Brotherly Love

Here is Romeo (Born November 2007) and Monty (born September 2009) having a great time on our deck. Both these boys are out of Jazz, but have different father's. Romeo has a great temperament and loves to play with any dogs who will play with him, male or female. Monty lives to play and hasn't ever met a 'stranger' - human or k9! The end of the video shows Willow standing in the background, she is Romeo's full sister and Monty's 1/2 sister.

4H Show

Last year I was asked to judge the Walla Walla Fair's Dog Show, but as luck had it, we had a litter of puppies decide to arrive that morning, so I had to cancel within a couple of hours of the show. I felt horrible, but got to make up for it today. I spent the day judging their obedience and rally kids. It was a very fun and enjoyable day. Hopefully the kids felt the same way!

Calendar Girl

We received notice today that Lexi will be making an appearance in a calendar for Anacortes, WA. This is just one of the 3 photos that will be in next year's calendar. We've always known that she's beautiful, now the everyone else will get to as well!

Worth the trip

Seeing our trip to Portland turned out to be pointless (literally as well as metaphorically), we decided to do something to make the trip worth it after all. Since moving out here in 1996 I've wanted to go see Mt. St. Helen. My mother was with me on this trip and she also wanted to see the mountain up close, so we made a day (and night) of it. We had a great time taking the northern driving tour and visiting all four visitor centers along the route. The 7 hour round trip wasn't enough... we then took the southern route to see the difference on that side of the mountain. We arrived home safe, tired and with lots of photos at 2am. Good thing I have today off of work!

Headed to Portland

Today we took a drive down the Gorge to go to the Portland dog show. The whole plan was to go so Willow and Romeo could have their hips x-rayed, and I decided that if we were going anyhow, I might as well show Romeo and Bow. For some reason, BVS never got back to me and when we arrived we discovered that their x-ray equipment was down and non operational this weekend. (This photo is of Willow, Bow, Romeo and The Dalles dam in the background).

Water Lilly

I was too slow getting the camera out to capture Lilly laying in the doggy pool splashing and playing in the water. Lilly truly loves the water and always looks forward to arriving at the creek four miles down the road from us (a destination we make frequently). It's been in the high 90's and 100's again around here, so the dogs enjoy their pool in the backyard when it's too hot to go for a run.

Lilly comes home

Today was a sad day... Lilly didn't work out and had to come home. In two weeks of being with her new family, she just couldn't figure out how to get along with their Chihuahua. She also had issues with their youngest daughter, although they said she was getting better with her. We are very happy that this family is considering getting a puppy from us when we have our next litter, so they are still hoping to end up with a Dalmatian some day. Lilly on the other hand, was very happy to see us as well as Chip (our 6 pound Rat Terrier), and merged back into the swing of things quickly once she arrived home.

Chaplin's a Champion!

Chaplin is one of Romeo's sons, who turned 10 months old today. It was a wonderful event to get to watch him win his final major and become a Champion. Chappy already won a Group 3rd along the way, so we really look forward to watching him grow up and start his Specials career.
We couldn't resist taking a photo of Chaplin (being held by his mother Lesley Stevens, but co-owned by Bonnie Rose) beside his father Romeo seeing they were actually at the same show for this huge milestone.

Lilly settles in

Lilly made the trip to her new home very well, sleeping most of the way (as well as her new girls). Luckily she took right to her new bed which has her name beautifully embroidered onto it. She's not a big fan of her new 'little brother' Wilbur (the family's chihuahua), but hopefully they will figure out how to get along with time.

Lilly goes home

Lilly seemed very happy about meeting her family today. She's looking forward to many, many years of sleeping on the girl's beds, giving licks, and sucking up as much love as possible. It was wonderful to spend some time with the Rinks today and hope they had a fun time at the dog show.

Big day for East and West Coast Brothers

Today Ti, who's in New Hampshire got to go to the beach for the first time. Looks like he enjoyed a beautiful day with his family. On the West coast, brother Bow attended the Mt. Hood Dalmatian Club's summer specialty and won Best In Sweeps (again). So it looks like both brothers had a big day!

Lexi heads to the Mountains

On a little camping trip to Mt. Rainier National Park. So overcast that day, was a bummer we couldn't see the top of Mt. Rainier. A bridge was washed out to St. Helens and we didn't get to go. Was so bummed.

Lori, Pat & Lexi

(Lexi is from Jazz's first litter which was born 11/06/08)

Sky's solo flight

Tonight Sky made her first trip to the Walla Walla Dog Park all on her own. I've taken her there several times in the past week, but each time her brother Monty has escorted her for moral support. Monty LOVES the dog park, all the strangers and all the dogs, big and little - but it was time to see if Sky could handle it all on her own. She did very well, although she was a little nervous starting off again, but that only lasted a few minutes. She met several new dogs and got to visit with a few she has met at the park previously. She's also getting braver about meeting strange people and letting them pet her. On the other hand, there was a young man (maybe 8 years old) at the park who was swinging a tennis racket, which she did not appreciate at all. After lots of barking and a little growling even, I asked the boy to come scratch on her while I held her. She was very tense, but relaxed as the two of us talked and scratched on her. After that, she didn't bother him again the rest of the night (we spent about 1 1/2 hours at the park), but she didn't get very close to him either. Overall, it was a success and I could see she made huge strides forward in her progress tonight.

Lilly & Chip

Lilly heads to her new home next Saturday, where she will have two little girls, loving parents and a 'grumpy Chihuahua' all her own. Seeing she hasn't really spent a lot of time around little dogs since she was just a puppy, we decided she better have some one on one time with Chip. Chip used to be Adrian's dog, but he adopted my parents and spent the last 7 months traveling in their motorhome with them. Lilly was pretty excited about having a 'new' dog to play with, and Chip, just like Lilly's soon to be Chihuahua, doesn't have much a since of humor. She quickly figured out that if she wanted to be close to him she would have to stay very still and quite - as you ca see on Chip's face, he's willing to tolerate her, but he doesn't have to Like It.

Sky's visit to Walla Walla

Sky is our big chicken of the house and has had some issues in the show ring because of it. So my mission this month has been to consentrate on exposing her to lots of new things. Today we headed to Walla Walla so she could walk through the Famers Market, but thanks to the gray weather there was only about 12 people there. So we decided to take a strole down Main Street to see what/who else we could find. All of our Dals have met Walla Walla's statue dog, some have ignored it (the ones smart enough to understand it's a statue and not an actual dog) but Sky is one of the few that was very scarred of this big dog. She handled it well though, sniffed it's rear and offered her's - but she found it to be pretty unfriendly. After this we headed to the dog park where she managed to find LOTS of dogs willing to sniff back.

Lack of posts

I'm WAY behind on my posts, so hopefully there is still some people out there hoping to read it. :) I've had plans to do lots of work on it, but the time just doesn't seem to come. I've now decided I'll have to just set aside a half hour a couple of times a week and just do what I can. I've taken photos and made notes, so now all I have to do is get it updated. I've also decided to combine our two blogs into just this one - which will make it easier seeing we don't exactly keep the two litters separated any longer. So keep checking, don't give up on me, and be sure to scroll down to the older spots every now and then seeing those will be the ones I'll be filling in as I can.

DCA National Futurity 2010

What a great start to the week! Monty showed like he's been doing his whole life and managed to get a 3rd in his class (6-9 mth boys). One of Romeo's son's (Chaplin) is also here and in Monty's class and he took a 4th in our class. Then Bow showed well and was given 2nd in the 9-12mth boys. Sky didn't show very well, but she's such a pretty girl that she managed to get a 3rd in her class (6-9 mth girls). So four of our pups were shown today and all four placed! I'm thrilled!! Now I'm hoping to get some sleep.

One VERY LONG Day!

Wind, Snow, Wind, Ice, Wind, Closed Highways, and Wind made for a very long trip to Kansas. From Rock Springs, WY to Denver was white outs almost the entire way thanks to the wind blowing the dry snow. At times we were only doing 15 miles an hour thanks to the high winds and lack of vision. On top of that, the highway was closed this morning, so we didn't get to even start our planned 14 hour day until 11:00am. We arrived at the host hotel at 3:00am. Our new Chevy Uplander handled all the weather very well and I'm happy with it so far. Later today will be Futurity, which will be Monty and Sky's first time ever in the show ring. I'm also showing Bow, so 3 dogs to show today... and one of me, so I'll be busy on my 4 hours of sleep!!

Hitting the road

We hit the long road to Kansas this morning at about 9:30am. I'm taking 5 dogs to the National Dalmatian Specialty in Lawrence, KA. Today we drove 700 miles and arrived to our hotel in Rock Springs, WY at 10:00pm. We made several stops on the way so dogs could have potty breaks and stretch their legs. Tomorrow will be the harder day, over 900 miles before we make our destination. The wind was bad the entire way here, but luckily the roads were good.

Hunter wears the "collar of shame"

Hunter was neutered today, we discussed it with our vet and we decided it was best for him and the rest of us - he is doing remarkably, although he doesn't seem to think so (feeling a bit sorry for himself) - thats OK :) we'll spoil him - Nova is doing well, all healed up from her surgery - she is sooo smart, easy to teach, doing tricks already - Hunter is becoming very protective over me, time for some more puppy classes and socialization. I found a trainer who specializes in teaching trials, and agility - I think they will like it - Hunter has put on 5 lbs (63lbs) and Nova has put on 4 lbs (43) but has grown a bit taller and leaning out - she loves running with us and is getting some muscle definition - Hannah has taken a real liking to Nova and taken her under her wing, so to speak.