but did she do anything about it? Noooooooooooooo.  When we got to our favorite park, Point Isabel, of course, it was RAINING!!!  How dare she make us dogs get out of the nice warm car and go out into the rain.  It was our "first day of rain" since early summer!

See, it wasn't raining here at home we left. It does take us an hour to drive to our favorite park tho. Mom was watching the news last night to find out about the weather, and it did say a "chance" of showers for the valley. Nothing about the bay area which is San Francisco and Oakland area.  She knew it would probably be a lot cooler today than what it was last Sunday, so she brought a jacket for herself.  But, low and behold, RAIN.  Not our cup of tea or anything related to dogs.  We hate the rain.  We won't even go out in the yard and do our "duty" if its raining.  Well, I will (Zak), but I make quick work of it  so I can get back inside as quickly as possible.  Jenna, the royal "pain in the tush", will not even get her dainty paws wet, if its raining, she will go on the garage floor, the carpet is even better, if its too cold in the garage.

So, how dare mom make us all go for our walk in the rain!  I do have to say it wasn't a pouring down rain, it was more like a hard drizzle, but it was enough for all of us to get wet.  For some reason, Dannii didn't seem to care, as he just kept running around.  Course every tree we came to, we ran underneath the branches and used it as an umbrella.  Mom thought this was so funny.  She didn't bring her umbrella, but her girl friend had one.  Mom got soaked also. The hood on her jacket and the whole back of her jacket was soaked. So, she got cold real fast.  Scout (the girl friend's basenji), was hanging his tail down, and he was not happy either.  Jenna, kept whinning, and that was probably a good thing..........cuz we got to leave early!!  Back to the nice warm, dry car!

Mom saw quite a few fender benders going to the park, and coming home.  She kept saying things like people just drive too darn fast for the first day of rain!  Hopefully, nobody was seriously hurt in any of those fender benders!

That's all for now.  You all come back again, now hear?

10-10-10

Mom is real good at taking pictures (even if they are NOT real good) on calendar days like this.  She has a picture of human son and daughter taken at the beach in Oregon on 7-7-77.  Cool, huh?

Well, we was at Point Isabel on the 10th of this month, so mom had to make sure that she got some pictures.

This here is a picture of Dannii looking right at mom, and Jenna is in the act of jumping down.  San Francisco is in the background.







 This one is funny.  That's me, Zak sitting with my back to mom.  I do this all the time.  We are at our favorite picnic table, and I have to sit and guard everyone. At least in my opinion.  Jenna is in the middle and mom's friend's brindle basenji, Baree is right up front. She will be 12 on October 23rd.

That's all 5 of us. For once mom got the picture of all of us.  Usually, Baree and Scout hang back with their mom, but for some reason they were right behind us.

This is Scout, and you can see my face, at least part of it.  Mom think's this is a good picture of him, and she's going to forward it to her girl-friend.

Dannii soaking up some rays. We are at a cafe, and we are all attached to the leash, other wise Dannii would be trying to steal some body's hot dog or something.

Ok, don't freak out. It's just me, Zak.  Mom bought this stupid mohawk thing and put it on me, and took a picture.  She thought it was so cute. Since Halloween is on the last Sunday of the month, she's going to dress us up!  Oh my Lord, have mercy on us poor dogs.






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No pictures this time

I just don't know about mom anymore.  I think she's loosing it big time, but don't let her hear that I told you this, she would not be happy!
She is on a list for people who have basenji's and that's us (Dannii,Jenna, and me Zak), anyway she puts up a new photo of the month to their web site and then let the members know that there is a new picture up and who the dog is and who the dog belongs too.  Well, she put up a new photo and got the name of the dog correct, but NOT the owner!  This is the first time that she has ever done that, and to say the least, she was very embarrassed.  She apologized the the list, and even wrote to the owner of the said dog, and apologized to her. Thankfully, the owner wasn't mad or anything, and did understand, and did tell mom that she has done a great job putting up the pictures.  If you want to check out the web site, you can go to   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/basenji/

Personally, Jenna wouldn't be caught dead in something like that, but mom and a whole bunch of people on the list think it is really cute.  Mom would like to dress us up, but have a hard time finding something that would fit.  She did get a t-shirt for Dannii, that say's "will do tricks for treats".  Since Halloween is on a Sunday this month, and in fact its the "last" Sunday of the month, she is trying to find something for Jenna and me to wear when we go to the dog park in style.

So ok then, that's about all the news we have so far.  I know its not much, but hey, I'm trying here, even though mom isn't.

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What day is this and what time is it?

Us dog's we don't usually know what day it is or the time of day.  We usually go by a set pattern governed by mom.

We got to go to our favorite dog park in all of the world (Point Isabel, of course), and mom picked up our friend Japhey (pronounced as Jap ee).  Him and Dannii met about 6 years ago, before Jenna and I came to live here. Mom used to dog-sit Japhey when his parents (both were in the Air Force at the time) got called to duty.  Now, we haven't seen Japhey in about a year. His parents are now divorced, and Japhey is living with the x husband, as mom call's him.  So mom got his phone number from Japheys mom, and she called and asked if she could take Japhey with us to the park, and surprise, surprise, he said, yes!  We's was so excited! Mom had a hard time getting pictures of Japhey as he is constantly in motion, and hardly ever stops. But, she did get some.


This is a picture of Japhey but he's kind of far off, doing his own thing. He loves to explore.

This is Japhey and I.  I am on the left side.  I can't remember what we were talking about, but apparently I wasn't liking what Japhey was saying.

Jenna is on the far left, and then me (Zak), with Japhey coming towards us. He looks like he is hot. All of us dogs got some nice cool water to drink, and Japhey was no where to be found so he could get a drink too. But he did get some a little bit later.  I have to tell you, it was very warm that day.  Mom thinks it was in the high 80's. It was very nice at the park, but very warm also.  For once, mom didn't need a jacket.

Japhey is resting his head on the back of Dannii. Notice he is on the leash, as mom didn't want him taking off as we were closing to leaving.

This one here, we were all checking out some interesting smells in that bush there.  There was a lot of p-mail, for us dogs, and we were all trying to decipher the mail.

We met up with a Whippet, and we were running with him, but he was mostly chasing a frisbee, and he didn't like it too much when us dogs decided he was fun to chase.  As you can see, his owner was using the frisbee to hold water so all us dogs could get a drink of water.

Your's truly, Zak.  Do I look fat in this picture?  If you are going to say, yes........don't tell me.  I don't want to hear it, as mom will then put me back on a diet.  Dang, she's going to do it anyways, she just told me!  

This is Jenna, and probably my butt. hehehehe.  For once she didn't take enough pictures of Dannii to get a good one of him, by his self.

Mom met this dog, actually a 4 month old puppy, named Cooper.  She just loved his face.  Some kind of a wired-haired dog. But very friendly and mom thinks, very sweet.

This is Japhey.  He sure looks thirsty huh?  That's what he gets for running and running.  Doesn't take time out for a drink of water.  That's me just looking at him.  I know I am telling him something, but I forgot what it was. Its obvious he wasn't listening anyways.





That's enough of pictures.  Mom thought she lost her cell phone Tuesday night, but she found it in the school's driving car on Wednesday morning.  She had to take Jenna back to the vet's because her stinky breath came back.  The vet said that Jenna has Stomatitis, and he put her on Clindamycin 150mg 2x a day for the next two weeks.  She's got to back in then for a recheck, and may have to stay on the Clindamycin for another two weeks.  It depends on what the vet finds in two weeks from now.

Today would have been mom's youngest son Beau's 32nd birthday.  He died when he was 13 years old, so we never got to meet him.  Mom say's that now Beau has been with God longer than he was with her, and she's thankful for that, but she still misses him very much.  He died Christmas of '91.

We don't write every day, but we are trying to write at least once a week, more if we can, and if we have anything new to report.

You all come back again, now hear?

Another day and another surprise

We got to go to the point today. It was the same as usual, but on the way back to the cafe, mom ran into a friend of her's that she hasn't seen for several months.  Her name is Kalie (pronounce as Ka lay), she's married to someone else now, which mom knew about, and Kalie had Star with her. We get along with Star but we sure like her brother Japhey alot more. Japhey is living with Kalie's x-husband.  Mom asked if Kalie would email her Paul's phone number so she can call and ask him if she could take Japhey with us to the point, and Kalie said that she would.  The surprise turned out to be that Kalie is going to have a baby the end of February. We wanted to know if she is going to have multiple babies, and if we could have one?  But mom explained to us, that human's (most of the time) have only one baby. Sometimes there can be two or three. But mom said no, we can't have any human babies. She's a poor sport. We thought having a baby in the house would be great, but mom explained that they cry ALOT and need to be fed ALOT and lots of other things.  So maybe it is a good thing that we don't have any babies in the house, as it would probably eat up all of our dog food!
This here is a picture that mom got of a squirrel when we were on our way back to the cafe.  He was sitting out in the open just munching away on something. Mom and her friend and some other people who stopped and were petting us dogs, all made the comment that the squirrel was a brave little soul to be out in the open like that. I have to admit, I didn't see him and I guess Jenna didn't either, but Dannii sure did, and he went over to check him with the hopes of maybe having a snack. But the squirrel was fast, and he scampered back in under the rocks.


As you can see, Dannii got close and we thought that he almost had himself a snack, but the squirrel was alot quicker than Dannii thought.  After wards, Jenna and I were over among the rocks to see if we could find him, but am sorry to report, that the squirrel went deep under the rocks and we couldn't find him.








Mom got another basenji decal for her car. She had one just like this on the red zoom zoom, but it was in white.  This one she got in a coppery red, so it matches our fur!  Wasn't that kind of her to do?  You can also see the magnetic bumper sticker she has that was on the other car also. It has our pictures on it which we think is really cool.




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This is a close up of the basenji decal. We think it looks great.  How about you?










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Our Basenji Meet-up

was not as expected.  Was hoping we would have a large turn out, like we did last month where we had 14 basenji's.  Sadly, we only had 9 today, which I guess really isn't that bad.  There was 3 new basenji's.  One is a foster boy, and his name is Benjie.  This here is a picture of him, he is the one on the far right with the halter and leash attached. When you look at him, he is small, like a female, but not quite that small, and he looks alot younger than he really is.  He's 6 years old.





We also had a new guy join us, with 2 female basenji's.  The man's name is Chris, and he works nights, and really didn't think he would be able to make it, but he did.  One female is 13 years old, and the other one, is only 2 years old.  Mom brought her regular camera and her video camera.  She had her friend take the regular pictures, while mom was the video.  I guess her friend didn't get any photos of Sunshine and Chrissie. Which is what these two dog's name's are.


We met up with a Chi, who really took a liking to Scout (in the foreground).  Mom thought he was really cute, and he was not afraid of all of us basenji's gathered around him.  Mom had both camera's at that time, and her friend had to tell her that that would be a great picture.  This guy had his front paws up on Scouts back, and he wanted to play, but Scout is not the playing kind of dog.  But he took all of this in stride, and just kept moving so the Chi had to move also.


This here is Nancy and her husband is taking pictures of us dogs.  Nancy kept handing out treats like they were candy, and us dogs would not leave her alone.  This is Jenna that jumped up to Nancy to get some more treats. Jenna can be really pushy when it come's to food.
I don't either!  You and Dannii are the one's who are all over everybody trying to get all the treats for yourselves!

 


How many basenji's do you count in this photo?  There is actually 6. One is on the far side of Dannii, and you can barely make out part of the dog's chest. Mom is also handing out treats, so us dogs are on her like white on rice. Food, its all about the food!  Don't let anyone tell you different!  As you can see, Scout is the only one that truly stands out like a sore thumb, as mom would say.  He's the only Tri in the whole bunch, and his sister is a brindle.


 
Now here is all 9 of us basenji's looking for a treat from mom. Well, as you can see, Angus, must have gotten his already and was walking away. That's just dumb if you ask me, you always staying and hope you get more than just one treat. Mom is usually pretty good about handing out more, if everybody behaves politely.  We seem to be doing ok, nobody is jumping. Ok, so we're not sitting, but we ain't jumping either!  Which is a good thing. Right?

Here's eight of us still looking for hand outs, and they are forth coming.  We had a good day for treats, I can tell you that, cuz mom is usually stingy about handing out treats.  We don't know why she hands them out to lots of other dogs, but for us, she is really stingy with the food.  Nancy was pretty good about handing out the treats too, and it seem's to me that she gave Jenna alot more treats than she gave to either me or Dannii, or any of the other b's

Nancy said I had a cute face, and that's why I got more treats than you stupid boys! So there!
 

 Somebody came by with a 4 month old Pit Bull puppy, and mom just fell head over heels for that pup!  I have to admit, that he is kind of cute, and his name is "Pilot".  Funny name if you ask me.  What kind of name is that for a dog? This pup kept give mom lots of kisses, while her friend snaps some pictures, but she didn't get any of Pilot giving mom any kisses. It was her first time here and her owner said that she was doing real good with all the different dogs and people. He said that he was going to keep bringing her so she can get socialized real well.  Mom think's that that is a good thing, especially for a pit bull. So far, this pup is very sweet and mom just hopes that she stays that way.




Well, we're on our way back and here's all of us, except for Benji (which is on a leash). There's 8 of us here, and that is Dannii way up in front with his back to the camera, as he is headed towards the other side of the park. Mom call's him and he stops, and waits sometimes, not always.  One time, he took off and went to the cafe and by the time mom and her friend got there, he had stolen somebody's hot dog off the table!  So Mom puts all of us on the leash a little while after this photo was taken.

We had a good day.  I hope you all had a good day too
You all come back again, ya hear?

Mom passed our one year anniversary!

I always said that mom was always coming up short on things, and just maybe this proves it!  Our one year anniversary was yesterday and she missed it!  How could she do that to us?  Granted we don't get out and have great adventures in walking, though we do have great adventures at the dog park, but that's all we ever seem to write about, and now I can understand why mom is sooooooooooo boring!

Do you remember how tiny our kitties were? This is a picture of them last November with Dannii, as he was the only one who really didn't bother the kitties much. Jenna and I would like to eat them, but we're pretty sure that mom would not allow that to happen.
This here is a picture of "boycat". The kitties turned out to be brother and sister, and mom at the time, had NO intention on keeping them. Well, here it is almost a year later, and they are still here.  We have a 4 foot gate between the door and the screen door, which is what boycat is resting on. See how big he's gotten! He would make a fine dinner, if you ask me.  But no one did, so I guess I will have to let that one go.





Mom can't find any pictures of "girlcat", although there are some, but for some reason she can't find any of grilcat by herself, except for this one here. She is between me and Jenna, out in the garage. This is where us dogs like to hang out, when we're not in the house. I'm checking girlcat out, just to make sure she is behaving herself. She has these real sharp needles on the ends of her paws and she likes to use them sometimes, and they hurt. So I'm just making sure that she is behaving herself.  As you can see, Jenna is keeping a eye out on things too.


This here was mom's new car. She bought it in January 2007, it is a 2006 Mazda 6i sport sedan. We loved our taxi, and so did mom. But, can you guess what?  She totaled out our taxi on August 9, 2010!







This is what it looked like as it was being hooked up to the tow truck!  For some reason, she couldn't cry.  We all loved that car, it was a great car, and she had to go and ruin it. That just was not fair, if you ask me. Us dogs though are grateful that we were not in the car when this happened. Mom had just gotten off from work, and was on her way home. Everybody told her that she ran a red light. Since she is a driving instructor, and teaches teen-ager's how to drive, she thought this was so unbelieveable!  But, she got a ticket in the mail about a week later.  Wonder how much that's going to cost her?


So, now we got a newer zoom zoom.  Same kind of car, only a different color, plus its 2 years newer than the red one.  Mom and us dogs still miss the red one, as it was very easy for us dogs and for mom, to find it in a parking lot!  This one is exactly the same on the inside, the only difference is that this one is not a hatchback, like the red one was.  That is the only true thing mom misses on this car.  The back seats are down, so us dogs do have lots of room, like we did in the red one.

Well that enough of that stuff, I hate remembering things that we no longer have. Mom has to go to work and she wants me off the computer now.

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