Friday, February 29, 2008

February 29th



I was just reading Blue's blog and found out that girls can ask boys to marry them on this day...

Oh, I certainly hope that a special Corgi will look my way this evening at agility class. She always refuses my requests for marriage, but perhaps she was just waiting until today to propose to me!

Oh, how will I wait until this evening??

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Hi-JACKED

My NaMe iS DaKota and While the Pups are Out, I am going To post for a change. I am sorta sick of My mom taking the Pups to Agility Class, and I get to Go Nowheres!!! Whassaup with that?!

So, I have Been cruzin' the 'Net looking Up stuff. And, Guess What I found?



I'm Telling Katie, Zorra, and Sam to Hike it On over Somewheres else. There is a NEW Sheriff in town, and I am going to kick some arse and take names! I'm doing AGILITY.

I have to Rest up Now for Agility practice, so SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Water Torture!!! Call 9-1-1!!

After a rousing afternoon of digging for every rodent and/or finding numerous treasures in the backyard, my mother bade me to come in. She said we were going to the pet shop. OH JOY! Perhaps I can persuade her to purchase a new toy. Better yet, Katherine and Zorra were NOT going with us. Hurrah!!

Oh, I had visions of new balls and tug toys, perhaps some completely NEW chew toy that I had not yet become acquainted with. I was shivering with anticipation when we pulled up to the store.

Mother walked briskly up to the cashier, and I heard the words come out of her mouth, but it was as if they were in slow motion.. ... D - 0 - G W-A S H please.

NOOOOO.

The next thing I realized, I was in the washtub. Perhaps if I look cute and smile, she will be so striken with remorse over what she is planning to do that she will let me down... I am smiling, Mother. See??



Oh dear, she doesn't seem to get my point. I will just try to escape on my own. Get out of the way woman!! I am making a break for it. DRAT that leash holding me here.




I have worked up my best pitiful look. Oh Mother, how could you torture me so? What did I do to deserve this??!! Katherine put you up to this, didn't she? Or, Auntie. Is she still upset over that unfortunate pants pocket incident?? I'm so very sorry.



Oh great, now she's scrubbing where I had stashed extra mud to ensure my fur retained that wiry texture that WFT are known for. Just great.. I will have to give myself another treatment later. All that hard work......




MOTHER!! YOU GOT SOAP IN MY EYES!!!!! Oh, this has turned into sheer torture. I obviously must assist myself, since she is so stooooopid as to see there is SOAP IN MY EYES.



I will kill you in your sleep. That is what I am thinking now, but yet, Mother, you laugh?



Ahhhhhh, a nice towel. I love the towel. That means our time here is coming to a close.



Here is my impersonation of a prize fighter. I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.



Oh Mother, I am sorry for those dreadful things I said. You are right, I do feel much better.. Now, where's my ###$$# treat??!!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Some of our pals

Hi everybody...

I wanted to introduce you to some of our pals that we do agility with on the weekends. NOt only that, we also take the same agility classes together, so we hang out with our pals a bunch. My mom still hasn't figured out how to upload the video from that cheap (hbo word) video camera (she hopes she can get the good one fixed), so it will be a couple more days before you can see that.

Here I am in my crate. I hate my crate, but we have to stay in them at trials to keep us all safe from pups that may be a bit rude. I have my favorite blankie and a couple of toys. You can see my Qualifying ribbon hanging on my crate. I was very proud of myself.



Here is Bandit. He is a Sheltie. You can't see it but, he's got a bunch of toys in his crate. He's much smaller than I am, which is why his crate is different. I think he was sleepin when we took this photo. Bandit is a rescue.


Bandit


Next is our pal Riley. He is a Merle Sheltie. Riley likes to talk when he's running. He always has something to say to somebody! Sometimes, he wants his privacy and he stays behind a sheet in his crate so he can get some shuteye. He has a brother named Duncan who looks a lot like him. But, Duncan is bigger. Duncan is going to make his agility debut soon.


Riley


Our last pal we are introducing today is Deeva. She is a rescue, too. Deeva has really blue eyes like a huskey, and markings of a Border Collie. She's an all American dog like me. She was taking a breather from her crate and was showing us one of her imitations of a frog. Deeva is also learning flyball with us. She has a younger brother named Duffy who competes. He is a black and white Sheltie. He just wasn't competing that day. (There are sooo many shelties in our area. Remember our friends Willow and Simba that we mentioned in our last post? BOL)


Deeva


We have a lot of fun when we are all together. Our hoomans are always yacking, too. But, the really funny thing is they are always yacking about how they will forget the course they are supposed to run. They never do, except my mom.... She's forgetful sometimes, and then, Katie, Sam, and I have to save her butt!!

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Serious

I don't like to write about serious things, because I am a happy kinda girl, but I have to tell you about something that happened to one of my very favorite people, Sherry. She is my two friends Willow's and Simba's mom and we all do agility together. In fact, Willow and I had a bunch of classes together for a while. Now, we do agility trials together and we have tons of fun running and jumping. Today, mom received an email from from Sherry about an experience she had.

It really worried mom, and she asked Sherry if I could post about it on my blog. Of course, Sherry said that I could...

...

On Thursday I was running Willow and Simba in class. I felt a tightening in my chest, under my arm and up my neck when I ran. When I stopped the pain was all but gone. Not wanting to cause a stir and announce one more physical problem I quietly slipped out after class, loaded my car and drove home. I had called my husband to come to (the training center) and he followed me home. It took 45 minutes for him to get to Pawsitive Partners from his work. We drove South, home away from St Vincent.

When we settled the pups, Rich took my blood pressure. It was really high and we decided we needed to get help. We drove to the Care Center here in Mooresville and they said we need to send you to a Cardiac Hospital after they took some test.By then when I was laying down my chest pain was completely gone. Mind you nothing was conclusive in any of the test and I was thinking, oh no I made a mistake coming here. It took a very long time to get to St Vincent at 15 miles an hour (with a nice ambulance person taking my vitals and not seeing anything to indicate a heart problem). Plus he kept asking how bad my pain was. I didn't have any). The roads were terrible and it was rush hour.

When I told them the attack had started at 1:30 and it was 6:00 before we got to a hospital, they asked why I didn't call 911? At this point I felt really dumb for coming to the hospital anyway, as the test were all just slightly, maybe pointing to a Heart Attack. Now I was feeling even dumber since I made so many wrong decisions, driving home, not calling 911, waiting too long and the list goes on.

I am writing this to you all so you won't make the same mistakes. God granted me this grace period of time to get to the hospital to get help. I am very grateful and will not make this mistake again.

The happy and not so happy end of this account of my Heart Attack is that I had a very, very, very slight attack. This lead to an over night stay and a heart cauterization. They found blockage in 3 places of my heart. The one being 70% and the others 40%. Surgery is not an option at this time but is in my future. As I told Liz (her agility instructor), I hope by then they will have a surgery that can be done from a pin hole

I am to 1.eat right, 2.exercise and 3.take my medication and resume my natural life. But one of the most important things that is not on the list........ but told to me over and over is to listen to my heart. When I ran my heart started to beat harder to squeeze blood to my heart. It was blocked to a narrow opening of only 30% so I had pain. My meds will help and the other things but most of all I have to listen to my heart and Stop when I have pain. Call 911 when and if it doesn't stop.

If you are expecting a Heart Attack to be so painful you can't stand it, it didn't feel that way. I only felt a tightening pain not a sharp pain. I'm sure everyone is different. More women die because they ignored the pain. It can be in your arm, chest, neck , back..... Don't be like me. Call 911. Let your friends help you. They won't think less of you if you only have indigestion, stress related pain or exercise pain. True friends just want you healthy! I was a goof, please don't make the same mistake. The doctor all told me.... "better safe, than sorry"....


Mom and I have stumbled across a bunch articles and television segments regarding women and their lack of understanding how heart attacks affect them differently than men. Heart attacks are a silent killer, as they say. Many women die from heart attacks because they do not know the symptoms. Here is a link you can view for other information regarding women and heart attacks.

I would have been really upset if something happened to Sherry and I couldn't see my pals Willow and Simba. I'm just really happy that everything is going to be OK. I'm going to give her an EXTRA big smooch next time I see her. I don't dole those out to just anyone!



Simba (the puppy) and Willow

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Border Collies

Everyone is always talking about Border Collies in agility, flyball, etc. We all get sick of getting compared to BORDER COLLIES. This certainly made us BOL!!!

Friday, February 22, 2008

Dog Speak

Hello fellow bloggers,

Maizee's (my lovely girlfriend) mother told us of this video on how to speak like a Corgi. Of course, I immediately went and viewed it, and found it was not too different from the Dog dialect that we speak here at home.

I thought others might benefit from this.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Awards, etc, missed barkday



Our pal, Thor, gave us this toadally cool award!! WE love it. Especially, since we love toads. We would love to pass this on to all our pals, but we have to pick a few:

Lenny
The Barkalot Boyz
Lacy Lulu
Marvin


It is really snowy and icy tonight, and I love it. IT was toooo dark for my mom to take photos, but maybe she will tomorrow! I look really pretty running around in the snow. I just love snow and cold weather!! Zorra never wants to go out in the snow and ice. Mom needs to get a photo of her in her little pink coat. BOL.

Sammy... he just barks at the snow. He's such a goofbrain.

We were way behind in our blog reading because Mom has been working that we missed Gussie's barkday. So, we made mom make him a cake. Happy Barkday Gu, even if we are late!!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

This past weekend....

Hello everyone.

I simply must apologize for our absence. We were terribly busy here at home. Katherine had an AKC agility trial and that kept us away from blogging over the weekend. Then, unfortunately, my mother has this thing called work and she forbade us from using the computer!

Katherine did very well at her trial this weekend, which in my opinion was surprising. I am sure that I would have done much better, if I had been allowed to participate! But, alas, it was not meant to be.

Here is our friend, Alfa, who got a first place in her run. Her mom was very proud of her.



I'm sure you all remember my girlfriend Maizee..........



She is a beautiful Corgi, who adores me. Nevermind that she tries to bite me occasionally... That is just her way of expressing her love. At any rate, she ALSO got a qualifying run, although we did not get a photo of her. But, here is a video of her mother providing entertainment between runs.



And, lastly.. here are Katherine's photos. I am only posting them because my mother is making me. :(

She qualified in four of her runs this past weekend and received first place in each one. Mother made her get her photo taken with all her ribbons. I suppose that was quite remarkable, as Katherine only wants to do what SHE wants to do.

Since the agility trial was held in Indianapolis, they agility club had a racing theme. The first place dog also received a jug of milk, but you cannot really see it in the photo.



Mother is very proud of Katherine, and really there is no living with Katherine since the weekend. I cannot wait until I am in a trial again and can make her EAT her words!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

My first USDAA Q



Hello,

We are back from an agility trial, and boy, did we have fun. We were with all our agility classmates and friends. It was so nice to cheer each other on!

The courses were sort of hard for me and Katie, but mommi said we did a good job. I even got a qualifying score, so it was my first USDAA (United States Dog Agility Association) "Q." Now, I have one like Sammie, and I want a title like Katie.

The photo at the top is not from this weekend, but last year when we were at an outside trial.

My mommi went and bought a cheap video camera, so if she can figure out how to upload it from that camera, we will post it. Our good camera is going into the shop!

Katie and mommi are off to an AKC trial next weekend. Although Katie ran really nicely this past weekend, she was sort of a brat. So, mommi told her to watch her p's and q's or she was going to stay home next time!! BOL.



We won't bore you with specifics of the courses, runs, or other things of the weekend. We will just let you know that we loved hangin' with our buds and watching them all do well. Next week, maybe mommi can get some more pics of all our pals so you can meet them, too!

Friday, February 8, 2008

Our Auntie, Ruthie



Hello Everyone,

We have only briefly mentioned Ruthie in the past. She is our grandfather's dog and she doesn't care for sports, blogging, loudness, playing too much, or chaos. We all live in the same house, so she is subjected to our "beingness" on a daily basis. She prefers to be a lady of leisure, to just eat, sleep, arise briefly for pats, and return to sleeping.

She often does "come to work" as Mother says and hangs out with us all during the day while our Mother works on the computer for hours on end. She dutifully falls asleep and this horrid snoring starts about five minutes later! Katherine, Zorra, and I all have to go check her out, even though it happens several times during the day. I often wonder if she will bring the house down from the vibrations of her snores!!

A few years ago, my mother and auntie decided to look for a dog for Grandmother. A nice, small dog who would sit on her lap. Mother scoured Petfinder and somehow ran across Ruthie's photo. That was all mother needed to see. She had found the perfect dog, even before reading the description. Ruthie is a Beagle/Pekingese mix and had a distinctive underbite! That underbite is what drew her to mother and she knew that Ruthie had to come and live here.

Ruthie was down in Jeffersonville, IN, so they all took a roadtrip to meet her at the foster family. It was love at first sight and Ruthie came to live here.

Ruthie is quite the celebrity, in her own right. She is mentioned in a book put out by Petfinder called "Second Chances: Inspiring Stories of Dog Adoption." Mother wanted to win Bissell Spot Machine and entered Ruthie's story in a contest. We didn't win the machine, but Ruthie became a celebrity.

Ruthie was found by an animal control officer while nursing a litter of puppies in an alley. All of Ruthie's pups got adopted, but no one selected her. Luckily, she was spared from death row because she had a special way about her and ended up in foster care.

One night, Ruthie came in and woke up Mother in the middle of the night and was insistent in getting mother's attention. Mother finally got up to see what was wrong. It so happened that Grandfather, who is diabetic, was having an episode and his blood sugar had dropped dangerously low. He had become incoherent and needed medical attention. Grandmother was trying to administer assistance with Grandfather, but he just was not responding. Ruthie had become a rescue dog.

The book authoer, Joan Banks, had read Mother's entry and contacted her indicating that Ruthie's story should be in the upcoming book.

The author hopes that the "amazing" adoption stories will remind people how wonderful displaced dogs can be. The book is dedicated to "the selfless people who work in animal welfare and to the hundreds of thousands of wonderful dogs annually who didn't find "forever" homes." The proceeds from each book will buy 14 bowls of dog food for animal rescues and shelters nationwide.

Also, Petfinder now has a series starting on Animal Planet, here in the US. The description is here.

We don't often get on a soapbox, but we are advocates of rescued dogs and cats. Katherine, Zorra, Ruthie, Harley the Cat, Sabrina the Cat, Dakota the cat, and I are all rescued animals. Even though Ruthie is the only Petfinder Alumni, we are going to try to catch an episode or 2 of the show.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Rats!!


Our good pal, Thor gave us this wonderful award. Thank you so much, Thor.

To try to stay out of trouble today (it is a mudpit in the backyard), we were crusing the net. We suddenly relized that we were one day late with Chinese New Year. This year, 2008, is known as the Year of the RAT. OMD. Sammie is about ready to go NUTS on that. He thinks RATS will be everywhere, and he wants to get them ALL!!

In Earthdog competitions (A + A know all about those), they use a RAT in a cage to get WFTs and other Earth doggies into the tunnels and the doggies should act like they are going to get the RAT. Sammie is very good at mousing home and digging to get the moles, etc in the yard.....

So, this will be a busy year for Sammie. He has a whole year to get as many RATS as possible.

Mommi HATES HATES HATES rats, mice and other vermin... So, she may just have a fit with all this talk about RATS. BOL. BOL.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

thinking...

Hi everybloggie,

We finally made it back from AZ. We had some trouble dodging all those storms on the way home. Today has me in a reflective mood....



I'm wondering when it is going to stop raining so we can go run around outside. Our mom is driving us NUTS. We need a break from her!! She has been working too much and she is cranky.

I am also wondering why my collar is reflecting when I am inside the house??



I'm visualizing how much fun it is to go run around outside, without the rain and without slopping around in the mud all the time. I don't really mind it so much, but my mom isn't too keen on Sammie's mud pies. And, visualizing my mom not being so cranky and giving us lots of treats....



Visualizing even harder that Mom will be nice and go get us some treats.... treats... treats...



YEA!! It worked. Mom gots us our favorite treats!! Frozen Peanut Butter Kongs!!!!!!



Saturday, February 2, 2008

Quick Update

Hi,

I'm blogging from the VW. I am taking Arch and some of the other pups over to our next stop.

I don't know how Joe Stains and Gus did it, but we all got to see the trophy up close and personal. I saw it a couple times last year when it was in Indy with my pal, Peyton Manning. I thought Arch was going to roll over and play dead when he was so close to it. I am just glad none of us had to .... you know.. mark it. We were on our best behavior.



As you can see, we could only get a few of the pups picture with the trophy. We tried to scrunch in as much as we could. There is Lorenza, Archie and Agatha, Asta, Peanut, Amber Mae, Chloe, Tanner, Teka, Lacy LuLu, Sam, Zorra, Katie, Flash, The Bark A Lot boyz, Joe Stains, Gus, Blue's hair, Jackson, Lenny, and Marvin.

We just have so many things to do today. I will post more, later.