It’s been how long since my last post?!

Good grief, I never meant to go this long without posting, but life seems to have happened somewhere along the line.

Simon is now almost two and a half. He’s still only about 26″ tall, but is now pushing 60 pounds. We have been working on his extreme reactivity with some success, and have managed to pick up a few more titles along the way, including his AKC Fit Dog Bronze and Silver. While doing our our Fit Dog walks, we visited some of the sights here in town, including one of the many murals that the Convention and Visitor Bureau has sponsored and the historic Jefferson Theater.

My father-in-law succumbed to cancer in November of 2021. In June of 2022, there was a big memorial party for him in Colorado, Leo and Simon had to stay at the vet while we were gone, but Lily got to come with. While we were there, we managed to record the last entry she needed to become the first dog ever to earn an All Dogs Parkour Level 5(2) title. On the way home, we stopped at the Capulin Volcano National Monument, where a ranger was nice enough to take a photo of the five of us. This spring, she earned her AKC Fit Dog Bronze and Silver titles.

Leo is still doing well, although at eleven, I can tell she is starting to have some mobility issues. Not that she’s letting it slow her down any when it comes to acting the fool. She earned her AKC Fit Dog Bronze and Silver titles earlier this year, and got to visit one of the newer murals that the CVB has sponsored.

All four cats, including 17 year old See-See, 13 year old T-Max and Bigfoot, and 3 year old Lana are still with us, and still causing mischief.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of photography lately. I’m planning on eventually getting all the mural around town photographed, and as many county courthouses as possible (I know I won’t be able to get all 260-odd), along with anything else that takes my fancy.

And that’s the current life with the hellhounds.

Long time no see

Goodness, was my last post really about Leo’s emergency surgery last September? So much has happened since then….

First of all, an update on Simon. He turned a year old in February, and was 25″ tall and 45 pounds the last time I looked. He will continue filling out as he matures, and I expect him to be in the 55 pound range eventually. His color is really starting to clear, with lighter hair running up the back of his legs and scattered throughout his coat. He’s earned a few more titles, including his AKC Novice Trick Dog and his All Dogs Parkour Level 1. That’s the good news.

In the not so good news category, well, he just hasn’t been the same since I had to board him. He was in a fear/stranger danger period when it happened, and ever since then, he has been extremely suspicious of, and reactive to, people and other dogs when we are out an about. Add in his extreme urge to chase anything that moves (bicycles, city busses, blowing leaves, what have you), and it’s been a pretty wild ride at times. We are working on it, but it’s going to be a long process. Other than that, he is a joy to work with, and is such a happy, eager training partner.

Leo continues to do well. In fact, you’d never even know she had been in such bad shape only six months ago. She’s been retired from pretty much everything other than “lay around the house and bark at the mail carrier” and playing with Simon, although we are still dabbling a bit here and there with some parkour.

Lily is one of the few people around here who wishes Simon would just “poof” and vanish. She’s never been too thrilled about the concept of having a bouncy, pouncy puppy brother, especially since he’s now an obnoxious, hormone fueled, teenaged boy brain pest. The are either separated or strictly supervised when they are together. Her preference is separated. She is also retired most things, and shares “mail alert” duties with Leo.

As much as boarding the dogs played havoc with Simon, it was good that we went to visit when we did, since Dad died in November. Even though it was expected, it was still a bit of a shock, since he had been doing better in the weeks beforehand. Joe and Marilyn went out to California for a memorial service in December, and there will be a big family get together memorial party in Colorado this coming summer

Okay, now for the fun stuff, namely pictures and videos!

These are from the latest batch of pictures, taken last month. Simon is in a clip called the Royal Dutch.

These is Simon’s TKN submission.

This is his ADP-L1 submission.

In other pet news, all four cats, fifteen year old See-See, twelve year old Bigfoot and T-Max, and one year old Lana, are all still with us, but we lost Paigliocco, our thirty year old Senegal Parrot, suddenly and unexpectedly last week. We are still in shock.

The Six Million Dollar Dog

Okay, so she’s technically only the three thousand, three hundred seventy-one dollar and seventy-three cent dog, but still…

A little over a week ago Leo was, if not actually knocking on Death’s door, at least standing on the sidewalk in front of his house. She started having diarrhea on Friday morning It didn’t improve much, if any, over the course of the day, and she even woke me up in the middle of the night to go outside. By Saturday afternoon, she had progressed to bloody diarrhea, and started vomiting. I decided that she needed to go to the emergency clinic then, instead of waiting until Tuesday for our regular vet to be open.

We got there right around 6:00 PM. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, but was only a couple of hours, they were able to take her inside and examine her. Bloodwork showed that while her liver and kidney functions were fine, her lipase and amylase levels were through the roof, and a test for pancreatitis was abnormal. X-rays showed two small objects in her stomach that looked metallic. We decided to treat the symptoms of pancreatitis, and repeat the x-rays in another twelve hours, to see if whatever the heck it was in her stomach moved.

The repeated x-rays showed that the foreign objects hadn’t budged, and surgery to remove them was recommended. The price tag was a real ouch, though. One one hand, I had a much loved nine year old dog, who had a decent chance of making it though surgery and a very good chance of making a full recovery if she did. On the other hand, I was looking at upwards of $5000 worth of bills and the possibility that she wouldn’t make it. After paying her a visit Sunday afternoon, where, thanks to pain meds, she was her usual happy, waggy self, my husband somewhat grudgingly agreed to my inclination to do the surgery. (He loves her, but geeze, that’s a goodly chunk of change…)

Surgery was finished just after 1:00 AM Monday morning. The vet removed the two objects, as well as the large wad of hair that was wrapped around them. The hair didn’t show up on the x-rays, but was probably the main reason that they couldn’t move through her system. At least one of the objects looked to be a small piece of gravel, about the size of a large pea. The other item was about half that size, and none of us could figure out what it was. They are probably what triggered the pancreatitis, though, so with them gone, it was expected that that would clear up on its own.

She got to come home Tuesday morning, and has made a remarkable recovery. She thinks that this whole “be crated 24/7, with leashed potty walks only, no chasing birds, squirrels, or opossums, and no fence fighting with the neighbor dogs for at least two weeks” thing is absurd. Just wait until she finds out that she won’t be playing with Simon for even longer…. I really don’t want any internal sutures coming loose, thank you very much.

These were taken on Wednesday, after she’d been home just over 24 hours, and was still on heavy-duty pain medication.

Not so spaced out that she couldn’t bark, though.

Her tummy is shaved from her ribcage to her tail, as well as down the inside of her hind legs, and they trimmed her pantaloons off for me, as well. She looks so skinny without all the fluff. Her incision is nice and neat, and after her coat grows back, you probably won’t even see the scar unless you really look for it.

So, here we are… As the commercials go “One emergency vet bill, $3371.73. One worthless dog on the road to a full recovery, priceless”. My husband says that she needs to live at least another five years to make up for what we spent on her.

As the saying goes…

“Life is what happens while you are making other plans”. My plans got thrown out the window the past month, since Simon, along with Leo and Lily, spent two weeks boarding at the vet clinic while the humans went to California. My father-in-law has cancer, so we bumped up our planned Christmas trip to spend my husband’s birthday there. Between the trip, the weather, and now the beginning of the school year, training and recording videos for online titling hasn’t been happening.

Simon and his ten littermates turned six months old on the 23rd. I’m still trying to figure out how he’s gotten that old already. Don’t let the empty water jug fool you. He’s got toys. Lots of them. This is obviously a much better plaything, though. And he’s got some strong scruff-puppy vibes going on. I keep banding his topknot, and he keeps managing to get it un-banded.

This is what he’s supposed to look like with his topknot banded.

In other news, I’m editing pictures. My husband and I have a clear division of labor for road trips. He drives, and I take pictures and panic about traffic. I took about 4,000 pictures on our trip. I’ve also taken roughly 1,000 since we got home. In other words, I’ve looked at a lot of pictures over the past couple of weeks…. I’ve finally made it to the drive home. Then I get to tackle the pictures I took of the dogs, the Union Pacific’s 4014 Big Boy locomotive (that thing is huge, by the way), and the ship channel after we got home.

These are a few pictures from our trip.

Hopefully, we will get a break from the heat (although preferably not in the form of a hurricane) soon, and we can get back to training outside and recording titling videos. Since the AKC has made their Virtual Rally a permanent option, I am thinking of really working with Leo and Lily, as well as Simon, to try and get at least a Novice title.

Adventures in…

Grooming, for starters. I love the look of a cleanly clipped Poodle face. However, it’s been a while (okay, nearly three decades) since I’ve groomed Poodles, and Simon is a very wiggly puppy. Grooming has been something of an adventure for both of us. The good news is that we are getting better, and his face is mostly clipped these days. The bad news is that I regularly see places I’ve missed. Eh, we’ll get there eventually.

In other grooming news, he’s undergone a pretty radical transformation. We were both tired of sealing with soggy puppy fuzz with all the rain we were having, so he’s been sporting a Miami for the past month and a half.

Again with the “We are learning as we go along.”.

We’ve tidied up a bit.

And we are in need of a trim again.

He outgrew his car crate, so he got an upgrade.

We’ve been doing some training, of course, and he’s earned four titles already. He’s got his 2K9 and Novice Trick Dog from Do More With Your Dog, his Beginner Seeker geocaching title from GeoPup Sports, and his Foundation Skills Level 1 from All Dogs Parkour. Plus, he’s graduated from our local Petsmart puppy class. He’ll be 21 weeks old tomorrow.

And I’m trying to figure out just how on earth he’s gotten to be that big and that old already.

More adventures to come.

That’s no Saint

Nope, my Simon is definitely all puppy. Adorable, infuriating, lovable, annoying, wonderful, and frustrating. Sometimes all at once. In some ways, he’s absolutely bombproof, and in others has a few kinks that need to be ironed out. In the good category, he’s only had a few accidents inside, and once of them was because I was dealing with my son having a bit of a meltdown over something. He’s smart. He wants to do ALL THE THINGS! In the eh, he’s a puppy category, I’m not exactly fond of standing out in the yard at 1:30 AM telling him to hurry the heck up am potty so that I can go to bed. Grooming-wise, he’s fine with clippers on his body, but hates them on his face.

By the end of the first week, I could (with supervision, of course) take him outside with both the girls. Leo is mostly delighted to have a new playmate. Lily seems to be thinking that maybe if she ignores him hard enough, he will go away.

“What this?”

“I pull!”

“I pull harder!”

“Uh, what happening?”

“I powerful puppy!”

“Can’t make it move no more!”

Wet feets. It rained ten of the first fourteen days he was home.

“Rawr!”

“See my teefs?!”

“I CHOMP with them!”

“See my teefs? They lots bigger than yours.”

The flying fuzz.

“Seriously, Mommy, could you make them stop?”

Umm…. nope. That is a hunk of GSD undercoat he has in his mouth, by the way.

Flying with fuzz. More GSD undercoat.

Hey, stinker, that’s MY book.

This was too good a picture to not turn into a meme. I sent it to the author, and she thought it was hilarious.

Starting to look a bit scraggly.

That’s all for now. Next post, I’ll catch up on some of the things we’ve been doing besides playing.

Rhymes of the Renegade

It was too good of a song title to not borrow, considering my new puppy’s official name, Birch Creek Renegade Knight, aka Simon.

Yes, he’s finally here. My husband, son, and I made a nearly nine hour round trip Saturday to pick him up. I’d like to say that he’s been an absolute dream, but… well… he’s been a puppy. He screamed in his car crate for the first ten miles or so, and after every stop. He’s screamed in his crate here at home. He’s had some accidents. On the other hand, he’s letting me know when he needs to go out, and has been a real trooper about pottying outside in the pouring rain.

Now, about that name… He was from Birch Creek Poodle’s “Roadtrip” litter, with all the puppies named after towns or cities. His name was Knoxville, which was shortened to just Knox. I am a fan of the author Justin Davis, and one of my favorite books is “Renegade”, from the Coalition Rebellion series. I also liked the TV show Knightrider, lo these many years ago, which was a new twist of the knight errant (fancy car instead of a white steed, and no shining armor in sight, but the same idea). All of them came together as Birch Creek Renegade Knight. His call name of Simon comes from another literary invention, The Saint, aka Simon Templar, who was also something of a knight errant (and named after the Knights Templar, to boot).

I’d love to post some nice pictures of my beautiful puppy, but…. it’s been raining. Pouring. Deluging, even. Since yesterday afternoon, and it’s supposed to rain pretty much all week. So I’ll have to just post what I’ve got.

Right after we got home, meeting my daughter.

Soggy doggy at the vet, being unhappy about not being allowed to eat his leash, and wondering why I’m sticking my phone in his face.

Because of the rain, we aren’t doing much besides playing the “hurry up and potty, already” game, but we have had a couple of short little tug sessions.

So, there we are. Slightly sleep deprived, learning about this strange new world we find ourselves in, and working on figuring out where we go from here. I’m looking forward to it (and sleep… I’m really looking forward to sleep.)

Puppy panic….

Well, I’m not to that stage quite yet, but…. the breeder and I have agreed on which puppy I will be getting, and are working on getting some contract tweaks done, and scheduling when and where we will be playing “pass the puppy”. And I’m getting… a solid blue puppy, not the phantom I was hoping for. Why, you ask? Well, it turns out that the phantom boy isn’t fond of loud voices, and with an autistic teenager in the house, loud voices happen a lot around here. So the blue boy who doesn’t seem bothered by loud voices will be coming home with me, and the phantom can go to a quieter home. In an interesting twist, all my dogs have had “their color”, starting with Gin wearing a blue collar and leash, Lucky wearing purple, Ilka wearing pink, Leo wearing green, and Lily wearing red. I had decided to start over again, and am going to use blue for my new puppy….. turns out his litter collar color is blue…. guess that means it was meant to be?

In other news, the girls went 3 for 3 in All Dogs Parkour entries this month. Leo earned her second Level 3 (GC) leg, and Lily earned her first and second Level 4 (2) legs.

After puppy comes home, the girls will be getting a well deserved break, and baby will start on his parkour career, since the All Dogs Parkour Foundation Skills Program is open to puppies as young as 12 weeks.

Canine communication

The girls decided that yesterday would be a good day for a major game of chase. They got to burn off a lot of steam and get some exercise, and I managed to get an interesting series of photographs of an incident that happened while they were playing.

What I missed in this series is the moment between the second and third photos when Lily actually snarked a bit, and air snapped at Leo.

What does this have to do with canine communication, you ask? Well, everything, actually, since this was a clear and obvious case of one dog telling the other what it wanted or needed, and the other dog acknowledging it and complying with the request. Moments before, they had been running around, chasing each other. Lily evidently thought things were getting too rough, and wanted a break. Leo didn’t want to stop, but Lily told her in no uncertain terms to back off and give her some space. Once that happened, everything was fine, and Lily initiated the next session of chase a few seconds later.

After a few more circuits of the yard, they took a mutually agreed upon break, did some side by side grazing, and called it a day.

Lily loves her greens, and has taught Leo the habit, as well.

Now, Leo and Lily are good friends, and have played chase many, many times over the years. I’ve only had a few instances where I thought it prudent to break things up, and those were mostly back when I first got Lily. I’ve only known of a couple of times where things started to really get out of hand, but after being separated, and everyone chilling out for the rest of the day, they were smoothed over pretty quickly.

Interactions like this are why I don’t take my dogs to dog parks, and they don’t go to doggy daycare. Please note, I am nowhere near being an expert at this, but I have a grasp on the basics. However, a lot of people don’t understand this type of language at all, which can lead to fights that happen “out of nowhere”, or “without any warning”, since they had been playing just a few seconds earlier (the entire series of six photos covers maybe a minute). Sometimes fights do happen out of the blue, but more often, humans have missed the canine conversation that came before the fight.

In other news, their ICN rosettes came, so I decided to get some pictures with their pretty-pretties.

Kids… one with her eyes closed, and the other with her tongue out….

Still not the greatest, but at least all four eyes are open and both tongues inside the mouth, where they belong.

Is it May yet? Puppy, puppy, puppy!

March of Time

Well, March has certainly marched right along. I, on the other hand, have puttered. I’ve done a little bit of working with the dogs here, a little bit of spring cleaning there, and a little bit of this, that, and the other in the spaces in between.

In dog news, I decided on a whim to try the International Canine Events version of parkour, the International Canine Ninja. Both girls earned their Level 1 title. This means that they now have parkour titles with five different organizations.

This is Leo’s submission.

This is Lily’s Submission.

In the “this, that, and the other” category, I got some photography in.

The historic Southern Pacific train depot in Orange, TX.

The historic Southern Pacific train depot in Orange, TX.

The historic Southern Pacific train depot in Orange, TX.

The sign for a closed dry cleaners in Bridge City, TX.

The sign for a closed dry cleaners in Bridge City, TX. Very cool “Atomic Age” neon.

The old Jefferson Drug Company building in Beaumont, TX.

The old Jefferson Drug Company building in Beaumont, TX.

The old Jefferson Drug Company building in Beaumont, TX.

The train depot has been fully restored and renovated just within the past couple of years. Train service ended in the 1970s, and the building was used for several different things, like businesses or office space, but sat vacant for two decades after a fire in 1990. This is what it looked like in March 2013.

The historic Southern Pacific train depot in Orange TX, taken in 2013.

In Standard Poodle news, I get to “meet” the puppies tomorrow via Zoom. They will be just shy of five weeks old. I am so excited! I now which one I’m hoping for, but I will take whichever one we think will best fit in with this crazy thing we call our family. Puppy, puppy, puppy!!!