Wootube!

Dolittle's got nothin' on me

Kieren

I’ve got nothing interesting to say so …

By 11 Comments

… here are some cute pictures of kittens!

Last week we moved the entire contents of our old shelter, the falling down, 50 year old cluster of buildings where we worked, to a brand spanking built-for-us new shelter.  Very exciting.  But you know how moving sucks SO MUCH?  Now, imagine moving 100 odd animals and allll their stuff.  Yep.

The new shelter has a great big cavernous North facing atrium with floor to ceiling windows.  It looks pretty.  It has nothing in it, but seems to me like a good place to play ball with dogs on a rainy day (that noise you hear is my boss’ heart rate going through the roof and blasts of air huffing out of her nose, incidentally).

The atrium is also good for taking photos.  That’s the arty part of me talking, because *every* artist likes North facing light.  If the atrium were only located in a garret of some kind, I could swish moodily around in wearing long skirts and painting my feelings on canvases before taking my own life BECAUSE NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME, CRUEL WORLD!

Its not though, so instead I use it to take pictures of cute little kittehs.

And what the heck, cute little dogs too (these two 2 year old Havanese are looking for a home together, by the way, if you know anyone smitten with hairy moppy dogs)

Last week I ALSO had the mother of all colds / flu / plague that kicked my ass six different ways.  And I couldn’t take a single day off to fight back, because of the move.  I ended up working 8 days in a blessed row, which may explain why I still sound like I am being impersonated by frog that smokes cigarettes.  One of the days was actually a Nicole Wilde seminar – the other supervisor and I each attended one day of the seminar, and I got the “Working With Fearful Dogs” day because, well, that’s what I do.

It was gratifying, but kind of disappointing, to spend 8 hours at a seminar where I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know and/or practice.  It makes me happy to know that I’m on the right track, but since I was DYING from the cold/flu/plague at the time, maybe I imagined the whole thing.

You know what REALLY bothers me at these seminars?  The “MY DOG” audience members – you know who they are … the folks who think themselves (and their dogs) so interesting that they have to constantly interject with anecdotes thinly disguised as legitimate questions and end up speaking almost as much as the lecturer.  I loathe these people – one day I am going work up the nerve to turn around and tell one of them (blonde girl sitting behind me) that if they are so flippin’ interesting, they should put on their own seminar.  I love Brenda Aloff because she has a “No My Dogs” rule and if you raise your hand and start talking about your dog, she tells you to shut up.

Anyway, that’s why I didn’t get a chance to blog last week, and why I have nothing really interesting to blog about this week either.  THIS week, something broke into my chicken coop and killed nearly half my flock, including 70% of the Black Copper Marans I raised from day olds (leaving me with NOTHING BUT F*CKING ROOSTERS, tyvm), my bantam rooster, my Crested Polish with the torn ACL, my favourite Wheaten Marans hen, and my two best brooder hens, including the one confined to a smaller pen with all her peeps (it killed all but one of the peeps too <sad face>).  Since the culprit only bit their throats open, I assume we are dealing with a mink or a marten.  I have a live trap set for the f*cker for when it comes back, but it won’t be alive for long once I trap it *shakes fist at mystery serial killing animal*

As today is my only day off this week (I do get a week’s vacation next week though!) I had a lot of errands to run, but I did manage to get out with the dogs and the camera to photograph Wootie falling down.

Wootie falls down more than any dog I know.  One day I am going to get my hands on a super sweet, fast telephoto and I am going to make Wootie fall down again and again until I have the best photos EVER of him doing it.

We played some Wootie Toy™ and some Flying Squirrel, which Piper says Kieren cannot haz.

Kieren.  Still here.  It must be because my photos of him are ugly.  Or at least, that’s what a woman in the parking lot at Regionals pretty much said to me.

Piper, on the other hand, is here AGAIN.  By which I mean her knee is pretty well 100% and she is back to her running, spinning, snarling self.  It’s nice to have her back at full charge :)

My Monster got adopted too.  Happysad.

Next week, whilst I am on Staycation, the weather is supposed to be brilliant!  So I hope to take the dogs to cool places and get lots of blog fodder for you.  The problem is, they don’t all fit in my truck. So if you want to come to cool places with us, and let me bung a couple of my beasts in your car, hit me up!  I promise not to put the WooTWoo in your vehicle and speed away never to be seen again.  My license plate?  Oh, it, uh, it fell off.  I’ll just go look for it.  Just stay here, I SWEAR I will be right back …

Mmmm … tastes like chicken!

By 13 Comments

Never fear, my little Monster is no chicken-killer.  That job is reserved for … other chickens!  The bastards killed and ate my two new peeps!  Chickens suck.  I am trying again with 6 more eggs, but this time the hen is locked in a dog crate so nobody can murder her babies when they hatch.  See now, this is exactly why I do not feel bad about eating chickens!

Monster (Bagel just did not roll off my tongue – plus she is a teeny weeny Yeti!!) continues to be … small.  It’s unbelievable to me how small she is, and also unbelievable that she has not yet been trampled.  She can haul ass pretty quick to get out of the way of the stampeding collies, and Dexter lives under the threat of death if he runs her over like he did to Wootie last week.  He’s so afraid he’s tiptoeing all over the damn place.

I wish she would stay this size forever, it’s very convenient to manhandle/snuzzle/snorfle/tuck her under my arm.  She’s about 6 lbs now; here is a (blurry but whatever) photo of her next to Wootie – who is not very big (not from the ground up anyway … girth is a different topic!) – so you can see how itty bitty she really is.

Earlier on our morning walk I caught her hanging onto Dexter’s tail as he went running after his ball – she bounced along the grass like a can tied to a car bumper, but refused to let go.  Wish I’d had my camera with me then!

She makes even the terriers look big.  But nothing can make them look less crazy!  Someone said to me recently that I had to ‘stop adopting dogs and pretending they were related to my other dogs’, as though I were a 4 year old with imaginary friends.  Pretending, huh?  It’s just my imagination, I guess, that Spring and Winter are the same dog split in two?

Well, here’s a dog that is definitely NOT related to any of my dogs.  In fact, I’m not even sure what he is, exactly.  What do you think?

His name is Riley, and he is 8 months old.  He was surrendered to rescue as a border collie X siberian husky, but I’m seeing English Shepherd.

He’ll be up for adoption soon.  You probably want to adopt him.  And it will distract you from trying to adopt my mini Yeti!

This time next week I will be at Regionals, with my little superstar Spring and whatever form of HELLDEMON FROM THE BOWELS OF HADES that Dexter chooses to take that day.  Are you tired of me complaining about Dexter yet?  Me too!  But he’s sure not good for anything else.  *grumble*  Last night at class he couldn’t make 6 obstacles without losing his frickin’ nut – it seems our two month period of success has screeched to a halt, and he has reverted to his moronic, spinning-plates-for-eyeballs version of himself.  I marched him out of class and put him up in the truck, and have washed my hands of him.  I can’t get my money back for his entry – and it was hard to come by too, as I am poor – so I either eat the $200 or I enter him and humiliate myself.  Lose-lose.  He is the WORST example of “get a dog through rescue!  They make great agility dogs!” EVER.

Last year I decided to just let it go and accept that he wasn’t mature enough yet to play the game.  This year I think I have to let it go and accept that he just can’t play agility ever.  He is almost 4 years old and still can’t complete a course.  It’d be one thing if he was a mostly awesome dog to play with but had one or two weird quirks, but the opposite is true – he is mostly quirks with one or two moments of comprehension.  He’s not even a training _challenge_ worthy of increased effort, because he does things that make NO sense, and he does them routinely, and nobody can figure out why.  Moreover, he doesn’t repeat them, so there’s no pattern to break down.  Last night he just left mid course and started doing obstacles elsewhere, nowhere near me and not even like he was taking a line I was trying to call him off – it was just totally f*cking random!!

His sister Ginny Bop recently got her ATCh (yay Ginny!  So awesome!).  Dexter is still flailing about in Starters.  *Spring* has more Qs than he does, and she’s nearly as fast as he is, AND she has iffy contacts.  Really?  REALLY??  I clearly picked THE WRONG DOG.

After Regionals, I am going to give up his class spot to someone else with a worthy dog so they can train with The Sadist.

Six (well, 9 at the moment!) dogs in my house and only Spring to play agility with.  This pretty much blows goats :(

I need to find my happy place.  Maybe I should look to TWooie for inspiration.

Or maybe not.  Because he’s not very zen either, judging by the hole he put in Kieren for the crime of running past him.

Poor Kieren.  Bless his heart, he didn’t even fight back, he just sat down and tried to reach the owie to make it stop hurting.  I wish he had kicked TWooie’s ass!  Where is Pfeifer where you need her!  She could drive her point home when TWoo was being an a$$hole.

I wish someone I love would adopt Kieren, because I love HIM so much I can’t imagine giving him to anyone lesser.

Maybe whoever adopts Kieren will take Dexter “Shithead” Morgan too!

Wish me and Springles luck next weekend!  She is not really ready to play with the big kids yet in major competition, but she is so full of try.  I love that little dog like the dickens!

What’s Up Buttercup

By 8 Comments

I hate buttercups so much, the creeping, invasive little suckers with their cheery yellow blossoms.  This year Dexter’s daily coconut oil is really helping him beat the buttercup rash, but he still has a big itchy strip down the center of his chest.

Fortunately, not everyone is allergic to them, and they do make for some adorable photos.

I mean, it really doesn’t get more adorable than this.

SOME dogs didn’t want to sit in amongst the buttercups, but wanted to be adorable anyway.

It’s been rainy the last several days, so I didn’t want to like on the ground for you this afternoon.  Instead I shot blind, with the camera held down to the ground and randomly shooting.  Still worked out pretty good!

Insanity is compelling from all kinds of angles, I guess.

Someone must have told Dexter that I entered him in Regionals, because as soon as I sent the payment, he forgot how to play agility again.  At class this week I threatened to stick my boot up his arse and fling him around the arena, as it would have been about as successful as just trying to run him like most people run their dogs.  WHY?  Why are his agility skills directly connected to my bank account??

It’s a darn good thing he’s cute!

Anyway, shooting from the ground was kind of fun.  It’s generally difficult to get a shot of Piper jumping because she doesn’t jump very high and she jumps really close to my face, so this one was happy for me, even though she looks like she screaming her frustrations to the skies.

Spring emulated Snoopy.

Winter.  So cute.

Winter has been doing so well on the Zylkene that he is probably ready to list for adoption.  I can’t imagine him without his doppelganger sister wife though; while the little monster drives me crazy, I’m having difficulty envisioning the pack without him.

We haven’t done too much this past week – working, running, trying to sleep with a cat on my neck etc.  Next week my stepdad and I will be building an addition to the hen house so that the new baby hens at work can come home :)

In the meantime, Spring would like to stare down her nose at you

because you don’t believe she can actually fly.

Sun God

By 6 Comments

  For a dog that drives me CRAZY, he sure can take a zen photo.

 

But really … have you ever seen a happier looking Clydesdale dog in your life?

I’m pretty cheerful too.  Sun and warm weather make Food Lady happy!  The chickens are clean, the dogs are exercised, the laws are mowed (thank you lawn tractor!) and I’m supposed to be entering my dogs in Regionals … but instead I’m blogging while I debate entering Whacknut AKA Dexter.  Last night’s class was visited by plates-for-eyes-spinning-on-wheels-Dexter instead of the sane dog that was my partner for the last couple of months, so I’m having a crisis of confidence again.

I’ve been a very dedicated agility handler and every evening Dexter and I have been outside working on his weave pole entries at speed, at angles, at distance, close up etc.  And the third obstacle in the first course was weaves and he whipped past the entry, popped into them around pole #3, did two poles, SPROINGED in the air and sped pell mell back to me barking furiously.  *HATE*

On the other hand, practicing weaves is challenging in this crowd. (hah!  instead of typing “crowd” I initially accidentally typed “crud” which is funny on all kinds of levels)

(Just so nobody types a long comment about how I should really be practicing weaves with the other dogs put away … I do, actually :) )

And so, as I still cannot decide whether or not to enter the bat eared bastard, I’m procrastinating by:

Laughing at Wootie falling down whilst trying to catch his frisbee.

Imagining what Spring’s voice would sound like if she could swear at her brother in English.

(Mildly) scolding Piper for trying to play frisbee before her 9 week post-op check up (I hope it goes well, and she can start running again!)

Wondering how chickens know which eggs are theirs.  I have no accompanying photo for this, I’m just curious.  So like, I have this one hen that has gone all broody, so I decided to let her have 6 eggs to sit on rather than eat them, just to see if they will hatch.  After all, both roosters are horny enough, they must be fertile.  I wrote the date on them (eggs, not roosters) so I can tell them apart from the daily collected eggs.  Today when I went into the hen house to clean, broody hen was sitting on her clutch of eggs OUTSIDE the nest box, while some other asshole trying-to-be-broody hen was in the box on a whole new batch of eggs.  All the numbered eggs were out on the floor (and there is a lip on the box).  AND fake-broody hen pecked the hell out of me when I tried to get her out of the box.  Chickens are assholes!

Anyway, maybe in 3 weeks we will have new baby chickens!  Although at this rate, my chicken collection is in danger of spiraling out of control … I have 9 three week old Black Cooper Marans at work waiting to come home when old enough.

But I don’t want to sit inside blogging all evening – there are still several more hours of fun left to enjoy!  And Kieren says he is ready to rumble again.

And so is Winter! (My favourite thing about this photo is how his little spotty feet are in perfect focus)

Oh and speaking of Winter … the little pee monster has been on Zylkene for just over a week.  The house soiling stopped within 24 hours of starting the supplement!  He is officially belly band-free.  And he has started rough housing with me without shrieking like I am about to beat him to death.  Colour me impressed!

And I have to go run on my treadmill, as unlike my svelte, athletic dogs, I’m a veritable butter ball these days.  While I flail and gasp on the stupid treadmill, I shall try to compose something poignant and tear-inducing for Tweed’s 13th birthday post in just 3 days.  Thirteen!  Holy doG.

Enjoy the super hot, sunny weekend friends!

A Sea of Grass

By 2 Comments

Gonna lose the dogs in it.

Especially the old one, as he gets confused more easily these days.

But it’s okay!  Because Dexter is about to save the day.

(insert thumpy bass music sound (ie *oomchaoomchaoomcha*) here)

 

Dexter’s kickin’ it old skool on our new (to me – definitely NOT to this world) lawn tractor.

Pretty awesome huh?  The Sadist drove me out in his wife’s Big Ass Truck to pick it up this morning, scared the guy into dropping the price significantly, and then – despite always whining about his bad back or whatever – picked the damn thing up out of the truck and put it on my lawn, yelled “Don’t ever bother me again!” and drove over three people on his way out of the farm.*

(*may be a slightly exaggerated account of actual events)

My landlords are lovely people with their own lawn tractor, but it never occurs to them to mow the parts of the property that *I* use, like the lower field where we play ball, or the upper field where we practice agility.  So I went and got my own.  It’s not fancy, but it works!

Don’t worry, Dexter didn’t really drive it.  He’s too young to drive.

Spring drove it instead, though she deeply resented being given a chore to do.  She’s such a princess.

Hopefully Dexter is NOT too young to play agility properly.  Tomorrow we are entered in our last trial before I make up my mind about whether or not to enter him in Regionals.  He did so well at the last trial that I am really hoping it’s a new trend in his overall performance level, and this trial will be the dealbreaker.  If he keeps his wits about him and performs decently, I will enter him (and Spring) in Regionals next week.  It’s close to home this year, so I feel like I have to take advantage of the nearness.

He may not be the most coordinated dog to walk this earth (or hover above it) …

… but he’s absolutely one of the most enthusiastic …

… and, of course, the best looking :)

Now if it’s coordination you want, you need to look to the Terrier Group.

They are marvels, in their shrill-yapping, constant wrestling, super annoying way.

The other day whilst engaged in this activity, the roiling herring ball-slash-terrier scrap banged into Tweed, whose hind end is not the rock solid machine it used to be, and they knocked him over.  And he cried.  And I got mad and chased them all over the place trying to beat them to death with the Chuck-It, but the f*ckers are too fast.

Today we had a repeat performance, except they knocked Mr. Woo over.  And I laughed and laughed.  I’m such an a$$hole.

And speaking of a$$sholes, here’s one that is not speaking to me at the moment, because he got in soooo much trouble this morning for eating the stray cat’s food on my landlord’s porch and then refusing to come inside when I called him, so I had to chase him all over the damn acreage before I finally caught him.  He is a VERY BAD DOG.

Hah!  You’re an a$$hole too for laughing at me this morning.  You’re a match made in heaven.

I started Winter on the Zylkene on Thursday, and when I came home from work that same day, his bellyband was dry (it was also not on his body, as he managed to get it off, so that may account for its dryness, BUT I did not find a pee anywhere in the house either), so maybe it’s working!  That’d be nice.  He’s a pretty awesome little dog when he’s not biting me in the small of the back / my sleeves / my hair.  He learns new stuff really quickly and he is full of energy, and every night he stands up like a gopher and asks me to carry him to his crate at bed time.  Very charming and funny.

What’s that?  Did you say something about Kieren?

Kieren who?  What’s a Kieren?

Whyfor you pretend I not exist? This make Kieren sad.

SHHHH Kieren!  If I pretend you don’t exist, I don’t have to find you a new home!

OHHH!  This make Kieren happy!

Project?  Onto my dogs?  What? ;-)

Wish us luck tomorrow!  After all, if I enter Dex in Regionals, you get to see the disastrous video’d results!

Turtles

By 12 Comments

Me and you, and you and me.

The only one for me is you, and you for me.

I can’t see me lovin’ nobody but you, for all my life.

So happy together …

HEY HEY HEY… WHOA…not THAT happy, TWooie!

Class, does anyone want to tell me what TWooie did wrong there?

I do I do!  He tried to touch Wootie in his naughty place!

I feel dirty.

Yeah, well, I feel like a big a$$hole :(  Piper had her ACL surgery on Wednesday and she was so obviously in so much pain when I brought her home.  I felt like I had done something terrible to her, even though the part of my brain that isn’t instructing my hand to wipe away my sniffles knows it’s for a good reason.  She just looks so vulnerable and sad and lonely in her XPen in my bedroom.  I don’t want to move her into the main room where we spend most of our time because she gets up to “enforce” the house rules too often.  Mostly, she wants Kieren to JUST LIE DOWN FOR 10 FREAKIN’ SECONDS ALREADY.

Sawee.

It’s gonna be a long two months.

To make things worse, last night I left her a frozen stuffed Kong when I went to agility class.  When I got home like over 3 hours later, she was sitting in her Xpen with the saddest expression ever, because the Kong had gotten stuck on her bottom jaw and because the stupid cone was on her head, she couldn’t use her paws to pry it off.  Who knows how long she’d been sitting there like that?

I tried to give her a frozen pork bone instead this morning when I took the other dogs out for a run, but I caught her wandering around the XPen burying it in her blankets, so I swapped it out for another frozen Kong and this time I removed her head cone .  Only to find she had chewed off half her bandages instead of eating her Kong.

Did I mention it’s going to be a long two months?

But at least the weather seems to be improving.  Last week it monsooned for some many days in a row that my property turned into a lake.  Which was fun for doggies:

(and Kieren is getting over his fear of water)

But not so fun for my hydro bill, what with all the dog laundry I had to do.  You have no idea how many towels it takes to de-mudify and dry off 8 dogs!  Then you gotta wash all those towels and repeat after the next walk.

Today was gorgeous, sunny and warm.  We played outside for so long that I even managed to poop out Kieren, which is saying something.  All the pooches are tuckered out after 2.5 hours of frisbee and running around.

Even left-out singleton Tweed, who is the only dog who doesn’t have a double.  Although he is one of a kind, so it doesn’t seem to bother him too much.

Winter is getting his terrier on.  Last week he learned to play fetch, which made him very pleased with himself.  But he’s not sure yet that the point of Dumbball is the joy of getting the ball; he seems to think the point is to bring every toy back to The Food Lady for cookies or praise, even if it means stealing it from someone else.

The stocky little terrierblob that I brought home a few short weeks ago has morphed into a sleek, muscley little beast that eats more food every day than Tweed does just to keep his ribs from poking out, and who can almost keep up with his sister/daughter/wife when she’s running flat out.  And she’s FAST.

He’s becoming a real dog so quickly that I can’t even tell them apart sometimes.

He’s nearly ready to be listed for adoption – we just need to get past the housebreaking block.  He no longer leg lifts in the house just because he can, but he does still periodically pee inside when he feels the need to go.  He just needs to learn how to ask and/or to hold it.  His impulse control could use a little work too but he is, after all, a terrier.

As for Kieren, he’s totally ready to be listed.  I’vejustbeensobusyandstuffthat’shwyIhaven’tlistedhimyepthat’sit.

*sigh*

I started teaching him some agility equipment before class starts every week and he can now jump, do the tire, do the A-Frame and the Dogwalk.  And each piece of equipment took him exactly one repetition to learn.  HE’S SO SMART!!  And fun!  And adorable!  WHY CAN’T I HAVE ONE!!!

Stupid smart fun sweet good looking dog anyway.

He’ll probably get adopted lickity split, and I’ll end up holding nothing but a cracked out weasel aka terrier.

Now I must go spend some time with my poor be-Xpenned baby beanie so she doesn’t feel so alone.  Happy sunny days, friends!