Marley & Me

Yesterday, after a little play time for the dogs at the schoolyard, I went with a group of friends and pups to see the movie "Marley & Me" in El Dorado Hills.  Hope got to play a bit, but had to be dropped off at home since she can't go out in public anymore.  Oh well, she was happy to have her couch time anyways.

Of course, the dogs were a hit at the movie, especially since two of them are yellow labs, just like Marley.  The black dogs just faded into the background as black dogs do, especially since you could barely see them against the dark carpet.  There are advantages to raising a black dog sometimes. ;-)  We even saw another puppy raiser who had just seen the movie and was on his way out when we were standing in line waiting to get in.  When we asked him how the movie was, his reply was that it was as emotional as a CCI graduation.  Uh-oh, we're in trouble.  I won't spoil it just in case someone hasn't already read the book, but it was a tear-jerker alright, especially for those of us who have dogs.  We escaped out the back exit after the movie was over and went out for a bite to eat afterwards. Good times, good company, good movie, can't get any better than that!  

I got Nick back from our co-raisers too as they have a household of dogs this week, so he'll be spending the week with us here.  Hope was certainly happy to see him again when we arrived home.  

Here's a picture of the dogs in front of the Marley & Me sign at the theatre. Not a great picture, but Nick is the black blob on the far right.  Darn black dogs, they sure are hard to photograph!

Road Trip!

One of the good things that came out of my company's two week shutdown over the holidays was time to go on a road trip to visit my friend Laurie who lives in Oceanside who I met through puppy raising.  I took both Hope and Nick with me on the trip and my friend Jill and her CCI puppy, Skipper, joined us as well. Thankfully, it was uneventful driving down to Oceanside (aside from a little traffic in L.A.) and back home.  There's been a lot of stormy weather and our biggest concern was getting over the Grapevine as it had actually gotten closed due to snow a few days before we left.  

On one day, we met the family of my first CCI pup, Marisa, at SeaWorld in San Diego. We actually lucked out and it was a beautiful sunny day in the 60's. It is always so fun to see Marisa and her family. Marisa is 6 years old and her graduate Jason, and his sister Rachel, are so big compared to when I first met them four years ago when she graduated as a Skilled Companion for Jason. Marisa is getting gray but she still looks great and still has that same wiggle when she walks.

Here is a picture of Nick, Skipper and Marisa:

Brrrrr....guess Nick got a little cold in the Arctic exhibit visiting a polar bear, he's starting to grow his own icicles! Ok, ok, yes that's drool...if you know Nick, you know he's all about the drool. :-)

Here's Nick wondering if he is going to be Shamu's next meal...hmmm, do whales like dog meat?

Marisa doing an "up" by the dolphins before we were told not to not let the dogs go up on the wall.  Hmmm....do dolphins like dog meat?

Marisa's wonderful family, she is one lucky dog who has a busy life and gets to go to lots of different places.  I'm so glad she is there for Jason.

Nick is trying his best to pose for pictures, but there's a dog whispering in his ear...

One another day, we met up with Nick's brother Najee who is being raised in the SW region. Najee is huge compared to Nick at about 75 lbs (compared to about 57 for Nick), but other than the difference in size the boys are so similar in personality, even down to the drool.  It was fun to compare notes with Najee's puppy raiser and the boys got a chance to play together, after posing for a few pictures of course!

One night Laurie took her cockatoo, Captain, out of his cage.  I know my dogs were wondering what the heck this thing was!  But they were all good and stayed in a down.  Even the cowardly lion was watching the bird (look at the TV if you are wondering what I'm talking about):

On our last day there, Hope's brother Hefner visited, it was the first time Hope saw Hefner since they were being raised.  Hefner was released for pretty severe elbow dysplasia and after a complicated surgery and recovery period, you would never know he had any problems.  Here is the last fun shot of all the dogs at Laurie's house before we left. That's Hope on the top; Nick and Skipper in the top crate, and Sergi and Hefner in the bottom crate.  It was funny as both my dogs are related to Sergi -- Hope and Sergi are both Toddy pups (mom), and Nick and Sergi are both Weldin pups (dad).  And of course, Hope and Hefner are littermates from Toddy.  It was like a family reunion of sorts!

All in all it was a great trip! 

Reading and Holiday Lights?

How are these two things related? Hope, of course...

Hope and I went for our monthly visit to a local elementary school in Citrus Heights yesterday morning. She had nine 2nd and 3rd graders who each read to her for 20 minutes. A few of the kids had read to her last month, so it was nice for her to see them again. I just wish I were a little better about remembering their names. Hope seems to really enjoy the interaction and I enjoy the time doing this with her.

I had sent Nick off to a friend's house for a little change in his boring office work routine. After I picked him up and since I had Hope with me at work, I decided to do our walk at a local neighborhood near work where the houses are all decorated with holiday lights. It was a chilly evening, but nice to have something different to look at for our walk. Here are a few pics, not very good, but considering its two black dogs at night, what do you expect?

Here's Nick in front of the dancing Santa's that are motion-activated. The funny thing is I have almost this same picture of Zucchini when she was about 4 months old in front of these very same Santa's...

Here's a picture of Nick and Hope in front of one of the displays (this house had used the entire 3rd bay of a 3-car garage set up with this display)...

Even though it was cold, it sure beat walking around the same old streets in my neighborhood since I had to take the dogs for a walk anyway; at least it gave us something different to look at.

Happy Holidays!

Houseful of dogs this weekend

Well our fur count has increased from one dog to three this weekend.  I have been watching one of my friend's CCI pups, Isaiah, since Thursday.  He's about 3 weeks older than Nick and we go to puppy class together. He's very sweet and affectionate.  I went and picked up Nick and took both him and Isaiah to class at Sac State this morning.  Hope was excited to not only have Isaiah come back home, but to see Nick too.

It's supposed to start raining tonight, so I took the 3 dogs for a hike at Folsom Lake in the afternoon after we got home from puppy class.  It was perfect weather for a hike.  I contemplated letting the dogs run loose near the water, but then decided against it as they would have gotten really muddy if we had gone down to the water (or what's left of it as the Lake is so low right now). I really didn't feel like spending the rest of the afternoon giving all three of them a bath, so instead we just hiked along the trail.  

Nick and Isaiah resting after arriving home from puppy class:

Isaiah, Hope, and Nick at Folsom Lake (or what's left of the lake, its so low right now, we really need some rain!):

A day of reflection

It was a melancholy day today, one year ago today I bid a tearful goodbye to my sweet Molly after her almost 2 year battle with cancer.  She was not the first dog I ever had in my life, but she was the only one who was really truly mine.  Molly was not the most well behaved dog in the world, but she was certainly all golden and sweet as sweet can be.  She taught me a lot about dogs during her time on earth - both good and bad, and I don't know who controlled who. She certainly taught important lessons to all the CCI dogs who passed through my house.  

I will never forget you Molly, I hope that where ever you are, you have a huge lake to swim in, fields to run in, and plenty of counters to steal food from. I still think of you often and it still seems like yesterday when I had to say goodbye; it's hard to believe it has been a year. I will always treasure our last day together, it was a day spent like you lived your life, swimming, hiking, and chasing sticks.  Your tail was wagging even as we ended our journey together. Though I was sad to say goodbye, I also felt a sense of relief as you took your last breath knowing you wouldn't have to struggle anymore. No regrets...

Rest in peace, my sweet girl...I will always remember this picture of our last day together, you were definitely ready to continue your journey to the Rainbow Bridge...

Hiking with Hope

Since Nick went home with our co-raisers after the holiday party, and poor Hope was home by herself yesterday for most of the day, today was her day. There was no rain in sight, so I thought I'd take advantage of the nice weather to take her out for a hike and some geocaching. 

Last night I was scoping out some new areas to hike that weren't too far away from home and that had some geocaches hidden along the trails. We ended up going to Cronan Ranch in Pilot Hill off of Highway 49. What a great place with a ton of great hiking trails. When I left Folsom in the morning, it was totally foggy and cold. By the time we got to the trailhead, it was sunny and I ended up peeling off my jacket and long-sleeved shirt and doing the entire hike in short sleeves. I guess we were above the fog line as when we left about 3pm and were coming back down into Folsom, it was all foggy and cold again.

Here's Hope on the trail with some other hikers in the distance....

I was able to let Hope off leash for a good part of the hike, the only bad thing was that there were a ton of horseback riders on the trails so I had to be careful and put her on leash when they went by just for safety's sake. She was so good and just stuck next to me for the most part, not like her younger days when she would just run off and not even come back. I did catch her eating some horse poop a few times (yuck!) and gave her a big correction and after that she totally went around it - good girl! Let's just hope she remembers that the next time she thinks about it again!

We hiked about 5 miles together and found 12 geocaches. Check out my geocaching blog at: http://pk-a-boo.blogspot.com/ for my favorite one of the day, its pretty funny. We hiked on this high ridge that gave us great views of the South Fork of the American River and I even recognized the "Lollipop Tree" that I've seen on rafting trips I've done on the South Fork. The Lollipop Tree marks the beginning of the Gorge run of the river - where all the fun Class III rapids are.

Hope sitting on a rock patiently waiting for me to find a geocache... (the Lollipop Tree way up on the ridge behind her - if you click on the picture it is way off in the distance at the top of the ridge)
Hope is wondering why I continually drag her off the trail and stick my hand in piles of rocks! This is why I don't go geocaching in the summer - this is rattlesnake haven, I just hope they are asleep...

It was such a beautiful sunny day, hard to believe it is December and I'm hiking in short sleeves. I really treasured this day with Hope, it was so nice to spend it together with her, just the two of us.  Here's a shot of Hope with the South Fork of the American River in the background...

Dirty dog feet!...

And a little video of Hope with a shot of the Lollipop Tree in the background...

Thanks for a great day Hope!

Holidaze for Nick

I took Nick to the Christmas Faire on Sutter Street in Folsom yesterday morning, Folsom's "main drag" in the old part of the city.  I was hoping to get a few stocking stuffers at the craft faire.  We got there early, but the faire was already starting to get busy with lots of people and dogs. So it provided a good training excursion for Nick.

After that, we went to puppy class which was being held at the school due to our CCI chapter's holiday party.  After that it was party time.  Poor Nick had to stay up on stage in a down for practically the whole party as I was helping out with the photographs. At least he was up there with his buddies Idelle, Gerrit and Skipper.  I think they were most happy when everybody had left and we let them play in the kindergarten yard.  They deserved that for being such good pups!  

Here's Nick's official holiday photo.  I can't believe how big he looks now!