Oh Yeah, You Blend

Here is Cillian looking handsome, with Sully and the terror in the background:

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The Irish Setters invaded again last weekend. Cillian was horrified by Nina, he’d play with her and then suddenly realize that she was small…then he’d react like a person with a leech or an Asian Giant Hornet on them (“is it on me?! IS IT ON ME??!! GET IT OFF ME!!!!”).

Sully, Cillian and Nina (hopefully you’ll know which is which):

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So we have a pretty big drop off the deck for a little pup, it’s about a foot, and we were concerned that it might be too far down for little Nina, so what did we do? We built a step, just for Nina, in fact it’s called “Nina’s Step” (it’s labeled that way in all the guidebooks). Nina used it a couple of times, then decided that it was much more her style to just Geronimo off the side (agility here we come):

Nina’s first official nickname is “Squeaker”, although I don’t think that’s really suitable for a ninja.  Seriously, how cute is this puppy? She’s still such a baby, only has “on” or “off”, and here is “off”:

More pictures of Nina taken today. She’s wonderful, so calm and sweet and adaptable (you’d think she’d been here forever).

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Today we welcomed home our newest family member, her name is Vastgota Nina Ricci, and she’s adorable.

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My sister Jennifer was here for a visit (where “visit” = “help us paint, or else”) with her two Irish Setters Sullivan and Cillian (or “Skillian” when you get confused about which one you need to tell to stop doing that, although when it doubt, it’s Cillian). Since Sullivan, Cillian and Rakki are best buddies, non-stop playing and hijinks ensued.

Everybody loves Sully (or at least the stick Sully has):

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Rakki LOVES his new back yard:

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…or “Why I Now Love Customer Loyalty Programs”. We got an email today from Petco (big pet food superstore chain here – I shop there because they carry decent-sized Bully sticks and stock a couple of super-premium foods – they’re my emergency fall-back pet food store). The email said that our customer loyalty account indicated that I’d recently made a purchase of a food which is NOW RECALLED and that I should return it to the store for a full refund. I had one can of the recalled food left (I had fed one can on the list…but little Rakki seems to be a-okay).

The little sales dude in the store told me that apparently the manufacturer told Natural Balance that they’d altered its formula to make the food more profitable, and the Dick van Patten is personally involved now. I think (being, as I am, a crazy dog lady) that I will get a blood panel done to check Rakki’s kidney function anyway, but wow…this is way too scary, it gets bigger and badder every day, and nothing seems to be safe, not even humans.

On February 3, I drove down to Austin to attend the Pat Hastings seminar on “Structure In Action”. I’d read her book “Tricks of the Trade”, and I’d heard very good things about her “Puppy Puzzle”, so I was really looking forward to it, especially in light of the fact that I’m trying to prepare myself for finding Rakki’s little sister. Since the hypothetical sister will hopefully be my “real” performance dog, I plan to be as educated, aware and hard-line about selecting her as I possibly can.

Pat Hastings is an AKC judge, a longtime owner-handler and breeder (of many different breeds), and an author. She and her late husband developed a method for assessing puppies’ structure which has proven itself extremely accurate over many years of testing with thousands of dogs.
One thing I found very interesting was that Pat starts with assessing temperament (a subject very dear to my heart), and she does a single test which she feels gives her as much information as is needed to assess basic temperament (she holds the puppy gently and then slowly turns it over and cradles the puppy on its back in her arms to assess its reaction – fearful puppies will grab on for dear life and avoid eye contact, aggressive puppies with squirm and fight and sometimes even attack – what she likes to see is a puppy who relaxes and seeks eye contact, she says that’s the sign of a puppy who is confident and interested in working with people). (more…)