My bizarre, funny, little doodle bear

We'd been playing fetch normally, with direct lines to and from the frisbee, when this started happening:

Oh, and PS, I sound like a total hick. What's up with that?

Dogs, dogs, and more dogs!

Hanging around on a Friday evening...






"Oh, mom, hahaha, you are soooo funny! No one but Kate appreciates your humor like I do!"






Emmie:




Gretta:



Toby:

Ithaca is Gorges

Yeah, it took me embarassingly long to get that pun, even after having seen it on Matt and Katie's fridge for nearly a year.

So, Chris is at a physics REU (summer research program for smarty pants physics majors) at Cornell until August. Sigh. But, to make the transition easier, our friends Matt and Katie, who used to live in Ithaca, suggested we make a weekend trip of it and spend some time camping, hiking, and kicking around on the Finger Lakes Wine Trail (one of their favorite activities from their time in NY). While I was sad that Chris was leaving, we had a really, really good time. We learned some new stuff about wine (mostly that our tongues are not all that discerning), learned the true meaning of gorges, and got Chris all settled into his dorm room, which he described this evening as appealing to his "monastic side." Well, fair enough.

We left the dogs and puppies with our wonderful neighbors, who were very cool about all my neuroses and not at all insulted by the three page single spaced document I provided. Yeah. Let's speak no more of that. I came home to five wagging tails, twenty paws, four damp noses and one slightly runny nose, so I'm happy.

So, here's a pic of our traveling companions, Matt and Katie Shepherd:
And one of us! A rare gem!




And, FYI, the bumper stickers are correct--Ithaca is gorges. Really, really gorges. And waterfalls.

Birthday gift from Cat's folks

For my birthday, my folks got us new counter stools, to go with our awesome new kitchen. They're the first items of actually new furniture that we didn't put together ourselves that Chris and I have owned. Very exciting, and oh, oh, so comfy on the tukas.





There's some gunk on the lens messing up this one, but Miss Gretta, one of our foster pups, is being unusually social in the picture, so I wanted to include it.

Teaching Buster to ID the food bowls

The amazing fostering experience, or, I got my puppies in Kentucky

Well, as some of you have heard, on Thursday I drove three hours each way to Evansville, IN to pick up three 5 month old labradoodle puppies who were about to be put to sleep in a Kentucky shelter. Snotty nosed and scared out of their minds from three weeks in a concrete kennel following a life lived entirely outdoors, I brought these little dears home, showed them to Chris, who fell in love with them, and our adventure began. We've been using a very specific method for socializing them, under instructions for IDOG's amazing director, Beth Line. Every single thing she's said has been totally accurate, every prediction, even ones that seemed weird, came to pass. This woman really knows her dog behavior! Abby and Buster love having the puppies around, and their interactions with the dogs are almost as rewarding to watch as the development of the dogs themselves. Until we realized how much socialization and emotional work these puppies needed, we'd planned to get them distributed to other foster homes by the end of the weekend. Now, however, it's clear that they need to be together in a controlled environment for awhile longer, so we'll have some additional family members for the next couple of weeks (at least).

More on their antics and development as I get caught up on my work!

All three. (L-R Toby, Gretta, Emmie)
Toby. Named "Lieutenant Dan" when he came into the shelter.


Gretta, named "Forrest" when she came into the shelter (seeing a trend with their old names?)
And, finally, Emmie, named "Jenny" by original owners. She has stolen our hearts and will have to go to a family that appreciates her for how wonderful she truly is.

Long ago trip to Fayetteville

After I turned in my last paper and took a silly Latin final, I hopped in the car with the doods and drove to Fayetteville for a couple of days to see my family before starting this grueling summer of French and reading (but not reading French).

In the car. Notice their fancy new harnesses!

Abby and Buster love riding in the car! They don't bark or whine, but every once in a while, Buster nudges his nose rudely up onto the armrest, but for the most part, they just curl up together and sleep the whole way. Pictures taken over my shoulder. I snapped a bunch, and just happened to get a few decent ones.




Kickin' it in the backyard


Ana came to my parents' house for dinner one night, and the dogs were VERY happy to see her. She was great with them, and Buster actually listens better to her than to me sometimes. We would never have thought he'd be so good with kids, but he's fantastic!





Buster's tongue is ridiculous.

So much catching up to do! So little done here...

Well, I have lots of fun stuff to post on here. However, literally all summer long, I have to average about 1,500 pages/week to have a hope of being ready for exams in September, so it'll be slow updating. In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, Buster learning to play frisbee. As you can see, he's got some mad ups.

Collapsed tunnel (dum dum dum!)

We added the final obstacle of beginner's agility yesterday--the collapsed tunnel. As you'll see in the video, it's a 3ish foot long tube with about 10 feet of fabric running off the end of it. The dog goes in the tube and has to push through the fabric to come out on the other side. We thought the doods would panic, but they love it! Here are some videos from this morning's practice. Chris won't let me post videos of him, so I'm driving in all of these.

Cat and Buster


Cat and Buster really awesome run


Cat and Abby...Abby's much more excited about agility these days. We were training with tuna, so that might have helped.

Camping!

Well, it's spring break, and on Monday the high was near 70, and near 80 on Tuesday, so we hopped in the car and went camping with our friends Matt and Katie for a couple of nights. The other couple we run around with, Andy and Elin, were in DC for the week, and were very much missed.

The doods were awesome, esp considering that it was Abby's second time camping, probably Buster's first, and one of very few times they've been tethered. There was very little barking at nearby critters, and even then it was mostly at other dogs barking in the distance. They got tangled up a lot and didn't seem to be getting the hang of it by the time we left, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Also--they were ALL ABOUT sleeping in the tent. We're big believers in the pack mentality philosophy of doggie behavior/psychology, which includes their denning instinct. They both settled right in. The first night, though, Buster slowly inched his way up the side of the tent so his big ol' head was right next to mine on the pillow. There was a little growling the first night, with Buster full on barking when we heard some rustling in the campsite (raccoons, likely). Second night--a light rain and doodle quiet.

I didn't get nearly enough pictures of them, but here are a few.









After a fruitless day of fishing, Chris and Matt take some time off to read/nap in the hammocks.