Indoor Pictures

With a little help from Back in the Pack (who takes amazing indoor daycare pictures), I'm trying out some different settings on my camera to see if I can get better indoor shots of the dogs. With the cold weather, we are outside much less (which means less photo ops) and lots of cute stuff happens inside that we can never share because the pictures never work. So yesterday, I took around 50 pictures and had about 6 half decent ones - if the dogs were moving, it was blurry. So I thought I'd share my first attempts.

This is Moxie trying to convince me to throw the ball.Koda is snuggled up at the end of a long day.
Jack is also snuggled up at the end of the day.
Here is a three way tug with Sandy, Maggie Mae and Ponz. Don't ever try and play tug with Ponz...you'll lose. Guarranteed!
Kinsey is waiting for Sandy to throw a toy.

Snow Dogs

Despite the cold, the dogs had a blast in the snow...for a few minutes anyway!

Koda liked to lie in the snow...
Gus liked to...um...burrow in the snow. Goofy guy!
Sampson liked to eat the snow....
and Taylor just liked to run through the snow!

Best Toy Ever

Cuz is the best toy ever - according to Coulee anyway. Once we decided to adopt Lacey we took a trip to the pet store to celebrate and I bought her a "baby cuz" (that is just what we nicknamed it because it is small).

To make sure Coulee didn't get jealous, I bought her a larger "bad cuz".

Coulee LOVES baby cuz. In the mornings, we usually play fetch in the house while we enjoy a coffee. She picks a toy and the action starts. After a while, the toy generally gets a little gross from slobber and no matter how hard we try, we can't get her to switch toys. We'll throw balls, stuffies, things with sqeakers and she just looks at us, then back at the "chosen one" and then back at us.

Every evening we've had to hide baby cuz because the squeaking is driving us crazy. So in the morning, once Coulee is quite settled on her toy, baby cuz appears. She instantly ignores the chosen one and heads straight to baby cuz. Then a morning game of "steal baby cuz" continues until we leave for work. Bad cuz is completely ignored.

I think another trip to the pet store is in order.

Elvis

Elvis is a rhodesian ridgeback that has just started coming to daycare. He was a little overwhelmed by all the dogs on his first visit but he is really starting to get into the swing of things. He was having a blast with Dozer (who seems to find a new playmate each visit). You really gotta love those ears!

New Couch

Amanda found someone giving away an old couch for free so we went out and picked it up. As you can tell, it was an instant hit with all the dogs.

Reebox seemed to enjoy it the most. (Good news - Reebox was adopted and will be going to his new home on Saturday!)

Puppy Love

Kayla is amazing with all the young pups. She loves to play with them. She is the only one who can can not only match their energy levels but go above and beyond them. She tires out all the pups (Ruby, Lacey, Rebox and Maggie) and still wants to keep going. Needless to say, she goes home one tired dog!

Those eyes

Moxie and her sister Taylor have started coming to daycare. They were both in our Tricks class last year and they were the smartest pups in class. It is amazing how fast they could learn - it helps that they are border collies and puppies. It really makes me wish I had worked harder with Coulee when she was young.

They both live for fetch. Moxie loves to play but she hasn't quite figured out that she needs to pick it up and bring it back - she leaves that to Taylor. All Moxie does is run with enjoyment after the toy and whine with impatience if you take too long to throw it.

Both these photos were taken as they waiting for a toy to be thrown. Hard to believe they aren't from the same litter isn't it!

We couldn't resist...

...Lacey's charms any longer.

It is official. We are going to adopt her!

I mean really, could you resist?

Baby it's Cold Outside

It doesn't seem to matter what the temperatures are, the dogs love running around in the snow. Here are a few snowy pictures

Is that a big ball or a little dog? Both actually! Lacey might be growing up but she isn't growing any taller.

This is one of my favorite photos of Coulee ever! Thanks Amanda!

Scamp paused briefly in her activities to pose for the camera.

Maggie Mae was hanging out in her favorite place again - it didn't matter to her that it was covered in snow.

He loves it

Poor Dozer. He always seems to be the one that other dogs have in their teeth. Today Cassie grabbed on while they were sprinting side by side.

Earlier this week it was Kayla that we caught with her mouth around his leg!

He doesn't seem to mind - he always goes back for more!

Speaking of Sharing...

I just went into the play area a few minutes ago and despite dogs barking and playing and Marja vacuuming, these two were curled up together fast asleep. Aren't they sweet?!

Sharing

Many of you who come to the daycare have probably met Emma by now. She is a very sweet little girl who finds the dogs in the back a little too much for her. We tried over and over again to introduce her to the calmest and smallest and youngest dogs but she prefered to hide under a chair. So now, she spends most of her day hanging out with one of us on the desk. In the afternoons, when it is close to the time to leave, she pops her head up to see if the person coming through the door is her mom or grandma. She is very well behaved and we can leave her on the desk unattended for short periods of time and she just curls up and sleeps.

Today I made a Starbucks run and brought back a "Blended Coffee Frappuccino with Whip and Mocha Drizzle" for Amanda. Amanda made the mistake of leaving it on the desk with little Emma....

Emma did have the good grace to look guilty when Amanda realized all her whip cream was gone.

Photogenic

Gyp is a very photogenic dog as Sarah's flickr site will attest to. We got some pretty nice shots of her during the rare moments when she was still.

This is what generally happens when she is moving...

Visiting

Here are a few more shots from Liz from the weekend. I don't know what the dogs enjoyed more - playing with each other or visiting with the people.

Lacey is getting her belly rubbed (her all time favorite thing) by Janna while Geneva waits patiently for her turn. It looks like Lacey is trying to bite Janna's nose - her second most favorite thing. :)

Tinbie is enjoying "bum rubs" from me. You can see Neena in the foreground and Geneva, Lacey and Bosco in the background.

Ring of Fun

So Purolator stopped outside the daycare today and we sat and wondered what it was that we had ordered....it was the camera being returned to us! Yippee! We had to instantly go and test it.

Cruz was having a great time with the "ring of fun". He loved racing around with it and being the centre of attention.

And then Barley got a hold of it and had just as much fun as Cruz.

Pictures from yesterday.

These are all courtesay of Liz - Thanks Liz. I especially love the one of Lacey but I might be a tad bit biased. :)

Here is a few of the gang - Geneva the pointer on the left, Maeby the basset hound in the background, Tinbie the flatcoat retriever, Neena the boarder collie and little Lacey, the pug cross.

Pipit and Maeby checking each other out.

Maeby - don't you love those ears!

And speaking of ears...little Lacey is with the Prairie Dog Canine Rescue and is still in need of a good home.

Indoor Fun

Well today was the first day of our Indoor Dog Park (Saturdays all winter long from 11-1) and it was fun. It was nice to have people and not just dogs to talk to! The doggies that joined Lacey and I were: Tinbie, Lupine, and Pipit, (All from Blazingstar. Liz took some pictures that I hope to see on her Flickr site!) Maeby (a very cute basset hound - I loved the way her wagging tail made her bum wiggle too!), Bosco (a gorgeous setter/pyrnese cross who loves to run and play), Neena (yes the Neena that was with the Prairie Dog Canine Rescue - it was great to see her again), Bobby (a shep. cross? Bobby was definitely the most popular dog there!), and Geneva (a beautiful pointer with a personality to match). I hope to see you all next Saturday!

Tug-of-war

Who knew tug-of-war could be a three dog sport?

More Labs in Love

We can't talk about labs in love and not mention Gus and Maggie Mae! They have been smitten with each other since the day they met.

Don't you just love the guilty look on Maggie Mae's face when she realizes they've been caught on video?

Big and Small

Sometimes who is going to like who is a complete surprise. Kobe, loves Lacey. And Lacey loves her right back. Kobe spends most of the day following little Lacey around. At first, Lacey was scared of the big hairy dog on her heels, but she quickly decided that Kobe could be pretty fun to play with. This is just a short clip because the phone rang and interupted them! I should mention, Lacey's head is wet because I was spraying her everytime she started play tug-o-war with my pant leg...which was often!

Not my weekend

My weekend did not start off well. At my very first house I managed to lock all my client keys inside the house. I had locked the door knob and as I was shutting the door, I was wondering where the keys were so I could lock the bolt...too late I realized they were not in my pocket or in my bag. They were in fact on the floor under two collars and leashes which is why I didn't notice them when I was leaving. Thankfully a locksmith was able to arrive in 20 minutes - which gave me enough time to go and get a Starbucks.

The rest of the weekend went fairly smoothly until last night. I went out on my evening rounds and at the first house, I put my car keys in my bag, took the client keys out, decided I didn't need my bag for the quick cat visit so just grabbed a plastic garbage bag for the litter and went into the house. Did you spot my error? I didn't, until I tried to get back in the van. This time it was my knight in shining pajama pants (aka Husband) that came to save me. He unlocked the van, went back home and I went off to visit more pets.

Let's hope I've learned my lesson to be more careful with my keys...all my keys.

Love Affair

Well it was another busy day at the Paws on the Run Doggie Daycare. We actually had 8 labs here at once! Can you tell they are a popular breed?

Paden, a chocolate lab who is destined to be one big boy (you should see his feet) came for the first time today and instantly fell in love with Kayla, a young yellow lab. They spent close to two hours hanging out beneath the slide together. Dogs could come and go and they didn't even notice!

Here are two short videos of how they spent their afternoon together. In the second one you can see Maggie Mae, a black lab, briefly trying to get in on the action.

Say Goodbye

The camera has made another voyage up to Calgary. Sigh. They fixed one thing and managed to gibble up another thing. Hopefully when it returns to us it will be good as new because I'm tired of only 1 in every 20 photos being in focus. Don't worry though, we have the video camera to keep us entertained although we are realizing it is a lot harder to get decent video than it is to get decent photos. It could be the operators....

Before the camera was shipped off this morning, Amanda caught this really cute shot of Lacey's butt.

Car Seats

I guess this is the logical next step after you marry...

...someone who walks dogs for a living! These were in the back of my husband's car this weekend so he could drive around various foster pups.