Georgie’s Agility Debut
The most amazing princess puppy had her agility debut! Check out her video below.
My mom admitted to me she was disappointed Georgie didn’t get any Qs, but I don’t see anything in her runs to be disappointed with. I am very proud and pleased with Georgie. She did a lot of things I knew were potential trouble spots for her debut: she did the tire instead of trying to go around/under it. She got on the rubberized contacts and stayed on them instead of being disturbed by the texture and bailing. She got her weaves. She didn’t drop any bars. She did tunnels splendidly! And she even did the chute despite not wanting to go through it the first time. So many good things she did, I just can’t find it in myself to be at all upset or disappointed in what she DIDN’T do. Even though she didn’t ride the teeter all the way down and got an E for that.
For a baby dog who has been mostly trained by somebody who has never actually done agility before, and who ONE WEEK ago didn’t want to even go halfway up a teeter set all the way to the ground, I think she’s a rock star. Little Georgie is entered in two more trials this year before she gets to break for the winter, so we’ll see how she shapes up over the next several weeks!
Happy Birthday Pepper!!
It’s Pepper’s FIFTH birthday today, but her first birthday with me – so of course I wanted to have a nice party for her. I asked her months ago if she wanted a Princess Party and she wagged her tail.
Princess Party it is.
First we had a good time outside. Payton has finally decided she is no longer in season enough to warrant harassment so they were all able to be out together!
Of course it didn’t matter much because Payton was doing this.
“YAY BIRTHDAY!”
My girly <3
My girl and her brudder Auggie. She loves her Auggie.
And then there’s this one. Her real brother. Who… well she doesn’t really want to be touching him right now or anything if that’s okay.
But you can totally tell they’re related.
Then more of this happened.
Pepper with her niecelette <3
And later we were all back inside for PRINCESS PARTY!!!
Pepper got her own special birthday princess hat and everybody else had to wear tiaras.
Including the boys.
TIARAS.
Auggie is very pretty.
Geeeeeorgie. Georgie got a pink tiara, I put purple ones on the boys. Because purple is slightly more manly.
Birthday Princess!!
Oh LOLOL Payton.
Cupcake time!! (I made my mom hold the dogs while I took photos this time, after Payton’s sad birthday photos.)
Mmmmm… pink cuppycake.
“Oh I will just lick it…”
“Until I NOM.”
My dad wanted to give Payton his cupcake because Payton is so gentle and delicate.
Om nom nom.
I also decided to break Auggie’s cupcake into pieces after he swallowed his cupcake whole on Payton’s birthday.
…aaaaaand off goes Auggie’s tiara.
Georgie is super cute in her tiara.
I don’t even have to share any of Georgie’s other cupcake eating photos because this one is the best.
Pepper got a little pink bunny-ball for her birthday. For a while she didn’t play with it at all and the other dogs grabbed it… THEN she wanted to play with it. Because I think it then tasted like cupcake. Ohhhh Pepper.
Even I wore a tiara! So did my mom but she wouldn’t appreciate me sharing her photo I don’t think. My dad bailed before this happened or I would probably have made him wear a tiara too…
Happy happy birthday my best and only girl. <3
Georgie’s Second Birthday
Yesterday, I learned that one of the most amazing dogs I have ever had the pleasure to know had left this world. A great dog who touched the heart of everyone who knew her, and gave me such wonderful partners in life like Auggie and Pepper, had me determined to bring Payton home because I did not WANT to find any other puppy but a dog that had her genes in him, and inspired us to name her little great grand-daughter Georgette, or “Georgie” for short – in honor of the wonderful Georgia.
Today Georgie is two years old.
How do you reconcile pain, grief, and loss of something so great it leaves holes in the hearts of many – against the joy and happiness of a birthday of a great little puppy, one who was named for her, one who is given the great challenge of measuring up to her namesake, or at least giving us a clear reminder us of her lineage?
This is the path we walk in life, especially when we choose to open our hearts to dogs. Loss and pain hand in hand – or hand in paw? – with joy and hope for the future.
Happy Second Birthday Georgie. And run free Georgia, forever in our hearts, and in the blood of all my wonderful dogs. Thank you for everything.
So her birthday was a slightly subdued affair. Challenging for my heart, and yet she is a great little dog who deserves a birthday. Not for me to hug her and cry and miss what we no longer have, but to hug her and laugh and celebrate what we DO have.
And what we have is an ice cream cone.
My mom didn’t buy her any presents because my dad says she has too many toys already, but he can’t stop ME, so I bought her a small Chunky the Monkey Kong stuffed toy. No photos of her getting the monkey because my camera batteries were dead unfortunately, but I can tell you that she has already chewed off his tail, so clearly she likes him.
Happy birthday best baby girly.
You have so much to live up to.
Payton and Georgie’s First Fun Run!
Well, thanks to my mom apparently not understanding “PUSH THE BIG RED BUTTON TO RECORD” I only have one video of Payton. I impromptu decided this morning to take Georgie – it was only $5 and I thought it would be good to get her in a ring and have her do some jumps. Plus I am generally in a less serious mood playing with her, so I thought it might lighten my mood to bring her along. I thought about taking Auggie but he HATES the floor in this building so much, so I didn’t. I wished I had, but when I say he hates the floor I’m not kidding, so it wouldn’t have been fair to him.
Somehow my mom managed to get video of all three of Georgie’s runs… just not Payton.
Anyway, Payton did fairly good, no new problems presented themselves, all stuff I was expecting and dare I say maybe a bit better than I expected. One of the people I trial with locally showed up with their dog and I was like “oh yaaaay… people to see the terror…” hahaha. He took jumps, even most of the ones I asked him to take. He didn’t pee on anything, though he considered peeing on the table the first time he jumped on it. And he didn’t drop any bars. (I decided to run him at 12″ instead of 16″ today. He’s a baby, I don’t care.) He did surprisingly well considering what a horrible dog he is. My plan was to totally avoid all contact obstacles, but everything was basically right in our path and, well, we do have a teeter and have been working on it – so I took a chance with him. The first run (no video) he was like “errr nope, dunno” and took a pass on it. The second run (no video!!) he put a few steps on it then changed his mind, so I took him back and tried it again just telling him “go touch” – and this time he did a BEAUTIFUL drive to the end then once it was down stepped into a perfect 2o2o. I’m so mad I don’t have video of that. I was happily stuffing food down his throat while he held his 2o2o and specifically stepped out of the way so my mom could get it on the video… *flips table*
The third time he slid off the teeter, and it bounced up behind him while he was sitting there, which he believed warranted a telling off of the teeter for being rude. Yeah. That one’s mine.
Be warned, he doesn’t shut up for most of this video, so you might want to mute it. Also sorry for the Blair Witch Project type filming, apparently my mom had been drinking today.
Georgie was the surprise superstar, though I’m pretty sure my mom was underselling her to people and then when I ran her everybody was like “……” I couldn’t remember if she had ever seen a chute before – we just found mine buried in the storeroom – so I tried to put her through it, but no go. The first time a lady outside the ring said “oh, let’s lift the chute up and get her through it!” so we did that and she went through. I thought she might try again after that but nope. Not her fault, I really don’t remember if she’s ever seen one before or not, and I kinda think no.
Neither dog has ever done the table before (hence why I’m saying “on,” it’s just our cue for climbing up on something) so excuse all the shoddy table stuff, it’s their very first time just playing on it. I figured why not? I paid my money, let them see it.
Very proud of the baby girly today. And Payton was not terrible. I would have liked better, but for a baby dog I think he did pretty good. I realize on video they probably look fairly similar. I realize I’m being harder on Payton since he’s mine and I’ve trained him so my standards are higher. He got lots of cheese and kisses and got to sit in my lap between his second and third runs, so don’t feel sorry for him.
Happy Fourth of July Grooming!
I’ve needed to groom the dogs for almost a month now but kept putting it off hoping we could get my new tub at my house and I could spare my back. No such luck. So since I had today off I did The Groomings.
Mr. Payton. <3 <3
I swear I don’t abuse her. It’s just, you know. Pepper. She would NOT put her ears up which is unusual because normally if you just say “Pepper!” she puts her ears up. No go. She’s in season so has NO coat right now. I mean she is really really naked.
Georgie. I kept trying to put her back legs close together and she REFUSED to let me do it. I’d set one down and pick up the other and she’d pop the other out. I am mildly concerned about this. She also stands kinda froggy with her back legs turned out a little. She’ll be two on the 25th and her AKC reg just went through, so hopefully we’ll get her OFA’d and see what turns up.
My Auggie doggie who had the most hair to shed of everybody, and was very upset with me, because his hair has never really been a texture where fur just falls out easily… so I had to v-e-r-y carefully brush and be careful not to snag and pull too much. =< Poor guy.
UGH MY BACK
Back Stalls (or Push-up with Puppies)
Here’s Payton, Georgie, then Auggie who fails at the whole “stall” part of this game LOL. But he’s adorable and I don’t really care. Seriously for like ten minutes he jumped back and forth over me and I laughed the entire time. Also he totally whacked me in the head with his paw. And I still laughed.
Including a blooper at the beginning because we were trying to get the shot set up and neither of us realized my mom was cuing Payton to spin and he was totally doing it…
(yes I know my form is rubbish, these do not count as real push ups.)
Both P and Georgie are doing pretty good with me moving under them considering we just started this trick, but mostly just getting them more comfy with me moving while they’re standing rather than a sit. Payton is trickier because his weight is distributed along my entire back… my butt was up way higher than it should be for a push up because I was trying to keep him from sliding down along my back. We’ll have to keep working on it so he learns to distribute his weight forward a bit and NOT slide off. Georgie is easier because she’s small so fits pretty close to my shoulders and that’s about it. =P
Happy Second Birthday Payton
First I tried to get some nice photos out in the yard at lunch. This is the best he wanted to give me.
Seriously?
They threatened it might rain today and for a good while it looked like it would, but I promised Payton if it didn’t rain we would take a special birthday trip to the forest…
…so he could play in the lake.
Ugh seriously don’t drink that.
He fell off the ledge where people slide their boats in and went plop into the lake. Then he kept going over to the ledge and falling off. Like six times. I think he was enjoying it.
There were some people here fishing so we stayed away from the dock except to get this one photo. He didn’t want to jump off it anyway.
Watching some people go by. Lots of folks came out to fish.
More romping in the water.
Happy puppy!
Then we went for a hike so he could dry off. He was supremely distracted and un-photogenic.
These were all taken on my cellphone anyway so it’s not like anything miraculous was going to happen.
Last shot as the sun was setting. He was a super good boy. Saw lots of runners and bikers, and I would pulled him off to the side and asked him to sit and stay while they went past, and three bikers and two runners were like “wow your dog is super well behaved. Thanks.”
Then we came home and it was time for PARTY!
Tiny cupcake for my boy who is TWO.
Photos are taken by my mom who has apparently never taken a photo before in her life. Sigh.
OMG OMG BIRTHDAY I LOVE BIRTHDAY
I nom nom nom!
Yesssss birthday is THE BEST
Pepper’s turn to get a cupcake. I love how this is the only photo where you can tell Payton is wearing his bowtie for his party.
This is seriously the best photo I have of Pepper – and it’s hysterical because of Payton’s face in the background.
Auggie would like to nom his cupcake in one bite please (and he totally did. Yikes.)
Girly Georgie actually wore her hat this year therefore she got cupcakes this year.
No photos of her eating her cupcake because it was seriously a sight to behold and one that photographs cannot convey. She was making noises like AHAUM HAUM HAUM HAUM and just ate through it like she was trying to bite her way through a paper bag.
Presents!! This is a new bottle sheep. He also got a stuffed sheep my sister bought him but that photo didn’t turn out.
A new gator toy, this one crackles AND squeaks.
And another gator for his crate – they say this has a double layer of fabric so it’s supposed to be a tough toy. We shall see…
“Oh I had the very bestest birthday ever!”
Happy birthday my little puppy baby. <3
Springy Shelties
The, uh, whatever these purple things are, those are blooming. So I took some photos.
Baby Georgie!!
She’s a pretty little (bad) girl.
Family photo. Pepper was (clearly) not cooperating much. Also I should start a new game where I keep a running tally of how many photos I take of Payton where he’s ruining the photo because he’s looking in the tree for squirrels.
Slightly less squinty Pepper… you’d think she never sees daylight or something…
Georgie refused to sit up (worst. posing. dog. ever.) so I told Payton to down to try and balance it out a bit more.
I got everybody to down actually. Auggie had to ask me like six times if I really wanted him to down THERE and not get up and come down to me (YES I mean DOWN, RIGHT THERE, NOW) and Pepper had to be lured down. And then Auggie was unhappy because I told him “now” and that’s not nice. Sigh…
Georgie and Uncle Auggie!
I would have more but my back was still acting up a bit (super super sore from the half-marathon… what??) so I didn’t want to push it taking too many photos. We are officially into nice weather now though so I think we are clear for more cute shots.
Sheltie Easter 2013
Mercifully it did not rain as much as they said it was supposed to, so we were spared the ultra muddy conditions I was expecting for this year’s Easter egg hunt!
As usual Auggie’s all “EGGS YEAH” and everybody else is all “derp de der what are we doing?”
Big dog loves this game.
Payton has no idea how to play. “I FOUND ONE OF THESE BALL TYPE THINGS IT SMELLS LIKE FOOD YAY”
I can’t believe he’ll be two in a few months, mostly because he still acts like a big dumb puppy all the time.
Georgie found an egg!! And Payton’s egg rolling behind her.
Pepper’s all “oh hey guys what’s going on over here?” (Auggie, meanwhile, is off grabbing all the other eggs like nobody’s business. There are no photos because it’s NOBODY’S BUSINESS.)
Payton’s still playing with the same egg. Derrrrr.
Georgie got her egg open to eat the cookie! Yay!
PEPPER FOUND AN EGG! She didn’t know how to open it so I had to help her, but I was very proud of her that she picked it up at all. Then of course she tried to pick up the empty shell like =D =D. No honey… no. It’s okay.
Payton found another egg (he accidentally broke his first one open and was like “!! There’s a COOKIE in here!”)
This started another round of running around with an egg in his mouth. And Georgie has no idea how to play the game either. CHASE PAYTON
Payton discovered the mass amounts of eggs at his 2x2s and was like “wait, what?” He tried to pick up both.
Okay, one more of Auggie hunting.
He loves this game. I should probably do stuff like this more often. I think his eyesight is definitely going because he wasn’t quite as snappy at it this year…
Okay, ONE more… because I hid this orange one by the basketball and it’s appropriate for Auggie…
Payton still derping with his green egg, the other eggs by the weave poles long forgotten.
Everybody’s baskets – Georgie ended up finding THREE, beating Payton’s two (I didn’t count the weave pole one he left behind because Auggie was immediately on it, opened it, and scampered off.) and Pepper only found the one. Auggie’s basket obviously is the overflowing one. =P
Family photo with baskets!
Family photo outtake. Oh Pay.
Another family shot. Georgie was like “I’m done with this (#*!” and kept laying down. Fine, whatever.
Auggie with his basket.
Pepper’s single egg hahaha. Poor dumb girly.
Payton has no idea why he’s so excited. As per usual.
“Squirrel??” Typical Payton.
Baby girly and her three eggs!
The end. Overall it turned out to be a very nice morning to hunt eggs considering one week ago we were getting over a foot of snow dumped on us.
Big snow dump, big photo dump
This had better be the last photo dump of snow-covered shelties until we’re actually in WINTER again.
It was still coming down heavily while we were out playing. Every few minutes somebody had to shake off to prevent themselves from becoming one with the massive snowfall in the yard.
Payton is not sure what’s happening but it’s kind of fun. Or terrible. Blizzards are awesome! Or maybe the worst??
Frosted pup.
Auggie puttering around in the snow.
Georgie is frolicking. But only for a little while. It’s hard to frolick when the snow piles are almost as big as you. Kinda wears you out.
Auggie appears to think there’s something under the snow and he should immediately plunge his face into the snow to discover what’s beneath it.
Pirate Auggie McSnowBeard has made his return! Arrrrr!
See? I told you they had to keep shaking off…
Georgie and Payton are wrestling and racing.
Pepper isn’t amused by this whole thing. What is this crap? It was 60 degrees yesterday!
More chasing from Payton and Georgie…
Georgie getting Auggie in on the fun. I’m pretty sure he was running off to bark at something and she thought he was playing chase…
A very weird mid-shake photo for Payton.
“YAAAAAY!”
“IIIIII’M PAYTON!!!!”
Baby Georgie, taking a quick breather.
This is Payton.
Payton likes it when I throw snowballs at him.
Pepper wanted to get in on the snowball catching too.
Throw it throw it throw it throw it throw it throw it
Wheeeee!
The kiddos chasing snowballs.
Reaaaaadyyyyyyy…
Oh wait, now ready?
GETIT
Pretty little girl, all frosted from snow!
Auggie would also like a snowball plz.
CATCH.
He didn’t catch the second one, haha.
More from Payton – he’s having fun at least.
THROW IT
Her nails look RIDICULOUS here. I swear they aren’t that bad but she must be all grippy or something when she jumps because they look really bad.
Playing yaaaay~
First picture in which I can tell she’s related to Payton.
Playing doesn’t last very long…
HERE IS A LOVELY PHOTO OF PAYTON
I was trying to take a photo of Auggie and he came up, stuck his chin on my arm, and was like “Hi Mom throw snowball plz.”
But I still got my photo of Auggie.
The end.
It better be. >=|
Snowy Shelties
I think it’s done dumping on us, but we got a decent amount of snow in a very short amount of time. I came home from work and immediately took the dogs outside. I put their coats on because it was blowing like crazy (the blowing and drifting in the country is going to be a MAJOR problem for people tonight!)
Pepper THINKS she likes this. She certainly likes to lick the snow off the ground.
This was happening.
My Auggie-man.
Pepper is… mmmmmmaybe not a fan of the blowing.
P don’t give a @#(!
Trying to get good photos of Georgie, but it was really cold and she was shivering a lot. I didn’t keep her out very long.
Too bad ’cause she’s super cute LOL.
It just. kept. snowing.
Ahhh baby Pay. I was trying to get him all crazy but whenever I’d grab a handful of snow he’d sit and wait for me to throw it… good dog I guess haha.
More Auggie <3 <3
Auggie was mad because I told him to stop barking at the sound of the salt trucks rolling around the city. =P
“Where is the squirrel Payton?”
“Please throw the snowball, I can’t sit here any longer.”
Baby Georgie. Not impressed by the blowing snow either.
Sheltie Christmas 2012
Spoiler for anybody who hasn’t gotten my Christmas card yet. These are the photos I shot to pick one to go along with the card:
Christmas Eve… I tried to take some of those “glowing” tree shots and I got laser eyes on all the dogs in several of the photos. So forgive the weird looking eyes in some of these. I thought to myself “I am buying an external flash in the new year!” and then I saw how much they cost and NEVERMIND. I’ll just shoot with the lights on and forget this.
Perfect Auggie.
Little P.
Ahhh Miss Pepper!
And Georgie who was pissing my mom off mostly because she listens to me better than she listens to my mom…
Then I tried close up shots on everybody, which worked better as far as the camera settings went, but since I had my focus on manual because the autofocus kept trying to focus on the tree instead of the dogs, Auggie and Payton didn’t come out in focus. I’m horrible with manual focus. It looks sharp on the preview screen and then bam, out of focus when I open the photo.
That said:
Pepper wins the “cutest Christmas photo” contest this year.
Though Georgie got a pretty cute one too.
Presents!! Payton helping Georgie open her present from me.
I told him to leave her alone and come open his own LOL.
“But I wanna see what SHE got!” Georgie ceases to care because I put a little baggie of treats in their and she only wanted the treats.
I found this gator super cheap at Gordman’s and since he hasn’t managed to tear up Sherman, I bought the gator too.
He pulled it out of the bag by himself.
I think he likes it.
Auggie is an expert at getting his presents out of bags and dragged this shark skin right out and started running around shaking it at people and asking to play TUG. I was thrilled because Auggie isn’t a big tugger, but he wanted to tug with this thing!
Georgie stole the shark (I took it back and told her I’d kill her if she ripped Auggie’s new shark toy) so Auggie got his second present out of the bag – a big sheep ball that is supposed to be extra tough.
Payton’s second present, another gator that makes a grunty-squeak sound. Super annoying so perfect for P. Georgie also tried to immediately rip THIS up so my mom had to take it from Georgie and give it back to Payton.
Auggie went to lay down under the tree once all the presents were cleared away, as is customary since he was a teeny tiny puppy playing chase games with his tiny puppy brother under the tree at his breeder’s house… I admit this moment is always one of my favourites…
Poor Pepper didn’t know how to open her gifts and didn’t want to even stick her head in the bag so I opened them for her. I bought her a pink sheep all of her own. She was too worried about my dad sitting on the floor across the room to play with it though.
Both of her “gifts.” I’m working on getting HER to tug next.
I had a pile of the bows sitting next to me and Payton kept thieving one and running off like it was a ball LOL.
Stockings from this morning! Most of these didn’t turn out but you get the idea…
Auggie got a new ball for the Chuck It!
I bought Pepper another sheep all her own LOL. It’s got long legs so she can tug on it… because again, tug with Pepper = next. She also got a rope bone that tastes like peppermint and she LOVES it. None of the photos of her chewing it turned out though. =< I didn't realize she was going to like it so much but she immediately curled up with it and chewed on it!
Auggie’s other ball, haha. He has a large one of these that we use on a flirt pole, this one is just for fetch AND ALSO FOR TUGGING BECAUSE AUGGIE NOW LIKES TUG SOMETIMES YEAH.
Payton playing with Auggie’s new Chuck It ball. He got a new ball on a rope toy to tug and play with for agility so we tugged with that for a while but he was quite interested in the ball too.
That’s it! Merry Christmas. I didn’t get a puppy. (My mom keeps going YOU DON’T NEED ANOTHER DOG YOU HAVE THREE. YOU DON’T NEED ANOTHER PUPPY YOU HAVE PAYTON. I may not NEED another dog but that doesn’t stop me from WANTING one…)
Auggie is seven
So I am a major idiot and completely forgot what day Auggie’s birthday ACTUALLY was. You would think it would be easy. Auggie 15th, Payton 16th, Pepper 17th. But NO… somehow I thought it was 11/11 instead of 11/15.
So these first few are from Sunday when we had Auggie’s party.
I gets cakey?
Yes you get cakey! These are based off a recipe I make for myself… just a mashed ripe banana, one egg, and some peanut butter, and I microwaved them until they were like a moist cake.
Birthday boy gets to sit at the table.
Okay, since I was originally planning on giving Auggie a caramel apple I got free at work and then I opened the caramel apple to discover it was moldy, I had to hurry up and make the cake in a rush. So I took them out and they were hot so I was blowing on it to cool it off, LOL. Auggie was like DON’T CARE WANT CAKEY.
NOM
Everybody else got theirs out of their bowls.
Pepper… took a bite and I’m not sure if she was surprised it was soft or that it was warm, because she then dropped it on the kitchen floor and ran off.
Don’t worry, Payton will clean it up. (Don’t feel bad he got two, Auggie got two also actually. I gave Auggie one, gave the other dogs one, then Auggie had another while I sat at the table with him and ate one too LOL.)
Georgie!
Happy birthday boy!
Then once I realized TODAY was actually Auggie’s birthday, I knew I needed something better. Payton and I shopped for a present at PetSmart but I didn’t see a toy I thought Auggie would like, so we agreed that a bully stick was the best Auggie Present.
Auggie also agrees.
He also got ALL OTHER DOGS shut out into other rooms while he had a blissful hour+ to just chew his bully stick. He was quite happy with this.
Happy birthday little old man. I hope you stick around for many many more birthdays.
Pro Christmas Pics 2012
Annual Christmas photos were yesterday… huge photo dump impending…
Georgie first! New prop this year, A SLED. OMG.
Serious Auggie is serious. Sigh.
My boy. <3
Aaaaand here we go with the annual “I love my dog a whole lot more than he loves me” photos!
THIS one I think is the winner… I like his face in this one.
Annual “Auggie hates me” photo LOL.
Payton. OMG. LOL.
My HAIR again. I almost cut my bangs before we left to prevent this from happening and I didn’t. Sigh.
Sometimes he is kinda sweet.
I like him a bit.
It’s a PAYTON!!
See, Auggie? PAYTON loves his mommy. PAYTON will give me a kiss on camera.
My little guy. He is sometimes proper…
and sometimes cute.
Slight bit of handsome devil.
I think this is my favourite. He looks naughty. He looks like Payton. XD
This is his “I just licked the floor and there was a bitch sitting here” expression. He was chattering. Stupid intact male dog.
GET IN THE SLED
“Call him, see if I can get him jumping out of the sled,” the photographer said. WELP. Future agility dog in the making LOL.
Peppy girl!
Remedial stays are still in progress. =|
I don’t even know…
SIGH this is what so many of my photos look like LOL. Bad girl.
Hey, THERE’S a cute photo!
Me ‘n my girl. <3
I love love love this photo because of how she’s looking at me. She is MY GIRL… no mistaking it.
And I kinda like her too.
The best of us I think.
Now time for ALL THREE DOGS. This was totally photoshopped together, not gonna lie, and it’s still not even perfect haha.
…oh dear.
“Quick quick, take the photo, I’m losing them!!”
This is my life guys.
I gotta admit it’s pretty hilarious LOL.
Watch me try to direct my dogs without even looking away from the camera. “Payton you come here…”
“…Pepper YOU should lay down too…”
Also shopped. Again, not gonna lie, LOL.
THEN… Auggie’s breeder was there with some of her crew so we tried a big family photo. Top row is Georgie, Pepper, Twizzle (Pepper’s sister, Georgie’s mom) and Twigley (Georgie’s sister.) Bottom row is Payton (Pep/Twizzle’s half-bro, for those who don’t remembered they are related), Raleigh (Auggie’s dad, Georgie’s grandpa), Georgie (Auggie’s grandma, Payton and Georgie’s great-grandma), Quigley (Auggie’s brother, Georgie’s dad), and of course Auggie.
I was behind the table, by the way, holding butts down. The front row was for “dogs who will stay.” I was very proud to be able to put Payton in the front row. Good boy little P.
LOL at the three young boys looking all excited.
OMG Quigley is SO bored of this!
Not sure what they’re looking at, haha.
Pepper will NOT stop sniffing her sister. STOP IT.
This one would probably be good except PEPPER is trying to plot her escape obviously. PEPPER.
I think this is the best one we got.
If only Pep and Twigley were looking at the camera! Georgia gets a pass because she’s mostly deaf and blind so she doesn’t have to look anywhere, she just has to wake up every morning.
THEN Payton decided he wanted to try and get away. He recalls somewhere on that floor a bitch was sitting and he would like to find that spot again please.
But wait, it gets better.
We got Payton to sit back up, then Georgie wanted to lay down.
Again, really close. I might be able to shop something together out of some of there haha.
BUT THEN.
Pepper was like “I BAIL BYE.”
Look at EVERY DOG’S EXPRESSION IN THIS PHOTO. I can’t stop laughing. By the way, Georgie decided since the big girly was bailing she was bailing too.
Payton is like “Crap she’s gonna land on my head! ABORT ABORT”
And poor Grandma doesn’t even know what’s happening LOL. (LOL at my arm in this one haha.)
The really funny part? Pepper jumps down so Georgie jumps down and then Twigley got down and everybody else was up and running around and we’re laughing and I’m like OF COURSE IT WAS PEPPER WHO RUINED IT ALL
And then I sit up and look down.
And there is Auggie.
Still sitting, still staying, right where I told him to sit and stay.
AUGGIE IS THE BESTEST BOY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.
Punkin Pictures
I bought pumpkins yesterday morning. They were on mega sale so I was like “I will take all your pumpkins plz.” Actually I only bought five, but I wanted more…
Uhhhh unfortunately most of our family photos looked like this.
This was the best I got, haha. Pepper needs remedial stays again.
Just the boys <3
Auggie saw all the pumpkins and the leaf pile and was like “Oh. *strike a pose*” He just knows… he knows. What a good boy.
I told Payton his turn was next and he decided this is what he wanted to do. Also pivots using the pumpkin as his perch. I’m not sure if I should facepalm or be proud.
Since Payton started it I asked Georgie to do the same thing. SHE IS SO CUTE AHHH
Not in focus =< but it's sooooo cute.
The over-achiever, LOL. Oh Auggie.
Aaaaaand the under-achiever, haha. Poor Pep.
Leaf Pictures
I may have a good reason to re-do the family photos this weekend…
Boys! LOL at Payton with a leaf stuck to him.
All three puppers.
Excuse me while my big dog is devastatingly handsome.
Auggie is the bestest boy.
Seriously, it’s kinda ridiculous how good looking he is. Not even a show dog, Augs.
Oh? But I so pretty.
Yeah, he definitely knows he’s a handsome boy.
And then there’s this thing.
This…
…thing.
I guess he’s kinda cute. Maybe I’ll keep him.
Oh fffffffff seriously? Fine you can stay.
Yeah okay, he’s sorta handsome too sometimes.
But only sometimes.
the rest of the time… uh…
That’s okay. I pretty much like him anyway.
Girly!!
She’s actually very good at posing all by herself, but when you try and get them all together, she can’t hold still.
Yeah she’s pretty cute too.
The end… for now…
Painting Helpers
Yesterday was Payton’s annual. My new house is halfway to the new vet’s office, so Pay came to the new house with us while we painted yesterday. He was a very good boy, but I thought it was immensely unfair that HE got to be the first dog at the new house. So Auggie got to come today. My mom decided to also bring Georgie, and because that wasn’t fair to only take two, Pay came along today too.
All three dogs “helped” while I was painting my new master bedroom. Would you care to guess which of the three did NOT come home blue?
Can you tell from this photo??
AUGGIE decided to curl up in the corner of the room right up against two freshly painted walls. AUGGIE!!
You might not be able to see it – I didn’t see it until we all packed up to leave and then I went “hey, WAIT A SECOND.” It’s on her tail and there’s a small bit on her side too LOL. I have no idea when this even happened.
So PAYTON was the only dog who didn’t get in the paint! And he had TWO opportunities to get all painted, yesterday and today! What a good pupper.
The girlie, just because. Not the girlie I wish I was taking a photo of. I’m very unhappy because this house is taking a lot longer than I expected, and the longer it takes, the longer it takes to bring MY girlie home…
Someday. I hope it’s soon. =<
Henri comes to visit again
He has actually been over another time and I’ve been to visit him a couple times but this is the second time I’ve taken pics. ;P
Henri!
Hen… um…
Oh hai.
I can’t stop laughing at this one. Henri frequents the dog park lately, being an only child, and has learned to go belly up when confronted with ballsier dogs (and I don’t just mean that Payton still has his balls.) So this is Henri throwing himself on the ground. Head first. And Payton being like “Um WTF are you doing??”
I think Payton is slightly weirded out because it’s like looking at himself. He’s having an out of body experience, LOL.
Ahhh there’s two of them!
Payton and my sister. OH HAI I’M PAYTON
Auggie, who still isn’t a huge fan of Henri. They chased a tennis ball together for a while but that was the extent of his playing with Henri. It’s definitely an improvement though.
Ummm yeah so he’s definitely gotten bigger. His ears aren’t quite sure what they’re doing (and I kept telling my sister “We can do something about that if you want” hahahaha.) Also check out his tail! I love it.
You can see all kinds of breeds in him. I see GSD for sure. Collie, yep. I don’t really see Aussie which he’s supposed to have some Aussie in him.
I thought it would be fun to try for a family photo. “Fun” is not exactly the word I would use to describe it. I’m pretty sure I told Payton “I hate you” at least six times.
LOL you can’t even see Georgie’s face because she’s looking up at me.
Proceed with caution, Henri… and LOL Payton’s face.
This is just a cute Henri LOL.
TONGUE.
Most of the pictures turned out about like this by the way.
A cute one of all the boys!
Just the shelties… all staying, but looking at my sister, hahaha.
The best one hahaha. Team Three Shelties and Whatever That Thing Is!
Attempt at a nice photo of the three shelties – this is why I told Payton I hate him so much haha.
HENRI PHOTOBOMB
Oh noes, what are you doing to me??
Oh. I see.
The end!
I pretty much love Henri by the way.
Pool today
“This would make a cute picture, right? Smile, Payton!”
He was giving me kisses before but once the camera came out he stopped, haha. I’m trying to get him to kiss me.
Now let’s get Auggie in the picture!!
Payton was licking my hand LOL. Apparently kissing my face is a no-no but kissing my hand is okay.
I’m not sure what the heck is going on here. I’m giving swim lessons??
I think I need to ‘shop Auggie out for one of him from the first two. =P
“Are you sad Auggie?”
“Everybody look at the ground.”
Poor Auggie LOLOLOL.
They both look so sad here hahahahaha! Payton had an eye goober I had to get. =P
See, they’re NOT miserable, I swear!
Repositioned Auggie so his paws were up on the side, and he starts looking at the ground again trying to decide if he wants to jump out or not.
LOL I’m not sure what’s up with Payton’s face here. “This is my look of disdain.”
We decided to try and get Georgie in the picture…
Earlier we had her and Payton in the pool together to see if they would play, but Georgie just discovered she can climb UP on Payton. Soooo that’s what she did.
And then…
…she tried to kill Payton.
Seriously, I can’t believe we got this photo. She decided to jump out using HIS HEAD as a springboard and his head went underwater. Poor guy!!
I promise to never let Georgie in the pool with you again Payton.
Georgie’s First Birthday Party
Her birthday is actually the 25th, but schedules got crazy. My mom celebrated with her and I took some birthday pictures, but we didn’t get to “party” until the weekend!
The princess.
Auggie, always the good sport.
And Payton, who still hates when you put things on his head and only wants to wear a hat when HE is getting all the birthday.
We made a doggy cake, but I also brought home a small slice of REAL white cake, just for her.
NOM MY CAKE
Mmmm…
This one hahahaha
Icing alllll over her whiskers. Hurray!
Payton and Auggie both got some of the doggy cake (no real cake for them.)
Then Georgie had another birthday party hat malfunction…
…and Payton chimed in with a birthday party hat malfunction of his own.
Then Georgie got her presents! Not very nicely wrapped, I just left them in the PetSmart bag, haha.
She doesn’t care anyway.
My mom’s gift to her (she also gave her a new harness and lead, plus an ice cream cone, on her actual birthday) – it’s a Nylabone peanut butter flavoured “stick.” I bought one for the boys and she loved it, so Mom decided to buy Georgie one of her own.
And my gift to her… her very own amphibious bumper. She LOVES the one I bought for the boys (noticing a theme?) and fetched it non-stop one day, so now she has her very own bumper to fetch!
Training Challenge 07/20/12
I haven’t posted one of these for a few weeks, mostly because I was recovering from our last agility/rally trial, partially because it’s still really stinkin’ hot outside and it makes it hard to do much work out in the yard, and also because I’ve been busy juggling a few other things. I don’t want to jinx it so I won’t say more just yet, but really fabulous things might be about to happen for the Sheltiechick crew!
So this week, instead of breaking it down day by day, I think instead I will just make a general goal. I have been working on teaching the dogs to swim and yesterday I decided to start adding in more as it relates to Dock Dogs. I bought a small plastic footstool that sits inside the pool (actually, it floats, so unless a dog is sitting/standing on it, it’s floating around the pool…) and had Auggie standing on the stool, click+treating for him nose-bumping our ChuckIt amphibious bumper. Being the rock star that he is, very quickly I had Auggie nose-bumping the bumper when it was floating in the water. Next step will be to get him to actually mouth the bumper.
Payton’s turn was next, and the poor dog made me laugh so hard I almost fell down in the pool, because he was trying to do his pivots in the pool. He kept thinking his back feet should be on the bottom of the pool and his front feet on the stool, and he should then pivot around the stool, right? No, Payton, no! Poor guy. Payton will actually fetch the bumper for me on land but he doesn’t want anything to do with it when he’s in the water, so I think I need to train a “grab the bumper” outside the pool (rather than just “fetch the bumper”) and then move back INTO the pool and generalize “grab the bumper” to him standing on the stool in the pool.
Of course, my parents want to re-roof the house this week, so the pool is due to be emptied and come down. I’m thinking this coming weekend I might actually go to the lake again and see if we can get some swimming done there. I think Payton will do much better now with his new life jacket, and could benefit from being in water that’s actually deep rather than a pool where if he tries he can actually put his back legs on the floor and just flail around with his front legs. Auggie, meanwhile, is doing awesome, particularly if I put a life jacket on him. He doesn’t seem to really need it, but with the life jacket on, his swimming became much smoother. Unfortunately he wears the same size as Georgie but they don’t fit the same, so I will have to buy a third life jacket if I ever intend to have all three dogs in life jackets at the same time. I could order one of the Outward Hound jackets in pink for Georgie and give Auggie her orange one…
So that’s the training plan this week – “GRAB THE BUMPER!” Low key but still a goal regardless.
Swimming Shelties
I have now become obsessed with the idea of having these three be a Dock Dogs team. Wouldn’t that be fabulous?? I wonder if Miss Pepper would like to swim too…
Apologies for my pasty legs, melanoma runs in the family so I don’t tan, deal with it =P
Auggie went first. I tried the life jacket on him but really, he didn’t need it. So I just swam him without the life jacket on.
There’s a lot of flailing rather than smooth paddling… I think it’s because they can almost touch the bottom of the pool so they are trying to kick off the bottom rather than just swim.
Swim swim swim swim!
Payton was running around the pool the whole time barking THAT’S MY POOL GET OUT OF THE POOL HE’S IN MY POOL GET OUT OF THE POOL
Scrawny soaking pup!
Payton is still in his life jacket most of the time. I bought him a brand new Outward Hound life jacket that I think fits him better as opposed to the Premier Fido Float we used at the lake, and I think it definitely works better. However, Payton can definitely touch the bottom of the pool, so is kicking off the bottom. It’s not all the way full so this next weekend I will top it off and see if that makes a difference.
He kinda likes it though I think.
Holding him to try and get him to use his back legs more…
Paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle go go go go
Seriously, I do think he likes it. I’d let him out and he’d run off to go shake, but every time I called him he came running back even though he KNEW I was going to put him back in the pool. Either he likes it or he’s really dumb LOL.
I like pool. maybe.
My cute puppy <3
MISS GEORGIE
Georgie is the smart one of the bunch… the boys will swim to the edge of the pool. She doesn’t bother, she just turns around and swims to me like “okay now pick me up.”
She is so cute I almost can’t stand it… seriously. In her little life jacket. Also an Outward Hound model. OMG.
Go! Swim to your mama!
But I’m getting water up my nose!
Little princess paws…
PICK ME UP
No life jacket! Go rock star princess, go!
She actually almost hopped out of the pool here hahaha.
One more time! Go little girlie!
SPLOOSH
Her ears are hysterical here.
Why? Why you do this to me??
THE END.
Three Dog Training
It’s Sunday so we have pretty much wrapped up our training challenge for this week, but I think I’ll save that post for tomorrow when I can post with some video. This morning is our “play” day where I don’t have much of a set plan and instead just fool around, so I decided I would take the pups to the training building after lunch and play around. I loaded the 2x2s into the car so Payton could play with them in another new location, grabbed Auggie, Payton, and Georgie, and off we went.
P started with 2x2s. We’re having some major problems as of yesterday when I started to close them up, and as they did last time before we backtracked and started over again, he’s had a serious setback. I did work him back to where he was before I started closing them up, but of course, the last several well done and hard entries were AFTER my camera ran out of battery power and it stopped recording.
Next I set up a curved tunnel and a jump for Auggie and worked on some rear crosses. We’ve had some issues with tunnels lately. It’s possible he is having some vision problems, or it could just be he’s a brat and it’s a training issue. So we worked that. I’m still not happy with how it went and I think I know what to work on with him next week.
Georgie came out next and she got to run through the straight tunnel. She LOVES jumping so I went ahead and let her take the jump before and after the tunnel a few times. Working on naming “tunnel” and “jump” both with her now.
P came back out and did more of the tunnel and I let him do the jump as well. Did some beginning one jump work where sometimes I would let him over the jump and take the tunnel and other times I would switch sides and he needed to come to me instead of take the tunnel, and not once did he take the bait of the tunnel and ALWAYS read my handling and came to me. Hurray for Payton!!
I brought Auggie out again next and was putting the tunnel away and he jumped into it while I was putting it away. So I had a fully collapsed tunnel and Auggie was sitting in it barking at me. “I’M IN THE TUNNEL WHERE IS MY COOKIE?” This dog. I moved the jump out of the way too and we just did flatwork where I encouraged speed on him. He did awesome. For his last two cookies I just did some off leash heeling because I wanted to let him cool down some and he was awesome with that too, because he’s Auggie and he’s usually fab.
Georgie came out for some flatwork next. We’re having a problem with her bouncing like you could see in the impromptu flatwork video but I got her really tired before long and that stopped. She kept trying to sneak behind me and dart to the wrong shoulder at first but after a few reps I got her going to the proper shoulder and switching sides with me and doing really great. Flatwork is really the biggest skill she is in need of right now, more than any kind of obstacle introduction.
I brought Payton out for more 2x2s, and like I said, this is where we seemed to heal his problems and get his skills back to where they were before I tried closing up the poles. I think we are just going to work at this stage for at least a week before I try to close them up at all and REALLY try to reinforce four poles… I’ll just say that yesterday I was so frustrated (and so was he) I was ready to say screw it to the 2x2s and go weave-a-matics instead. But I love the theory behind 2x2s so I am going to try and stick it out some more. I can ALWAYS quit and go to the WAMs if he never gets to progressing with the 2x2s. So we’ll give it a bit more time.
After all that, I was dripping sweat, so I packed all my stuff back into the car and we came back home. I could use a second set of 2x2s to leave at the training building – it would sure be nicer than having to pack mine up and drag them with us! Let’s put that on the list of things I’ll buy when I win the lottery.
Grooming day
Washed, dried, groomed all three dogs today. My back is killing me. At least I did nails last night.
Payton.
Georgie.
Auggie, just for fun. I didn’t even realize until I looked at the pictures to edit them that he moved his leg after I stacked him and told him to stay. Figures.
So there’s this hope chest in the basement and I put the blanket over it to take photos. I did Payton’s first, put him on the floor, put Auggie on the chest and took his photos, then put him on the floor. I took a few steps to go get Georgie and hear a THUNK.
I turn around and Payton is on top of the hope chest but his BUTT is wedged halfway between the chest and the wall. He had decided to jump back on it (MY TURN AGAIN ME ME ME) and because of the blanket he almost slid off the back. This could have ended poorly, when Happy was a puppy he tried to jump on the bed, and his leg got caught between the bed frame and the mattress and broke his leg, so I’m paranoid something like that will happen to my guys. But nothing happened except Payton looked really surprised and confused.
So I laughed instead.
A lot.
