K9 Karnival and Pit Bull Pomeranians

M-Gal took me to the Rochesterfest K9 Karnival last weekend. I had sooooooo much fun, and was my typical charming self of course. They had Daschund races, but I was much more content sitting at the Chesney's Choices homemade treat table demonstrating how yummy her treats are. I also made sure the booth always looked spotless by cleaning up all the crumbs left by the other dogs that were messier eaters. I'm such a good little worker dog. I guess the word is getting out about me cuz people heard and knew that I was there before I even met them.
In between my duties at the treat table, M-Gal let me make the rounds to meet new people and make some new doggie friends. There were 2 little foofy pomeranians that we came across. Their person said that the one might snark at me, but I'm the Hector Man! All the ladies love me! Well......all but this little pomeranian I guess. I just couldn't get her to like me. What's the deal with that?!? She kept trying to tell me off, but I just stood there wondering what the big deal was, and what it was in this perfect package that she was finding fault in. Their person said that they were Pit Bulls in little fluffy bodies. M-Gal said - "Well my dog IS a Pit Bull, and he's not acting like that." Ha Ha....good one M-Gal!
H

Nursemaid for a day.

One morning mom got up very early and took my new sister to have something done called "being spayed".  I don't know what dat is but when my sister came back, she was verrry sleepy and wouldn't play with me. 

So, to make her feel better I started cleaning her.  Sister likes when I do dat.

All of a sudden she woke up and started cleaning me! 

"Hey, wait!  Sis, I'm da one taking care of you remember?!  Now be still, so I can clean you!"

 OK, what's wrong with dis picture?!  Your not..... (Whats dat big word?),                         CO-WOPPERATING!

Geez! Being a nursemaid is hard work!

"Sigh" Sister's!  You can't live with dem and their too much fun to live without! 

~Love Frodo~

A Major Holiday

Today is a very important holiday for dogs. I initially thought it might be some Hallmark holiday, and that I’d get a card. Since I have no use for cards, I didn’t care all that much. That is, until the leash came out and we headed…..to work!

It is “Take Your Dog to Work Day” and that’s exactly what happened. They took me to the Winery and I met all the people who work in the cellar, I got to climb on ladders and even sit on a barrel. Instead of getting some card, I got a great adventure. All in all, a fun major holiday!

It Must Be Monday

Jonny-

I Rehabbed and Passed Something Else

Well we all know I didn't need any rehabbing, but I did my first official therapy dog visit in a rehab unit of the Mayo Clinic to help their rehab experience be a good one. It was fun! I got to inspect a lot of new places, and a bunch of people made a big circle around me just to give me scratches. Sounds like I'm going to get to go back there, and I really like going places more now that it's not real cold any more. They even said Clara could bring my buddy Angus along since he's a Therapy dog, too! I hope he does, but we'll see though, cuz I'm pretty sure I like him more than he likes me.

It was cold last weekend though, and M-guy insisted that we had to go out and spend part of the day outside. I think he was a little off his rocker that day to be honest. He didn't even care that I was pulling all over the place on the leash! Besides being cold, it was so windy it was raining sideways sometimes. Seriously.....all I had to do was walk around and meet some more people. Couldn't we have done that inside? Some of them had cool things like a bucket that made cool noises and one had a big stick so they could test my temperament. My temperament passed.

H

Road Trip to see the Duckies

This weekend Jonny Justice and I went on a road trip.
 We went to a beautiful place that smells really good.

The next day, after breakfast and a short hike, we went to the River Ranch Lodge for the Truckee Duckee Derby.   We picked out a good spot where we could see the race.

Jonny and I were the Pets of Honor and a whole lot of people and dogs came to see us.  

After the little rubber duckies had their race, we met the big granddaddy duckee.  He was really big and yellow.

Then we went on stage and all the people clapped their hands and smiled.  I'm not sure why, we didn't do any of our amazing tricks or anything.  Then we autographed two of the magazines with our cousin Sweet Jasmine on the cover.  My paw print is the one at the top, and Jonny's is underneath.  Sorry, I got some ink on your face, Jasmine!

 

We met so many people who were so nice and we worked really hard to say hello to as many people as possible.  My people said we both did a really good job.  We were very very tired after it was all over.  

Thank you to all the nice people who invited us on our trip, Bill Jensen, The Humane Society of Truckee/Tahoe and all the really nice people who work  there, and Alvina and her nice lady German Shepherd at the Holiday House Hotel where we stayed.  

Summer School

Hey Everybody!
I got to go to a FUN school where we ran around in the grass and did all kinds of different stuff in front of cones and signs. My Lady says it's called Rally and it was Really Cool. My friends Uba and Audie came too, and a new girl I didn't know before called Ms. Kitty. Boy she was PRETTY! I hope we get to hang out again.

Here's me waiting my turn to start:

Then we went really fast around some cones. I LIKE weaving!!

But my FAVORITE was the loves & scratchies I got when I finished. I could barely stand still long enough to have my picture taken.

Hope you all get to enjoy the sunshine, too!

Love,

Ernie

Oops, I threw a temper tantrum

I guess I should be thrilled. I got to go to a food (that’s food for people, not me) and music festival on Sunday. They got hungry and decided to go to a restaurant that allowed me to sit outside at a table. But I got bored. True, they gave me some treats for being a good dog and settling under the table, but there came a time when I decided enough was enough. I wanted to go do something else.

She snapped this photo just moments before I threw a temper tantrum. I had a melt down. I threw myself on the ground and spun around and tried to get myself out of my harness and collar. It didn’t work. She’s much bigger than me and quietly took my wiggling self and harness and sat me up again. At the time it seemed the world should revolve around my cute face, but it didn’t work out that way. I woke up yesterday with a more positive outlook on my life though. I suppose they could have left me at home with the other dogs. I hope they let me try again. I promise, I’ll behave.

Barbeque

Yesterday, I learned a new people sound.

It's called Barbeque ! I really like the smell that word means.

Seems that Jonny likes that smell too.

Maybe it's just me, but do you think he likes it a bit too much ?

Grace-

I'm Just So Very Busy

I am a busy little dog. Yes, both kinds of busy. I investigate everything and that includes grabbing and running with the abandoned shoes that I find in her closet and hunting for squirrels in the backyard when I think she’s not noticing. But, I’m busy in another way too. She’s signed me up for agility classes and rally classes. Two nights each week, we go to class and the other days we practice so much stuff that my head begins to spin. This is a lot of work for me considering I didn’t know what a leash was all that long ago, I wanted to stand on the kitchen table all the time, and tried to swallow everything I saw. Things I nearly swallowed included pieces of paper, washcloths and bottle caps and bait (small delicious dead fish heads) left on the waterfront, but I was foiled every time. That's mostly behind me and now, I tug politely on my tug toy, down when she asks for a down, walk backwards (why she wants this I’ll never know), balance on a puffy round ball, and run into my crate whenever I hear the word crate. I’m so much better behaved she said, but I do find time to squeeze in the shoe stealing stuff even though I’m told this isn’t part of my new training plan. You see, this is all part of being very busy little dog.

Iggy's tips for the day: Breathe thru what scares you & take time for belly rubs

Some of you may be aware of an invention called television and on television they show shows...

I have seen TV. We have one at our house. But here's a secret you may not know...people don't really live in that box on the wall. huh...well, I learn something new every day! literally...

One day back in February I learned that people from TV come with lots and lots of equipment. The people seemed nice, the equipment seemed, well, a little scary. I wasn't too sure about what was going on. But everything worked out OK.

That's another thing I have learned...when I am unsure about things...if I just keep breathing, I can get through it and I am just fine, in fact I am better because I get a little more brave with each new experience.

As we head into warmer weather, I just wanted to share a video of me Enjoying a sunny day!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

So I guess M-guy and M-gal said that I just had my Estimated Birthday on Tuesday! They said it was estimated because they don't really know when I was born. I could tell them, but I don't like to think about those days, so I'm gonna start fresh and have my Estimated Birthday be my Real Birthday from now on.

M-guy seemed a little preoccupied and busy with other stuff, but that's okay because he gave me extra treats and told me he'd make it up to me this weekend with a fun late birthday outing. Also, since it was my birthday and he couldn't take me anywhere special, he let me sleep in bed with him and M-gal! That rocked!! M-guy kept waking up sometimes because he didn't have sheets covering him the whole way. For some reason he wasn't able to move them, so since I was already up there on the sheets next to him, I made sure to curl up real close to him and not move to try and keep him warm, since the sheets obviously weren't doing the trick. If he were smart, he would totally keep me up in bed to do this more often. M-gal made me special home baked doggie treats shaped like bones too! M-guy slipped me an extra one while the other dogs weren't looking. Mmmmmm......yum..............

H

This is Getting Difficult

A few weeks ago we started going to a new school in a different place where there are NO pit bulls. Wow, it's weird not to see other pit bulls at school! The class is for something called Rally-O. If I am good I can get more letters after my name, to go after the "CGC".

We started out doing normal class stuff like walking at heel, sitting, waiting, doing downs and walking around cones. After a while the lady in charge put up all these little pieces of paper and we had to read them to figure out the next command. My favorite is this one that says "fast", I am an expert at fast!


Then it started to get hard.

This sign is really tough. My mom and I got kind of mixed up with it, but the nice lady helped us figure it out and by the end of the class we got it almost completely right on the practice course. We practice in the evenings before dinner, which I like a lot. I love getting treats for being smart and then I get to be all wild and crazy and run around.



The lady in charge says I am a really great dog (duh!). She likes it when I get really happy and excited and bounce and crash into my mom's legs when we heel. This new class is really fun because I have to think a lot, and reading the signs is making me smarter. I also really like that since we've been taking rally classes my mom and I understand each other better. I've always listened to her, but now I can see that there are more things she's telling me, like which direction we're going to go. If I watch carefully I know what we're doing next before she even says anything! I'm going to keep studying hard, I want to know about more of the signs so we have more fun stuff to practice.


This is a good sit and look - more treats, please!

hugs,
Uba

Hey Everybody!

Springtime is sure niiiice, just like my friend Audie said. Now that it's warm, I like to hang out with my Man and Lady in the back yard. They're working on a part called The Roses, and my Lady got real unhappy because she said we have a go-for there. And the go-for is doing something funny to her plants! Uh oh! I didn't know what go-for was until I took a big sniff of a nice hole by her flowers. Then I remembered--- that guy! Well I sure went looking for him so he wouldn't eat any more plants. I looked all over in The Roses, I looked in the bulbs, I looked on the hill (three times!), in the grass, and by the deck. I'm not sure my Lady liked my looking. She said I made an awful lot of holes. But here's me when I was done digging, and nobody scolded me because they said I looked Too Happy. Yup. It's nice to be Too Happy in the sun!

Love,

Ernie

The Napa Valley in Spring

Today we went on a short drive to the Napa Valley. She wanted me to have the chance to walk in the vineyards and to see bud break. I didn’t really care about all that, but the air smelled sweet so I closed my eyes and I drank it all in.