Teddy Bear

In the world of Guide Dog Puppies there are only certain toys that are allow. For example, Kongs and tug toys are allowed, but large stuffed animals are not approved toys. Leo the Non-GDB puppy we have right now sleeps with a big fuzzy stuff bear and tonight Gardner came running into the living room after having stolen Leo's bear away from him. We had to take it away from him of course, but I couldn't help snapping this picture first. He just looked so cute.

Two Puppies = Twice the joy?

Alex and I are either crazy or we just love having puppies around. This week we have the great pleasure of having two puppies in the house. Garnder is with us again for a week or so. We love him so much! It is really going to be hard to see him go back for training. The other puppy is an adorable golden retriever  that is 5 months old and belongs to a work colleague of mine who went on vacation. Leo, is so incredibly sweet and calm and he and Gardner are having so much fun playing together.

As we got ready to go to sleep last night, the puppies were all snuggled up together on their fuzzy blanket. I was trying to get a picture of how cute they looked all snuggled up and sleeping when in walked two very brave kitties. The puppies must have Kittie ESP because they both woke up an started staring.

Here are a few clips of the puppies running around the house. Hope you enjoy them.

Alex and I did a brave thing tonight. We gave both puppies a bath at the same time. Having learned a valuable tip from other puppy raisers, we put on our swimsuits (so certain human body parts would not get licked or sniffed) and we put both puppies in the shower and scrubbed them up. We learned a couple of things:
1) The fur from two puppies getting a bath simultaneously will quickly clog the shower drain.
2) Two people in a shower washing two puppies are bound to bump their heads together, multiple times.
3) Wet marble floors are very slippery especially for wet dogs trying to shake.
4) Wet puppies that are so excited they have to tinkle in the house get really cold when they are made to go outside to pee instead.

A three day getaway

I was off on Friday, so Alex and I decided to sneak away for a three day ski weekend. The only problem was that we had Gabrina for the Weekend. So we decided to take her with us. We arrived in Dillon around 3pm on Friday and headed out to Keystone for some late afternoon and nighttime skiing. We left Gabrina in her Crate in the hotel room as seen below. However after about 2 1/2 hours on the slops we got a call form the hotel asking us to come back to our room and control our puppy as they had had complaints of her barking. So. . . we rushed back and indeed, Gabrina was expressing her displeasure with being left in the room.

So on Saturday we decided that Gabrina needed to go with us to Vail for the day. We took turns being with her and skiing. She went to Old Chicago with us tonight and slept like a baby under the table the whole time. Below is a video I took on my old digital cameras. I was just goofing around and trying to see if this function worked and I thought it was kind of cute.

Alex and I had a great time at Vail today. We spent almost the whole day on the black runs and boy were we exhausted by the end of the day. I took a couple of really bad falls but thank goodness I didn't hurt anything serious. My pride was hurt a bit but that and the bruises will heal with time. I was goofing around with my old camera and took a couple of video clips of Alex skiing. They are not that great but you might enjoy looking at them anyways.

The First one is Alex going really slow acting like and airplane on a nice easy Green Run. I quickly found that it is really difficult to record him skiing and ski behind him myself. But If the motion doesn't make you too sick it is kind of fun to watch.

The following video is taken with me standing at the bottom of a very steep black part of a run. It doesn't look that steep in the video but it is. I didn't realize that the camera did sound so that is why I didn't say anything.

Where is Mystery?

Last night I was getting ready for bed and Mystery was hanging out in the bathroom with me while I was washing my face. When I finished drying off my face I couldn't find Mystery. I asked Alex if she was with him and no Mystery. Long story short I eventually found her in Alex's closet. One thing you have to know about Alex's closet is that he doesn't believe in hangers, drawers or shelves. He believes clothes are best organized by large piles on the floor. When I walked in his closet this is what I saw. Can you find Mystery in the picture below?

Yep...That black spot in the middle is the top of Mystery's head. She had climbed into the pile of Alex's clothes and gone to sleep.

When I called her name this is the look I got.

She then ignored me and went back to sleep. She is just too cute!!!

The simple joys in life.

Some people say that having children reminds us of the simple joys in life. Kids say what they think and do things often without thinking if they should. We don't have kids to remind us of this but we have PUPPIES........ I was on my way out the door this morning when Mystery (our current 5 month old black lab) reminded me of the joy of stairs. We were walking down the stairs and she was right next to me when all of a sudden she intentionally threw out her front legs and her back legs and went skidding down the stairs on her stomach. She went flying off the bottom step, skidded across the tile and then jumped up wagged her tail and ran in the living room to get a toy. She was so full of joy. I had woken up with a horrible migraine for the third day in a row and yet as cruddy as I felt I laughed from the bottom of my gut and went off to work with a huge smile on my face. We should all remember to slide down he stairs on our tummies more.

So sweet.

Two of my nurses at work have birthday's on Friday. They asked me if I would make them brownies and/or a cake so I decided to make both together. I baked two round pans of brownies and then put them together with fudge icing and iced them like a cake. We will see how it tastes.

Another Beautiful Day at Vail!

Vail has gotten over 30 inches of snow in the past week. We just had to get up early and take advantage of all that fresh snow. We have been so busy that we haven't gone skiing in a few weeks. And again we had fantastic weather. It's not always so clear and sunny in the high country. We've just gotten really lucky that every time we go it's clear as a bell. It was cold today but the sun made it warm a bit.

Alex fell on a black run, you should have seen the snow he kicked up in his tumble....very impressive. And he fell so hard that he broke the brake on his ski and had to go all the way down the rest of the mountain on one ski, which is a very long way at Vail. The funny part was that with the break broken, the ski took off by itself down the mountain and I went chasing after it. It was quit the scene I am sure. It bounced off a few people and eventually came to rest about 500 yards after its start. The good new is that we were able to patch his ski to make it usable for the rest of the day and miraculously Alex wasn't hurt.

Below is shot of each of us about to head back down the same black Alex fell on. We had a great day and came home to very happy kitties unaware that a puppy was about to arrive for another week at the Kaplun family lodge and spa.

A Wonderment

I just don't get animals sometimes. It was 70+ degrees and beautifully sunny today here in Fort Collins and yet the Canadian Geese continue to spend all of their time on the frozen pond. Why would they do that? Don't their little geese feet get cold? Wouldn't they rather hang in the warm sunny grass? Anyways, just a wonderment.


Speaking of Wonderments, Dessa went home to day and Mystery arrived for her turn at the Kaplun Family Doggie Lodge and Spa. For about 4 hours they were both here. Below is a picture of Alex wondering how to go about controlling two 5 month old puppies that both have a ton of energy.
In the end, we let them play together for several hours and they had a blast. I think they both will sleep well tonight.

Dessa gets a bath.

Dessa was starting to get a bit stinky and so we thought we would take a shower with her and give her a good scrub down. Doesn't she look thrilled to be getting washed?

She ran around like most doggies do after a bath and after I dried her with warm towels from the drier, she snuggled down with Alex. She slept outside of her kennel last night on a blanket for the first time and she didn't try to eat the blanket and she stayed there all night long. We were very proud of her.


Dessa is the sweetest puppy! She is so good when we take her out and besides sneaking into an occasional garbage can to try and eat a tissue she is fantastic. I love the way she sits. She can't keep her legs together, they slowly start to slide apart until she either has to lie down or stumble up. It is super cute! Dessa goes home tomorrow and we are going to miss her!

Go Demon Deacons!!!!!!

I just had to celebrate a bit.....Wake Forest beat Duke in Basketball today 70 to 68. Will this put Wake back at number one? Who knows. And to be honest, I don't care to much, I am just super excited that they beat Duke!!! Go Deacs!

Good News!!

Alex found out today that he got accepted into the Biomedical Engineering program at Colorado State University here in Fort Collins. It is a two year program and he will get a masters. He could then go on to PA school if he still wants to or try to get a job in the Biomed field. We are hoping he will be able to get a TA position or a stipend that will help offset the cost of going back to school. Overall we are just excited that things are moving forward for him and his career.

Anything for peace.

Either Alex and I really love our cats or we are totally crazy. Actually I think we both just want peace in the house. We made a big effort this weekend to block off the areas of the house that the cats defend with a vengeance. I.e. the dinning room and sun room ..... where their food and water is kept. But it seems no matter what we did, the puppies found a way in. So finally we have created a totally dog free zone that the kitties can still get into. It all looks pretty funny and is a bit over the top but if it means a bit less hissing and cats chasing dogs, it will be worth it. We found the gates at a used children's store and they were super cheep. I thought I would share with you how silly our place looks now. The things we do for our animals, I swear.

This is Dessa looking in at bailey in the dinning room. Bailey is growling up a storm and Dessa just wants to play. At least this way Bailey doesn't swat at her. The kitties can go underneath the gate if they want.

If the puppies can break through the first gate, then they have to get past both kitties and another gate before they reach the gold mine - the kitties food. Again, the kitties slide underneath with ease.

  If this doesn't prove that I love my cats I don't know what does. I think it actually proves that I might be certifiably nuts...... Under the blankets are two sheets of Styrofoam that are tapped together and are being held up against the wall by books. I cut a little door out for the kitties. And if you look closely, you will see Bailey peaking out.

The Bailey girl peering out from their secret lair.

This is the gate for the Basement. Its gross I know, but the puppies like to sneak into the basement and eat out of the kitties litter box. Disgusting!

Puppies!!

Alex and I went a whole week without any Guide Dog Puppies and we found that we missed them terribly. So.... I sent out an email to the Fort Collins group just letting people know that if they needed a break we would be more than glad to sit for them. The emails came flooding in and now we have puppies lined up for about the next month. And we still managed to arrange the visits around skiing too. Yippee!!!

The first to arrive is Dessa. She is just over 5 months old and super sweet. She is a very dominant puppy so she gets to spend a lot of time in our lap on her back. Her raisers have really done a great job with her, she has a great handle on most commands already. She's not sure what to make of the kitties but so far there haven't been too many kitty-doggy brawls. Thank Goodness. That and we put gates up all over the house where the kitties go. The Gates are about 1/2 foot off the ground. That way the kitties can go under to get to their food but the puppies can't go in. So far its working nicely. The seem to be a bit more relaxed. They would guard their food to the death. We have Dessa for a week so we will have lots of time to try the gates out.

We had a few inches of snow last night and Dessa went out with me this morning to help shovel off the deck. I snapped a few pictures, because she was just way to cute leaping through the snow.

This picture makes her look huge but she is really very small for her age.

Dessa all covered in snow after we finished shoveling off the deck. She had a blast eating the snow as I pushed it into piles.

Dessa is teething and so she really likes the rubber ring toy. She is learning to lay on blankets without eating them too. She is laying on the new blanket I just made out of a scrap of fleece I found at JoAnn's. It's covered in Dalmatian puppies and fire hydrants.

Dessa says: "what do you want, can't you see I am busy chewing on my toy?"

Back to school

Big News: Alex started classes this past week. He is taking Chem 1 and Chem 2 at the same time as well as intro Bio and Physch. He was busy all weekend reading and studying. I am so proud of him. It takes a lot of guts to decide to leave a career you have worked in for over ten years and start all over. He is still waiting to hear from the biomedical engineering program at CSU but it looks hopeful so far. They have already contacted him and he hasn't even submitted all of his application. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

CELEBRATE!!!!

Today is a day to remember and a day to celebrate! I am so excited that Obama is now president. I am proud of our country that we were finally able to look beyond race and elect an intelligent and outstanding leader for this great nation! I hope we can now begin to heal from the pain of the last 8 years and that the world will begin to see us in a different light. What an exciting day!

A day in Vail, Without Skiing!?!

We took Jeremy and Zita to Vail on Sunday. The weather was beautiful! In the forties and sunny. We took Dusty with us and she did great, except for a few Stinky farts in the car. She did amazing on the crowded ski buses and had a ton of fun watching the skiers come off the slopes. We all ha a great day!

As were getting ready to go, we told Dusty to get into the car and she jumped into the trunk. Silly cute puppy!

An afternoon in Vail Village.

View from the top of Gondola.

Alex, Dusty and I at the top.

Zita and Jeremy's visit

Our Friends Zita and Jeremy, who live in Napa, came to visit us for a weekend. They came in on Friday and we spent the day just hanging out and going out to eat. Today we went to the gym in the morning and then went to Estes Park to go for a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. We hiked up to Dream Lake.....very slowly since Zita is about 26 weeks pregnant and they are not use to the altitude. It was an absolutely amazingly beautiful day. It was in the forties and sunny. We were shocked by the lack of snow in the park.
We had both Dusty and Gardner for the weekend and we all had fun watching them play tug with each other.

Everybody hiking up the last hill to Dream Lake.

There were tons of Elk in Merane Park!

Dream Lake - frozen over and windy.

New Toy!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but we've been busy. We had Gardner again since last week and he always keeps us on our toe. We love sitting for him, he is so calm and such a joy! And the best part is that he is kind of afraid of the cats so he won't even look at them or go near them. And therefore, they aren't afraid of him. It's fantastic to have a dog in the house and not hear the cats making their strange growling noises. We got two inches of snow last night and we had a blast playing with him in the snow. Apparently he likes eating snowballs.

But the big news is that I got an iPhone. I absolutely love it!!! I have been spending all of my free time playing with it instead of posting blogs. I am sure it will get old at some point and i will return to the world of my website and blog but now I am having fun finding free apps.

Skiing!!!!

Alex and I went skiing at Vail this past Sunday. Vail has gotten a ton of snow and we had an absolutely beautiful sunny day. It was freezing cold but we had some great runs. Below are some pictures of the slopes.View from Two Elk Lodge where we ate lunch.

View from front of the ski mountain

That is Alex in the white helmet and red backpack, patiently waiting for me to take some pictures. He is so patient and sweet.

View from one of the back bowls

Happy New year!

Happy new year to everyone! I know these wishes are a few days behind but we've been busy. Alex and I had a relaxing new years eve. We spent it just hanging out with a few friends. For the past week we've had fun sitting for Gabrina and I wanted to share a few photos from the week.

Gabrina's favorite way to snuggle.

Gabrina thinks the Cats are play mates and she constantly kept trying to give her toys to the cats. Neither of them wanted to play with her and they would usually just hiss at her and often would go as far as to chase her. We often laughed to the point of tears watching big fat bailey run and waddle after Gabrina.

We had to put the kitties food up on the table (a place they are normally never allowed to go) in order to protect their food from the puppy's hungry tummy. Both Bailey and Bree would sit by the table and guard their food 24/7. Gabrina continually went to visit them and would always quickly find out that they still didn't want to play.

Gabrina sees if the kitties want to play.

Today we got to sit for both Gabrina and Mystery. It was a lot of work but a lot of fun at the same time. Mystery has not learned how to play tug with other dogs yet. We spend a lot of time trying to teach her how to play tug and how to get along with Gabrina. By the end of the day they were inseparable and both were completely exhausted from playing so much.

In this shot Gabrina is very patiently trying to teach Mystery to tug with her. It was the sweetest thing to watch! Gabrina would wait and then tug a bit and then wait and then tug a bit again. She kept looking at mystery as if to say...."come on, catch on to how its done, I know you can do it."

Tug with both puppies after mystery knew how to play.

It was a fun afternoon but the kitties are glad to have the house back to their control. They get three days to recover and then Garnder comes for about 12 days or so. Alex and I are off tomorrow to spend the day skiing at vail. This is the most snow they have gotten in December in over 8 years. We should have a nice powder day hopefully.