Dog day afternoon

Last Saturday we hosted the second annual reunion for Rosie and her litter mates. Last year the reunion was at a public dog park, and it was way too hot for everyone. This year we had the benefit of shady oak trees, a doggie pool, and air conditioning. As a big improvement over the year before, there was dog cake. More on that in a second.

Rosie was the runt of a litter of six. Her sister Macon and her brother Gunner were able to come out for a visit. Unfortunately her brother Capone and her mother were unable to come this year. It was really a shame, because the dogs looked and behaved a lot differently than they did last year. I would have liked to have seen Rosie’s other family members.

Rosie was a lot more aggressive this year than last. I think this has mostly to do with being on her “home turf,” but also because she has become more aloof and standoffish when she is overwhelmed. She’s polite until she can’t stand any more, and then snarls and snaps. We have a fair number of dogs coming through our home, and after babysitting our neighbor’s dog Sassy all week, Rosie was probably pupped-out.

Pearl and Maggie, they’ve become great playmates.

Rosie standing tall. She looked a lot different from her sister this year.

It was interesting to see how Macon turned out compared to Rosie. Rosie eats more people food than she should, but we have a big fenced in yard and with two other dogs in the house she gets lots of exercise. Here they are last year:

and here’s a picture of Macon this year:

A little fuzzy, but the only comparison photo I got.

Lady Jaye really outdid last year’s blistering heat-fest. She had some snacks for the humans, and managed to wrangle a cake made out of people-quality food for the dogs. Since she got to pick out what the cake said, Rosie’s name was first. 😉 It was so much more pleasant than last year. There was no shade and it was crazy hot.

Brother Gunner makes sure the cake doesn’t try to escape.

I took over two hundred pictures on Saturday, some of which I have uploaded here. I recommend viewing them in slideshow mode; the thumbnails don’t to it justice. I really enjoyed myself this year. We got to talk with Macon and Gunner’s parents more this year. Getting to know them as people was a real plus over the first reunion. I am looking forward to having another one next year, hopefully we’ll have even more pups in attendance!