Dogs, dogs, and more dogs

A few people I work with asked if we could take care of their dogs while they were on vacation. Of course I said yes and then found out they all went on vacation at the same time.

We had Tyler and Teri’s 5 month old Havanese puppies, Luke and Annie, for 10 days.

They were TOO cute and very active but got along with our pack perfect.

Laura’s Roxy just came for the weekend and I did not get any pictures of her.

OZ was back for a week while his family was in Disneyland.

And even my parent’s cocker spaniel, Charlie, came to stay with us for 9 days.

Actually Charlie is still here until Friday.

So what do you do when you have so many dogs that need to be tired out – load them up in the van and go to the park!

Play

Smile

Run

Get a treat

Run some more

And you end up with the perfect dog – a tired dog or in our case 7 tired dogs.

Peace!

Charlie meets Kaleb

Charlie lives a very spoiled life as the only dog in my parents’ home. Not only is he the only dog but the only pet and my mom is home a lot so Charlie is not home alone much. The first day at our house Charlie met Kaleb. Our cats are pretty use to dogs since we have so many and always seem to have a house guest or foster so they pretty much ignore the dogs and our dogs ignore them. But Charlie was fascinated with the fact the cat was ignoring him and not running.

He tried a face on approach – nothing

A sneak in from the back – nothing

A reach from the couch – nothing

Maybe if I just stand here and stare at it – still nothing

Pretty boring!

What does Friends and Family mean…

I have been thinking a lot lately about friends and family and what they mean. I have decided for me it comes down to two things love and patience. I have a great family and some great friends and I love them all very much and I have to hope there are things that they love about me or we would not be friends. Please have patience with me, I am one person with a full time job; a house with a yard, thank goodness neither are very big, and 4 dogs of my own and six in the house. My full time job takes me from my house, yard, and dogs 9 ½ hours day, Monday – Friday. I try to juggle it all; sometimes I am more successful than others; sometimes I drop a ball or two. It seems lately all I seem to be doing is pissing of friends and family. For that I am sorry!! You are very important to me! I try not to make excuses because that is all they are but instead do the right thing. What is the right thing? I am not perfect; far from it. Very often I make mistakes but they are not malicious or meant to worry or devalue you! We all have full, busy lives and for the most part I have a very good life! I do not expect you to understand all the choices or mistakes I make but as my friend/family I expect you to stand by me and not accuse me of thinking you are less important and it my promise to you to do the same thing.

The only person I can change is me. I am working on becoming the person my daughter, dogs, friends, and family deserve. And I will do my best but I can guarantee I will continue to make mistakes and continue to learn from them.

I am very blessed to have such great people in my life!

Shelties get new AHBA titles

Thursday afternoon in the pouring rain Kant, Echo, and I headed south in search of some sunshine, a visit with Linda Rorem, and an AHBA herding trial. After we passed in to California we found the sunshine and had it all weekend. After stopping in Williams California for the night, we arrived in Pescadero California Friday mid-morning.

Both Shelties had a chance to have a couple practice runs on the sheep which they were very happy for after an 11 hour car ride. They both did great. Linda had not seen Echo for a couple of years since we picked her

up as a 12 week old puppy.

She has grown a little since then. We had a wonderful day Friday visiting with Linda and her students. Friday night Linda and I had a wonderful dinner at the only restaurant in Pescadero; they serve the best cream of artichoke and green chile soup and are very famous for their pies.

Saturday was the AHBA trial and Echo was the first dog of the trial running Junior Herd Dog; she passed! Linda was judging and I was nervous and a bit frantic with my commands which caused Echo to be a bit frantic or “eager” as the judge committed on the score sheet. I knew I caused it and planned to work on that the next day. Kant ran in Herding Ranch Dog Level 1 mid-day. We started out great and towards the end of the course there were covered panels that the sheep had to go through. Again I was nervous forgetting commands and how to handle my dog; we only got a couple of the sheep through the panels losing 9 points. We ended up with a qualifying score of 78 out of 90 and 2nd place. Again it was my fault. I had not entered Kant in HRD on Sunday because I thought it would be too late in the day but the trial committed told me I could run first in the HRD class on Sunday if I wanted to enter. I sure wanted another try at the course so I did it.

Sunday Echo was the first dog again but I was determined to stay calm and run her like she deserved to be run. I was much better which made Echo much better and we easily passed earning Echo’s Junior Herd Dog (JHD) title.

Both days she had beautiful gathers but Sunday she paced much better! The trial committee was very kind to let me run Kant before they took a lunch break so we could get on the road. Again I was much calmer and handled my dog much better. We got almost all the sheep through the covered panels and scored 83 out of 90. I have not seen the score sheet yet so I do not know where we lost points. Kant earned her HRD1s title. Ann and Jan did e-mail me and let me know we got 2nd again. I was very proud of both my shelties and owe Lora big time for all the times she made me cry at my herding lessons just to make us better teams and it is working; she would have been very proud of us!

Echo’s brother Cody was also running in Junior Herd Dog on goats. He also got his JHD title.

He is a very handsome blue eyed sable merle. Echo’s dad Flash was also there running Herding Ranch Dog on goats.

It was great meeting Cody and Flash’s family; I see e-mails from them but it is great to put a face to the names. There were several shelties there and several times we had all of them in a pen running and playing, that was heaven for me.

This trial was run beautifully and could not have been done without sisters, Jan and Ann, and Linda who never stopped moving all weekend. Linda did not judge on Sunday so she stopped moving a couple of times. Everyone there was so friendly and supportive and made me feel very welcome! The trial was very relaxed and fun!! Willowside Ranch is a beautiful location and a wonderful place to have trials. We stayed in the bunkhouse at the ranch which is wonderful. There are lots of peacocks running all over which takes some getting used to but then you see this

and it is worth it.

Since we were able to run so early we were packed up and on the road by noon with an 11 hour drive ahead of us. I had to stop a couple of times for gas and to let the dogs out

and of course any photo opportunity!

It was a beautiful drive home! What a great weekend!

Another fun agility weekend

The Shelties and I attended another awesome NADAC Fun-raiser this weekend. When it was announced that NADAC Championships would be in Gillette Wyoming in 2010 I immediately started figuring out who would go. It was decided pretty quickly that this would not be the year for PITA or Echo to go so now to look at Hershey and Kant. Kant is having a great year and easily qualified so she is going. And I was working on getting Hershey qualified but there was no way we were going to get the Qs needed in the Chances class so I decided he would not run. Then the requirements for the double digit dogs were changed and they only needed to get points in 4 of the 6 classes which for us meant we could skip Chances; it was back on. But Hershey need Regular Qs so at last minute I entered him in the 4 Regulars at the Fun-raiser, he Q’d in all 4 finishing his Open Regular Superior title, only 3 more and he is going to Champs!!

Hershey and I are having so much fun. No one can believe he is 10 and he is having a blast. I am running so much better and keeping in front of him so he does not have time to argue with me. And his contacts are beautiful! He still has lots to say on the course but more in excitement then argument.

Kant and I have been on a role lately and I knew it had to come to an end but I did not know that end would be such a crash and burn. We struggled Friday night but Saturday was good it was Sunday were it all fell apart. But I still love her and don’t expect perfection every weekend just most weekends.

Echo ended up with a broken toe nail Friday night; after the fact I found out that it had happened earlier in the day at home and no one told me or I might have been able to fix it from tearing worse. Kids, you can’t live with them and you can’t live with them. So Echo could not run on Saturday but she was not limping on Sunday so I was able to run her all day where she got her first Open Regular points, her Novice Chances title, and finished her Novice Superior Jumpers title.

It was a fun and exhausting weekend spent with agility friends! I did almost all of the course building, ran 3 dogs, and judged most of the classes I was not running. Stephen was there on Saturday so I had him run Hershey in Open Jumpers and Kant in Elite Tunnelers, he did not Q in either class making 1 little mistake with each dog but learning a lot and getting more excited about the day that he gets to run his own dog, Arti.

We have a little agility break until the WAG trial in Newport, July 9th through the 11th. But this weekend we are packing up and heading to Pescadero California to do an AHBA herding trial where Echo will be in Junior Herd Dog for the first time and Kant will be in HRD 1 for the first time.

We are now a week in to June and yes the weather was perfect on Saturday but I am needing a little bit more sunshine then 1 day.

A Project finally over…almost

You could say this project started years ago with a dream and a vision. When I say years I mean like 6 – 8 years ago when a good friend had a huge pile of bricks that she gave me and it took several trips from Jefferson Oregon to West Salem to get those free bricks home. Where they sat while that dream and vision continued to live. Then I decided to sell the house in West Salem and move to South Salem; the bricks came with me. I have been in the house in South Salem 4 years this month and those bricks finally have a final home.

Earlier this year I decided this spring would be the year that I built a brick patio. So I talked to my step-dad that has build lots of BEAUTIFUL paver patios on how to go about building a brick patio. All he told me was start with a good frame and not one built from wood that would warp. I decided to use cottage stones for my frame.  So in early April Stephen (Jordana’s boyfriend) and I headed to Home Depot to start hauling a flat of cottage stones in the back of the van. I figured it would take several trips but when I got to Home Depot the loading guys said why not just rent one of their trucks and take them in one load. No one inside mentioned that when I bought them and was not willing to pay the $80 deliver fee. So off to rent a truck - $19.95 for 75 minutes. I never got an answer on how much it would cost me if I was over the 75 minutes so it was my plan to do it in time. Record time getting home and Stephen handed them down to me while I stacked in the driveway. No time to think about how much they weighed, how many there were, or how much ever muscle in my body was starting to ache. Finally an empty truck and off we were to top off the gas tank and we were back at Home Depot in 74 minutes.

Of course the patio I was planning was in the backyard not the front so Jordana, Stephen, and myself moved

that pile from the driveway

to the backyard.

Of course we were well supervised.

Stephen volunteered to help me build the frame and I am not too proud to have help. The first day we made great progress and got two sides and the “fire pit” circle done. I figured one side per day but the two sides went pretty fast. The second day of building the frame we were able to get the other two sides done. The one side was shorten just a bit when we ran in the biggest root from the grapes, rather than messing with that we just went along the side of it. Then it started raining and April became the wettest month in record. Go figure when I finally decide to build this patio we have to have most days of rain in the month.

It finally dried up and I was able to level the inside of the frame.

The bricks had some mortar still on them

so they were cleaned with the mortar filling the bottom of the frame.

After all the bricks were cleaned and stacked it was time to start filling the base with sand. So after work I stopped at Lowe’s for 10 60 pound bags of sand that should be plenty. Did I tell you the patio is in the backyard and the van full of sand is in the front? I hauled the bags to the back and poured them in the hole; it filled about a 1/3 of the frame. So the next night I was back for another 10 60 pound bags and the next night. The frame is finally full. Another delay more rain but the sand is being packed down!

Jordana helped me and we made several laps around the inside of the frame with bricks.

More rain delays. Finally another break in the weather and some free time and I am determined to get this patio done! I finished laying all the bricks and I have a hole in the middle of my patio that measures 51.5” x 70” so back to Lowe’s to find options for filling this hole. I decide on 12x12 concrete pieces and I get 20 of them and more sand since they are not as thick as the bricks. Not enough sand so back for more, there are 33 60 pounds bags of sand in that patio. The 12x12 pieces are not true 12x12 they are more like 11.5x11.5 and instead of 4’x5’ they fit 4’x6’ perfectly so I am now 4 pieces short. At this point I do not care if the patio is finished or not. I am starting to like the sand/beach scene and thought I would just stick an umbrella in the sand put in a couple of beach balls and have an ocean motif.

Jordana did not agree with me so on Memorial Day which is also her day off we were back to Lowe’s for 4 more bricks. We also got a couple very nice tike lamps. Did I tell you I am done with this project!

Jordana and Stephen got those last four 12x12 pieces in place and I helped get the last row of bricks set AND THE PATIO WAS DONE!!

The patio had to be tested so the tike lamps were lit,

a fire was started in the fire pit, and the smores were made. The patio turned out better then I imagined and

was loved by all!!

And no it does not take up my whole hard and I know if should as long as it took me to build!! I still need to fill some of the spaces with sand, yea more sand! And plant stepables along the sides.

That will have to wait for another day I am too busy enjoying a project almost done!