Ruby's Employed!

For anyone who hasn’t yet heard, Ruby is now a certified therapy dog. Instead of spending her free time face-planting Max into snow drifts, she now visits a local schools and libraries and reads with kids from Kindergarten to 3^rd grade. In exchange for helping these children practice their literacy, she gets to lie around and listen to stories all afternoon. Sweet deal, right?

You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no one could have foreseen the unfortunate consequences of the events previous to story time….BATH TIME!!!!!

Now, for Ruby this isn’t a big deal. She is a Newfoundland after all, and couldn’t be more at home in the water if she’d been adopted by a pack of wild frogs when she was a puppy. For Ruby, bath time is not an issue. It’s Max who still has nightmares.

As I’m sure many of you know, with siblings, what you do for one, you have to do for the other or life is a horrible, unfair, temper tantrum day. Well, same thing goes for pet owners. You can’t really give one dog a bath and leave the other to frolic joyfully in his masculine odors, which is how Max and Ruby ended up at the doggie beauty parlor.

Everything was going smoothly, so we were told, until the groomer discovered a large amount of matting near Max’s derriere. No amount of combing could untangle these knots, and Max was beginning to get pretty anxious by the time his stylist arrived at the last resort.

Shave the mats out.

A necessary, yet desperate measure, Max’s buns were now exposed to the sub zero weather of last week. As a result, whenever he absolutely HAD to go to the bathroom (and trust me, he could hold out for a while) we would open the door so he could sprint outside, piddle as quickly as possible and come charging back up the stairs to bang on the door and scream bloody murder because his humps were frozen.

But, this story does have a happy ending. After the trauma of BATH TIME Max now enjoys many nights warming his buns by the fire and sampling popcorn while watching a little reality TV before dozing off and dreaming sweet dreams of furry underpants.

Oh dear me!

Another month gap between posts! I'm so sorry, but the holidays totally got to me this year.

First there was fighting over the bargains on Black Friday




Wrapping Christmas presents...unwrapping Christmas presents...




And of course there's New Years Day morning...who even remembers that!?




So I hope you'll forgive my poor blogging habits! It's my resolution to do better in the future!

And thanks to the lovely Tom for the super cute pictures!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

And so is my history with blogging.

To appease you all I offer the following tidings of comfort and joy:

Go see Hairy Potter, in theaters now!





We promise it will be better than Batdog: Return of the Sassy Puss.


And finally:




You better get to bed or Santa will never come!

Ruby Says I Need to Post More!

Today, Ruby gave me this look:

She says I need to put more fun Max and Ruby stories up! Well, Max's front foot recently received a manicure and is now half baby blue and half sassy red. He's feeling patriotic and FIERCE!

Ruby's fur has reacted negatively to the humidity and she now has an afro. An all around fashionable day at the Smith House!

Happy 4th of July!!!!

Max and Ruby would like to wish you all a Happy 4th of July....if they weren't so busy hiding under the table from all those crazy fireworks. To celebrate the 4th, here's a video of Max being terrified by some unknown laminated object sliding across the floor. Bon Appetit!

It's for REAL this time guys!

So, it's been noted that I've been failing at keeping you all up to date on the lives and times of Max and Ruby.

But it's for real this time!!! I am actually going to keep you updated with all the hilarious antics that go on during the Smith family summers. So here goes...

Previously, on Smith Family Summer:

Max somehow gets an ear infection. But wait...there's more. He scratched his ear, and then scratched the top of his head and managed to infect that as well! To help it heal, the vet had to shave the top of his head, giving him the hair-do of a monk. Hilarious, but disgusting, which explains why I haven't posted a picture of that here. It's almost grown back in now, and his infection is all healed, so those of you hoping to get up close and personal with the medical mysteries of Max will have to wait until the next one.


Some of you might be aware of Max's affection for the fabric tulle. For anyone unfamiliar with what tulle is, it's most common uses include tutus and voluptuous wedding dresses like this:



A highly appropriate obsession for Maximus, I'm sure we all agree!

Well, Kelly had her birthday on the 11th of June and guess who wanted his present to be wrapped with tulle!? So there was a convenient tulle bow, just begging to be worn by a dashing young man like Max. In fact, it was so tempting, Max decided to wear it on his outing to the dog park the next day. He must have looked very fit and beautified with his new accessory because one of the other males at the dog park mistook our dear Max for a Maxine and made some advances. From the rear. The most shocking part of all of this is that Max didn't realize doggy-homosexuality was unusual until my dad came sprinting across the park to save him. You really do need to wonder how often that happens to Max.

Ruby's life has been relatively uneventful compared those of her counterpart. It's summer in Minnesota after all, and that means hitting the lakes! On her first swim of the season, Ruby swam out about 50 feet and paddled happily around the lake for about an hour before deciding she didn't want to qualify of the Doggie Olympics just yet and came back to shore. She also "rescued" a "drowning" little girl. The little girl was really snorkling, so imagine her surprise when she spotted a giant dog wading towards her through her somewhat foggy goggles. Luckily no fish or children were trampled in the rescue attempt and everyone became the best of friends by the end of the day.

Quite the eventful start to summer, and there's more to come (the July 9th, water workshop for water rescue dogs for example...and yes, Max is invited this year!) so watch out for UPDATES!

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY RUBY!

Ruby's birthday was April 15, when we were all too busy doing our taxes to blog, so to honor her belated birthday I'd like to present this video of what Max and Ruby can only hope to accomplish. Enjoy!