Speaking of Zodiac

Here are some pictures I ordered at a trial around Thanksgiving. I think they must have lost my order or something. I had actually forgotten about them for awhile and then they arrived yesterday.

We had more rain and thunder last night which is making everything gross but we really can't complain too much because at least the mud doesn't hurt anything. Our neighbors had two of their horses dead in their field this morning. I'm guessing they were struck by lightning but we don't ever talk to these people so I am not sure. They may not be sure either but it seems like a reasonable guess. Scary huh. I feel bad for them but I'm glad it was not us!

Zodiac's Story

Zodiac first came to us as a foster dog through Happy Tails in Columbia when he was about 2 1/2 years old. One of the directors of Happy Tails asked if we would like to foster him because he knew we had Oreo and were familiar with the quirky traits of Border Collies. We said sure and thought he may even be the next dog we were looking for. When Zodiac arrived at our house he was almost completely shaved, had no clue about how to act like a dog and was had apparently led a very deprived life in his previous home. Zodiac had never been on a leash, worn a collar, been in a car, played with toys, been to the vet or received any medical care. He had been turned in to Happy Tails for running up and down the fenceline and wearing out the grass in the yard.

Over the next few weeks he started learning agility, obedience and how to play with toys. He was a quick learner and got along well with Oreo. And slowly, his coat started to grow in and showed us all how beautiful a dog he really was. But in the end it was his overwhelming charm and sweetness that ensured he never left our house.

Zodiac showed potential as a natural therapy pet and as soon as we were able he took the Canine Good Citizen and Therapy Dogs International test which he passed easily. He has enjoyed visiting schools, nursing homes, hospitals and churches ever since then. Zodiac currently serves as an active therapy pet with Pet Therapy of the Ozarks.

In addition to therapy work Zodiac has had a successful performance career. He earned his Companion Dog Title in just 3 days of showing (after less than one year of training) and also his Companion Dog Excellent Title with very limited showing. He has also worked through the AKC agility titles with little trouble and this past year completed the Master Agility Excellent and Master Agility Jumper titles. He has recently stepped down to the preferred level and is working on his NAP and NJP titles. Zodiac has also earned three agility titles in NADAC.

Zodiac has also showed great ability in Rally-obedience. He has earned an RN and RA and so far one leg on his RE and has never scored less than 99/100 points. He has many perfect scores and first place wins in the rally ring.

Zodiac LOVES to herd and passed the herding instinct test easily. He practices herding his brother and sister daily. He also loves tugging, frisbee, fetch, and especially snuggling. He has calmed down a lot as he has reached middle age and can be quite the couch potato if there is nothing else to do but will still herd and play frisbee all day if you want to. He also enjoys wrestling with his sister.

Zodiac is currently working on his finishing his RE and will then move on to working on the RAE title and is also training for his Utility Dog Title. If we can ever master scent discrimination he might have a chance! He also fills the role of demo dog for the obedience classes at work as well as trying to be everybody's best friend. He has even been known to jump in the lap of ring crew workers after a successful agility run!

Website

OK everyone, the new clinic website is up and running. Same address as before http://www.allcreaturesph.com/

We will be adding stuff to it as we go along. You will notice most of the staff do not have pictures up yet but we are working on it. Let us know if you like it-we have worked pretty hard to get it ready to go live during our 30 day trial period! If you are a client (that probably means you Katrina!) then feel free to email us pictures to add to the photo album!

Spring Close-ups

Here are some close-up photos of the gang from today, which was a great day to play outside. We played lots of frisbee, the dogs played in the pool and Legend did agility too. I also got the truck cleaned out (finally) and sort of washed. And a big plus I figured out what was wrong with my fence. Apparently I had failed to reconnect the gate to the electric wires when I had to replace the gate. This was some time ago so I am thinking that part of the fence has been unelectrified for some time. Oops.

We finally get to start back to agility class tomorrow-Legend is very excited!

Happy Easter!

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter is the Easter Bunny himself-WIGGLES!

Today we enjoyed breakfast at church followed by the usual service. They also took some family portraits for everyone. We don't have much planned for the rest of the day but that's ok because Jerry has been sick and won't be much fun anyway.

Our Easter gift to everyone is pictures of these two cuties taken yesterday while playing outside in the sunshine!

Spring Flowers

Today was actually a nice sunny day for doing stuff outside. Although I had to work in the morning, I was able to get some stuff done outside this afternoon. I got my corral restrung with better corner hardware and tightened the wires so hopefully the electric fence will not short out anymore and the horses will not disassemble it every night! I also took some pictures of the flowers I have coming up so far. I thought they turned out pretty good. I hope to have more soon as I am still waiting on hyacinths and tulips to come along.

Here are some pictures of our "creek" which unbelievably still has water running through it five days after the rain came. That has never happend before. I'm sure the dogs would have loved to play in it but I just didn't want to clean up that kind of mess!

New Website

I know this is just a tease but we have created a new website for the clinic that will be going live in probably a few more days. It's much more fun and has more features than the old website and as a bonus has current information about the staff, etc. I am particularly proud of it b/c Linda and I did most of the work on it. I'll admit however it came pre-progammed with a lot of stuff for us that we altered or added too. But we still did a lot of work adding some of our own features, pages, pictures and information. We will be continuing to add to it even after it goes online. I'll keep you posted.

Today was a beautiful day to be outside but I was stuck at work until 8PM since this is obedience class night. But hopefully the weekend will be nice and I can work on the fence and the truck and let the dogs run and play outside without getting overly disgusting.

Oh, and I radiographed Zodiac's back, hips, and knees again to see if there was something I didn't see before. And there isn't. His hips are not great, but not terrible either, and there is certainly not any bony remodeling or degenerative changes in them. But as long he doesn't jump too high, too often, he seems perfectly fine.

This is just a random picture because I don't have anything new or fun to show.

Rain

My plan for my day off was to clean the house, vacuum the truck and find out where my electric fence was shorting out. But it has rained ALL DAY and our yard looks like a swimming pool. It's a lot like last summer only this time there is actually more water. So at least I got the house cleaned. And on top of that there is no agility tomorrow since the field is under water so Legend will have to wait another week to get back to school.

I have added a picture of Holly when she was a baby for your enjoyment-wasn't she cute

Holly

My rabbit Holly passed away today. On Friday she started acting sick and not eating so we treated her with fluids and medications all weekend but she didn't get much better. Today I brought her to work to check out her teeth and make sure they were not overgrown somewhere and to do some tests. Most bunnies (like Holly, who was nick-named "Crazy Buns") need to be sedated for this and she died under the anesthesia. After she died I wanted to know what was wrong with her and found that she had intestinal cancer-there were at least two tumors that I saw before I stopped looking. Since she got so sick so fast and died with very safe anesthesia I suspect that it had probably spread to other places like her lungs. Although I am sad at least I know there was nothing else I could have done. She certainly would not have survived surgery even if we had known that's what was wrong with her. We hope that Wiggles won't be too lonely-they have never been apart in more than 6 years.

Carthage Agility Trial

Zodiac and Legend ran at Carthage this weekend with good results. This was Legend's first full weekend in Excellent and she did a great job. She had three almost qualifying runs with just one or two little errors and then was able to get her first AXJ leg and first place today with a really great run. Zodiac found his jumping legs again in preferred and qualified all four times getting two legs each on his NAP and NJP. He did however seem more hesitant to jump on his final run today and so I think maybe one day a weekend will be better for him.

Here are some videos Jerry took yesterday at the trial. Legend's is of standard-she had one refusal and Zodiac's is of jumpers-he was clean.

New PIcture

Here is a picture of Legend that I ordered from a trial in February. I thought it was pretty good an the guy only charges $8 for an 8x10 so it was worth it. I finally got to feeling better but it took several days to fully wear off. Today I actually got to enjoy my afternoon off instead of using it as a sick day. There is not much new going on but I am glad that we are now to Daylight Savings Time so I can do stuff with the dogs outside after work now. If I could get my weave poles to stay straight and not wiggle and lean to the side that would be great! We will be showing at Carthage this weekend-hopefully Legend will have a decent showing in her first weekend doing all Excellent classes!

New Title

We showed this weekend (Sunday only) at St. Louis and Legend had an awesome run in jumpers to finish her OAJ. She then ran for the first time in Excellent Standard and had a great run but bailed off the teeter about 1/4 the way up. Not sure what happened-maybe it was wobbly or something but she has never had a teeter issue before so I think it was just a fluke. But she had no trouble with the difficulty of the course so that was great. Zodiac's troubles persist despite the novice course and the lower jump heights. He would only do a few jumps and then he starts running around the jumps and acting like he could care less that the course is there. Not sure what is going on with him. Maybe he's trying to tell me we really need to work on getting that Utility Dog Title-which would be a lot easier if we could skip the scent discrimination-he just doesn't get it!