We were very happy to have a visit from Kaylene, Stella's breeder, on Tuesday.  She brought Stella's mom, Hilly, and litter mate, ZuZu.  They have visited before and we even met up with them in Missoula in June.  ZuZu is tiny and about half Stella's size.  She has very short legs and black markings.  After the usual dog posturing rituals, they had a wonderful morning of romping and chasing.  I posted a photo of them playing with a toy.  Gordo and mom Hilly weren't interested in playing but the two sisters had a great time.  The only casualties were several of my young growing annuals.  They bit the heads off of several of my marigolds.  They didn't eat them, mind you, just pulled the flowers off, just for fun!  Then I discovered later, an aster that was broken off at the base and a huge nasturtium bush that was pulled right out of the ground.  I told Kaylene that I have learned through the years to plant lots of extra plants for just these occasions.  If you have dogs you must expect some damage to plants.  By the time Kaylene came by to pick up her dogs Stella was exhausted and happy.
 We are having a serious heat wave. Temperatures have been in the 90's and are expected to soar into the triple digits over the next few days.  Today. Gordo, Stella and I walked down to the river from our house and played in the water.  I took the frisbee which is Stella's favorite toy and threw it into the shallow pools off the main river channel.  Gordo was so sweet!  He would swim out and get it, bring it back to shore and give it to Stella who would bring it to me.  Sometimes they would play tug of war with it, Gordo not wanting to give it up right away.  As the afternoon wore on Stella became braver about getting into the water.  She still won't go in over her head.  That's fine, she will do it when she has the confidence.  
   This evening I was invited to my friends house for a 4th of July BBQ.  Kent is out of town on a business trip and it was so nice of Brad and Laurie to have me over.  They have two mini dachshunds, both females; Isabelle and Olivia.  Everyone got along just fine.  Gordo and Olivia weren't very happy about the fireworks and spent some time under the bed.  A dog's hearing is 100 times more acute than ours so the sounds can be very harsh to them.  However, both ventured out eventually and joined us on the deck to watch the spectacle.  It is important not to feed into their fear of loud noises by fussing over them or drawing attention to their fear.  It only reinforces in their mind that there is something to fear.  I made that mistake years ago with Stewart on a New Years Eve.  He never got over it.