Nowhere Particular

On this day a mere 11 years ago – a blip in time, really, this magnificent dog was born. And on that day I looked at his face and said “Whoa, this is one is gonna be ugggggly.”

And how wrong I was. He grew and grew and grew.

And so did his ears

And before long he was a magnificent beast.

He tested my patience. He tested my mettle. He even tested a variety of surfaces that are not for dogs (tabletops, cars etc). In agility he lost his mind. In life, he lost his hearing. But throughout it all, he has been my bestest buddy.

So today, at the ripe old age of eleven, with 8 of our closest pals, we celebrate his life.

And we do it with CAKE!

(That’s supposed be an “11” with a heart above it, made out of bacon bits, but I never said I was a cake decorator. Fortunately, Dexter and the other dogs are not discerning).

Yes my good boy, I baked that for you!

Yes, all for you!

Go ahead and enjoy.

That’s my very good boy.

I love you so much, Happy Birthday.

Nice to see you feel the same way.

Some of you may remember this merry rag tag gang of misfits and the insane woman who runs herself ragged trying to keep up with them.

If you remember us, you probably wonder where the heck we’ve been, and why the radio silence in Blog Land. Well The Food Lady has been real busy, inventing The Hover Dog(tm).

Har har har.

I wish that’s what I was doing. I got a new “actual” job a couple months ago, because as much as I love photography, it does not bring home the bacon for me. Which makes me sad, because I like it a lot. And my new job leaves basically zero time to do it. At all. The hours are disgustingly terrible, the commute is brutal and the job itself hovers (har har har) somewhere between mindnumbingly boring and horrifically horrible with respect to how it’s managed (I mean above me, as I’m the manager). It pokes little holes in the fabric of my animal-welfare-background heart every day. But I have many things to feed, so I drag myself out of bed (sometimes at 3:45AM, sometimes at 6AM, depending which shift I’m on) and go, and I HATE IT WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING.

And speaking of Things, I managed to find a home for this one last week.

Never been so happy to see the backend of a red dog in my life. That puppy plum wore me out with her constant nonsense. She craned her evil giraffe neck over a babygate while I was in the shower and pulled down my favourite Bench jacket and chewed up the zipper, on both sides. It wasn’t even a dog coat, it didn’t even have tasty cookie smells in the pockets. She pissed on my dogs beds and I had to buy all new ones. There is not a blanket in the house without several holes in it. That dog is at LEAST a two person job, so I went to visit her potential home and hopped into my van and drove away while they were (foolishly) oohing and ahhing over her adorableness. SUCKERS!!!

Even my dogs breathed a collective sigh of relief when they realized she wasn’t coming back home with us. The Thing made Maisie look laid back!

Maisie, who will play fetch with literally anything.

Whenever I think of the people who passed on this smart girlie, I hug her just a little more tightly (which she objects to, LOUDLY, because it’s not playing fetch). I am so lucky to have her, she is just oodles of fun, and such a good girl. The other day we were playing ball in the off leash area and her ball (like her Best Dog Ever predecessor Tweed, she has A Ball that she will play with, and if it goes missing, she will not play with another ball without some serious pre-game pouting.)(It’s not the same as playing fetch with Literally Anything, these are two different games) bounced over the fence into a hard-to-reach place.

The off leash area is entirely fenced. The ball bounced over the fence as far away from the gate as possible. She knows she is not allowed to go out the *property* gate on the road (plus it was closed anyway), so damned if my smart girl didn’t go out the gates, run all the way along the outside of the off leash area in the parking lot, bushwhack through the blackberries and then run through the neighbour’s field and find her ball.

Then, like the shining star that she is, she retraced her steps and came back the same way she went and resumed our game of fetch. How brilliant is she? When she was about 7 months old I offered her to Canines for Conservation because she will do anything to find and retrieve her ball and has a work ethic that just won’t quit, but they felt she was too young (they like them 10 months and up). I am so glad they refused her, because my life would be a lot less shiny without her in it. Aside from her ear piercing bark (and her literal ear piercing of Dexter when she chases him down), she is just awesome. I love her so.

She can even get Winter to play with her, and Winter is far too weird and full of social anxiety to play with anyone other than his sister (or maybe she’s not his sister; doG knows the Woo “not-related-even-a-tiny-bit” TWoo fooled us all for years!).

And speaking of the Dastardly Duo…they’re both doing great, given they are old as dirt and I have effectively abandoned them for 11 hours a day in their old age. I bring Dexter and the two Littles to work, the rest of the dogs stay home. We try to play some fetch either before work or after I get home, depending on the shift, but the WooTWoo don’t play fetch, so they find life rather boring these days. So yesterday, my day off, Auntie Michelle and I piled them all in my van and took them to our old stomping grounds where I used to walk dogs, and we spent two hours decompressing in the cranberry fields. This is where Wootie’s resurrected Flamboyance(tm) chose to shine.

Look at that thing! It has fully recovered from its brush with shaving over a year ago thanks to that nasty infection he got. I am so glad to see it again. I am, however, not allowed to touch it still. Woo had gotten cantankerous in his old age and gets all snarly when I try to brush him (which is ironic, because without brushing, he is ALSO all snarly).

TWooie was having a good time too (lots of gross dead things to roll in, apparently) until he snagged and tore his front dew claw (AGAIN. Dog has the most feeble dewies in the world) and had to be carried out to solid ground because the cranberry plants kept snagging on the mangled claw. He was sad. I was also sad, because he’s heavy and super awkward to carry.

But we all needed the exercise and the time out in nature. It was so nice to see my crew running around being deliriously happy. It almost makes me regret giving up the dog walking gig, even though I was dead broke all the time.

This is a photo of Peetie. She’s still dumb as a sack of hammers. However, she was a godsend when we had The Thing…she entertained her for hours at a time, taught her to play tug with toys and wrestled patiently with her when the other dogs were all hiding from the Thing Tornado, even when The Thing got snappy and overstimulated…Peetie is truly awesome with annoying foster puppies.

Dexter is awesome at work … he stays behind a gate on the stairs behind my desk and he lures all of our clients over to pet him through the gate and tell him how handsome he is. He of course cannot hear them, but he knows what they’re saying. He knows how handsome he is.

He has a lump in his back along his spine so we went to visit Dr. Erica to have it checked out as it has recently gotten bigger. She examined it and said “It looks like a cyst. Ooooh, I want to squeeze it so bad!” What is it with you vet/tech types and your all encompassing urge to squeeze fluids out of dog lumps? The techs at the shelter LIVED for that shit too. You’re all disgusting!

Anyway, she did a needle thingie and cytology and it was indeed full of cyst material, but not the gooey kind, so she recommended we leave it alone until he’s under for something else … “like when you get his teeth cleaned!” she said, as she flipped up his lip to look at his teeth. “….or not,” she then said, because his teeth are fantastic (*chuffed*). So lumpy will remain lumpy unless the cyst gets too big to be ignored.

This is also the only photo of Spring you will see in this post, as she was too busy hunting all the imaginary critters out there. She ran so much that she slept all afternoon and evening.

No photos of Fae either, because she was too itty bitty to be seen in the cranberry fields … she was just some hair and floppy ears bouncing in and out of focus.

How come whenever I take a group photo, everyone looks very serious except for Dexter? How come he only has two facial expressions?? (this one and Mad Teeth(tm))

Anyway, it’s my last day off and I have 400 million things to do before work tomorrow, because I have no time to do anything on the days I am working. Maisie says we better get some ball time in before that happens (or any time, ever, why am I not a millionaire so I can spend all my time playing with her etc.)

Tell me what you think I should do for an actual living, because I can’t seem to come up with anything I want to do, and doG knows I don’t want to do what I am doing right now. You are smart peoples, help a sad, grouchy, tired sistah out.

ETA – oh I forgot, I was supposed to add this!

When I had the WooTWoo DNA tested, and learned they weren’t even a teensy bit the same breed(s) make up, they ran a “relatedness” test on them to see if maybe they had, like, same mom but different dad. Turns out they did not. It’s more sciencey than my pithy little grey matter can comprehend, but some of you s-m-r-t people might be interested to learn more about it on their blog post here.

But first …

Today is the 6th Addyversary of The Pants flying in from sunny California to make my life even more chaotic than it was before (which is sayin’ something!)

This itty bitty shitty TWIT whom I love more than anything is perpetually naughty, has a weird and twisted ongoing deathwish and is the snuggliest, cutest, most adorable thing to ever happen to me.

HAPPY ADDYVERSARY!

My plan was do a whole blog post a la … the me of yesteryears, but I have come to the conclusion that it’s pointless trying to take photos of the dogs around here because there are no lovely woodlined paths or lovely fall colours to frame them, just a bunch of dead grass. And taking them all somewhere is an exercise is SHEER FRUSTRATION. And I have only two days off a week now because I gave up dogwalking and got a “real” job that has stupid, hateful hours and The Food Lady is unaccustomed to fitting in all the things she has to do in two tiny stupid windows called “days off.” Jobs suck and I hate them. I will be forever bitter that I can’t just photograph things all day long and make a kabillion dollars doing it. Or at least a good living.

Anyway, I wish I could blog more, but it’s going to take some creative planning to get blog-worthy photos so there’s actually some content and not just me rambling on and on.

So.

Now, the moment you have all been waiting for…

WHAT THE F*CK IS THE WOOTWOO?

What breed(s) are they?

Are they related?

Has this question kept you up nights for the past 10 years?

ALL IS REVEALED.

So despite coming from the same area of the province, with the same date of birth, and immediately taking to one another on first meeting and being basically inseparable for a decade, DNA suggests they aren’t related.

DNA also suggests Wootie is made up largely of breeds that were apparently shrunk in the dryer prior to mating. Because I don’t know about you and where you come from, but where I come from, there are no 30lb Malamutes or Golden Retrievers.

They do share some breeds in common, including Sheltie (which I guessed) and Collie (which I also guessed) as well as Cocker and GSD (which I never a million years would have guessed) but I was VERY surprised to learn there was no Aussie in Mr. Woo AT ALL!

So … thoughts? Was it what you expected? Do you think the results are bunk? SPILL YOUR THOUGHT TANKS, B*TCHES!

doG said “There will on this day be born a puppy.

“And he will be a pain in the ass to his littermates.

“And he will eat your underpants.

“And he will stand on stuff.

“And he will totally BOMB OUT as your agility dog.

“And he will appear in and on weird things and places.

“But although he may not turn out to be the sport dog you were hoping for, he will become your bestest buddy.”

And so it came to pass that Dexter “Longstride” Morgan turned 10 years on this day. And he’s the best dog ever.

(Even if his mom’s photshopping is poorly executed because she is crunched for time)

Can you believe my special little guy is 10 years old today??

We went to the Super Secret Swimming Hole for a couple of hours to run and swim and get as sandy as we wanted. Then we celebrated with a cake from Auntie Fiona a mini photo shoot in my tin can’s “living room.” And then we took a group photo, because it looks hilarious with the wide angle lens ;-)

So please say Happy Birthday to Dexter, because there were years where I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to make it to the ripe old age of ten without me punting him off the edge of the universe ;-) Fortunately he turned into a really super wonderful dog, and I can’t imagine my life without him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DE-MO!!

I know, I know. I’m the worst blogger in the history of blogging. It’s been MONTHS since I posted anything. I have totally been phoning it in with cheap one offs on the FB page. You probably all think about me and feel like this:

But you probably don’t have grass seeds on your forehead while you do it. Or maybe you do, who am I to judge your life choices? After all, I live with NINE FREAKIN’ DOGS, which is in large part why the blogging is on the back burner…I’m sick to death of dogs at the moment. I feel like we all live in kinda roomy cardboard box together and everywhere I turn, there’s another damn dog underfoot. I’ve stepped on them, accidentally punted them down the stairs, slammed noses and tails in the STOP-SNEAKING-INTO-THE-BATHROOM-AND-EATING-THE-CATS’-FOOD babygate and one memorable time I yanked up my bed quilt in a fit of pique and sent Fae flying through the air. Those big, sad-kid eyeballs do NOT forgive.

They’re driving me a bit batshit right now, probably because I am with them 24/7 and don’t ever get a chance to miss them. Except, you know, when one of them squeezes out of the yard and goes walkabout (Addy in particular appears to be made of liquid and can ooze on out of anything bigger than a quarter) and then I have to go hunt them down. And when I do leave them at home, all I do is worry about what havoc they are wreaking on my home while I’m gone. Apparently being crammed into this tin can is as stressful for them as it is for me.

So naturally, I did the sensible thing, and brought in a foster dog to round out this insanity to an even ten.

Everyone is getting a puppy but me.

The Sadist’s wife got a puppy.

And my friend Dorothy got a puppy.

And Harold got a puppy.

(Although to be fair, his puppy might be an alligator)

And then random puppies keep popping up ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE at trials.

Even Auntie Fiona got a puppy! It would be more dramatic if I had a photo of her puppy for here, but I haven’t gotten around to taking any yet. But trust me – SHE’S REALLY FUCKING CUTE!!

So I got a foster puppy. Because even though I currently hate dogs, I have massive puppy envy. Yes, I am aware I have a problem.

But she only lasted a week with me, because she is so adorable and sweet that everybody wanted to adopt her and she went to her new home right away. I barely had a chance to take photos of her before she was gone again. It wasn’t very satisfying. Harumph.

Meanwhile, my stable/solid “puppy” has turned into a freaky idiot. Today’s phobia was banners flapping in the wind, even though yesterday was windier and those same banners went unnoticed. Also, submissive peeing is our new favourite activity in public, apparently.

The other reason I haven’t been blogging is because my yard is ugly – it does not inspire me to pick up the camera and document anything, as it’s just a bunch of gravel and dirt with three dogs chasing a ball, Wootie whining because he’s bored and Addy liquifying through livestock fencing to run around the parking lot and trying to get into the training building to beg for cookies.

We have to wait until the building is not in use and go use the off leash area, and that hardly ever happens. This weekend is Regionals though, so everybody is competing and nobody is using the property, so we got to enjoy some quiet time in the grass instead of loud time in the gravel. I think they were pretty happy about this.

Even Wootie played fetch with his obnoxious yellow frisbee, and he hardly ever plays fetch anymore, he just patrols the fenceline making pathetic whining sounds.

He also does this thing where when I try to get him to come inside and he shoots under the deck and won’t come back out. I think he’d be quite happy to spend all of the nice weather outside chilling – the WooTWoo definitely miss being farmdogs. But I don’t trust them to not find a way out of the yard if they tried hard enough, and also TWooie takes offense to EveryDog in the parking lot and I could do without the barking.

Whereas these idiots could care less about anything other than playing ball. Especially Maisie. I wish I had the same relationship with Maisie that Maisie has with her faded Chuck it ball that she squishes into a non ball shape. She’s got a set of chompers on her!

I like to say that Maisie is just Tweed visiting in a much bitchier body. She shares some of his same traits – her personal space bubble from other dogs is large, especially when she is sleeping. She likes to smell other dogs’ bathing suit areas, but they aren’t allowed to sniff hers as she snaps at them when they do. And she only plays with ONE ball and refuses to play with anything else, also a Tweed trick. She is also thinkie like he was, but she has less focus, which is mostly my fault as I haven’t really done anything of note with her, training wise. I’ve been a really lazy, unmotivated trainer/handler for a long time now. I feel like just getting through every day sucks up all my energy, and it’s impossible to do any training in this place because there’s nowhere to lock up all the other dogs and they’re all up in our business. And when we’re all out together, it’s a chore and a half just to keep track of them all, never mind work with them. Honestly, it’s just exhausting.

Maybe I’m just bummed because Facebook reminded me yesterday that it has been 4 years since Tweed went to the Big Naughty Dog Box in the great ether. I miss my good boy. But I also miss living in a house. Never thought I’d wax nostalgic for the tiny house with the mystery mini river running through the yard in coyote country.

Miss this face!

After Tweed died, I had an overwhelming desire to get another boy puppy, like immediately. Which made me feel instantly bad. And I never did … I got myself 4 more girl dogs instead. That’s so weird. I keep eyeballing BC/Aussie litters, but even if I did want to saddle myself with yet ANOTHER annoying, underfoot hairy family member, I am not convinced that I would find a good one. I meet so many of this cross that end up with a tiny BC head and a big fluffy Aussie butt, or they ended up being 65lbs, or they have a weird snarky temperament. I guess Mr Square was a once in a lifetime dog!

The OneMindSameDog terrier siblings spend all their time hunting mices. They generally are not successful, but they have incredible amounts of optimism that they one day will be. I wish I had their sunny outlook on life! I got Spring to play exactly ONE frisbee throw and then she was back to sticking her nose through the fence, smelling the invisible mices on the other side.

Meanwhile, crazy Miss Maisie will go until she drops. And when she drops, she will still have her beloved ball wedged firmly in her teefs.

Fae also wants the ball, but only because Deafter has it and won’t give it up. So her favourite activity is yelling in his face to make him drop it. Joke’s on her though, cuz he can’t hear her ear splitting barkshrieks.

Can you believe Dexter “Longstride” Morgan is going to be TEN this August? TEN! It blows my mind. I feel like he went right from being a crazy adolescent straight to being on the verge of being a senior. I don’t even know what happened to the time in between. Maybe it’s because he’s still as crazy and intense as ever.

He is so deaf now. And the funny thing about it is that he KNOWS he is deaf. I never know how to explain this in a way that makes sense, but … like, so he prefers to poop far far away, always has (it’s a trait of his litter. Such a weird genetic thing to pass down through generations). Whenever possible, he likes to leave the yard and go way over to the other side of the property to drop a log. Of course, he mostly can’t do that as he’s fenced in. When the buffalo aren’t on the property, we do play ball out in the field behind us (they’re back now, so we aren’t playing back there). And then when it’s time to go back inside, I give him the hand signal to come and heel … as we walk back to the yard, he slowly drops further and further back until he’s out of my peripheral vision, and then he turns and BOOKS as fast as he can in the other direction so he can go to his preferred toileting area. And I know he knows that calling him is ineffective, because as soon as I notice he’s gone I will turn around and see him glance back EVERSOQUICKLY to see if I’ve noticed, but not long enough to make eye contact because then I would give him his sign to come again, and he’s a good dog fundamentally and would ‘listen’ to me, but he’s figured out if he doesn’t make eye contact, he doesn’t have to listen. It’s actually kind of ingenius, if a little creepy.

He’s also super smart – if the training building is empty, he will take his time coming back, squeeze through the gate on the other side of the parking lot and meander through the parking area, marking various areas before ending up at my front gate. But if there are vehicles in the parking lot, he knows it’s off limits and he will come home around the back through the field and wait patiently at my back gate to be let back in. I love that he’s worked this out for himself. He’s another once in a lifetime dog.

Maisie and I did some agility training last weekend with The Sadist … I had forgotten (blocked out/had PTSD) how much yelling and belitting is involved training under that Mad Man! I am still hearing “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” and “WHY AREN’T YOU RUNNING FAAAAAAASTERRRRRRR???” was involved. My calves ache just thinking about it. But I brought DeMo in to try a gamble and damn if he didn’t just figure it out first try, even if he can’t hear my verbals.

He’s also still super duper handsome.

Spring had a go too and did a marvelous job at it. She is also awesome when we do club practice. I went ’round Regionals on Friday to cheer on my friends who were entered in the steeplechases and had a momentary pang of regret that I hadn’t entered her … then I went back to my van to get something and she was curled up in a teeny little ball way in the back of her crate, because she KNEW we were at Thunderbird. She really hates that venue so very much. Poor sensitive little mices hunter.

Pants remains eternally adorable and equally as annoying. She spends her time figuring out new and creative ways to escape the yard, or off leash area, and doesn’t care if I notice or not. (She also is a killing machine – yesterday I heard her eating something on a dog bed and looked over my screen to see what contraband she’d scored this time, and it was a baby chicken. Because her current life goal is to eat all of them. So far we are Baby chickens-14, Addy-2)

Periodically I scream “PANTS! PANTS! PANTSPANTPANTS!” and she comes flying over for a cookie.

Then she resumes her flagrant disregard for my wishes and continues looking for a way to be bad, until eventually she grows tired of arguing with me and turns into a cat-in-a-sunbeam.

She had her sorta-annual epileptic seizure last week. I hate seeing those :( She is so confused when it happens. Fortunately, she bounces back very quickly and then goes about her business of being naughty like nothing ever happened. As awful as it is, I am just glad she doesn’t have it worse.

I also haven’t been blogging as much because I was pretty busy with sessions for other people, and the more of those I have, the less time I have to take and edit photos of my own beasts. I did sunrise tulip sessions in April and May and they were a big hit. The results were fantastic, even though it was freakin’ hard to drag my ass and all my gear out at 4:30 in the morning.

I even snuck mine in one evening for a couple of quick shots :)

I’ve stopped shooting general agility trials, and have myself available only for big or major events, like the annual ASCofBC trial, and UKI cups. It’s just so much work for so little return otherwise, and a lot of wear and tear on my gear. But I’ve been asked to do a rally and conformation event next weekend … I don’t know from conformation, so I’m a bit worried about how well that’ll turn out. I tried my hand at it on Cruz in the tulips and think it turned out pretty okay though!

And I’m still working on perfecting my sunset shots, mostly because I just love them so much!

I just love my strobe so much, it’s the best thing I’ve bought in a long time. It’s totally changed my photo game. My next goals are to get a full frame camera, and a wider lens as well. So many toys, so little money!

I’ve also got some pretty exciting news that I can’t share yet (no it’s not the WooTWoo’s DNA results; we got TWooie’s back, but the Woo’s sample – much like Woo himself – was naughty and had to be re-processed. But I will definitely blog those when they come in!) but check back for that in a month or so.

In the meantime, I will be working on putting up my new solid wood fence. My goal this summer is to make the yard secure enough that I can leave the dogs out in it without worrying they will plot a get away. I am hoping having the freedom of the yard will ease up the close-quarters stress. The solid fence will go across the front of the yard so they can’t see the parking lot, which will cut down on that trigger, as they still have never really gotten over seeing tons of people and dogs in “their” territory. And also it will be nice to be out in my yard without people looking at me all the time. I have lived in the stix for far too long to be comfortable being sociable with people before my coffee. My stepdad replaced a fence for a client and gave me the old fencing … it’s worn and needs a sand and a stain, but it will do the trick.

Now I am going to go run some errands and then pop into Regionals and hopefully catch some of the awards ceremonies. Would you like to play some frisbee with Mr. Woo while I’m gone?