Friday, February 24, 2006

Be sure to get my good side

I was meaning to post this picture earlier but somehow got distracted. Once again, this is Louise watching the computer. However I like this one in part because it doesn't have the blue or green reflection in her eyes.

Louise has been having fun at home lately. We had more snow yesterday and she was out romping in it at least three or four times in the one day. It's interesting how some days she can be so completely lethargic while on other days she will have boundless energy. It's hard to keep up on days like that. I had to take her out for a walk around 10:oo PM which was a bit of a surprise, since we were out for a walk just a few hours before. She probably could have stayed inside for the night, but was restless to the point where it was obvious that she wanted to go outside and run for a while.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

A get well message for Sweetnicks

We got an email from Alicat informing us that Sweetnicks isn't feeling too well and was in for some tests. Who the heck is Sweetnicks, you ask? Well to be honest, we don't really know - but Louise was ready to take action as soon as she heard the news. We were asked to post a photo of Louise at some point this weekend and then to email Alicat so she could link to it on her site. (?) I hope I got that right. The blog post with the details is found over here, for those who are interested.

So the photo we are featuring today is Louise in the early morning, after a hard day of running through the dog park. Sweetnicks, I am here to say that Louise feels your pain. As a dog who is forced to live with three cats, Louise understands suffering. She hopes you recover quickly.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Wearing Olympic colours today

Louise is wearing her red sweater today to show support for the Canadian athletes competing in Torino, Italy. She was particularly impressed with the skeleton event, and figures that would be one race she could do. If you look at some of the earlier pictures posted here, you can see she would have very good form.

Today was also a good day because we were able to return to the dog park, which is Louise's favorite training facility. I tried to get some good 'action shots' but she's just so darned fast at running that the pictures were either blurry or she was only half in the picture!

Anyway, congratulations to all the athletes who have been competing (or are still competing) in the games. It's been fun to watch from home.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Some outdoor photos

It has been a while since I posted any outdoor photos of Louise, so here are a couple recent ones. While the weather might be kind of cold here, at least we haven't had much snow to contend with. Or maybe that's why we haven't had too much snow. Anyhow, this first one is of Louise running to catch up to us on a quiet street. We aren't able to have Louise off-leash on the busier streets, but this one is a dead end and traffic is very minimal, so as long as Louise keeps coming when she is called, then we allow it. (She has lost off-leash privileges before, when she has refused to return to us when called. Louise refuses to talk about this.)

This next one is simply a closer picture of her on the street, although I think she was watching me stomp mud off my shoes at the time. Louise thought that was hilarious, and was hoping I would kick some mud for her to chase. Don't ask, I really don't know why she likes to chase mud and rocks.

Anyway, as I mentioned it's getting pretty cold around here lately. Last night we had to break out her sweater again, just to keep her warm. At least her paws weren't getting frostbitten like they did during last year's cold snap.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Happy Valentine's Day from Louise

Last night while watching TV, Louise decided to take a nap on the sofa. This is quite normal for her, as she will typically start off cuddled up to me or my wife, and then get too warm.

So off she went, to settle down on the other sofa. But somehow, it just wasn't as comfortable as the laps from before. Louise tried to find a good spot, but eventually decided that she had to take matters into her own paws and modify her surroundings.

Louise started digging at the blanket on the sofa, pulling it into place.

After much digging Louise had finally pulled the blanket into a comfortable pile for her to sleep on. Her artificial lap. The last thing she told me before she drifted off to sleep was "make sure you tell all my fans to have a happy Valentine's day tomorrow."

Yes Ma'am, will do.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Lazy weekend

As promised, here is the photo of Louise on my lap, "watching TV". If there aren't dogs barking on screen, she tends not to be all that interested.

To be honest, this is one of the things I like best about a pug - they can sleep just about anywhere, just about any time.

That is, until someone decides to turn on the computer and watches some more videos. Nothing gets a pug riled more quickly than that. Except for maybe Gingerbread man. It is always fun to see just how quickly Louise can go from snoring to completely alert and ready for action.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Treat fuelled energy

Popeye has his spinach. Pac Man has the powerdot. I am sure there are others who also recieve 'powerups'. In that vein of thought, Louise has her treats.

In this picture, you can tell that she is keeping her eye on the prize. I would say it looks like she is climbing invisible stairs, but that's just me.

Louise isn't one of those dogs who can walk around on two legs indefinately. Sure, she can get up on her hind legs for treats, but she loses interest and is back on all four relatively quickly unless she's getting rewarded. It's almost like you can here her thinking "Okay, if I'm not getting the treat soon, you can forget it. I'm not standing on my hind legs for you all day. I'm too old for this nonsense." And by that I do not mean to say that Louise is old - rather that she's not young and naive like some pup fresh from the litter. (I tell ya, the disclaimers needed on this site just to keep the star happy. But I digress.)

Anyhow, this weekend I should be able to post some shots my wife took of Louise and I trying to stay awake while watching TV on the couch.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Barking at the computer

As I mentioned, we got some good pictures of Louise barking at the computer. Our usual source for entertainment is simply Google Video. From there we search out short videos of dogs barking, and play it. That's about it, Louise is easy to entertain.

It has proven to be hazardous for the laptop's health.

So we take precautions, and we generally try to make sure that we settle Louise down before it gets too late at night. We can't have angry neighbors starting to complain about our noisy dog, now can we?

This technique has proven to be quite effective for those rainy days when Louise has energy but has decided to take short walks due to the weather. As you can see in the second picture, after some initial barking, she will sometimes move around the living room to find a better place to bark from. In this case, I think she thought Roscoe was in trouble, because she ran over to where he was and appeared to be defending him.

And yes folks, this is a rare TRIPLE PHOTO POST. Only here on Heavy Breathing will you see such extravagance. Okay okay, all kidding aside, I did tell you that we took a lot of pictures a little while back, and these are just a few.


But you know, for as ferocious and agitated as Louise appears to get, her tail just keeps on wagging like nobody's business and she is always happy and friendly towards us. Just look at that smile.

And you remember how she was acting all depressed and bored when I went back to work after Christmas? Well we don't see that behaviour from her so much any more. I guess the added stimulation and interaction has helped to keep her from getting bored.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Tricks for treats


Louise is the kind of dog who will entertain for food. She likes her treats. A lot. Here she is smacking her lips after eating a treat.

My plan was to get a picture (or two) of Louise standing on her hind legs. The end result was that we took dozens of pictures last night, of both Louise and the cats.

Of course, we did get some pictures of Louise standing up for treats, as you can see. I'm noticing that a lot of her pictures are showing the different eye colours now too. Some of these I have put on Flickr, but others I've just used Blogger for. There's no good reason why, I'm just trying different things to see how it looks, mostly. After all, both sites resize the pictures down to 1024 x 768 so there is no size advantage between them, and both offer free hosting. Of course with Flickr I could pay $24.95 a year to increase capacities, but for now this is acceptable.

One of the other things we did was to get some pictures of Louise barking at the computer. I'll probably post some pictures of that in another couple days or so. She had us in hysterics.

Yes, Louise was in rare form last night. Only it's not that rare. I guess 'treat induced' is a more accurate term. I can always tell when she's had fun at home because she will be calmer on our evening walk. This night was no exception.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Can we get a non-compete clause?

So last night we had Louise barking at the laptop again, just for kicks and I was hoping to get a good photo of that. Unfortunately, whenever it looked like a good shot, the camera was not close by. Or when I had the camera, Louise was in the mood to eat, etc.

So I took a picture of Roscoe while I waited. That went over like a lead balloon.

As soon as I did, Louise came over and 'presented' herself for the camera, even though she was kind of sleepy. It's funny how she gets jealous over the strangest things sometimes. What we were commenting on last night though was how she doesn't mind Roscoe lounging right next to her food at all. Normally she is overly protective of her food, to the point where she will charge at the cats for merely walking in the general direction of the foodbowl. Yet Roscoe is allowed to even share water with Louise. It's a strange alliance with those two, but that's okay - it sorta balances things out with the others.