Tomokee and furniture

We don't really know what it is about Tomokee and furniture, but he will often times treat this sofa as a busy box -- he keeps "burying" his beloved tennis ball under the sofa and then digging it back out.

Unfortunately, he also likes to throw his beloved ball inside this black hole recliner -- once something lands in the guts of this thing, it's really, really difficult and annoying to get it out.

Birthday Dog

Tomokee recently celebrated his fifth birthday. Happy Birthday, T-dog!

He's decked out in his new holiday garb.

Waiting for kitteh

Tomokee just loves cats. We have written about his love of cats. In San Francisco, there's a cat that sits on the other side of the back fence. This cat does not do much all day except sit. Or perhaps, s/he sits and thinks. Tomokee can sometimes see him or her through the holes in the fence, and he can usually smell the cat's presence. Sometimes he will just stand there at the fence making "ook-ing" sounds waiting for the cat to do something, like perhaps come over to his side of the fence.

Cars, cars, and more cars

This past Saturday, we passed through Monterey, CA, en route to a getaway in Carmel-by-the-Sea. We stumbled upon the classic cars showing all along Cannery Row as part of their Cherry's Jubilee event. Here's Tomokee in front of a Mustang Boss 302.

And here he is in front of another classic car painted in a great color.

Lion Dance

A Chinese merchant will often times have a lion dance troupe perform before opening a new business to the public because the lion dance is believed to bring good fortune. The Sunset District in San Francisco has quite a few shops run by Chinese propietors. Tomokee is viewing the lion dance ceremony at the opening of a yogurt shop. He didn't even mind the loud firecracker noises that are a part of the ceremony.

It's not Carmel, but it's still the beach

Here's Tomokee at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. It's not as pretty the beach in Carmel-by-the-sea, and it's way colder and more windy, and it doesn't have as many dogs, and they have to be on-leash, but it's still a beach. Tomokee is enjoying the ocean air.

Cone of shame, revisited

Tomokee recently managed to scrape his right foreleg at the inner "elbow", and we made him wear the "cone of shame" so that he would not lick his wound to death. On a prior occasion, we tried a couple of plastic collars, but they weren't that comfy for T-dog. Ultimately, we bought this Comfy Cone, which has been great. He can do all of his normal activities, including sleeping, in comfort. As you can see, it does not stop him from playing ball, ball, ball...

City dog

Last weekend, we hung around San Francisco, and the trip included a walk through Golden Gate Park. Here are a couple of pics of Tomokee enjoying the view at Stow Lake.
While there, we spotted a pair of muscovy ducks. They're sort of ugly and cute at the same time.

Adoptiversary

Last week was Tomokee's 4th year adoptiversary. Sometimes it feels like time has flown by and he hasn't been with us very long, and other times it feels like he's been here forever.

Windy Hill Hiking

We took Tomokee along on a hike last weekend to Windy Hill, one of the few parks in the mid-peninsula bay area that allows dogs. Tomokee had a grand old time, as usual. We hiked from the bottom entrance to this spot at the top entrance, where we enjoyed a spot of lunch.

Scenery

On our visit to Carmel-by-the-Sea and its environs last weekend, we made a trip to Garrapata State Beach. This is one of the loveliest beaches on the central coast and very popular with photographers. Tomokee is standing on the trail that overlooks the beach.

Open,open,open

We went on one of our getaways to Carmel-by-the-Sea this last weekend, and of course Tomokee goes along because Carmel, if nothing else, is a dog lover's kinda' town. We were taking a pre-dinner stroll one evening and suddenly T-dog pulls ahead and goes faster, and turns a corner even faster, and then pulls us down these steps and plunks himself down in front of his favorite retail establishment, Diggidy Dog. Alas, the shop had just closed for the day. But, there's no need to feel sorry for him, because we did return the next day and again the day after that and we bought plenty of treats for him as well as a new toy.

Tomokee got to stay at his favourite hotel, Kaluah Kennel while we legged it to Vegas for the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show.

His people had a good (& very lucky) time in Vegas -- good eats, good friends and
some visitations from Lady Luck:

Which ultimately resulted in this cash pile:


Causing T-dog to faint in shock:



And yes, there are complications when you try to drop this kind of cash on a bank. It's a bother I can live with.

Sunday

Tomokee wishes everyone a happy Easter, happy Passover, and just a happy Sunday!

Charlie the drool eater

This Charlie. Charlie is some sort of terrier mix that Tomokee met at the dog park on Sunday. In fact, Charlie was the only other dog in the dog park during the whole time we were there. Charlie and Tomokee were having a pretty good play time, although Charlie seemed a bit overwhelmed by the large and loud Tomokee. Once Tomokee gets going, he tends to drool. That's when we discovered that Charlie likes to lick the drool off of other dogs. Once he got going, he just kept licking. We found this behavior sort of odd.

Tomokee:2 Elizabethan collars: 1

Tomokee recently developed a small irritation on his skin (a "hot spot") that he was licking a bit too much. The vet sold us an Elizabethan collar, which stayed on him for no more than about 20 minutes before he rammed it into things and broke it. Tomokee:1, Collars:0.

So, off to the local Petco I go, and I got another collar. The store didn't have any of these soft foam ones I was hoping for, but this one is good enough for now. It's softer than the first one, and also more shallow, so that Tomokee can still play ball. He's resting comfortably, as you can see. Tomokee: 1, Collars: 1.

However, Tomokee still runs into things while wearing it, and in this case, the collar did not break, but he managed to shear off the attachment for the over-the-door shoe rack. Tomokee:2, collars: 1.

Now if only he could cook the whole meal

We recently replaced our kitchen range, and this new one has front panel electronic controls. We've been finding the electronic settings in some odd states once in a while after Tomokee has done some minor stove surfing when the stove is no longer in use. (He's smart enough not to do that when there are actually hot things on the stove). Luckily, most serious settings require multiple actions, which he hasn't figured out yet!