I thought we were getting a Golden Retriever but we got a bucking bronco, a race horse, and at times a bull in a china shop.  At least that’s how it’s seemed the past several days.  Kloe is the bull and the rest of us and the house is the china shop….

A recent series of much needed storms has grounded “Air Kloe”.  If we could somehow harness and store (externally) her unused energy it could potentially serve two good purposes.  First, we could sell the stored energy to power companies and make a few bucks while the energy was put to good use running power tools in a factory or local lumber mill.  It would probably last them weeks.  And two, and even more important, the energy would not be in her body (hence the reference to external storage) and our world would a much safer and saner place to ride out these storms.

Golden Kali’s last post was called Rain Delay.  And the rains have continued to delay and preclude Kloe from spending any significant time outside.  The Golden K has a lot of places for Kali and Kloe to roam and explore.  There are a series of gates, chain fences, and farm fences that connect our wrap around deck to several large areas that the girls can roam and run in.  Well Kloe can roam and run, Kali mostly just roams for a few minutes and then quickly lies down and enjoys the scenery.  The rain makes these areas, except for the deck that just gets icy, mud bowls.  We’ve learned a lot of things this first year at the Golden K and one of them is that we need better drainage throughout the areas the girls have access to.  There is definitely a Spring project or two having to do with grates, drains, and pipes in there somewhere…

Although Kloe is impervious to rain the house is not impervious to mud.

A decision to allow Succumbing to Kloe’s pretty brown eyes and relentless pleas to allow her outside in the wet and mud is usually followed by 30 or 45 minutes of getting her cleaned up and house worthy.  We’ll try to work in walks when it’s not raining too hard but this past series of storms has been very wet and walks have been few during the past week or so.

The girls have always had unlimmited in and out privileges so Kloe is very used to going out for a spell, coming in to see what’s up inside, and then asking to go back outside again.  She’ll do this several times throughout the day but when it’s wet and muddy, depending on what we’re doing at the time, it may not be practical for Holly or I to sign up for the clean up rotations.  We were talking about this the other day and were saying to each other that other dogs spend the day outside rain or shine and the owners are ok with.  Why aren’t we ok with it?  This in itself doesn’t make us good dog owners or make them bad dog owners.  Like us they love their pups.  In fact those dogs may be happier than Kloe (or our perception of her happiness?)…

But that’s not how we roll at the Golden K and that’s not the type of relationship we want to have with our pups.  They sleep next to us at night, lie under the table when we eat dinner, wrestle at our feet when we watch TV, and are lavished with treats (healthy treats of course!) throughout the day.

It finally stopped raining and things are drying out.  Kloe was able to spend significant time outside yesterday and will again today and tomorrow.  Clean up rotations will be much shorter and “the bull” will be happier outside the china shop where she can burn off some energy, chase a ball, do a little “Tazing”, and be able to take some long power naps when the energy is finally spent.

But alas, the rains will back again by Thursday and apparently in full force.  China will need to be protected in the shop and clean up rotations will be longer. Our 70 pound puppy bull will stare out the window, look at us with pleading eyes, and of course we’ll relent and let her out for a short while.

Rain, pleading stares, relent, clean up, and repeat.  This is the Winter dance we do at The Golden K.  We’re’OK with it.

Holly, the puppy bull, and the stare

OK with it.