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New Year … Same Old Sh*t!

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Happy year that is pretty much like all the other recent years so they’re just blending together in a cesspool of crapola and irritation.  How’s that for starting things off with cheer?  I feel the need for an emoticon that means “meh.”

But first – a New year’s family photo!

Woulda been a beautiful day to take all kinds of photos in this beautiful location, but apparently the entire lower mainland felt the same way and the place was freakin’ packed!  I’ve never seen so many people there – we kept abruptly about-facing and going in different directions to avoid them, because not everyone appreciates all of my dogs running full tilt of them in a spasmodic tidal wave of greetings.  (Hell, I don’t even appreciate it, but have no idea how to make them stop immediately rushing and loving everyone they see.)  Eventually I threw up my hands (figuratively, not literally) and marched all the dogs back to the van and left.

The more perceptive among you will notice that this photo is short one funny little face.  THIS funny little face.

That’s because 2018 wasn’t only determined to merely be shitty, but to be shitty to THE BITTER END.  And because 2018 keeps its promises, the day after Boxing Day I got out of my new, more comfortable bed (because SantaParents got me a memory foam mattress topper that makes the Is-This-F*cking-Thing-Made-Of-Plywood-Or-Something-?-? rv mattress bearable to sleep on), and let all the dogs out into the yard.  They tend to exit the “house” (aka tin can) the same way they approach people they see in public – en masse and as quickly and chaotically as possible.  So I don’t know what happened next except that I heard screaming and screaming and I threw myself outside to find Winter hollering his head off and trying to run away from himself, but he couldn’t, because his back legs weren’t working (although his poop generator was, because he was shooting out poop like a canon).  I picked him up, poop and all, and ran for the phone to call the vet.

Within literal minutes he could walk again, albeit sorta sketchily, and with a brand new swagger in his hieney that had nothing to do with confidence.  My vet couldn’t fit him in, but another nearby(ish – nothing is actually “near” me) vet could, so I bundled us into my van and headed out.  Which is when Act II started – stepped on the gas and the van would rev like crazy, but no acceleration.  The gas pedal was nothing but dirty art on the floor of my vehicle.  I lead a really angry parade of cars down the road at 40kmh to a gas station, where I coasted into a parking spot and gently laid my head against the steering wheel and wished really hard I could go back in time to, say, before birth, and choose a completely different life, one in which dogs and cars both work like they’re supposed to.

Anyway, a friend came and picked me up and took us to the vet, where it was determined that something happened to Winter but we don’t know what, but I was to go home and put him in a crate and leave him there for a week with some anti-inflammatories.  BCAA towed my van to same-friend’s mechanic boyfriend’s shop where it was determined ($300 later) that the transmission in it was GOING BYE BYE (A-F*CKING-GAIN) and I should get rid of the piece of crap asap.  He got it running again, but suggested I sell it, trade it in or set it on fire as soon as humanely possible because the transmission was going to fail at any moment.

So my parents came to the rescue and we traded in the van for a slightly newer van two days later.  Just in time too, because my last finance payment on that thing WAS YESTERDAY.  Thank goodness I can literally go no time at all without a vehicle payment – that would really have messed with 2018’s  plans to screw with me.  PHEW.

Tonight, I zipped out to the store to get a snack and my check engine light came on in the “new” van.  Excellent.  I didn’t have the van mechanically inspected before I bought it because a) time was of the super-duper essence and b) I spent all my money on Winter and the previous van.  Seems 2019 has spoken with 2018 and has Big Plans for me.

Yay.

I am tired of seeing New Year’s memes about “365 new opportunities” and “looking forward not back” and other drivel, because quite frankly this last year has sucked balls and I really don’t anticipate anything changing just because 2018 changed its name to 2019.  I hate living in this tin can, I hate living in a parking lot, I hate the mudpit that is my “yard,” I hate never having enough money, I hate that my dog is gimpy, I hate that my Piper dog died (though I’m glad she did it before she had to move into this stupid tin can in a parking lot) and I’m just plain old grouchy about everything.  GROUCHY GROUCHY GROUCHY.

Also it’s impossible to find a comfortable position in my chair to make this blog, because Fae insists on laying behind me and I’m thinking of hurling her like a football into one of the many lake-sized puddles waiting outside for unsuspecting sneakers to sink into.  She is both uncomfortable and SASSY.  This is her giving Dexter shit for not dropping the ball so the Food Lady’s magic blue throwing stick can make it go again.

Worst part is she usually gets her own way too.

We cut a “gate” into the fence that separates Us from The Buffalo the other day … ostensibly so that the poor mud-logged poultry can free range in some grass and plants (another thing I hate about living here is their poultry pen, which is disgusting.  Also their poultry house, which broke in the windstorm.  I also hate windstorms.  And wind), but also so that the dogs and I have somewhere to play.  The gravelmud yard is not enough, and when I throw the ball, 7 times out of 10 it ends up bouncing through the livestock fencing and Maisie dives through after it and ends up out there anyway.  There are no buffalo out there in the winter months, so we’re taking advantage of the space.

There’s a fenced off leash area for the agility building and we use that sometimes, because it does provide for some nice photo ops.

But 4/9 dogs can get under the gate (I’ll let you guess which ones), so we can only use the play yard when nobody is using the building, which feels like is NEVER.  We won’t talk about the never ending barking that is the soundtrack to my home life and we really won’t talk about parking on trial days.  *grumble*

So the field at least has some potential for nice photos ops too, when it’s not peeing rain (which is all it seems to do these days … and my tin can is leaking somewhere as a result.  Also awesome).

There’s still some tall grass, until the chickens get ahold of it anyway, and that makes for some pretty photos too.

Also some silly ones.

Winter is still wobbly on his hind legs, but he’s been going squirrely in the crate – yesterday he ate a goodly portion of his bankie, and when I took him to the vet for a recheck, he had gained a whole lb from all that confinement and snacking (not on blankets, just FYI – like actual snackies to keep him occupied) so today I let him come out with us so he could desquirrelify his acorn sized brain a bit.  We still aren’t sure what happened – the vet said “spinal nerve damage from a traumatic injury” (like maybe leaping off the porch without using the stairs like a normal dog?) but the good news is he is no longer in pain when his back is touched.  He’s just wobbly.  And it’s not like I’m in a position to get him an MRI to make a definitive diagnosis.  I figure if he’s not in pain any more, we’ll work our way back up to full exercise over time.

The tall grasses, lovely as they are, comprise only a small portion of a very tempting, full-of-bunnies area for my bad dogs to run amuck though!  It’s worse than herding cats – I am constantly losing a goodly portion of them to the siren song of HUNTING.  Like, here’s Addy mid-bunny-chase.  You can tell by her ears, which only ever reach for the heavens when she’s trying to channel lightning (speed) so she can be fast enough to catch the wabbits.

I guess its a good opportunity to work on her recall, as well as practice dog-running-straight-at-me shots.

Here’s Peetie.  She’s still really, really annoying.

Here’s Dexter.  He’s still really, really deaf.

He got to play some agility at our club Christmas Party / practice and he was SO HAPPY.  I should really take advantage of the stupid building full of equipment I live next door to and play with my dogs some more.  But honestly, I lack the motivation and the energy.  Probably because I hate everything.

When Wootie’s not doing this:

He’s doing this.  Because possible rats.

You can see a little bit in the back there that his Flamboyance(tm) is working hard to make a comeback, though it still has a long way to go.

In the meantime, TWooie’s Flambe(tm) is doing a pretty reasonable job as a stand-in.

Fae Fae doesn’t find the new field access very exciting because she fits through the livestock fencing quite easily and goes out there all the time anyway.

This is still here too.  Can’t seem to get rid of it.  She’s basically a big, hairy (and barky!) tick.  With blackberry stems stuck in her tongue.

My only real “new year’s” resolution is to blog more frequently than I did last year.  First I have to find out how to be in a better mood though, because I know y’all don’t want to read about my being grouchy all year long.  I figure my first step is to find a real job, because I will probably be less grouchy if I’m not worried about money all the damn time.  And I need money to improve/increase my equipment … I have been saving for a portable strobe for what feels like forever, and every time I have some extra money together, something comes along that needs it and I’m back to square one.  Believe me, I know most/everyone has this same issue, on either bigger or smaller scales, and I know wanting a portable strobe is a first world problem.  I also know that I have great friends and I’m not living in my van and THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF THINGS I KNOW and don’t need to be reminded of.  I’m still grouchy about it.  So baby steps / one thing at a time / etc. BLAH BLAH BLAH.

BAH.

I guess my first goal is to figure out how to be more like Woo and less like TWoo in this photo.

 

Where Oh Where Has The Food Lady Been

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Do you know that last night when I started writing this, I had to walk all the way over to the main house, in the dark, to reset the modem because my internet went down.  Something of the insect variety was buzzing in the hood of my coat.  I still don’t know what it was, and I don’t think I want to know.  I know I don’t.

I also know I have been the WORST BLOGGER IN THE WORLD.  I haven’t blogged in over two months :(  There are lots of reasons why.  It was a busy summer and fall for me, lots of events to photograph, which is great fun (and an immense amount of work) – agility, lure coursing, dock diving, disc dog … just endless activities!  But I’m cutting way back on event photography next year, because it’s a lot of investment  and wear and tear on my equipment for not a lot of monetary return.  I had a very busy Autumn with lots of fall colours sessions, which was also fantastic! And now I’m heading into Holiday Sessions – 2 of 3 full days sold out!  Also great, but the editing will be endless ;-)

But I miss photographing my own dogs, which I hardly ever seem to get the chance to do these days.  In part it’s because I’ve gotten a lot pickier about what photographs I’m happy with and I want to put out there representing my work.  I was pretty laid back about my work on the blog and did a lot less “set up” of shots, and just kind of hung around with my dogs and photographed them at our leisure.  And that organic feeling is missing now, which is largely because my home space is … ugly.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful we have all have somewhere warm and secure to live, but the yard is nothing to look at it and even less to photograph.  Also, it’s in a parking lot of a fairly busy building, so the dogs aren’t relaxed all that often (nor am I) as there’s a fairly steady stream of activity most days, which distracts us all.  I admit I miss the lush variety of my old acreages, where we could just hang out and be in each other’s company and I could take photos at random.  Now, because of the ugly, and the activity, I take my dogs off the property for exercise most days and it’s just not always practical to drag out the equipment with us.  I need a lot of eyes on my busy crew when I’m out somewhere, and can’t do that when at least one eyeball is stuck to the eyepiece of my camera.  So I feel like the story-telling aspect of my blog is missing, because I have fewer stories to tell because my dogs are *exercising* rather than *being*, if that makes sense.

So today I hauled my ass and the dogs and the camera up a mountain.  Even Dexter was perplexed!

But (I think) happy?

Because it’s Vancouver, and it’s November, it of course started raining shortly into our hike, so I didn’t get a lot of photos.  I also miss my studio quite a lot!

Anyway, how about a pupdate on all the beasts?

For a fun fall activity, I decided to stop feeding Addy, so she has resorted to scavenging for food wherever she can find it.

She got so skinny she was practically floating away!

According to that Facebook Memories thing, today is Arriva-A-Versary …. 5 years ago 9lbs of squirrel brain burrowed into my shirt and never left!  She’s a lot greyer now.  She also, we have discovered, has mild seizures randomly.  Like maybe once a year – she had one a few weeks back, which was scary but very short lived.  She is so ADHD she can’t even concentrate long enough to have a real seizure ;-)

Fae, always a keen observer, figured she was next on my hit list, so she’s taken to hiding from me so maybe I will forget to starve her.  Or perhaps I’m hiding HER because my mom keeps threatening to steal her … on FB she threatened to run me over with her car and keep Fae for herself.  Obviously, I hail from a very loving family …

Mr. Woo is not hiding, he just thinks he’s a super model and he knows what colours compliment him best.  I actually have a HELL of a time keeping him OUT of photos these days, because he wants to be in every shot … because posing means cookies, and (hello) I starve my dogs.  Also, he’d really like me to stop taking photos of his sad, pathetic excuse for a tail.  And he uses his old-age deafness to pretend he can’t understand me telling him to get out of the shot.

(I’m thinking about having that growth removed from his eyelid, 10% because I worry it bothers him, and 90% because it bothers me in photographs.  Also, his tail is actually growing in quite nicely, albeit slowly.  I am hoping it will have recovered by spring and we can have a party to celebrate!)

And speaking of Spring, she has taken up Parkour (look at her back feet!).

Whereas her brother has taken up (mostly) coming when called.  We got pretty lax in that department, and it has resulted in Winter obsessing about running after things he sees in the distance, like cyclists, or other dogs, or people minding their own business.  And when Winter goes, Spring goes, and when 2 go, at least 5 of the remaining 7 figure SOMETHING IS EXCITING AND THEY SHOULD GO TOO.  So we went right back to basics (as Winter is a simple man) and every time I say his name, I shove something delicious in his mouth.  This month that deliciousness is chicken wieners, because they were on sale.  His recall has improved about 90% and last weekend I managed to call him off of not one but TWO bicycles he was thinking about chasing.  I’m super pleased with this, and he’s currently ranking about 7 of my top 9 dogs in the house as a result.

Also, he and his sister make a wonderfully delightful duo when they pose together.

Like this:

And this:

And this!

They have supplanted their Senior Sibling Duo, because I DON’T PHOTOGRAPH SOFT CORE PORN, MR. WOO!

Hovering around the very bottom of my Top Dogs list is this asshole.

A few weeks ago she and Fae were sharing a recliner and she shifted around and stepped on Fae.  Fae is, pound for pound, the biggest cow in the universe, so Fae snarked at her and told her off.  This asshole retaliated by picking Fae up by the face and shaking her around until I punched her in the ribs and made her let her go.  Fae had a little cut on her head, and a big pee on my recliner, and Peetie was very contrite, so I decided to chalk that one up as an anomaly from the world’s stupidest dog.  But then about a week ago we were out playing ball in the yard and she bashed into TWooie (because she has zero sense of personal space) and he snapped at her, because it was rude.  So she proceeded to kick ten kinds of holy hell out of him until I whacked her repeatedly with the Chuck It and drove her off.  TWooie has a hole in his face, and one in his neck, and Peetie has all my intense loathing.

I don’t understand this dog at all.  She is the first to befriend all new foster puppies, and is unfailingly patient with them … I used to catch Silly dragging her around the house by her face, which must have hurt (a lot more than Fae air snapping at her!) and She Who Is Not Friendly About Her Food can chew on a very high value pork bone while Addy furiously humps her (I don’t know why Addy does that) without so much as a glance at her tiny little violator.  And 11 months of the year she is perfectly lovely with her siblings, but once a year or so she decides to visit some furious vengeance on them for no good reason.  I don’t know what to do with her.  I’ve toyed with strangulation, but maybe rehoming is the more humane option.  Would you like her?

I mean, TWooie is an old man.  He may be an old jerk of a man, but old he is, and I can’t have her trying to kill him.  He’s pretty fragile these days – his legs give out on him sometimes in surprising ways, and while he is game for a full 1.5 hours of hiking and chasing squirrels, he also takes advantage of every opportunity to grab a nap.

And he Old Man complains about stuff.  Like, “this cement dock is too cold and wet” and “I might fall in the water, so I don’t want to sit here” and “back in my day, dogs got THREE cookies for posing, not just one” and stuff.

And then there’s this thing.  STILL HERE.  Can’t seem to get rid of her.  I haven’t found a home for her that I really think will utilize her potential.  Which is ironic, because I also don’t and won’t use her to her full potential.  Also, the number of people who don’t email back after I send them a lengthy, thoughtful response to their adoption inquiry is kind of appalling.  Like at least half a dozen people who didn’t even have the courtesy to say “thank you for your time” is legit disgusting.  With every passing year, I enjoy rescue less and less.  I might be burned out, but I think it’s more that I just don’t like dealing with the people very much.  Also, I might be getting old and complainy, like TWooie.

And my beloved Deafter remains … deaf.  And nine years old.  NINE!  Where has the time even gone?  I feel like it was just a couple years ago I was doing to the 365puppy blog (that’s a trip down memory lane!).

He is so funny.  Since this tin can we live in is so small, and meal time can get a bit intense, I have taken to feeding him in the bedroom behind a babygate so he doesn’t have to ugly-face off hungrier dogs who eat faster than he does.  So now when I get the bowls out of the cupboard, he goes and sits in the little hallway between the main space and the bedroom with his back to all of us, then acts delightfully shocked when I appear behind him with a full bowl of deliciousness.  It’s like he’s playing a little game with himself, and it makes me laugh every meal time.  He doesn’t quite have Tweed’s finely-developed sense of humour, but he really is a character unto himself.

We’re still all adjusting to life in this little space – it’s not like we haven’t done the small space thing before!  But sometimes it’s a bit up close and personal.  I was trying to do some clicker training the other evening (trying to teach Fae the ring-stacking game …. right now she thinks it involves picking up the ring and then laying down on top of it and pretending she has no idea where it is, so we have a ways to go) and literally the only space we have to train is the 3-foot-in-each-direction space between the side of the couch and the front door, and the two stairs that lead up to the hallway.  I have to fend off the other dogs with my elbows as they try to squeeze in on the action from behind, and occasionally a particularly daring (hungry) dog will launch an aerial attack from the end of the sofa.

At least when the weather is good we have our new outdoor space, courtesy of my mom and stepdad – my new deck!

This was my birthday present and it’s fabulous!  It’s since been painted grey to match the tin can.  It definitely makes coming and going a lot less perilous than the skinny RV stairs with the even skinnier dog ramp rattling atop them.  After it was finished, it took Dexter three days or so to figure out how to get back inside … first he would try and walk “up” the dog ramp, which was laying on the ground and nowhere near the door, and would just stand on it staring at the wheel of the rv, tail gently fanning congenially in the breeze (the same breeze running through the space between his ears, apparently).  When I’d get his attention from the doorway, he would then run under the deck and out the other side in a big circle and end up back on the Ramp To Nowhere again until I put on shoes and took him up the stairs by the collar.  After a day or so of that, he finally grasped the concept of the *deck* but remained blissfully unaware of the whole “stairs” thing and he would leap on and off the deck from the side.  I don’t know why, he is perfectly familiar with stairs in his life!  He seems to have sorted it all out now though, finally.

Addy is very fond of the deck because when it’s raining, she can attempt to sneak in there and pee underneath it and risk only minimal exposure to the evil IG-targeting acid shooting down from the heavens.  Though I am quickly filling up her would-be-toilet with stuff stored under there.  I am still trying to sort out storage – I divested myself of a f*ck of a lot when I moved out of my last house, but I still have a lot of things that I can’t part with, but have nowhere else to go, so I’m paying over $200 a month for a storage facility so my stuff has somewhere to live.  I am thinking I need to finance one of those shipping containers so a) my stuff can live beside me, rather than across town and b) once I pay it off, it’s mine and potentially added bonus of c) I can use half of it as a studio space, if it’s large enough.

But my immediate need is to insulate under the rig so everything doesn’t freeze this winter.  Can’t have the band getting cold on their winter tour!

Which is why I made a calendar!  12 months of The Wootube Crew for you to enjoy on your wall in 2019.  I ordered a sample from my photo lab to show you

WATCH HERE

(without sound unless you enjoy listening to part of an episode of Sherlock Holmes).  They turned out very lovely, but they are not inexpensive because they’re from a pro lab, which means if I want to make any insulate-my-trailer money off of them, they aren’t inexpensive for you either :(  Plus shipping.  Unless you have a better idea of where to order them from more economically?  I will have to sell them for $25.00 CAD, not including shipping, and even then I’m not exactly raking in make-me-rich profits.  The post office tells me it’s about $5 shipping in Canada and about $7 to the US.  Which makes them about $24 USD for American Wootubers, but $30 for Canadians, eh?

If it’s not too rich for your blood, then you can order by sending me an email with your order, your full name and postal mailing address, and how you’d like to pay – you can send money via paypal, or if you’re local, you can do an e-transfer.  Once I have amassed all the orders, I will then order them in bulk and then ship ’em out!

Mr. Woo hopes you will order, and help him keep him as warm this winter as he looks in this photo!

A Beachin’ Good Time

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It’s a good thing “our” beach is almost always empty when we go visit, because upon arrival, this is what happens.  It’s total chaos.  And it’s like a 15 minute walk to the beach from where we park, so you’d think they have become at least somewhat blase by the time we get there!  It’s no wonder we’re social pariahs.

Usually the water looks like this – one long swimmable length of water.

But the other day there was, like, no water.  I don’t know what happened to it.  It’s not actually a beach on the ocean, it’s really just a sandy stretch along a slough.  It’s nowhere near an ocean.  So I don’t think it’s affected by tides … so where did the water go?

It’s possible that 125lbs of Alfie gallumping along its shores terrified the water into a hasty retreat.  He sounds like a herd of buffalo when he gets it into his head to cavort with his sister Betty.  It doesn’t happen often, but it’s pretty hilarious when it does!

Betty has taken to flirting wildly with Dexter lately, which is mystifying to me, as she was never much interested in interacting with him when she basically lived with me last year.  If it’s a mystery to me, it’s 12 times as mysterious to Dexter who, like an immature 12 year old boy, really doesn’t understand female flirtations.  Mostly what he does is stare at me whilst she wiggles under his chin, leaps up to smooch his eyeballs and then does somersaults under his legs trying to get his attention.  He is completely affable but unaware while she gyrates at him.

But all her clowny shenanigans does have the affect of getting Alfie excited, and he usually comes thundering over to play … and if Dexter remains oblivious to the 25lbs of butterball roiling around underfoot, he is NOT oblivious to the extra 100lbs running in his direction and he usually takes some offense.  This annoys and confuses Alfie and in the resulting melee, Betty slips away.  And I think she’s laughing.  She is one sly, wicked little shit-disturber!

Perhaps the pre-receded water had caught wind that these two devils were coming to terrorize its shores.

I miss the terrier-teeth-play of these two, it doesn’t happen often enough, maybe because they’re both getting older.   Or maybe because when they try to play like this, someone (*coughMAISIEcough*) gets involved and despite the multitude of sharp and pointies between them available to drive off intruders, they don’t really like other dogs to get in the middle of their fun and they’re kinda emo about it.

Although occasionally they do gang up on her to teach her the meaning of the word “fear.”

Very once in a while, they will temporarily allow TWooie to cavort with them.  It never lasts very long, but that’s 100% okay with him, because he’s old and he doesn’t really have the stamina for that sort of foolishness for long anyway.  It is, however, 100% adorable.  After all these years, it still tickles me pink to see TWooie happy to play with another dog(s).

His brother rarely plays at all, with anyone, these days.  Sometimes I can get him to play a bit of fetch, or a short game of “I’m Gonna Get The Wootie Stick!” but it never lasts long either.  He doesn’t seem overly tired, or depressed, he just is more interested in snuffling around for possible dropped foodstuffs, or things to pee on.  I guess simple pleasures get more pleasurable as one ages.  However, I did buy him a new “Fifa”(tm) on the way home from the beach to see if I can’t rekindle some of our old joys together :) … provided Maisie doesn’t get involved, as she’s a “PLAY WITH ALL THE THINGS” kinda dog.

(Clearly he’s thrilled at the prospect)

(his tail still looks a little (okay a lot) sad, but notice it does have some wispy growth on it.  It’s gonna be a marathon growing session to the finish, I think)

Crazy Miss Maisie remains resolutely entrenched in my home and won’t go away because everyone who wants her so far hasn’t really been ideal.  I don’t think getting one’s sport dog from rescue is the cool thing to do anymore, so she remains unwanted :(

I decided after some thought that she is probably a Springer Spaniel mix.  I got a lot of sideways looks for that when I started saying it … you know, the “Food Lady’s making up whacky theories again” look.  You’re probably even doing that right now as you read this!

Then I asked a friend of mine to come over and evaluate her for some kind of sniffer dog job, because I personally think she’d be pretty awesome at it.  I placed quite a few of those kinds of dogs from the shelter (the sniffing-for-a-living kind, not the Springer Spaniel mix kind) and got a pretty good sense of what the handlers/trainers were looking for, and Maisie ticks off all their boxes.  So I asked my friend Teresa to come over and tell me what she thought.  First thing she said whens he met her was “Is she a Springer mix?”

Now, I think Teresa would know, since she owns and trained Angus the famous “C. Difficile” Springer Spaniel who makes his living sniffing out that nastiness in hospitals!

Anyway, Maisie ticked off all her boxes too, and apparently she thinks she’d make an awesome sniffer dog.  I find nosework stuff with dogs super fascinating *in theory* – I think it’s amazing what they can do with odour and how much they enjoy it.  In practice, I find it mind numbingly boring to watch – it was somewhat more interesting when it was “my” dog figuring it out, but not interesting enough for me to to want to do it myself with any of my dogs.  I think I’ve just been generally spoiled by sports like agility which have a lot of more instant and high octane gratification for my squirrel-like attention span.  Anyway, there’s been some interest in her for the sniffing thing, so maybe she’ll be famous one day too!

And speaking of agility, I have really super good intentions of going back to the sport, usually while I am laying in bed thinking about playing.  In practice, I can’t seem to muster up the energy to actually go train, despite living right next door to a big ass facility dedicated to the sport.  I do have a handful of dogs I could be playing with – Spring’s getting up there, but hey, Tweed won Regionals when he was 12, so it’s not like she’s OLD.  Fae is delightful to play with.  In my head, Addy would be great (in reality, Addy is a trainwreck.  Ha.)  And I suppose there’s Peetie.  Pesty, stares-at-my-cookie-hands-all-the-time Peetie.

I still want to try dock diving with Peetie.  I think she could be pretty good at it.  Cuz of all the leaping.

And I really do wish I had that sort of tenacious-trainer spirit to train Addy.  She is actually awesome at all the equipment, as she fears nothing and she’ll do it all (except weaves, we haven’t gone there yet at all) but her attention span is even shorter than mine.  We might simultaneously implode trying!

But she remains the cutest little thing that ever cuted or thinged.

In my facebook “memories” thing not too long ago, a memory of Dexter’s first trial came up in my feed, when he did a 15 obstacle Jumpers course in 15 seconds.  Oh how I miss *that* Dexter; before he started going deaf, he was such an awesome dog to play agilities with.  But I love the Dexter I have now too.  Often he rides along in the front seat when my van is full (seat-belted in, of course, airbag turned off) and I have inadvertently trained him stare deeply into my eyes and place a somber paw gravely on my arm, for which he is rewarded with cookies.  Now I can’t drive anywhere without his paw resting on my arm while he tries to mind-meld me.  I can only imagine what people think at stop lights.

Anyhoo.

I know I don’t take as many photos of my own dogs / blog as much as I used to, but the more I photograph for other people and/or events, the less time I have for photographing and editing photos of my own four legged furries.  There just aren’t enough hours in the day.  I’m going to try harder!  I do run outside to try and get sunset photos whenever the conditions are favourable.

Also, for those of you not on Facebook, I’m going to be putting out a 2019 calendar soon for sale.  This is the cover:

As soon as my print lab has the 2019 template ready, I’ll make one and video it for everyone, and then take orders.  It was a fun project, looking through so many old photos of my fuzzy family, those still here and the ones that aren’t.  I miss my old dogs.  I am so glad I have all these photos to look back on :)