Oh Yeah, You Blend

Nina has fractured one of her canine teeth (fangs) fairly badly in a way that makes the tooth vulnerable to further fracture, and it may turn out that the best option for her is to have the tooth crowned. For big, frequently-used teeth like this they apparently often need to use a metal crown for durability (and so the tooth stays functional) – and when they say “metal” they mean big ol’ shiny chrome. We will hopefully know more next week. 🙁

If she DOES need a metal crown, I plan to follow the advice of one of the assistants at work, and get a big “N” in diamonds on it, so Nina’s grill has some bling.

On a brighter note, Riley stopped by work for a visit today, he was very happy to see me, but was pretty sure someone there was plotting to neuter him a second time.

Happy birthday to our A litter!  It was one year ago today that you came into the world, and now you are out there, living good lives, running and playing and barking and chewing and licking and wagging and smiling your wide happy Vallhund smiles.  You were a lot of work, and a LOT of laundry!  But boy, were you worth it:

Jack, who was born first, so happy and comfortable and truly a member of his lovely family, who send us pictures of him smiling:

Jack

Demi, born second, happy and waggy, loved by her family, already a Canine Good Citizen and agility in her future!

Demi

Austin, born upside-down, but living rightside-up with his family of Basset brothers and sisters and road trips and agility to do!

Austin

Loki, living the good life in her mother’s native land of Canada, with doggy friends and a family who loves her:

Loki

Mikko, secure and happy with his German Shepherd brother, his Penn State jersey, so much a part of his loving family.

Mikko

Tish, who stayed right here, with her happy nature and clever mind:

Tish

and Riley, born last but not least, with his sweet personality, awesome young family and his new love: agility!

Riley

You have all done such wonderful work with your puppies, it is so hard to believe that they are already one year old.  We consider you all part of our family, and we are lucky to have you!  So happy birthday to Jack and Demi and Austin and Loki and Mikko and Tish and Riley, may your lives be long and happy!

Love,

Amanda and Jim, and Nina, your mother!

Thanks to Jack’s family for these lovely pictures of him loving the winter as Vallhunds are meant to do!

Handsome Jack

Stick + Snow = Fun!

Run Jack Run!

regarding a lot of the myths of purebred vs mixed breed dog ownership.

Loki’s family kindly sent us a nice update on what they’ve been up to lately.  Loki loves the winter (what Vallhund doesn’t?) and she has a boyfriend named Jake who is a mini golden doodle (he’s in some of the pictures).  Loki loves to wrestle and especially loves to stalk and pounce on Jake (that seems to be the standard Vallhund game).  I love seeing pictures of “my” puppies out in the world living their lives like this!

Here’s a (download the free QuickTime player here if needed) video of Riley playing in the snow courtesy of his owners, looks like fun, doesn’t it? I think if we could train a whole team of Vallhunds to do that “shovel the snow with your head” move, we could hire them out to clear people’s driveways…

Riley in the snow

Here are some pictures of Mikko courtesy of his mom:

Mikko Needs To Relax A Bit, No?

Mikko is a fan of Penn State!

Penn State Mikko!

So handsome!

Nina earned her Novice Jumpers With Weaves leg #1 with a clean run today at the DOTCORNY AKC trial at Boome Towne!  I am thrilled!  Not only did we fulfill the Prime Directive (as always: have fun), but we got the super-mega-extra-awesome-bonus brought to you by the letter Q and the number 1!!!!

What helped: Novice starting MUCH later in the day meant I got to walk the dogs before we even left for the trial, then spent a lot of time playing frisbee, so Nina had a chance to scrub off a lot of her crazies.  She was still fast and excited, but able to focus (and her contacts were great, she jumped up on me on the table, so we automatically NQ’d in Standard, but she was reasonably quiet and didn’t jump on and off the table a zillion times), and our Jumpers With Weaves run was just awesome, we had real teamwork and connection, I gave my cues when I needed to and she listened and ran her heart out.  I remembered Paula Goss’s advice and gave her rear cross cues on the takeoff sides of the jumps and it made a real difference, her jumps were clean and smooth, and she knew where I wanted her to go early enough that she didn’t get frustrated and herdy and I could just stay out of her way and let her work. Yay Nina!  What a good girl! I guess I’ll keep her.

It was also so nice that so many CPE people were there, and even the people I didn’t know were very helpful and nice.  Lisa and Mari and Sue were super-supportive and helpful and having Jeannine and Holly there to keep things light made it so much less stressful than I was worried it might be.  I was a bit intimidated coming into this weekend, but once we walked out on the course for our first run, I remembered it wasn’t brain surgery, it was just another agility trial for Nina and I to play at, and IT WAS FUN!

Thanks to Jen K., who recorded two of our runs this past weekend at All Dawgs CPE, I now have video of Nina and I running agility!  Well, Nina is running, I am sort of bustling.  I look like I run even slower than it FEELS like I run!

Here they are.  (Warning, agility speak follows): The first one (where I’m wearing a green top) is a Jackpot run (it’s CPE Gamblers, and this was a traditional distance gamble), we didn’t qualify because I ran into a pillar instead of ending up where I’d planned to for the gamble.  Graceful?  Moi?  The second (where I am wearing a blue top from the SVCA national specialty last year) is a Snooker run where we scored a 51 (highest score possible!) with a triple 7 (AKA super Q), we crashed into each other going into the closing sequence but fortunately they’re sometimes pretty lenient about that in CPE (especially in the games classes) or we wouldn’t have qualified.  I love Snooker, it’s my favorite of the games, and that was our second-best run of the whole three day weekend (our best was a really tricky Standard), so I am really happy Jen recorded it! In Snooker, there is a numbered course of six obstacles (numbered 2 through 7 and each with a different color) and four single jumps (“reds”), you have a certain amount of time to perform a red, then any “color” obstacle from the numbered course, then a different red, then any “color”, then a third (also different) red, then a “color”, then you must perform the numbered course.  In this course, the #7 obstacle was two tunnels.  You are scored one point for each “red” and whatever the numbered value is for the “colors” (so you get 7 points for performing the #7 obstacle, 2 points for the #2 obstacle, etc.).

She is not running at her real top speed in either of these since both runs were toward the end of the day.

Austin (Alkemi Austin Healey ST) went on a roadtrip with his floppy-eared Basset brethren and mom and dad Lisa and Jackson.  He apparently traveled very well, even if he did decide that soft crates were fun to rip through!

Happy Austin

Austin and Adrianne

Austin and his brother and partner in crime, Hobbes

Austin and Hobbes again

You Will Obey Me

Austin Shows He Can Splat (AKA frogdog) Anywhere!