Happy Christmas

Zeke and Sadie had a great Christmas and got a bunch of cool presents. Like this twisty chew in their stocking.
A squeaky snake
And a little ducky. Plus a monkey knot rope toy and some deer antlers!

Zeke shares some Christmas cheer

playing with his home girl C.

Spreading the Christmas Joy: Tasty Treat Style

Zeke has met some new dog friends in our new neighborhood so he wanted to do something special for them during Christmas. We took McGruber's homemade peanut butter and banana recipe and baked up some tasty treats for the neighbors. We had fun delivering them too!

Christmas Photo

Zeke got his free 5x7 in from the grand opening photo session.

catching up

Posts have been few and far between, but Zeke isn't slacking up. Mom has been busy with school, but we have still be having our lab fun.
We went to the 'grand opening' of a new pet supply store (odd because we always thought it had been the same store) but anyway, Zeke got a free photo session and Sadie tried on elf hats.
We also went to the annual after thanksgiving Carolina/Clemson football party at Zeke's girlfriend's house. The price of admission was a bag of food for the local animal shelter.
Always a good time for labs to play!

Christmas Parade

Zeke attended his first Christmas parade today. The parade route runs close by our new 'hood, so we just walked up and got some prime seats. Both the Mopar Club and the Boy Scouts were toting dog biscuits as well as candy, so it was a pretty good parade by our standards!

Santa's coming in on the firetruck!

First Night of Hanukkah!

Happy Hanukkah all! For the first night Zeke got a new Quackers to rip up.
Sadie and Zeke wasted no time in commencing the destruction!

Our Pre-Thanksgiving Ritual

We like to go play at the beach. It's off-leash time and the weather was pretty favorable today. Only snafu was when Dad threw the bumper too far and the ocean started carrying it away but Zeke couldn't see it. Mom decided she didn't want to lose a bumper so she swam out and got it (of course Zeke swam with her even though he didn't know where the bumper was)

Happy HOWL-o-ween!

What can brown do for you? Zeke the UPS guy won the 'most creative' category at the Pet Helpers Halloween Costume contest today! There were tons of cute costumed pooches, hopefully we will have the slideshow up tomorrow.

Sadie took her Ray Lewis costume off, but still agreed to pose with the scary pumpkin. We didn't get many trick or treaters and the ones we did get, got woofed at by Z man. Hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween.

Liquor and Labs!

To kick off HOWL-o-ween, Zeke tried out his costume and trotted downtown to Lowcountry Lab Rescue's Halloween Fundraiser/Costume Party/Wine-Tasting held at Gaslight Art and Wine Gallery on Meeting Street. It was such a great time! Zeke got to hang out and encourage people to come in and buy raffle tickets to support the good work at Lowcountry Lab (where our family got Sadie).
Lady Laberty (who was accompanied to the event by her pal Uncle Sam) won the costume contest and graciously posed with Zeke for a picture. What a pretty girl!
Go to Gaslight Wine and Art Gallery and try some Lost Dog Wines. Mom can attest to its goodness. Plus they are super dog friendly!
An LLR Alum dressed as a butterfly.
Zeke made friends with Beau (the BIG yellow lifeguard) and Solomon the black lab, they were all such good boys!

More pics from trick or treating coming up tomorrow!

Zeke to the rescue

Zeke was on facebook and saw that the Charleston Animal Society needed our help! Their dryer was broken and they had a bunch of wet towels and blankets that the pups and kittens in the shelters needed. So we loaded up and went down and picked up a few loads of wet towels and brought them home and dried them and dropped them back off. It was pretty cool use of social networking because lots of other people in the area saw their message and either brought clean towels to them or picked up and got their dried.

Surprise at Montreux

Though we are big fans of Hanahan (or hanafan, as we like to call it) and our new place, we still enjoy some of our old dog friendly haunts in Summerville. This morning we had the opportunity to have brunch at Montreux and while Zeke, Sadie, Mom and Dad were enjoying the weather and their food, we saw this little guy run across a busy street and onto the sidewalk where we were sitting. Dad went over to him and got him to stay with him. He had a collar and a Halloween bandanna but no ID tag. Thankfully our dog loving waitress brought him some water and we put him on a spare leash while we tried to get a hold of animal control. While we were waiting someone rode by looking for him, evidently they go on a lot of walks downtown (including lunch at Montreux) and I guess this fellow decided he needed a walk and some french fries and decided to take off. We love a happy ending!

Magnolia Plantation

Zeke and mom headed out to Magnolia Plantation today. They are super cool about pups at the plantation. Dogs are welcome everywhere but inside the house tour and in the petting zoo.
Zeke inspects some of the fall flowers. (He did not eat any, picking the flowers isn't allowed, so we assume neither is eating the flowers)
The gardens come right up against the Ashley River.
Zeke decided to take in the boat tour. On the tour we saw a bunch of egrets and herons and other marsh fowl. And of course there were a bunch of gators, we are not gator fans. They have named the two biggest gators "Little Wally" and "Big Wally". Here is one of the pictures of the ugly reptiles.

Dogs are also welcome on the tram nature tour.

Zeke and the pumpkin patch

Well, technically it was more like Zeke and the nice man selling pumpkins and mums on the side of the road. But there were a lot of pumpkins and Zeke helped pick ours out.

And mom had to pick her out some mums too, now we get to go home and carve it up!

Magnolia Hunt - Stack's Nursery

Mom's on the hunt for a magnolia tree to plant in our backyard, and we stopped in to Stack's Nursery in Summerville, that just happens to be dog friendly. Zeke and Sadie got to peruse the trees and shrub selection with Mom and Dad. The staff there were very friendly and helpful.

A few more pics from Paws in the Park

At the Paws in the Park this past weekend, Zeke also entered the costume contest. Which we're pretty sure was rigged. He wore last year's Halloween costume, Super Z.
Another contestant, a yellow lab, as a shark.
Boston Terrier AKA Surfer Dude. He got second place, which was probably deserved.
Here are the winners. Alvin took first place with his costume of a sheep. But he conveniently had a wardrobe malfunction just before his turn to go on stage and played upon the kind hearts of the judges. It was also revealed that he was a personal friend of one of the emcees. Sounds a little shady to Zeke.

Paws in the Park (Zeke's second annual)

Yesterday was the Charleston Animal Society's Annual Paws in the Park event. They had a walk around Park Circle to raise money for the SPCA and then had vendors, contests and games (see above where Zeke doesn't quite grasp the point of this particular game).
Dad and Sadie got to go with Mom and Zeke to the walk this year, it was their first time, and I think it was pretty fun for them.
Zeke entered the Best Kisser contest (and did NOT win). He did however jump off the stage once he saw mom in the crowd taking pictures. Here is a picture of him giving some love to SPCA Kay.
Zeke tries his paw at Puppy Putt-Putt. His favorite part was snatching the ball after it had been hit.
No, this was not a look-a-like contest. This is Sear Sauls, one of the sponsors for the event. But it's always a good thing to make sure your camo and your dog coordinate properly. So props to the two of them for that.

pretty flowers on the hike

Zeke found some beautiful wildflowers while we were out hiking this morning, so he posed for a picture before attempting to munch on them.

Play Date with the Fox Girls

After a few weeks of rescheduling, Zeke finally got his girlfriends to come over and play at the new house.
There was some serious frisbee going on.
Here Sadie is called in to settle a frisbee possession dispute.
Get your face off of my frisbee.

Road trip: Hilton Head Island

Mom and Zeke got a spur of the moment chance to head to Hilton Head to visit with family and play at the beach, how do you say no to that?!?We got up to see the sunrise and play during the early morning off-leash hours. The sun was a little hidden by the clouds but still very beautiful.
And yes, it's return of McGruber to ZekeTheLab.com, he was waiting for us in Hilton Head.
You couldn't ask for better weather and the water felt great.
We also took the opportunity to check out HHI's local dog park in Chaplin Community Park.
Then we hit up one of several dog friendly eating establishment's on the Island. The folks at Main Street Cafe & Pub were all very nice. They brought out a BIG bowl of water and asked if the pups preferred ice or not. And just about every one of the wait staff came out to say hi to McGruber and Zeke.

After such a long day of playing hard and swimming, the guys were ready to crash, but what a fun trip!