Summer has swept by us and left us many warm early fall days. Reports from people who should know assure me winter is on the way and will be a doozey. With leaves on the trees and green grass still under foot the idea of a snow day is appealing. Before we get to snow days there are pickles to make, dogs to show and hay to finish getting in.

On the rescue pup scene I had kennel cough hit my kennel. It has delayed the departure of momma dog to her new home and one of the pups. Currently there are 3 pups and momma still here. I am beginning to wonder if they wille ver leave. The two boy pups are spoken for and in an unexpected turn of events, the only female Yahtzee still waiting for the perfect match. She is a doll and thinks she will grow up to be queen. Despite the temptation to keep her for myself the part of "queen" is already being played by Tilly.

Iris woke me up last night. She was blazing hot and miserable. I took her temp and it was over 105 (normal is 101.5) I gave her some rymadyl and waited half an hour. Her temp continued to creep up. Another half an hour and still creeping up, now at 105.8. As a last measure before I called the vet at 5:30 AM I gave her some antibiotics and began to ice her. Iris who is a hot house flower was sleeping on a ice bag with another ice pack tucked into her flank. Half an hour later it dropped to 105.2 and hour later it finally broke and started to drop. By 9 AM she was at 102.6. With 3 hours of sleep behind me I had her at the vet at noon. Iris presented normal in every respect. She is exhausted but seems fine. WEIRD! I will be watching her like a hawk.

Tonight Carol called so we could discuss ordering an extra dog. I forgot how much fun it was to be in the phone picking out dogs we like. As we hung up her next call was to the haul coordinator. My last words were "God Speed" calling that haul coordinator is dangerous. She has a way of taking us from 2 dogs to 6 and then to 10. Good luck Carol!!

The dog days of summer are upon us. After several hot hot days we now have thunder storms and some much welcome rain. This is a picture of the pups I took one hot day after they ate. I just loved how they were sprinkled like confetti napping all over the lawn.

We just posted a new video of the pups check it out at

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXuOkLMvFUo

The first pup leaves in the morning. It will be a little hard to see the first one leave. They still seem like such babies...but now is the perfect time for them to leave. They have had their first shot and a round of wormer. They have been weaned for the past several days. Summer has flown by...I hope the dog days last a little longer.

The pups are growing like summer weeds and have learned to use the dog door most of the time. They can start to leave home in a couple of weeks so I am starting to search for the right homes for them.

I have both foster boys at the moment...Yako and Juan. They are a irresistible pair of clowns. Deuce has moved to his forever home with Barb and Kerry in Billings. Deuce and Courtney, their greyhound pup (now 2 years) were fast friends and play a lot.

Included is a picture of Gable in his hero cape. Gable is a blood donor and has given life to several dogs now. One of the gals at the vet clinic made him this cape. He wears it well!! Henderson's have every right to be super proud of their boy!

I have been busy getting pictures of the pups posted on my facebook page and even a video on YouTube thanks to Mr. Muir....be sure to check it out at

www.youtube.com/user/darrinmuir#p/u

-

The pups are starting to eat real food now. They don't have teeth yet so they just get a porridge of good holistic canned dog food and water. As you will see on the video they love it!! I have moved them into a inside kennel with a outside run for mom, but tomorrow we will work on getting all the mowers and other stuff out of the shed and turn that into a nursery. They already need more elbow room. The mower shed is covered and protected so should work nicely during the day. I can put down some shavings to soak up the "stuff" and the whole kennel will smell better with the pups outside part time.

-

The greyhound picnic was a success and I am happy to report that I kept the commitment I made to myself to enjoy it. I spent way to much at the auction scoring some great things and then I caved to temptation and bought a couple of new collars from Collar Crazy....all with minimum guilt. When everyone left my niece Aubree and I hopped in the huge stock tank to cool off. Pretty soon we were introducing the dogs to the joys of stock tank dipping. We had a great time playing...yes I was doing what I love and loving what I was doing...promise kept.

Anyone who knows me at all knows I am going to tip that raft over...except Aubree. Ah the hazard of innocence!

I did take puppy pictures but have not taken the time to upload them yet. The pups are changing fast now. All of their eyes are open and they are learning to stand and walk. Last night in speaking to a friend she asked "Are you enjoying the puppies?" Because Judy is the kind of friend who sees through fibs, I told her the truth. "Actually" I began "I am not". Confused she said "What? Why?" Well the truth is I have been so busy there has not been time to enjoy anything. It is one of the stupidest things adults do. We get so task oriented we forget to do the things that add quality to our lives. I admit I have had some sadness and worries lately that have weighed me down. But life doesn't stop because we are down trodden or busy. If we miss it we have no one to blame but ourselves. The ironic thing is that this very circumstance is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. Rushing about spending your time replacing important things with really unimportant things. I preach "You only travel this road once...enjoy it." But I fail in practicing what I preach. I promised myself I would slow down a little.

Today I was hurrying trying to get a bunch of stuff done in order to prepare for the greyhound picnic tomorrow. My niece Aubree and my friend "Saint" Lynn were here helping me muck through piles of stuff and clean clean clean. Aubree came up missing. I was annoyed because the mirrors were her job and they still had dog nose prints all over them. When I found her she and my foster project, Springer Spaniel Gabe, were walking in the creek. She looked up at me with eyes glowing to tell me "We found a tennis ball with no skin and are following it down the creek!" She exclaimed "Its fun!" Damn it!!! In less than 24 hours I forgot to smell the roses again.

Goal for tomorrow...HAVE FUN!

The biggest of the puppy boys, a honey colored guy is the first to start to open his eyes. The pups in general have at least doubled in size. So far mom is keeping up with them. She has free choice of the best food we could find. I can't believe the pups are already almost two weeks old. Today's agenda includes getting some pictures of them.

The pups are a week old now and all seem to be thriving. I am excited for them to start opening their eyes in the next week or so. I can hardly wait for them to start moving around more and getting to see who they are. Right now they are just puppy potatoes. This week end we will get some more pictures of them.

The dog show in Missoula was Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I had my girl Pixie entered in obedience. My duties were divided between showing Pixie and doing time as co-obedience chairperson. "Doing time" an accurate term. It is fun but it is a lot of running around and babysitting. I entered Pixie with some reservations as she is not as ready as I would like for her to be. But I kept telling myself you can't swim if you aren't in the water!! Sunday Darrin came to the show to wish us well. Pixie was distracted during warm up but then got progressively better as we worked in the ring. We ended up with a decent score of 193 (out of 200) and a second place. Monday she kept cutting in front of me and doing a lovely free stack unfortunately that wasn't what was required. We still managed to pull of a second place and a OK score. The last day she did better and we got that last leg to finish up our CD title. The days at the show were really long and I am behind in every way here at home. With company coming for the Fourth of July it will be a busy weekend. I think I will suggest we all go to a movie so I can sleep through it.