Don't mind us, we're mindless

I've got Dexter in training to be a mindless idiot with no training on him whatsoever.

Say whuuut?


That's right ... according to one of the stupidest discussions on a breed board I've ever read to date, if you play fetch with your dog, you're just an mindless idiot imposing your mindlessness and idiocy on your poor dog.

Poor dogs.

Stop smiling Piper! After 7 years of fetch, you are far too stupid to be happy.



Sorry Tweed, sATCh and 5 times Nationals Qualifier, your enormous repertoire of commands is a sham and all I can do now is hope to fix the damage that 9 years of fetch has done to you. You'll have to stop looking so eager - I too am a mindless moron, and I'm probably too diminished to throw this ball for you by now.


*insert eyeroll here*

I dunno about you guys, but I think that's a big load of hooey. I played fetch with my dogs just yesterday, and checked the ground over carefully afterward. Saw no signs of brains left in the grass, so I'm going to have to assume they didn't become dumber from the experience. I might be dumber for having read the discussion though.

I like playing fetch with my dogs. And 3/4 of them like it right back at me. All the eye-rolling I did might have impeded my reading comprehension, I admit, but what I walked away from it with was the idea that border collies are too smart to play fetch, but stupid not to play fetch, and therefore, people who play fetch should turn in their border collie ownership cards and stick to goldfish.

Uh oh. Scratch that.

Mr. Woo, of course, doesn't play much fetch. But Mr. Woo also sticks his head in thorn bushes, gets thorns in his ears, cries and bleeds and then repeats the experience the next day. And the next. Etc.

He *might* be kind of stupid.

Yay! What?


Dexter has a message for the fetch haters.


I do lots of things with my dogs. The other evening, I sat down on the floor and taught Dexter to run across the room and stand on a box. He knows sit, down, stay, come, gimme five, target, spin, get out, off, up, load up in the car, stay for paw wiping, tug, and my personal favourite "hugs and kisses" (when he puts his 'arms' around my neck and I lift him up for both those things). He's 4 months old and he knows tons of stuff! My dogs get to for walks, swimming, hiking up mountains, to agility classes, to flyball tournaments, to friends and relatives' houses ... and yes, they also get to play fetch. It seems ridiculous to me to belittle someone for playing a game with their dogs as part of a well rounded life of a variety of activity.

Less theorizing. More fetch. Kthnx.


Yay! More fetch!


On one of our daily constitutionals, I took this shot kinda off the cuff randomly and then laughed and laughed. It's like Wootie orchestrated it to not-so-subtly point out out how pathetic other tails in this world are, comparatively. Like, these sparse porcupine-tails are making him gag as he sees them fluttering around pathetically in front of him.


And it goes without saying, of course, he's got no respect for the excuse-for-a-tail, the Naked Snake, sported by his youngest brother.



In other news, "Little Man," now known as Journey, is healing up like a champ.


If Tweed doesn't take him out first ...

Ooomph.


And lastly, the people who share my property recently moved in with their border collie, Kila. Piper Does Not Like Kila, who is one of those border collies who stalks other dogs who are trying to play, cuts off their escape routes and grabs fur as they run by (given the choice between a dog who is enraptured with a hockey ball, and one who is allowed to obsess over other dogs, I'll take the former any day!).

Do. Not. Want.


^^ imperious princess.

It's beginning to look a lot like

... like it's damn cold outside!


That's the start of our first official snowfall. I realize it doesn't look like much, but that was taken two hours ago. Now the snow has covered everything already, and my thermometer tells me it's -3 outside. That's just too darn cold. And the snow continues to fall.

ETA: A similar view just 2 hours later. And it's still snowing like crazy!


I would have risked the Wrath of the Dogs and declared a moratorium on outside time today, but I had to go out this morning to pick up The Package.

ZOMG!


That's Little Man, fresh from Kamloops, gimpy leg and all.

Il est joli, est il non ?


He's a lot fluffier than Dexter, though way smaller. And he's says that's fine, as he doesn't even want to be confused with Dexter, whom he does not really like.

Gee, I wonder why.

BONZAI!!!!!


Where ya goin', Gimpy? Come back here and play with me!


He probably feels a little vulnerable with that bum leg, and Mr. Bossy Boots wasn't really instilling confidence in him, poor wee felly.

And he still doesn't have a name, can you believe that? His previous owners were calling him "Lucky" but given that they managed to get him run over by a car within a week or so of owning him, that's a bit of a cruel irony ... even for me. So he needs a name. Any suggestions?

He's pretty cute, and you can see that one hip is no good. As I type, he standing there staring at one of the cats on just 3 legs. He looks normal when he runs, but he's not putting any real weight on that leg. This week he'll be going into our vet with his x-rays for a re-evaluation and then we'll schedule the surgery. And it's all thanks to the so so many of you who donated toward these costs! Some donated a little, some donated a lot and in the end we have what should be enough to cover the costs of making this little pants-biting miracle all better again!

Congrats to Amy Miller, who won the custom pet portrait from Laughing Dingo Studios!

I didn't get too many shots of him, I'm sorry. It was just too cold outside and my camera, which is on its last legs at the best of times, becomes sluggish and uncooperative in the cold.

And it is cold. The snow continues to fall, which Piper thinks is a lousy reason for me to not walk them.


Woo could care less. It's not as though he actually walks anyway.


And it's Dexter's first snow fall!! I was excited for him.


What's that white stuff falling from the sky?


It's been a busy week for us, as fosters come in and move on. Little Man will be going to another foster home this afternoon, where he won't be tempted to wrassle with Dexter after his surgery.

We temporarily has The Fire Breathing Dragon, aka Saphy:

This little monster dog is, if you can believe it, the product of a border collie and a cross of pomeranian/chihuahua.


All 20 lbs of her! And she is a going concern. Ball CRAZY and fast as the dickens. She is available through TDBCR - height dog for flyball, anyone?

We also made a new friend, Luna the world's most adorable black lab puppy.


And Maia, Lens Licker Extraordinaire.


Maia and her mum will be fostering Ziggy, who will available through our rescue soon as well.

Feed me, Seymour!

Wanna Know How To Photograph A Hamster?

Me too!
It's frickin' HARD.

LOL! I iz a blurry black bob and I'm eatin' your baby cornz.


Seriously difficult.

Now I iz a blurry black blob and I iz eatin' your licorice.

(I am not above bribing the hamster with candy to stay still. So shoot me.)


So how do I photograph the little sucker anyway?


I have a deliciously wicked idea. It begins with you putting him in my mouth. What do you say, old chum?

Are you putting hamsters in our mouths?

I iz a blurry black blob sittin' on my fat ass eatin' your broccoliz. And I haz a baby corn tumour in my cheek.


W: Hamster?
P: I suspect she's f*cking with us.


Tee hee! Photograph me if you can!


I am unimpressed with your executive decision to enact a moratorium on hamster mouthing.


Listen, are we getting hamsters or what?

Hai! I'm a BAD DOG!

For the first time in the history of my pack, we had a bone fight. I think. Something set it off anyway and Tweed unleashed on Mr. Woo and kicked the living shit out of him until he noticed me ... and then he ran like his ass was on FIRE. Because he knows who does the shit kicking in this household, dammit! When he starts paying rent, then he can start some shit kicking, but as long as he lives under my roof etc.

I hauled him out from his super secret no-one-will-ever-find-him-in-this-one-level-condo spot under the bed by his stupid stringy tail and we had a wee chat about picking on people smaller than you, and now he is a big bag of submissive suck. But that was scary. We don't HAVE dog fights in my household.

No worries for Wootie. In addition to being a big jerk, Tweed is also a crappy fighter. For all Woo's screaming, there was not a scratch on him. Also, he has no attention span, so he immediately forgot what happened.

Wow that was really scary, I feel so - hey! Is that a squirrel?

Anyway ... working with dogs for the last 15 years, I have broken up my share of dog fights. I once had a bitch that got into it with my housemate's bitch and they put like 22 holes in one another in under 15 seconds. But my pack o'mines don't fight. They make a lot of Mad Teeth (tm), and Tweed grabs Mr. Woo by the nose like 8 times a day for no reason, but they never actually fight. They also don't cuddle or sleep together or generally make physical contact in either positive or negative ways. How about your dogs?

And whoever is responsible for this snow ... I'm sending Tweed over to kick the shit out of you too!

Hey, Cool! Check It Out!

It's snowing. AGAIN.

*headdesk, headdesk, headdesk*

How is this even possible?! Even worse, I have undeniable proof that Mother Nature hates me, and only me: I drove to the pet supply store 20 blocks North of me - no snow. The grocery store 15 blocks South of me - no snow! Meanwhile, back at the ranch .... snowsnowsnowsnowsnow and then it snowed summore.

But the dogs still gotta run. So we went to Monkey Tree Park. The first dogs we saw?

Border collies.

This was Daisy

And this was her Brother, Nike (thanks for the info, anon!)
Daisy stole Mr. Woo's (irregularly sized) Buddy Ball
And then played keep-away with her brother


But Woo did not care. He was too busy looking for Spring.

I'm sure I just saw it somewhere. Maybe it's down here.

Get lost, Rudy. If I find it, it's mine, and I'm not sharing.

I said f&*k off! It's mine!

Can't really blame Noodles for his foul mood and confusion though!

TODAY:

YESTERDAY:

Why hello there, pretty Spring day. Why don't you come up and see me some time?

Yesterday was gorgeous, sunny and almost kinda warm.

If you had told Luna that it was going to snow the next day, she would've taken this big stick and given your ass a beat down!

But Luna is dope-ass crazy. Word.

Jenn would have been !!SHOCKED!!

And Piper would have been angry.

And Tweed would've been ... well, he probably wouldn't have been listening, actually. He's vain and would be checking out his own reflection in a tidepool.

I wouldn't have believed it either.

Sarah over at Food For Founder is fostering one helluva fella called Pepper. He is a 9ish year old border collie with a serious fetch obsession. And he is bee-yoo-ti-ful!



We need more Sarahs! So if you are a border collie owner in the Vancouver area, think about fostering for TDBCR! We need experienced herding dog owners (or owners of other active dogs) who can open their homes to a wayward collie in need of a place to stay. We cover all the veterinary costs, and do most of the work when it's time to adopt your houseguest to a new home.

Want to learn more? Visit our website, and drop us a line. We'll send you a fostering application form.

If you don't, our dogs are going to hurl themselves into the ocean one after another in despair.

No pressure.