The Prirates Life for Me!

The Tall Ships are coming to Tacoma, WA.

July 3rd - July 07/08

http://www.tallshipstacoma.com/

Did you ever want to dress up like a pirate? You know you want to bellow out a hearty yo ho ho! The Tacoma Tall Ships Festival Volunteers were looking for a good pirate dog for their commercial about the event and LO! Scupper P. DogHeart was selected.

He was a brave little puppy at the photo shoot, where he met lots of children and adults and film crew. There was a mom, dad, three children and Scupper. Everyone was dressed as a pirate (except for the film crew) Scupper was filmed last, all he had to do was don his devilish eye patch and run out the front door to the awaiting van, to join his 'family'. We accomplished this 'action' shot with treats and the clicker training helped a lot. He did just great and he only needed 3 'takes'.

I was amazed at how well he took all of this as he is only 5 months old!

After wards we got to take photos of ourselves from this fabulous house on the water. Behind us is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge one of the larges suspension bridges in the world.

The views were spectacular and it was lovely day warm and sunny. If you want to step aboard with us this summer we have some extra eye patches, and a wooden leg full of rum, and we will have you yo ho hoeing all the way to the docks.

Earth Day; Bless the Earth and All Upon It

Earth Day for Fox Island UCC arrived sunny and clear, a far cry from recent spring adventures with clouds, rain, thunder, sleet, hail and snow. Only slightly alarmed that the weather service called for more of the same on Sunday we prepared for the day, with one eye open.
Earth Day celebrations brought FIUCC a lot of children. Eighteen children arrived outside in our garden after their ‘sermon’ and we assembled a group from ages 14 to toddlers.
To accommodate this enthusiastic and hardworking crowd we supplied rakes, shovels, spades of appropriate colors and sizes. Some brought their own garden gloves embellished with ladybugs.
To begin our celebrations, we talked about the native plants on the property and we embarked on a small hike to take a closer look. We learned about Douglas Fir, Oak Fern, Wild Ginger, Sword Fern, Wood Sorrel, Huckleberries, Roses, Creeping Dogwood and more.
To commemorate the day the children planted three Western Red Cedars and four Red Twig Dogwoods. We also planted seeds of California Poppy, Cosmos and Nasturtiums out in the wild rose beds. Nasturtiums, though not native are edible and like the other flower seeds we planted are low water use plants. For our closing we made a big circle around the newly planted trees, joined hands and said a prayer for our plants and the earth.
Won’t you join us for a grown-up work party? Set aside May 17th from 9am to noon for clean up and planting. Bring appropriate clothes with; label your name on your tools. Lunch will be served at 12:30 p.m.
Bless the earth and all upon it.

Scupper the Sailor Dog by Margaret Wise Brown

Scuppers the Sailor Dog, by Margaret Wise Brown is one of my favorite childhood books. Ms. Brown also wrote Good Night Moon, which is more widely known. These books were published as Little Golden Books and could be purchased for about 10 cents.
Scuppers the Sailor Dog bears a remarkable resemblance to my dog. A scruffey little brown and white dog on an adventure.
But my dogs name is Scupper P. Dogheart.

He has a heart shaped patch on his back which is too cute.
I have to repeat his name to folks because they don't get it, and they have never heard of a scupper unless they know sailboats. A scupper is a water drain on deck. So I have to say it several times or spell it. What is it, scruffer? stupper? stupper? huh?

I think that it has something to do with my accent as well, but I don't know for sure about that. Maybe its my braces.

Baby in the house

Its been quite a while since I had a baby in the house. We put up baby gates in the kitchen so ole Scup is confined to a hard surface which is much easier to clean than our carpet.

Oh my, getting up to take care of 'business' at all hours of the night is a real nightmare. Especially in the chilly PNW. I have to put on my fleece jacket and slip on my clogs. Then I have to leash him up so I can take him over to the area by the fence that is covered in wood chips. Before going out we ring the bells. We have big sleigh bells hanging by the door , we try to get Scup to ring them too and then we say "outside get through".

So, then I go over to the fence and repeat the phrase 'outside,get through hurry'. I change my tone to sound more urgent and I repeat "hurry hurry hurry, get through"I accompany this phrase with a hand signal. The hand signal is performed by pointing the index finger to the ground and making a circular swirling motion. This training has paid off, because today I took him out while on the phone. Rather that have my caller hear me giving the command 'get through, hurry" I just made the swirling motion and Scupper good boy went on command!! Yippee.

Warren has been a trooper. I did not count, but I believe that he was up more than me. One night Warren took longer than usual to return to our cozy down covers. When I asked him why he was taking so long, told me that he liked to 'hold' Scupper till he was sleepy again before putting him back in the crate. Awh that is so sweet. I have 2 sweet boys.

The first 4 or 5 weeks have been hard but we are coming out of it now, I can see the light. There were no "mistakes" made for the past 4 days! This is an unprecedented new record.

Scupper P. Dog-heart has learned a lot. He can sit, stay,down, heel, leave it. Leave it is a very useful command when he has grabbed up my gloves or shoe or the kitty poo next door. UGH and I let him lick me; but not on the face!!! Not anywhere on the face.