How Is It Possible

That this...

Is now this...

All Trade Fairway Xceeds Par on his 2nd Birthday.

And he's still sweet enough to share cake with his baby sister.

This ISN'T the Playboy Mansion

We've been busy lately; mostly at work but some of it has involved vet visits too.  Sam has gone to the vet twice in the last week about "man troubles."  He's an older guy and these sorts of troubles are to be expected.  Don't worry though, everything is - or will be - ok.  There will be a post on all this next week.

Last night we drove up to Gainesville, VA, to see Dr. Dove.  Dr. Dove is a great repro vet and also happens to co-own Hickory, the Deerhound who won Westminster.  Oh, and Dr. Dove is pretty easy on the eyes too.  It's too bad I'm usually in his office for him to give Sam a hand job.  But I digress....

Last night's appointment was a second opinion on Sam's current "man troubles."  We discussed Sam's virility - at length - with the conversation finally coming to, "When did he sire his last litter?"  Sam's last litter was the New Year's Day litter that produced Princess Pretty Pants (Georgia) as well as Jon Farleigh.  That was a little over a year ago, when Sam was 11 1/2 years old.  Dr. Dove's response?

"Wow!  That sort of makes him the Hugh Hefner of the dog world!"

So now I have this indelible mental image of Sam wearing satin pajamas, reclining on a circular bed surrounded by young, nubile bitches in season.  I don't think I'll explain to Sam who Hef is.

Pieces of Flair

In the movie Office Space, Jennifer Aniston's character is reprimanded by her boss at a TGIFridays-style restaurant for not having enough "pieces of flair" on her uniform.  "Flair" being cute pins or buttons with pithy sayings.  She pretty much tells her boss where he can put his flair.

Moira has a great piece of flair on her crate that stays in the car.  It's a sign that gets a lot of attention.  On a white background are three words in bold black print: "Warning: Strange Dog."  Somewhere I have a picture of Ra in her crate with that sign on it but I couldn't find it tonight.

Last month at the Fredericksburg shows there was a vendor making crate tags, kennel signs and the like.  UHM and I had discussed getting all the dogs crate tags engraved with their names so dog sitters and the like would know who was who - at least as long as they were in their crates.  So I picked out colors appropriate to each dog, paid my $37.50 and got crate tags for everyone.  Now all the dogs would have a little "flair" on their crates.

The tags came with white plastic jump rings to attach them to the wire crate doors.  I attached all the tags to the appropriate crates and when we got home the next day, Ginny, Georgia and Bogey had all removed their crate tags from their crates.  Ok.  Ginny's & Bogey's could be rehung with the existing jump rings but I needed to get new rings for Georgia.  So I bought metal ones and reattached her tag.  A couple days later, Ginny & Bogey actually broke the white plastic jump rings so their crate tags sat on the counter for a while.

At the show in Atlanta there was another vendor selling crate tags.  I got some new, metal jump rings from him so I could reattach Ginny's & Bogey's tags.  I did that last night.  When I got home today, Bogey's tag was fine.  Ginny's, however, looked like this:

See the metal jump rings at the top?  Those were a smaller, lighter version of the rings you put your house or car keys on.  They were 2 complete circles.

I think it's safe to say that Ginny doesn't want any flair on her crate.

Georgia On My Mind

Gosh, it feels like I'm just not keeping up with my posts these days.  Last weekend was the Adventure in Atlanta.  UHM, Georgia, Bogey and I drove down to Atlanta on Friday for shows on Saturday & Sunday.  Then we drove home Monday via Chattanooga to visit The Ocho and their family.  Bogey and Georgia are actually great uncle and aunt to The Ocho.

All in a all, a good weekend.  Georgia was one of two girls in the 12-18 month class.  The other was her sister, Lilly.  Georgia won the class both days.  The Saturday judge asked Liz, who was handling Lilly, if the girls were sisters :)  Wonder what made him think that?  Because I am a bad dog mom and completely disorganized when it comes to taking pictures, I missed the opportunity to get shots of the girls and their mother, Lucy, together at the show.  UHM did take video of the girls in their class though.  As soon as I download it to the slowest computer on the planet, I'll post a link here.

Fortunately, there was someone at the show on Sunday with a good camera taking pictures.  Many thanks and kudos to Carol, aka Norman's Mom, from Norman's Daily Bark. She very graciously sent me pictures after I sent her an email via FB - even though she had no idea who I was.  Below is my favorite - don't you think it looks like I have great legs? :)

On the down & back.

When she wasn't at the show with me, UHM spent time this weekend visiting with friends and watching the Super Bowl.  I spent my non-show time making sure Georgia didn't destroy anything in the hotel room.  I'm pleased to report that the only casualty was a paperback book that I was reading.  The good news was, I was re-reading it so I already knew how it ended.

I'm not sure when the next show will be for Miss G.  Moira needs some Mommy & Me time here in the near future.  Our first agility trial of the year is the first weekend in March - I got the entry confirmation today.  Time to get training with the PuHead!