Grizzley Island Hunt Test Weekend

With all the depressing news that's out there, it's great to have my canine companions to realize what is important. Having fun can be so simple really. I am grateful to have them in my life to remind me.

Okay, enough of that. This last weekend I entered Sasa, Grady, and Duna in a hunt test. Sasa doesn't have her junior hunter title yet. She was too busy getting her conformation championship. Now that that is finished, I wanted to get the junior hunter title too. Sasa is from my second breeding of Mik and Sara. I don't own Sasa. She is owned by Eddie and Susan. Susan gets a little nervous in the field so she asked me to handle her which I gladly did. It is always fun to watch these guys do what they were bred to do. Amazing really...Sasa didn't disappoint. Our biggest fear was that she would make a mad dash back to her people. Thankfully, she is comfortable enough with me (and in love with finding birds) that she stayed with me. She is very birdy and hunted liked a champ. She passed both days with good scores. Two more passes and a new junior hunter will be added to the Red Dawn Clan. Both boys also had really good runs. They both have their junior hunter titles but aren't quite ready for the next level. But given how well they both did, they are not far off.

Above are a picture of Eddie and Sasa, Walter and Rusty (friends of the Red Dawn Clan) and the pups on a run after the test.

Oh No I didn't...

Oh yes I did.

Grady is wondering what the heck Dixy has on her head. It's an elf hat and ears my dear boy. Little does he know...It won't be long until he has his own head ornament.

Here he is with with his reindeer ears. Heck, between the two of them, we have the start of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cast. Dixy would play Herbie the elf wanna be dentist and Grady as Rudolph.
As you can see by the above picture, Dixy is none to happy with this situation. Shortly after the photo was taken, she hid under the table. That is until....

Colvin had her turn as a Christmas Carol extra.

Oh, the holidays. :-)

Grady and Colvin

Grady seems to have really become attached to Colvin. He always wants to be near her. The really sweet thing is that Colvin is perfectly fine with him in her space. Normally, this is Colvin's chair. Grady jumped up into it with her and it didn't seem to bother her a bit. She is a wonderful old girl.

Grady-Truly the King of the Pride

I always think Grady is the bottom of the totem pole in the household but I think he is smarter than I give him credit for. In this picture, he is letting Colvin clean him. It reminds me of Lions in a pride. It was sweet.

Colvin-Still Playful At Over 11

Even at a little over 11 years old, Colvin has a little spunk to her and still wants the tennis ball tossed so she can chase it. Unfortunately for her, there is no way she can out run Dixy so she never has a chance. What I usually end up doing is pretending to toss the ball in one direction which sends Dixy running like a bat out of hell and then lobbing the ball in the opposite direction so that Colvin can trot over and pick it up. I can usually do this about 4 or 5 times before Dixy catches on. Then she waits until she actually sees the ball leave my hands. Until that time though, Colvin is in her little piece of heaven acting like a puppy again. It is very sweet.

Below are a few pictures of Colvin with the tennis ball.

Mis-reading The Tide Chart

As usual, we headed to the beach today for an early morning walk. Last night, I checked the tide chart and thought I read that it would be a fairly low tide and we would have plenty of room to walk the beach for a couple of hours. Well, once we got there, I realized I may not have read it quite right. From the top of the hill, it looked like the tide was pretty high. None-the-less, I decided that it would be alright and the tide wasn't as high as it looked. That would be my wishful thinking mode (some would say stubborn) because when we got to the bottom, there truly was very little beach to walk on. For the dogs, not a problem. They are perfectly happy getting wet or not. I, on the other hand, prefer not to get my feet wet, especially at the very beginning of the walk. What I wanted and what I got were two completely different things. After the long drive though, I was determined to stay out there for a couple of hours. As you will see from the video, there was some areas we could walk along but more that we couldn't (at least not if we wanted to stay dry). Doesn't matter to me really though, when it comes down to it, a bad day at the beach is still better than most days away.

Colvin (the 11 1/2 year old) is very content after the walk. She is snoring...it is sweet.

Okay, off to do the NordicTrac.

Vizlsas on Alert

I am preparing my dinner and all of a sudden Sara jumps up on the couch, ready to pounce on whatever has dared to enter her backyard. Colvin is trying to figure out what is going on. I walk over to see what it is....leaves. It was windy. Good job Sara. We are safe from the threat of blowing leaves...phew!