Before and afters

We finally finished our landscape project. And we are so excited about how it turned out. Eventually I would like to add some around the base of the deck too. 

Before...

 

After!! It's a lot of manual labor, but technically not that bad. 

 

  

I had my cousin Katy come refinish an old ugly piece of furniture for us. It turned out great!

Before 

After! 

  

I paid attention to what she was doing and since I had leftover paint I did this old battered end table to match. Up close you can see where I struggled with the sealer. But it's no worse off than it was. And a better color. 

 

   

Meanwhile, Epic helped with chores. 

 

 

Epic's nosework videos

I finally uploaded some videos to youtube for the old blog here.  The first two are of Epic's very early days.  There is a piece of food in the box had he's learning to search. 

This is several weeks later.  This one there is odor in the box, along with food-so that he starts to associate the two. 

This one is just a birch hide with no treat. It's from the same day as the above video.  He's coming along well!  At this point I don't require that he "stick" the hide or wait for any kind of alert behavior.  As soon as his nose hits the hide I'm giving a treat, or several, right at source.  

Landscaping projects

We have a few landscaping projects going on right now. This is the only one that is finished. After we put in a new garden last year we have some blocks leftover.  And since I love my little succulent garden so much, I made these into a second one!  Plus I found some colored sand to brighten it up even more.  Then added a few rocks for accents!  I love it!

Stay tuned for the rest of the projects!

Fall craft day

After spending quite some time collecting, cleaning and painting bottles and jars, then shopping for fall decor I spent the muggy afternoon after the nosework trial getting them all decorated.  There are some charity and rescue events I wanted to have some donations for, plus a few to keep for us.

The first ones are all in fairly traditional fall colors.

 I was originally going to do the black one as a Halloween bottle but ended up really liking this.

 This is a pretty tall bottle and makes a nice centerpiece

 I love the orange and gold here, wish I had done both in the orange.

A few Halloween bottles.  The candy corn style are always cute and fun to make. 

 I used sticky backed foam to make the face for this one.  Worked nicely.

Then I ran out of orange so I did some less traditional fall colors, but I love the way all of these turned out. 

These photos don't really do any of them justice.

Product review: Wellness core Simply Shreds

It's been awhile but I decided to do another review for Chewy.com this month.  This time we picked a cat product.  The Wellness Core Simply Shreds are promoted as savory side for cats.

First of all, cats love this.  All 5 of ours, plus Lollipop who only stops by for snacks these days, preferentially ate this before their regular diet, including their canned food.  So yeah, if you're looking for a really special treat or something to encourage eating this is great.  However...

This is essentially just tuna and a lot of juice.  Yes shrimp too, but mostly it looks and smells like tuna.  There are only four ingredients which is nice if you're watching for certain things, but that's also bascially the same as tuna.  Here's the kicker though.  These come in a 1.75 oz pouch, which is about 1/3 the size of a tuna can but for about the same price (roughly $1.00). So basically this is a fancy way to feed your cat tuna.

But convenience you say!  What if you don't want to feed a while can of tuna and you don't want so store leftovers is this a viable alternative?  Maybe.  It comes in individual packets but it's very juicy.  I've yet to open one and not splatter at least some juice on me.  Also all the juice dumps out first and then you have to shake or spoon out what's left of the meat.  So overall, I didn't find it all that user friendly.  But maybe if you travel or, don't buy tuna, or something it might work.  It's not a product for me, but certainly might be for someone else!  And again-cats love it, so that is a huge selling point to many!

UKC nosework

Legend and I went to the local UKC nosework trial this weekend. Yesterday we passed our PT in myrrh so she's ready for masters when we get there.  Then she had an out of character false alert in interiors round 1, but came back solid in round 2 and earned 2nd place.  Today she finished up her Novice Interiors title with a first place which also completed her Novice Nosework title (2 passes in all four elements).  She also earned a leg on her advanced interior title.

 

I watched some of the novice and upper levels today.  I have to say, I think there is a huge difference in handling between UKC and NACSW, and I hope that plays to my advantage as we proceed through the levels!

The clean slate

I didn't expect to have a new dog. And since Epic spent most of his time before we adopted him in a crate I wasn't exactly sure what he would be like. 

So basically, I don't have any goals. I'm not hell bent on any earning any particular title or qualifying for any certain event. I don't have any kind of timeline. I don't have a "first trial" of any kind picked out or stuck in my head. 

This is actually pretty refreshing, although I do have to keep reminding myself it's ok if he's not perfect right away or it takes him awhile to learn something. I've also not been as rigidly focused on formal training as I have been with my other dogs. I spend a lot of time just teaching him fun tricks and also to be a good pet. I want to be able to take him places and have it be enjoyable. I want him to be well mannered at home and around company. I want to be able to take him off leash hiking. And I would like these things sooner, rather than later and just by "luck" or as a by product of spending an inordinate amount of time doing agility trials. 

Don't get me wrong, I've been introducing sports to him too. While I don't have any specific goals I'd like to at least try him in Nosework, obedience, and agility and see what he likes. Truth be told I hope he really does well in Nosework. In the back of my mind the Elite champion title and going to the invitational are potential goals. But I don't want to put all that pressure on him before we even get to an ORT! 

I've also shown him a few agility obstacles. He's been over a jump and trots across the a-frame and dogwalk happily for a treat. He's working nicely in obedience class. I plan to just do a little at a time and really have him solid and well proofed before we enter trials of any kind. I don't want him underprepared and set up for failure, bad habits, or ring stress. Even if it takes a few years I'm really ok with that. It gives me time to do it right and also focus on Legend and her Nosework. 

Plus, he doesn't quite have the drive that she does, so I have to remember not to over work him and get him discouraged or burned out. He's definitely a new journey, and I'm not sure where it will take us, but it's going to be Epic. (Pun intended)

 

Fracture healing

These are all the films we took of Epic's leg as it was healing.  I though it would be nice to post them all together.  Occasionally I see him carry it a step or two.  But, hopefully with time that will go away as well.  Plus, he plays pretty hard with Nike, so it's not totally surprising.

Here is the original fracture

 Post-op

 Three weeks post-op

 Five weeks post-op

 Eight weeks post-op

 Twelve weeks post-op.  Finally healed!  The pin came out a few days later.

Thanks Dr. K for not giving up and going with amputation!

Behind again

I'm behind in blogging again.  So, Epic started obedience class a few weeks ago. Not surprising, he's quite the star. But, we still need to work a lot on not breaking stays when he gets letter and just not running up and jumping on people in general. But the actual obedience part he's getting down.  He's also in a nosework class and that's going well too. 

 

Legend was sick last week, feeling a little dull and running a fever. Her tests were all basically normal. Time and medication have restored her to normal. 

 

We keep our desktop computer in what was our office, and then became a spare bedroom. We don't use it much but when we do it's a hassle because we try to keep the animals out of there. Mainly because we are almost always housetraining something and we have carpet in there. So, we decided to move it to the dining room. It makes the room a little crowded, but so much more functional, we don't eat in there much anyway. 

This also required a new desk. Took about 3 hours to put together but we like it. 

 

This is just Slick looking pretty. 

 

Babies at work looking cute 

 

Lyric playing with a toy-a rare occurrence. I had some cute video too but haven't put it on you tube. 

 

Pool day at the lake a few weekends back!