Thursday, January 23, 2014

Velvet and Moony


Both girls are back to getting along, though under careful supervision and only when Ace and Zena are separated from them.  We will never allow all four of them together again, as it would be irresponsible to put Velvet at risk.  Velvet also gets to play with Ace and Zena when Moony is separated, so all dogs get to socialize again.  Velvet is still a bit fearful of Moony and Ace, but who can blame her?  She does ok though, when I'm there near her.  She has gone back to playing with Zena reservedly, which is good.  Princess is still a good pal with her, and all the boys and Freya are happy to play and socialize with her.  Samantha is an oddball, sometimes she plays, but most of the time she just watches, but she never had an issue with Velvet.

The house we have separated in to two parts, and we use that to keep the girls separated as well as crates when they are sleepy.  Moony will lie down by Velvet's crate sometimes when she is not sleeping by Jim, which is a calming sign to Velvet.  When Moony is crated though, Velvet does not lie down by her, so there is still some room to build back their relationship.  But they do interact peacefully again. 

So, what happened at the Nationals you ask?  Well, the first story involves me feeding Ghost out on the veranda when it was about 30 degrees out.  Ghost became finicky the whole time we were there, mostly because he had fallen madly in love with Chilly (Cathy's girl, and apparently the heart-throb of every male Siberian that has ever laid eyes on her), so it was taking some time to get him to eat something.  Being curious, Alayna, Cathy's granddaughter, came to visit me on the veranda.  As a conscientious child, she shut the door behind us.  Well unfortunately for us, there was a slide clasp that was knocked into place when she did so.

Cathy was on her way back to the room without a key, unaware that we were locked out on the veranda.  She was knocking on the door, but we couldn't get in to open it, and I really didn't feel like jumping down 10 feet.  Fortunately, I did have my door key on me, though it was of little good on the veranda.  So we had to beg the help of a passer-by to unlock our door for us to get back in.  A kind lady brought the key in and gave it to Cathy and hence we were delivered from our internment... er... externment? 

In the next story, learn of the adventures of Chilly, Shikku, Willow and Snickers.  Elvis was entertained all week.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Street Sledding!

Well, we started out off-road, honest!  Princess went half-way down the hill, then took an abrupt left, despite my screams of GEE!  GEE! GEEEEEEEE!! OOF!  Several bruises later, I got back on the sled, but you can't turn a sled on pavement!  By this time we had already gone a mile down the road where there were no trails to jump off on to.  How do you get them back to the trail?  Well, you jump back on the runners, for as long as you can stay upright, then kind of drag until the dogs finally stopp pulling you down the road.  Did I mention you can't turn a sled on pavement?

Today I am sore and my skin has several new spots of purplish red.  Not my prefered mottling, but I suppose it could have been worse.  No broken bones, and no hurt doggies, and for that I'm grateful.

This morning marks the first day of full non-comercial food for my pups.  I feed them a home-mixture of chicken leg quarters, beef liver, oats (for bowel movement/fiber), raw eggs, raw honey, organic vinegar, organic no-fat plain yogurt, no-fat cottage cheese (for flavor and calcium) and a couple blueberries (since they can't let me eat breakfast with blueberries without giving them one or two each).  This is an incredible ballet of making the food in 12 bowls, alternating crating and feeding, and rotating and separating.  A dance I'll perform daily for my beloved pack, may I be worthy of their love.