Category Archives: Daily Posts

Which Crates for the Minivan?

August 26, 2008 – 2:22 pm

Levi Van-1Okay, and now the big search for the perfect crates begins. I don’t know why… is it a dog people thing? But I love to buy crates. They are nothing exciting, really, so why are they so fun to buy and collect? I dunno. Oh well, a mystery, but it’s fun anyway.

The Minivan is about 48? wide at the bottom of the back, and 40? wide towards the top. As I measured, and believe me, I’m not too good at measuring so these are estimates. :)

A couple of good website resource out there are:
CargoDogs.com
and
DogCars.com

Which I have been reading over. And I think I’m narrowing down my choices.

First, I need a fairly largish crate for Levi. Currently he lives in, I think, a 36?L x 24?W x 27?H. And it’s a bit too short for him. And with the Minivan only being 48? or so wide, I think I want to stick to a 21? wide crate for him… which I hope he’d be okay in, and I think he will, I have a friend who I think has one so I can try him out in there. I like the side by side SUV/Minivan crates, they are 42?L x 21?W x 30?H which would be good, made by Midwest.

Then there are the rest of the dogs… usually I just travel with three dogs. Either Tatum, Chase and Levi, or Tatum, Chase and Muffit. Muffit is a lot smaller and can get by with a smaller crate, but Tatum and Chase are both about the same size, bigger than Muffit, so I’m not sure if I’m going to get a small crate for Muffit that I take out when I don’t need it, or get a bigger one that Chase/Tatum can fit in and just leave it there all the time. I’m leaning toward the latter.

I would love to have crates with doors on both ends. The narrow one above has this, which is great. I have not found other crates (yet) with doors just on both ends, but there are the tri-door crates by midwest. I am concerned that the single door on the side might catch with another crate (it did in my Dad’s blazer a bit), so that might be something to think about. But I could get two of these, the 30?L x 21?W x 24?H size.. I have two this size already (one single door and one two door), so I guess maybe what I should do is get the big one for Levi, and then put my two other ones in there and see how they all fit. Then I can decide on the smaller ones.

Hrm that’s a good idea. I just thought of that myself. :) I was kinda hoping I could stack the two smaller crates on top of each other, but the van is only 40.5? high, so two won’t fit stacked unless I get Muffit a fairly small one, but then if I don’t take Muffit I’ll need the bigger crates anyway.

Decisions decisions, they are hard to make! But fun too! I really want to just buy a crate… but I have to have patience, grasshopper! LOL

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

MiniVan for Me and the Dogs!

August 25, 2008 – 5:18 pm

MiniVan-2Well, I did it. I know I know! I’m bad bad bad! But I couldn’t help myself. I get into buying modes and I just have to get it out of my system, usually with buying. LOL. So here it is, the new (well used) 2007 Hyundai Entourage I just bought. I am happy with it. It looks gray, but sometimes looking at it it kinda looks blue, and the paperwork says light blue. Either way it’s a nice color, and it kinda matches Levi, who is checking it out!

I posted some more pictures on Luna Tail. I’ll get more, of course, I’m sure, soon. I don’t know if this guy will fit in my garage… which means the Husband might get the one car garage we have, which will make him happy. So it will keep us all safe, too, I sure hope. No getting mesothelioma while riding in it! Though I don’t think that’s possible!

So this is the new dog vehicle! I need some narrow crates for it.. six, if they will all fit! I hope so! I’ll set it up and pull the seats out this Friday, probably. Or maybe wait until I get new crates ordered. I’m excited! And nervous.. dangit, new car nerves. Bleh. And I’ll have to sell my Outback, when it comes back from the shop, to pay this loan off!

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Buying Dog Stuff

August 23, 2008 – 4:03 pm

I love to buy things for my dogs. LOL Yeah I can’t help myself sometimes. Actually, sometimes I think I have a bit of a shopping addiction as I go through phases where I have a need to buy, and online shopping tends to satisfy this need.

One thing I always need for my dog sports is DVDs. Recording and burning movies of myself and my friends. I love to do it, though I usually run behind. And so I bought some Lightscribe discs from Tiger Direct so I can burn some movies to DVD. And I used a new payment method called eBillMe which was kinda fun.

It makes it easy to set up a billpay in my bank account and pay eBillMe. Which I did. However, my bank doesn’t pay over weekends or holidays, so payment can’t be sent out until next Tuesday (not sure why it won’t send next Monday). So I’ll have to wait for payment until then, and they won’t ship the discs until they receive payment. So thought it’s convenient, it can be kinda slow. And I do tend to be the instant gratification type!

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Tagged | Comments (0)

The Camp

August 19, 2008 – 3:18 pm

Dog TrailerI have a lot to post about! First.. here is our camp! We had a great time at the RV Park. Snake River RV Park inm Idaho Falls, Idaho… the people were amazingly wonderful! And it’s a very dog friendly RV park. As you can see, too, we camped on grass which was very nice. And the dogs enjoyed the trailer, and even Chase was nice to the shelties we camped with (Rogue and Twist!)

My cell phone was being weird from there, though, sending blank text I guess! But maybe if I had some unlocked cell phones it would have worked better. No worries, we had my new GPS unit so we were able to find our way to the show site and back quite easily. As well as to food places and ice cream stores!

The show site was very nice, too, and I’ll post about it later, as well as how Levi did. Briefly, no Qs, but he was a sweet boy and had a lot of fun! And that’s the best part!

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Comments (6)

Back from Obedience

August 18, 2008 – 8:24 pm

I am back.. and pretty tired. The RV Park did have wireless internet. However, I forgot my laptop power cable and so could only turn the laptop on occasionally. I have a small battery, and it lasts only about an hour.

And so this is short, I’ll write more tomorrow about how everything went. Nutshell… Levi hasn’t been trained enough in Open Obedience to really know what’s going on. :) But he was happy and that was good. I have some videos too that I’ll have to post up.

Pulling the popup trailer up was fun, we had everything we needed but the vessel sinks and that we didn’t really need!

I’m tired, it’s only 8:30 on this Monday evening and I’m going to bed!

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Comments (3)

A Minivan for me?

August 13, 2008 – 10:15 am

So… I haven’t posted much about it here, but on August 1, 2008 I was in a car accident. A lady ran a red light on the way into work and I T-Boned her. She flipped and rolled a good 50 or 60 yards, so she was going pretty fast. There was a witness who said she ran the red and the police cited her then and there.

Anyway, my Subaru Outback has over $12,000 in damage and it is still in the shop. My insurance is going to check it out today to see if they will total it or not. I’ve been waffling back and forth between wanting my Outback back, or wanting a new car… a minivan.

So I’ve been looking around for a better dog vehicle. Where I can have four dogs, maybe even all six, crated. And so far I like the Toyota Sienna best.

I had a 1990 Toyota pickup for 14 years and loved it. I like Toyotas. And Minivan… while I still would prefer a car, my lifestyle really warrants a Minivan over a car.

So the question is, do I want my Outback back, or do I want a Minivan? Can I afford a Minivan? And a car payment? Bleh… but now I have the new car bug. I hate getting the new car bug! Maybe I need some new eyeglasses in order to see straight and make a good decision!

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Tagged , | Comments (8)

Hard to get in trouble

August 8, 2008 – 5:00 pm

Tatum and Bianca Tatum was saying on her blog, the other day, that it’s hard for dogs to get in trouble at our house. :) And my husband said it once, too, when Muffit came back to live with us. And it’s true. Dogs just don’t get in trouble at our house.

I love this picture because it’s a perfect example. The dog who is looking at the camera is Bianca, one of the rescue collies we got from Houston Texas last year. And Tatum is the monster who still has her head buried in the roll of paper towels.

But as for a disclaimer… I have to say that our house is pretty dog proof. And if we leave a roll of paper towels out where the dogs can get them, well it’s our own fault, not the dogs.

Also, punishing a dog for something after the fact only makes the dog afraid of you. It doesn’t teach the dog anything. So if one of our dogs poops or pees in the house, oh well, we clean it up and go on with life. And Lucy and Angel are both getting old so this is happening more often than we would like. We just try to take them outside to potty more often than we used to.

Tatum ‘read’ a magazine the other day. It ended up all over the bedroom floor. But you know, I can’t bear to punish her. She has such a spirit and I don’t want to make her afraid of me. And oh yeah.. well, I gave her the magazine. Because I didn’t want her to ‘read’ my library book that she was starting to chew on! So really we trade our dogs something they can have, for something we don’t want them to have. Maybe they can chew up some futures broker someday… ooo that might be good!

Dogs are dogs, and toys are toys, and in our house, if it’s left out, it’s pretty much fair game to be used as a toy. :) We love our dogs more than our things. And we do have rules. Like Tatum said in her post, sometimes they are just hard to find. But the rules are there, we just enforce them in ways that do not entail punishment. Rather we redirect, we exercise, we do other things so the dogs are successful. And if they do something they really shouldn’t (like Chase going after another of our dogs) he might get a scruff shake or a hard ‘no’, but that’s about it anymore.

I used to do the correction thing, and you still might see me roll a dog and hold him/her down occasionally to make sure they know I am boss. But other than that, we have a happy dog house. And we want a happy dog house!

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Tagged , , | Comments (15)

Be An Entredog!

August 7, 2008 – 3:09 pm

EntredogMy silly smooth sable collie girl, Tatum, has decided to start a new blogrolling list called Entredog. I haven’t even gotten myself on it yet! Mainly it’s for dogs who write their own blogs… so that’s not really me. But she probably won’t say no if you are a human writing a blog about your dogs. :)

So if you have Entrecard, and are a dog who writes a blog… or if you want to get Entrecard, or if you want to be a dog writing a blog…. (lol) then feel free to go sign up with her! She is a goof and silly and has a heart like gold and a soul like fire. And I adore her!

She got the idea from the Entrecat blogrolls she’s been seeing around… and we hope it’s okay to copy the idea!

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Also posted in Tatum | Tagged | Comments (8)

Yay Slow Weekend

August 3, 2008 – 11:36 am

Cute Cue!Just finished feeding Lucy in her chair. Thanks everyone for the comments about her chair! She does well in it, still struggling a bit but she’ll get better. And she does get yummy food in her chair!

This is a picture of Cue, my friend in Colorado just brought her home a couple weeks ago. Isn’t she a doll!? What a cutie. So confident, well bred, and pretty too! Oh.. and a quick note, I had a car accident last Friday, and that’s why my posting has been a bit spotty as of late. I hope to get some more posting in in the next few days. Didn’t need to use term life for the accident. I think I’m okay, but sometimes it can take a few days for the injuries to come out. So we’ll see.

I may be off the computer today, I hope to go see The Mummy, and then flyball practice after. Should be a fun day. :)

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Tagged | Comments (9)

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-28

July 28, 2008 – 11:59 pm

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Rate this:
3.1
By User ImageCynthia Blue [My Barks!] | Comments (0)