Following Phoenix.......

bat-faced yoga snoozer.

One of my best birthday treats was to spend five whole days with Phoenix without the wolf pack along with us. Just Phoenix and Gigit were lucky enough to spend our short vacation in E-WA with us, and they enjoyed every minute of it. One bad part of E-WA for the pups is that they spend a lot more time on leashes than they would like. Phoenix and I took a walk on a service road, and she very much enjoyed checking out the smells in the sage!

Another in her pretty dog pose....

Her "Happy I'm off my leash for a minute!" smile....

Her "lair" and it's chaos in the house at E-WA. I didn't get a picture of the morning we came out and she had found a full box of tissues...the only real chaos that wasn't made out of her own toys. E-WA is fun as most of the toys stay over there, so the are all exciting again when we visit.

Yup, Life is good in E-WA!

Looking cute..

A pretty, big boy.

That's the good life. When I die, I want to come back as your dog, Rarejem.

BTW< Welcome Back!!! I have your birthday present waiting for ya.

Talk about spoiled furries when we visit the EWA house!

Trying on a serape in the part of the state where there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people, particularly now at apple harvest time.

What, I'm supposed to sit ON it not UNDER it?

This message was edited Oct 7, 2009 8:41 AM

Enjoying the remains of Julie's b'day t-bone out in the yard.

I feel like I have dropped off of the face of the earth for the last month, but life is (hopefully) settling back down again. One of the big time stealers was getting my yard/trailer/self/husband/dog ready to go camping in E-WA last weekend.

Phoenix got to go on her very first hunting/camping trip!

Last weekend was the opening of pheasant hunting season, and it is a family tradition to spend opening weekend camping in the ORV park (which is also one of our favorite areas to hunt) in Beverly. Although hunting has it's critics, I have been bird hunting ever since I can remember, and I would never willingly give it up. (FYI, I was taken along on my first hunting/camping trip when I was less than a month old!) It is wonderful to spend a crisp fall day wandering in a wilderness that you don't often spend time in and watching the dogs work. It is also an excuse to spend an entire weekend doing nothing but playing with my dog!

Phoenix is a German Shorthair/Lab mix...perfect pointer/retriever combo, and I was thrilled to have my very own dog hunting with me for the first time (have usually hunted with Dad's dogs or a friend's dogs). She had an absolutely fabulous time.... she flushed me a bunny, some quail, and a mule deer... not bad for a first timer! She made me a very proud Mommy the entire weekend!

Here are some of the highlights....

Checking out the brush before we plow in.......

We were also camping with Phoenix's Mom and Dad, as well as her sister. Dogs will be dogs, so Phoenix spent quite a bit of time guarding her "lair" from a thieving sister...

Phoenix had already gotten her treat, but had to go and find out how good the treats were on the other side of the camp.....

The deep grass didn't even slow her down....

Daddy Flint came to snuggle with Phoenix by the fire after a long hard morning walk.

After two days and lots of miles of long hard walking, everyone enjoyed relaxing around the fire.

Phoenix and her sister Sage.

Phoenix took an instant liking to camp chairs...with or without me in them, she wanted up!

A lounge chair next to the fire after a wonderful day... It doesn't get any better than this!

Great pictures Julie. Looks like a good time was had by all.

Thanks for the hunting trip. Looks like fun for everyone.

Looks like you all had such a good time. Cute pictures.

Oh they were all sitting pretty for treats!
You got some great pictures - I like the one with Sage - looks like it's an ad for something.
She's quite the lady now, right? All grown up, well, almost all grown up!

Boy, I can hardly wait until she IS all grown up. This week she enjoyed "reading" a phone book, page by page, in my attached garage where all of the dog pillows are. She really does believe she is lucky enough to have two homes.

No vacation home???

oy - she's a reader! I'm sure all efforts were for research......

The Butter has been disappearing this past week, and mysteriously so. No wrappers in the trash - bet I'll see them out on the lawn when i do patrolling this a.m.!

Katye...Mom misspoke...Phoenix's third home IS her vacation home in E-WA!

Her efforts probably WERE for research...."how do you get the car door open without thumbs?" "ditto the house door?" "Start the oven?" "Open the fridge?"

Even though she is a big girl now, she is still my baby goofball.

I don't envy anyone with indoor dogs that have noses and can reach the countertop. Butter is a yummy...have had one or two bars disapear myself in the past, and have also had some suspicious tounge like grooves in the bars. I think that you are probably right about the wrapper scraps!

oh I found them. so, uh, appetizing when they've traveled through places unknown, lol...

I will never own another tall dog, that's for sure. Nor one with an articulating neck! She gets everything on the counter that isn't nailed down, and knows how to open doors & cupboards. irritating, but comical at times.

I leave nothing out on the counters . . .

Oh, and I don't leave wet dishes in the sink, either, unless they've been rinsed completely.

wet dishes? Oh - you mean from dog saliva?
I think there should be a patent on dog saliva - such a high vicosity rating.

Seems like I have way too many stories of dogs who have really good noses! And they don't have to be tall!!!

We were over at the EWA house with friends one weekend who have a chihuahua. We had baked potatoes for supper and left the butter on the dining room table in anticipation of french toast in the morning. When I got up the next day, I discovered funny little trails through the butter. Seems that someone left a chair part way out from the table. The little thief was able to use it as a jumping off point to get to the butter.

And then there was the time we visited GMA back in Minnesota in our motorhome. She baked us a bunch of cookies for the trip home and put them into a round cookie tin. Seems our German shorthair was able to get it open, and there wasn't a cookie left.

And then there was the time that one of our G shorthairs was dying from diabetes and we let her sleep in the house because of it. I put a large T-bone out, on the very high counter that holds the small second sink. Misty was blind as a bat, but her nose still worked well. Somehow she was able to get on the high counter and had herself one of her last really good meals. All that was left was bone fragments.

You would think we would learn from experience and have a breed of dog without such good noses. Now Phoenix has one that definitely rivals any of her predecessors.

BOB'S SON CAME OVER YESTERDAY WITH FRANKY, HIS WEINER DOG, AND HE JUMPED UP ON A CHAIR AND THEN UP ON THE TABLE IN THE HALLWAY WHERE I HAD THE CAT'S TREATS. ATE THEM UP!

I mean like anything soaking . . . if it seems the least bit interesting, somebody (Bug) drags it out of the sink. 1/2 the time he spills it and 1/2 the time he leaves it in the middle of the living room floor with water in it . . .

I think that dogs are just opportunists and are always looking for a chance for a meal - you never know where the next one will come from . .

OTH, I was pretty mad today when I got home and the 10 expensive little bulbs I'd bought at Wells Medina on Friday were ripped open - only 5 are left. A. They can't have smelled that good, B. Are they poisonous? C. Now what I have remaining is twice as expensive!!

I think I've told the story before of my housemate's German Shepherd who routinely dragged the neighbors compost bucket home up the steep driveway. it was a 5 gallon bucket with the lid on, and full.

That's an awesome story, Holly. I hadn't heard that before. What a great job for your dog!!

LOL! Holly, your dog was just looking out for your garden! My Bonnie does something similar with the plants in my pot ghetto. She comes down to my house and picks up a pot or two, then carries them up the hill to Mom's...mostly to be deposited on the back porch. She has only spilled one or two over the years...even when it is the large planters that weigh well over 10 pounds. I think that she is trying to move me up there one plant at a time!

That is too funny. Such dedication.

That is funny!! A true gardening dog.

Another place I lived, the resident dog loved to play "fetch" and her favorite size to run after was firewood sized. This was okay so long as she stuck to our woodpile, but one day I found her trotting up the front walk with a chunk of wood that had clearly come form the woodpile across the street. We could not break her of this habit, and had to constantly return their firewood.