Tip Tail

Levi and Jet

Ten years ago today my baby boy, Levi, was born. Pembroke Faded Glory at Pembroke kennels up in Idaho. I remember going to visit him when he was just tiny. My husband and I were not married yet, but we were getting closer. We had Lucy and Kip and we packed them up and stayed at Lava Hot Springs… it was my first ever trip with dogs in a hotel. And they did great.

Levi was the puppy that ran under the table to hide, but my heart just loved him from the beginning and I had to bring him home. We had to wait until he was 12 weeks old, but it was worth the wait.

Now when I get a puppy I use fun iphone accessories to document the trip, like I did with Jet! But back then I didn’t do the internet very much at all. And I don’t think there was even a Facebook.

In this picture Levi is grudgingly sharing the bed with Jet.  Levi is getting used to Jet, but Levi thinks all Mom’s attention should just be for Levi.   But Levi still gets a ton of attention!

Levi gets extra spoiled today with extra treats and hopefully a Birthday Pizza for dogs.    I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since my baby boy was born.  Time sure flies.  We have done a lot together, him and I, and I treasure every moment. And will treasurer all the time we still have together!

Angel March 2009

We are pretty worried about our sweet Angel… Angel Pumpkin Spice Girl. We got her in 2002 and in the last few months she has really, really slowed down.

She’s loosing her footing more often now, and having a hard time standing up. She moves really slow. She is eating well, though, and pooping well so that’s good. She eats more than the rest of our dogs and she’s not fat. We worry that she’ll end up being one of those old skinny dogs so we feed her a lot to keep weight on her. She’s not fat though. She is just fine now.

We are afraid she is not going to be with us much longer, though. We will not let her suffer. I’ve learned a lot since I had Kip and kept him alive a bit longer than I should have. She won’t be spending any time in metal buildings, she has her soft beds and comfy places to sleep. She likes to be in the basement in my husband’s computer room where it’s safe and cozy and dark.

I love my Pumpkin Girl… I don’t want her to go. I hope we’ve given her a good long life. We are assuming she is about 13, but we don’t really know how old she was when she came to live with us.

She likes the couch, too, as this picture shows.

I love you sweet Angel.

Tatum in Summer

I am, actually, really excited to just stay home! I don’t have any trips planned for the next three months. Yay! I have travel clear across the country twice this year, going back east first to pick up Jet in July, and again in October to take him to the dog show. They were both really fun trips and I am so glad I went!

Now it’s time to stay home, do some house cleaning and maybe painting, and take a well needed rest. I’m sick, too, going on a week now. And so I need some down time without stress. I will still train, of course. I want to get Tatum going on sequencing agility obstacles (this is such a cute picture of Tatum!) because I’m toying with the idea of entering her in ASCA agility, PreNovice, next February, if she’s ready. Would be so fun to see how she does!

I’ll still be posting about my dogs, training, and all the fun daily living. I’m also going to soak in some hot baths, get some good acne treatments, nice lotions and moisturizers, and take it easy. Yay!

Well this isn’t a picture of Chase, it’s a picture of super cute Jet… LOL but Jet makes me happy! Okay Chase makes me happy too but he’s not a wiggly cute puppy anymore.

Handsome Jet

Anyway so Chase got 2 Qs this weekend out of 12 runs. I’ve been told (since my math is horrible) that’s about 15%. For a fast, long strided dog, in ASCA, I think that’s too low. It’s too low for my tastes, anyway. We almost got a gamblers Q but he didn’t do what I wanted on the A-Frame so I left the course early. Ugh.

Chase is awesome, and I need to pick it up. It’s not him, it’s me. Well except the A-Frame. He usually has a stellar A-Frame contact and he was blowing it last weekend. Only going in one direction, though. I don’t know what it was about that direction. Bleh. Maybe it was because it was a slatless A-Frame but I don’t think so. He knows how to control himself on those too.

Anyway I’m working on my handling skills a lot and I am getting a lot better. Maybe I need to get away from the dog stuff for a bit, look for some term life insurance instead, and just relax!

Did ASCA agility today with Chase.  Dragged my body out of my sick bed. Ugh.  We had fun though. I still want a higher Q rate.  Out of six runs he only got one Q. Fortunately that was in Standard Novice and he needed that for his title. So I’m glad he got it.

Here’s one of his jumpers runs. Very pretty runs. He knocked a bar early on so I didn’t really work the end peice and he back jumped where he shouldn’t. That sequence confused me anyway since I knew I wouldn’t be up there between those jumps. Oh well, we did good anyway and I was happy with the runs.  We don’t do much ASCA that’s why he’s still in the lower levels. In AKC he’s in excellent A.

We go again tomorrow, maybe we’ll be better. I am still pretty sick though and I can’t hear out of my left ear. Everything is off and my head is stuffed. We’ll have fun though. I did a lot of sitting around today, even out in the van surfed the web a bit on my phone looking for home insurance to see if we can get a better rate. Tomorrow I’ll do the same. It’s hard for me to just sit at dog events. I get nervous and am always on my feet.

Oh and as for the title of this post… Chase loves agility, he doesn’t know when he does bad or when he knocks a bar. He’s just a nut and loves the rush. I think he likes the structure too, and the learning we do. But he doesn’t know if we Q or not. He’s just happy to do this weird thing that his human Mom likes.

Jet the Vampire

Went to flyball last weekend and had a great time. It’s the annual Jumps and Jackpots put on by Touch N Go Flyball Team from Las Vegas, Nevada. They have it in Utah because there’s a really nice location here which is easier to us because we don’t have to drive so far.

I put this little costume on Jet. It’s nothing special, just a Vampire costume I got from Petco. And it’s hard to hold him on a leash while taking pictures.

I bought some dog supplies while I was there, some stuff for dogs’ feet in the snow so the ice balls don’t get bad in their pads. Chase needs that the ice balls get terrible in his feet in the winter when we go on walks. Hopefully this will help.

We have agility this weekend but I’m down with a cold. I really want to go, though. It’s ASCA and I was sick for the last ASCA trial in the spring, dangit!  So I only went one day and even then I did terrible because I was feeling awful.  So maybe I’ll go tomorrow and if I can’t handle Chase then we’ll just come home. Bleh. I was really looking forward to this trial.

Chase Little Bed

I am one of those odd people who think that dogs don’t feel guilt. I think guilt is a human emotion. I am more of the mind that the dogs know Safe and Dangerous. And when you come home and your dog has gotten into the garbage and scattered it around, and he cowers… it’s not guilt. He just knows that you coming home with garbage scattered around is dangerous because you might explode for no reason that he can understand.

(oh and this is Chase trying to fit in the teeny dog bed I got for Jet. LOL)

Jet is in his chewing age now… he’s six months old and that’s to be expected. We do not, ever, get mad or punish him for chewing. Ever. We don’t do that with any of our dogs. We just direct him to something more productive. I do want him to know that some things are off limits, like cardboard displays or chairs or furniture, but I just push him away, tell him Leave It, and give him a bone that is a good thing for him to chew.

Lucy has Mega-esophagus and often regurgitates quite a bit. She is also pretty incontinent and will pee accidentally while she is laying down if we don’t take her out frequently.  But Lucy never, ever acts guilty for either of these acts.  I believe it’s because we have never punished the dogs for there being pee on the floor, or poop, or throw up… or the act of any of these.  So none of the dogs think these things are dangerous in any way and don’t show the ‘guilt’ signs that people interpret as guilt… but I interpret that the dog is afraid of something dangerous might happen.

I’m very proud of this.  I don’t want my dogs to think there are things dangerous in the world… mainly me or my husband.  I want them to feel safe at home. We train in other ways. We encourage success. We DO set boundaries and limits and the dogs have good manners.  But a growing puppy needs to chew, an incontinent dog is going to have accidents.  These are not reasons to punish… actually, there are not really any good reasons to punish.   Redirect, encourage, and set up for success. I love positive training!

My husband is currently going to school. He, like me, went right out of high school and then dropped out. College is so much different than High School. It took us a while to mature enough to go back and get our degrees. Now I sometimes wish I could go back and study Animal Behavior, but I don’t know if I can find the money. And I’d prefer to attend an online university instead of having to go into a school on a regular basis.

So even though I don’t wan an online business degree, I was looking at online schools. I’d want an accredited school… so many of the online schools are not accredited with reputable accreditation places so that makes it hard.

The Western Governors University is something I am considering. They are Non-Profit and their tuition is half as much as other online universities. They also have six month segments… you pay for six months at a time, instead of by credit ours. And it’s a set amount, and it’s affordable! And they are accredited by the Northwest Commission of Colleges and Universities, which accredits a number of highly reputable Universities and Colleges. Hrm…

Well, I have a while yet to decide. I have about four more years before I can retire and do something else… maybe I’ll just play with my dogs! LOL

Best in Show Puppy!

I am so very proud of my little baby boy… when we went to the American Rare Breed Association Dog Show last weekend, he won Best in Show Puppy! There were two shows held on Saturday, and he didn’t win show 2, but he did win show 1.

He deserves some pensacola vacation packages! And maybe I can go with.    It was so much fun traveling with Jet. He is such an amazingly good boy. He wouldn’t pee or poop in the airport at all, even though we had to get there early to check in, wait to board, we had a 3 hour flight, then landed and had to find a potty area.  I tried to get him to pee on a pee pad in the bathrooms but he wouldn’t have any of that. He held it until we found grass outside or until we were in the parking structure.

He did so great in the hotel, too.  He was a bit bothered by the noises the first night.  He’s been in a hotel before but my other dogs have been with. And when they ignore noises so does he.  But since he was the only dog it was different.  We snuggled on the bed and played with toys and he got to chew.

It was so awesome to walk through the airport with a dog on leash! I loved it.  He got lots of good attention too.

My Danish Swedish Farmdog boy is wonderful and I’m so glad he came to live with us!

Fun in the Yard

So we have some guests this week. They are sweethearts. We have watched Chip the Sheltie before, but we haven’t met his new sister Tinkerbell, who is one week older than Jet. And though I’ve met Vito, the sweet Papillion boy, this is the first time he gets to spend with us. I’ll post a picture of him later.

Tatum and Jet love having visitors. Levi and Chase hate it.  LOL. But they are just grumpy boys and get to spend time with their Dad in his computer room.  Chase and Levi really aren’t too bad and are doing well with the guests. It’s not like having fosters.  It’s so nice having well treated happy dogs that are relaxed, confident, and mellow as guests. Instead of stressed sick fosters.  We are not fostering anymore, finally, and it is really nice.

So for a week we have these three guests. It’s fun to have them around!