Saturday, January 30, 2010

Camolegs

You may need to look at this photo carefully to figure out what's going on, so I recommend clicking on it to view it larger.
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This is Dexter mid-flight. Somehow, he has managed to hide all of his giraffe legs and only show off two pink feetsies. This photo makes me laff and laff :)

He jumps really high and far - he has a helluva stride on him. I'm seeing visions of off-courses dancing in my head!

Friday, January 29, 2010

Storm's A-Brewin'

and the little dog awaits
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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Dexter got a bath

because he rolled in something stinky.

Before you get all excited, there are no bath photos. I'm not coordinated enough to perform that, and the lighting in my bathroom sucks.

But after his bath, it turns out Dexter is actually kinda fluffy. He's growing a coat! And little tri colour butt fluffies.
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I think he's growing into a rather handsome dog.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Secret Agent Man


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There's a man who leads a life of danger

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To everyone he meets he stays a stranger


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With every move he makes another chance he takes

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He's a secret agent man

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Irresistible

that's what this face is.
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Monday, January 25, 2010

Smarty Pants

Dexter had a great time at agility foundation class. He conquered the cavaletti exercise and attacked the wobble board without fear. Dexter is very brave and does not worry about new surfaces.

However, he did try to run off with the balance disc - I can only assume he thought it was a frisbee :)

No I didn't. Shut up.
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Sunday, January 24, 2010

Head of the class?

Today Dexter starts Agility Foundation Classes for puppies. He gets to show off his mad skillz and visit with his sister Ginny!

He's very keen to get started.
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Did I tell you all that he gave our friend Wendy a black eye last weekend? Apparently he is a little hard headed ;-)

Saturday, January 23, 2010

We Are Family III

The whole fam damily. Dexter is now 5 months old.
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Friday, January 22, 2010

Eye want me some Piper

Dexter demonstrates what is known in sheepdogs has having lots of "eye." Basically that means he locks onto something with a degree of seriousness that freaks people out ;-)

This is Dexter using his copious amount of eye on Piper, his favourite subject. He moves wherever he needs to, without taking his orbs offa her, to keep her in a certain range of sight.

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(view it large)

If I were thinking about training him up for working stock, I would discourage this a lot more than I do. But since I'm not interested in pursuing stockdog activities (Dexter is going to replace Tweed as my agility dog) I don't worry too much about it. He is allowed to look, as long as he does not touch.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Now the camera is back

Our friend Jeff gave it a thorough cleaning, so it now focuses on the scene in front of it, rather than the dirt speckles on the sensor.

As an added bonus, he cleaned the contacts on the hotshoe and now the external flash fires again. Woot! That means we can take indoor shots.

This is Dexter...
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...who wants Piper's Holy Roller (tm).
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But she's not sharing.
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This makes Dexter sad.
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And a little confused.
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Piper gets a lecture about sharing...
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... and eventually understands that it's okay to let Dexter play with toys.
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And then Dexter is happy again.
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Thanks Jeff!!!

(don't forget to click on the horizontal photos to view the full picture)

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The return of my camera

makes Dexter smile!
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Another one

from the weekend.
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This morning I noticed he is just a shade shorter than Piper at the withers. Wow is he ever getting big!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Dancing With Myself

Havin' a wrestle with brother Paddy, two days ago.
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Sunday, January 17, 2010

Cricket!

Dexter's sister Cricket
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Saturday, January 16, 2010

My Apologies

I gather from the burst of panicked messages in my inbox that I have terrified many of Dexter's fans by telling you all that he was unwell and then disappearing from the internetz.

Never fear, Dexter is just fine. We have traced back the cause of Mr. Yakky and his 3 Upchucking friends to a bad batch of beef in our freezer. All 4 dogs took turns having a bad tummy for a couple of days apiece, hurling at inconvenient hours (middle of the night) in hard-to-clean places (rugs, under the bed etc.) and now after a short fast and a lot of Pepto Bismal fights, everyone is back to their usual selves once again. Mr. Woo is so fine that today he brought home a rabbit that I had conveniently run over for him up the road, but that's a story for another time.

Yesterday we went to visit our great friends Ruedi and Nobu on their sheep farm on Vancouver Island, and we dropped Brother Sean off with them for some bootcamp. Sean is going to be just fine with a little structure in his life. Folks, at the risk of being inundated with indignant commentary from the crazy peanut gallery, I offer you this one piece of advice:

When you raise a puppy, don't be afraid to have *expectations* of him.

I don't mean ridiculous expectations, like the emails I get from adopters about 8 weeks old puppies - "is he housebroken and obedience trained?" - but I'm talking about expecting your puppy to be a good canine citizen and giving him the tools to be exactly that. Your puppy doesn't want or need your undivided attention and hand-flailing wuvvies, he wants and needs structure, boundaries and your confidence that he can achieve what you want and need him to be. Smart puppies are sponges, and when all you give them to soak up is nothing, that's what you're going to get back when you wring 'em out again.

I can haz boundaries plz?
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Sean learned yesterday that you are not allowed to bother the chickens, and that Ruedi is confident enough to chase Wootie off of sheep. This is confidence that Wootie does not have in me ;-)

The trip to the Island took up pretty much my whole day, and we got in very late last night, so no photos. Today we were up early and off to a puppy playdate!

Recognize any of these lovely faces?

This is sister Ginny:
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This is brother Ace:
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This is brother Paddy:
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And this is Curry the Kelpie, who is not related to us, but we love her anyway :)
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Dexter had So. Much. Fun.


I am having, like, such a good time, Food Lady!
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He no longer beats the snot out of his siblings, but plays very politely with them, and sometimes even lets them win.

A puppy watching a puppy chew on a puppy.
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Same activity, different role playing:
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Group shot of the brothers - not so successful, akshully.
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And after all these fun times, Dexter had a nap on the bleachers whilst The Food Lady socialized herself at the agility trial.
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He is definitely back to his usual self, the only residual effects of his bad beef episode being room-clearing farts that made us kind of unpopular at the trial :)

My camera is now visiting Uncle Jeff's Workplace, where the sensor is going to be cleaned because the camera is giving me fits. I do have a back up camera, but I can't promise I'll be able to do much in the way of photographing for the next few days, so I hope these puppy shots will tide you over until the camera comes home again.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Poor Puppy Deux

Still not feeling up to snuff. Stopped hurling all over the house, and ate breakfast today, but he's just kinda mopey and hasn't terrorized anyone once.

He's sleeping it off.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Poor Puppy

Mr. Legs isn't feeling very well today - he seems to have eaten something that he's been busy yakking up all over the house for most of the evening. Now he's having a nap with his kitty cat Carl.

So here's a photo from two days ago. He's old enough now that he has started panting - you know small puppies don't really pant because they get tired before they get all hot and tired? Now he runs until he's hot enough to pant.
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Monday, January 11, 2010

Sometimes you feel like a nut

and look it too
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Sunday, January 10, 2010

Speedy Gonzales

is often too quick for me. He's always disappearing out of the frame just as I line up my shot.

I like to pretend I take shots like this on purpose.
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Tee hee. Catch me if you can!
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Saturday, January 9, 2010

I swear

I had a puppy a few days ago. He was replaced by this young DOG. It seems to have happened overnight.
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Friday, January 8, 2010

Big Bird

Swan
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+ puppy
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= excitement.
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Thursday, January 7, 2010

Tired yet?

OOF!
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Well, THAT wasn't very nice, now was it?
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Dexter is game for just about anything. He has no fear of new stuff - all of my socializing and taking him everywhere possible has made him a very confident young man. He's never seen a tire suspended from a rope before ... but that didn't stop him from trying to take it down ;-) Even when it "attacked" him, he came back for more. Brave little soldier!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Salt water

Not so tasty, akshully.
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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The face

He really wanted to play with Piper on The Forbidden Bed

First I said "no."
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But Piper said "yes."
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Then she changed her mind and said "no."
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So I think he was confused.

And then, after all that, he was pouty.
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