It's Chaos Here As Usual ...

As you know the last few weeks have been pretty busy... lol

I am way behind in my comments but hope to get caught up next week as things are starting to settle down (or so I hope).

The long weekend (the weekend before Memorial weekend is Victoria Day weekend here in Canada and is our long weekend - we don't do Memorial day). It start with me judging a White Shepherd Dog specialty. I know there are some out there who disagree with the breeding of white shepherds and I have no intention of debating the matter here. This is the second specialty I have judgined for this breed and I really enjoyed myself. They are superb hosts and they brought me some very nice quality dogs. I was pleased to discover that I had been consistent. My Winners Dog turned out to be the sire of the Reserve Winners Dog and the Winners Bitch (who went on to go Best fo Winners and Best in Specialty - lovely bitch!). Afterwords I sat with them for a bit and enjoyed a bite to eat and participate in their raffle where I won tons of great loot. The dogs were thrilled when I came home with armloads of treats and toys lol

From left to right:

Winners Dog Winners Bitch/Best in Specialty Reserve Winners Dog



Winners Bitch/Best of Winners/Best in Specialty



Now I left my cell phone in the car the whole time we were there. To my great surprise, when we (Grandma came with me) returned to teh car we discovered that someone had called 15 times. Turns out it was Grandpa. Shiraz decided to have her litter early (like 5 days early which is a lot for a dog). By the time we got home, she had had 6 lovely puppies (4 boys and 2 girls).





Then on Sunday we went to help with the GSPCC (German Shorthaired Pointer Club of Canada) field test. Grandma plants birds and I help with paperwork. Field tests are a lot of fun. People are more relaxed than they are at shows and so the atmosphere is usually better. And nothing beats watching a bird dog do what it is bred to do. I'm not a hunter and never will be but it's a thrill to watch one of my dogs vibrating on point with excitement about the bird. It's worth seeing.

Then on Monday my sister came home for a surprise visit. Told you it's been busy here.

I'll end with some pictures of Kona (out of True and Dundee). I have tons of pictures people have sent me to post so we'll start here.

Finally we get to that good news!

It goes back a few weeks but I'm still happy enough for a bit of bragging lol

We went to the Guelph shows in Fergus. On the first day Buffy (Kenny x Jeannie) and Frost (Delceg x Becca) both went Reserve Winners and Dundee went Best of Breed. Dundee then went on to a Group 3rd!

The next day Buffy finished her championship going Winners Bitch, Best of Winners, Best of Breed and taking a Group 3rd. Lucy took Reserve Winners Bitch and poor Frost did nothing.

The final day of the show Lucy (Delceg x Kaylee) went Winners Bitch (she now needs only 2 pts to finish her championship), Frost went Reserve Winners Dog and Dundee went Best of Breed and Group 3rd again!!

Yes, we hogged all the group 3rds for the Sporting Group that weekend and we loved every minute of it lol

Wordless Wednesday - Featuring Chesna (Charlie x Chanel)

Cheyenne

Today was supposed to be our happy post about all the great things that have been happening. Instead this will be about one of the great things that has happened to us and has now left our world for the Rainbow Bridge.

Cheyenne was born in 1998 and was sold as a puppy to a home in the US. A few years later the wife called to ask if Cheyenne could stay with us temporarily while she found a new home and got settled as she was getting a divorce. So, Cheyenne returned to us for a year. It became obvious after she returned to us that Cheyenne might have been a bit smarter than her owner - at the very least she had her owner very well trained and had no idea what the word NO meant. She challenged at every turn. If she didn't want to do something she wasn't afraid to show some big teeth. We worked hard on this as it's not something that is even slightly acceptable. When she went home it was with strict instructions on how to manage her behaviour.

Well, Cheyenne's owner's new home turned out to be in a busy suburb and Cheyenne quickly made a nuisance of herself with frequent escapes by jumping the fence and bursts of loud Siberian song. Personally, Siberian song is prettier than humpback whales singing as far as I am concerned but I admit that I hope our neighbours just write it off as the local coyote packs. Within a year she returned to us again.

By this point her behaviour had reached the point where I considered her unadoptable. I wouldn't risk her challenging an owner who didn't know what they were doing and have something truly tragic happen. So, left with a choice of euthanizing her or letting her spend the rest of her life here with us, she came home to stay.

Cheyenne was a very smart and pretty girl. She trained Grandma pretty quickly and I was always called to go get her from the pen because she would simply wait Grandma out until Grandma resorted to a bowl of soft food to catch her. Not too shabby, eh?

We had a love-hate relationship. While I had every respect for her teeth, I refused to let her have her way. So, you had to get creative to get her to do what you wanted and see the benefit in it for her. She was never a big treat fan and food was not successful unless you went whole hog and got a dish of soft food or a huge chunk of cheese. She also didn't care much for toys. She liked games though. Despite the fact that she would get all sullen if I won, we would find quiet moments to cuddle on the couch or have a good ear rub. We respected one another and for all our grumbling about each other, we both loved each other too.

Cheyenne continued her escaping ways every chance she could. If she managed to slip a leash or sneak around someone at the door, she was gone. Thankfully, she loved our neighbours place and their gatekeeper's lab. We're the poor neighbours in the area - the family in question was only in residence a few months a year but the gatekeeper is there full time.

She also continued to sing at the top of her lungs every chance she got. She was the opposite of her best buddy Michael. Michael is a quiet Siberian who is completely off leash trained. Mike turned 13 in February and is now the last remaining Siberian here.

Of course you know where this is going. We lost Cheyenne this morning. She passed in my arms on the way to the vet`s. Last night she was running and playing like there was nothing wrong and this morning she was gone.

It`s so quiet here. I wish Michael would sing for me.

Mother's Day

Our internet is finally working again - yeah!!!!!!!! I don't know how long this will last but I'm happy for now. Another company recently took over our local provider and we've had several problems since then.

Anyway, we do have tons to update you on but for now we'll settle for sharing our mother's day with you. Now there are lots of mothers here at Nuthatch. Most are four-footed. The only two legged mother is mine lol So, we celebrated with some nice raw bones. Raw bones are one of our favourite treats here although we don`t have them too often.

In the afternoon, we went to visit my grandmother, who will be 90 in October, at her house in Guelph. She has an antisocial kitteh named Lucky that my uncle found abandoned in a field. Lucky refused to pose for any pictures. He hid himself in the basement as soon as we arrived. This may have something to do with Spirit coming with us. Ms. Spiri-doo is one of our oldest residents at Nuthatch. She and her sister Chanel celebrated their thirteenth birthday`s with us in January. A week later Ziggy also celebrated her thirteenth birthday. Spirit and Chanel can be found in almost every pedigree of the puppies bred here at Nuthatch.

Heres some photos of our trip to Grandmas:

Apologies

My internet has been down for over a week. I am slowly going crazy. I have hijacked Grandpa's computer so I can communicate lol

Not sure when we'll be back up and running. I have a ton of new puppy photos and all kinds of good news (hint hint, we won enough big yellow rosettes for me to fashion a rather risque costume that nonetheless covered the necessities) but Grandpa is already after me to hurry up and finish this post.

I'll catch up on comments on everyone's blogs soon too. I did mail out our GABE prizes so please let me now they arrived safe and sound.

Heather