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It seems like in the dog sports world, most people find a breed and pretty much stick with it. And then there is me. LOL. When I had Tatum and Levi at the ASCA rally and were walking around with just them, I found it odd that I had only two dogs with me on leashes and they were both smooth collies!

I will admit, I am not as bonded to my two Border Collies as I am to the Smooth Collies and the Danish Swedish Farmdog. I don’t think I’ll be getting any more Border Collies.  They are fun, but just not really my breed.  Which may be odd to say since they are such a common agility breed.  In the future I plan on getting at least one more Danish Swedish Farmdog. Hopefully a girl.  And I’d also love another Smooth Collie. I have a name for a boy Smooth Collie, Quinn, I’d love to get a dog to match it someday!

So eventually I’ll probalby go down to two breeds. But I don’t think less than that.  I love the Collies and the Farmdogs!

Oh, and as I was making up new pictures for the pack… I thought I’d say that I always list them in the order in which they came to live with us.  For those we have now, Lucy came first, then Levi.  Then Angel, but she is gone now and I was very sad that I didn’t make a new picture for her.  Then Chase, then Tatum, Muffit, and finally Jet.  So it’s not in order of age, it’s in order of who came first.

Pack

I do, I love all my dogs. This pictures is not of my dogs, though! LOL mostly the dogs here are Marie’s dogs when we went to visit a couple of weeks ago and looked at property. Tatum is in this picture, she’s the big smooth collie. Oh yes, big compared to most of Marie’s dogs, LOL.

But I do love all my dogs and you know what? I am no longer embarrased by having six dogs. In fact, yes, I’d add number seven if the right puppy comes along, hopefully a Danish Swedish Farmdog!

All my dogs have great, unique personalities.  We have a nice calm house even though we have six dogs and they are all herding dogs and they love to bark. Still, I absolutely love knowing each of them as individuals.  And my life would be emptier and bleaker if I didn’t have each and every one of them in my life.

Our house may be small, but my dogs get to do a lot of things. Flyball, agility, obedience, and mybe more in the future. And my husband takes the older dogs to the park so they get exercise too, that they need.

So no, even though maybe heated mattress pads would benefit the older dogs, I love each and every one of them and am not worried that we have so many. I wouldn’t give any of them up for ten million dollars.  They are my passion, my life, and I think they all have very good, full lives.  I am glad we have all the dogs we have. Though much of the time I feel like I need more time to give them all, I just have to sit and relax and realize they all have good lives, and I am so lucky to have them all!

Making the Shelf

Well, I was sitting here watching TV a few days ago, with three dogs on the couch and more wanting to be on the couch, when I thought you know, dogs like to be on the backs of couches and our dogs are no exception. So why not put a shelf back there, make it comfy for them, and let them have their way? I proposed the idea to my husband and he emphatically agreed and so we put about to make a shelf for the dogs to lay on behind the couch. I had to move the laundry hamper out of the way as we built it, as well as the table and my laptop and some other stuff, but it worked out well. This first picture is of my husband putting it together. We have had this wood for a while, got it free a few years ago, and it’s coming in quite handy!

Comfy Dog Shelf

I tried to crop myself out of this picture because I looked horrible! LOL.  But the dogs don’t really care. And, as we suspected, Muffit is the first dog to take a liking to the dog shelf behind the couch.  He climbed right up there and laid down like he knew it was his spot.

We want to get some better padding up there, though. Because one reason the couch is so popular is because it’s cushy and soft and comfortable. Of course it’s also popular because it’s where we, the humans, like to sit and everywhere we like to sit must be the best place.

LOL yeah we know, we know… our house is made for the dogs.  Well, maybe for us first, for our own comfort, and then for the dogs. And yeah yeah, we know, our dogs are spoiled rotten. However, they know they are not boss (most of them know this lol) and our pack gets along quite well.

So here ya go, pack! A comfy high shelf to lay on!

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

Click Here for the Collie Cam!

However, it won’t really be open until Monday! I may let it run some this weekend, but when we are home we really don’t like it to snap us and so we usually let it snap pictures when it’s off.

There is also now a guestbook on the page where you can sign and leave a comment. And it’s protected by Akismet for spam protection. It’s a free little guestbook script I found.

My favorite part is the archives gallery! It’s a lightbox type photo gallery called MiniShowcase. And it’s free too! It’s perfect for my cam archives!

Click Here for the webcam archives.

I’ve set up a little cron job on my server to upload the Cam is Closed image every day at 5:30 pm Mountain Time.

I’m excited about the web cam being back and being better! Though maybe it could use some Shirley of Hollywood lighting!

I’ve been meaning to do this since the beginning of this blog.. which has been years now, I think I started blogging in 2004? Maybe 2005? Wow. Long time!

Anyway, if anyone is interested in reading more about my six dogs, and my one missed dog who died in 2000, here are their stories. I really should get a page up for Jackie, my lab mix when I was a kid. I don’t have any digital photos of her, though. I’ll have to get some digitized.

Lucy

Levi

Angel

Chase

Tatum

Muffit

And in Memory of Kip.

I’m in an agility trial this weekend… a three dayer, so this should post while I’m there!

Anyway… today it’s gorgeous outside, sunshine, and hopefully it’ll get up into the 50s. Me, Chase, Tatum and Muffit are going to go out to flyball practice in a bit. I can’t wait to see how Muffit does with the people and dogs. I hope he’s okay!

Oh and did I mention I got a free foldable wire dog crate on Friday? My friends and I went to lunch and on the way back we drove by a yard with some stuff out front, one was a dog crate. We stopped, and there was a big FREE sign on it! I was thrilled. It’s even a double door, which I love! And the perfect size for Muffit. Even Tatum fits in it fine.

I love free!

We made it home pretty fast, the rear spoilers on the car might have helped… if we had one, which we didn’t. The Husband’s car has one not my Outback. Anyway, six hours from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City Utah is pretty darn good, I think. It was about the same amount of time going down.

So this week we get some rest. Then Saturday I’m going to practice Obedience with Chase and Levi and Tatum, then Sunday it looks like we get to do some flyball practice to incorporate the things we learned at the tournament. I need to get Muffit on a touch stick… I am still not quite awake enough to do that, maybe tomorrow!