So the house has a pet door, but the problem is, it's in my roommate Laura's room, which is really a converted garage (complete with washer/dryer hookups and the defunct sprinkler system). So while she used to be down with leaving her door open to let Fury and Rex in and out, we instituted a strict no-puppy-in-Laura's-room clause for good reason.
I am neurotic about not letting the kids eat my stuff. I have learned many, many times. They are pretty good (though Rippa is skilled at getting my underswear), but one must not leave things to chance.
So I bought a used kennel on craigslist for $100. We just had to come and haul it away.
This seems easy, but it's not. The kennel is pretty huge - 6 x 6 x 10 feet. Yishai and I showed up in his big truck with a trailer borrowed from a friend and tried to lash it onto the trailer to make it home from Santa Maria (33 miles) on the highway. Intact.
I thought we did a nice job, but failed to take into account the physics of the kennel, which is that with wind and bumping, the metal will bend and then drag on the highway, causing people to wave frantically and tell us to pull over.
Which we did, sitting there, looking at a bent-up kennel. We're not five miles out of town. We pull it up higher so it can't do that and lash it even tighter. And we're driving along the highway nervous as hell about this. And then suddenly, we get the frantic waving, about five miles later.
So we pull over again. The truck and trailer are so bomb that we are totally unaware that the kennel has collapsed again and has been dragging long enough to MELT the metal. So we pull off the highway in Nipomo and set to taking it apart. All we have is a socket set and a screw driver. Three hours later, the sun is setting, but we have a loaded up kennel. It's kind of funny - these are the sorts of adventures I have with Yishai.
So it has been sitting in our side yard waiting for me to get time to tackle the project. Rippa's discover of a hole in our fence that I have not been able to figure out how to fix without replacing the whole panel made me find time. So, my friend Eric Varley (aka "Pig") came over and helped me figure out the engineering behind it.
And then we were short on brackets. Which no hardware store in town carried. So I ordered them on the Internet.
And then they finally came. I finished building it up and Yishai came over to use his strong male muscles to stretch the chain link into position and now, tada, we have a kennel:
Replete with the previous occupant's ghetto name plate that I need to cut off. That's my roommate Casper in the back, fooling with his woodpile for our Santa Maria style BBQ tonight. Fury and Daca have themselves a nice little dogloo and a trough which Daca likes to spend all day in. Water and cooling! Wee. I am going to put up a tarp at an angle so it makes it rain proof, too.
I now very happily have a way to contain all three dogs without worrying about escaping. This is also handy because Yishai and I sometimes need to go away together and taking all three is a major hassle. Now I can have the roommates or saintly friends take care of them hassle free. Fury will eventually work out she can dig under it, and so I plan on installing some rocks along the edges (last year I installed a rock patio to help protect the dirt that never regrew the grass - and the grass is grown so I can remove the rocks and find a new home for them). Maybe I'll get another free craigslist dogloo.
A reader pointed out to me today that the puppies are actually five months. I keep trying to age them. They won't be six months until the 26th of June. This is a classic - I was quite sure Fury was turning 8 this year (she's not, she turned 7), and I keep doing that to the puppies. So, happily, if Rippa weighs as much as Fury at this point (and she does), and Daca is close behind, that means that none of the litter (although possibly Piper) is gonna be uber tiny and that is awesome. My bet on the breeding probably worked out.
This same person also sent me a kind note about how much she likes the blog, but how it reinforces the idea that one should leave breeding to folks such as myself. Hah. Kathy Warren warned me that some people are just not breeders and I am quite sure I probably am not. People ask me when they see the puppies if I breed Aussies. My response is usually, "Uhh . . . I have bred. This is my only litter, but I've been in the breed for nearly twenty years."
And while I am glad people like the blog, it often feels kind of narcissistic. My mom keeps telling me to stop being so honest about the puppies with their structure and downfalls and what have you, but it's always been my m.o. to be so open it pisses people off. So, there you have it.
In the vein of this, honestly, I don't know that I will ever breed again. It would take a long waiting list of people chomping at the bit for this. I have been wanting to do a litter for a very, very long time. Fury was pre-planned when I was about 14. I wanted a red merle female from Slash V lines. I wanted to a SVCH on this dog, and honestly, I really am over the titles, but she's helped me reached my goals. I have wanted to do a litter with her for a long time, but it was always back and forth about if it would be good for the breed, good for her, good for my goals, good for the owners. But it was all in theory, and in life, the experience is very different.
I played at the idea for a while and there never was a good time. I am not loaded financially, I am very busy building a future for myself, and I frankly am quite happy just having one dog. But this has been something I wanted. I tried AI with a dog that passed away and it failed. I was sure that was my sign not to do it. But every time I go out to train Fury I think, "Geez, this is totally the kind of dog that says "Australian Shepherd." I felt very idealistic about doing it. I made very calculated decisions based on risk and potential in choosing my sire.
There was one morning, about a week before I was to fly the Fury out that I am lying on Yishai's bed and literally crying because I felt like I was sending her off to be put to sleep or something. I was just sending her to Anne's to get bred, but it felt horrible. He told me my decision was a good one, that I was making a good choice, and that he'd be there for me when I needed it.
Fury came back and she was grunty and kind of cranky right away. We wondered if she was just getting old and would always be that way. How sad if that was true. She steadily got bigger but being a bit of a pessimist, I assumed it was imagination or fat until I could not deny it (she'd had a false pregnancy with the AI). Poor thing got towed along behind me on runs right up until the very end as I wanted her very, very fit for the birth. The birth went really well and I felt like I had a handle on it. I survived docking the tails without support . . . raising the puppies was pretty easy. Fury went back to being her happy self, no sign of the "age" symptoms that were probably just hormone and nausea stuff from being pregnant.
But the one thing that happened that I didn't want to have happen - Daca came back. And it drives me crazy because who Daca is, is the exact reason I bred this litter. She has the same basic attitude about working and about her family as Fury. She's an improvement on all fronts, but the home I sent her to wasn't prepared to handle her, and now I'm picking up the pieces of that. Being someone who tends to guilt herself to death, sometimes I wake up and go, "Ugh, what have I wrought?" It is so hard to go out and socialize her and not see clear progress each day. I've gotten into a fight with my sister over it - she kept trying to find homes for her in my old hometown and I was like, "She's not a family dog" and my not trusting her pissed her off. I don't really trust myself in placing Daca. I was very clear about her temperament and potential the first time.
I look at the rest of the puppies and try to focus on that. Bekka sends me love notes about Piper. Reid (Deedles) loves his kids and his momma and Patrick's glad he chose him. Emma is the star of her puppy obedience class, is loved at the Alzheimer's home, and is just pure Goodness to her family and everyone she encounters. Moto went to a first time dog home that's doing an amazing job with him and unlocking his potential by discovering the joys of stockdog clinics and obedience training and aussies in general (and I was really scared about sending him out there). And Rippa? Yishai has one totally uncomplicated thing in his life to love completely and dote on, and from my standpoint, she's the pick of the litter not just because he chose her, but because she's exactly what I'd hoped would come out of it - I love her structure, her quirks, her intelligence, her color, her attitude.
I am very proud of the job I did with them - they aren't bitey or chewy puppies, they're the stars of their training classes, all of them except Daca are tractable with people they encounter, and they're all flipping beautiful puppies that I am proud to have my permanent kennel name on. I like to think my years of experience, research, and study made a huge difference here, that it wasn't pure luck, and I think it happened because this was the time to make it happen.
But Daca still makes me somewhat regret it. Everyone tells me she just needs a suitable home, and I agree, but I can tell you now that my home is not it. I wonder what the future holds for her, I wonder what the right thing to do is by her. For all the mentors and helpers I have in my life, I feel utterly alone in this, probably because it's my big scarlet letter. There's a home out there that's perfect for her, but I don't know how to find it and how not to scare it away.
Woke up this morning and took everyone to the beach again for some fun. Daca had a date today with a possible new home, but I am not counting my chickens before they hatch. Yishai has actually taken responsibility for her the last week or so. I am a little harder of a handler and he is very soft. I was thinking it had to do with my handling, but Daca seems to be better responsive to things when Yishai handles her.
Yesterday we ended up at a park with a really nice dog-type guy and his kid and two dalmatians. It was at that point that we realized that Daca is no longer really doing fear aggression so much as being protective of me. So while Yishai does have the magic touch of unconditional, kind regard, it would appear that she's just guardy now. And I do know how to deal with that. Interesting how things change.
Aussies go through such interesting behavior stages as they grow up. Rippa has started up this teeth-clacking thing that she does at other dogs that is also clearly guardy behavior, and she is quick to bark at people from the car. All things we simply need to teach as not being appropriate, but it's never dull!
Two funny quirks that Fury has that Daca does, too: she leans on your right side while you drive - stands up on the little boot thing in the middle and leans into you. I always figured Fury did this to figure out how to balance, but it looks genetic or something.
And if you step on her feet, she caterwauls like nothing else. Fury does this, also. And with both of them, you only have to "appear" to have stepped on their feet. Strangest thing ever. One time an obedience trainer was trying to get Fury to straighten up and stamped on her feet and, ooooh boy, we never went back there. Fury was so hating on her. People have told me I should socialize that out of her, but frankly, it's not a big deal and if we want to have our quirks, so be it. So now I have two spotty dogs in my house with anti-foot fetishes.
Alina wrote to me apologetically earlier about not being able to talk much or send photos because she was so busy. I cannot tell you how cool it is that people really like having a relationship with me with the puppies. Yishai is still super squidgy over Motor Bear but I feel very little sadness in having sent him to Alina. The woman that referred her to me tells me that she is over the moon about her little dog and is, despite not having had a dog before, and instinctively good trainer. I had a feeling about her from our exchanges so I am glad that my instincts are not off.
Here are some photos of him:
On the couch! Approved. : ) He looks like he has Ben ears now . . . and how cute is he? Handsome boy.
Out of focus, but you can see how he's growing - 30 lbs by now. I read somewhere that at six months (which they are now) they're at 75% of the size they'll be as adults - so that puts Moto at like, 37 lbs. Little guy, but not too bad. We'll find out, I guess - I wonder if that includes the fill-out maturity or if we're just talking height?
I find it funny that this sequence is of him playing with a spaniel. For some reason every one keeps telling Yishai he has a beautiful spaniel. Eeek!
Ear funk-fantastic.
Also, how much do I love how she referred to him lately? Motik? Yes, please. Yishai and I still hear that Lady Gaga song and go, "Gimme my, gimme my Mo-tor Bear." You would think Rippa Bear would work, too, but it doesn't.
So, I have to say that when I look at Rippa, I sigh. She is a damn near perfect Australian Shepherd puppy, and a total success when it comes to what I was looking to do when I bred her. I'm also pretty happy that she was Yishai's pick because I wanted a red puppy and that he has such fine taste in dogs.
She is so structurally sound that I can't find a single fault on her. Nice length of neck, topline, gait, angulation; man, that dark chocolate, shiny coat! She's reserved but also kinda friendly, everything rolls off of her, she's brave and patient and calm and easy to live with and train.
But ever since that tick got in her ear, her earset has been rose. Oh no. Not that!
See, if this puppy does end up as perfect as I think she'll be, I will have my breed champion, oh yes I will. And Yishai is sad that she doesn't have triangle ears anymore, so . . . we had a discussion. I think it may be too far along to do much now, but I have to . . . my little perfect stockdog is getting a cosmetic lift:
Yes, her ears are taped. I happen to think this is the dodgiest thing that Aussie people do for their show dogs. If the ear doesn't naturally stay in the ideal set, so be it. My first red dog had rose ears and he was going to finish his championship anyway, so why am I doing it? Because dogs that look like this:
have a lot going against them. That's me at 13 or 14 with Trekki on his first Winners' Dog. I still have the frame. A dog with that light of bone and coat rarely wins these days, but I was good at handling and that was twenty years ago.
The interesting thing is he is pure conformation lines, and Rippa's going to have heavier bone and coat than he did. And maybe I'll have luck, but this time around, I need to do what I can to really help her out. Plus, as I said, Yishai gave his blessing. So she now has taped taco ears to encourage the side fold to get weaker. Hopefully it works.
The puppies are almost as big as Fury now:
Laura reports that Emma is probably bigger (and more stout), I know Reid and Moto are bigger, and I think Piper is the smallest. It's getting REALLY hard to tell with peripheral vision which dog is Daca and which is Fury. My mom had to keep asking me.
The girls are getting along a lot better now, so yay!
I need to mow the lawn in the back yard, for shizzle.
So Yishai and I have a new little ritual (that will end this week) in which he meets me with all the dogs at the dog park when I get home from work for ball throwing (Fury) and socialization (puppies). Rips used to be pretty intimidated by everyone and Daca used to be intimidated and also aggressive, but with time and patience, both of them have come around. When I got there, they were tearing it up with two big pit-bully type dogs and having a good time. The gal that has them says she's seen Daca there a couple times and there is SUCH an improvement.
With something like this, you go up and down. I was so high when I saw her work sheep, and when they fight, I am so low. But lately both of them are calling off before the fight starts and as I write this, they are bopping around chewing on eachother and lovin' on eachother. It's a beautiful thing.
Daca and Rippa have HUGE adult teeth now. They're still losing their babies as everything they chew on that becomes bloody can attest to.
Their big teeth get caught a lot. It's pretty funny. Happily both of them have nice scissors bites, so no worries there.
Eric and Rippa
Rips' head. I am quite sure we're getting out of the uglies now and going back to our original head style. Cute, yeah?
Took the puppies up to the Bay Area this weekend where both of them surprised me with their tractability around my nephews (who are 7 and 10) and I very nearly convinced my dad to keep Daca (who fell in love with him) but my parents don't want dogs now that they're retired. My sister liked her so much that she wanted me to sell her to her neighbor, but I couldn't do it.
Y, my sister, my dad, and me as the kids beg for literal cookies. I have no idea where my nephews are at this point, but . . . cookies?
Yishai and I both had a feeling that it was a bad idea. I also found it really cool that he took me aside and said the he really felt like she needed to go somewhere she'd work stock and do agility - that she'd be wasting her life as someone's house dog and probably not be what they wanted anyway.
Ahem, aren't I someone's house dog already?
Can I tell you how awesome he is? I never really paid attention that HE paid attention to this dog stuff all these years we were friends. He even noted the other day on a hike that she was crabbing, using the term correctly and everything. (What is crabbing? It's when a dog's back is too short and their feet crowd them when they trot, so they move their butt to one side as the move along. I always thought Daca's back was a bit short and it looks like it's manifesting now. She looks like she has all her adult proportions at this point so I think that will always be that way. Oh well, I knew she wasn't a conformation dog.)
Anyway, the puppies were inadvertantly exposed to cattle yesterday. Basically we were walking them in a big open space near my parents' house that's okay for off-leashage. When we went by cattle on the hills, we picked up the puppies and I just kept Fury heeling next to me. People kept warning us about cows going after them as they approached so I figured I'd just let Fury protect us all, but so far, no need.
All this order fell apart when we came up on another woman with two dogs, one off leash - a German Shepherd. Also, there was a gate and cows clumped around it. Being well trained in low stress stock handling by Kathy Warren, I kept the dogs back to see what this woman was going to do with her dogs and where the cows were going. She basically let her German Shepherd scared them out of the path and kept going. Fury was estatic about this bovine movement. Sheep do NOT do it for her, not like cows. But, she maintained heel and we let the woman pass. She asks if we need her dog to clear the cows and I stupidly open my mouth, "No, she's trained to deal with livestock."
As we go up the path toward the cows, she listens to me as I let her walk up to them to see if they'll yield to pressure, which they don't. One turns toward her and she takes the cue to challenge the cow, which yields and now all hell breaks loose because we were trying to go up the middle of the herd. Fury runs through them and tries to get out and around the left flank but I am calling her back because I REALLY don't need a herd of cows brought to me, I just want to get through. It looks like chaos as I am yelling at her to leave it and come back. I am quite sure the GSD lady thought I was a nut job. Oh, the hubris. I am so bad at handling livestock with my dog. Poor Fury. She was totally in the right with what she did, and she was pretty brave to boot.
All the while, I cannot go physically get her because my hands are occupied with Rippa, who thinks this new thing is awesome and Yishai is literally fighting to hold on to Daca who is squealing with joy the entire time and wriggling as best she can to get out of his arms and join Fury on the wild adventure.
It all lasts less than thirty seconds, but I am SO mad at Fury that it feels like an eternity before she comes back to me and we get through the gate.
I let the puppies back down and we cruise along, but I think all the excitement has amped them all so much that rather than trot merrily along with us, giving us time to corral them when we see cattle on the horizon, Fury sees the next group of cattle a quarter mile out and heads off to them, while I am totally not paying attention as I am watching as the cows we just dealt with are following us (remember, we were warned about angry bovines, and that was hardly a nice time for them).
Well, the puppies go off after Fury but I think they're just giong up the trail. Nope. Rippa and Fury have found a lone cow and Fury heads it and then goes around her before coming back to her on my recall. Rippa thinks this is cool and does the same. But, I guess, at least she comes back. Daca has somehow ended up down the hill and is face to face with a cow and is literally walking up on it calmly and then when it gives, she's backing away from it. And then she just left it alone. I was flabberghasted. She moved down the hill while I was collecting the evil errant dogs with Yishai left to get her back and apparently got herself in the middle of the herd with no harm done and got back out again.
I cannot tell you how pissed and mortified I was about this. All the dogs have previously been cool about ignoring cattle in the fields on off leash runs, but that GSD thing must have set Fury's brain off and the puppies had already turned on to sheep so cows looked good, too. It's time to retrain them, and ooooh, Fury . . . oooooh. I have always liked that she leaves stock alone unless asked to work them.
You do NOT screw with the cattle in people's fields. You do NOT. I felt awful about it, but at the same time, there's the silver lining of seeing my puppies behave really nicely on cattle, telling me I did a nice job once again in the breeding. Sorry guys that lease that land (though I am quite sure those cattle have seen worse). There is so much wrong in what happened above: my young puppies being exposed to unknown cattle (they weren't cow-calf pairs, thank God), my inexperienced handling of said young puppies, the fact that they were in that situation, the fact that I stressed the cows out, ugh. Never again. If you have a stockdog, don't get all tempted to let it mess with someone's cows. Would you do that in someone's yard with, say, someone's cat? Just don't. Ugh. But I thought I should share since obviously this blog isn't about hiding the truth.
Anyway . . . this cemented the idea that Daca can't go to just a pet home. She is talented and she needs to work. I'm thrilled she did so well with everyone and continues to. Yishai has decided to use his brand of training on her for a couple days to see what happens (I am more heavy handed than he is) so I have care of Rippa while he takes her around on errands and such. i like what I've seen him do so far. We took her to SLO Op and when she got weird on someone there, he just brought her up to them, made her sit and made her walk around the person. At which point she relaxed and either said hi to the person or trotted off and ignored. It's great.
Just wanted to end with "AREN'T I SO CUTE? WATCH ME DANCE!" I like how Y notices I'm taping and just goes right on doing it - manly men aren't ashamed of being awesome.
Little do-dad Daca learned to fetch and "take" today. That's sit, down, paw, stay, come, heel, hup, and those. Plus whatever else I've taught in the course of life (like "get back" in the car or "beat it" in my space). Such a cool little puppy.
So a few days ago, I got really worried. I'm not managing my new multi-dog household like many professionals would. We went and got an outdoor kennel/pen but I have yet to build it so we have have the house, the backyard, and crates. The dogs all generally get along and respect eachother's space, but we did have some major problems in Vegas.
Rippa, it would seem, is a touch territorial about her owner and his spaces. Daca's been on the receiving end of a couple puppy fights based on her going into his house and chewing on Rip's toys, and we discovered they don't really like to tolerate sitting next to each other on the bench seat of his truck. Talk about trying to get us into an accident. We slept in the bed of his truck (it has a camper shell on it) when we were in Vegas and the puppies got into what I think was territorial spats in the dark, which resulted in sharp puppy teeth bites on my hand when we separated them. Ouch. But up until now, Rips has been the one to start them and most of the time I thought she was in the right until recently.
When Daquiri came to us, she really had no concept of self control. She spazzed out everywhere, had no doggie manners with us or with the dogs. She's calmed down to a perfectly nice, livable dog now, but it took Rippa, Rex, Fury, me, Laura, and Yishai to show her the way, so I have let Rippa set her straight a lot.
Yishai and I were pretty bummed that the kids were fighting again.
I was waaaaaaaaay more bummed when one day Yishai came over to drop Rippa off for the day (they all stay out in the backyard and play and what not) and Daca totally jumped Rippa and would not stop it. Ooooh, I was so mad. I told her that she was unequivacally not to start things, and she respects me, so if I was there to stop it, she stayed away from Rippa (ideally, she wouldn't 'stay away' she would just quit giving the stink eye), but if not, puppy fight was on. They get super spitty and loose-tooth bloody. (Man, I need to get you a photo of their disproportionately large incisors right now, they look funny!) But, but, but, nothing happens.
So I was really worried about that. I had to go to work and not properly deal with it so I sat all day thinking about it while Dax was in a crate and Rips was outside with the Fury.
I came home and let Fury try to sort it out between them. Fury, having too strongly corrected her kids when they were much younger, had a hard time trying to figure out how to do it. I was really worried this was a "thing." It may yet be.
One of my most distinct memories of working for a vet in high school was that these two husky siblings would come in every month torn to shreds due to sibling rivalry. Two dogs of the same age and general weight and demeanor are going to have a hard time finding their pack order, and yeah . . . two bitches? Wee. I'm really worried about how we'll manage that if I don't find Dax a new home.
But, happily, after that day we have gone back to a happy, copacetic life in which we play and cuddle together and so long as there's no food protection to be had, everyone is friends.
Except, well, now Dax is trying to start stuff with the Fury (I have seen Rippa try, too), and miss Fury says OH HELL NO, but maybe not as strongly as I'd like her to (who would have guessed my firey little controlling dog would have this be an issue), but I am not too worried Daxy will get away with too much with Fury. And the Furs, for her part, is having a marvelous time separating the two when their play gets too rough, so she's doing a nice job of managing them for me.
But, all in all, here's a cute photo that shows you that yes, we can all be friends:
Adventure puppies had to endure three straight days in that pen with short opportunities to run around like lunatics in the morning and night while Yishai and I put on the Central Coast Adventure Challenge. THe guy that took this photo put it up on Facebook complaining that I would not sell "the baby red merle" to him. It's too bad I am so responsible - I could have had Daca sold 50 times over this weekend, but I'm not putting her in an inexperienced home. Yeah, that guy has an Aussie, but he does not have a high octane one, which Dax is. If she gets rehomed, she goes to someone that knows how to really handle an Aussie.
I have said before that the Fury is like a Ferrari - great handling and fun to drive, but in the wrong hands you'll crash and burn. Rippa is more like a rally car - handles nicely on and off road, but can go anywhere. Dax is definitely more taking after Fury on that one. But, well, she let people pet her this weekend, no sign of fear at all. I think a few more months and we'll get her back to where she was when she left: friendly, funny, and awesome.
So last week, when I left for Vegas, Daca had what I thought were five interested leads. Generally what happens is someone inquires off of a post or my website or a referral. I come back to them very honestly about why she is here and what she's up to - and these people are usually undeterred, many have rescue or behavior backgrounds and that means that I'd be comfortable sending her to them.
And then . . . nothing. And I mean, nothing.
It makes me wonder how rude our culture has become. I wrote a book about all my bad first-date experiences and the whole debacle feels about the same. Wow, I like this guy a lot - I wonder if this is going anywhere? Wait by the phone. Of course, you don't wait by the phone because you are stellar and the dude knows it, so maybe he's just busy . . .
So it goes with the Daquiri. She is a frickin' stellar puppy. I like living with her and training her and I like how she's all cute and roly poly while being an easy keeper. I like her structure. I like what I saw on sheep. I like what I see when I ask her to do her tricks. I have no clue why people who know her history and like her pedigree and her looks and her videos suddenly disappear.
I mean, you could at least be like, "No, thank you."
So, dear reader, that's your job for the day - remember that when you inquire after something to not just disappear, let the person get some dang closure - "No, thank you!"
So I really hate dating. Hate it. Who are you, sir, that you wish to take away from my already full life with your own interests and needs and baggage? Who are you, sir, that you ask that I should open up my world up to you - that you won't even hold the door or call when you say you will? I never get how people tolerate less than stellar people in their lives when dating. But say one of these less-than-stellar guys rejects me? OH MY GOD, what did I do wrong? Maybe I'm too fat, or not girlish enough or . . .
and you know what? I'm better than that. I know after all these years that rejection isn't of you, it's the person's baggage disallowing them to see you, the person. Rejection has nothing to do with you.
So I have to keep telling myself that about Daca. Who are you, person, that you deserve a puppy of the caliber of Daca, that you can accept who she is with all her quirks and foibles and still love her? And Kristin, what are you doing wrong? Nothing. There's nothing wrong with your approach - you're being honest and friendly and open. You're looking for someone that really, really wants her. You will not have her returned again. If those losers don't call or if you said something wrong, it's their problem, not yours.
So currently I've got no leads on her and I'm about to enter adventure race season. One this weekend, and then a tri in two weeks and then a race in two more weeks. I do not have much faith that she'll be leaving us any time soon. I wish I had more time to train her right now. But, she's a happy puppy who gets lots of fun times out, has a sister and momma to play with when I'm busy, and lots of running and hiking to do. Yishai comes over on my work days and takes them all to the park. It's not the situation I want for Daca, but I guess that's good enough.
Nothing defines an adventure dog quite like being able to chill at the bottom of a climb while your owners go off to climb rocks and then descend from the sky. This weekend Yishai and I set off to Las Vegas for a climbing trip. We met up with one of my best friends and her roommate (from Canada) and two of my friends, Eddie and Eric came up as well. We left Momma at home as managing puppies plus Fury would have just been too much. Fury got to hang out with Laura and get fat.
Well, adventure puppies did pretty good. They handled camping in style (though we're having enclosed-space sibling rivalry which means that certain things piss miss Rippa off and poor Daca gets into a fight with her. They don't do much other than chew on eachother's neck and get spitty, though it must hurt a bit. Why do I know this? Because when separating puppies in the heat of battle in the dark in the back of a pickup truck, one gets bitten. Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. Our fault for not managing the girls better. We're all copacetic now that we have been giving them separate space and are back home again. I remember seeing two husky sisters come in every month or so when I worked at a vet for fights. Bitch fights suck. Sibling fights, yeah.
Anyway, here are some photos from the trip:
Daca's preferred riding spot - seriously. She does it all on her own. I would also like to comment that my puppies are suuuuuuuuper mellow. Seven hour drive to Vegas and back and not a peep. They just went to sleep and that was that. No potty breaks needed, even.
The boys roping up with Daca watching. It took a couple days of ignoring her, but then Daca got up in their laps and that was that -- friends!
So one of the funny things about the puppie is that Rippa HATES water, right? She will scale technical rock face before she will touch it. For instance, the rock in the foreground? She climbed up and down it to get to where I was. Daca, however, sensibly decided that swimming there was smarter.
While we were doing that, Alina was trying Moto out on sheep:
As I kind of suspected when I sent him to her, Alina is now hooked. He was the youngest dog at the fun day and it took a bit to get him going (see the border collie moving them for him?) but then it was on. She says there's another in two weeks and she is definitely going. She also reports that he is bored at puppy kindergarten because he knows everything. :)
Speaking of puppy kindergarten, here's our Hyper Piper - who is also the star (actually, all three puppies in kindergarten appear to be Best in Class -- not that I am surprised!):
So Tuesday was my birthday, and it was about the most perfect day I could have had. Lazy morning, then we needed to go out to the lake to cut some poison oak so we swung by Sandy Ogg's to expose the kids to sheep. Sandy's very kind - she hosts sheep and agility clinics for people on Wednesdays for free. Her husband came out to help us set up and away we went.
While I do not have good timing, and this was definitely not a training session, it was pretty cool:
Daca:
I love how she turned on really fast - and what a nice sense of group she has. I couldn't get her to take them off the fence though. I think she was too intimidated for that. But a nice showing.
Rippa:
Rips took a second to figure it out - which, knowing her personality, I kind of expected. I finally got impatient and split them, which she clearly found quite fun. Oops? Splitting sheep's not a big deal to me, though. She'll figure out it's much nicer to keep them together when we really start to train them.
And then it was time to go back to the lake:
SHAKE OFF!
Rippa doesn't like getting wet and will find any kind of sand to roll in:
It's a good thing we're friends with the rangers and I can hose the beasts off after stuff like this!
I have to admit that I obsess about puppy earsets. So Rippa's went off yesterday and was all comb-overy again this morning. So I was rolling it and felt a swelling, like a . . . tick. And lo and behold, it was, indeed, a tick. The swelling made her ear go off. Oops!
So yesterday I was supposed to be grading, but it got canceled so Yishai and I headed back up to the lake to do more gardening. Yes, I actually like this stuff. The puppies are all at level 2 adventure dogging (level 3 is the highest). Rippa's not so good with water (any way to avoided will be taken, even insanely stupid ways) and Daca's not so good at rock scrambling. My methodology is just to keep going. They work out the challenge themselves.
Here I am with Fury - Yishai comments that the gaiters make me look like some kinda German soldier, so Mine Fury is giving her salute. (Yes, this is a bad joke on many levels, but you know how dogs' tendons only allow them to make that gesture when you straighten their legs? And Fury is pretty close to "Furor" so yeah, it happens.)
So here is the objective - clear the path behind me and mark pink tape to show the racers where to go (if they are paying attention).
It was kinda hot, so Fury taught Daca about shade.
Here we are on the slabs at our highest elevation.
Y attacking poison oak on the trail (yes, the trail goes through/along creeks).
Rippa ran down this formation. It's gotta be about 8 feet tall. Yipes! Good Adventure Puppy!
Momma with kids in tow and Yishai
Can anyone say TICKS? YES.
And then we had a bonfire/BBQ to go to. We left Fury and Daca at home and brought a very tired Rips. She enjoyed my little practice fire dancing balls (aka poi):
Which then led to maybe something dangerous, but nothing happened:
