Echo and Piper's puppies are 1 week old

Warning:  PUPPY CUTENESS OVERLOAD

Here are some pictures from this past week!

First born "Blaze"

#3 has a heart on her belly.

On Friday the puppies had their first outing; they went to the vet to have rear dew claws removed.

The little girl had to get a band-aid.

Gotta love the blue!

Or a Tri!

Or three!!!

Okay I LOVE them all!!!!!

Puppy Love!

Look who is 1 week old:

She is now 12.8 oz.

The blue girl is now the biggest at 15.15 oz.

This little girl is still the smallest at 9.05 oz.

The boy is growing up very nicely at 13.3 oz.

And last but not least is the 9.7 oz girl.

I am having a blast with these puppies and am so excited at what a great mom Echo is!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

See you next Tuesday!

2nd NADAC Fun-raiser in Canby

Another incredible NADAC Fun-raiser at Sunnybrook Farms!! Thank you again NADAC and Arlene for bringing so much fun so close. And thank you to all the people that brought all that incredible food!! The weather was still pretty good for November but it was COLD on Sunday!! I need to remember heavier socks and hand warmers for the New Year’s weekend.

Kant was entered in 4 Regulars, 2 Jumpers, 2 Chances, and Hoopers. I could not remember the Hoopers course sending Kant to the wrong hoop first thing Saturday morning. Kant knocked a bar in Saturday’s Jumpers but Q’d on Sunday; only 5 more to go for NATCH-3. Kant got both Chances and 3 of the 4 Regulars. I was so proud of her!!

PITA continued to be a Rock Star!! She was also entered in 4 Regulars, 2 Jumpers, 2 Chances, Hoopers, and Touch’N’Go. She got 1st Place in her 1st Open Hoopers! She got both Regulars on Saturday and we were over time in both rounds on Sunday because of weave pole issues. I ran her at the wrong level in Jumpers on Saturday but made sure I did not make that same mistake on Sunday where she had her fastest Jumpers run yet earning her Novice Jumpers Title. She did not get Chances on Saturday but had a beautiful run on Sunday earning her Novice Chances Title. PITA also Q’d in TNG earning her Novice Touch’N’Go Title. Count them up: that is 3 new titles for PITA this weekend!!!

At the last minute I decided to run both girls in Tunnelers, the last class of the weekend. I love ending a weekend with Tunnelers where you can just run for fun!! Kant had a smokin’ run that lasted 21.82 seconds. But not to be out done by Kant PITA screamed through the course in 24.82 seconds; her fastest Tunnelers time.

Poor Echo is just days away from having puppies so no agility again; not that she cared!!
Puppy update - Echo had her puppies 2 days after this trial; see post 11/22/11 posted on Thanksgiving Day!!

Friends, Scrapbooking, and a Road Trip

Lee, Heidi, and I made our 2nd Annual Scrapbooking Trip to Bellevue Veteran’s Day weekend!!! I left my house at 10am to head to Dallas to pick up Lee and Heidi; after getting everything loaded we left Dallas a little after 11am. I got a text about 2pm wanting to know how Seattle was; I did not know how to tell them we were still in Oregon! We had planned to stop at Bobbi’s and have digital software training and I figured that would take an hour but of course shopping was involved. We got to Bellevue without any issues. We stayed at an Extended Stay Hotel again but it was a different one then last time and this one had elevators and luggage carts; both of those made getting all of our stuff up the room so much easier!!!

Thursday night was spent getting set up and catching up. Our hardest decision of the night was which kind of pizza to order. We decided on Chicken Garlic, YUM!

Friday morning we were up and at the Expo right before it opened. It was so nice having the Expo less than 2 miles from our hotel. I really enjoyed the Bellevue Expo and we all came back with packages of stuff. My favorite find was the greatest dog paper I found that included “dog park” paper!! I carried my camera through the whole Expo and not once did I take a picture. After the Expo we had our traditional Mexican lunch;

thank goodness for chips and salsa,

Strawberry Margaritas,

and great friends!!!

Scraping started Friday night and continued Saturday morning before we were interrupted by a fire alarm. Lee had just finished making a pot of coffee when the alarm when off. It took us some time to figure out what was going on and then we had to get dressed before we could leave. We grabbed purses and I grabbed my camera so I could take pictures

of fire trucks,

firemen, and flames, and we were out the door. Thankfully Heidi had instructed us when we first arrived where the exits were and she paid attention because when she was telling us all I heard was “blah, blah, blah”. Just as we got to the stairwell the Hotel Manager was coming downstairs and told us he had found the cause of the smoke, someone was cooking in their room and it got out of control but everything was fine and we could go back to our room, but the fire department had to turn the alarm off. We tried going back to our room but the noise was too bad so we decided to go to Starbucks instead. When we got downstairs we found my van trapped by a fire truck.

But they moved that fire truck to make room for the biggest ladder truck I have ever seen.

That truck stopped right before blocking my van so we were able to make it to Starbucks.

Heidi was still in her Tinker Bell PJs and I was looking my finest

so Lee went in to get our order. When we got back to hotel all the excitement was over and scrapbooking resumed. Lee and Heidi relaxed and enjoyed their time away from family and they both scrapbooked but I became a scrapbooking machine and got 55 pages done including 6 mosaic pages. Lee got about 30 pages done and Heidi did 16 after she put the “stupid” project life away!

We were packed up Sunday morning and home Sunday evening after stopping at Country Cousin in Centralia for lunch and Bath and Body Works for some shopping. What an incredibly wonderful weekend spent with the greatest of friends!!

11/22/11

So the ultrasound showed possibly two puppies and I had mixed emotions; I was sad there were only two but than two would be easy to take care of; with two there were no choices. But Echo was sure getting big for only having two so last Friday I did an x-ray to see the size of the two puppies. You can imagine my surprise when this picture came up on the screen!!

I count more than 2 or 3 or 4!!!!! So how many to you see? The vet says 5, I think 6, and people have said 7. We will know soon!!!!!

Monday night I was able to complete my "Puppies Are Coming Checklist":

Quit eating - check

Start nesting - check

Start panting - check

Temperature drops - check

The fun started Tuesday afternoon,11/22/11, and friends, Barbara and Carol, were called and arrived quickly!!

7:40pm puppy number 1 arrived.

A Tri 9oz girl.

She came out backward and was huge; being first and having a wide blaze on her face she was called "Blaze"

8:05pm puppy number 2 arrivied.

A Blue Merle 8.4oz girl.

She also came out backwards and ended up being the only blue and non-Tri.

8:11pm puppy number 3 arrived.

A Tri 6.15oz girl.

She was the 1st to come out the right direction and ended up being the smallest puppy.

She has a dark face.

8:44 puppy number 4 arrived.

A Tri 7.9oz boy.

This one also came out the right direction and is the only boy.

9:24pm puppy number 5 arrives.

A Tri 8oz girl.

This one came out upside down and ended up being the last puppy.

As they were arriving we were putting them in a box.

I thought it would work but you have to be careful when you breeding working dogs;

they want to start working right away.

Very active puppies!!!!!

Welcome the latest Northligtht Shelties!

4 girls and 1 boy; 4 Tris and 1 Blue.

Echo is ready for them to be put in the whelping box

so she can take care of them.

Echo is a great mom!

And

the puppies are doing great!

THANK YOU Carol and Barbara!!  I could not have done it without you and you two were amazing!!

The fun is just beginning!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!  I have so much to be thankful for!!

1st of Many NADAC Fun-raisers in Canby

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!! And WOW! WOW!! is all I can think about saying about NADAC agility at Sunnybrook Farms the first weekend in November!

Thank you Arlene and NADAC for providing the Fun-raisers in Canby. Thank you NADAC for finding such an incredible location; plenty of crating room,

excellent surface, large well-lit arena, and lots of places to potty dogs and let them run. There were great courses, great runs, great times spent with friends, great food, and great weather!

NADAC Champs is coming to the west in 2012; an exact location has not been announced yet but all of the locations posted are a day’s drive. After talking with Jordana she wants to run PITA at Champs this year but with no NADAC in the Bend area and her working weekends she has asked me to get PITA qualified. So PITA has come back to live in the valley and play agility with me.

Kant and PITA were entered in 4 classes each day; both Regulars, Jumpers, and Chances.

Kant Q’d in 3 of the 4 Regulars, 1 Jumpers,

and 1 Chances.

I love running her; it is so comfortable and fun!!

After finding out there was a bonus line on Weavers I did day-of-entry for Kant; we crashed and burned but there were some great parts of that run. Bonus lines are addicting.

PITA has not run much agility in 2011. In July she practiced once before the WAG Trial and then ran with Jordana great at the trial. Since she has been back with me we have practiced 3 times before this weekend.

I was very proud of PITA this weekend!! We did not qualify on Saturday but had great parts in all our runs and we both learned a lot.

On Sunday she was much better and we got a Regular Q to finish her Open Title

and a Novice Chances Q with a run that I would have loved even if we had not Q’d!

I am looking forward to continuing to grow with PITA

and running more agility together!!

Thank you Joe Camp for all the great agility pictures that helps capture such a wonderful weekend!

Echo did not get to play since she is less than 3 weeks from having puppies. Her belly is getting so big!!

I am so looking forward to the next Fun-raiser this weekend!! And the one New Year’s weekend and having Marj back in Oregon for all the fun!! NADAC in 2012 is going to ROCK in Canby!!