Archive for category life
Happy 4th of July!
We’ve had a good weekend here so far! Went to the local farmer’s market yesterday and finally got to talk to a wonderful local source of beef and chicken. We’ve been trying to eat “more local”, and while we thankfully have an Earth Fare market here now that carries “local” chicken (by local they seem to mean a 3 state area), I’d rather support truly local small farmers. So we have a 1/8 of a side of beef headed our way this fall, yay! Guess I’d better clean out the outside freezer LOL. I also bought some truly delicious cinnamon raisin bread, homemade pickles, heirloom tomatoes & potatoes, and summer squash. Yum! Still waiting for peaches to come into season here, that’s my favorite!
Also had some wonderful news from puppy owners…June was in MS with her owner Leslie, and was BOS 3 days in a row to pick up 3 more points! That puts her at 12 with her majors, and Leslie is under strict orders not to finish her before the Western Reserve specialty in August. 
Also, sister Echo hit the show rings for the very first time with her co-owner Emily Fish…and was WB both days she showed, picking up 2 single points! That makes the FIFTH puppy to be pointed from the litter. EDIT: I also saw that Vegas was in the ring this weekend too and picked up another point, putting him at 7!
Speaking of puppies, Miss Lizzie is in season now, and we have pretty much finalized our plans to breed her again. She will be bred on her NEXT season, which should be in December or early January. You can see more details on our Puppy Page if you’re interested.
There they grow again
Today I needed to bathe all three dogs and blow out an INCREDIBLE amount of hair from two in particular (I’m looking at you, boys!). I decided to save my back for once and wash them on the table in the backyard…hallelujah. I got soaked from head to toe but it was so much easier! Especially doing all of them. As usual on bath day, I felt inspired to break out the camera. I didn’t get any good side shots of Nash as he was being a TURD on the table (umm, guess we’d better start working on that again, eh?), but did get this cute face picture of the boy:
Nash at one year - isn't he handsome?
And would you believe this, but in two days is BRADY’S 12th BIRTHDAY! I can hardly believe that he’s that old. I was thinking about it the other day…that means Carolyn and Mandy have been putting up with me for nearly that long, too, since I got Molly from them when Brady was less than a year old. Brady was bought as and has always been a pet in the best sense of the word, but this boy has taught me so much. Sometimes the things he has taught me are what NOT to do, or what I DON’T enjoy doing, but that’s valuable too. 
I joke that Brady is “Dave’s dog”, because they have always shared a special bond that he and I just don’t have. Despite that, Brady is a clever, outgoing, opinionated, full of life pain-in-the-butt that has always kept our house interesting. Even at 12, he pretty regularly fraps with Nash…he has always loved playing with dogs, as long as they understand that He Owns All The Toys. He is not a big dog (hovering +/- 30 pounds) and is structurally fairly average and light-boned, but Brady has always been a Good Dog who’s distinct personality shines through in everything he does.
So, this dog has been OBSESSED with bunnies ever since we lived in Denver where they abounded in our yard. He (and Zach) caught a baby one back then, but didn’t injure it…just slobbered all over it until I noticed something afoot in the backyard and yelled out “drop it!” at which point Brady opened his mouth and the bunny bolted. So he has spent the past probably 9-10 years of his life hoping and trying to catch another one, and in fact we can’t even say the word bunny or Brady will go nuts whining and running around looking for it. I think a squirrel would suffice too, but they are too smart. SO…Last night when I let the dogs out, I heard a ruckus so went out to see what was going on, and what do I find?? A very proud Brady, carrying a (sadly broken-necked) bunny in his mouth. I told Dave about the incident, who is out of town, and he said “That’s it…his life is complete. He finally caught and killed a damned bunny.”
It's amazing how fast they can go from looking "not that old" to "old".
Do I get cheese for this? (please ignore his old-man long nails)
Poop-colored dogs
Nash shows off his gangly teenager body
Junie
"It's on!"
Junie in repose
Nash is a great fetcher (June is too!)
Perhaps a bark at the neighbors?
Junie
So gently "sharing" the toy
June dispenses with the niceities and tackles Nash
June ADORES Charlie.
Yay for pretty days
We are having GORGEOUS weather this weekend and have been taking full advantage. Most of yesterday was spent outside, tending to the backyard and playing with the kiddos…we had a flood in December which “relocated” all of our woodchips from the flower beds to various piles around our yard, so finally getting some of those raked up and tossed out. I spent a disgusting amount of time doing the disgusting job of picking up dog poop so that we could freely play. I always tend to neglect that job in the winter, plus we’ve had so much rain this season it’s been hard to find a day to do it. I will spare you all a photo of the giant bag full of poop that I ended up with, but suffice to say that it was impressive.
Charlie's attitude this morning was, umm, less than desirable.
Jack, however, was having a grand time
Today was bath day since the yard is actually somewhat dried out and less muddy than it has been for weeks. I know you all probably hate Cardi photos in the grass as much as I do, but this part of the yard is by far the best light for taking photos and I wanted to try him on the ground instead of the table. I think he looks MUCH better when he free stacks than when I hand stack him, for some reason he has a tendency to lock his back legs oddly when I hand stack him, so we’re working on that. (I’m speaking in general, not about these pictures. I hand stacked him for these) He’s starting to look like a grown up all of a sudden, is high in the rear OFTEN although these photos turned out ok I threw away a bunch that were really bad LOL. Ah, the fun growing stages of puppies! They turned 8 months old a few days ago.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Today I promised Charlie that we would make pink heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast. I didn’t have a mold really, so just poured them into heart-ish shapes…not bad, really! They were prettier before they browned but that’s ok, she was tickled. It may have been helped by the chocolate chips inside, too.
Jack wasn't sure what to think at first, but ate them after a bit
And the extra special part of today…..SNOW!!!! After hoping to get some yesterday morning and being pretty disappointed with just a dusting, it starting snowing here early this morning and gave us a good ground cover. The snowman didn’t last long as it was warming up quickly, but the kids had fun! Nash wants to spend the whole day outside. We are supposed to get some rain later (eww), and maybe more snow overnight.
Jack stayed on the sidewalk for a while...he kept pointing at the snow and saying "Yuck!". He did eventually venture out into the yard but mostly stayed in the cleared tracks, LOL.
Throwing snowballs for Nash
Charlie chasing Daddy with a snowball
A very angry Jack-in-the-box
I was in the kitchen when I heard Jack calling for “help, I need help….MAMA!”
Morning romp
Nash and Brady have gotten to be really good play partners. Nash is still easily submissive, which appeases Brady’s inflated sense of self-worth. So every morning after breakfast they have a good long play session. I whipped out the video camera to try to catch them in action, but naturally as soon as I had the camera on them they changed the game. It’s still cute to see Brady play so much even though he’ll turn 12 this year. Lizzie is sometimes in on the game also, but generally she lays at my feet while the boys act like idiots. However, if Brady starts to get out of hand and is “too mean” to Nash, Lizzie is RIGHT THERE in his face. She puts her body between them and grumbles at Brady to knock it off…he always seems to back off like “ok ok, sorry!”. It’s kind of cute to see her protecting her son like that, and it’s been really interesting to watch how the pack dynamics have changed since Lizzie had the puppies and Nash joined the family.
Here is Nash-the-dork showing you his chewie:
Brady and Nash playing a bit:
Random product recs
Anyone who has ever been around my house for dinnertime is always AMAZED at how quickly my dogs eat. Molly-the-Moose would regularly eat her meal so fast that it would come back up, upon which she would…yes…eat it again. Yum! *IF* no other dog is in the house, Brady eats relatively leisurely…taking maybe a full minute to eat kibble. But if other dogs are present, even separating them all to crates or their own area doesn’t work…they still all wolf it down. Dinnertime here lasts approximately 13 seconds total.
I’ve always been concerned about bloat because of this, and even more than that it just doesn’t seem HEALTHY to eat that fast. I soak their kibble for a few minutes before feeding (worst minutes of their lives, just ask them), but still worry. And with our recent digestive, ahem, issues I am more sensitive than ever to what and how my dogs eat. So, I stumbled somewhere across a link to these dog bowls that promised to “prevent your dog from bolting his food”.
They arrived today, and sure do work! I’ve heard before about putting a rock in your dog’s bowl to keep them from eating so fast…this is even better IMO. They are a bit spendy but, well, so are gastro problems that require vet visits. Dinner tonite took nearly 2 whole minutes. http://www.brake-fast.net/
Also, I don’t know about you other show people but I tend to have several different fancy “show” shampoos, but always found myself lacking a good, solid basic “everyday” dog shampoo. Obviously my dogs don’t get washed every day, but when they just plain old need a bath I want something that smells good, isn’t harsh on the coat, and rinses quickly and cleanly. I bought a gallon jug of this stuff a while back off of Amazon:
It’s called “Buddy Wash” (yes, ridiculous name) and is made by Cloud Star. Natural ingredients, herbal scent (I got lavender and mint), soap-free (so can be used with flea treatments), and can be used on puppies. I love that it’s thick and easy to put on, lathers well, and rinses easily. And I think it smells great!
Stuff n stuff
Happy Holidays! Not much going on here…we’re all just vegging out in a post-Christmas haze. My mom flew down on Christmas Day and Charlie has been doing her best to keep her busy. I think the kids had a great Christmas…it was refreshing this year because now that Charlie has hit age 5, she has gotten over some of the overstimulation that the holidays bring and instead has just been a ton of fun. Jack, on the other hand…well, at least he’s cute. We’re heading off later today to see the Princess and the Frog.
Waiting at the top of the stairs on Christmas Day, anxious to see what Santa brought! (Mommy had to stay there to make sure Jack stayed!)
It occurred to me the other day that I need to start training my puppy! He’s doing ok with some things, not so much with others, but his first show is a bit over a month away and it would be nice if he wasn’t a total idiot. And I can’t wait for some of the other babies to hit the ring! January should bring “first show” experiences for June, Piper, Echo (maybe, seems like she’ll be the slowest to mature so may be held out), Maddie, and Lucy. Not sure about Vegas but I’m sure when their shows start up again Joyce will be getting him out and about also. Out of curiousity I weighed Nash the other day…he’s a solid boy at 26.2 pounds, but that should put him at a quite respectable adult weight between 34-36 pounds.
I can’t wait to see what 2010 brings!
Pupdate – Harmony! And yes, I’m still alive.
Well we’ve had a pretty terrible month here. Charlie came down with H1N1 right before Thanksgiving and shared it with me, so we had to cancel our trip to Ohio to visit with my family. Nash is officially in the “too awkward for photos” phase, so you may not be seeing much of him for a while LOL! Our weather here has turned lovely and rainy…we had a flash flood 2 nights ago that put our street and entire yard under about a foot of water. Hooray! Thankfully our house is built on a crawl space, so we didn’t have water issues in the house, but our yard is a mess and it is going to take weeks for the crawlspace to dry out. Nash thought it was great and tried to jump into the swiftly running water (before I realized exactly what was going on)…stupid puppy!
On a positive note (I think), Lizzie has decided to come into season again, 2 months later than usual. I’m actually kind of happy about it, if she stays on her regular 6 month schedule that means she wouldn’t be in standing season during the National anymore. Will be interesting to see what Nash thinks and yes, I know that you can’t necessarily trust almost-6-month-old puppies not to figure it out. 
On to Miss Harmony! I know some of you see her on Facebook, but I got a nice note from her kind owners and wanted to share.
Aloha! Here are a few pictures of Harmony. She is always excited to go with me to work each day. Her “aunts” all love her and she’s spoiled absolutely rotten. She’s coming along great being my Service Dog and she’s official now at work. As of yesterday she weighs close to 19 pounds. Not as big as her siblings but that’s okay with us. Her nicknames, so far, are Harmony Pup, Puppity Pup, Pup, Little Bit.
She Loooooooooves belly rubs, balls, squeaky toys, playing tug, being cradled and she’s an absolute snuggle bunny. She’s very intuitive in taking care of me and my PTSD. We’re basically just taking her natural instincts, characteristics and such and developing them. We can’t tell you how much we appreciate being able to be able to take care of her. She is a total joy and pleasure. Thank you again sooooooo very much you chose the perfect dog for us. Thank you.
Aloha & Blessings,
Patti & Cindi
Not a show dog, but a pretty and flashy girl anyway!
Harmony and Patti
