Puppies

After coming out of the vet's office dealing with the Buddha, I called my friend Kaye who is a groomer and worked at the local pet food store.  When I told her what had just gone down she said to come by the shop, she knew that the Former-Husband-Unit was working out of town and that I was alone. When I got there we shared a hug and a few tears (she had groomed the Bood many times and really liked her) and Kaye said that I needed a beer.  Of course I did, I had just put my best friend down.  So, we went and had a couple and then she said that I had to see the puppies.  What puppies?  The ones that her friend Sherry had.  Ok, but I'm not driving.  So way we go to Sherry's house to see the puppies. 
Sherry had a batch of German Shepherd puppies that were completely adorable and we got to talking and went out to where the puppies were (playing outside in an exercise pen).  They were running around in circles and one puppy kept stopping right beside me every time 'round and that is how I ended up with Niki.  Being as she wasn't ready to go just yet we had a couple of weeks with just Harley around and it broke my heart to watch her.  I'd let her out and she'd just stand on the landing, staring in to space like 'Were's my friend?'. 
When TFHU was out of town working, we had a ritual when he was home of going to the local diner for breakfast Saturday mornings.  I would scan the paper and we would talk about things that were going on when I got to the classifieds one morning shortly after putting a down payment on Niki.  Guess what I saw?  An ad for Rottweiller puppies.  I sooooo wanted another one after having the Bood.  So we made the call and went to look.  Just to look, right?  How wrong is that.  When we got to the breeder's place she only had males of her own litter, but 2 females from a bitch that she had sold to a gal in Saskatchewan who had to move and asked the breeder to move these puppies for her.  Turns out Saskatchewan had bred the bitch to a local dog who was supposed to be registered (or registerable) and he wasn't either.  OOPS.  Ok, these puppies are purebred but unregisterable.  They're also undersized.  Jazz was half the size of the breeder's boys and her sister was half the size of her.  As soon as I saw her the first thing out of my mouth was 'Jazz'.  She turned and looked at me and in typical Rotti fashion carried on her merry little way.  My heart melted and the decision was made to go back to town, get the cash and come back to pick up the puppy.  Now we have a Rotti puppy and a Shepherd puppy.  We went back, picked her up and put her behind the seat of the truck with Niki and that's when I realised exactly how small she was.  Niki was born the 8th of March and Jazz was born the 13th.  5 days difference, half the size.  Of course I had to stop at the shop and show her off to Kaye who said that she most definitely had a belly full of worms.  Yup, enough worms in her that her coat was horrid and her belly was big enough that she looked like a watermelon with feet.  Poor baby.  We slammed her with some wormer and off we toodled home.
I'll tell you, raising 2 puppies at the same time gave me a whole new appreciation of mothers of twins.  One would be over chewing on the speaker wires and the other would be relieving themself on the floor.  Which one to go after first?  Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat.  Not going to though, these two will pass about the same age and I firmly believe that they're happier with company, so I'll get another one soon and hope to heaven that the girls don't go at the same time.  I read about a guy that got a new dog every 5 years so that he had the old dog, the mid dog and the puppy; the older ones kinda showing the puppy the ropes.  Good philosophy. 
Anyway, this is a big ol' 'Happy 6th Birthday' to the girls (they even got birthday cards from the local Petsmart, how cool is that ?).


Niki



Jazz

Can you guess which is my favorite (even tough I try not to do it)?

damn bloody bank

In 2004 TFHU and I bought a piece of property half way between Nanton and Vulcan.  This 98 acre piece had a converted 2 car garage on it that qualified it as a 'house' so we didn't have to come up with 20% down that is required in Canada.  The plan was to save money and build a house on it but TFHU had a spending problem that ended up being the reason that we split.
When we split, it was fairly amicable; he got the farm and I kept the furniture and the dogs (fine by me, he couldn't look after himself, never mind the dogs).  We made an appointment at the bank to make everything right and the banker-lady told us that they couldn't just take me off the mortgage without me being taken off the title.  Ok, now what?  She knew a lawyer there in Nanton that could probably get us in right away so we called him and he got us in.  Back to the bank where we signed the paperwork and I was taken off the mortgage, right?  WRONG.  3 years go by and his mortgage payment is taken out of my account!  I blew a nut on the bank and ended up getting my money back.  It happened another time and I got it straightened out a second time. 
Fast forward to last Friday when I stopped to get my weekly libations at the local beer store and I pull out my bank card.  Insufficient funds.  Great big ol' WTF?  Try my savings account, same thing.  Now I'm in a panic.  I got home and called my accounts up on the 'net and both accounts are totally empty.  Zero, zilch, not even a penny in either one.  This is 4:30 in the afternoon, how much help do you think I'm gonna get at that time on a Friday? I got on the blower right away to find out what was going on.  It seems that IJIT hasn't paid for a while and because he also hasn't gone and applied for the mortgage on his own, I'm still on it and still liable for it.  AND they scooped close to a grand out of my accounts to make it right (with them).  I've been on the phone with them for most of the week and it looks like I'm not going to get my money back.  The mortgage has gone to collections and the property will probably be seized and sold and because my name is no longer on the title, whatever they get above what's owing goes directly to puss-nuts.  The last gal that I spoke with on the phone told me that we were both getting Demand Letters regarding the mortgage.  Perfect.  Just what I need.  Seems it never rains, it pours.
You know, I'm not a banker, never professed to be, but when the banker is sitting across the desk from me telling me what I have to do and I do it, I believe what they've told me.  I also told the gal on the phone that the person that created this whole fiasco should be FIRED.  Not now, but right F***in' now.
I think that I have to make an appointment with a lawyer.

a much needed feel-good story

CALGARY - After years of hard work, Atar, 7, hasn't exactly had a dog's life.


With more than just a nose for narcotics, the wily canine has been working in Banff National Park as a Parks Canada search and rescue dog since 2006.

He is now slated for a late-March retirement after having sustained several injuries such as torn ligaments over the course of his career.

It's the desire of Mike Henderson, Parks Canada warden and dog handler, to retire Atar before he loses the ability to enjoy his job.

In his first year of service, Atar successfully tracked an illegal sheep hunter over a period of 16 hours, recovering all of the brass shell casings from the poacher's rifle.

Since then, he has proved himself to be a hard-working member of the Parks Canada team.

In the fall, Henderson and Atar tracked a nude man through the Sundance area. The man, believed to be under the influence of illegal substances, became lost in the forest overnight.

"We had a grizzly bear in the area which made it a little more interesting," said Henderson. The man was found and taken to hospital.

Other notable mentions from Atar's career include his resourceful nature. During a ski tour, he taught himself to open trail packs on the sly and nip sandwiches for himself.

"It was a lesson learned," said Henderson. "You've got to keep the dog fuelled."

Looking back at the career of Atar through the eyes of his co-workers like warden Bradley Bischoff, it's apparent the dog will be missed, "He's a very professional, very focused animal," said Bischoff.

During his years with Parks Canada, Atar has become "part of the pack" at the Banff office. As part of aggression training, those in the branch have taken turns laying quarry trails for the dog.

"In quarry training, we put on the guard arm," said Bischoff. "It's quite an adrenalin rush to have a full-grown German shepherd run at you and latch on."

An Edmonton Oilers jersey is the typical "uniform" for aggression training sessions. Henderson says the jersey was just handy from an employee's hockey bag one day and has been used ever since.

Atar will be retiring in Waterton Lakes National Park with his new family, also Parks Canada employees, Patti and Brian Spreadbury.

Henderson said Atar will be missed and after allowing suitable time for the canine to bond to his new family, intends to head down to the park to "say hi."


courtesy of the Calgary Herald

In like a lion

This one is just perfect.

On arena etiquette

Was over at BR's lately, reading about 'Arena Etiquette', and it took me back to a couple of situations where one was painful, and both could have had the potential to be dangerous.

The first occured when I was at a cutting with my then boyfriend Bruce. Bruce had a cutting horse stud that never was going to amount to much of anything either as a sire or a cutting horse but neither I, nor the trainer, could tell him that, he wouldn't listen (he was what we in the horse business call a little 'barn blind').  For some reason that I can't recall we had taken both the stud and a mare even though she wasn't entered.  Maybe because you could point her at a trailer across the yard and she'd go and bail in; him? not so much but if she was in there he couldn't get in there fast enough.  Anyway, Bruce's trainer was going to show the horse and Bruce had to go home (he was a die-hard union man and was waiting for a call to go to work) so I was elected to warm up the horse and keep an eye on Rotten-Ronda (loving nickname, she was a real doll and her registered name was Doc's Rondo Leo, so Rotten-Ronda it was).  We had been loping around the warm-up ring for a bit when a woman who should have kown better rode over to the arena fence to visit with someone who had just arrived to watch parking her horse perpendicular to the fence.  I navigated around her the first time and had decided that the next time 'round I'd ask her to park parallel instead so that others could get around her safely when she put it in reverse and backed right into my knee, catching my kneecap under her horse's tail.  You wanna talk about a puke or pass out moment.  I had to ride over to the fence, get off and put my head between my knees for a few minutes.  I had done some damage to my knee several years earlier while curling in high school (yes, we had to learn about it, and football, and baseball, and soccer, the list goes on) so it was a little weakened already and I really didn't need this on top of it.  So here I was, two horses in tow and having to get them loaded and home by myself when the event was finished.  Nice.  The worst part was that the wench never even apologised and when I finally made it home Bruce had the audacity to yell at me for being late.  What a jerk.

The next instance was when I was at the Parelli clinic that I posted about before.  There was a guy there who was obviously a newbie that had a horse that someone sold him as gentle.  Ol' horse was a retired outriding horse from the chuckwagon races so he had basically one speed, fast.  That part never came to light until the afternoon because we had spent all morning on the ground doing ground work.  Well we saddled up in the afternoon after lunch and the games began.  We were going around the arena at a walk and my little horse was a little slower than him and instead of going to the inside and passing, he just stayed on my tailpipe and annoyed Indiana to no end.  I cut across the arena to get away from him on more than one occassion, but he didn't seem to get the hint.  Move up to a trot and now Indy is starting to get royally pissed so we cut across the arena again and about halfway across, she bogged her head and tried to drop me right there to which the instructor called ot, "Next time she's going to do that, let me know and I'll judge it!"  Cheek.
The whole point I guess, is that there are some people out there who haven't got any courtesy or common sense.

Legendary GI Pin-up Jane Russel Dies at 89

She gave the lads over-seas something to dream about, that's for sure.  What a beautiful lady.  Here's a link to a very good article about her.

from my in box this morning, HT to Nobbs, a regular contributor

Middle East Riot Headwear




Some classic head gear going on here



EGYPTIAN LULZ

So just to outline here – these are makeshift helmets made by the Egyptians whilst scrapping in their current predicament. I shall guide you through these piece of registered army kit thus:

Your classic 1979 ‘Tribottle rag’ helmet – a must in any type of combat

A late 80’s ‘boxhat’. The bloke next to him doesn’t appear too sure of its effectiveness

A renaissance period piece of brickwear teamed with a black and cream scarf. Textbook

Im not sure that tuna sarnie he is about to lob is gonna cause to much destruction. Old skool 80’s broken bin helmet. I personally love the fact he needs to lift it up to see – does he spend the rest of the time walking in to things??

Textbook saucepaning with lifejacket combo. He does not take, ANY!!

I literally have no idea what this is.

And the winner by 100 miles. This bloke is going to war with 2 baguettes strapped to his ears and a ham salad roll sellotaped to his forehead. I’d def wanna be behind him if someone lobs a load of bricks at me