At least as far as Tucker is concerned. Our neighbors next door moved. That wasn’t the traumatic part. It was the new people moving in with their two dogs. The first few days, it was just the people. And Tucker let everyone in hearing distance know he did not like seeing strangers at that house One. Little. Bit. Lambeau has been his usual goofball self and considers them his newest bestest friends. Lambeau did bark at the dogs at first, but he seems to have settled a bit. He looks, but isn’t too freaked out. Tucker thinks we’ve been invaded by aliens or something. I’ve been checking carefully when they go out in the yard and if anyone is around, I put Tucker in his harness and take a leash with me, along with a whole bunch of treats. Our yard is fenced, but it’s a four foot fence, and I am sure he could go over it if he really wanted to. He’s begun calling off pretty well if it’s just the couple. The dogs are still a big issue, at least to him. I talked about it with his trainer last Monday, and he said, yeah, this is a big change for him, and he should come around, but it’s going to take time. Until then, I have some strategies to try, and we just need to be watching him. The joys of a reactive dog!
Otherwise, things are pretty quiet around here. Summer keeps coming with full force heat and humidity, then fading to chill and rain. Wrecks my sinuses, for sure. But I have gotten the first tomatoes from our plants now, and the rest of the garden is finally starting to grow nicely. The herbs aren’t doing so well this year, though. I mean, the oregano is still out of control, but the rest are kind of meh. Would have thought moving the location of the herb garden to a sunnier place would have made them better, but maybe the weather has just been to changeable this year. I have made some adjustments to my plans for next year, so we will see how that goes.
The gym we go to has been having a month of June plank challenge. You do a plank every day, starting at 30 seconds and building to 2 minutes by today. I have been doing over 2 minutes for a few days now, and since it was the last day, and I am insane, I decided to see how long I could hold the plank before my arms gave out. The answer? About 4:10-ish. Not bad, I think. Although looking at the pics on my phone, my form was terrible!!
The Fourth of July is on the horizon, which means the fireworks have started already. Lambeau becomes a basket case during thunderstorms (which we’ve had in the past week, also). Fireworks aren’t as bad unless he is outside when they start close by. Then he gets a bit freaked out. Fireworks are supposed to be illegal in NY unless you have a permit (and I am sure most of the neighborhood displays are not by permit), but when has that ever stopped anyone, right?
Have a good week. Happy Fourth of July, if you are in the US and celebrate. Happy summer if you are up here, happy winter if you are down there. Drink your water. Eat a vegetable. Get outside and refresh. Be nice to one another.
My latest book is a collection of very short stories, half science fiction and half fantasy, called “Crossed Wires and Other Very Short Stories”. I have also written a few other short pieces, another collection, two novels, and an urban fantasy series. You can find most of them at Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and wherever e-books are sold. A few are also available from Amazon in paperback. My novel, “Circle Unbroken” is also on Kindle Unlimited, if that’s your reading preference. You can find out about all of them here.
There are also some stories you can read here on my site, mostly the yearly Halloween short I write, but there are a few others. You can read them from here
And So On... 
Plushie would react much like Tucker, I think.
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