An Epic Playdate!

(You're really going to get sick of hearing those puns, Epic's momma!)

Meet Epic.



Epic is the cutest Jack Russel Terrier puppy EVER! As much as I love Shelties, I have to admit that they aren't really the cutest puppies, especially when you compare them to something like Epic.

Epic is owned by a friend of mine, mom also to Benny (you may remember Benny from "Ode to a Benny"). He is a fiesty little pup that is still firmly entrenched in the carpet-shark-learning-to-deal-with-my-terrierness stage. So, in his owner's endless pursuit to socialize the beasty, we met up for a play date.

Normally, Romeo will play with anything that moves and Gio will firmly ignore anything that isn't food or a ball. Tables were a little turned tonight, as Gio seemed to really draw Epic's attention and Romeo flatly refused to acknowledge the wee hairless beasty. Epic is still learning to get over the "just because it barks it doesn't mean it is going to eat me" idea, so the Shelties fit into that plan just nicely. In a Sheltie's world, barking goes hand in hand (err ... paw in paw?) with playing, and running, and excitement. At first, Epic was a little hesitant about the random loud noises, and there was a lot of this ...


But he figured out that the barking was in no way directed at him (unless he was monopolizing the ball), and came to deal with it all quite well.

Epic's first attempts to play with Romeo were thwarted when he became entranced with Romeo's (abnormally long) tongue, and decided that he would find out what it was in the only way that puppies now how ... with his teeth.


Romeo put a stop to that right away! And Epic turned his affections towards Gio.


Romeo finally did indulge Epic with some play, eventually.



But it was a lot more fun to just chase Gio around, mainly because Gio always has a ball in his mouth (BALLBALLBALLBALLBALL!!! *gasp* BALLBALLBALLBALLBALL!!). For a little guy, Epic has already learned all the important things in life ... ball drive and tug drive!





And being the stellar teachers that they are, the Shelties took it upon themselves to teach Epic a few other essentials.

Like how to scope out a good tree for peeing on.


Or which blades of grass are the tastiest.


Of course, there was also lots of running. And whenever possible, full body contact running.





I think they are a pretty cute group, don't you? (Of course, I may be just a teensy bit biased.)

If you want to follow along on Epic's great adventure, check out his blog!
Jacked

Bison RMBs

The boys each enjoyed a bison RMB for supper last night, courtesy of our new meat buddy, Jen!



They are GREAT. Huge gobs of meat still on the bone. Just perfect! Thanks Jen (and Spike and Sophie for sharing your haul. Hope you enjoyed the sheep.).

The boys dug in with gusto! Love that bison! But, while normal RMB chewing is fun and all ...



... it just lacks a certain ... style ... flare ... synchronicity?

Gio and Romeo now present, for the first time on Life is Better with Sheltie Hair ...

SYNCHRONIZED RMB-ING!

Ready ... and ...

To your right, two, three, four


Center, two, three, four


To your left, two, three, four

Sure, their routine could use a little work. But for a first time, not too bad, right?!

While they enjoyed their bison, I made my own little treat. Sour cream cookies! YUM!

Playing Catch Up

Sorry Sorry Sorry! The blog has been horribly boring lately, I know. It's just that life is really hectic at the moment, and I'm rarely home for long enough to sit down and write. I have a couple of minutes left this evening before I pass out snoring, so I'll try to catch you all up with what we have been doing.

Romeo is still going to Saskatoon City Hospital every Monday evening for his therapy dog visits. We've been moved to a new unit, from Geriatrics to Rehab. The Rehab Unit is much larger, so we have two dogs going every Monday and we split the unit to get all of the patients seen in an hour. I really enjoy going to City Hospital. The staff is fabulous and the people there really appreciate the dogs.

Romeo's agility class has been moved from Tuesday nights to Wednesday nights. That is still a lot of fun, and Romeo is really enjoying himself. I've been told to get him entered in the AAC starter's trial that D&S Dogs of Course is hosting in September. The instructors think he should be well and ready to try it out by then, so lot's of homework for us to do!

The Canine Strength and Endurance class is still going strong. I'm surprised at how much I really enjoy that class. I try to remind myself to take advantage of the exercises and use them as a work-out session for me as well as for Romeo. Quite satisfying! And, of course, Romeo likes the socializing, too. He's made a new buddy in Neutron, a Schnauzer x Poodle cross that is also in the class.



And, well, chasing Pugs after class is always a good time, too. Except for these Pugs are total athletes! Very athletic and for short sprints can easily outrun the Sheltie, Border Collie, and Schauzer x Poodle!

Fridays are seeing Gio back at work at his therapy dog job at Stensrud and Eamer. Just a couple of weeks ago I put him back to work after a recover period from his pancreatitis issue of a few months ago. He's finally back to decent enough condition that he is enjoying the therapy work again. He's thrilled to be back out seeing all his ladies! He's still very thin, but the coat is coming back nicely and his spirits and enthusiasm are back to monumental levels!

Then, we finally make it to today, Saturday. Rally-O classes all afternoon, and I was able to put Gio and Romeo through their paces after classes ended. For having not worked them seriously in Rally-O for a couple of weeks now, they did really well. Both had their A-Game on tonight, I tell you!

I've also made a new meat-friend. Those are the best kinds of friends to have! Well, at least the dogs thinks so. Jen, a lady that has a couple of dogs in my Rally-O classes, feeds raw to her beasties. We were chatting last week about raw and the different deals we've gotten. I was telling her about my Sheep Experience a while back and she mentioned that she had a huge load of bison in her freezer. After both of us saying "Wow, I wish I could get my hands on some bison/sheep", we decided on a trade. So today I traded 25lb of sheep RMBs for 25lb of bison RMBs. SCORE!

This is what 25lb of bison RMBs look like.

PS. This is Jen and one of her rocking Rally-O dogs, Spike. They are Rally-O superstars!



To add to the great day, I got a wonderful surprise when I got home. As I was cooking a late dinner of No Name Sidekicks (eating like the rich and famous, I tell ya!), who knocks on my door but my mom. She's come over to cut the lawn* for me, seeing as I don't have a lawnmower or a place to put one at the present moment.

Good timing, too. Romeo was having trouble finding his way back to the house after pee-adventures. With conflicting and hectic schedules, the grass has been neglected for a couple of weeks. Add to that the huge amounts of rain we have had lately, and the weeds are just loving it!



Now no tickling of the boy-bits when they need to go do their business. Thanks mom!!

* Lawn, in this sense, is a generic term for "green stuff growing in the bit of land I like to refer to as my yard". It is mostly made up of a variety of weeds and grass-like foliage. But beggers can't be choosers, right? When it is all cut down, and viewed from a distance, it can pass as grass.

Happy Canada Day!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

What better way to celebrate our nation's awesomeness than with a really fantastic beer commercial. I'm sure you have all seen this before, but nothing has succeeded in bringing a tear to the collective Canadian eye the way that Joe Canadian has.



Now please, let us stand. Gentlemen, kindly remove your hats. And repeat after me ...

I AM CANADIAN!

X-Pen

"Thanks for the new X-Pen, Grandma!"



(Mom says we need a bigger car to haul
all this "crap" around in.)

Canine Strength and Endurance - Take 2

As promised, I toted along my camera to the canine strength and endurance class that I am enrolled in. Just to give a visual of the size of this freakin' hill!

Here it is from the top ... pretty, right?


A little deceiving though.

Here is the hill from the bottom. That is a big tall man and a teeny Sheltie at the top. Yes that little black speck is Sis, Romeo's new girlfriend (he's such a man-tramp).

We did much of the same as last week, with a few new things. Started with warm-ups for humans and dogs. Then on to some weight-pulling. Each dog was suited with a harness and a bag of rocks was attached to the back with a leash. 2lb for the small dogs, more for the big dogs. Romeo got a 2lb bag, which works out to roughly 13% of his body weight. Then we walked with them pulling the bags across the field, from the base of the hill to the road (which you can see in the first picture just before the trees), and back again. Then we removed the weights, and did some sprints on the flat, then sprints up the hill and down a couple of times. Ended with crawls under the pool noodles, and some cool-down stretches for humans and dogs.

I'm really enjoying this class. A lot of great people and sweet dogs. The class is made up of 2 Shelties, 2 Pugs (really nice ones, not fat, very lean and muscle-y, no bulgy eyes), a Border Collie, a Kelpie, and a Rat Terrier.

Go-pher It!

This is Casper.

Casper and his brother and sister, Buddy and Nikki, are in some of my Rally-O classes.

Casper is Romeo's new hero. Romeo has serious idol worship happening for Casper. Let me explain ...

I hold my classes in a lovely field on the University of Saskatchewan campus. It's quite large, bordered on two sides by fence and bush, next to a quiet parking lot for easy access. Lots of trees for shade. This field is often used by local dog groups to hold classes or practices in the summer, so I staked out my evening to take advantage of the great area as well. This year the field is unusually overrun by gophers. There are EVERYWHERE, there are literally 5 or 6 gophers in any given area you happen to glance towards at any given time. They keep to themselves, but because the field is used for dog sports at least 5 evenings a week, they have become quite used to dogs being around. I would imagine that, for the most part, the people that use the field discourage their dogs from chasing the gophers as the dogs are all there to work on their various activities. So the gophers have a false sense of security.

Bad horrible person that I am, I will often let Gio and Romeo tear around after class while I clean up, and will on occasion encourage them to chase the gophers. Now, I only do this because I know that neither Gio nor Romeo has any idea what to do with a gopher after the "chase" stage. Gio gives himself away by barking, so never really gets any closer than 15 or 20 feet anyways. He's none too stealthy. And Romeo is more apt to play bow at a gopher than try to catch it.

Today was a normal Rally-O day, and as I cleaned up my signs after classes were finished, Casper's "mom" volunteered to help. (Wonderful person that she is!) She let her crew off leash to tear around with Gio and Romeo, and when I told my guys to go chase some gophers, she mistakenly uttered the phrase "get it!" to her crew. Casper took her word for it and took off like a bolt, straight for a congregation of gophers near the back of the field. A quick snap and he had one, it's terrified gopher scream calling attention to it and the rest of the dogs took off running to see what the fun was all about. We successfully called the dogs away before they all got their paws in on the mess, but not until after Casper dispatched of the pesky gopher.

Of course, he was quite proud of himself, and pranced happily back to us with a shit-eater grin on his cute little face. I think he probably had "gopher stink" on him from the quick but efficient struggle, and this certainly drew Romeo's attention. Romeo just couldn't leave Casper alone while we finished cleaning up. He shadowed him precisely, staying close to Casper's flank, copying his every move. Romeo thinks Casper is amazing, and brave, and wonderful, and the best guy ever!

Stay tuned to Casper's Blog, I think he may have a photo of his trophy to share with the world.