Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas!

Here's a couple of photos of my two boys on Christmas morning. OK, I couldn't resist when I saw that Hanna Anderson had dog pajamas that matched Jared's new Christmas jammies.

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Happy Howl-o-days

Here's wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

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Saturday, December 01, 2007

First snow of the season

It snowed! I took Timber out to play in it and very quickly he got the hang of chasing snowballs and running wild and crazy through the cold wet stuff. He tried to dig in it like he used to do in the sand at the beach this summer, but it wasn't quite deep enough. No matter, he enjoyed it for at least a little while. The snow has already turned to rain and probably by the end of the day, it will disappear.

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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

The sun decided to come out...

especially for Tama's birthday.

Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you... Ok, we all know the drill by now.

Happy Birthday Tama. She's 5 years old today. For some reason, they've brought the birthday party inside under my desk. Here's Tama and Timber being really annoying as I'm trying to work:

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Blue Isle Shiver Me Timbers, CGC

Yesterday Timber received his AKC Canine Good Citizen award.

There are 10 parts to the test that we took together. He had to pass all 10 in order to get his CGC award.
Test 1: Accepting a friendly stranger
Test 2: Sitting politely for petting
Test 3: Appearance and grooming
Test 4: Out for a walk (walking on a loose lead)
Test 5: Walking through a crowd
Test 6: Sit and down on command and Staying in place
Test 7: Coming when called
Test 8: Reaction to another dog
Test 9: Reaction to distraction
Test 10: Supervised separation

After my last aussie being the only dog in my household without a CGC (he wouldn't let the tester touch his feet), it's awesome to finally have an aussie that has passed. Especially one that is so young.

Timber and I are working on pre-agility and rally right now.

For more information on the ACK Canine Good Citizen test, go to http://www.akc.org/events/cgc/training_testing.cfm

Monday, October 15, 2007

It's a month full of canine birthdays...

Happy Birthday to you... Happy Birthday to you... Happy Birthday dear Jazzy.
Happy Birthday to you.

Tama's is next week.

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Saturday, October 06, 2007

And another miracle milestone...

HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY, KISHI

It's really hard for me to believe that my girl is 10 years old.

How is she doing?
Looking at her, I'd say better than ever. She has a gorgeous coat. There are still some small areas with blackened skin which I doubt will ever fully heal. She had an ear infection recently and I took her to the vet. The vet saw no signs of yeast, treated the ear infection topically, and I can tell she's already feeling better. Kishi is adjusting to the loss of her eyesight, and gets around pretty well. She'll follow our voices when I take her outside, and in the house she just knows the lay of the land, so to speak.

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Tuesday, October 02, 2007

6 months-6months-Where has time gone.

My squishy little puppy is now an adolescent. But look beneath the cuteness and you will see a counter-surfin', toy-destroyin', knock-em-over-with-full-body-slams dog. We're working on those, but it's part of his aussie charm.

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Monday, August 27, 2007

Friday, August 17, 2007

Sit, Stay, Smile

While working on sit stays, I thought it would be a little fun to see how our buddy Timber handled sit stays in a crowd. And of course it was too cute not to grab a camera and capture. It's not easy to get all the dogs to stay in one place, and to all look in the same direction. They all seem to have their own agenda. And when one dogs moves, they all think they can bolt. So, after about 20 minutes of trying to get them all to look good, I think this one photo the best.

Doesn't Kishi look good? If you look back at my posts from a year ago, you'll see that she's made remarkable improvements. She looks better than I've seen her in a long time. Except for her eyesight, she is doing fantastic.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Shiba Veteran Website

This is a really great website if you want to see how well Shiba Inus age. There are some beautiful dogs here. Most of them are 9 years old or older. And one that is almost 17!

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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Water Dog

Are you bored of pictures of the puppy yet? Tired of me gushing about how wonderful he is? Well, here's one more photo and post of him and then I promise I'll post something of substance.

Here's our water dog. We took Timber to the beach today for the afternoon. He can swim pretty well. It didn't take much encouragement to get him in the water. He just followed us in. He's not thrilled with areas with waves. He'd prefer the calmer areas. His favorite thing is picking up shells.

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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Role Reversals...

Farley was always the trainer of shiba puppies. He was a good play buddy for them. Now with a new aussie puppy, Don Juan has become the play buddy. What a role reversal.

THE NEW

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THE OLD

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Saturday, June 23, 2007

Just call him "DIGGER"

We had a load of mulch delivered. Timber thought the soft dirt was a great place to exercise his paws. I never knew a puppy could dig a hole so quickly!

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Thursday, June 14, 2007

The dog within...

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He's the cutest puppy ever...

Not that I'm not biased or anything!

Timber has learned to sit and down. We are working on stand. He has a pretty good sit-stay - the best you can do with an attention span of an 11 week old puppy.

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Homemade training treats

I've been doing some experimenting trying to come up with food and training treats for my dogs. Here are my dog's favorite training treats. Don Juan has always loved salmon. And these have just enough to entice him and keep him asking for more.


Salmon Snackers

You can divide this recipe in half. It makes a HUGE batch. Freeze any extras.

12 c. oatmeal
4 c. whole wheat flour
8 eggs with the shells
2 cans of salmon (drained)
3/4 c. olive oil
2/3 c. honey
1/2 c. molasses
1 can Meyenberg goats milk (add enough water or chicken broth to make 2 cups of liquid)
1 large can solid pack pumpkin
1 apple (chopped fine with skins on)

I will also add other fruits and veggies when I have them - Asparagus, Broccoli, Carrots, Collard, Cucumbers, Green Beans, Kale, Lettuce, Parsley, Spinach

Preheat oven to 325. Grease 2 cookie sheets

Dump everything into a VERY large bowl. Mix together. Pat onto greased cookie sheets & bake at 325° for 1 hour. After 1 hour turn oven off, crack oven door & allow cookies to cool in oven. Cut into squares when cool. You must refrigerate or freeze any extras.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

And the puppy's name is...

Blue Isle Shiver Me Timbers
Call name: Timber

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Sunday, May 27, 2007

Introducing....

Well, we don't quite have a name yet. If it was up to J, it would be "Red". If it was up to Ed, it would be "Nibbler". And if it was up to me, he would be "Bandit". So we're going to play it by ear and let the puppy choose which one he wants to answer to... so far, Red is winning. He is an 8 week old red merle australian shepherd.

He's been introduced to the rest of the crew one by one.

Kishi growled - she's got to exert her kishi-tude.
Don Juan sniffed and then pretty much ignored him.
Jazz was so excited to see him that the puppy ran and hid behind Ed. She wants someone to play with soooooo bad. But she's still a little big for this little guy. I predict the tables will turn in a month or so. And she'll be the one running for cover.
And Tama surprised us all. Since her litter of puppies over a year ago, she hasn't wanted to be around any puppies. She seems to like this little guy. And I see her maternal side coming out. The puppy warmed right up to her.


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