Dog Day Afternoon

When I got home from work today, it was HOT (about 95 degrees). I decided it was too hot to take the dogs for a walk, so figured I would let the BDC (Black Dog Club) get their yah-yah's out by the pool. Well, Hope did, Nick and Toddy had no desire to swim, but I think they still had fun. Nick was happy to steal the stick from Hope, and Toddy was happy to chase Nick to get the stick or a toy.

The pool temperature was perfect for the hot afternoon...I was actually IN the pool when I took this video :-) That Nick, he's such a THIEF!

Black Dog Club Weekend

It was actually a nice, relaxing weekend to finally stay home and just do a whole lot of nothing, but go on a few walks and let the dogs play...

Mother and daughter...Toddy and Hope...

Hope, Nick, and Toddy...

Profiles...Toddy, Hope, and Nick

On Sunday, Nick and I went on a field trip to the El Dorado Town Center shopping center with a friend and her pup, Gerrit.  After some training and lunch, we took them to a nearby school to play.  Here is a picture of the boys taken by Gerrit's puppy raiser.

We also went to the school a few times to let the dogs run...

Stick Thief

Hope's mom Toddy is staying with us for several days while her family is on vacation. It was such a nice day today that we took a couple of walks and I let the dogs swim...well, Hope swam and Nick mostly stood at the edge of the pool and waited for Hope to get the stick so he could steal it! Poor Hope, but she didn't seem to mind...

And that is not just any stick, that is the famous Molly-stick :-)

Family reunion weekend

Our trip to Southern California was also a family reunion in many respects...

My main purpose for the weekend was to attend our monthly HOPE AACR meeting in Costa Mesa.  We stayed in a hotel the first two nights to attend the drill on Saturday and the HOPE meeting on Sunday.  Here is a picture of Hope and Nick at the hotel in their tent:

And, kicking back on their bed...

But, here is where they really slept ;-)

After the drill was over, we went over to meet up with Nick's brother Najee at his puppy raiser's house for some playtime and dinner.  The boys had a great time playing with eachother, it was so cute they would just run back and forth, over and over, with the same toy in their mouth.

Najee and Nick posing for a family picture:

Najee's puppy raiser also has Titian, her first CCI puppy who was released from CCI.  From left to right (Titian, Najee, Nick, Hope):

And finally, a little video of the dogs playing that night...

On Sunday, we had a reunion of our HOPE family, it was fun meeting up with several of the teams who Hope and I went through the certification training with last year.  I wasn't at a very good angle for this picture as I wanted to be near Hope as she is afraid of Oz, that big black furry Newfie.  She finally approached him on this trip, before she would just back up or try to hide behind me.  That's her little black head to the right of Oz... :-)

After the meeting, we drove to Oceanside to meet up with my friend who is raising a puppy named Kane, who is Hope's nephew.  Kane's dad, Pryde, has the same mom as Hope. Najee and Titian also came for a visit as well so the dogs had a blast playing and swimming.

From left to right: Titian, Najee, Nick, Hope and Kane

And a little video of Hope swimming...

Dogs at play...

What a fun and relaxing weekend.  Well, except for the looong drive!  We let Hope and Nick get their yah-yah's out with Kane before we left.  Nick was able to retrieve whatever toys he wanted out of the toy box :-)

What a disaster!

Well, sort of....Hope and Nick made their acting debut last weekend in Irvine playing the role of evacuees for a diaster drill that was run an organization called SCART (Surf City Animal Response Team). I found out about the drill last month from some HOPE members who are also part of this organization. They were asking for therapy dogs to play the roles of the evacuee dogs. I was able to get permission to bring Nick too, even though he is not a therapy dog.  

The scenario was that there was a wildfire where I lost my home and needed to evacuate my dogs. There was an emergency animal shelter set up and Hope and Nick were processed through the shelter as part of the drill. They went through "intake" where I filled out paperwork for them to get into the shelter, had their picture taken, had my picture taken (for identification purposes), and given an unique ID number that was put on their collars. I was given a bracelet that contained their ID numbers. They were then taken to a makeshift dog kennel and held there until I came back to retrieve them.

Here's a picture of Hope and Nick before the drill started in their working dog mode (they didn't have to wear their vests for the drill):


After they went through Intake (where I filled out the paperwork) and they were given identification numbers, they were taken by volunteers to the kennel area:


Nick goes into the kennel:


The Kennel area (Nick on the left, Hope on the right). There's a miniature schnauzer named Shay in the kennel all the way to the right, he is a therapy dog that visits at hospitals.


After being kenneled for a bit, both dogs were taken to the Vet tent to be checked out for any medical issues (Nick on the left, Hope on the right):


Nick being sprung from the kennel and on his way back to me:


Hope being sprung from the kennel and on her way back to me:

The cool thing is that we also got our picture taken that appeared in the local paper, Orange County Register.  I have no idea when this picture was taken and am just glad both dogs were behaving themselves ;-)  Here's a link to the article (click here)

It was a fun day and we were glad to help out.  It was also good for the dogs and I was pleased with both of them as they were both comfortable being handled by other people (who didn't have much in the way of dog handling skills), remained calm, and were comfortable being kenneled.

Fun day!

Throwdown...a dime?

On one of our Lend A Heart visits the dogs are individually introduced and we do a "dog and pony" show at the beginning of the visit of their "tricks" which ranges from performing obedience commands, catching a biscuit off their nose, etc. I never really taught Hope any fun "tricks" while I had her, so instead I use some of her service skills for this portion of the visit.

Hope learned how to retrieve things as small as coins off the floor, using the command "get". She has been able to retrieve coins off a carpeted floor, but has had some trouble picking up coins off a non-carpeted floor. Last week, our visit was outside so I had her try to pick up a quarter, knowing she might have some issues, but she did it! I was so pleased with her for doing it that I put it on my status line on my Facebook page. One of my friends then put a comment out there to try a dime now.

Sounds like a Throwdown to me and Hope was up for the challenge. I even captured it on video so I could put it on my Facebook page...here she is! :-) Good girl, Hope!



If Nick were smart, he would be paying close attention as he will be going through this training come August when he leaves for Advanced Training. Notice he doesn't even bother to lift his head!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

Hope and Nick sent this picture to their dog-moms Toddy and Niobe today...(that's Hope on the left, Nick on the right in case you are wondering)

Since my mom came up for the day yesterday, we spent the day together and had Mother's Day a day early.  So that left me with an unplanned free day today, yay!  The dogs and I had a nice relaxing day after several busy weekends, so it was nice to have some time together just to chill. I took them on a long walk first thing in the morning, went out for a paddle in the morning, and then took them on a hike at the lake in the afternoon.  Now we all need a nap! :-)