I think he is a robot

I am not really sure if Riggs is as much a dog as he is a robot.  Riggs is all about routine and schedule and never deviates from it.  Nothing ever changes.  His internal clock goes off at various times of the day or after certain order of events.

Riggs Schedule (Weekday)

• Wake up at 6:15 am and begin pestering Dada (aka lick lick lick lick) to wake up and feed me.  Proceed to do this for the next 45min to an hour till Dada cannot take it any longer and gets out of bed.
• Run downstairs as fast as I can and run around in circles as I wait impatiently for Dada to get my food ready.
• Stand there and whine and jump on Dada because he is taking way too long to get my food ready.
• Inhale my food as fast as I can, licking every last morsel from in the bowl and all around the bowl.
• Run back upstairs and grab a stuffed animal ready to play.  Begin whining if no one will pay attention and play with me.
• Go for a walk outside around the neighborhood, sniff all the light poles, bushes and as many grass piles as I can get away with dragging Dada to.
• Pee 3 – 4 times.
• Poo twice.
• Wait for Dada to give me a treat back at home.
• Lay down and begin sad pouty face to make Dada feel guilty for leaving me home as he leaves for work.
• Stand at door waiting for Mama to enter coming home from work.
• Run over and grab Angry Face or Pink Eye stuffed animal ready to play.
• Go outside and pee but then stand around and not poo.  I want to eat!!!
• Stand there and whine and jump on Mama because she is taking way too long to get my food ready.
• Inhale my food as fast as I can, licking every last morsel from in the bowl and all around the bowl.
• Run back upstairs and grab a stuffed animal ready to play.  Begin whining if no one will pay attention and play with me.
• Lay down next to Mama.
• Run to door when I hear garage door open and stand there waiting for Dada to enter coming home from work.
• Run over and grab Angry Face or Pink Eye stuffed animal ready to play.
• Go outside and finally poo and pee again.
• Stand under the table and lick lick lick lick Dada’s legs as he eats dinner.
• At 7:30pm, begin sitting or standing and staring at Mama and Dada waiting for one of them to get up and go get me a carrot out of the frig.  FINALLY at 8pm I get my carrot.
• Make a complete mess breaking my carrot up into tiny pieces and then eat it.
• Grab a stuffed animal and stand at the bottom of the stairs waiting for Mama to go upstairs to crawl into bed.
• Lay in bed and suck on Paris Hilton’s nose.
• Chew on my Nylabone.
• Play tug-a-war with one of my stuffed animals with Mama.
• Fall asleep.
• Act like dead weight and pretend I am sleeping when Dada comes to bed and wants to take me outside one last time.
• Pee once.
• Go over to Dada when he crawls into bed and begin lick lick lick licking him.
• After getting pushed away 4-5 times I finally give up and fall back asleep waiting for 6:15am to arrive to start it all over again.

Gross! What is that smell? Run!

Riggs loves the smell of gross disgusting things.  Poo, pee, decomposing dead things; he thinks it smells awesome.  However, Mama will start cooking something on the stove and he takes off upstairs to get away from the odor.  So let me get this straight Riggs poo smells like a bed of roses but the smell of a nice juicy hamburger makes you run away?

W h a t  i s  w r o n g  w i t h  y o u  d o g ? ? ?

Report Card

Every once and awhile we will be too lazy to give Riggs a bath and take him to the groomer to get a bath instead.  The groomer gives you a report card on your dog that covers various things like how his skin and coat looked, his teeth, his ears, his mood, etc...

Riggs typically scores high in most categories but every time the same comment comes back:

"Riggs does not like the dryer"

After they give a dog a bath they have some dryer to dry the dog faster and apparently Riggs total freaks out.  Must be that whole wind issue with him.

Don't say it, spell it

Riggs is by no means dumb.  He understands several words and phrases and you will get an immediate reaction out of him.  So certain words and phrases have to be spelled out instead of said.

Current list of words that must be spelled and not said:

• T R E A T
• R I D E
• C A R R O T
• P A R K
• WALK
• G & G (Grandma & Grandpa)

He also understands some phrases such as:

• "Do you want something?"
• "Mama's home" or "Dada's home"
• "Do you want to go for a..."
• "Do you want to go to the..." 
• "Where is your bone?"
• "Where is *insert stuffed animal name here*?"

Toy Chest - Tuesday

We are in the home stretch folks.  Almost caught up with all the stuffed animals.

Gus the platypus

Making out with Paris Hilton

Riggs is in love.  Stinky Nanners (yellow monkey) and Sunny (orange monkey) no longer matter to him.  He is all about Paris Hilton (pink monkey).

Riggs sucking on Paris Hilton's nose.

Are we there yet?

It is that time of year again to head up north to visit our friends over the Fourth of July.  This year we are meeting up in a cabin located in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  As you can see in the picture below, Riggs is all clean and ready to roll.