Wow it is already Labor Day weekend.  Makes you wonder where the summer went.  We went to Teagan's open house for grade 1 the other night and I think she will do just fine.  Her teacher is really nice and there are 5 children in the class that she knows from before.

I am going to be retiring soon and am looking forward to being home and not having to go out in the evenings. Especially in the winter, it will be wonderful.  It will be so good to eat dinner a bit later.  4 o'clock is so early; by the time I get home at 8 I am hungry again.

Just got back from our latest camping trip.  We were up at Burt Lake in Indian River, one of our favorite campgrounds. Toby does so good now, we can even go over to Bets & Jeff's site for a campfire in the evening and leave him alone in the camper without any problems.  We will be going again in a couple of weeks and hope to be able to leave him long enough to take a bike ride together. Will have to see how that works out.

Toby is 2 years old now and has grown into a beautiful boy.  He is really tall and very strong, although he doesn't have a lot of stamina with his arthritis. He is so smart, when we are camping we have to keep him on a lead in the camper, because he can open the door so quick it will make your head spin.  He stays if he wants to, but if something gets his attention he is gone.

Now that the garden has come in he loves it when Gabe goes out to pick beans or peas.  He will stand and watch him pick and then sit down to wait until he gets some to eat.  I really think fresh beans are one of his favorite foods.

I am working on hats and mittens for the children of Pine Ridge Reservation in SD.  It is really fun and I am getting quite a selection.  Ethel is crocheting some and we are going to send them all off the end of the month.

This photo was taken in May and I have quite a few more sets since then.  Will take a photo of all of them before I send them.

Believe it or not we are all well and doing just fine.  Toby has grown into a fine looking gentleman, 52 pounds and very tall. We are keeping his weight down to help the hip dysplasia and give him glucosamine daily for his arthritis.

What a difference a week can make.  Since last Sunday when we played monkey-in-the-middle with Toby, we have been playing tag or ball each day and faithfully walking him with the Gentle Leader we got from our vet. It has made a tremendous difference in him and today for the best part of the day he has had the run of the house without going crazy and eating it!  I think we have turned a corner. Our vet keeps telling me, "Don't give up on him Elaine, I think he's gonna be a super guy, just needs to grow some." I hope she is right because when he is being good he is so sweet.

I bought a snail to help clean the fish tank and he scared me to death the other day. The top to the tank was up and he crawled right out, crawled around on the counter for a while and fell to the floor. Toby found him and was playing toss up!  Luckily he has a really gentle mouth and didn't bite him. I picked him up and put him back in the tank thinking for sure he was dead.  He never moved for about 6 hours and then in the evening he started to climb the tank again.  Praise the Lord, Frank is alive!! We are very, very careful to keep the lid down now for our Houdini.

Well the joke is on me. Toby is now 4 1/2 months old and he is 48 pounds. What am I going to end up with. It wouldn't be so bad except he is sooooo bull-headed and only listens if he feels like it. He is so strong that I can hardly hold on to him sometimes.  Other times he is an angel and just listens to everything.  Go figure; I don't know quite what to do with him.  We are having him fixed on July 7 and he is losing some of those nasty needle baby teeth, so maybe there is hope. I sure hope so, or it will be a long 12 or 13 years. We probably should have taken the female. My mistake for not listening to my instincts.

I was just re-reading this and it sound like I don't love him, which isn't true. I really do love him, but sometimes just get so discouraged.  Since I wrote this, Gabe and I took him out and played Monkey-in-the-middle with two tennis balls with him and he had a great time. He ran back and forth as we threw the one ball and the whole time had the other tennis ball in his mouth!  Silly guy.

We went on our first camping trip of the season last weekend. Went up to Burt Lake and it was beautiful weather.  Toby was pretty good considering he didn't have a clue as to what was going on.  It should get easier as he gets older, I hope. He did sleep in his crate, except for the last night and it got too hot for him.