Rise and Shine and a little Hunting Banter

Both Cleo and Luna sleep in bed with Jim and I. This was something I adamantly fought when we first brought Cleo home but then I quickly became the biggest offender. Things only got worst once baby Luna joined our pack. Although both dogs excel at hogging covers and taking up as much space as possible they are quite different when it comes to waking up in the morning.

Mommy's little love bug

How Cleo wakes you up: If she wakes up before Jim or I she gradually starts to army crawl up the bed. When she finally reaches you she touches you with her paws and curls them back to her like she's trying to hold you. If your smart you hold out and pretend you don't notice this and eventually she worms her way up and rests her spotted dog face on your neck and nuzzles in. It's rather heavenly actually. In fact, she did this very thing to me this morning. We embraced and I sung to the Folgers coffee theme song, "The best part of waking up is Cleo in the morning." As my sister in law Becker says...why talk when you can sing?

How Luna wakes you up: Instead of quietly stirring she kicks around like a toddler having a tantrum and sighs heavily over and over again. It's almost like she's annoyed your not awake yet.  After about 30 fidgety blows she stretches, flaps her ears and yawns so loud that she might as well be howling. Then she storms across the bed like Godzilla taking Tokyo, kicks you in the lip with her dog talons drawing blood and then immediately drops a dog saliva soaked stuffed fox on your face. Well good morning Luna. After standing triumphantly with one paw jammed into your chest she flops down unapologetically and begins to speak Klingon to Cleo and chews on her ears. Within minutes a canine brazilian jiu-jitsu match breaks out on top of you and your expeditiously forced to retreat to the safety of the bathroom to save yourself from being trampled to death. Fun stuff. All before morning coffee. (Which is hilarious as I hate coffee but couldn't say "All before my morning earl grey tea" as it makes me sound like a flippin pansy).

Someone looks awfully innocent when sleeping huh? Till she jabs you in your sleeping face.

Anyway the past week has been quiet in our house as we basically tried to recuperate from four days of liver injuring Thanksgiving festivities. Luna did destroy by favorite Victoria's Secret cheetah bra and somehow found and ate a Frisbee I didn't even know we owned. We also managed to hunt almost everyday over the holiday and we had our first experience with goose hunting!  

6 dog Thanksgiving morning hunt. This pic includes Cleo and Luna, one of their older sisters Grace, a middle sister Maggie, their father Max and Blackthorn's Bonnie! From left to right: Cleo (3), Bonnie (16 months), Luna (9 months), Max (8), Maggie (2) and Grace (4).

Cleo rocking the intensity while on point

Little Luna Lu with a very nice retrieve

The goose hunting was a blast. Bob Gelder invited us to his spot in New Jersey and we spent half a day camped out in his blind with Cleo, Luna, Bonnie and Bob's friend Marty. At first the dogs were a little confused at the goose calling and having to sit in the blind but they quickly caught on that after all the shooting you get to retrieve gigantic birds. Epic win!

Cleo in the decoy field

My view from the blind

Cleared for Landing!

At first Cleo wasn't sure what to make of the Geese but by the end of the day she was lugging them back to the blind. Baby Luna on the other hand (who is not forced fetched) didn't quite build up the confidence to pick them up and bring them back. She did however run excited laps around them barking. It was in all honesty very funny and cute. By dusk it is was quitting time and after having spent three hours pheasant hunting in the morning and 4 hours goose hunting in the afternoon 9 month old Luna climbed into my lap in the blind and leaned into me as if saying I think I need a nap mom. We left excited knowing we found another new addiction.

Cleo lugging the goose in

Luna and Bonnie wishing Bob would give the goose back

Bonnie G with an awesome retrieve

I think the next thing on Jim's list is some duck hunting. Anyway check us out and follow our shenanigans on facebook at: Adventures of a German Shorthaired Pointer.

On the Hunt for Everything

If your a regular reader of this blog your aware that Luna, our 9 month old GSP is quite the hunter both in and out of the field. She manages to find, dig up and kill about 5 moles a week. She now undergoes mouth checks at the door as she has learned to stuff them whole in her mouth and like a drug mule sneak them into the house where she deposits them in fun places like the sofa.

What's that Jim? Oh just a dead mole carcass smushed in the rug. Sweet.  

Between Cleo and Luna very little shocks us anymore. I'm used to seeing them foam at the mouth from trying to eat frogs, I've seen them rip groundhogs out of holes and throw them through the air and its commonplace to find them perched on the back of the sofa like mountain goats so they can get a better view of the bird feeder.  But Lu shocked both of us this past week when she killed and then brought Jim a snake. Which is rather fitting since he absolutely hates snakes more than any other creature in the world. One time I saw Jim jump five feet in the air and scream like a school girl when we encountered a 6 foot black snake in a training field. I'm laughing like hell just thinking about it now. But thank god the snake she killed was a harmless garter snake. 

The falls hottest fashion. Screw scarves....we've got serpents. 

And since were on the topic of Luna(tic) raising the bar she managed to lock me out of the house this weekend. In her excitement of watching me chase the neighbors German Shepard out of the yard she pulled the lever on the back sliding door down and into locked position. Then they just calmly sat there and stared at me while I tried to figure how to get back in. Flippin Jerks.

They look so peaceful. Sheep's in wolves clothing people. Sheep's in wolves clothing. 

We did however manage to get them out on the things that they are supposed to be hunting....birds! Bob G invited us to NJ to hunt at his gun club yesterday. We ran Cleo and Luna with their father Maximus and Bob's other GSP Bonnie. It was a blast watching the dogs hunt and back each other.

 Cleo and Luna's dad Maximus on point

Bonnie backing Max on point

Maximus backing his daughter Cleo

Little Lu did great! 

Bonnie on point!

We have a few hunts planned over the Thanksgiving weekend so be sure to check back and see how we fair and follow our shenanigans on facebook: Adventures of a German Shorthaired Pointer. 

Surviving Sandy

A very large tree snapped in half

So Hurricane Sandy has come and gone. She has left in her wake an enormous amount of destruction not unlike our little Luna Lu. In fact, I now realize that her ill behavior over last several months has been nothing short of character building and training for dealing with this storm. Our neighborhood took an absolute ass kicking and their have been rumors that it may be 2 or 3 weeks till we have electricity again. Without power we are left with no running water, flush able toilets, means to shower or heat the house. It's starting to look like I should have bought more wine. With all that said it could have been much worse for us. Aside from a loss of much missed amenities we got through with practically zero damage to our home and property.

Look in the back and you see some of the wires down in our neighborhood...which the electric company has yet to even come look at

The hurricane had little effect on the dogs. It sure as hell didn't stop Hurricane Luna(cifer) from eating another one of my hats. I only had this one for approximately 30 hours. It was in fact a replacement hat to one she ate a couple of months back. That's 3 hats destroyed in 2 weeks. She is for all intensive purposes excelling at being a jerk. Her and Cleo also managed to knock over my end table during a wrestling match decimating my $400 Tiffany lamp. Pretty sure the dogs caused more damage in the house than Sandy did outside.

Thunderdome Sandy....two dogs enter...one dog leaves.

So for the most part the dogs slept through the hurricane. They had no issues going to the bathroom in all the craziness and in fact I'm pretty sure Luna appreciated the never ending rain as is gave her lots of mud to dig in. I however, learned a few really important life lessons from this storm. For your benefit I have listed them below.



#1. It's perfectly acceptable to start drinking bourbon rather early in the day even if its in the middle of week as hurricanes and nor'easters mess up the space time continuum.

#2. Taking pictures of your hunting dogs in snorkel gear and then facilitating their virality on the web results in threats from your boyfriend to turn you into PETA.

#3. I am so much better at gin rummy than Jim.

#4. My dogs are ridiculously brave as they fearlessly crapped in the middle of the storm in 80 mph winds. Pretty sure as soon as the doo left their butts it was sent spiraling to the next county or at least my immediate neighbors property. Were not in Pennsyltuckey anymore folks.

#5. After a bottle of wine, Jim in his rain gear looks eerily like a cross between hook man and Captain Stubing.

#6. Marathons of the Walking Dead and Revolution shouldn't be played on a continuous loop before impending natural disasters as it only fuels my already overactive imagination and forces me to constantly remind Jim that if the power is not back on within five days we can legally steal the neighbors sheep and cows as it will be every man for himself. He adamantly disagrees with my cow stealing sentiment but he still has no problem using the "end of days" defense as his reasoning for buying 2 shotguns and not a generator the day before the storm. And for that I remind you Jimbo, you CANNOT play both sides of the fence!

Tree down at Casa Momma's

So here we are going on five days without power. It gets cold at night with no heat but lucky for us Cleo and Luna are the worlds best snugglers. They seem to know things are a little wacky but have somehow made it their prerogative to keep destroying my stuff and such keeping us sane. I'll leave you with a couple of pics from Halloween. Cleo was a Queen Bee and Luna was a Frog. I didn't get any good pics of Luna in her frog getup as she hated it and just kept running to the camera. I thought if I let Cleo out with her she would encourage her to range out. Instead, she shot out the door like she was fired from a cannon and began depantsing her. Flippin hilarious. Anyway...check us out and show us some love on facebook at: Adventures of a German Shorthaired Pointer.

Queen Sassafras Face

Ohhh....I smell an ass kicking

I'll be taking those Frog Face

Success!!!