So, here we go – three fun days in Las Vegas for the 2009 Age of Chivalry Renaissance Festival. I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

Love for me!

The real reason I love to go to Renaissance Faires - FOOD!

Taking JT for a walk.

Ear scritches...nice.

How can anyone resist petting this cutey?

Mmmmm...more ear scritches.

Yes, I know I'm beautiful.

Who ya gonna pet, me or Jack?

I love my Captain Jack!

Oh yeah. That's the spot.

No, really, you can pet me harder than that. I won't break.

Me and Mom and Ghillie the Galgo!

Lucky Jack's not here, otherwise he'd be beggin' for beer!

Me and my Greyhound pack: Peaches, Captain Jack, and Cooper. I'm not sure where BJ was hiding, but it was dinner time so I'm sure she wasn't too far.

Look at this: The kids are lining up for a chance to pet my wonderfulness!

Again: The real reason I like to go to faire. That's a boar leg hanging over the fire. Yum!

So, there you have it: Las Vegas 2009.

We’ll be heading off to Las Cruces, New Mexico, in a few weeks, and I should have some pictures from there too. (Sadly, we won’t be going to Las Cruces after all. On Friday, 10/30, BJ had a bad reaction to her monthly heartworm preventative so we’ll be staying home to take care of her instead.) I have some pictures from a visit by Mija (the naked dog) earlier this summer that I also hope Mom will get to soon. I’ll try to pester her some more.

Until then,
–Sergei

…to put up a new post soon – even if I have to bite Mom to make her type it for me. Don’t worry, I won’t bite her hands; she needs those to type with.

I just pointed out to her that it’s been almost four months since she last took dictation from me, and that’s FAR too long. Her response was that she started working on a post for me a couple of weeks ago, but got distracted. Pfft!

Well, since we all just got back from the Las Vegas Renaissance Faire (LVRF), I’ve got a lot of stuff to show and tell, so she’s going to do sit down at the computer and do as I say very soon…or else.

For now, you can go back and read my 2008 LVRF posts here and here. Hopefully, that will hold you over until Mom gets to work.

Oh, and here’s a picture of me from the 2009 LVRF. Consider it a preview of more wonderful stuff to come…

Huggles for me!

–Sergei

Okay, so maybe that title is a bit over the top. Mom thinks it is. She wanted me to call this post “How to Get Mom and Dad to Stay Home,” but that just doesn’t do it for me, ya know? Clearly, someone needs to teach her a thing or two about blogging.

So here are the harrowing details of My Brush With Death:

Last night, as Mom and Dad were getting ready to leave us poor suffering hounds alone so that they could go out to dinner, I saw this strange thing on the kitchen floor. Aware that anything on the kitchen floor is potentially edible, (heck, anything on any floor is potentially edible) I just had to check it out. Yes, I’d already had my dinner, but I’ve never been opposed to scrounging some dessert.

So I walked up to this strange thing on the kitchen floor, gave it a curious sniff, and–

OUCH! It zapped me!

I backpedaled out of the kitchen so fast that my feet were sliding on the tile. Mom says I looked like a cartoon character running in place. Ha-ha, Mom. My schnozzle had been ZAPPED! And it HURT!

Mom came into the kitchen to see what was going on, and quickly went into action. She told Dad to run upstairs and get some Benadryl. She opened a cupboard and pulled out a red plastic cup with some writing on the side. Inside the cup was a piece of cardboard. She used the cup and the cardboard to chase down and scoop up the nasty zapping thing on the kitchen floor, and then set the cup on the counter.

By then, Dad had brought the Benadryl from upstairs and I was lying on the couch trying to lick and rub away the ouchie from the nasty zapping creature.

Mom shoved a couple of Benadryl down my throat (yuck!) and then checked my schnozzle and inside my mouth for any sign of the zap-creature’s attack. I don’t think she found anything, but it sure hurt. It was like a spicy bee, only WAY more intense.

Mom said that she and Dad would be staying home to make sure I didn’t have any sort of reaction. I really wasn’t sure what she meant by a “reaction,” but I was happy they were staying home.

While Mom was keeping an eye on me, Dad got the camera and the cup with the nasty zapping thing in it, and took them outside so he could take some pictures. Here they are:

The nasty zapping thing safely ensconced in the cup.

Turns out the cup says: "Scorpions ONLY!"

(Yes, that’s right, Mom and Dad have a dedicated scorpion-catching cup. Ah, life in the Southwest desert…)

After taking the picture, Dad let the nasty thing go in the front yard. I sure hope it doesn’t come back inside.

As for the “reaction” Mom was worried about, here are some pictures of BJ from a couple of months ago when she made the mistake of checking out a nasty zapping creature:

The creature zapped the left side of BJ's face - as if you couldn't tell.

Poor puffy BJ face.

When BJ had her zapping-creature encounter, she got Benadryl and she got rushed to the emergency vet. I guess I’m glad I didn’t get all puffy and have to go to the vet, although I really do like to go bye-bye in the car and meet new people.

But even BJ didn’t react as badly as another dog Mom and Dad had before I came to live here. Below is a picture of Rahja after she got “scorpioned.” (Yes, she really was a Greyhound, despite the huge muzzle; that’s all swelling from the zapping.)

Puffy-faced Rahja after getting "scorpioned."

Both Rahja and BJ survived their “puffiness” with no permanent damage – and no lingering puffiness. I wonder if they learned to stay away from scorpions. I think I have.

Me after the zapping, glassy-eyed with the effects of the Benadryl.

Today, I’m fully recovered from the zap (and from the Benadryl). I think I’ll stick to bees for my spicy Southwestern treats.

–Sergei

]]> http://sergeifluffytail.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/my-brush-with-death/feed/ 10 Sergei Fluffy Tail Scorpion Scorpion BJ BJ Rahja Sergei http://sergeifluffytail.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/happy-5th-birthday-me/ http://sergeifluffytail.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/happy-5th-birthday-me/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:16:28 +0000 Sergei http://sergeifluffytail.wordpress.com/?p=372 ]]>

Today, June 5, 2009, is my fifth birthday. Mom says that means I’m an adult now and I have to grow up. If I figure out what she’s talking about, I’ll let you know.

As today approached, I thought hard about what I should write to celebrate my me-ness. I was going to prove that I could be completely unselfish and write about my packmates, but then I realized that none of you would’ve come here on MY birthday to read about the The Greys of Our Lives. (I will, however, endeavor to write about everybody – even the cat – in future posts.)

What I finally decided to do was go through all of the pictures that survived the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2009 and reflect on my first five years of Sergei-ness and my first 18 months here in Arizona.

Below is a picture of me when I was three weeks old, followed by a more recent picture so you can see that I really have grown up. If you talk to Mom, I’d like you to point this out so she’ll stop telling me to do so.

And here’s a picture of me sitting and making a face when I was 6 weeks old, followed by a more recent one of me doing the same thing. Again, notice the growedupedness about the second picture:

Do you like the puppy sneer or the snarly adult yawn better?

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that humans can be a bit slow on the uptake (take the whole “Mom hasn’t noticed that I’m grown up yet” thing as an example). For some things, it’s okay if humans remain in the dark, but when it comes to me wanting food, I’ve found that I sometimes have to be somewhat forceful.

Since food is quite often found somewhere on a counter in the kitchen, I have discovered that I can put my chin on the counter (it’s the perfect height) and then clunk it down a couple of times so that my target human receives an audio as well as a visual cue.

Clunk.

Clunk.

Clunk.

Sometimes clunking even works:

Yum!

That last picture was taken very recently, and you’ll notice what’s right there with me: My Favorite Toy. Even after 18 months here, with all of the toys I have access to, it’s still my favorite.

Maybe I like it because it's tall and skinny like me.

Prancing with my favorite toy.

I've got my favorite toy! Hooray!

My favorite toy attempts to escape.

You know, I could probably do a whole post about my favorite toy trying to escape – it’s sneaky that way. Maybe I’ll blog about it in the future.

Since I love my favorite toy so much, I try to take good care of it. I even try to keep it clean:

Time to wash my favorite toy.

I drop it in the pool and let it soak for a while.

Checking to see if it's clean yet.

Yes, it looks clean now.

Giving it a chance to drip dry.

I love my nice clean toy!

Getting back to food…you might think that with all of the clunking I need to do to get food from my humans, I don’t get much dog food here. Well, that’s true. Mom doesn’t feed me very much dog food, but I do get a lot of other good food.

One of my very first meals here: a chicken leg quarter. Awesome!

Demolishing some YUMMY beef heart.

Once in awhile we do get food out of bowls, too, usually lots of leftover stuff plus a bunch of veggies and other goodies all ground up together. It’s sorta messy, but it’s really GOOD.

Let me help you with that, Peaches. You've got a bit of it on your nose.

Sometimes we get treats, too, but Mom tends to make me work for those.

Jumping for - not joy - but a piece of liver cake.

When I’m not eating or jumping or cleaning my favorite toy, I do still play around with Do-It-Yourself Toys.

Here's a nice potential toy - a light bulb box (with the light bulb removed, of course).

Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw.

Chomp!

Check out this latest fashion: a SchnozzleBox!

Uh-oh. I think it may be stuck.

I did escape from the horrible, schnozzle-eating light bulb box. But do-it-yourself light bulb box toys aren’t the only dangerous toys around here.

You may remember the Huge Green Spider toy I introduced in my post, The Importance of a Diversified Portfolio. Well, one day, the Huge Green Spider tried to SWALLOW JACK WHOLE, and I had to rush to his rescue.

Oh no, Jack, it's swallowed your ENTIRE head!

Pull, Jack, pull!

It took some doing, but I finally managed to rescue my bestest buddy Jack from the clutches of the evil Huge Green Spider.

Sometimes Jack has other problems, though . . .

Uh, Jack, don't look now but you've got a foot growing out of your chest. Ew.

I have noticed a few other things around here that aren’t completely safe, especially involving the pool.

Seems there's no air under the water.

And the floaty blue thing tastes AWFUL!

But I do have my pack, which is nice.

Here we all are in a recent group shot (waiting for food, of course).

And I have a Giant Raccoon toy that occasionally needs to be shown who’s boss.

And then there’s Mom and Dad’s nice comfy bed.

Me and the girls taking a snooze.

So it’s really not a bad life here at all. Maybe I’ll stick around for another 18 months – or until I can prove to Mom that I really am all grown up. But that could take YEARS. Oh well, grown up or not…

...I'm so happy to be MEEEEE!

Until next time,

-Sergei

So there I was, taking a snooze on the lawn.

Borzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzoi...

Suddenly, I sensed that something had changed.

Huh?

I stood up to look around the yard.

What's going on?

And then I saw it. There was a giant thing on the lawn.

Hey, what's this giant thing doing on the lawn?

What was this giant thing? More importantly, could I eat it?

P-too-ey! No, not edible.

Maybe I could play with it.

Kinda big for a game of fetch.

I decided to get a second opinion and showed the giant thing to Peaches, the resident tripod and boss lady of the pack.

What do you think, Peaches?

She didn’t seem terribly interested in the giant thing.

Peaches: "Hm. Whatever."

Clearly, if something was to be done about the giant thing, it was up to me to do it. I took a nibble from a different spot on the giant thing.

Maybe this part is edible.

Sadly, it was no more edible than the other part. I decided it was time to get tough.

Grrrrr... Take that, you giant thing.

Growling at it didn’t seem to do much, so I went for an all-out ‘zoi attack and pounced.

Gotcha!

The giant thing didn’t seem any more interested in my attack than Peaches had in the giant thing being there in the first place. It was time for a more serious approach.

Chomp!

Die, giant thing, die!

At last, the giant thing had had enough. It was time for my victory lap.

I am victorious!

Er…make that “victory laps.”

I have triumphed!

I am Sergei, slayer of giant lawn things!

Being victorious is hot work. Thank goodness the pool was there for me to cool my feet.

Here I come again, pool! From now on, I will be known as Thingbane!

Okay, so maybe I got a bit carried away with the victory laps.

Ding dong, the thing is dead!

Welcome Thingbane's victorious paws, oh lawn!

All hail Thingbaaaaaaane!

Wow. Check out all that water.

It looks like the pool exploded.

Exploding pool or not, that was FUN!

Until next time, this is Sergei Fluffy-Tail Thingbane, signing off.

P.S. Mom wants me to tell you that, if you like science fiction or fantasy, you should visit her new website and read some of the stuff she’s written. Why you would want to read fiction stories by Mom when you can read non-fiction stories by me, I don’t know. But…whatever.

It’s been over a month since my last post, and over two months since my original Renaissance Borzoi 2009 post. My excuse is the usual one: Mom’s far too busy with silly things like work to type up my posts for me. This time, however, she does have a bit of a legitimate excuse – her hard drive on her computer died so she had to have her entire system rebuilt. She had most of her files backed up, so she didn’t lose too much. However, one thing she did lose is all of the pictures she and Dad took at the 2009 Arizona Renaissance Festival. Fortunately, she had processed the pictures for this post before the drive died, so there are still versions of the most important pictures they took – the ones with ME in them! And here they are…

Me and Peaches, the boss lady, riding to the Festival

The picture below shows me wearing the new, extra large “Donation Dog” silk that Mom ordered so I can help collect donations for the Greyhounds while I’m working with them. Of course, some of the bigger Greyhounds can wear this silk, too, but it was made to my measurements. Isn’t it stunning?

My new finery.

Getting pets in front of the Greyhounds of Fairhaven booth.

More pets

Hi. My name's Sergei. Love me.

Pets from kids are best.

Jack tells me these kid-carriers sometimes carry treats. Sadly, I didn't find any.

Would you believe it - more pets for me!

And, of course, in the afternoon, the Queen and her ladies escorted me around the faire.

Me and all the pretty ladies

The Queen and I (it should be a musical)

I seem to attract royalty. Here I am with the Queen, the Prince, and the Princess. Oh yeah, Mom's there, too, but she's not royal. She's just Irish.

A good-bye hug from Her Majesty

Alas, those are the only pictures to survive the great hard-drive crash of 2009, but some is better than none.

With luck, Mom will be able to help me with my next post before another month passes, but if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

–Sergei

Yesterday, March 16, was packmate Cooper’s 12th birthday. Cooper is the red-fawn dog in the picture at the top of my blog.

Mom posted about Cooper on her blog yesterday: Still Perfect After All These Years – you see, Cooper is perfect. Just ask him

Anyway, visit Mom’s blog and read about Cooper. There are pictures of me there, so it’s worth the trip.

Mom promises that she’s working on the pictures for my next post, so keep checking back for more words of wisdom from me.

–Sergei

A lot of dogs think that toys only come from their humans in the form of stuffies and such. My humans do provide those kinds of toys (for an example of some of them, see this post), but I like to find my own toys, too. In this post, I’m going to show you how (and where) to find some fun toys, and what you can do with them.

I’ve searched just about everywhere in the house for good sources of toys.

Checking the fridge for possible toys.

Checking in the freezer.

Checking inside the oven.

Checking under the kitchen sink.

Checking the trash in the laundry room.

Checking the trash in Mom's office.

After checking all the likely places, I discovered that the trash in places like the laundry room and Mom’s office – places where the trash is open to my schnozzle – are the best places to find toys, not to mention the easiest to access.

Here are some of the toys I’ve found in these wonderful (although perhaps unintentional) toy dispensers:

Here's a "candy" bar box I found in Mom's trash.

The trick is to tear off little bits of the box and throw them aside.

Of course,  the “tearing off little bits” technique doesn’t work with all found toys.

These Tyvek shipping envelopes absolutely refuse to tear.

Still, they're lots of fun to play with.

And they last a really long time.

As you may have read in a prior post, another thing I really like are frappuccino cups. Sometimes a human will forget to give me their cup when they’re through with it, but I can get them out of the trash all by myself.

Don't worry, human, I found the cup.

Are you still watching me?

Taking the cup outside to enjoy it in private.

Occasionally it pays to check other places in the house for new (and often tasty) toys.

Well, lookie here, an almost empty gelato cup abandoned on the counter.

I'm sure no one will mind if I clean up the last of the gelato...

...and use the empty cup as a toy.

Blech. Styrofoam on the tongue. I always try to not eat my toys.

I just rip them into little bits. It's fun!

Here's another fun toy - a paper towel tube!

And here's a box. You can see I've been playing with this for quite a while.

Here's a rare and particularly awesome toy I found one evening - a PIZZA box!

Yum!

Hey, what happened to the yum?

Oh, there it is.

Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Here's a really great box I found one day, and decided to take outside for some serious playing.

Before ripping bits from a newfound toy, they can be lots of fun to toss around the yard.

Hey, where'd everybody go?

Toss!

And chase!

Gotcha!

Time to start tearing.

Of all of the toys I’ve found so far, here’s the absolute tastiest:

Ice cream!

Oh, this is toooo good!

All gone already?

Guess it's time to start tearing.

So, there you have it - do-it-yourself toys!

Now, get out there are start finding yourself some toys!

–Sergei

No, Mom hasn’t finished the pictures for my next planned post yet, and I don’t have any pictures at all for this post, but at least I’m talkin’ at ya! And I have an idea for yet another post after the next one, so you may be hearing from me quite a bit in the near future.

The reason I’m writing today is because I got to go to the Arizona Renaissance Festival yesterday! The reason there are no pictures, is because Mom and Dad forgot to bring the camera. (However, if you want to see pictures of me at the AZ Festival last year, visit my Renaissance Borzoi and Renaissance Borzoi Redux posts.)

Yesterday, I went out to the Festival with Captain Jack and Peaches. My old friends Ghillie the Galgo and Nod(zilla) the Greyhound were there. I got to meet their new sister, Perch – another Greyhound. I like Perch a lot. I also got to meet the Greyhounds Moose (aka Killian), Burrito, and Highfield. And, of course, I got to meet lots and lots of admirers. So many people wanted to pet me and tell me how soft and beautiful I am. And some of them gave me stuff to eat.

There is so much food out at the Festival – turkey legs, steak on a stake, fruit ices, funnel cakes, and lots and lots more. Whenever I saw anyone with food, I would go to them and sit pretty with one paw up to see if they would share. Most of them did, plus Mom brought me some pieces of bologna, and she shared some chicken and hard-boiled eggs with me, and gave me some of the ice cubes from her iced latte. Best of all, though, the fish monger came by and gave me some smoked mackerel plus a bunch of tiny dried fishies. For some reason, nobody wanted kisses from me for a while after that, but the fishes sure were YUM!

We didn’t get to walk around the Festival because Mom had a pulled muscle in her leg, but I made sure she still got plenty of exercise by leading her from person to person, and from inside the booth to rest on the sheepskins to outside the booth to snooze in the dirt in front of the booth. I’m afraid my cream-colored fluff got a bit dust-colored, but I suppose I can let Mom put me in the rainbox to clean me up – as long as she promises to take to the Festival again…and she says she will!

Of course, the Queen came by to take me for a walk. It was only a short walk, because she had to get to the feast hall, but she promised she’d come back to take me for a longer walk later. Sadly, she got wrapped up in some sort of queenly business and had to send her regrets to me via one of her servants. When she walked by in the royal procession later in the day, she looked very sad that she hadn’t been able to walk with me again. Oh well, I’m sure she’ll be able to make time for a nice long walk next time I’m out there.

Bye for now!

–Sergei

]]> http://sergeifluffytail.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/renaissance-borzoi-2009/feed/ 0 Sergei Fluffy Tail http://sergeifluffytail.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/crazy-jack/ http://sergeifluffytail.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/crazy-jack/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:09:01 +0000 Sergei http://sergeifluffytail.wordpress.com/?p=304 ]]>

Hi! Miss me? I’m not even going to bother to go into excuses, but Mom is finally working on getting the pictures for my new post ready. Hopefully she’ll have them done soon. In the meantime, I thought I’d share some pictures of my BFF, Captain Jack, being a totally crazy dog on Mom and Dad’s bed.

Some Greyhounds like to get up on a bed and (as Dad likes to put it) “run 45MPH in place”, meaning that they get on the bed and spin as fast as they can. BJ does this a lot (almost every day), but Jack only does it when he’s really, really hyper. And rather than just spinning, he likes to grab the pillows and bedspread and try to toss them around. He’s even tried to grab the mattress on occasion. Mom and Dad have tried to explain to him how fruitless it is to try to pick up the mattress while he’s on it, but he still tries sometimes.

Anyway, here are the pictures of crazy Jack spinning on the bed. Enjoy!

Caught in mid spin.

Oh, hello there.

Wild-eyed smilin' Jack

Kill the pillow!

Die, pillow, die!

Death to all pillows!

Spinnin' again

Wheeeee!

Yee-haw!

Hi again.

Spinnin' my life away...

Pillow attack!

I hope the pictures of Jack keep you entertained until Mom gets the pictures ready for my next post, pictures that (of course!) have ME in them. I think it will be worth the wait.

Until then, this is Sergei, signing off…