What I Did This Summer

There was frost on my windshield Wednesday morning. I was up early (pre-dawn, omg!) to go herding with Jubilee and Oda. I have been dramatically remiss in updating this summer, and there's no reason other than I was doing stuff with my dogs! Good enough. Still, I took lots of pictures over the summer, and so I'll try to do a quick update.

Leslie and HRD SAR K9 Nash (Nike x Ash - Blackthorn's Inigo)

Back in early May, we had a training weekend in Bath County. Lynx is the dog I was training in HRD work, and he went to live with a friend in Florida in April (he is now doing competitive agility, obed/rally, lure coursing, dock diving, personal protection training, and soon, nosework! He needed more "work" to be happy, and he's in the perfect place for that!)

Lynx and his sister Macy in Florida

I don't even remember June. Things happened. I tried to get the pool to go from jade green to clear blue, with slow, slow progress. The dogs swam nevertheless.

Blitz and Ruffian and Flint

June 30th, the U-litter puppies were born! That always throws everything out of whack for me for a while--it usually involves at least one all-nighter if not two, and it just sucks all my attention for a while like a black hole of puppydom.

Xita and the Uppies

July... wow, I don't even. Life occurred. It was good.

Nemi & Hunter in front; Flint, Blitz, and Coal in back

Nike turned 15 on July 27, so she got cake and pictures with three of her kids:

Birthday cake!

Hunter, Nike, Coal, Jubilee

In August, it was surprisingly fall-like--cooler than normal. But there were a few adventures and the pool stayed blue! Sunny came to visit while she was in heat, and her sister Josie came for a play date. Nemi turned 2 on August 31. Sumo came to visit for a week. And there were puppies....

Sunny (Solstice) and Josie (Sweet Josephine)

Sunny (Solstice) and Josie (Sweet Josephine)

Nemi and Sumo

That brings us up to September. I'll save that for another post!

The Xuper Duper Xumo Pups.... Should I name one Umo?

I am so behind on updating, it's ridiculous. Don't have time now, instead, have a slideshow. (Warning--100s of pictures!)

Xita and Sumo puppies, born June 30, 2013. 5 girls, 3 boys.

Blackthorn Gear Store

Some folks have been after me for years to create a Blackthorn Kennel t-shirt, so I finally pulled something together using some fabulous designs made from pictures of Nike working as a young dog.

Blackthorn Gear Store

I pretty much "created" this store from scratch, so 1,001 apologies if anything is wrong. I will order the first batch of shirts on July 10th--it will take 2-3 weeks for them to get printed and delivered. After this first set of orders, I will not always have shirts in stock or have the store "open"--I'm learning as I go along!

Wordless Wednesday: Bo Knows

Jumping Beans

A lovely day for a walk ... or

Jumping bean practice....

 

May weekend with dogs and puppies and ducks and goats and sheep

I spent the last weekend with a friend, working dogs and catching up. Had a couple of really good herding lessons with Jubilee. For some reason, I never get pictures of her working, but dayumm, she makes my heart sing whenever I work her. (Bonus news: I re-xrayed her hips this past December and sent them in to AKC--she was re-evaluated as OFA Good based on the 54 month xrays!)

She was laying down some extremely nice work this past weekend, staying back, rating her pace, covering the stock nicely, and insisting that I be correct before she listened to me. Oh, yeah, that's what herding is really about--the human not screwing up.

No herding pic, so here's a stacked shot of Jubilee from this April.

Oda has had a resurgence of, well, let's call it, "ummmph" since her puppies and had to have some attitude adjustments to get back into the groove of working with me--and I did get a few pictures of her working, due to the help of a friend.

Leeroy the goat is not fond of Oda

Nemi had a go on ducks--she's got excellent herding instincts and I look forward to training her in herding--after I do a schutzhund 1 on her. For my own sake, I'm going to hold off on herding with her until I am done with the schutzhund. I also don't want to make her too handler aware/sensitive by doing both activities at the same time. In the one venue, it's about using her mouth in drive with lots of control and obedience. In the other, it's about NOT using her mouth in drive with lots of control and obedience. In the meantime, she has a blast these herding weekends--playing in the water, trying to get humans to play ball, being the mentor for little puppies.

Nemi - play with me?

Nemi, Zee, Calcifer

Nemi, Zee, Calcifer

And young Strider, from the Xita x Jedi litter, is back with me. He had two excellent sessions on goats. He has the potential to be an extremely good herding dog, I think. (He is here for a bit of training and then I hope to place him on co-ownership with someone who wants to work and title him.)

Strider, 11 months - April 2013

Two young sable dorks