Mooooore cookies :)

Chocolate truffles (yumyum!)

molasses cookies (with lemon frosting, chocolate, and plain)

shortbread (very crumbly)

Baking is fun, especially with a good cup of coffee with lots of frothed milk (thanks Jan!).

And in the mean time on the couch:

No, we did not break the dog. That's what he considers comfortable!

Cookies!!!

Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is just around the corner - time for some serious baking!

Here's what we have so far:

A ginger bread house

almond cheesecake bars

cinnamon stars (without butter - doh!)

and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

All cookies have been tasted and approved by Jan :). Stay tuned for a good half dozen more over the weekend!

Fall is still here!

What a beautiful fall we're having this year! I keep waiting for the rain to start... and it does, for just a few days. You know, I can live with that! Wish it would stay like this until spring.

In the mean time, enjoy the sunshine while it's here.

(PS: Because someone asked: No, this is not a muzzle on Pepper's face - he can carry a tennis ball in his mouth if he wants to, it's pretty loose. It's a headcollar, similar to the halter that horses wear. )

Molalla State Park

Despite the rather bleak weather forecast on Friday (guess what, rain, rain and more rain), today turned out to be really beautiful. It started to clear up at around 9 or so, and since this might very well be our last chance to enjoy the sun, we decided to head to Molalla State Park for a little walk (I wouldn't call it a hike, really). 

When we arrived a good half a dozen dogs were already there, all off-leash, ready to explore the park with their owners. What a great opportunity for our pooch to work on his behavior modification (no, you can't always play with dogs when you see them). He did pretty well, huge improvement from half a year ago, but still not where we'd like him to be. Patience (urgh...). 

They continued their walk around the field that you see in the above picture, while we moved closer to the river and through the woods. It was gorgeous. With all the leaves Pepper was in heaven (all those smells, got to inhale them all!), and both Jan and I thoroughly enjoyed the calm and peace.

A last quick stop at a scenic point

before we headed back home and treated ourselves to something yummy from Fred Meyer (it's Sunday after all!):

Later in the afternoon we took Mr. Pooch to the dog park. This time - entrance on leash, walking around on leash for a while, meeting dogs POLITELY (not running up to them to engage them in play immediately). He did really well (except once when he got excited when a 10 months old pup got all excited around him). After we had finished our meet-and-greet tour we went to the southern half of the park and played ping-pong with him: Jan and I were a good 100 m apart and took turns calling him. He did so well! 

I guess we'll keep doing that for a while. Trying to keep him calm in the dog park (which is hard because many of the dogs there are in a very excited state already, and he picks up on that), not entering if there is potential trouble, and keeping him focused on us (i.e. making us more interesting than the other dogs - the hardest part of it!). He has shown huge improvement over the last month or so, so I am confident that we'll get there with patience and persistence.

Happy Halloween!

I'm not a fan of dressing up pets for Halloween. Really not. However, I could not resist adding a bow tie and some cuffs to our gorgeous black boy. He didn't like the cuffs too much (and yes, I took them off after I took the picture), but the bow tie was fine. After all, it's essentially just a fancy collar, right?

And: A slightly blurry ACTION SHOT!!!!

Fall has come and not yet (!) gone

I love this time of year. It's still dark when I get up, the air is cool and crisp, and the trees just look gorgeous. And when the sun decides to shine, it's hard not to love it outside. 

Last week Jan was in Seattle, so Pepper and I went on our evening walks a little earlier. And we were rewarded: This beautiful sunset was taken last Thursday.

Rough week...

About two weeks ago we noticed a little bump under Pepper's right eye. Nothing bad, really, and since we had just returned from the dog park - and he had done some wrestling with Greta there - I figured maybe she got him a little too hard and it is just a small wound that will get better on its own. It didn't.

So after a week I took him to the vet who said it could either be a benign histiocytoma or a cancerous mast cell tumor, and as it was so close to the eye he could not take a good sample to make that judgement call right there. So he decided to take it off and send it to biopsy. Which meant a long week for us. We finally got the result today - it was benign. Thank goodness! 

Here are some pictures of Pepper with his "cone of shame" (I can't tell you just how many times I have heard that this week...).

Here he is on Monday evening right after surgery. Still a bit drowsy and definitely uncomfortable. We left his harness on so that we could tie the cone to it to ensure that there is no way he can strip it off over night.

 

We first tried to get him into his kennel over night (and I slept in the same room just in case he got stuck with that huge cone). He couldn't get comfortable and after a good hour of him whining and looking pretty miserable, we cleared out one of our rooms completely and moved him and his bed in there. I stayed with him until about midnight (and actually got a few moments of sleep), then took him out for a brief walk + bathroom break. He wasn't quite sure how to manage to eliminate with that cone on. Poor bugger. 

The second night was also pretty rough. He slept until about 2 when the combination of being in pain, being uncomfortable, not having run for two days and being alone in a room that he usually does not sleep in was too much. I then decided to at least take off the harness (and connect the cone to one of his old collars), and that made a huge difference already. I took him for a walk/run (in the middle of the night!), and that *definitely* made a difference. So while I did not get a lot of sleep the first two nights, it has paid off. He has been just wonderful ever since. I've said it before and I'll say it again: What a great dog he is!