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!