Guess who's TWO!

Decibel bearing the mantle of maturity as becoming a young princess...

Well, sure.
Of course she is really not there yet.  She still has the occasional puppy moment, or a teenage monster attack, although for a very large part she is settling into being the perfect Decibel:  Active, playful, happy, alert, HELPFUL, oh ever so helpful, smoochy, especially when there is food involved, smart - way way way too smart, and funny.
Her birthday started with her special treat - meat muffin with cheese candles, then of course came the present, and the party.  And it is still morning...

Had to hold her back for the photo...

gulp

yummy

What are those?  For me?

I'll help!

Oh, stuff on the inside!

Maggie is still helping

playtime

Where is Ralph in all this?

Patiently waiting... he can count!

Darn Technology

I used to like our first digital camera - a Kodak, believe it or not - easy to operate, no worries about running out of film, and you just erased the flops, no worries at all, really.  Ok, so that little thing ate lithium batteries like other people eat popcorn, but except for that little flaw, it was almost perfect.  The other problem it had that it was turned on by a little wheel, which invariably turned to 'on' when you put the camera away, so that the batteries would drain even faster.  Still, I liked the camera, and thought it took decent enough pictures.
But Harold felt we should upgrade:
The next generation was a complete flop.  It is nearly impossible to take decent pictures with that piece of technology.  It is made for people with stick fingers, and is too slow.  When I push the button, that is the image I want captured.  Not something a third to half second later.
Now means NOW, as my mother would say.
So I gave up on the camera, when, glory be, Harold brought home yet another technological marvel.  It LOOKS like a SLR camera - old style - and those I can manage, but it only looks like one.  It is heavy too, since it is a metal body, but when it comes to image capture, its functions (and there are many) remain completely obscure to me.
You turn it on and it is set to some crazy setting that makes no sense, and occasionally I can even snap a picture with it, but lately it zooms in, then back out, all while I want it to take a picture not make me dizzy with the zoom.  It doesn't even take the zoomed in picture, so I don't understand the function.  The sad thing is, I cannot find the zoom on it, and often I would really like to get a little closer to my subject, but the camera is set the opposite way.
It has various sorts of focusing laser beams, red and green and shoots those out with incomprehensible logic, but they do not improve the image quality.
On the sports setting it snaps lots of pictures in a row, all blurry and out of focus.  Huh, I don't actually need a setting for that...
For a while it would display what it was looking at on the back screen - then it switched (for no discernible reason) to a display of numbers and stuff I don't understand.
I suppose I am to use the view finder then?
However, Harold pushed a button to make it go back to 'live display', but other things happen when I try that same button.  Also, apparently it is an either or... if you get the view displayed on the screen in the back, you can't use the view finder.  That sucks in bright sunlight, when you can't see anything on the screen, other than dark!  and by the time I push the many buttons available, I end up with a confused camera, and no pictures.

So after that preamble, here are a few more dog pics, in sunlight.

Mo-om I had my eyes shut!

I get the sticks as 'flowers' when Decibel is done with it.

Afterbath

March arrived with a pleasant afternoon, warm enough even for my temperature requirements, and because this has been a rather mild winter, I decided it was time for a bath.
No, I do take those more frequently than by season, I meant it was time to give the dogs a bath.  The ticks will soon be waking up, and I will have to put the Frontline on them to keep those bloodsuckers at bay, and that works better on a clean dog.


So bath-time it was.


Note the enthusiasm this decision produced in Decibel.  (Yes, it WAS necessary, Decibel).

I corralled the dogs in the laundry room, where we have a dog shower facility, but you won't see pictures of the actual process, because I tend to be in a state of minimal dress, since getting soaked is a requirement for the bather and the bathed.
The shampoo, rinse, rinse rinse condition, rinse, rinse, rinse cycle per dog tends to wear on me, but when it is over they do all look much better, and smell so much nicer too!
Surprisingly they suffer through the bath time with stoic patience, and I didn't have to wrangle any escaping soapy dogs.
Afterward they got a nice surprise, as Harold came home a bit early and they all got to play in the sunshine with him.
Naturally Decibel is beyond pretty in sunlight.  She still has a halo of white blonde hair, but her deep orange-y coat is coming through, and it is burnished with gold in the sun - very pretty for about 3 microseconds.  Then she is rolling in grass clippings with Maggie, wrestling with her, chasing Skeeter through the mud, and  - well, I did take a picture before I let her out, so that's what I have for my two-and-a-half hours of bathing dogs.
Ralph looked very nice too, but he still has felts that have to be clipped (he hates the grooming, and for legs and undercarriage I rather clip than try to comb those felts out, it is easier on him).  The bath made him all bouncy and playful too, happy dogs all around.

Still damp:

Skeeter is shiny too - at least his smile is!

Death and Taxes

I will leave it up to the reader to draw inferences from the ominous title; let's just say that February started off badly.  We lost some dear people, friends and neighbors, and on top of that I had to assemble our finances for the tax preparer, which means hunting down every receipt for the farm - a task that is akin to hunting for the Higgs boson.

Now, it wasn't all doom and gloom, since there was also a welcome wedding announcement in the mix, but the event that finally brightened a wretched month and allowed me to have a positive outlook on a cloudy day?  That was brought to me courtesy of Decibel, of course.

After almost 2 years of persistent effort she has finally converted Ralph into a playmate.  And after observing this a few times, I finally got photographic proof of this conversion.  The pictures aren't the best, after all, it was a cloudy day, but joy makes its own kind of sunshine...

Who would have thought Ralph could be this relaxed and bouncy around another big dog?  But then, Decibel's charm is irresistible.  No surprise there.

Agility course

Today was a warm sunny dry day - in January!

So we had to take advantage of it.  After walking the dogs and bringing the bees some honey, walking the dogs again, riding my horse, working the other horse, I set up the Christmas present agility course.
                         
                     Decibel was so excited.
                                                   She LOVES to jump.

 Ring jump or Bar jump, she will show off and get in the way of the other dogs just to jump.  She can even do the weave poles, if there are some goodies to follow:

                           ...But the tunnels?

                                          No way!  


Ralph on the other hand goes through them like he was born to it.  Today was his first time at the closed tunnel:

                                             That's his head^

               Here he is trying to get out, but Skeeter and Decibel are blocking the exit.

                                                 Finally free! Yay Ralphie!

Graduation?

Thursday was our LAST dog class.

EVER!!!!

No, our dogs haven't gotten so good at school that they are looking into a college program, rather our teacher, Amelia, found a job she likes better than us.

Maybe we should have paid her better?

I don't know how we are going to break it to the dogs, but luckily this is one week away, and we'll deal with it then.  We took all 4 dogs for the last few times, because they absolutely love their class, and they KNOW that it is Thursday.
On Thursday, I touch a comb and the dogs don't run away.
On Thursday, grooming means that you are the chosen one, the one going to class.  Even Decibel abides by that unspoken rule, although she is usually chosen, since she still needs the whole socialization and obedience the most.
On Thursday, the dogs wait patiently by the door until it is time to go.

We practiced a new trick for the teacher:  Wave Bye-bye:  

Decibel's turn.  She puts her paw all the way up, too!

Maggie and I heeling a Figure 8 around the Papillon

Decibel's turn for Figure 8

Down in motion, Decibel did good!

                                       

Baklava for teach

Bear

Goose-stepping German Shepherd

Sometimes Decibel gives kisses

Teaching a new move?

Ralphie

Louie, note flip flops in January!

Sit Stay with distraction, he looked but stayed.

All sitting!

on the sidelines

Maggie got to be teacher's pet for the heeling.

Good girl!

Winter Blues

A while ago I marveled at the fact that my blogging frequency seems to increase as the year progresses.  That struck me as odd, since I avoid the cold and stay close to the wood stove all winter long, mostly attached to a computer or with my nose shielded by a book.
So why then would I not be writing or blogging?
It is clearly a case of selective memory, or elective forgetfulness.  I can't stand winter, and that's bad enough, but I especially can't deal with the double whammy of taxes and winter.
It's sort of like DEATH and TAXES are just rubbing it in that they will get you in the end.  So I go through a blue funk and wait for better things in spring.

This winter is one of those up and down ones with sporadic nice days (well, nice for winter, entirely too cool for my ordinary expectation of good weather, but I will make allowances, and accept a sunny fifties as nice, when it is in January), only to drive the breath out of you the next morning with blasted arctic cold in single digits with wind-speeds near highway cruising rates.
Blustery, that's called.
My voluntary brain freeze immobilizes the best of intentions at times like that.

Now then to the warm ray of sunshine that managed a short-lived thaw:
Decibel, who else.
None of the dogs are intimidated by the winter weather, and Decibel, like any good Briard, delights in the routine of doing the chores.  I was setting up the cow barn for the soon to follow milking.  I set out the feed, ready the buckets, and after that I go and feed the horses and donkey, so the Ruby has some time to pee and poop.  Believe me, nothing makes a cold morning more miserable than having to duck and then clean up a cow's morning evacuations.   They save up over night.
Anyhow, the very last thing I do in the barn before braving the trek (it's a quarter mile ONE way) to the horse barn, is to feed the dratted cats.  (After Buckwheat scratched me during a hissy fit when I was trying to administer care and medication for a large gash the cats are on my blacklist).
So I tell Decibel, entirely by the way, "We have to feed the cats, before we go to the horses."
My brilliant girl gives me one of her patented smiles and runs to the feed room (she doesn't go in, she knows better), and stretches from the doorway to poke the lidded bucket that contains the cat food.  How smart it that?
She really knows stuff like that.
I was in a much better mood for the rest of the chores, in spite of the 30 mph winds with 10°F (-12°C) temperatures, or complete lack thereof, really.