Doggone Dog

As you may have heard, we have added a new member to our family....Belle the retriever. Belle is a 10 mth old chocolate lab who has been in training for duck hunting most of her life. Jesse is so excited to have her and to be training her himself. She is very obedient and very loving, but she hasn't been around people, kids, cars, houses, or anything except other labs in kennels training. So needless to say she is not house trained. However, she has done an amazing job picking this up. She only had one accident since we've had her home and it's been over a week. This brings me to my story......not so much about accidents....well you'll see.....


Yesterday when we arrived home from school I took Belle out for her walk. I had all 3 kids outside letting them play with her as well. Andrew went in and changed out of his school clothes and returned with shorts, t-shirt with a jacket, and tennis shoes with no socks. May I remind everyone that it is still freezing cold and we still have a foot of snow on the ground. I told him he would get cold, but he didn't agree. Anyways, here they all go running around, shoes getting soaked, toes getting frozen and Belle using the bathroom....all is good......except.....Andrew decides he wants to sled. I again tell him this is a bad idea, he doesn't have any snow clothes on.....again he disagrees. Sometimes lessons are better learned lived. So off he goes down the hill and Belle chasing after him. Meanwhile, I am standing on the driveway with my nice shoes on holding Payton and talking with Eli. Andrew is yelling "whooo HHOOO" this is so much fun. He returns and starts down again. This is when I mention, "if you go down in the same spot you will go much faster". So off he goes again in the same spot, Belle chasing after and Andrew yelling again. This time he looks like a pro, smooth sledding and I have to say I was a little impressed...until....he ran out of room and didn't fall off the sled. So I begin yelling, "fall off, fall off", nope he didn't "fall off", he went right into the woods and down to the creek. When he stopped, Belle was right on top of him, and Andrew was now yelling...screaming...crying!!

Well, my snow shoes were inside and I couldn't carry Payton down the hill and then carry Andrew back up, so I told him I would be right there and went in to put Payton down and get my shoes. When I made it down the hill I see he is just fine, just a little scratched from the branches and he calms down. This is when I look over and see Belle rolling in something...digging through the snow and rolling again! And with that, Andrew says "WHEW....something stinks". It is at this point that I see that Belle, my well trained dog, is rolling in poop! You know, snow is beautiful, but it sure does keep everything FRESH! I start yelling commands to Belle and you know what...she didn't listen....just rolling, rolling, rolling in poop! I grab her collar and grab the sled and grab Andrew and up we all go (poop and all) up the steep hill. The next challenge was getting the stupid, yes stupid, dog in the shower. Thank goodness we bought this house for the shower! We like to call it the cow shower, because it's big enough to fit a cow in....or a poop dog! Three attempts to get her in the shower and finally I had Andrew hold the shower door closed and I got in with my clothes and washed the stupid dog that doesn't listen to commands! And you know what else....Labs are a lot bigger than wiener dogs and are a lot harder to wash. It took a whole bottle of shampoo and by the time it was all over I was drenched and Belle was clean, hair was all over my shower and it took 3 towels to dry her off.

Now what possessed us to get a dog....oh that's right....Jesse, and where was Jesse....work!