Irish had a very tough weekend playing and going to class on Sunday night, so Monday he had to take some time to relax. He's such a boy. He stayed like this for several hours. I finally woke him up and we headed off the a meeting.
After graduation, I raced home because Dennis and I had promised Jon we would take him and his friends to Poor Red's BBQ for dinner. Jon turned 21 this past week, so we took him to the closest and most unusual bar in the area. Poor Red's is known far and wide - it's in the little tiny town of El Dorado, CA, and the bar is the largest consumer of Galliano in the world. The bartender is amazing, as is Poor Red's famous drink - the Golden Cadillac - made of Galliano, Creme de Cacao, and cream - all blended into milkshake form and served in one of those old time champagne glasses with a milk glass sidecar. There were nine of us for drinks and dinner (8 out of 9 of us had pork ribs - one had chicken). Dennis is on the far end in a gray sweatshirt - from there it's Westside, Jon, Lauren, Hooper, Jack, Lugnuts, and Kelly. Most of the crowd had to drink sodas, but a few of us did the Golden Cadillac thing!
Astro and Piniella hadn't seen each other since Astro was about 8 weeks old. Astro is now three years old and I'd say Piniella didn't recognize him as her own - she usually has to make a show of letting her offspring know she's still in charge when she sees them - she was happy to sit next to Astro and have her picture taken. I didn't get a very good shot of the two of them - but as most of you know, Piniella is not a small Golden - so you can see how big her son is! Astro's dad is Baumann.
On Saturday, after helping the photographer take photos of some 50 matriculating dogs, their puppy raisers, their breeder/caretakers, dog parents, etc, we haeded off to graduation to meet up with Astro. Astro's puppy raiser, Monica, came out from the east coast to present him to his new CCI partner, Ashley. What a pair they are. Astro is a big, gorgeous black lab/golden cross who will be working in the Snohomish County court system assisting Ashley interview children who have somehow been involved in violent crimes. Astro will be sworn in as a law enforcement deputy and will accompany the kids and Ashley as the kids testify in court. This is a huge job, but this big guy seems up to it!
Izzy got her last set of puppy shots on Friday - she weighed 33.3 lbs on 2/22! Izzy, Piniella, and I then went to Santa Rosa on Friday afternoon. We checked into our hotel and headed over to CCI to visit our friends at the vet clinic and in the program office. Kerinne invited us to her place for a run - which was fabulous. The only thick, green, grassy, non-muddy place in all of northern California! We attended the Friday night reception then communed with the Gold Rush gang in our hotel lobby until almost midnight. Izzy was a very good girl and Piniella basked in all of the attention!
The weather has turned yucky again, just in time for our trip this weekend to Santa Rosa. This will be Izzy's first trip back to the mother ship since she left the Puppy Park. This is a photo of Izzy, hard at work, growing like a weed. The photo would have been better if she'd remembered to get dressed this morning!
Izzy is fabulous at work. She is tethered because I am often in and out of my office, but she is doing beautifully. She has a terrific ability to just chill out and chew on her many chew toys or sleep. I have a crate for her in the office and I put her in there if I know I will be at a meeting for any length of time. Izzy is turning into a camel (finally) and can make it through an 8 1/2 hour day with only 2 bathroom breaks!
Hi all,
Izzy's eyes aren't really green but she definitely has a ridge down her nose - three pups in the litter had very noticeable ridges - Izzy, Ingrid and Ivan. When Hal's first litter was born, a few of the pups had ridges and the general thought was that the ridge came from the dad - Terrell. Now that the second litter has ridges, we think Hallie is the ridge originator.
Obviously, we wore them out!
Here's the pack on the run - I think Izzy is just about airborne in this photo!
Much of Izzy's time is spent playing tug-of-war with her mom - literally. Needless to say, this is not Hal's favorite game as it takes time away from chasing the ball.
In this group, we have varying degrees of ball drive. Halor will never give up, never give in, never quit. Her motto should be "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast" because she is totally into it! Piniella, who is going on 8 years old, loves to chase the ball but doesn't care to challenge the aforementioned maniac anymore. Natoma is almost as much into the game as Piniella, Aria loves to run, get the ball, make sure no one else gets it and then drops it, and Izzy will pick up the ball, carry it around but really just wants to play with the big girls.
Here's another shot of Piniella between her two daughters - Aria on the left, Natoma on the right.
Finally, the weather has been nice for enough days and we can play outside! It's been wet and miserable for the past month and we've been waiting for the ground to dry out a little. Today, was a gorgeous northern California sunny winter day so we invited a couple of Piniella's kids over to play. In this photo, from the left are: Piniella, Natoma, Halor, Izzy, and Aria. Piniella had 5 litters ~ Aria is from Piniella's second litter (her dad is Bobby) and Natoma is from Piniella's third litter (her dad is Gibson - aka Sonny). Aria was released for hips and Natoma graduated but was later retired with what turned out to be a minor health issue. Both girls live nearby with Liz and Craig and we get to see them often. Izzy was not one bit shy of the big girls and had a great time running with the pack.
