The monster that comes at night....

It comes at night, after dinner or after a shower, when I play with mommy. It just hoovers over my face and wants to grab my nose. It's the hand monster!!!

It scares me sometimes.....

and I try to figure out if I should attack it......

.... and when I am really brave, I do:

And after victoriously defeating the monster and mommy rewarding me with my good-night-treats, I dream of attacking an even bigger monster next time.

Where I have been and what I have done:

Some of you might have been wondering, why I have not posted anything for a while. Well, globetrotting beagles like me once in a while have to go on road trips with the rest of the pack (mom and dad, of course) to broaden their horizon.

Me in my tour gear.

 So a few weeks ago, mommy stuffed pretty much the entire house and a whole supermarket into her car, packed some coolers with food for me and daddy (hard boiled eggs, my friends!) and off we went to visit grandma in California.

It's a bit like "Where is Waldo?"

 First we drove from New York to New Jersey to Pennsylvania to Ohia to Indiana and we saw a whole lot of, well, nothing. I mean, there were just corn fields and potato fields and more corn fields and more potato fields. You have no idea. 

There is really NOTHING!

Then from Indiana, to Illinois to Nebraska. We stayed at a really nice hotel there in Lincoln, they even allowed dogs on the bed there - I think.....

Me in Nebraska!

And then....more driving....BORING.....

Bored to death in NOWHERE!

We also saw this hound howling at the sun in the middle of the day....

What is he howling at in middle of the day?

 After driving through Nebraska FOREVER we ended up in Wyoming. But, man, I gotta tell you, they have spooky stuff in there hotels.

I saw this dude in Evanston in the lobby of the Best Western and even though I barked at him like crazy, he would not go away. Instead, mommy pulled me out of the lobby - she was probably afraid that I would scare the hell out of the bear!

Scared the hell out of him! He didn't even move - that's how scared he was!

 Thank came, you guessed it, more nothing....

More nothing in Utah.

...and then we ended up at this strange lake that was made all out of salt. Mommy yelled at daddy for letting me walk on it and I had to have my paws cleaned with water afterwards. They called it the Salt Flats and daddy got all excited and wanted to drive the car over it!

Me and daddy on the weird looking lake.

After Utah came Nevada and if I thought before that there was a whole lot of nothing out there. Nevada had even more nothing - and rattlesnakes on top of it!

Mommy said I had to hold my pee until there were no more snakes and I totally got it.

No pee for me!

After four days in the car, three hotels, lots of treats, pee stops in every state along the way, we made it to the Pacific Coast.

And I will tell you all about it in my next blog.

So stay tuned and wait, there are more adventures to come. Like the one time when I almost......

OK, gotta go. It's my birthday today. See you next week.

Love, Ellie

Any chance,...

....just if you have like 15 or 20 minutes or maybe an hour.....

.....that you could give me, because I really deserve it and have been a good girl today,

a magnificent, wonderful, fantastic, long overdue, so needed

 

 BELLY RUB???

Thank you for your consideration!

Staying warm

So Santa brought me this burrow bed and first I wasn't too thrilled with it. I tried to rip it apart, pushed it through the entire living room, stuffed some bones in it and even considered to pee on it. Honestly, I almost liked it as much as I like my stupid coat. 

Me ON my burrow bed - not so sure about it yet.

 But then it got really cold out there and even though the heat in the house is on, I got some chills. I tried to convince mom and dad not to go to work, but instead to sit next to me and be my heating pad. But they said that they had to go out and make bones. So all of a sudden, the stupid burrow bed did not look that stupid anymore. It is actually quite comfy and cozy and one can completely disappear in it. I am almost sure that I can even eat in here.

Me IN my burrow bed - very sure about it now.

So glad I did not pee on it!

Stay warm all you dogs and humans!

Guess what happened to me!

You won't believe what happened to me just over the last two weeks! First, I had a fire at my house and I was IN the house. Daddy rescued me and I stank like BBQ pork ribs for a couple of days. 

Smoke coming out of every opening. Firefighters to the rescue.

Up in smoke - daddy saved me from the house. I knew he was a hero!

Then, we had to move to a hotel with no lawn or ivy for me to pee on.

Bored at the Inn.

Then we moved into this new home with lawn, but without any squirrels in the yard. And then a big snow storm hit town and there was, once again, no lawn for me to pee on. I actually dove into the snow, dug a hole in it and couldn't find any grass underneath, so I had no other choice but to pee on the new comforters that mommy had to buy. Guess she wasn't happy about that - I could tell from her yelling and screaming.

No grass to pee on - bummer!

Now, two weeks later, I have a bunch of new toys, daddy took me to Sleepy's to help him buy a new mattress, we are still looking for a new chair with a high enough headrest for me to sleep on and they give me treats all the time because I am still traumatized from being in the smokey house (I wonder how long I can play the part of traumatized puppy!?)

Need a new chair to hang out with daddy.

They tell us that it will take about a year before we can move back into our old house, but I heard that we will go to visit often and that we will do a lot of renovation. I am already rallying for a bigger window seat over the radiator, a place for my bowls on soft carpeting (hate the tile floor in this rental house), better access to the backyard, a treat dispenser in the kitchen cabinet and a big La-Z-Boy chair for myself.

A big shout out to Dr Jeff from Greenlawn Animal Hospital and his team for providing me with super anti-anxiety medication (I was flying high for a couple of days), Ellen from Happy Dog Training for calming my mommy down and giving her good advice as to how to stop me from peeing on the floor, guys from the Huntington Manor Fire Department for making sure that the house is still standing and to my buddy Bailey Sullivan and her family for giving us shelter and for not yelling at me when I pooped on their floor - twice.

Keep your fingers crossed for us and I will keep you posted along the way.

Love, Ellie

In bed with me

Guess how I ended up here!?

I clearly remember a conversation between my big human, Steve, and my female human, Sue, about that there was no chance in hell that I would ever sleep in the big bed. Yeah, sure. I can report today, that all that talking about "dog has to be crated", "puppy needs to learn to be by herself", "humans need privacy" was just human blabla. Six weeks into living with these folks and guess where this picture was taken!?

A little crying in the middle of the night when they let you out to pee at three in the morning and stuff you back in your crate, some whining right after they turn off the lights for the night - and in no time human Steve comes running, gets all lovey-dovey and, in an unsupervised moment, I run into the room with the big bed and start jumping up the blanket. I am telling you, it works every time. Just too bad that the humans take so much space. Have to figure out how to make it my own.