A Shaggle of Shelties

These are pictures from last week. I'm just getting around to posting them now. OOPS!

Anyways, I took the boys out to visit a friend (who also happens to be Romeo's breeder) one evening last week. She has a varitable shaggle* of Shelties, and a huge property just made for Bark 'n Chase. So after I squished the cootie-wootie 5 week old babies inside (sorry, no pictures ... but imagine fluff and pointy puppy teeth), we took the bigger dogs out back for a romp.

This is Gio's submission for the 52 Weeks photo project for last week.

Gio leading the charge!

Flying Sheltie!

Breaking out the gallop.

If you fail to get the ball, then the game becomes making it back to the tosser first.

And if you DO get the ball ... run like hell!!

There was much running and barking. And in the end there was much slobber and lolling tongues. Fun was had by all!

Once Romeo was sufficiently worn out, we (read: Brenda) got to work on Project Extreme Makeover. See, next week is the 2010 Canadian Shetland Sheepdog Association National Specialty. It is being held right here in Saskatoon, so there is no way that I wasn't entering the fools in for some fun! Romeo is going to be making his debut in the conformation ring in the No Nuts category (more appropriately named Altered Class). For this, he needs to pretend that he isn't a goofy little fluff ball and play Big Boy for a while. Brenda put me on strict No Trim orders for the past couple of months so that Romeo would grow enough hair in the right places so that it can then be trimmed by a more skilled hand. This was very difficult for me ... apparently I have a thing about toe hair. Rogue toe hair drives me CRAZY! While the show, at the time, was still 2 weeks away, Brenda agreed to give Romeo a bit of a trim for me before I went nuts. I had already been grooming Gio's feet overtime to make up for the lack of trimming on Romeo. There were fears that poor Gio would wind up with completely shaved poodle feet if Romeo's tufts weren't tamed soon.

So after a bit of a primp, we wound up with a significantly tidier Romeo. There is still the fancy beauty pageant grooming to come, but that will be closer to show time. For now, though, I can (reluctantly) tolerate the *almost* Hobbit Toes.

Such a handsome boy!

* Shaggle: the totally official I-just-made-that-up term for a bunch of Shelties.

Bonus points if you immediately thought of Templeton the Rat from the Charlotte's Web movie at the mention of the word "veritable". All together now ... "Oh the fair is a veritable smorgasbord orgasbord orgasbord, after the crowds have ceased! ..."