UGA VI, a damn good dog

Today is a sad day for Cookie Crumbs. UGA VI, The University of Georgia’s beloved mascot passed away Friday of heart failure in Savannah, Georgia. Despite being a Michigan State University fan, Cookie has always had a soft spot for the big guy and will miss seeing him roaming the sidelines on college football Saturdays. Rest in peace, UGA.

Statement from Trey Paris, President of the UGA Alumni Association
“On behalf of all loyal UGA alumni and the Alumni Association, we extend our heartfelt condolences to the entire Seiler family. UGA VI was indeed a damn good dog. Alumni of all ages had a special relationship with him, and he always drew a crowd of alumni faithful, whether at the Sugar Bowl, the Homecoming Parade, or simply walking into Sanford Stadium before leading us to victory. We will miss him and all he stood for.”

Serenity now!

For some, the weekend can be a time of reflection and deep-thought. However, Our Girl Cookie finds that weekdays can offer opportunities for this as well. Here she takes time out during her daily 4 PM walk to gaze at her own beautiful reflection (or perhaps a floating treat!) in the Frog Pond fountain located in Redwood Park at the foot of the Transamerica Pyramid. Careful Baby Bunz, don’t fall in!

A long week

Cookie was exhausted after a long week at the office. It was also a long and stressful week for her mommy and daddy as we began to get ready for our summer vacation. Luckily, Miss Cooks had her security blanket to soothe her bulldog nerves.

“Look Charlie Brown, you have fears and you have frustrations, am I right? Of course I’m right! So what you need is a blanket like this to soak up those fears and frustrations!”

–Linus Van Pelt

She’s a Little Bit Country!

Cookie cannot wait for her road trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming for our cousin’s wedding in July. Originally we had planned on flying, but when Miss Cooks came into our lives, we just couldn’t stand the thought of being away from her for a whole week (and judging by her most recent day care experience, we think she would prefer not to be boarded!). We promptly cancelled our airline tickets and made plans to make the 16 hour drive across CA, NV, UT and WY. As most of you know, Cookie’s signature colors are red, white and black. You can imagine our luck to find this fabulous color coordinated cowgirl outfit by Old Navy Dog Supply. It’s a Halloween costume that her cousin, Lucy, wore last year, but we think it is spiffy enough to wear year-round. Get ready, Cheyenne. There’s a new (cow) girl in town!! Yippee ki Yay!!! Too bad we won’t be there at the same time as Cheyenne Frontier Days, the Daddy of ‘em all. But Cookie is no stranger to rodeos… one only has to watch her in action!

Weekend At Cookie’s

Snort. Burp. Wheeze. Hello, this is Cookie. Lately it has come to my attention that Cookie Crumbs has been commandeered by my mom, who just loves telling the world about my exploits. Well poo-poo to that! She has gone to Seattle this weekend to visit my bulldog cousin Lucy and bulldog uncle Winston so I will be in charge around here for awhile.

Here are Lucy and Winston for your viewing pleasure.

Things sure have been hot the last few days in the Bay Area. I have been beating the heat by sucking on ice cubes and my latest chew toy, a thing called the Chilly Bone. In addition, I spent most of Saturday lounging on the cool garage floor as my dad worked on his old motorcycle. Here he is mugging for my camera with his 1971 Honda CB450…

What a doofus!

The garage floor cooled me off so much that I found it agreeable to periodically move out into the sunshine of the driveway until I got hot again. This occupied most of my day along with chasing one cat and achieving what I like to call a “turdfecta”. I’ll let you figure that one out.

Today, Sunday, I awoke at 6:10 AM relieved to find the heat wave had finally moved on. This combined with my earlier than usual 6:45 feeding had me rearing to get going on the day. My dad decided on breakfast at Sam’s Log Cabin in Albany and I was surprised to find I was included in his plans. We sat on their back patio and he enjoyed the egg special and fresh squeezed OJ while I snacked on treats he had brought from home. They were great, but what I really wanted to eat were the wisteria leaves that were blowing about. Good thing Dad reminded me of their toxicity to doggies or I might have been in trouble. Whew!

Following our yummy breakfast, we headed over to Mudpuppy’s Tub & Scrub for my biweekly bath. It felt great, but I can’t say the same for the medicinal ear wash that Dad insisted I receive. We go through this every two weeks, but I am still not a fan of the procedure. It wasn’t made any easier by the fact Dad kept singing along with the Muzak while he scrubbed my assorted folds and wrinkles. Songs like “Carry On My Wayward Bunz”, “Listen To What The Bunz Said” and “Hot Bunz In The City” were particularly grating. Anyway, I’ll always remember this bath because it was my 11th bath at Mudpuppy’s and thus was free! To celebrate they rang a big bell which got me excited enough to really pull on my leash and drag Dad out the door where he gave me my peanut-butter treat that all dogs get for bathing at Mudpuppy’s. My only regret was that it wasn’t still 95 degrees because Dad had promised me a Frosty Paws. He said it was too cold outside and that I’d already had enough treats for a 48.7 pound bully. Whatever.

Anyway, we’re back home now and I’m telling you, this blogging thing is fun, but it’s a lot of work. I think a long nap is in store while Dad watches the Tiger game on MLB.com. Hurry home Mom, I miss you!

Cookie Loves George

As most of you know, Cookie is very treat motivated. Here we see Our Girl perusing the snack aisle at George, a very posh pet store in Berkeley. She looks like a kid in a candy store! Right before this shot was taken, she had stuck her muzzle into every single dog bowl on display to see if some poor sap had left any crumbs. Alas, the shop owners keep the place spotless but they did give in to Cookie’s extreme cuteness and tossed her more than a few peanut butter and cheese sandwich cookies. Cookie could hardly contain her excitement. And so, she promptly peed right in the middle of the store as if to proclaim, “MY STORE!” Well, isn’t that a clever child.

Boot-Scoot Boogie!

Automatic ice-maker. Mailman knocking at door. Chimney flue. Squeaky sneaker on basketball court. Airplane sightings. Garbage trucks. What do all these things have in common? The ability to drive Cookie absolutely BONKERS, thus stimulating her ever troublesome anal glands.

Needless to say, one of the above triggers must have startled Cookie out of her slumber yesterday morning at 5:20. She came up to the side of the bed, poked her little face up over the edge of the mattress as if to say “Wake up mommy. I gotta go.” And so I decided to visit the ladies room myself before putting on my flip flops and escorting Miss Cooks out into the beautiful new Saturday. I was not in the bathroom more than 1 minute when I heard what sounded like a rodeo or stampede of cattle in the living room. What? I ran downstairs almost tripping on the hem of my jammie bottoms to find a little white bulldog hunched up and madly scooting on her bottom in circles on the living room floor. Yeehaw! Git along little dogey! Poor thing. Her bottom was irritated because of the phenomenon described in the above link. I grabbed the leash and the poopie bag and we went outside to do our business which was quite successful!

The unfortunate result of this entire episode is that Cookie really scraped up her nether regions on our berber rug and really stained and stunk it up. Cookie traipsed upstairs back to bed, and I spent the rest of the day spot cleaning the carpet and applying soothing salves to Cookie’s parts. The picture you see above is Tim soothing the baby after her scooting episode. Oh Cookie!

Doggie Day Care

Today Cookie had her first day of “Doggie Day Care.” As you know, Cookie normally goes to work with Tim during the week. She is a very lucky doggie that she gets to spend so much time with her Daddy. However, knowing that eventually we may have to board her, we thought a 7 hour stint at Metro Dog would ease her into the idea. Wrong. Poor Cookie! I just picked her up and when I went into the back to retrieve her, Cookie looked tired and despondent! It took her a moment to realize that it was actually ‘Mommy” and that I had returned to claim her (then she proceeded to wiggle like nobody’s business). Metro Dog is great – progressive and smart people run the place. It’s just that our little Cookie has some separation issues being a rescue dog and all. I’m sure she just thought that she was being abandoned once again. It breaks my heart to think about it! Anyway, from the verbal “first day” report that I received, I gathered that Our Girl just totally shut down. She was not active or social at all and had panted all day (from the stress of being separated from us). She was not interested in any other dogs and she snapped at every dog handler. Fortunately, Alison and Diane, the co-owners, were not put off by this. In fact, they recommended that we bring her by for visits now and then to get her more socialized and used to the idea that day care is a “good thing.” I think we will.

But for now, I must go to the kitchen and prepare Cookie’s dinner of grilled salmon with a strawberry/banana ice chip chaser. I think if Cookie could talk, she’d click her little dew claws together and say, “there’s no place like home.”

Nude, 2008

I have said it before, Cookie is truly a work of art. Edward Weston should be so inspired!

Summer Breeze…

… makes us feel fine.. especially when there’s salmon on the mind!

The first day of summer is officially June 20th, but we are feeling the warm weather already over here in sunny California. Everyone knows summer means playing outside and throwing dogs on the grill (sorry Cookie, not Bulldogs!). If you are as special as our Top Dog, Cookie, you might get a fillet of salmon thrown on the grill as well! As some of you already know, due to her delicate constitution and chronic skin allergies, Miss Cooks has a very restricted diet. She eats top quality food made by Wellness but can also eat people food such as salmon, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, carrots and potatoes (without the peel). However, when Cookie feels like a reform school delinquent, she has been known to steal an “ABC” wad of peppermint gum or a smashed cigarette butt from the downtown streets of SF. Yucky!

Ever since Cookie has been sampling the wonderful tastes of summer, she has had a silly smile on her face.

Oh Cookie, we feel the same way!