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| Casey and Waffle happily enjoying a rest on the cool grass |
Today Lisa and I took the girls for a relaxing walk in the park. It was pretty hot so we stuck to the shade as much as possible. We all enjoyed ourselves especially when we just hung out in the cool shade for awhile. Casey and Waffle are so cute together. I can’t help but remember when Banta was the grown-up dog and Casey was the little one.
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| Waffle, in Bill’s arms, just off the puppy truck |
Puppy #4 arrived today at 1:00 p.m. and she has the cutest face. She is a nice temperament with enough confidence but not overly bold and dominate. Several people at the puppy truck said that we won the name lottery with Waffle. I think it seems to suit her just fine. We are looking forward to getting to know her and getting those first adjustments to house living under our belts. Sleeping through the night being one of those milestones.
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| Waffle a few minutes later |
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| Casey holding a GoughNuts stick and a Nylabone ring |
Our sweet Casey is 11 months old today. She is growing up into a really good dog. We are amazed at how confident she has become since those early days. We went to Cabelas today and she actually paid attention to the taxidermy bear they have on display. She would stick her head through the railing to get as close a look as possible. Then she let out one of those deep low barks that means “don’t mess with me.” I gave her a correction for barking but it was rather funny. Since she is 11 months old lets see if I can come up with 11 things that I enjoy about Casey:
We are really enjoying raising Casey and look forward to see how she will mature in the next few months that we have her here. There is a puppy truck coming on May 13th and puppy #4 might be on that truck. We should find out in the next couple of weeks. I sure hope we can continue the trend and get a “D” puppy.
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| Clifford and Casey |
Clifford came to stay at our house for a few days while his new family went to St. George. He has been to our house for sleepovers before while he was a puppy in training. It has been fun to have Clifford part of my extended family since my sister adopted him. Clifford was career changed from Guide Dogs for the Blind for cataracts. They are still searching to find the right training so Clifford can help her boys as much as possible with their challenges.
Casey and Clifford has lots of fun together. They are rather kindred spirits in that they are both rather calm laid back dogs. They can even go for walks together without any trouble. We really enjoyed having Clifford stay with us and it is so great to have another dog in the family, especially one as special as Clifford
Casey is 8 months old today! It is hard to believe she is that old. If she goes back at 14 months we are now at the half way point. Boy does time ever go fast with these puppies. She is surely growing up because I noticed on Thursday that she was in season. I was hoping she would wait until she was much older like Banta did. Now we might end up having go through two seasons with Casey. 28 days is such a long time when we only have these pups for a year.
Casey is growing up nicely. She is a calm girl with a lot more confidence than we imagined she would have when she came off the truck. She has her challenges. She has chewed through three ropes in the last month and two puppy leashes in the last week. We are trying bitter apple to help with the leash chewing and absolutely no rope chewing only tug time. Her nylabone chewing has matured too. She has always enjoyed chewing her bones but hasn’t been that effective in actually wearing them down. While we were in Florida Casey took about an inch off one side of her wishbone. Since than she has chewed the side down to a nub and has started on the other side.
Speaking of Banta we still haven’t heard any news on her from the Breeding Department. Nordia the other female that went back the same time as her that was still in evals was confirmed as a breeder this last week. So every time the phone rang I would wonder and hope that it was the GDB on the line calling with news of Banta. I sure hope we hear from them this week. I wonder what is holding up the decision?
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.
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 |
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.
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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.
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.
telling family tales 