29 May
Jack got to come back over Memorial Day weekend, and we’ve been utilizing every non-rainy moment to get all the dogs outside to play together. Here’s a super cute video of Jack playing with Beamer and Lucero (the puppy). What a fun and sunny afternoon! Now come back sunshine!! 
12 May
It was a bright and sunny day today which meant we all tried to hang outside as much as possible. Lucero just loves Jack!! Jack will get puppy zoomies with Lucero every now and then but this is generally how they’ll play. They’re pretty cute together!
10 May
Jack is here to stay with us for a week, and we had an awesome day enjoying the sunshine! By the end of the day, my puppy Lucero had convinced him it would be really fun to play and luckily I had the camera out to document it. Unfortunately they were running too fast and most of the photos are blurry Here are some of the highlights!
Lucero enticing Jack to chase him
Not sure how Beamer ended up on top of Lucero
Jack chasing Lucero
Jack has the best recall! He loves to come to you
Blurry, but I loved Jack’s play bow!
Group photo of Yankee (typical pose for cameras), Jack (happy boy), and Beamer (wondering where the food is…)
We’re hoping the rest of the week is this nice to get in lots of play times out in the sunshine!
17 Apr
Riker came to stay for a couple of days while his parents went to Portland. He was such a great puppy! It was really fun since I have another puppy staying at my house named Bo, and they immediately became best friends. Riker held his own when Bo and Beamer ganged up on him. The photos are all blurry, because these puppies were non-stop action
(And yes, the puppies are both wet. After letting them wrestle in the outdoor kennel for a few hours, they managed to spill the water bucket and get really dirty. Baths for everyone! They got special puppy shampoo that is easy on their skin since I know Riker is a little sensitive. They sure smelled good afterwards )
20 Feb
Well on Friday it sprinkled some snow outside. I took a couple of photos through my window. You can see all my agility jumps – this is my outdoor agility field that will be getting resurfaced this spring, so we can do some agility at my home! The grass field is approximately 45′ x 100′, so just right for handling exercises like double box work. Supposedly we are getting more snow this week!
20 Feb
We have sunshine! It may only last for a couple of hours (they’re predicting more snow this week, which means lots of rain and snow sprinkles), so I thought it was my best opportunity to get some photos. Natural light just makes everything look better!
These are the 3 kennels. Two are 4′ x 10′ and one is 5′ x 10′. All concrete floors and secured on top by mesh wire to prevent anyone from escaping out the top. All the doors have clips for the gate-savvy dogs that know how to nose a gate open.
A view from the front of the 3 kennels and you can see the door to the outdoor dog yard on the left.
First view when you go outside from the kennel – beautiful little grove of trees that are gorgeous once they actually have leaves! Hard to believe these were overtaken by blackberries just two months ago! The creek is along the right side on the other side of the fence.
Give me a call or email to set up a time to come visit! The dogs love it
17 Feb
I have never experienced this before.
Just a few months ago, my job was a four-letter word. It stressed me out until I was constantly sick. I found little joy in the day-to-day tasks and received little support. I was out on an island in a big sea, alone with no sunshine.
As I was driving home tonight, it just felt so profound that my four-letter word of a career became a three-letter word.
Joy.
I receive so much joy from watching my students grow with their four-legged friends. Not only do I really like all of my students as people, but I get to watch and be a part of them learning how to communicate more clearly with their dogs. To see how far everyone has come in a few short months is just so much fun to watch. I know I can get a little giddy about this, but I just needed to shout out to all of my students a big, heartfelt
You rock my world, and I am so grateful for it.
7 Feb
These pictures will mostly likely persuade you to never join me on an invitation for a work party. I am so very grateful for my loyal supporters (my family) for spending a Saturday finishing up the dog yard! Here’s a brief timeline of events and some before photos.
May 2007 :: Original foliage (blackberries) in this area. Multiply this times 100 to get the idea of how many blackberries overtook the area in the 3 years since then!
2010 :: Burning brush and after we used a tractor and brush hog to remove all of the 6′ tall blackberry vines!
2010 :: Setting posts to contain the area
2010 :: Looking at two days of grueling labor – removing all the old blackberries, burning the brush, and setting all of the fence posts.
Fast forward to this weekend .. 2011
Due to the insane amounts of blackberries in this area AND the amazing ability blackberries have to grow in this area, it was necessary to lay down something to block them from resprouting. A layer of wood chips or barkdust would just be the perfect nutrients for them to take over my beautiful new dog yard!
In comes the felt. This is a by-product from the fiber mills up in Longview, and is as effective as a thick layer of gravel to deter the blackberries. We layed out rolls and rolls of felt and were able to cover almost all of the open areas.
Bob getting ready to go to lunch after the felt was rolled out.
Rolled out felt
Post-lunch = unloading the bobcat (my mom and I share the same passion for working in pajama pants and muck boots )
If you ever wonder how much hog’s fuel is in one dump truck load, this is it. The second pile is by the horse pasture…
You can also see the 4 yards of gravel we got to fill in the area outside of the back sliding door. This created a nice base into the shop to prevent water buildup, since it is about 18″ thick.
Back sliding door into the shop – large gravel base and hog’s fuel leading up to it.
Bob worked the bobcat like a PRO! We learned very quickly that we couldn’t turn on the felt without it creating huge wrinkles and to build up the barkdust from the beginning of the path, as it was easier to drive on the barkdust layer than directly on the felt.
The 2nd pile of hog’s fuel – the perfect spot to fill in the natural muddiness that occurs in this area with the leftover material!
Those were our management chairs 
Trimming trees while Bob creates large piles of hog’s fuel…
Trimming up the felt rolls
Unfortunately, you cannot do this project without hand tools and a lot of manual labor! Aspirin, alcohol, icy hot, and heating pads were well-utilized at the end of this day!
Looking through the beautiful forest area to the shop! I can’t wait for all the trees to get leaves to take some official photos!
Due to the slickness of the felt, I had to use just straight hog’s fuel (or barkdust). As time goes on, I will start mixing in wood chips to change the consistency. Straight wood chips would have just slide off and created a big mess
Photos to come of the dogs .. they have all given their full approval and Beamer works hard at enticing the girls to do massive chasing laps around the yard. This equals success!
31 Jan
What do you do after the boarding dogs have gone home and all is quiet? Burn brush! I am just waiting for the ground to dry up enough to lay down all of the felt and spread out wood chips. Until then, I’m trying to get rid of as many blackberry vines and brush as I can to *hopefully* prevent new blackberries from coming up.
If you look at one of the previous posts, you’ll see that there were large piles of brush in front of these trees…
All the brush got moved to the burn pile. Most of the day it mostly just smoked, as it is very hard to burn wet leaves in January! My dogs Yankee and Beamer were very respectful of the burn pile.
This tree is perfect for the dogs to pose in – Dixie did manage to get some racing stripes earlier in the day after walking under a board I was painting to build an A-frame. No worries – I only let me dogs around the painting projects
Dixie trying to figure out where the heck I want her for this photo! Good dog!
30 Jan
Bodhi and Yankee got to play some more in the sunshine before he had to go home. They even got in some racing laps! We had fun having Bodhi here – can’t wait to see him next visit!
