Bowen

Leech-Free since 2002

August 31, 2009 By The Food Lady Leave a Comment

Just one of those delightful phrases that I *used* to be able to apply to Miss Piper.

Not anymore.

Blech.

My sister’s wedding reception (aka Big Ass Party) was at Bowen Island this past weekend so we loaded up the dogs and took them over with us. We went a-swimmin’, and Piper brought home this leech attached to her stomach. So gross.

It didn’t phase Wootie though.

Must retrieve toy for cookies. Must retrieve toy for cookies. Must retrieve toy …

But it totally gave Tweed the heebie-jeebies.

Eww! Gross! Yuck!

Let’s cuddle. No? Why not? What’s a little leech between friends??

Piper has balls of steel!

Actually, Piper does NOT have balls of steel. She just really really wishes she did.

Like The Big Steel Ball in the Little Cement Birdbath, which she was unable to remove.

Sneaking up on it did not help.

Staring at it intently was also a bust.

Digging it out of the water looked promising initially, but in the end, the ball defeated her.

However, it kept her entertained for – literally – hours. I mean hours. She was exhausted by the time we left.

Which was a good thing, as it left me free to hunt down Houdini-Woo, who was hunting down Bowen Island chickens. For a fat dog, he sure can squeeze through small spaces.

Oh hai, I’m in the driveway now. You thought an iron gate would keep me in the yard? Why so silly?

I took no photos of it, but Tweed spent the entire party beside the buffet table. Sometimes Piper would go check on his food-mooching progress, but it was too far from The Ball Of Steel.

Tweed’s over there eating chicken wings. Are we going back to the fountain now?

Mmm… chicken wings … straight off the chickens over there … I wonder if I can get through this thicket?

Bad, Mr. Pickles, BAD!

June 30, 2009 By The Food Lady Leave a Comment

Do you know what Mr. Pickles is doing in this photo?

Here’s a hint:

RUN SOFA, RUN AWAY OR HE’LL DROWN YOU!!

Poor Sofa. He did not run fast enough, so Mr. Pickles threw him in the lake!

I guess he was jealous of The Fantabulous Dock Diving Woo. When you see images like this:

You get The Envies. And then your poor Doberman pays the price for your wounded pride.

At least he hauled him back in again.

Which is something that Dougie the Jack probably wishes he hadn’t done, after he was subjected to The Sofa Experience.

Frickin’ doberman! I’m outta here!

Agh! Holy cow! Get OFFA me!!

(*borrows Piper’s Mad Teeth(tm)*)

‘Scuse me, but those are MY Mad Teeth(tm). How will I keep this ball in my mouth without them?

Piper has had no more episodes of drunk-walking / overheating since the last one, but I have been very careful to not run her in the middle of the day without access to swimmable water. Thanks for all the insight and suggestions about what could be ailing her! She’ll be going to the vet later this week for some bloodwork and an overall check up.

She also had a pretty good agility trial, and earned herself a Starter’s Snooker Q. It doesn’t seem like much – after all, she had 3 runs and only Q’d in one of them, but for Piper this is a BIG accomplishment. Not too long ago, she was so all over the place on the course that she couldn’t do more than a few obstacles before her brain fell out of her head and she became The Saucers-For-Eyeballs Tornado of Doom on the course. Thanks to the hard work of Gerhard (“Again, FASTER”) we saw some notable successes in our runs – she took almost every obstacle on the first try, instead of running past them in a frenzy, she held her start line stays reliably and she nailed her 2o/2o contacts every time. Good girl!!

Tweed had a beautiful Masters Standard run with a first place and a Q, but he did a faceplant in his Gamble opening and then sulked his way through the rest of the course, and didn’t want to do the Gamble. Poor old man :(

Speaking of things Tweed did not want to do … this included jumping off the dock.

WTF? Off THIS thing? You been smokin’ that crack, Food Lady.

Since Tweed would not jump, and Piper NEVER jumps, that left just the Woo to impress all the park goers with his sexy moves.

I am too sexy for this dock, too sexy for this dock …

SPROING!

Holy shit, the orange dog can FLY!

This presents a whole new crop of recall training challenges. Figures.

Even he seemed a little amazed by his new talent of flight.

Dude. Whoa.

This is awesome.

I’ll just fly home. See you there, Food Lady!

Yesterday I did a photo shoot for some friends out in Maple Ridge, and took photos of oh-so-many adorable doggies, but the one that stole my heart was this pittie, Sienna:

She was a rescue off a reserve here in the Vancouver area and she has the sweetest personality of all time.

And she gets pretty big air too!

Tomorrow I get to photograph some border collies, including Bear (now called Rhys) who will be up for adoption soon.

And I try to upload photos from every session on my Big Air Photography website within a couple weeks of shooting, so don’t forget to check there often for new pictures!

Oh and my little sister got married last week to her long time love. The wedding was a small ceremony of just family, and happened on Bowen Island (the site of the Very Bad Woo Runs Away adventure). Congratulations to my little sister!

ZOMG! Tweed can see

March 15, 2009 By The Food Lady 1 Comment

into the future!!

It is now obvious that Tweed kicked the crap out of Mr. Woo earlier this week to punish him for something Wootie had not yet done.

But let me explain.

Yesterday I threw the dogs in the van and took them to beautiful Bowen Island, which is a 20 minute ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver.

We went to visit my sister’s partner’s parents, who have a big, comfortable rambling homestead over there on a few blissfully peaceful acres. Dogs are very welcome. In fact, everything is very welcome, as the Cadys are warm people with nary an ounce of pretension. And their home is beautiful.

Tanus and Nicole wandering the property with their ever-present glasses of wine.

The barn across the creek that I feel strongly should be converted into my new home!

But Tweed is superstitious, and found the Cady house *extremely* scary. The house is full of curiosities and objets d’art and Tweed was convinced that all of them were Out.To.Get.Him.

*Afeared*

The deer antlers were obviously going to LEAP OFF THE WALL and GRAB HIM.

VERY SCARY CANARIES:

A bowl of feathers that could potentially TICKLE HIM TO DEATH!!!!!

TERRIFYING STAIRCASE

Although that last one I kind of have to give him – up those stairs lives Charlie The Killer Cat. I’m not even kidding. While we were exploring the house, Charlie leapt off a bed and ONTO a completely unsuspecting Wootie and delivered upon him a beating of world class proportions. It made Tweed’s thrashing from the other day look like an intimate embrace of true love. The screaming may haunt the Cadys for the remainder of their days.

We eventually had to close the door to that part of the house, because Charlie was laying in wait for another canine victim. Dude, that is one scary f*cking cat!

Tweed also spent a good portion of the evening barking in abject terror at the face of a statue of Buddha sitting on an end table. I got no photos of this because I was mortified – Smartest Breed In The World my arse.

Anyway, Tweed had clearly had a premonition, which became obvious when we took the dogs down to see the Indian Runner ducks (BTW – Funniest.Ducks.EVER).

Indian Runners are very flocky and like sheep, they all tend to go in the same direction on foot, all waddly with their big tall necks, making concerned quackings as they go. They are popular among working dog enthusiasts for practicing for this reason.

I thought for sure that they would capture the interest of my three, you know, herding dogs?

Tweed was (surprise!) afraid of them. Piper dismissed them as they were in a dog-free coop and therefore, of no value to her.

Mr. Woo …

Mr. Woo RAN AWAY.

And I mean, he ran the f*ck away. Not from the ducks – he just ran away.

Notice the complete absence of Wootie in this photograph of the back part of the property. That’s because he was already 400 miles away.

I don’t know exactly how big Bowen Island is, but it would not surprise me if Wootie circled it several times in his BADDOGFREEFORALL.

Wootie came to me with no recall whatsoever. The word “come” means, to Wootie, run really far and fast in the opposite direction. I have worked on his recall endlessly, and really thought we had made some headway as I can now call him off even a squirrel most of the time. He still does not have the enthusiastic about-face top-speed return of my other dogs, but I have been very smug about how much I have achieved with him. However, I have never had the opportunity to test it in the conflicting face of the intoxicating scent of BOWEN ISLAND DEER.

See Wootie Run. Run, Wootie – RUUUUUUUN!

So while everyone else at the dinner party was enjoying fine wine, good company, the warm glow of the fire etc. etc., I was fighting my way through dense forest and swamps trying to track down an extremly wayward Mr. Woo. Periodically, far in the distance of the gathering dusk, I would catch a glimpse of The Flamboyance(tm) as Woo sailed over fallen trees and crashed through undergrowth. And I sounded like a one-woman drunken camping party as I screamed his recall command (in retrospect, perhaps a poor choice, as Wootie’s recall command is “WOOOOOO-HOOOOOO!”) over and over again.

It’s obvious to me now that my failed attempts to get Woo to exercise could easily have been solved by simply dropping him off in deer country and returning for him a few days later. He’d probably be 10 lbs lighter, because he would NEVER STOP RUNNING.

Eventually he returned to my general vicinity, tongue dragging 7 feet behind him, and I tackled him like a linebacker in the Superbowl. He was covered head to toe in Bowen Island mud and his Flamboyance(tm) was decorated with Forest Stuff like a cruel and mocking Christmas Tree. I bathed him in the creek, and dragged him kicking and screaming the whole way back to the house.

Where everyone proceeded to snuggle the shit out of him. WTF?

It’s clear that Tweed knew what Wootie was plotting, and chose to beat him for it in advance. Thanks, Tweed! I am sorry I doubted you.

*Vindicated Tweed Gets Victory Snuggle From Auntie Tanus*

You can open doorz, and I can haz deer chase plz? kthnx!

Now who’s the bonehead, huh? Oh wait – still me. Nevermind.

ETA: It is 12:10 on Sunday afternoon and it is SNOWING AGAIN. Someone is in BIG trouble!!!!