A Day in the Life of a Boxador

The Harper Chronicles: Harper or Sassy

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Hi Everyone! It’s been a looong time, but I’m back! Since I’m older, Mom doesn’t always know what to write about me, and she doesn’t take quite as many photos of me as she used to.

For today’s post Mom wanted me to share about some of the waggish things I do since I’ve exhibited such behaviors twice this past Monday. 😀

There’s one lady in the neighborhood that Mom talks to more than any other, and this lady has a little dog. I always want to greet this dog when I see her out in her yard. She always comes to the gate, (her entire yard is fenced in), to greet me. She’s the dog “sitting” in the photo below. Her name is Daisy. The body in the photo is her mom. The other dog was in an earlier post here. Her name is also Daisy.

Anyway, I like to play — A LOT! But the Daisy, who is sitting in the yard above, does NOT, especially not with me. Mom encourages me to just run around by myself and let Daisy alone, but I really want a playmate, so I constantly get in Daisy’s face, trying to spark a playful mood in her. Unfortunately, all I accomplish is antagonizing her, and she nips at me. Then her mom scolds her. Well, this is what happened on Monday, and after I tried several times to get Daisy to play, Mom decided it was time to go home. I was very disappointed.

Later that same day, Mom sat on the loveseat and picked up her Bible to read, and I decided I wanted her to play with me. So, I nipped at her Bible. She told me, “No!” I did it again. Mom told me “No” again and tapped me on my nose with her fingertips. So, I tapped her on the arm with my right front paw! Mom couldn’t believe I did that. She said, “I am scolding you. I am in charge. You are not supposed to tap me back!”

That’s where the “Sassy” in the title of today’s post comes in. Because, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts I talk to Mom–interrupting her when she’s working and butting into conversations between her and Dad are two of the examples of “talking to her” that I’m not supposed to do. So, between this and the examples of my behaviors above, Mom said, “If I would’ve waited until now to name Harper, I may have chosen to name her “Sassy” instead of Harper!”

The people she tells this story to think that’s funny. I do not. :/

The Harper Chronicles: Enjoying Autumn Leaves

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Hello Everyone! Yes, I know, I’m a day late. My posts are supposed to post on Wednesdays, but this is Thursday. All I can say is life is busy and sometimes messy, which doesn’t always allow us to adhere to a strict schedule. Add to that, that my mom was a homeschool mom for a little more than twenty years and always had a flexible schedule, and all I can say is “old habits die hard”.

So, anyway, many of the leaves have fallen in our area, and I love to walk through the crunchy leaves that pile on the ground. Also, as you can see in the photo above, I like to lie in the sun on top of crunchy leaves while mom talks to some of the neighbor ladies.

Here at our house, my family is looking forward to Thanksgiving day, when the family will gather together for a meal and time to catch up on each others’ lives. I, however, will not be part of the celebration with the family because it will not take place in our home. But I will enjoy getting to see my oldest boy for a short while, then having a relaxing evening with the family after all the festivities have ended.

In the meantime, Mom continues living the busy life of an independently published author working on her next book, trying to market the currently published book, and making bookish swag to send along with the books that have been directly ordered, from her, as Christmas gifts. In addition, she continues to take care of those who still live in our house, as well as the household itself, and her aging mother. Sometimes she gets overwhelmed and frustrated by it all. She relies on prayer — hers, and those of others, and some down time and snuggle time with me. She spends time reading a book for about two hours every evening before bed so that she can wind down and go to sleep, and during that time, I lie next to her to keep her company and let her know I love her.

How are you other dogs out there taking care of your humans?

Not sure when the next post will appear nor if it will be written by mom or me, but stay tuned because one of us will post, even if it is sporadically, because we enjoy keeping in touch with all our readers here.

The Harper Chronicles: Harper’s New Friend

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I met a new friend this week. As you can probably tell from my posture in the photo above, I immediately wanted to play with her. To Mom’s surprise, she was not afraid of me and she wanted to play with me too. Mom laughed when she playfully growled at me.

My new friend’s name is Daisy. She is a Cavalier King Charles puppy. Mom was finally able to capture a shot of her cute little face in this photo. After we played for awhile, the lady who owns Daisy decided to walk with us, and Mom thought it was so cute how Daisy followed after me. I like my new friend!

The Harper Chronicles: An Update For Mom, and Squirrels

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Hi, it’s me again, Harper! Mom and I are happy for cooler temperatures. Mom now takes me out in the backyard once or twice a day, not just to do my potty, but to play and to run! I love to run!

I want to give you an update on Mom. She really has tried to faithfully post five days a week here and she’s accomplished it a couple times. However, it’s more than she can possibly do at this time. She has a lot of responsibilities: she takes Grandma to all her medical appointments because Grandma is alone and has some health issues; she takes care of me, which means feeding me breakfast and dinner, lunchtime treats, and after dinner, she gives me glucosamine treats to keep my joints healthy, and she walks me three to four times a day and I already mentioned our time in the backyard — yes, she goes out with me and plays with me. She takes care of our household, which means doing four or five loads of laundry every week, cooking dinner for two to four people, depending on who is going to be home, and cleaning the house. She also is an author and an editor, so she has to spend most of five days a week working on her current novel, doing what she can to market her book to make sales, and as an editor, she works on editing other author’s upcoming books for them. Therefore, I have to tell you that Mom will let me continue to post here every Wednesday. Other than that, Mom will post what she can, when she can, as far as the other days go.

Now let’s talk about squirrels!

See the squirrel in the photo above? Well, this is the largest yard in our neighborhood and there are always lots of squirrels in that yard. I used to want to chase them all the time, but soon realized I’m always on a leash, so I can’t chase them. So, now I will often stop and watch them. That’s what I did when I saw this guy, but I must have made him nervous because he started to move toward a tree.

The photo above is the same squirrel. Partway to the tree, he got curious and stopped to watch us.

We saw the squirrel in the photo above a day or so later in the same yard. He was enjoying a couple acorns and was startled when he first saw me, and he ran to the foot of the tree. Then he stopped, picked up another acorn and the two of us stared each other down for awhile. These little guys fascinate me. They move so fast I’d really like to know if I could catch one if I wasn’t leashed.

The Harper Chronicles: “I Will Not Speak on Camera!”

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“Hi, it’s me, Harper. I hope all of you are having a good day.”

“When I get bored while Mom is working, I start talking to her — softly at first, then louder. She has tried several times to video tape me when I’m talking to her. However, every time she points that camera at me, I clam up. She takes tons of photos of me, why does she think she has to have video of me when I’m talking to her?”

The Harper Chronicles: Playing Keep Away

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This week Mom pulled out a different color tennis ball. This intrigued me. However, when Mom tossed it into the yard, I ran to it and lay down next to it.

When Mom approached, I got up and got ready.

Then I picked up the ball and ran around the yard with it, not letting Mom catch me or have the ball.

After a couple times of playing “keep away” with Mom, I lay down and chewed on the ball. But Mom didn’t want me doing that. She said, “I don’t want you chewing that ball up. It’s to play with, not to destroy.” Then she came and took the ball, and we went back into the house.

The Harper Chronicles: What I Do, Most of the Time, While Mom Works

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Hi, it’s me, Harper! During these hot, humid days of summer, while Mom sits pecking away at her keyboard, I spend a lot of time spread out on the loveseat snoozing. I was sound asleep when Mom took the photo above. She said she took it because she thought I looked so cute.

What do you do on these hot, humid days of summer?

The Harper Chronicles: It’s Way too Hot to Run

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See how dry and brown the lawn is? That’s because we’ve been experiencing sweltering temperatures in the upper 90s and low 100s, and it’s been humid, with no rain. I don’t even want to run around the yard, so I walk around inspecting the yard with my nose. Then I enjoy a roll on the dry, crunchy lawn.

Then I lie like this and look at Mom. When she says, “Okay, Harper, let’s go in,” I run to her, then up the wooden steps onto the deck, where I wait for her to get up the steps and open the patio door, and we retreat into the comfortable air-conditioned house.

I will mention that yesterday we did have a thunder storm that poured some wonderful rain down for a short period of time with a few minutes between two downpours, and it amazes me how green the lawn looks this morning. But the temperature is already near 90 and it’s just 10:30 a.m.

The Harper Chronicles — Why Do You Want to Play Ball Outside?

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We live in a townhouse, and in these pictures you can see a white vinyl fence. That fence belongs to one of our neighbors and it runs the length of our yard on the left. The neighbors on the right also have a fence, not as tall and not white vinyl, that runs the length of our yard on the right. Therefore, for my first birthday, Mom and Dad bought some fence posts and coated wire fencing and closed in the back of our yard so that I could have a nice place to go out and play and run without having to be leashed.

So, Mom has been trying to get me to play ball with her out in the back yard. She takes a tennis ball out when we go out, and she stops halfway down the steps while I stop at the bottom of the steps and look up at her expectantly. Then she throws the ball and I run after it. In the above photo, I am approaching the ball.

In the photo above, you can see that I am sniffing around the ball.

In this last photo, I am walking away from the ball. We have stray cats in our neighborhood and I’d rather sniff for them than play ball with Mom. Mom has even come out into the yard, picked the ball up, and tried to get me to catch it when she throws it up in the air. If I do decide to pick the ball up, I don’t take it to Mom — not even for a treat, (and yes, she tried to get me to play ball by offering treats to me too). Instead, I play keep away. I take the ball and run away from Mom and drop the ball somewhere in the yard.

But I do play fetch in the house with my rubber balls and rubber bones. I run from the living room to the dining room and back and often leap onto the love seat like a super hero.

I don’t really know why I don’t want to play ball outside in the back yard. Maybe it’s just because I have the freedom to run a longer distance, and when mom acts like she’s going to chase me and encourages me to run, I will do that!

The Harper Chronicles: How I Keep Cool On a Hot Day

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Wow! Summer started out with some major heat here this year. All last week, temperatures were in the low to mid 90s! This week, Monday was awesome — temperature was in the mid 80s and there was a blustery breeze all day! Nice relief from last week. But then yesterday and today, we’re back in the 90s. We’re supposed to get rain and/or thunder showers today, which is supposed to put us back into the 80s.

No, this entire post isn’t going to be about the weather, but it is about how the weather affects my life. So, how do those hot days affect my life? Well, I only get two walks a day on those days. Mom takes me out in the morning before the sun is too high in the sky and heating things up, and then again in the evening when the sun has gone below our house roofs and tree lines and the pavements, roads, and driveways have cooled down enough so that they don’t burn my paws.

So, how do I do my potty the rest of the day? Well, Mom goes out and scans the entire backyard, shovel in hand, to clean up any dirt the stray cats leave in our yard. Thankfully, she usually only finds one pile. Then she pours bleach on that area and puts the lid to our fire pit over it so that I know not to get near it. Then she takes me out in the backyard. She takes me out in there once or twice while it’s really hot, and once again in the early evening, when most of our yard is in shade.

Mom hates this heat, and I don’t really like it either. I’m usually panting in no time, so even though I enjoy the freedom of running around the backyard without a leash, I like to get back into the air-conditioned house in a short amount of time. When we get inside, I go straight to my water bowl for a drink. But did you know if a dog is hot and panting and drinks too much water too quickly, it can cause them to vomit? Yeah, so Mom always makes sure she has ice cubes in the freezer during the summer months, and she’ll get one out and give it to me. I hold it in my mouth a few moments, then bite it into smaller pieces to eat. It’s a nice refreshing summertime treat!