Animal Rights is Wrong by Loretta Baughan

http://spanieljournal.com/42lbaughan.html

myfitnesspal.com

Cool new tool :) Her's my new favorite website. www.myfitnesspal.com They're website is really easy to use to help you eat healthier.
They also give you a cool counter to help you loose weight.

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Food Diary

Please welcome.....

Please welcome the newest addition to the family, Miss Hazy.. aka Hazard.. and not as in Dukes of Hazard, as in "a hazard to your health." She was a 3 week old kitten that I brought home from work for 1 night to bottle feed and Emmy the cat hating cat decided that she liked her so we said Ok lil one you can stay. She's now about 8 1/2 weeks old, has been spayed, chipped and whatnot and is new best friends with Jasmine and Emmy.

Enjoy!

3 weeks old -> 8 1/2 weeks old

Agility Picts

Ok guys as promised here are some pictures from the trial, they are all the professional ones. I should have the Videos up as soon as I figure out how to post them :)
Enjoy!


Novice Jumpers


http://petscapesphoto.com/petscapesagility/2009AGLSUNJWWNOV/AgilityPSLRAJWWNov12/slides/3L5A8124.html

http://petscapesphoto.com/petscapesagility/2009AGLSUNJWWNOV/AgilityPSLRAJWWNov12/slides/3L5A8135.html

http://petscapesphoto.com/petscapesagility/2009AGLSUNJWWNOV/AgilityPSLRAJWWNov12/slides/3L5A8147.html

Novice Standard

http://petscapesphoto.com/petscapesagility/2009AGLSATEXCNOV/AgilitySTDNov12/slides/3L5A6867.html

http://petscapesphoto.com/petscapesagility/2009AGLSATEXCNOV/AgilitySTDNov12/slides/3L5A6875.html

http://petscapesphoto.com/petscapesagility/2009AGLSATEXCNOV/AgilitySTDNov12/slides/3L5A6880.html

WOO HOOO.. AGILITY CORGI!

Ok so this weekend was mine and Jasmine's first ever Agility compitition. We entered into Novice Jumpers with weaves(NJWW) and Novice Standard (NS) both days, so 4 total runs. Well the first class NJWW Jasmine of course ran around like a goof ball just as expected she did finish the course but not after running to see her aunti Tiffany and taking a few goes at the weave polls. An obvious NQ.
The second run was much better. She ran the entire course properly with the exception of the weaves which she entered inccorrectly but managed to finish with a score of 90 and 1st PLACE!!! We later found out that the weaves were set at 20 inches not the 22 and 24 inches that we practice at.
The second day we did AWESOME! We did both NJWW and NS finishing respectivly with 100pts and 90pts, both being 1st place :) I laughed when I looked at the time she did the jumpers course at 31.4 seconds for a 105yrd course, she was FLYING. She was still bookin it on the Standard course doing it in 56.2 seconds for a 149yrds with the 5 second down included.
Watch out agility crew here we come!
I'll post pictures and video as soon as I get them from my sister.

Sweet Tool!

For all of you out there trying to lose a couple or more pounds here is a neat little tool that really does help. It was on a friends profile and I'm gonna give it a shot. You log what you eat, your exercise and it helps you keep track of your calories/exercise etc.. and best of all ITS FREE!!! it's http://www.myfitnesspal.com/
Later!

AGILITY!!!!

Ok so Jasmine and I are finally up to trying our hand at an agility trial! She's probably gonna do the crazy corgi thing and run around like a lunatic but that's ok with me cause she'l be having fun. Our trial is Saturday/Sunday June 20/21 in Monroe Wa. Wish us luck and pray for nice weather.

Corgi Torture

So this is what happens when the hubby and I get bored, we decorate the corgi!

Oh noes this can't be good.

TADAAAAAAA

Mummy Corgi!

Purrfect Pals.. And more pictures

Ok so some of you know that I work at a no kill cat shelter called Purrfect Pals and if you didn't you know now. Anyway I thought I would share with everyone the cute adorable sweet spoiled kittens that live at the shelter. Yes I said live. They are not up for adoption and unfortunately will live the rest of their short life in a room with 20 other cats until they cross the rainbow bridge. These cute adorable sweet kittens are Feline Leukemia positive. They have all been tested multiple times to make sure that the readings were not false. These kittens were given a horrible disease that will rob them of their life at a young age. If we are lucky they'll make it to 1 year, we're amazed if they make it to 2 years and if they make it to 2 years the chances are they will live until they are seniors spending the rest of their lives in the shelter. But making it to 2 isn't their only hurdle. Being as they have a lowered immune system their system will be subject to various upper respiritory infections(URI), eye infections, anemia etc but we will take care of them and treat them to the best of our abilities. These diseases are nothing that anyone can prevent as approximently 90% of the healthy population of cats have some type of URI that is just dorment in them and only shows signs in imune deficiant or stressed cats.

Now don't get me wrong it's not a horrible place to live, they have their own room, multiple cat trees, ourdoor play areas ( in the spring/summer) visitors on a daily basis, room service :) etc, but I'm just disgusted that this is a completly preventable disease and that more people aren't vaccinating against it. We've taken in 3 seperate litters of kittens and 3 adult cats this year alone that have all tested FELV (leukemia) positive. Now that just sucks. This could all be prevented by a simple vaccine.

I guess the one good thing about this is that these adorable kittens don't know what I know and never will. Thankfully they just get to live their lives, however short they may be, as spoiled rotten little kittens who get the joy of having us bend over backwards to make them as happy as they can be.

For more information please visit....

http://www.purrfectpals.org/

and think about sponsoring on of these adorable kids.

Mis Mellow (black/white- adult FELV +)

Kayla (dilute torti - 9m kitten { her brother recently passed away due to FELV complications])

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Skittles (Red torti--8 month- kitten FELV +)

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Dainty ( Dilute Torti-8 months old FELV +[ her sister Pretty recently passed away due to FELV + complications])

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Bonita--(dilute torti grey face- 8 months old [ Dainty's remaining sister])

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Ivy aka Mamma ( Black/white Tux--1 1/2 years old- was abandoned at a petstore with her kitten who also tested FELV +)

Now if I could just figure out how to get the stupid text to wrap around the pictures I'd be super happy! but I'm tired and just don't want to deal with it. Another job put off.

New Camera. Picts Galore!

Well I've been a bad blogger. Really though I've had a very hectic life lately between work, family, my grandmother passing and everything else you can possibly think of throwing into the mix. Life is finally starting to settle down so I might as well share some of the less insane and more enjoyable parts of life.

Jasmine is doing WONDERFUL in agility. She has finally figured out the weaves , even though she still tells me the entire time how annoying the stupid weaves are, and is doing them on both sides now. Her first match should be in June, we'll be doing novice and hopefully she won't want to visit the judges the entire time. Kinda hard sometimes to keep her on track when there are people who just might have a cookie in their pocket, we're gonna have to break her of that.

The hubby bought me a new camera as our old one just can't keep up with the rocket dog. She's so dang fast that no matter what the setting on it you just get a blur. Our new camera (Nikon d-200) is wonderful although there are a TON of buttons to learn about. I'm slowly getting it down and have been practicing with the old dog, mainly cause she doesn't move at the speed of light and she's very photogenic although I'd love to get a picture where her tongue is actually in her mouth ;P Anyway life goes on as usual, wonderful kitten season has arrived and we are starting to get bombarded with kittens again :) I'll have to post some pictures of the lil monsters soon as we are getting some wonderfully cute babies in.

Enjoy the picts ;P

Razzie (12yr old Pemi. Look at that movement, not bad for the old girl )

Random scenery from the property.

I'll have to add some more later. I have some really nice ones of Razzie swimming, well wadeing in the water and I'm going to try to get some action shots of Jasmine but let's see how well that works little speed demon.

November/December Catch up

Wow November really went by in a flash and now December is almost over. How time flies.
Well there is a lot to catch up on. I've been working a little less lately thanks to having a full clinic staff. So I've been having more time to take the dogs out and work them and let them play.

--Jasmine--

Less work=more time for agility, which is going really well except that Jasmine STILL does not want to do off side weaves.. which is VERY VERY annoying. She'll do them just fine in practice runs (no course just random obsticles) and what not but as soon as you start your course she's like... "Hmmm Nah I'm just going to stand here and bark at you till you go to the other side, then I'll still bark at you but I'll do them". Naughty dog ;P She is doing wonderful though.

Last week in the middle of her second run on the course she tripped coming off the teeter (don't worry no injuries), then gathered her footing and cleared the following jump even though it was only about 4 strides infront of the teeter. I was laughing so hard because it looked like something out of a 3 Stooges skit and she just kept going. I just ended up running and pointing to obsticles amist the laughing and finished the whole course without knocking anything over. Glad it was just a practice lesson otherwise we would have been the laughing stock at a trial. Soon enough though. I'm pretty sure when we get her weaves stronger I'll be able to feel confident in putting her into a trial and not turn it into a Frap session.

-- Razzie--
A couple weeks ago I went out to my parents house and let Razzie run with the boys and the rest of the pack to get some socialization and exercise. Well it turns out she could care less about the boys but when it comes to ANY female dog being near her she turns into something out the exorcist, hair on end and everything. Pretty much confirming my ongoing theory that she's just a cranky ol' bat who's female dog aggressive. Horray! *note the sarcasm
Here are some nice picts of the walk in the woods with the Boys (german shorthair pointers) and Razzie bringing up the rear.

We're free!

Nice moss covered tree next to the trail.

What You said COOKIE??

Going home.

On top of the pretty much confirmed female dog aggression, she's been noticeably less responsive to comands, less energetic, and having more and more mood swings. Pretty sure she's starting to lose it. She's now starting to take Anipril which is a medication to help slow the process of becoming senile, although I don't know how far we will let the Mood swings progress, especially if she endangers the cat. The dogs are seperated 99% of the time, which sucks by the way.

We will continue to make her comfortable and happy as long as we can.

--Jasmine--

On a better note, we, like the rest of the PNW, have been getting SNOW! Oh the dogs just love it. Well the first night they did. Jasmine and Razzie were both enjoying sniffing it and running around in it but now I'm pretty sure they're ready for the snow to go so they don't get the back end cold when it comes to potty time. Snow's suposed to be here till after christmas but we'll see.
Jasmine and Daddy- He just finished sweeping the stairs and she really wanted him to kick the snow up so she could snap at it :)

Jasmine the no legged levetating warp-speed dog! (too bad it turned out so blurry, but she was going at warp-speed through the snow)
Looking out the front door.

And now we sit here waiting for more snow.

Meowing Guest

So we had a visitor last weekend. I've promised Ben that I would not bring my work home with me. Work being kittens. Well I didn't bring kittens home I brought A kitten home, see BIG difference. It was just for a couple days mainly because the kitten needed round the clock care, meds, force feeding etc. Jasmine and Razzie were quite interested in this "thing" as neither of them have seen kittens in the house before. Emmy the cat doesn't count because she acts more like a dog than a cat, although she was NOT amused by this meowing annoying kitten. All the kitten did was meow, kneed your leg and try to cuddle with the dogs. Although when she realised that it was a dog she slapped it and hissed, then went right back to rubbing on the dog. Maybe she has very bad short term memory.Needless to say after 3 nights of this kitten it was well enough to go back to work and the house returned to the norm.

Mom what is this thing?

MEOWWW

Which is all this thing did, meow.

After everything calmed down a little Emmy and Jasmine got to go out for a nice walk up the driveway to get the mail. Yes my cat goes outside on a leash.She was hand raised by humans, not raised with other cats and the time that she was allowed outside she almost was eaten by something and we had to stitch her back together so she's an indoor only kitty. All this being said she's not very bright and WILL be eaten by something if allowed to go outside by herself. (yes I know I'm the crazy overprotective cat lady, I'm quite aware) We have some roaming dogs, bobcats, deer and other strange nocturnal creatures that she would not be able to fend off, so outside time is on a leash. My neighbors get a kick out of it, especially in the summer when she's outside sitting on the floating dock sunning herself while we go swimming. Yes she's a very strange cat.

"Up the driveway we go"

Nom nom nom.. Grass is yummy

Oh yes and here is something that doesn't happen very often. Jasmine and Razzie together, peaceful. Oh to have more days like this. Why do the old dogs get so cranky as they age?

Another day another Agility course

So we've had two more lessons since our last post. They've both gone surprizingly well. I really am waiting for her to decide that she just wants to be crazy and Frap around the course.
We are in pre-novice class but our courses are Excellent courses. Basically the thinking is if we can do excellents we should be able to Ace the Novice courses. In theory this will work if we can actually remember the whole thing. I wish we had big flags with the #'s on them, it would help but they have little like 4 inch cones with the #'s on them which is hard to see when you're running around at a million miles an hour trying to keep up with the dog.
Jasmine did very well able to do the weaves better, we're working on doing offside entry, which is confusing her and she barks at me to tell me that Hey your supposed to be on the other side of me mom! Our biggest mishap was of course Handler error. The first have and the second have have 3 same obstacles, a tunnel, a jump and another tunnel. The first half is Tunnel, jump tunnel. the second half is Jump, tunnel, tunnel. Well I kept trying to send her Jump Tunnel tunnel in the first half and she kept doing Tunnel jump jump. I was getting very frustrated and then someone pointed out I was asking her to do it backwards and since we had done it correctly once before, she was telling me mom you are telling me to do it wrong, I'm doing it right. Silly me. She still got cookies and a tug toy cause she did it right and I did it wrong.
We also worked on the serpentine which we haven't done in a very very long time and out of the entire class of 9 dogs, we were the only one who nailed it on the first try :) Yay for Corgi memory. My biggest "fear" obsticle is the Teeter. She does it great but last year she decided to do the SUPER CORGI off it at top speed and scared me to death. I'm really bad at telling her easy before it making her slow down. Asking a dog to slow down who does flying contacts tends to slow down your times and makes the dog more tired because they have to make up for the lost momentum. Well I'm going to have to work on trusting the dog and not my crazy voice in my head.
Well. Off to bed. Work calls bright and early.

Back to Agilty after a YEAR off

So Monday was Jasmine's and my first day back to Agility class since last year. This has been because of my work schedule, class schedule etc/etc. Thankfully though, last Valentines day I came home to "home made" to AKC standard Weave Poles and a 12 inch variable height jump. Well over the past year we've created a small dog agilty area up the property to keep the equipment on and have an area other than the front yard to practice in.
Anyway....
So Monday. I'm thinking, she's not been to class in a year, she's gonna go BANANAS when she sees Julie ( one of her favorite people-mainly for the cheeze), our trainer. Not to mention that there are soo many obsticles that she loves that she has not done in sooo long. We started out the class by doing a Novice course including a tire and the A Frame. Frame, never has been a problem. The tire, that's a compeletly different story. I'm a corgi, I'm short, I can easily go under that why should I go through it. Well we didnt even warm up on the course we just went. and BOY did SHE FLY. I forgot how fast that girl is. She was probably 12 feet infront of me and I'm just yelling obsticles and pointing and she nailed every single one of them. She did Cross infronts/behinds, went through the tire (first try) through the tunnels and finished without knocking a single bar down. Oh we were sooo happy and yes she did bark the entire time.
The next session we did included the A Frame, Weaves, Tire, broad jump and again many many jumps. The entire set went really really well until.... the weaves. :( Definately need to pull them out and work on them some more. She has the concept down but exicution is a different story. She breaks or does the I'm a Corgi, Why should I thing. Very irritating. Either way the day ended on her being able to run around like a lunatic jumping every jump in sight. I can't wait for a match, she will do very very well in a jumpers class.
Well that's all for the moment. We will continue our work with weaves and hopefully do better next week.

Long time no post, Alot to catch up on.

Well as you can see it's been a long time since we've posted. The summer has already come and gone but let me catch you up on the girls. Ms. Jasmine has decided that buterflies also known as "boo flies" are very very yummy and a ball to chase. She finally has got the jump in the air and bite at them down to an art and is catching them on a regular basis. I think the cooler weather is finally slowing them down enough for her to catch them.

"AH hAA Igotted you!"

"MMM snack time"

If you look really close at her mouth in this picture you'll see the butterfly.

"Rolling on the poor boofly"

Not only did Jasmine have a good time this summer playing with butterflies, she also has been tempted again by our resident duck "Peepers" and her batch of ducklings. This is the first time Peepers has had a batch of ducklings live to adulthood. All previous babies have been picked off by the Offsprey before they had the chance to grow. These ducks are unfortunately very very tame mainly due to Peepers being raised by my neighbors a couple years ago, so they tend to live on the property during the summer time. Being tame though does have its good points, upclose and personal pictures. Jasmine was not pleased at this photoshoot as I made her down stay for about 1/2 hour while I took photos.

"Good Dog"

"Brave ducks"

"pahhhlleease let me get them!"

Summer has ended and fall is here, time for our Halloween Dress up :) Unfortunately they do not make "Corgi" sized costumes. Here is the costume I got for Jasmine, a medium which I thought would be long/large enough for her. http://apparelandaccessories.petedge.com/assets/product_images/styles/medium/ZA539_230X230.JPG Well I was wrong, it doesn't fit her, doesn't fit Razzie very well BUT it does fit the cat :) Yes the cat is wearing the costume. Emmy is a very good kitty and doesn't mind being kitty tourtured as long as there are treats and pets.

"Razzie getting into the spirit of Halloween"

Corgi ears are not made for costumes

"Emmy NOT Amused"

"Ok Fine, I'll let you take my picture, but I'm still not amused"

Ok so that's enough catching up for now. There is probably more still to add but I'll just have to add it later.