GROSS

Massah's worst nightmare came true last night. It was horrifying. Look at me:

See anything different? Like a black spot above my left eye?

No, I wasn't trying to be like my BFF Lola Sprout Beyonce who is a beautiful Diva with a spot around her eye. There was a BUG IN MY HAIR!!!

Massah about had a heart attack because there was NO ONE to get the bug out except HER! You should have seen her - bouncing up and down and squirming and trying to talk herself into touching it. She finally got 27 kleenex together and wadded them up and tried to pull it out. Of course, the wad was way to large to grab anything that miniscule. But she kept trying for about 10 minutes. And the bug kept crawling closer and closer to my skin, trying to get away from the massive amount of kleenex that kept attacking it, and then Massah started panicking because she thought it might be a tick and it would attach itself to my head and then she would have to spread peanut butter all over my skull to kill it and Mean Sister Fig would try to eat me and I would try to eat myself too because we love peanut butter and then she started HITTING me trying to kill the bug before it started sucking my blood out of my brain. After that I don't know what happened next because we were ALL panicking because Massah was smacking me with the wad of kleenex and Mean Sister Fig was alarmed because it looked like Massah was losing her mind and I was going CRAZY because she was simultaneously trying to pull out my hair and smashing my brains in.

But she finally got it, as you can see. She was so proud of herself. I honestly don't know how she survives here by herself. This just adds fuel to my Grammy's "find a man" plan for her.

Massah's turn now

Okay, this entry will be all about my girl. Her name is Massah. And I love her more than anything else in the world. Besides food. And baby carrots. And sometimes my toys, depending on my mood. Luckie tagged me in a new game - tell things about your humans. So here we go....

First of all, that is a picture of me and Massah. We sit like that every night. We're perfect together because I can sit on her lap and my head fits just under her chin, so I just cuddle up against her tummy. Boring stuff first - she's going to start a new job soon and I'm actually quite excited about it! She's a therapist and is going to work in a maximum security prison. She'll be doing substance abuse/addiction counseling and some mental health counseling. But here's the BEST part: I get to go to work with her!!! They have a program there where they teach the inmates how to groom and train dogs, so I'll get to go to work with her three times a week! I won't actually get to be with HER all day, but I'll go to work with her! How cool is that?! I can't wait! And now on to the exciting stuff.... Hmmm. Well, there's not much. She doesn't really do anything. Her time is mostly spent taking pictures of me and Mean Sister Fig, breaking up our fights, dragging me away from poo in the yard, and telling Fig to stop whining. I came up with a few questions for her last night and I'll transpose them here, word for word, with what she said. (FYI - each question will be preceeded by a picture of me, because it's my blog.)

Tad: What is your favorite treat?

Massah: Well, I like tapioca pudding, Sour Patch Kids, (Fig, NO. You may not have any more food. You just ate 20 minutes ago.) and Hardee's french fries.

Tad: My favorite is baby carrots.

Massah: Yes, I know. You love them, don't you?

Tad: YES! But I think I would like all those other things you said just now too, but you won't give me any of them.

Massah: I know. We're not going to get into that again right now, Tadpole Pomagranate.

Tad: Okay, what's your favorite word?

Massah: I'll go with "intuitive."

Tad: Why?

Massah: Because it's fun to say.

Tad: My name's fun to say too, isn't it?!

Massah: Yes, yes it is. And by the way, why did you choose to put that particular picture above this question?

Tad: Because it looks like I'm flying! And you can also see my eyes, and that way you won't try to give me another mullett!

Massah: Okay, next question.

Tad: Why were you afraid of the butterfly in our yard today?

Massah: Taddy, no one cares about that.

Tad: Oh, but they DOOOOO!

Massah: Fine. It's because they always try to land on my face.

Tad: I've never seen one try to land on your face.

Massah: Well they would if I wouldn't run away from them!

Tad: AAAACK! Butterflies that attack your face!!! Their wings are flapping against my skin!!! Their antennae are waving in front of my eyes!!! Someone get them away!!! God help us all!!!!!

Massah: That's not funny. You're going to give me a panic attack.

Tad: Okay, last question...

Massah: Hang on. (FIG! Get your face out of those blinds! That toy poodle is not an imminent threat to your existance! Stop barking! NOW!) Okay - fire away.

Tad: Are we ever going to get a dad?

Massah: Did Grammy tell you to ask me that?!

Tad: No....

Massah: You don't even know what a dad is.

Tad: I know, but they sound like fun! Everyone else has one and say they wrestle really good and give better tummy rubs.

Massah: This is ridiculous. No.

Tad: Okay, but she also gave me this coupon for EHarmony to give to you....

Massah: All right. This interview is over.

Tree

First things first - I have been tagged by Luckie to share something about Massah! I have all KINDS of things to share!!! But like Luckie's humans, my girl is obsessed about privacy and things like that, since she worked in a prison and doesn't want any of her former clients to find her and steal me away from her and eat Mean Sister Fig like they wanted to do and then murder Massah in her bed. *sigh* She's melodramatic like that. So I will have to talk with her tonight and see what I can get out of her. So stay tuned for that. :-) Secondly, I want to share something very special with you all. I would like to introduce you to Tree. Dum da da daaaaaa:

Massah had the audacity to say to me last night that Tree is actually a WEED! Blasphemy! I know Tree is just a baby oak or something and is going to grow up big and strong, just like me. Anyway, I LOVE Tree!!! Here I am saying hello to him. I do this every time we go outside.

Why do I love Tree so much?! It's because I lift my leg and make Big Boy pee-pee on him!!!!! Woot! It's my new ritual. I go outside, head straight over to Tree, sniff him to make sure no one else saw him, and then make pee-pee with my leg lifted! It's so FUN! And then when I'm done I stand there, looking very proud, and let everyone know that not only is Tree MINE, but also that I am a Big Boy!

I will let Massah take a picture of me making big boy pee-pee, but I need to practice some more first. I sometimes lose my balance and tip over and get pee-pee on my legs. It's hard work standing on three legs and doing that! So let me work on it a little more, and then I'll post a video! I'm so proud of myself! It's so exciting!

kisses

Last night Massah didn't pay near enough attention to me as she should have. She was busy putting pictures in her new photo album.

Okay, it's pretty cool, and it's made of copper, and it has a bone on the front, and granted... they were all pictures of me and Mean Sister Fig, but still....

I had to sit and watch the Cubs all by myself. *sigh*

I finally captured her attention and decided that it was time for a make-out session! I went in for the first lick!

And I didn't let up!

Keep going!

Clean out that nose!

I tried to kiss Mean Sister Fig too, but she was disgusted with my immature behavior. I told her, "WHATEVER. I see you do it to Massah in the mornings!" Filthy little hypocrite.

a people party

I'm back! It was a tiring weekend - we had to go to Motch's house because it was The Boy's birthday, and I got to see all of the family and even Coco (who says she doesn't like me "That Way" anymore, but I saw a hopeful gleam in her eye so I'm staying away from her so I don't unintentionally encourage that kind of thinking). She has a video of our meeting on her blog; you can check it out here if you haven't already. ALSO! I was nominated for the Awesome Blog Award on Dogs with Blogs!!! Thanks to my BFF Lola for nominating me!!! I came in 2nd place last month for the Photo of the Month, so maybe I'll get one better this month!!! However, some of my BFF's are nominated too (like Ruby and Oscar) (...but not Lola, my premier BFF...) so if you haven't voted yet, GET OVER THERE and choose your favorite! And now I will share a couple pictures from the weekend, because I know how handsome everyone thinks I am and how you can't survive without seeing me every other day or so. :-) I think this one was taken before the party started, when we were still slightly energetic. (I've successfully managed to avoid the dreaded HAIR CUT so far, as you can see....)

Look at Mean Sister Fig! Sitting all FAT!!! She will be so mad at me when she find out I put this up where her boyfriend Balboa can see it!!! HAAA!!! Eeeeeeevil sister....

She's crabby crabby crabby!!! Little Grumpy Face!!! I'll put another one up, just because it's MY blog and I can do that - and because she put nasty ones of me up last week!!!

And this is Motch holding me (I think she might have been preventing an escape) and making sure Sadie doesn't do anything she's not supposed to do (like steal massive quantities of food when no one's looking. I think she uses that "I'm blind and deaf" thing to her advantage - everyone underestimates her until she waddles away two chicken breasts, a roll, and half the cake....)

And this is the ONLY other one of me from the whole entire party. There was obviously some serious mis-management of the camera, there, if there are only 3 pictures of me....

And by the way - I do not have a big nose. I've read what some of you are saying about me! It simply is closest to the camera and therefore looks larger than it really is. There's some kind of name for that phenomenon - I'm not an artist so I can't remember it, but it has something to do with the focal point or a messed up camera perspective or something like that. I blame it entirely on Massah.

lots of stuff....

In my excitement about my new BFF Lola, I think I might have said some things yesterday that I need to clear up. I didn't mean to imply that I will only have one friend now. I was so worried about this last night that I had a long talk with Massah, and she assured me that I can have lots of BFFs, but I decided that Lola is my first BFF and holds a special place in my heart because she actually asked me to be her BFF and no one had ever asked me that before! Oh my gosh I love you, my BFF Lola!!! So I love everyone else too, but I think I might love Lola a little tiny bit more because she's my premier BFF, but Luckie and Lorenza and Ruby and Toby and Peanut and Tucker and oh my gosh I can't name everyone, but you are all my BFFs too! And I also have some bad news. In our heart-to-heart last night, I told Massah that I didn't want her to cut any of my hairs. She said, "okay, but I will try to find something to keep them out of your eyes", so I agreed. If I have known what kind of utter embarrassment she was planning under that huge forehead of hers, I wouldn't have acquiesced so quickly. Look what she pulled out last night.

It is a giraffe hat. And I saw that tag - it was made for a CAT!!!!! She took lots more photos, but I am not allowing to be uploaded to this blog. And I don't want to think about that horror any more. So I'm going to do the meme from Penny.

1. Your age? 1 year
2. Your age when came to live with your people? Somewhere around 6 months
3. What color is the collar you’re wearing right now? I don't wear a collar unless I'm on my leash, but that one is burberry
4. Who is your favorite person other than the people you live with? Massh-in-law!
5. How much do you weigh? 11 pounds (she STARVES me!)
6. Most expensive thing you’ve ever chewed up? UGG boots (hey, they're UGGly!)
7. Do you like other Dogs? Yes
8. Who is your best non-human friend? My BFF Lola!!! And I should also mention Fig because I love her too

9. Squeaky Toys or Tennis Balls? YES!
10. Do you like to be brushed? What is brushed?!
11. Peanut Butter or Cheese? YES!
12. Do your people cut your toenails? Yes they do, but not Massah because she is scared; she takes me to Petco
13. Any formal education? Fig taught me all kinds of things, like how to bark at things in the yard!
14. Couch potato or Energizer Bunny? I run around like the Energizer Bunny until someone sits down - then I'm on their lap!
15. Five nicknames your people call you. Taddy-wack, Taddles, Little Naked Chinese Man, Taddly-winks, Baby Boy
16. What is your best trick? What's a trick? Is it something to eat?
17. Do you like kitties? I have never met one, but they sound VERY scary at the vet'narin's office....
18. What did you have for breakfast? My Low-Residue prescription food *sigh*
19. Can you hunt (aka have you ever killed anything living)? If so, what? Oh, yes - I kill and eat ants and spiders and bugs all the time!

20. When & why was the last time you went to the V.E.T.? About 3 weeks ago for my angry pancreas
21. Where do you sleep at night? Against Massah's neck
22. Do you like to swim? I've never tried it, but I don't think I would enjoy it
23. Can you make puppies? Thank God no! They tried to make me do that once and I will be scarred forever!!!
24. Your favorite place to visit? Motch's house
25. Do you give kisses? Oh yes!
26. Can you potty on command? I know what that means, but I refuse to do it - hee hee....
27. To Cuz or not to Cuz? CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ CUZ!!!!!

MY BFF LOLA!!!!!

I have a BFF!!!!! Look at her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's the lovely Diva Lola!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And we will be BFF forever and ever and have lots of fun annoying our siblings and sitting on our mom's laps and playing in our yards and eating things we shouldn't and licking up people's noses and chasing balls and snuffling around in the dirts in our yards and being CUTE! I'm so excited to have a BFF!!!

And it's not the pretend kind of BFF like Wally and Sherman have - the "Black Furry Friends" kind. We are the REAL kind, because neither I nor Lola are black. Or particularly furry.... We are BEST FRIENDS FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!

That is my picture of her. She has long eyelashes because she's a girl. I drew it before we were even BFFs! She hangs next to my jail all day long every day! I might need to send her a poster-sized picture of me, because I think she's still sentanced to her jail when her parents are gone because she got Three Strikes against her. But it's really not fair because her parents didn't know FOR SURE that it was her that did the naughty things in the house and they just assumed it was her and that would not hold up in a court of law and I think she should be set free to run around the house when they're gone and I should be set free to do that too. I'll have to find a good picture to send her. I'm so excited!!!!!

And I think my Massah-in-law will be jealous too, because she wants a white boxer like Lola and I told her no one can ever be like Lola except Lola because she's my special BFF and I think she might want a Lola BFF too but I told her Lola is MY BFF. I'm just so excited I can't stop the run-on sentences from running on and on and I can't control it!!!!

boooooooring....

Not much going on over here. Last night Massah found the rest of the bottle cap I was eating yesterday. I hid it in hopes that I might enjoy and ingest it later at my leisure, but she's a pretty good detective and discovered my hiding place. Hmmm... next time I might have to hide it somewhere else instead of on the seat of the couch.... She seemed very happy that I didn't swallow as much as she orginally thought. I don't know why she was so concerned - I'm the one who will have to poop it out later, and I'M not worried!

She also saw this recent picture of me and condescendingly decided that it's time for another haircut because she thinks I cannot see. We all know what happened last time she took a scissors to me...! Heavens to Betsy. I'm gonna have to think of something to distract her....

naughty and nice

I found something delicious on the floor last night!

Oh yummy!

What is it?

A cap from a pop bottle!

I ate most of it before Massah saw me, so she wasn't very happy after that. I sat on her lap and made some silly faces to cheer her up.

She said no one in the entire world can make faces and look like me. And then she laughed. I'm taking that as a compliment.

Coco, Moose, and the rest of the weekend

Well. Ahem. Apparently, I unwittingly forced Coco away from me. (Read about it in her words here in her journal.) I hadn't figured out how to tell her that I didn't like her, but I guess my masculinity was just too much for her to handle. And now she doesn't like me any more "That Way". Whew! Got out of that one pretty easily! We had a pretty fun time anyway, though! We don't have a lot of pictures because she didn't want to stay around me and Fig very much.... This is what she tried to do all the time - crawl on the back of the couches and chairs to escape our attentions.

I found hertaht time, though! Massah took a video of us trying to play with her. Ignore all the talking in the background.

We also went outside to play, but when we got out there I saw MOOSE!!! I love our neighbor Moose! He's so nice to me! I almost didn't recognize him though, because he got ALL HIS HAIR CUT OFF! He almost looks as bad as I did when Massah gave me a mullet!

We said hello, and I told him how much I look up to him.

He makes pee-pee on our bushes like a big dog - I told him I'm trying to learn how to make big boy pee-pee's too! He did it right there on that bush in front of me so that I could watch his technique.

After all that excitement, I had to lay down to rest. I chose Massah-in-law's lap so I could lick and lick and lick her. Up the nose is my specialty. Like this:

After Coco left and everything settled down, we were all tired! This is how we spend lazy Sunday afternoons at Motch's house. This video also features Sadie, Motch's Cocker Spaniel. I've talked about her before - she about 317 years old and can't hear or see anything, but she likes to follow me and Fig around sometimes.

We were too tired to even play our regular bitey-face games... that was our slow motion bitey-face. I'll leave you with one more picture from the weekend. This is Massah-in-law holding Coco while Moose checks her out and I smell his bum. What a great day!

this is a SECRET

Don't tell Coco....

I think she has a crush on me. But... *sigh* I don't want her for a girlfriend. There's nothing wrong with her, but I don't know.... She's kinda crazy and I don't really know how to play with her because she's so little and I'm afraid I'll hurt her and I'm pretty young to have a girlfriend and I don't want to be tied down and she's even kinda related to me....

I know a lot of you doggins have girlfriends and boyfriends, and Tanner recently even had a crisis about having a wife and someone called Mrs. Dress and a sparkly princess all at once, so I'm wondering what you all would advise. Mean Sister Fig is no help, because she never even LIKED anyone before Balboa came along, and now they're in a long-term relationship. Coco's pretty insistent when she gets something into her little head, so I need a GOOD excuse to give her for why I don't want to be her boyfriend.

I'm going to see her this weekend, so... anyone have any ideas?

watch out!

You will NOT BELIEVE what happened last night!!!!! We were outside trying to make some pee-pee in the grass, when all of a sudden Massah saw me jump 3 feet into the air and 2 feet to the side. She said it looked like a little bomb went off under me and threw me up and off to the side. She didn't really think a whole lot about it, because I tend to do rather random things from time to time, but when she looked back a minute later she saw a SNAKE SLITHERING RIGHT NEXT TO ME!!!!! It attacked me and tried to swallow me whole, that's why I jumped! She let out a odd-sounding strangled cry, and pulled me and Fig away from it because she couldn't tell if it was poisonous or not. She couldn't remember that little rhyme about the colors so I tried to help her... is it something like this?

Red on Black, better stay back.

Yellow on Red, you are dead.

Black on Yellow, watch it, fellow!

White on Green, it is mean.

Red on White, fight fight fight!

Purple on Blue, eat some poo!

One of those, I think. Anyway, it was about 37 feet long and it's mouth was as big as Fig's belly - HUGE!!! But we don't know what kind it was. This is where we saw it.

Massah-in-law says it was a GARDEN SNAKE or something...? If those things are deadly poisonous, capable of swallowing me whole, and constricting around my lungs and asphixiating me, then that's what it was. We are going to be VERY careful out there in the future.

oh no....

Well I thought Ike had a great idea for us rescued pups out there - "go on the internets and find a picture of a puppy that looks like you and claim it as your own" was the challenge. That was, I thought it was a good idea until I went on the internets and saw some pictures of puppies like me.... Evidently we all have mohawks and/or afros in the beginning.

Now, I'm all for Crestie Pride and all that jazz... but did I really look like that?!

little(er) me

Massah couldn't sleep last night, so I stayed up with her. I'm not sure she appreciated it, but I was just trying to help her. We laid in bed and I stared at her all night long. She kept glancing at me out of the corner of her eye, trying to see if I was still staring at her. And yep - I was. All night. She'd try to move me so I couldn't see her, but I'd just move my head so my beady little eyes were boring into her. And then she'd turn over so she couldn't see me, but every time she looked back, there I was - staring at her. Eventually, after a few hours, I moved on to licking my arms. She didn't seem to like that any better than the staring. I wasn't bothering her - what was the problem?! She was just being difficult for some reason. I don't know why. *shrug*

Anywho, there's another game going 'round where we post pictures from our puppy-hood. I didn't find Massah until I was older, so she doesn't have any pictures of me as a wee pup. But here are some from our first 2 days together:

I think I've posted these before, so bear with me if I'm repeating myself.... You'll notice Fig is right there beside me. She didn't like me. At all. She actually tried to eat me through the crate when she first saw me. She got used to me though. Hee! Here's our first "family picture" from the day after I came home:

You'll see that my skin looks really different - I was never outside before I found Massah, so as I was exposed to the sun I got more and more tan as time went on. When I first got home I was whiter than white! And no freckles!

I had sores and infections on my skin, so thankfully Massah doesn't have too many pictures from those first few weeks! I was a mess! But I sure was happy!

How time flies... it's been over 9 months since I've found her!