Puppy Videos

The puppies have been outside during the day now.  They love being out on the grass and being in the fresh air.  I would have done it a little earlier, but it was just too dang hot.

Here are some videos of the puppies playing and wrestling.

Product Review (New Vacuum)

I have had my new vacuum for about 2 weeks now.  I had a Dyson for 5 years and I liked it, but it just didn't hold up to the amount of money it cost.  Yes, I use my vacuum everyday and we have a lot of BCs in the house, but still it should have lasted more than 5 years.  We already replaced the hose a year ago and it was cracked again.  The main reason I was replacing it with a new one is that it just did not have the suction I needed.  I cleaned the filters etc all of the time, but there was still  BC hair left on the carpet.  Most of our house is Pergo and tile, but 2 of our bedrooms are carpet.  Our main bedroom just never felt like it was clean.

What did we get????  Eureka Pet Lover Plus.

 I love this vacuum and it works awesome.  I am feeling like the carpet is clean now.  The one thing that this got bad reviews on was that it is heavy.  I actually find that a plus as I don't feel like it is going to crack if I hit something by accident.  I always felt that the Dyson was too lightweight for me.  

I am a clean freak and with 9 Border Collies plus boarding dogs, my vacuums have to work.  This one does!!!!

Moe Strenfel Seminar and Group Photo

Jody, Lori and Vicki came down last week and stayed with us.  All 4 of us along with Cheryl (Spark's owner) went to the Moe Strenfel Foundation Seminar.  I took Fusion, Vicki had Dax, Cheryl had Spark, Jody had Rocky and Lori had Singe.  She was going to use her dog Rumor, but since Rumor is pregnant she is not up for much working lately.  Moe's seminar was awesome and I really can't figure out why more people don't want to do foundation work.  If it weren't for us this seminar would have only been half full.  Moe is great because she believes in foundation and she breaks the behaviors down.  So many people just want to work on the end behavior and don't have patience for all of the little steps leading up to the end behavior.  This is one of the main reasons I do not teach group classes.  I was tired of people asking me how many classes it would take them to be able to trial their dog.  When I told them about a year, they gave up.  I also found that people just want their dog(s) on the equipment.  If you start with all of the foundation stuff (in my area) they are a little upset and say "well I signed up to learn agility".  Grrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

I do not like when people tell me they are entering their dog in a trial as soon as it is of age.  Why not say that you are entering your dog in a trial when it is ready.  When people tell me that I just laugh and say fine, but I will be the one winning the ribbons in Masters and Excellent.  I really don't care much about getting 1st places in Novice and Starters.  Of course we all love to get the blue ribbons, but that is not what it is about for me.  I am setting my dogs up for years later when we are in the finals.

If Moe is teaching a seminar near you I recommend going to it.

Since we had all these Hillcrest dogs at my place I HAD to take a picture.  We had 13 dogs in a stay and all of them did great.

Back Row: Rumor, Lash, Risk, Jen, Kate, Singe, Mick and Rocky

Front Row: Skarlet, Havoc, Fusion, Spark and Dax

Then they are off to the races.  I love looking at their eyes and expressions.

Pupdate (overdue)

I am overdue for puppy pictures. We have had a  lot going on here. The puppies are 4 1/2 weeks old now. They are really coming into themselves and are at the fun stage. Today was a great day for the puppies' 1st day outside.  I set up the puppy pen on the grass and let them run around before putting them in the pen.  There was not one puppy that didn't want to explore.  This is cool, especially for their 1st time outside.

I love laying on the grass and letting the puppies climb all over me.  I think I may even have another piercing in my ear. 

Pelite came and curled up with me and fell asleep.  Nothing better than sleeping with a wee puppy.

I think Skarlet enjoyed nursing her puppies outside today.

Beryl (female)

Jetta (female)

Pelite (female)

Shale (female)

Lava (male)

Skarn (male)

Gneiss (male)

Puppies, Puppies, Puppies

I was out of town for about 5 days and I came back and the puppies about doubled their size. They are at the "real" puppy age.  They growl, play, bark etc instead of eat, sleep and poop.

I will write about my vacation in another post, but here are some videos to hold you all over until I get puppy pictures up (tomorrow).

Fusion is our female from the Jen x Singe litter.  She is almost a year old now.  We can not keep her out of the puppy pen as she wants to play with them and even nurse them.

Connor (our son) is the person in the video.  He is a great puppy socializer with all of our litters.

The puppies are now eating one meal a day of ground turkey and goats milk (mush).  They do not leave much for Skarlet to clean up.

Training Session (Agility)

My good friend Christie came down from Washington to do some agility training this last weekend.  I am so glad that she did because we both pushed each other to train more in 2 days than we have been lately.  I mainly concentrated on Lash and Risk, but I did do some with Singe and Fusion.  As some of you know Singe had a hamstring injury that made me pull him from any training and running for quite some time.  I brought him back with swimming and slowly let him run.  I did agility with him this last weekend for the first time in about 2 months.  It seems that 15 minutes of training is too much for his hamstring to handle.  He can run and swim to his heart's content, but it seems that a lot of jumping and pushing is bothering it.  My plan is to do 5 minutes of training with him on each day that I can.  I will slowly increase it up and see how he does.  

Fusion is a kick in the pants to run and train.  She is still a puppy/young dog, but she is very quick twitch and game.  She is a true combination of her mom and dad.

Here is a video of Risk and Lash's training from Saturday.  I still have video to upload, but I need to go out and mow for now.

If you want to see a bigger version of this video you can go to our You Tube Page www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6HHj7sXJPs&feature=channel_page

You Tube took out our music, so this one on Blogger is the "cool one".

Skarlet x Rock Puppies @ 1 1/2 Weeks Old

Skarlet's puppies are 1 1/2 weeks old now.  They are starting to be more mobile, although looking like drunk puppies on all fours.

Skarn (male)

Gneiss (male)

Lava (male)

Shale (female)

Pelite (female)

Jetta (female)

Beryl (female)