New Arrivals

Delta hasn't joined the party yet...

Grandma Stoker helping clean a puppy

Maquah and Ecko's puppies arrived last night.  Ecko's due date was officially Monday, but the puppies were within the window for safe arrival.  Delivery was very efficient with the first puppy born at 6:05 PM on Friday evening and the last pup arriving at 8:37 PM.  We'll double check our notes (umbilical cords sometimes look surprisingly like boy parts during the rush of delivering a puppy) but we believe we have 4 females and 3 males, all black with some white markings and all wavy (we think).

Instead of just calling the pups by the colors of their neck tags for the next 9 or so weeks, we like to give them temporary names.  This litter is named after rockets in honor of the 50th anniversary of John Glen orbiting the earth.

Here are the names/color codes in birth order:
Atlas (male) Blue
Scout (female) Pink
Titan (male) Green
Loki (female) Red
Redstone (male) Orange
Juno (female) Purple
Delta (female) Yellow

The first few days are important ones for the puppies, as that is the time they are the most fragile and most likely to "fail to thrive".  It is not uncommon to lose a puppy this way.  We have been very fortunate over the years to only lose one puppy this way, so hopefully our record will hold with this litter and all the little ones will grow strong.  We will monitor the pups weights frequently in the upcoming days to make sure they are all gaining weight.

Hope that is coherent - slightly sleep deprived...

The Chili Peppers celebrate their 7th

Happy Birthday to Chip, Ellie, Fresno, JoJo, Maggie, Serena, Shuma and Stoker!  Can you believe they are SEVEN?!

The usual birthday email was delayed by a few days as I wanted to find time to post some of the pics I got of the pups either on their last birthday or over the year.  I thought I would also share a link to the old website that I had set up when the pups were born.  I stumbled across it the other day and enjoyed remembering the peppers when they were just little mites.  http://www.angelfire.com/or2/lookout/index.html
If you would like to ID them in the puppy pics on the website: Chip (Chipotle), Ellie (Cayenne), Fresno (Fresno), JoJo (Jalapeno), Maggie (Ancho), Serena (Habanero), Shuma (Poblano), Stoker (Serrano).

Shuma (l) with her friend Kisha

Chip

JoJo

Ellie

Maggie

Stoker

Serena

Water Trial article

In early January, myself and another PWD fancier were chosen (names drawn randomly from a pool of volunteers) to be interviewed for an article on PWD water trials to be written for Dog News magazine.  It was fun to talk to the author about my favorite activity.  She wanted to tie in the fact that healthy, sound dogs are more able to do the jobs they were bred for, so she asked us to provide pics of our dogs that were conformation Champions, as well as water titled.  Cooper and Ecko are going to be so snooty now that they are "published"...  The article starts on page 64, I think...

Open publication - Free publishing

Celebrating Decker

Our last blog entry was in celebration of Decker's 9th birthday and this one is mourning his loss to Hemangiosarcoma just a few short weeks later.  Happy and energetic one Saturday morning, he was gone by the following morning.  We miss him very much,

Decker's Birthday

Decker celebrated a birthday yesterday.  Our household would surely be less fun without this sunny, happy boy in it. 

The whole gang got pig ears and cupcakes (Decker got 2!) as a special treat and Decker got extra tummy rubs.  The cupcake brigade is awaiting orders to "charge" in the top photo and cupcake slaughter is imminent in the bottom pic.

Agility

Immediately after our last agility trial I was a bit disappointed.  I have since re-evaluated.

Out of 9 runs, we only had 2 qualifying runs.

Chili had a 100% Q rate.  One run.  One Q.  She was the 5th fastest dog in her class and we had a nice, flowy fast romp around the Excellent Jumpers course.  Nothing beats special moments like this, especially when they are with a senior dog.

Chili loves those Jumpers courses...

Stoker had a 0% Q rate.  Four runs.  No Qs.  All four of her runs were really fast, happy and confident on everything BUT the weave poles.  She does them in class and at home now, but obviously we need to take this behavior on the road more because it goes away in a trial.  Still, we are running well together and she is running with intensity and confidence, which is huge for us both.

Stoker was really charging and had that "wild child" look in her eyes.

Ecko had a 25% Q rate.  Four runs.  One Q.  We felt disconnected this particular weekend.  We have been focusing on water work all summer and our agility has probably suffered because of that, especially since she is younger and less experienced than the other two.  Although our Q was on a Standard course, our weakness is still on contacts.  Must train contacts!!!

Ummmm.....  I think we need to work on contacts....

Water Trial Pics

I am so proud of Ecko for earning her Working Water Dog title this Fall.  Thanks to Nancy Gaffney of Gaff Photography for the terrific photos that captured our weekend of fun.  There are a few pics of Decker's son Port too.

The "pretty" gear bag.

The "wild thing" gear bag.

Waiting for the judge to give us the go-ahead.

Big jump off the boat.

 It was very fun to get to see Decker's son Port and his owner Alex earn their JWD certificate too. 

Eyes on the prize - my dummy is out there and I'm gonna get it!

Nice water entry.