Yeah, my husband and I would count dogs to make sure we had them all around. Home safe. Not getting out or running amok.

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I think I am coming to terms with losing Lucy. I’m still very sad, and last night cried again in bed before I went to sleep. I miss her so much. I wish that I could have put her in a bed, given her meds, and kept her around like I would have kept a person around. But dogs don’t work that way… and seriously, it’d be nice if we could put people out of their misery, too. Lucy was miserable. It was her time to go. I just still miss her so much.

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Today we took a trip to the desert to let the dogs run. It was a short trip. Long drive, about 45 minutes, and it was too hot to let the dogs run for too long. But they did have fun.   Levi isn’t very strong anymore and can’t go very far. I sure hope he’s okay when we go to camp.  I will take it slow for him, give him what he needs, and sit around on the beach of Lake Tahoe all day if we need too.  Which, really, won’t make me sad at all, sitting on the beach all day!

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I am trying out a new gallery, too, so above are the thumbnails. Though I’m not quite so sure how it works, yet, and I may just add the images individually too.

Three rounds of antibiotics later he got better and returned to his normal self that we remembered. Though he was less confident and more frantic than when we’d fostered him before. Poor guy, can’t blame him. Who knows what he went through. My husband and I didn’t even have to talk about it, we knew we were just going to keep him.

I thought of training him for flyball but he gets so frantic he has a hard time concentrating. So he ended up being my husband’s dog. And now my husband is his favorite person in the world. Aaron takes him hiking a lot in the summer. He takes him a fair amount in the winter too. On the days I’m home and Aaron isn’t, Muffit just seems kinda sad. He misses his favorite person. I don’t mind not being that person, I have enough other dogs to take care of. I wouldn’t be able to have six dogs without my husband. I wouldn’t be able to give them all enough attention. My husband is amazing, and I’m glad he’s developed a great relationship with Muffit. (Muffit is named after the mechanical dog on the original Battlestar Galactica show).

Muffit loves the snow too, I wish he, or one of the other dogs, could use a toro snowblower when Aaron and I are not home and we get dumped on! But alas, the dogs mostly sleep when they are alone. I bet they’d love a job, though.

Jet

First off I was figuring out a knitting patten. I like to knit, but this pattern was driving me nuts. It wasn’t straight forward or easy to follow, so I had to rewrite it so that I could understand it. And it took me about 20 rows (2 patterns worth) to be able to really figure it out consistently. Finally I have it down and it’s coming along. When I was complaining about it to my husband, he said, well isn’t that half the fun, figuring out the pattern? I said a stern NO!. I just wanted to do the knitting, I didn’t want to have to decipher a pattern.

At work I’m a programmer/Analyst. The Analyst part is tough for me. The programming isn’t so tough. Quite often I have to really analyze and understand how something works before I can just go ahead and program. My coworkers say… isn’t it fun to figure it out? I’m like… errr, No! I just want to do it!

And I related these same things to dogs. My friend has a Belgian Malinois puppy who will be a year old in February, and boy is she a handful. She’s one of those dogs you have to decipher and figure out before you can just train. Muffit is one of those kinds of dogs too, in my house. He’s so frantic, and he is not food motivated at all, that figuring him out would take a great deal of time and dedication, when really what I want to do is the knitting part… the training part!

So when I was looking for a breed, and found Jet, my Danish-Swedish Farmdog, what I was really looking for was a dog who came prepackaged as smart, sweet, calm, food motivated, toy motivated, and a love bug… and whom I could just train! Yay! That’s what I got! I got a dog I can just rain out of the box. Without all that preformatting part.

So I guess I don’t like the preparation as much as I like the doing. It’s also why I don’t want to shop around for cheap life insurance, or the best deal on clothes or food… I just want to do. Maybe it’s a sign of my lack of patience. I dunno… but I’m so glad I have Jet, who fits me so perfectly!

Angel and Chase

But when I think about my rescue dogs, grateful isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, I don’t think my rescue dogs are grateful at all. First off, I think grateful is a human emotion, not a canine one. Though I guess maybe Angel could have been grateful. To me, though, she just seemed more relieved to have a safe place to live finally.

Tatum… she isn’t grateful at all. LOL. She’s our princess, and it seems to me that she thinks she deserves every second of her pampered life. In fact, I would interpret her behavior as being entitled. She has a lot of confidence at home, and thinks she deserves the best treats, the best sleeping spots, and when other dogs get close to her when she is resting, they get an earful of growl. It’s like she’s saying “he’s touching me, stop touching me!” I need to get some pictures of her with her teeth showing, or some art prints of her, she is such a goof.

Chase and Muffit are just happy to do whatever. They love to run and expend their energy. But they don’t coddle or fuss over us either. They don’t seem to exhibit any behavior that I would label as gratefulness. But they are both Border Collies, so maybe that has a lot to do with it too. *shrug*

So anyway, do your rescue dogs seem to be grateful? Mine don’t. But I’d rather have it that way. I want my dogs to be as confident as possible. Strong either with me around, or on their own. Secure in themselves. That’s the kind of life I try to give them.

Muffit Hiking

Anyway so I brought my Mailbox back with me from Germany. I just had to have one… I got it back in 2002 and I don’t know if I even have a picture of it. I really should. Maybe I do somewhere.

I have it attached to the outside of the house. It’s a wall mount mailbox that kinda looks like the link just there. I love having fancy mailboxes on the house… Though, of course, what I’m really looking for is a dog type mail boxes. With a custom design of my dogs… of course. But I don’t think I can afford that anytime soon!

So anyway back to Muffit… he is so happy when he gets to go on hikes with the Dad. He even found a porcupine just the other day, managed to get away with only two quills, so that’s good. Goof. I’m glad he didn’t get hurt!

Muffit, Tatum and Jet

I needed a hot shower after this walk, or some walk in tubs to get warm in. But going up the canyon was actually a lot of work and I was sweating. The snow made the ground too slick, but we didn’t fall.

Muffit

Muffit loves to hike, it’s his favorite thing to do. And he sure is a cute boy.

I tried to get the three to sit and wait for some pictures, but Muffit doesn’t have a stay or a wait… yeah he’s just too frantic and I haven’t worked with him. So when he’d break the other two would break too. So I just got a quick shot of Jet and Tatum.

It was fun though I’m ready for some warmth!

Sweet Chase

I just have to toot my husband’s and my horn just a little bit. Four of our dogs are rescues, and if I do say so myself, we are good at building their confidence. This picture is of Chase. And though he didn’t come with too many problems, he does have good confidence now and is much more self assured than he used to be. This shows in his ability to tell dogs to keep their distance in a respectful manner. Instead of attacking, like he used to do. He’s not aggressive, he just has space issues like many dogs do.

Tatum is also one of our dogs that has come a long way. She was so scared when we first got her. I’d take her out anywhere and she’d tuck her tail and skitter around afraid. Now.. she nips people to get them to play and interact. She’s got spunk and she wants things her way. She has a lot of attitude and confidence! She very rarely gets scared anymore. I’m very proud of her!

Angel also came to us afraid, and she’s so confident now that she’ll jump in our laps to steal our food. We just laugh at her. No punishment for Angel, EVER! She is still timid enough that any punishment would shut her down.

And Muffit is also more confident and doing well. Going to the park and on hikes with my husband, he’s getting used to being out and he’s getting along with people and dogs. Now i just have to get my husband to bring his cell phones with him when he goes out so I can get in touch with him!

I’m proud of our dogs, and of us, to give our rescues such a great chance and much needed confidence!

Tatum and Chase

Though Tatum didn’t race, she was tired anyway. I worked a little heeling with her, and some dumbbell. She loves it. Her tail wags and she has a happy look on her face.

Yesterday I took Chase, Levi and Tatum out for some work. Chase’s heeling is doing really well! I think he really understands now. Hopefully he’ll do good at the ASCA obedience trial in a couple of weeks. His first obedience trial, he’s in Novice B.

Levi did some open obedience work and did great, too. He’s been stir crazy lately since I haven’t worked with him. Mostly because of his being lame a bit ago but he seems fine again now. He’s in the ASCA obedience too, in Open A.

Tatum got to do some agility and she loves it! She did a jump, tunnel, and jump. I think she’s a little bit advanced for our Friday night classes. I’m thrilled at how much she loves it and how good she does.

I took Muffit to the beginning agility class and he did good too. He jumped and spinned and twirled but he’s learning to settle. And it’s hard for him to settle with other dogs around. But he doesn’t need any Enphedra, he burns a lot of calories being a goof!

Today and tomorrow no dog stuff, just people stuff. And I need to rest. I still have mono and I’m pushing through it but it really is taking it’s toll on me. I need a lot of rest.