A calming drive

I had a terribly stressful week last week and so in an attempt to find a bit of inner peace this morning I drove by myself to Estes and had a wonderful time just driving through Rocky Mountain National Park.  The usually plentiful Elk were no where to be found but the aspen are changing and the cool mountain breeze helped bring some much needed peace my way.  I didn't stop often to take pictures as I normally do but I did snap a few.

Mountain Hill Side - The brown trees are trees that have been killed by Pine Beetles.

Colorful Aspen.

 Yellow Aspen through a fun filter.

 View from Rainbow Curve.

 A ray of yellow!

 Beautiful Aspen.

Aspen growing out of the rocks.

Fun dinner

Alex and I went out to dinner last night with Eve's raisers (Brianna and Rob).  So that meant that Anthony and Eve got to play.  And just like magic, Anthony's new toys - GDB approved Goughnuts had just arrived so both got to break them in together.

Anthony and Eve break in the new toy - the Green Goughnut.

 Brianna and Eve

Eve was panting so hard from playing that her tongue was hanging out of her mouth from the side.  It was hysterical!

If Anthony disappears while I am watching him, you can bet he has tipptoed off and found a sun beam some where.  He will lay in the sun until he starts to pant excessively.  Silly puppy!

Long hard day

I had a really long and hard day yesterday.   I won't go into the details but lets just say It started around five AM and I was really glad when I finally made it home around 8 PM.  Anthony was with me for most of the day and his cute little face helped to make it bearable.  I hesitate to post the following picture as it shows me braking GDB rules but after the day I had I wanted nothing more than to snuggle and rest on the couch with Anthony and Alex.   Shortly after this picture was taken, I feel asleep and we both slept without moving till about 11pm.

Anthony and I snuggling on the couch, I think he somehow could tell that I needed "fuzzies".

Anthony has grown so much over the past few weeks but he seems to have mainly just grown longer legs.  They are so long that he doesn't know what to do with them.  When he is playing he often falls or trips over them, it is soooo cute!

Anthony, growing up, literally.

The cute long legged puppy.

Anthony has the cutest little end to his tail.  It twirls and flairs out.

While I was sitting here writing this blog, Anthony was sleeping in a sun beam in the kitchen, or at least I thought he was.  I was keeping an ear open for the giggle of his collar in case he woke up.  But then all of a sudden I see a flash of black run by the door of my office.  I ran out of the office to see what he was up to and below is what I found. 

Now for those of you who know me, you know that even though I am 33 years old, I still sleep with a stuffed animal that I cherish and can't sleep without.  And here is Anthony with my stuffed penguin in his mouth.  I had my camera in my hand by chance as I was working on the blog so I luckily was able to snap a picture and then tell him "that's enough" and rescue my penguin.   I have to admit though, he looks pretty darn cute with it dangling from his mouth.

such a snuggler

Eve is  a very sweet and energetic puppy.  I often pick her up and snuggle with her to get her to calm down.  Often she just goes to sleep in my arms.  Alex took this picture after breakfast yesterday.

 Such a sweetie!

We had our monthly GDB meeting this week and Barb came.  She works for GDB and is in charge of all of the puppies in Colorado.  It's always great when she comes to the meetings because we learn lots of new training techniques. 

 Barb is working with Tim and Anthony on Dog Distractions.  Anthony just wanted to play.

Dupree came up to me while I was trying to take pictures and stuck his face in my camera lens.  What a knuckle head. 

great news or bad news

So depending on how you look at it this is great news or bad news..... Gardner has made it to phase 7!!!!  Way to go Gardner!!  I love him dearly and would love for him to get career changed and come back to live with the Guys but at the same time I think he would be a great guide dog and it would be a very happy life for him.  So to Gardner I say:  "keep up the good work knuckle head!"

Eve is still great and will be with us until Sunday.  Her latest thing is that she doesn't like her drag line trailing behind her.  All dogs wear a soft drag line in the house when they are young so we can give corrections quickly and effectively.  Eve, not liking her bright pink drag line, has taken to turning and picking it up in smack in the middle (so it won't drag) and carries it in her mouth when she is walking around.  It is the cutest thing.  I keep trying to snap a photo but every time she see the camera she drops the line.

Eve enjoys a morning sunbeam.

Tolerance breads friendship

Bree has gradually become more and more tolerant of the puppies.  We have taught Eve to stop chasing her and it has made a big difference.  Now Eve keeps going up to her and trying to give her a bone and trying to get her to play with her.   Bree naturally does not want to play tug and so just hisses at her and occasionally swats at her.   But...in the past few days, things have really changed.  This morning Bree chased after Eve's pink drag line as if it was a piece of string.  It was possibly, one of the cutest things I have ever seen Bree do.  And tonight I was playing tug with Eve when I noticed that Bree was sitting next to us trying to play too by swatting at the loose sting end of the tug toy.  I never thought I would see a day when the puppy and the kitty would sit within feet of each other and be happy and  playful together.  I can't wait to have Anthony back next week, who is way calmer than Eve, and see what develops.

Eve has been a joy this week, outside of the pooping in the house, which we still aren't sure why that has been happening.  She did great at work with me today and is such a sweet snuggle bug! 

video

I posted new video of Anthony and Eve playing in the backyard.  You can view it by going to youtube.com and searching sjohns981 or by pasting the following link into your browser.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sjohns981&search_type=&aq=f

Tour de Fat 2009

Tour de Fat is a giant bicycle parade that New Belgium Brewery puts on every year in various cities around the country but Fort Collins is one of the biggest.  Every one wears crazy costumes and the they ride through the whole city and end up back at the brewery for a giant party with bands and such.  I have a medical student working with me right now so Alex and I decided to take him down to show him the festivities.  We went early and skipped the bike tour part so that we could beat the crowd.  By the time we left to go grab lunch the field was crazy crowded.  Alex and I took our silly hat from Ecuador and took turns wearing it.

Alex and Kris at the after party before it got crowded.

What a sexy guy my husband is.  One guy came up to us and told us that Alex's hat looked like what people of the Pastafarian religion wear.  Yes that is PASTAfarian.  They worship a creature that is a flying spaghetti meatball monster.  How crazy, we got a good laugh out of that one. 

Best Buddies

 Eve and Anthony have only been together for one day and already they are the best of buds.  They stay fairly calm around each other and they even slept snuggled up together last night.

 

 They slept really well all night until sunrise when they both wanted to play.  That's when I kicked Alex and said "I told you, you should have put one of them in a crate", with not the happiest of tones in  my voice. : )

Eve and Anthony enjoying some early morning sun.

Eve and Anthony Day One

Eve's Raisers (Briana and Rob) are going on vacation so we are watching Eve for the week.  Eve's visit overlaps with our time with Anthony by three days.  It seems to me that the energy of one puppy does not just add to the energy of another puppy but rather when two puppies are brought together the energy increases exponentially.  Luckily, both Eve and Anthony are great puppies and they actually play really well together.

Anthony and Eve love to play tug with the Jolly Ball.

Can you believe how big Eve is now.  Doesn't she look like she is smiling.

How tired puppies play tug,... just lay down and keep tugging.

I had no idea that Antony's tongue was this long.

And man...check out the size of Eve's tongue!

Anthony checks Eve's Breath.

I guess her breath must have been ok, because they started Frenching.  : )

Two hot tired puppies finally rest a bit.

Eve is just too darn cute!

If only I could sleep like this!

Anthony and I were on the way home from work the other day and I just couldn't resist snapping this picture at a red light.  He falls asleep so quickly in the car.  I know I posted a similar picture awhile back, but look how big his face is now and he is still trying to squeeze it in between the chair and the council.   How adorable!

Anthony smoking?

The smoke from the LA fires is blowing in and the skies here are hazy and smokey.  With that being said, Anthony has been making some smoke too.  One of his favorite teething toys, always make him look like he is smoking  a purple cigar.

Tough Day at work

Anthony has been going to work with me this week and boy is he having to work hard.  The life of a Guide dog in training is tough.  I hope you can hear the sarcasm in my voice.  

Anthony sleeping during the morning, all curled up in a nice ball.

Anthony sleeping all afternoon all spread out and having a great day.

 When we got home from work we went for a long walk around the lake. It is so great that we can do this now that he has all of the shots.  Anthony got lots of practice learning how not to go chasing after ducks, rabbits, birds, other dogs and a great blue heron while I got to learn how to control him while he tried to take off and not get leash burn in my hands.  How a small dog can be so strong I will never know!   We both had a great walk despite the attempts at chasing things and the still VERY stinky lake.

Gardner Update

Gardner has been back in California for awhile now.  He has finally  moved out of phase one and is in phase three.  Yeah go Gardner!!  There are a total of 10 phases.  As much as we all want him back, he will make some one very happy as a guide dog so we all wish him the best of luck.  His litter mate Gabrina, is being evaluated as a breeder and has already passed the first stage of evaluation.

oh my aching muscles!

Alex and I love being home owners but there are some days when we become aware of how much work it can be. We have been putting off laying new mulch in our yard for quit some time and finally decided we need to just get it done. Well, 6 hours later with very very sore backs we had put down over 6 cubic yards of mulch. That is a ton of mulch.

I forgot to take a pic before we got started but here is the mark left on the driveway by the giant pile that was over 5 feet tall and as wide as the mark.

While putting down the mulch we found all sorts of cool wildlife; a three foot long beautiful snake that was very interested in us, a gazillion EXTREMELY large (bigger than a quarter) spiders and of course a "jungle kitty".

Early yesterday morning I was up getting the yard ready for new mulch and I snapped a few pics that I thought were worth sharing.

We have yellow snap dragons that just pop up like weeds all over our yard in the strangest places. I use to love these flowers as a kid, I liked to make them talk.

This was a beautiful spider web filled with morning dew.

Stinky, Stinky, Stinky

One thing that Alex and I love about our house is that it is on three small lakes/ponds. This past week however, we have not loved it at all! The city of Fort Collins installed aerators in the ponds but they some how messed up and in the process of putting them in stirred up over a hundred years of sediment on the bottom of the lakes. This released a ton of sulfurous gas into the water and AIR! It smells like a horrible giant rotten egg at our house. And to make matter worse the sulfur killed all the fish in the lake and so there are tons of birds swooping in and eating the dead fish. They can't seem to eat them all fast enough though and they have started to rot. So now it smells like rotten eggs and rotten fish. YUCK!!! And just when it is starting to get so cool and nice out in the evenings. Oh well, they tell us that the lovely odors should only last another 2-3 weeks. Here's Hoping!

Look Mom!

Mom - Just like you said, with a little TLC I was able to get my rose bushes to bloom again! And the great part is that they are full of a gazillion more buds too. They look so pretty and were definitely worth the effort.

Not the best picture but you get the idea, lots of roses. : )

View of the three bushes, again not a great shot but I was in my PJ's and wanted to get back inside before anyone saw me. : )

A swimming kitty?

Bree loves to come walk around the bath with Alex and I whenever we are in the tub. She likes to dip her paws in and tries to drink the water, even if there are bubbles. But today I decided to put her in the bath and see what she would do. Well, as it turns out, she loved the water! I held her and she just paddled around and was completely up to her ears in the water. Ok, so she wasn't purring but she also wasn't upset either (i.e. no claws, no meowing).

I wish I could have taken pictures of her actually in the bath swimming around, it was so cute, but that wouldn't have been decent. So I just snapped some pictures of her after I dried her off a bit.

She wouldn't stop liking her self, as if that was going to make her dry. : )

Look how skinny her tail looks.

She is still cute even wet.

Who ever said that a wet cat looks like a drowned rat was right!!

Death of Ducky

Antony's favorite toy is a large stuffed duck. He loves to drag it all over the house and shake it like crazy.  We looked in his mouth this morning and he has 4 new teeth that are half way in. They came in over night! Anyways, about two days ago he chewed wholes in ducky and I took ducky away from him for good. However today, I felt sorry for the poor little guy and so I tried to wrap the holes with duck tape. Well, with in minutes the duck tape was in pieces so ducky was officially "retired" until our next puppy.

Anthony playing one last time with Ducky.

I have had a hard time photographing Anthony given that he is a black lab, so today I played around with a few of my filters. Here are a few of the pics I took.

Anthony in the early morning sun beam by the sliding door.

Anthony watching the birds on the deck.

He loves to lay in the sun beam until he gets over heated and pants and pants and I move him to the cool tile floor to cool off.

What a face!