Happy Fourth of July to all my American friends and family! I hope that you’re all having a great day celebrating!
We celebrated Canada Day last weekend with our annual trip up to our friends’ cottage. They are tearing it down in a couple of weeks to build a new one, so this was our last big hurrah before demolition begins.
The weather was kind of dreary on and off all weekend, but we still tried to get out as much as we could, especially for a boat ride along the lake.
I always love driving by the big cottages and admiring them…although I wouldn’t want to be the one to wash all those windows!
The guys had seen this news story about a guy in Ottawa who can water-ski on almost anything, including a beer box.
Of course they had to give it a try. Our best water-skiier got suited up and headed down to the dock.
All the spectators lined up to watch him go, but the box disintegrated the second it went in the water and he was dragged for a good 100 feet before he let go of the rope. He wanted to try a baking sheet next, but we convinced him that we’d need it to cook bacon up the next morning.
As soon as the sun came out behind the clouds on Sunday, we headed down to the dock for a little basking in the sun.
And keeping an eye on wayward squirrels. Our little buddy had an AWESOME time run around the woods nearby and terrorizing the local wildlife.
Aside from making Watermelon Slushies, I also picked up a few of Thornbury Ciders I mentioned in the Small Town Ontario post about my hometown. It was the perfect, crisp drink to enjoy on a sunny day and is even better if you pour it over a glass of ice!
Food is always a big thing when we’re up there. We all like to eat and we generally like to eat healthy, so most of our meals focus on meats, veggies and fruit. Breakfast was eggs, bacon and fruit most mornings, while lunches and dinners were cooked on the grill.
The last night we were there, we made this delicious chicken, using my Honey Dijon Marinade from last week. I just mixed all the ingredients together in a mason jar before we left for the cottage and we poured it on the chicken breasts a few hours before grillin’ time.
There is usually a great firework display going on at various points along the lake, which is wonderful for us humans, but the dogs aren’t big fans. Whiskey usually starts shaking and freaking out, which goes on long after the show is over.
This year we decided to be proactive and buy him a ThunderShirt. It’s a jacket made out of stretchy material, with various velcro straps, which essential works like a compression shirt. This pressure has a calming effect on the dog and helps them to relax during high-anxiety situations like fireworks, thunder storms and car rides.
I was hesitant to try it because it is fairly expensive for a dog shirt ($40-45), but we were able to find it at Bed, Bath and Beyond with a 20% off coupon and a guarantee that we could return it if it didn’t work. I’ve also seen patterns online for a DIY version, but I didn’t want to put all that work into it if it didn’t do the job.
Whiskey is used to wearing sweaters and jackets in the winter, so we didn’t have to aclimatize him to wearing it, like many dogs need to be. Right away I noticed a difference in his behaviour during the fireworks show. He definitely didn’t fall asleep like some peoples’ dogs did, but he was noticeably calmer.
He was still alert and aware of the fireworks, but there was none of the shaking, panting and hiding that we were used to. Instead of trying to hide out in the bathroom like he normally does the night after a fireworks show, he slept peacefully beside us in our tent.
We weren’t planning on being home on Monday morning, but it worked out well because we got to catch our town’s Canada Day parade during our morning walk!
He was fine until we got home that afternoon and he conked right out for two days straight. After a long weekend full of chasing other dogs, running through the woods and visiting so many different people, he was even more wiped than we were. I even caught him sleeping standing up one night, while trying to eat dinner. Too much fun for such a little dog!
