MEASURING UP, WEIGHING IN

Hi folks, it’s me again, Zeus. It’s been quite a long time and much has happened, so I’ll try to fill you in.

The humans have been acting funny lately. As best as I can understand it, they need to know stuff about us. They need to know how big we are. This doesn’t make sense to me because they only have to look at us, right? They can look at us and see we are actually quite big. Even my little sisters, Zelda and Zoe, are growing a lot although they’re not the same shape as me and Zorba and Zza Zza.

Zza Zza won’t leave Mythos alone. Mythos is one big cat. He’s a very big cat, and he can be a really grumpy cat, but not with the humans – he loves them a lot and loves to snuggle with them. He’s old, Cathy says, and he doesn’t like to be bothered by irritating youngsters anymore, but try telling that to Zza Zza…Anyway, Mythos isn’t nasty to her. You can see here that Zza Zza is already quite a bit taller than old Mythako, so you can tell we’re growing fast.

We have lots and lots of fun in this big playground. There’s all kinds of places to chase each other. We can run and hide, but when we’re tired we just fall asleep where we are. The humans never leave us alone when we play. They take pictures of us and tell each other how adorable we are. And how clever. We love to show them all the things we can do, and if our legs are too little to do something, then they help us and stroke us and tickle us.

They worry about us apparently, so when we’re tired they take us back to the big kennel and the fenced area they’ve made so we can sleep. This is so we can’t get out. I did go away up the drive once – it’s a long story – and the humans were very, very worried. I might tell you the story one day, but right now I’m so very happy to be back at my nice home. I was very tired, let me tell you, and very frightened. My humans couldn’t believe that I could go so far, but I’m strong. I really am. “Sturdy” is the word Cathy uses when she talks about me. Ron and Cathy were very upset until they found me. Cathy squeezed me so hard I could hardly breathe.

Zorba was having fun, and then Freddie picked him up so that the humans could do what they were calling measuring. Something about how tall we were. Cathy had the bright idea of getting her sewing mat so they could do this. She said it was easier than trying to use a yardstick. I didn’t know what she was talking about – there are lots of sticks in the yard – but it was interesting to watch. Zorba was bored with it and wanted to go play and explore. I can’t blame him – there’s so much to do and see and we love to race around.

Well, the humans seemed happy when they got us to stand still in front of that green thing. Freddie was doing that, Ron was writing stuff down and Cathy was taking photos. After each of us had finished with the green thing, we got put in a bucket and then the bucket got lifted up on the end of a big hook with a sort of clock on it – I think they called it a dial. Then Ron looked at that dial and said words like: “Wow! Zoe’s heavier than I thought,” and “Zorba looks so big, but he’s not much heavier than Zelda.”

Zelda always looks smaller than me and Zorba and Zza Zza, but when Ron had her in that bucket with the weighing thing, he was very surprised and said that Zelda weighed almost the same as us. “Not much difference,” is what he said. “She’s a very solid little girl.”

Zza Zza’s a girl – and I hear the humans saying things about girls being smaller – but apparently she’s much the same on that green thing as me and Zorba. She may be a girl but she’s as strong and lively as we are. The humans love to cuddle her because they say she’s like a big teddy bear. I don’t know much about teddy bears but apparently that’s a nice thing they say about Zza Zza.

Zoe isn’t like me. Her hair is short and silky. I think she’s Cathy’s favorite of all of us, though she doesn’t say so. “She’s a thinker,” Cathy says. That’s good to be, apparently.

“She’s got a lot of Labrador in her,” Ron says, “that’s why she’s calm and steady.” That’s also very good to be.

All that weighing and measuring business seemed important to the humans, though I’m not sure what it was all about. We had fun and the humans were pleased. That’s good.

Can you see how good I was? I went first and I had to set a good example. I’m Zeus, and I’m the leader. I must show the others what to do.

GETTING VERY GROWN UP

Hi everybody! This is me, Zeus, telling you about some of our doings. You would be amazed if you saw us now. We’re getting quite big. Well, me and Zorba and Zza Zza are, but Zoe and Zelda are different and aren’t as tall as we three are.

We’ve been eating some really good stuff that our Cathy mom makes for us. She calls it ‘being weaned.” I don’t know what that means, but she tells Ron that making baby food for human kids was easier. She started this weaning business by giving us human baby porridge all mushed up with tinned dog food and these little dry bits that come in a packet and are for weaning puppies. Those she’d first soak in hot water, and then with this noisy thing she has, she makes it what she calls “just right’ for us.

We’d sort of slurp it up when she gave it to us. It was fun because we were running from our own plate to each other’s plates, but it seems we all had the same food. Nobody got anything different. We liked it a lot – Cathy mom was worried we wouldn’t like being weaned, but we do. It didn’t taste like our mom, of course, but we would drink as much as we wanted from our mom. But our mom was getting a bit tired of us – so Cathy said. Anyway, Cathy was giving us this quite yummy stuff four times a day, and after we got used to it, she’d sprinkle the little dry bits into it without first soaking them. We like those dry bits – they make little crunching noises when you bite them.

Cathy and Ron spend a lot of time with us, and especially when we get our wet food – that’s what they call the yummy mixture they make for us. We have bowls of the dry puppy food there all the time for us and we like it, but for the wet food feeding times, they have to take turns to keep our mom busy because she really likes to eat our soft mixture. She’s not hungry – not at all – our mom gets some very good food for grownup dogs. She gets fresh meat, but Cathy thinks maybe she’s a bit jealous…Anyway, whatever we don’t eat, then our mom comes and finishes it all up.

We had to have pills that our mom got from the vet. Hmmm – we weren’t too sure about that, I can tell you. Cathy and Freddie were trying to get us to eat them – they were wrapped in some nice stuff. Ground meat, Cathy called it. Zorba, Zza and Zelda ate theirs quickly, but me and Zoe…well, we’re thinkers, we are, and so Cathy and Freddie had to really make sure we did eat ours. Seems it’s good for us. I dunno, but I did like that meat business. Quite delicious.

Apparently, I’m the biggest of all of us, and Ron and Cathy are always telling people I’m the leader. Whatever that means.

I really like to be with my brothers and sisters, and I ‘specially like to look after Zelda. She’s not furry like me, and she’s a lot smaller, but she’s a very feisty little girl and runs after me all the time. I look out for her because her legs are kind of short and she can’t always reach where I do. But she never cries – she just keeps on and on trying. She’s very determined, and she’s a really nice little sister.

Zoe is also different. She’s not like me, but she’s also not like Zelda. The humans say Zoe has a lot of labrador in her – mostly labrador it seems. She’s very gentle, very quiet, very loving. Zelda, the humans say, is a real mix. But they say mixes are good – being mixed makes them very strong. I don’t really understand all that, but we’re well and very happy and we love our lives.

WE’RE SIX WEEKS OLD…AND LIFE’S REALLY GOOD

Hi, this is me, Zeus, and I thought I’d tell you a bit about us and what’s going on here in the Ham household of Kalamos. Our mum, Bella, hasn’t got round to telling us who was born first, but Cathy, our nice human mummy, seems to think I’m Number One around here. Well, in our puppy world, I am. Seems that pesky white cat with the grey blob on his head and that short grey tail is important to the humans here. Raki, I believe he’s called. Anyway, I don’t mind him ‘cos I’m bigger than he is and he’ll find that out soon enough if he bugs me too much.

I love our humans. We all do. We can’t wait to see them in the morning, and we hate to see them go after they put us to bed at night. They are always very kind to us. They stroke us and tickle us, and say all kinds of nice things to us. They play a lot with us, and tell us how clever we are, and that they’re amazed we’re so calm and not frightened by loud noises. This is true – we’re not scared of people and other stuff because nobody’s ever been nasty to us. But our mother tells us that not all doggies are as lucky as we are, and though she doesn’t talk about it much, we’ve come to understand that mum didn’t always have the nice life she has here now.

Zorba’s my best buddy. He’s very like me. He thinks like I do, and always wants to do what I’m doing. It’s such good fun to have a pal like him. I don’t know who’s going to be bigger – me or him – but he doesn’t try to be the top dog around here. He’s very nice to Zoe, who’s the smallest of us.

She loves him and runs behind him a lot, but she’s more careful than he and I are, and watches and thinks before she does something. Our humans think that’s a very nice quality she has. She’s very pretty, our little Zoe, and very gentle, and she likes to play with us.

Zelda’s like that too. She and Zoe are our baby sisters, and we love them, and we look after them, but they aren’t the same size and shape as us. Our humans tell each other that Zoe and Zelda have a different father to us, and that they will be just like our mum, Bella. I don’t know about this fathers stuff – we just know our mom and we’re only interested in her. She really is the bestest mom.

Zza Zza, it seems from what our humans say, has the same father that Zorba and I have. She’s smaller than we are, but that’s apparently because she’s a girl and won’t be quite as big as we are. But she’s not a sissy girl, for sure she’s not, because she does just exactly what Zorba and I do, and she often has even better ideas than we do. Our Cathy mom tells Ron that’s because Zza Zza’s a girl – this makes her more clever than us boys. I don’t know about that but Zza Zza is always up for anything. We love all this exploring!

There’s such a lot to do around here. You can’t get bored, and now that we’re not sleeping as much as we used to do, there’s all kinds of things we’re learning about. Especially the cats.

They have a lot of cats, these Hams, but this one doesn’t like us much. His name is Mythos, and he’s old and grumpy, and he’s actually quite big, so we leave him alone. Zza Zza hasn’t learnt yet that it’s best if we don’t bother him.

Zoe and Zorba are pals, but I have a lot of time for Zelda. She’s grown up a lot lately, and is not so timid. She thinks I’m a very nice big brother, and I try very hard to be, but I have to keep remembering that she’s little and make sure not to stand on her.

Zelda often gets too crowded when we’re eating, so Cathy tries to give her a plate of her own.

But sometimes I try to take it from her, and she always lets me. Yes, I know I’m bad, I know I shouldn’t, but Cathy always has lots and lots of our special puppy food she makes us, so nobody is ever hungry.

There’s this sort of water place where we love to play around now that we’re big enough to climb in and out of it. The best fun is when Ron turns on that thing that lets the water run out and we can chomp on it.

This morning I found this lovely chew thing and I kept it quietly to myself, hoping the others wouldn’t notice.

HAPPY DAYS

Bella’s pups are five weeks old and enjoying what might well be some of the happiest days of their lives. Personalities are emerging, and although all the puplets are eating very well and lapping water, they still want to cuddle with mama from time to time.

Zelda’s a feisty little thing, but she does seek out the comfort of mum when she can. The pups don’t eat much at Bella’s generous table anymore – she certainly doesn’t encourage them – but have begun developing their very own patterns of eating.

I feed them four times a day, but notice that not all of them are interested in the late morning feed – what Ron calls “second breakfast” – as they grow. Zoe and Zelda often skip this meal which makes me wonder if it’s something to do with their different physiques – they’re smaller boned than the other three.

Zorba’s showing a very independent streak. He likes to rough and tumble with his siblings, but then he takes himself off for long naps. Alone. Maybe he’s channeling his inner Greta Garbo, but he’s given me a few anxious moments when I’ve had to go in search of him. Here he is earlier this morning – he was hard to spot until he moved.

He does enjoy his food, which he takes on his own schedule. I suppose because he’s bigger, he can eat enough to keep him happy for several hours.

Zeus plays hard and naps long. He sleeps through just about anything, does Zeus. Not even the jets roaring overhead will cause him to stir, much less his siblings clambering all over him.

Can’t a guy get some peace and quiet around here?

Zeus and Zorba are great pals and are identical in size. Will that change as they grow?

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