Belated Tongue Out Tuesday, Co pilot edition

Epic Fall Dog Walk

See that white line on the drain pipe?
 That is as high  as I go without wigging out.  I
am screwed.

NOTE-
Came back for the second day in a row to give my blog some love and found this unfinished post.  I gave it the once over and bam- two posts in 2 days. Today is Finney's 6th birthday!  If you are a Finney fan, be sure to watch his little Youtube clip at the end where he finds himself out on a log on a pond. Love ya Finn.

Been painting my house. Which is quite a task, since I am a real freak about high ladders and heights.  The dogs, Finn, Beck and latest foster Ginger have all been a bit freaky to. They just don't think it is right that they can see me out the windows, but can't touch me. You would think it they would find it comforting, but no, it is making them nuts.




Anyway, after days of painting the dogs  looked at me all pathetic and whiny and pleading like so I gave in. I took the younguns to school and hit the woods. Hoped they would all chill afterwards.

You know those days when dogs kind of kick up there heels and run with full abandon? Those days that you stick out in you mind of why you like dogs and how much joy they bring you? Those special dog romps that you look back at and can't help but smile?

Yup, it was like that.

First they ran full tilt and crazy like.  Lots of smells and doggie stuff since the last time we were there.


They got crazy stinky at the massive compost pile.

They looked gorgeous among the fall leaves.
There was just that right crisp in the air.
The dogs were getting totally crazy happy fall yucky gross.

Look close and check Beck's toothy stanky grin

We were all contagiously crazy happy.
We didn't see a soul, so I decided to stroll up to  the back of the pond. (yes, dogs are allowed here, but only behind the furthest pond where we were.) We usually avoid this area, as there are usually a lot of people and I try to be a good citizen and respect that not everyone likes dogs, especially  yucky ones.

If you squint  in the very beginning of the video,  you can see that foster dog Ginger is a gold spec just a bit too far away.  I was trying to get a scenic video of her running back to me for her Petfinder bio when.......

Epic Red Neck agility happened.




Finn, as always took a moment to strike a pose and show off how stunning he looks in the fall against coordinating leaves.

Note - Ginger was adopted by a Ginger :))

Dogs playing video. Check out Beck!

Here is a short video of dogs playing in my yard.  Thankfully they don't play this hard all the time,  but this YEE HA! play  is not unusual either.  The players are -

Beck-leader of the band, Finney-all in, Valli- foster dog who was adopted Friday, and our new foster dog Delilah (DD) who actually did really well.  DD  spent some time fostered at Camp Bow Wow and she is a pretty great player once she knows the dogs.   Camp Bow Wow was to much for her after a few weeks and she landed here to destress a bit. 
Mission accomplished.  

You can just skip over to about the 1 minute mark  to see "the move" and why I posted this.   Feel free to console me that my dog will in deed be ok and that he won't get hurt playing and acting the fool. 
Things like "Nancy he is so wiry and fit that he can do contorsions like that without getting hurt"
and "He's a dog, get over it"  are appreciated.  I am worried he will hurt himself.  By the way, I have seen Beck run 2x as fast as he is in this video. 
My new dog could use a large dose of  some common sense and a bit of time to grow a brain, but I love his overall approach to life. If he stays sound, he will be a force.




Wouldn't you like to have a fraction of this energy and joi de vie?

More info on adopting DD is here  http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19002186.

February sucks reasons to be cheerful

We loved these dog's ears so much we will foster her soon along with a few PUPPIES!
Gotta love that!

We LOVED  Roosie's first night of school and
  LOVE that he is going to do Rally!

We loved fostering and placing this wonderful dog now named "Lucky",
 even it if was in an ice storm.

We love visiting Strive. 

We love off leash romps.

We love poop picker uppers. Good dog Milo!

We love Charlee and hot pink winter coats.

We love Beck and think he is a phenom.  More on him soon!

We loved seeing Gooddogz/owner trained  service dog Barley at a Nose work class.

We love our Dog Powered service dog friends!








If you  want to feel more more love, you can click the images to embigger them.
February is a dark, dreary, depressing, month.  I just found out that the whole state of Maine should be taking vitaimin D. Off to the store.

Happy 5th birthday to Finney

It's nice to be wrong sometimes

My friend Mary, of Marysdogs.com (check it out...go now!) is on the cusp of joining the failed foster club. She called me in July and we spoke at length about the dog she saw on the Internet in a high kill shelter in Arkansas. This dog reached off the Internet page and spoke to her. His soulful eyes haunted her.

Mary got an earful from me about how I felt bad, but that there was no way I would pull a dog from the middle of no where, where I had no inside friends or contacts, and especially not one who looked as messed up as (soon to be) Aaron did in the his shelter photo. Mary got the "we can't save them all" speech from me and then she was delicately redirected to try to help a local dog . I told her about all the resources it would take to save this one dog, and how many other dogs she could save with that time and money.  I told her how there were no guarantees, and how "rescue sucks", and how I personally did not like the look in his eyes, or his tucked up fearful body posture.

"No way, don't do it!!" I told her and gave her a few horror stories to mull over.

Mary was gracious and appreciative of my time, and thanked me for my views, then she went and pulled the dog anyway.  :)

 

 If you have not followed his story,  go to Marysdogs.com. She is a great writer, and she has woven together a great story.

 

I  me up with Mary yesterday at Old Orchard Beach and  got to meet Aaron in person.

 

It is nice to be wrong sometimes.



Aaron checks out the ocean for the first time

aaawww

Dogs don't understand the concept of luck. 

Good boy Aaron,  Good girl Jazzy.

Finney and Aaron had a  beach "bromance"








Charlee says "Every day is polar dip day."

  

Beating the heat at Babb's Bridge

Meggie our foster puppy has been here for a full day, and we are madly in love with her 98 % of the time. The other 2 % may be deal breakers, but time will tell. Keeping in mind that she may never leave, it was a priority of mine to introduce her to water and teach her how to swim. I regret not doing this with Charlee and Finney when they were younger. They both like the water and they both can swim, but prefer not to.  I blame myself. Both we forced into my parents pool.


With the tempertaure  tipping the thermostat at close to 95 degrees, the question was where to take the dogs. I had seen photos of friend's dogs swimming at Shaw Park in Gorham, so after a few on line attempts to find out where it was, off we went.



In attendance were Meggie, Charlee and 5 kids. Two of mine, and three kids belonging to a good friend. We parked just after the quarry on Rt 237 in Gorham, in a little lot next to the Presumpscott River. I am still not sure if that is where we were supposed to be, but as far as the kids were concerned it was a big fat FAIL.

My 12 year old tumor toed wild child smiler.

Charlee and Meggie didn't think so. They loved it. We walked to the end of the hay field along the river and back, looking for a place to swim. The two dogs were thick as thieves and they both ran straight out. I broke my second cardinal rule of fostering and let Meggie off the leash. She didn't go anywhere and had a perfect recall (as I knew hoped she would). We broke our first foster rule earlier in the day when I had the pup snuggling on my bed for a while.

You would never know by the way the dogs ran flat out that the day was so hot if it hadn't been for the whining from the kids, but the river was to quote a middle schooler "gross". The water appeared "stagnant and slimy" and we didn't find an easy access for people, although Charlee had no problem getting in there to cool off.



We were all badly in need of a dip and middle schooler came up with the genius idea to drive a few miles to the covered bridge in Windham off River Road.

I cannot say enough superlatives about our morning. I kept both dogs on the leash, because I was watching 5 kids and 2 dogs and there is a road, although cars need to slow down to go through the bridge. The kids jumped off the rope swing, and caught frogs, and the dogs loved being in the water with us.

Meggie got a swim lesson. I picked her up and pointed her to shore.  This is a good way to teach a puppy to swim by the way. The first time, I held her body up a bit till she got the idea.

Here is her second attempt. She was a natural.

Don't these kids looks happy?

 

 

 

 I should have had them pose when we got back to the car after our first attempt at cooling off. They were so sweaty they all looked like they had already been swimming.

Charlee looks on while dumb ass teenagers jump from the top of the bridge. I was ready to call 911.