We are sending out 2010 quietly at home tonight. Casey is snoozing on her puppy bed. She now weights 45 lbs. We have Radison spending a couple of days with us while her family goes skiing. She is a joyful pup. Casey and Radison get along very well. They are only 10 days apart and both are black but their builds are almost opposites. Casey is on the stocky square side of labs and Radison is more like a gazelle with a long lean face. The two of them love to share a toy and play a gentle game of keep away. Happy new year to all the puppies in training and working dogs out there.
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Casey’s Christmas
We had a quiet Christmas morning at home with just our family. Then we drove to Tooele to have Christmas dinner with Bill’s mom and brother. I got Casey a cute little jungle bell collar and anklets when we order toys from King Wholesale last week. It was only $1.47. Bow & Bell Collar She looks very cute in it. Casey didn’t love the anklets so I took them off after an little while. We had a calm and enjoyable Christmas day. Merry Christmas to all the pups and people of the world!
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| Casey in her Bows & Bells outfit |
7 Months Old
Casey turned 7 months old today! The time goes so fast it is hard to believe that we have had her for almost 5 months already. She is a good girl and so much fun to have around. She loves to run wild around the house after walks. She is great at night sleeping loose in our bedroom and rather patient in the morning waiting for breakfast. She is making progress on jumping into the car. She loves to have her belly rubbed and sometimes she is just a silly little girl. She is still a little “hoover” thinking she needs to check the floor around the house for the tiniest little crumb. Casey is our little cow girl because of they mooing noises she often makes.
This photo was taken by Lisa Thompson.
Club Christmas Dinner
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| Langley, Radison, Kasha, Joe, Cobb, Joshua & Casey (photo from Bruce) |
Our puppy club got together for dinner at Archibald’s at Gardner Village. Bill got stuck at work and we were an hour late so we actually missed all the dinner part and got there just in time for the puppy pictures. We lined all seven puppies in our club against a wall and tried to get them to all sit still at the same time. It was pretty funny but eventually we got most of them sitting at the same time. Lisa brought us disks with the puppy pictures she took last week. She always does such a great job. I think I’ll have to have an enlargement printed of each of our puppies as an official portrait.
Puppy Photo Shoot
Lisa set up a photo shoot for any of the puppies in the club that wanted to have their pictures taken at the Murray Library tonight. She did this last year and the photos of Banta turned out so good that there was no way I was going to miss this. I made Casey a little Christmas ruffle to go around her neck and took some ribbons too. Lisa and Karen also had reindeer antlers too. It was fun seeing how each of the puppies react to the props and having their photo taken with the full set of lights and back drops. Here are a few of my favorite shots.
Regional Christmas Party
Today was the big regional puppies in training Christmas party at the Center for the Blind. There were more than 30 dogs there, including some career change dogs. It was fun to see Clifford again. We enjoyed a pot-luck meal and then they divided us up into 3 groups to play games. One of them was dog tick-tack-toe. In this version the pup has to stay in a sit or a down. If he gets up then the spot opens up for the other team to take the square. Bruce got this great shot of pup tick-tack-toe.
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| Puppy Tick-Tack-Toe |
He also took some cute photos of Phoenix who has transferred out of our club. His raiser’s work wasn’t cooperating with him being there and she felt bad about him being alone so much.
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| Phoenix |
After the games we had the gift exchange. It was fun to see the variety of dog related gifts and which ones everyone wanted. Poor Joe kept getting his gifts stolen. It was a fun evening. It is amazing that you can have so many dogs in one room and they all get along so well.
Pulled for Breeding
We got an email today saying that Banta has been pulled for final breeder evaluations. Of the eight dogs that went back for breeder evaluations only two are still being considered for breeding, Banta and another yellow lab female named Nordica. It will probably take another 4 to 6 weeks for Banta to confirmed as a breeder. The next news will probably be a call from the breeding department.
Obedience at Murray Library
Our puppy class today was on practicing our stays. We met at the Murray Library in the big room. It was so fun to see all those puppies lined up working on not breaking out of their sit-stays. They really are amazing little dogs.
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| Puppies in sit-stay |
Trip to "Our House"
Our local cub scout pack makes a trip every year to a local nursing home called “Our House” to decorate their Christmas tree and sing a few carols with them. The boys did a great job working together to get the tree done and then we gathered for some singing. One of the boys even played the piano for the residents. That is a first since I have been in cub scouts. Casey did a good job and didn’t even scare anyone. The year I took Apex one of the ladies was deathly afraid of dogs so we had to keep a very low profile.
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| Casey “helping” to decorate the tree |
telling family tales 