Still a Work in Progress....

But I think we are starting to see some progress. Here are a couple of videos of some running contact work. The first one is from about a week ago and she is still bouncing quite a lot. In the second video, from tonight, I think there is improvement. There are a few bouncy runs but overall I think much better.

Pawty! We're Havin' a Pawty!

Happy Birthday Reese!  Reese turned 4 years old today, so we thought we would throw a little party. First up was a morning hike.

Then we started getting ready for our party. And......we had a little Cake Wreck!

Yep, I FAILED! It really wasn't that hard to do.

But then I fixed it by jamming the H in there. The purple weird things on the right are sheep.

Getting ready

to blow the candle out!

And of course she got to eat a piece.

And no she didn't stay on the table. About two seconds after this picture was taken she took her piece to the floor where a proper dog eats her cake!

Finally, Reese opened her presents. A new ball (yeah, we don't have any of those around here do we?) and a new achilles tendon to chew. 

Nose Problems, Quail and Feather toys......

I am going to try some new things on the blog. As you can see from yesterday's post I have started a Wordless Wednesday feature. It was an old picture but one that I like. I used to follow a blog that did this and I thought it was cool. Buzz's food lady doesn't have her blog anymore but I have seen others that do it as well. So I thought why not.

The other news is in the sickness and health department. A week or so ago Reese had developed a bump on the bridge of her nose sort of like a bug bite. It went away and then it came back again. Then it seemed to be a bit better. I started to think I was seeing things. Then a week ago last Monday the whole bridge of her nose was swollen. But after she was up out of her crate for awhile it looked a little better and she wanted to play and seemed to feel fine. Then by the end of the night it seemed better. 

I thought she had gotten bit by something or run into something with her bone. She loves to hide her bones. She will hide it and rehide it and rehide it for days until finally she decides she is ready to chew and eat it (don't worry it is an edible bone). So she didn't get bones for a bit to see if that was it.

Then last Saturday she was laying in her crate in the living room snoozing and when she got up and came to see me she had bumps on her nose again. Not a bump but multiple bumps. They got bigger and bigger. By Sunday it was obvious that something more than a bug bite was going on. It didn't seem to itch too much but at one point she did scratch them and rip a couple open.

We went to the vet on Monday and he is not sure what it is. She is on an antibiotic and that seems to be helping. The sores are drying up and have scabbed over. She has about 6-8 of them. Her stomach doesn't care for the antibiotic too much but seems to be adjusting. At least I am able to get them down her and she has only managed to spit one back out. IF the antibiotic doesn't work or they come back again we will have to look at a biopsy. The skin scraping that was done on Monday didn't show anything so we are hoping that it is just some kind of bacterial infection.

Bella has tweaked her knee again and her luxating patella is acting up. So we are really working on her weightloss goals. If we can get some of her weight off it will help immensely. Reese ran into the den where Bella was tonight and got a little too close saying hello. Bella growled at her and Reese high-tailed it right out of there. I was very impressed, good Bella - you show her who is boss. Last weekend I picked up some quail for Bella and she really likes it so I am happy about that. Will have to get her some more so she has some variety with the rabbit, turkey and chicken.

Sophie is doing well - stealing time on her human's bed whenever Reese is not there. I came home from work and the feather toys were spread out in the living room so someone had obviously been playing. I did some clicker work with her and Bella a number of years ago and we worked on it again the other day. They both still remember so we will do a video soon.

Wordless Wednesday

Brrrrr......!

Winter has taken the opportunity to get cold again. Last week it was raining and today it is 1 degree. The windchill makes it feel much, much worse. Luckily Reese doesn't have to worry.

She has a new coat. I know, I know - she is a dog. But the smoothies get cold!

She is not too sure of it yet. It's going to take a little getting used to.

It is purple, but it was cloudy out so it looks bluish. We'll try some more photos when the sun decides to make its appearance.

Alaska

Finally, the last of the Sunday Night Travelogue. Alaska the largest of the U.S. States.  For my parents 50th wedding anniversary they took the family on a cruise to Alaska. My sisters family, my brothers family, my parents, my other brother and myself all met in Seattle for a couple of days before the cruise.

Mom and Sister touring Seattle

Mount Rainer (I think) in the background

On our bus ride to Vancouver to catch the ship. Again the mountains in the background. After we went through customs into Canada our bus driver informed us that we were lucky. His brother owned the food stand on the Canadian side and we would be stopping for Tube Steaks!  Something we had never heard of. Some in our party chose to indulge and some did not!

Once on board we traveled the Glacier Bay Inside Passage from Vancouver to Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, Ketchikan and then back to Vancouver. We were aboard the Holland America Zaandam. This was my first cruise and it was incredible.

This was the Crows Nest. A bar and great place to watch the scenery.

This is one of my brothers, his wife, and one of my nephews.

These are the kind of views we had from the ship. It was like watching a movie go by.

What looks like a small ice berg is usually very large underneath.

We did see some wildlife. Lots of whales, orcas and a brown bear along the shoreline. I couldn't get a picture of the bear but it was out there for quite a while. The ship went into an inlet and when we came back out the bear was still browsing the shoreline and so we got to see it again.

Of course we celebrated the Happy Anniversary on board. We started celebrating the moment we left home, I snuck over to my parents and decorated their car during the night before we left. I wrote "Honk if you like Gold" "Happy Anniversary" on it. Other cars on the road saw it on the way to the airport and played along so it was quite a fun ride.

The festivities continued with surprises all week.

We put their wedding photos on T-shirts and each member of the family wore a different photo shirt all day on their anniversary. We surpised them by wearing them to breakfast in the morning. They also had their wedding date on the back so people on the ship inquired about the date when they saw us on the ship. My parents received many "Congratulations on 50 Years" from strangers.

The decorations for the table. We ordered personalized M&M's and brought them to Alaska with us.

Here is the happy couple now.

When we came back to our cabins the towels were always made up in some fun animal shape.

Sister and brother on the deck watching the scenery with the ever present Latte in tow.

One of my brother and my excursions was a helcopter ride in Skagway up to the glaciers.

The scenery was incredible from up in the helicopter. I took these shots during the flight.

Mike next to the helicopter when we landed on the glacier.

A crack in the glacier.

Glacier ice absorbs all the colors of the spectrum except blue. Which is why glacier ice appears blue.

A hole in the glacier.

The happy hikers.

You can get an idea of how big the glacier is when you look at the size of the helicopter in the background.

This sailboat was anchored in one of the inlets the ship went into. The people on it were tooling around in a zodiac in the water.

If you look closely in the picture above you can see the glacier start to calve. Calving is what it is called when a chunk of the glacier falls off  into the water.

Down it goes.

One of my brothers below me on a lower deck of the ship.

One of the outside pools.

Inside the ship.

The library with games, books, magazines and computers.

For those that have not been a cruise. Each day they would put a rug with the day of the week in the elevators so you would know what day it was. It seemed silly at first, but after a couple of days everything did start to blend together as we were so busy.

Some more random shots of the inside of the ship.

Mom in the turquiose jacket in front of the saloon.

I loved our trip to Alaska. The state is beautiful and there is so much to see. The only thing bad about seeing it in on a cruise is that you don't get to be as close to the nature Alaska has to offer. That said we never would have seen as much of Alaska had we not been on the ship. So if you go I think a cruise is a great way to see Alaska for the first time. A cruise was a great way to have a family reunion too, as there were so many things to do on the ship and we could visit with everyone so easily. Of course there was the food too. My neice walked around the whole week saying, "Did you know the average person on a cruise gains 15 pounds!"

One of the dinner entrees

Dessert anyone?

The deck where we walked off the food each morning.

The ship head on.

Looking even larger.

Thank you to Mike for allowing me to post some of his photos here for you all to enjoy!

Nasty Day!

Today I was supposed to audit an agility handling seminar. It was cancelled due to the weather. No it wasn't cold, or snow or even blowing snow. It was RAIN! The kind that freezes on impact. It started last night and continued this morning and was supposed to be most of the day.

Reese and I layed around....didn't do much....Reese kept the couch warm and looked like this most of the day.

It is supposed to keep raining/sleeting and then get colder and turn to snow which will cover all the icy spots. So glad we started running and getting into it again just so we could stop.  Grrrrr.