Quail's new Christmas Dress

Quail was so excited to get a new dress for Christmas!  She is tired of being mistaken for a boy even when she has a pink collar on.

However, Harrison was not so thrilled with his new Santa hat.

Harley's First Christmas

Harley is six years old now so of course his first Christmas was years ago.  But since I am going through older photos right now, I thought I'd show how cute he was!

He was a good sport about wearing his Santa hat.

We were puppy sitting another Seeing Eye puppy over Harley's first Christmas.  Elke arrived on Christmas Eve and we had her for two weeks.  The two of them loved to cuddle in the living room -- Harley was destined to be a ladies' man!  He always loved the girls -- perfect for his future stint at the Seeing Eye breeding center.

Gusto's Letter to Santa

Gusto was very good at helping me clean up the house.

H.B. gets a bum rap

We put the tree up over Thanksgiving but it was another two weeks before any ornaments were hung.  In the days following, I had several discussions with H.B. about how the Christmas tree was not his personal source of chew toys.  Breakables go up high but he seemed to like this one wooden ornament in particular -- a cheap unicorn that came in one of those sets of wooden ornaments that we got for cheap for the tree I put up when I was in college!

H.B. now knows that his toys are really all in his toy basket and there is nothing on the tree meant for him.  He does learn his lessons fast!

I had been telling friends that H.B. is the first pup we've had that has ever stolen ornaments off the tree.  Then this morning I realized I needed to publicly apologize to H.B.  Gusto and Harley never ever had the opportunity to take ornaments off because we only put up a mini tree and that tree sat out of reach on top of their dog crate.  Anita was a teeny tiny pup at her first Christmas and she was really just content to sleep under the tree.  Ava would have stolen ornaments (since we thought she was channeling Gusto) but her Christmas was during our big re-model -- we were living with our in-laws at the time and they put a mini-tree on top of a table because there were 4 large dogs in the house.  I honestly don't remember what Quail did but I would really be surprised if she didn't steal ornaments -- we think she has surpassed Gusto in scootch factor.  And now we have H.B. who has stolen ornaments but does drop them when I tell him to and he hasn't broken a single one.

That honor goes to Harley whose tail knocked an ornament off the sofa -- a little glass ornament of a penguin playing a grand piano that I believe came from the blown glass shop that was in the Honeycomb section of the Staten Island mall -- and if you can remember that section of the mall, we won't talk about how old you must be.

The reality is that the cats have broken more ornaments than any of our puppies.  Both Harrison and Olivia liked to take ornaments off the tree and drown them in their water bowls.  Bad kitties!

Happy Birthday H.B.!

H.B. is 7 months old today!  November was a big milestone month for H.B.

First, he got his Seeing Eye puppy vest!  Doesn't he look handsome?

He's now about the same size as Quail, maybe a tiny bit taller.  She still weighs more but we won't tell her that.

Harley now thinks H.B. is a contender because Harley has started marking over H.B.

And most importantly, we learned H.B. doesn't have diabetes insipidus (very huge sign of relief!!!) and just may have an obsessive water drinking disorder which he will hopefully outgrow.

To celebrate his November and to get in the holiday spirit, we went to Woodbridge Mall with the rest of his puppy club.  He says he's been very good this year and can't wait to see what Santa brings!