Dog Training

Our dogs are at an intensive 2 week off leash training program right now. They learn things like going into a down stay from 150 yards away then each one coming when recalled. Jerad and I keep joking that they are at summer camp because the place is beautiful and when they aren't training they are playing with other dogs and getting to run around and just have a good ol' time.

Its been a nice break not having to take care of them the past few days, but I've been missing them too.

I left a voice mail for the trainer checking in on how they are doing, and he texted me back this morning saying "dogs are great!" and this picture:


Look at all that space, they must be in heaven!

We go hiking, camping, to the lake, and to the dog beach so its pretty imperative that they have good off (and on) leash control. Plus I think dogs are just happier when they are well trained and know what they are supposed to be doing! Both Buddy and Bailey have had a lot of training but when we rescued Wyatt we pretty much taught him to sit then dropped the ball. They all walk well on the leash separately, but forget about trying to walk them all together. The trainer promised when they come home I'll be able to walk all of them at the same time which sounds perfect now that the days are getting longer.

Lets see if I can manage 3 dogs and a jogging stroller!

Yikes!

2 weeks since my last post? How un-me. We have been soo busy, and I don't want to blog about things without sharing the photos. And that would mean uploading them. And that would mean taking time away from the 5-6 hours of sleep I have been getting per night.

In the last couple of week we have gone to a few weddings, visited friends in San Fransisco, Yosemite, gone to Hearst Castle, had my littlest sister staying with us (my parents are in Hawaii), tried new recipes, gotten hair cuts, finished all of our garden beds and have been tending them every day, and are working on sewing 50 napkins for my best friend's wedding. Jerad has also been working a side job and frequently getting home at 2am, and this weekend is working overtime at his regular job so I'll be entertaining my bad self. Until I get some pictures up and some sleep here's a story you probably don't want to hear:

***

Monday night Jerad came home after work, ate a quick dinner, and went to work at the side job that's been making him fall asleep during the day keeping him busy nights. Since my parents are in Hawaii, Addy stayed last week with my sister Melinda, and this week with us. While she was working on her homework, I went outside to love on water my garden. The dogs were going batshit crazy. We have been gone so much, and Jerad has been working so much, they have not been getting their exercise fill. I could tell some fetch wasn't going to hold them over anymore.

By now it was 8:30 at night. I went in the house and told Addy to load up because we were taking the dogs on a run. We all got in the car to go out to our favorite spot in Peachy Canyon. The dogs were STOKED. It was dark. It was windy. I drove down the 2 mile dirt road, kicked them out of the car, and drove away. They all ran behind the car at about 20 miles an hour for a mile and got niiiiice and worn out. Then Bailey decided to run off the road so Buddy had to follow her. Because that's how they roll. I slowed down a bit figuring they'd pop back up as usual. Nope.

It was so windy I think they lost the car and couldn't hear us call. Or went off after a deer, who knows. We found Bailey, but no Buddy. We loaded up Bailey and Wyatt and drove back and forth and back and forth calling Buddy, NOTHING. I decided to drive over to Jerad's friend Paul's house since the dog's spend a lot of time there figuring that maybe Buddy would head over there. It was 9:30 or so. Paul wasn't home. I called Jerad and told him I lost the dog. I wasn't really worried, more annoyed.

Paul showed up and I told him what was going on and he offered to go look for Buddy. I said I'd go with him. His daughter and Addy went in the house and I left my dogs in the car. We drove up the road and there was Buddy up in the distance, back on the road basically where I had lost him. He briefly paused when he saw Paul's headlights but when he saw it wasn't my car he kept trotting the other direction. Paul stuck his head out the window and called him and Buddy turned and looked at him and kept on truckin. As soon as I called him he turned around and started wagging like crazy and barreling towards the truck. Awe, melt my lil heart! He was so tired by then he was not feeling like attempting to jump into Paul's raised truck bed so he made Paul life him. All 80 pounds. Nice.

When we got back to the house, I visited a few minutes, said thank you, and went to get in my car. My car that mysteriously had the emergency flashers on? My car that the dogs had locked me out of. With the windows up. My ONLY set of keys were inside. Luckily I had left one window cracked ever-so-slightly and Paul came to the rescue. Jerad showed up about that time, worried about Buddy. He had been trying to get a hold of me but my phone was locked in with Buddy. They were about to locate one wire hanger, and 30 minutes later we were on the way home. Stupid dogs:)

By the time we were done combing out the fox tails, and vacuuming up the hair we got to bed around midnight. So much for my quick trip.

Tuesday Wyatt did NOT want to stay outside so we left him in his kennel in the house. When we got home to let him out of his box, a strange smell wafted through the laundry room. He had some sort of explosive poo situation. Jerad walked in before me and told me to not even come in. He cleaned up everything. Like always. I sat in our room and listened to him talking to Wyatt and saying things like "poor pup, you don't feel good? did you have a poopccident?" and all sorts of cute things in his "dog voice." He wasn't mad or upset about coming home to something so gross AT ALL. That is something I love about him.

I have a bad gag reflex. BAD. If he's gone and I have to, I can deal with dog/cat vomit/poo issues cause they're mah baybees and if they need something, I can do it. Otherwise the unwritten rule is Jerad does those things and I do anything medical related UNLESS it has to do with eyes. Like when Bailey had an eye infection and had to have cream rubbed in her eyeball twice a day... ewe ewe ewe.

It just warms my lil heart that he loves our pets enough that he feels bad that they are sick so he is HAPPY to do yuck factor things for them. Wyatt seems to be fine now btw. Every one of our 3 cats and 3 dags has had one accident like that except for Tobee. Good old Tobee. The funniest was when Winston the cat ate all the chilies off of my window chili plant. Ya, that one caused some stomach upset!

After the dog mess was dealt with we had dinner, and Jerad finished cutting the fabric for the cloth napkins for Tina's wedding. I had a fever and fell asleep about 7:30 on the couch for about 2 hours. I was also in a terrible mood. No idea why. I'm usually pretty chipper, but I was just GRUMPY! Usually at night we try to catch up on our days and just talk. Instead I told Jerad I didn't feel well and just felt like chewing him out for no reason so I just was going to turn on the tv and not talk for a few hours and see if it passed. It did and today I woke up a happy monster again:)

I'll try to stop talking blogcations and have something better than poop to talk to you about soon.

Yesterday... sucked

Alright, I've calmed down enough that I might as well explain this post.

Thursday we took the dogs hiking in Peachy Canyon like I blogged about here.
Friday night our friends Tay and Dom stopped over, then Saturday we had a dinner party dealy-o plus the weather was cold and blustery, Sunday morning there was some rain so when it cleared up in the afternoon our dogs were more than ready to get out some pent up energy.

We loaded them in the car and headed back out to Peachy. The grass was still wet, and it hailed a little, but they had a great time running around, digging, rolling in poop (um, ya), and making general messes of themselves. We noticed Bailey limping and called her over to see if she had a burr or something stuck in her paw. Her paw was bleeding. I rinsed it off and it was apparent that she had torn one of her pads, pretty deeply. Whatev, it happens.

A little back story; Bailey is technically Jerad's dog. We got her and Buddy a day apart after we moved into the new house, but technically Bailey is the Border Collie he has always wanted and Buddy is the Lab I have wanted since I had to put my last Lab to sleep. I guess Wyatt would be the surprise love child?

Anyways, Jerad didn't really grow up with dogs and I grew up in a family that always had dogs, horses, a burro... so he usually defers to me on anything pet medical related. When he saw his baby's bleeding foot he looked up at me and asked "whatdowedonow????" I told him it was no big deal, we would just load up the dogs, and take her home to clean it up. He went to find a sheet to cover the back seat with because Wyatt and Buddy were filthy, and a towel to wrap Bailey in so he cold hold her in the front seat and try to contain the ever expanding blood spewing from her foot.

Its about a 20 minute drive home and I drove so he could hold the diva dog. I rolled the back windows down cause Wyatt and Buddy literally Smelled Like Ass.

They were both pretty tired so they were each sitting on one side, heads casually turned towards their own respective windows, tongues lolling out, taking in the smells.

After about 10 minutes I heard the slightest sound and look in my rear view mirror just in time to see Buddy hit the pavement, land sort of on his side, and limp off the road. Just for a reference, I was driving probably 35 mph. It was like time stood still. As I was watching him hit the ground I could hear Jerad asking me:

"Did Buddy just jump out of the window?"

I was waiting for him to not get up. Or to get up and then fall back down. Or for another car to come around the corner and run him over.

I thought to myself "Wyatt might try to follow him" so I rolled up the back windows really fast.

I quickly slowed down, still keeping my eyes on him in the side mirror in case he got scared and ran away I'd know where to look. All of a sudden Jerad was shaking my arm and saying "YOU'RE ROLLING WYATT'S HEAD IN THE WINDOW!" And Fucking A! I had completely rolled his neck up in the window because he had stuck his head out to look at Buddy. By this point, my hands were shaking so badly that it was an effort to roll them back down but I did, and Wyatt seemed to be fine.

I brought the car to a stop and jumped out calling Buddy's name. He was a few hundred yards back but when he heard my name he came running/limping up the road until he was a few yards away and then was scared to get close to the car. After another minute of coaxing he came to me and after a super quick exam it was clear there was no major breaks or dislocations. Which I don't see how is possible from his size and the way he landed, but I'll take it! We loaded up and continued home.

I was still trying to act calm even though by now I was pretty upset. Jerad didn't make it much better because he kept describing how Wyatt looked being choked in the window. Thanks babe. He also kept commenting on my speeding and taking the corners too fast and I had to assure him that I "literally could not drive any slower at the moment even if I wanted to."

By the time we got home, Buddy was hopping around like a little Billy Goat and you would never have believed he just kamikazed from a moving vehicle. We put him in the kitchen, and took Bailey in the laundry room to wash off her wound. We thoroughly washed it and then rinsed the wound using betadine and a curved tipped syringe (kills germs, fights infections). Then I put a clean sock over her paw, and doubled a rubber band over it to keep it on, and left her in the laundry room to check on Buddy.

After carefully running our hands over his whole body it didn't seems like anything was broken, and he wasn't in any real pain, just a little sore. But who wouldn't be after that right? he really loved the "exam" aka "full body petting."

I heard some scratching on our bedroom door which was confusing because... there was no dog in there... right?

I opened the door to find Bailey. Who was bleeding again. Profusely. This was very apparent because she had pulled the sock off and then pranced allllllllll over our floor JUMPED ON OUR BED (which our dogs don't do) and pranced all over our white comforter. I told Jerad that the cut was not going to clot and to go get some surgical glue while I tried to salvage the bedspread. I'll skip that part but just so you know, we still have a white, blood free comforter. Bailey was patient enough to wait in a down-stay until Jerad got back.

We rewashed her foot, and I applied 2 coats of the surgical glue (which also has an antiseptic in it) because the cut was quite deep. It also turned out that the cut was through 2 pads, not one. After the glue was dried I wrapped her foot in a sterile bandage. Basically there should have been nooooo way she could have gotten an infection right? I have had a lot of dogs tear a pad and Bailey got above and beyond the normal treatment.

After she was all wrapped up she spent the rest of the day and night chilling on a clean mat in a wire kennel in the living room (so she couldn't walk around and re-open the cuts). I thought everything was fine and today or tomorrow she would be up and at 'em again.

Yesterday was soooo traumatizing because, well, Mah Poor Baybees!!!!

Buddy slept in our room and whined a bit and couldn't seem to get comfortable, I'm sure he has some bruising, but otherwise was fine and super stoked to be in our room.

This morning when Jerad went to let Bailey outside to go to the bathroom.... her paw was twice the size that it should be. Freakin great. So, either it is somehow infected which I don't understand, or she got bit by something and we missed the bite? I have a 3:00 vet apt and I guess I'll find out then. Yeash. Luckily it doesn't seem to hurt her.

I have a bunch of pics I will post later and a vet update. Anyways, yesterday was one of the most stressful days I have had for a long time... I think just because everything was happening at once and I'm the one that is supposed to be calm. Jerad also said he was going to blog about this, so if he does you can hear an in depth explanation about how I tried to strangle Wyatt.

Cause I'm a loving mom like that.

Playin' with the pups

Taking the dogs out to exercise in Peachy Canyon is one of our favorite things. Especially now that the wild flowers are starting to bloom. They have a blast running and playing, and we have a blast watching them.





Its a great way to end a work day, and sooo nice because the dogs will pass out for hours. Peachy indeed.

Case of the Moan-days...

I hate Monday. Today is Tuesday, but somehow it feels like a Monday... Ugh. After having a three day weekend, it is always so hard to get back in the swing of things. Plus, I had such a great weekend that it makes it even harder to go work a 10 hour day!

Friday, Jerad was sick so he didn't go to work (the second time in 2 years haha). We slept in and then later he took me on my favorite date EVER. We just went to Starbucks, had coffee and read books for about 3 hours.

That was more fun that any Disneyland/out of state/romantic dinner ever.

I love love love reading (and coffee). Him? Not so much.... it was so fun to just read books and then talk about our perceptions of what we had just read. He got so into his book that he didn't realize we had been there over 3 hours.

We also took the pups out to the country and let them frolic around to burn off some pent up energy:




That night, we made a super yummy dinner, and invited Melinda and Larry over for Mexican Train Dominoes. Of as Mel calls it, "Mexican Line Dominoes."





Saturday we read some more, cleaned the house, and played a game over at Melinda and Larry's house. Its so nice that they live next door now!

Sunday we went to the early service at Paso Robles Calvary Chapel. Its the second week we've gone there and so far like it. When we got home, we read some more, then his parents came over. Jerad's mom and I worked on scrap booking the whole afternoon, and Jerad and his dad worked on the plumbing for our shower. I am soooo excited that the back shower will [hopefully] be finished soon. We sort of dropped it after my birthday just because all of the other construction had been so labor intensive and expensive. The bathroom was done so it was easy enough to put close the shower curtain and pretend like it was finished too:)

We are hope hope hopeing to have it finished within a week or two. Also Jerad is going to install heating/AC in the remodeled bathroom and laundryroom which it has never had. Our house is so old, 1953, that there is no insulation in any of the walls. So, it will be very nice to be able to heat those rooms since they connect to our bedroom and it has been chilly in the morning!

Lastly, I'll leave you with a picture of me and my bestie Tina, at her mom's wedding a week ago. We got to wear veils on our heads and eat amazing Mexican food. Mmmm!

S, I love how I'm wearing heals and she still has to bend down to be at my height:)

Our Kiddos

Oh look, the reasons I have to vacuum, wash the floor, and dust at least every other day :)




But I'll get over it.... they're so freakin cute!

Mao:

Tobee:

Winston:
Buddy:
Bailey: And Wyatt:
Shhhh, I think they like us too though...

Wyatt

Meet Wyatt:

He is a 35 pound, 5 month old German Shepherd/Queensland Heeler mix. I saw these pictures on Craigslist and they just captured my heart. Someone abandoned him at a gas station and a kind hearted vet tech rescued him. He is freakin smart. Since Friday he has already learned "heel," "sit," "down," "off," and we are working on "stay."


He and Buddy are already bffs. When they play, they sound like giant bears. People are going to think we are breeding fighting dogs or something. Him and Bailey play too, just not as intensely.

Working on training:

Playing:


Chillaxing:



I'm glad we found you puppy!

Just a quick blip...

I'm getting ready for an over-night bachelorette party so I'm sure I'll have some fun picture's tomorrow but... I'd like to introduce you to our newest family member, Wyatt:


He is a 4 1/2 or 5 month old Queensland/ German Shepherd mix that was abused and abandoned at a gas station in Exeter in 102 degree weather. How could we say no? He is super smart and is already learning obedience commands. He's quite the lover.

I'll have some more pics of him tomorrow too.

Beachy Pups

We took the dogs to Morro Bay. It was gorgeous:










Afterwards Jerad and I got some... ice cream?

The Foster's Freeze employees need to work on their "swirl technique."