Christmas with Cousin Chilton

This year, Dog Mob spent their Christmas with the in-laws and their Cousin Chilton, a purebred Standard Poodle, in Delaware.

They had a lot of fun ruining the landscaping in the pool yard (where they had to do most of their playing because neither Chilton nor Crookytail is entirely reliable on their recalls, so the big unfenced yard is off-limits to everyone but Pongu, who gleefully lords his nerd superiority over the other two every time he alone gets to go out there with me).

Chilton, who doesn't often get a chance to goof around with other dogs, looooved playing with Crookytail (and pretty much only with Crookytail, since Pongu made it clear early and often that he was not interested in making friends). Crooky was also thrilled to play with Chilty... at first. By the second day, and definitely by the third day, he was plainly getting tired of Chilty's endless puppy exuberance and frequently obnoxious pestering. Still, being a good sport, Crooky did his best to humor Chilton whenever he could.

The rest of the time, poor Chilty lay outside the closed door of the basement room where Dog Mob was staying and complained about not getting to play with them.

Snow falling outside the windows on Christmas Eve:

It took me seriously over ten minutes to get that picture, and that's the best version I ever managed. Putting Dog Mob in a Down-Stay was no problem, but Chilton wasn't accustomed to posing for pictures, so luring him into frame and then persuading him to sit still long enough for me to hit the camera button took a LOT of doing.

On Christmas morning, the dogs each got their own dollar store stocking (there was a dollar store in the same strip mall that housed the facility for Pongu's last Rally trial, so between runs I stopped over and grabbed three stockings for the furballs). Their presents were wrapped in plain brown paper and stuffed inside for them to tear open.

(That time I gave up on getting Chilton in the picture after about 5 to 10 minutes. It just wasn't happening. So I did it with the other two and called it a day.)

He had fun opening his presents along with Dog Mob, though.

THE END.