Picture Post

It's about damn time I posted some pics! Other than what I post with each picture, not a whole lot happening these days. We have not progressed yet any further on the adoption topic, we need to contact a couple people and will be doing so very soon.

I'll start with Cooper. Its not often we get a moment of silence with him, but every now and then he calms down enough to just hang out nicely with us. He originally was strictly a "floor" dog with no permission to come up on couches and chairs.... buuuuut we've been wavering a bit (okay a lot) on that issue these days and he's pretty much become a chair/couch dog too. Although he sometimes likes to put his front paws on us and hangs out for a short time, he rarely wants to jump in our lap and if he does so, he doesnt stay long. He kinda likes sitting by himself in one of the chairs, but even then, he is never there for more than 5 minutes at a time.. Restless Dog Syndrome!

Now Russell on the other hand knows very well how to sit and relax, he'd do it all day if possible.. Give him a lap and a blanket, he's good to go. Above is the normal Cooper.. Ellie is in the chair behind Derek and Cooper is just going crazy for attention, doing all he can to get someone to play with him.

Cooper's been becoming a bit more aggressive lately, more than we'd care to see. A few weeks ago we came home and found Russell with a punctured ear, and he seems to be circling Russell a lot more these days, puffing up and trying to establish his dominance. The other day as we had Ellie in the bathtub, Cooper and Russell got into a fight outside the bathroom door. It was then that Derek gave the go to "snip snip". Not sure if it will help with the behavioral issues between Russell and Cooper, but it certainly won't hurt.

So Cooper had his boys removed this week by Andrea.. He is spending the week with me at work, so I can monitor him to be sure he is not licking/chewing areas he is not supposed to and to also keep him confined so he is not running around.

I bought him some adult diapers.. helps keep him from the licking/chewing when I cant keep eyes on him at all times.

Sometimes he will lay peacefully by my chair and other times he is poking me with his nose, he's trying to put his paws up on my desk, he's doing anything he can to get attention! He sometimes growls at my boss when Scott walks by my desk and he barks when customers walk in the door, but he sticks right by me when I leave my desk. Its been an interesting week with him, I like having a dog with me at work, but I do feel bad he is so bored.

I really hope removing his boys helps settle his behavior some, if not that will be a pretty big dissappointment. We had hoped to breed Cooper in the future, but maybe we just dont need to deal with breeding and puppies, maybe nature was telling us we have too many other directions in life to head and we dont need to go down that road.

As I left for work the other morning, I heard Ellie & Russell start howling as loud as they could. I dont know if that was a howl of happiness that they would have the house to themselves again, or if that was a howl of loneliness in knowing they would have to go another day without Cooper. Actually, Ellie was probably upset and Russell was wishing it would be that way every day!

We actually got what I would call a snow storm around here! :) The weather forcasters typically like to call any small dusting of snow "StormWatch2012" but this time they were justified in calling it so. It snowed 6 straight days at our house anyways, possibly even 7. We had over a foot of measurable snow on the ground, with probably a good 2 feet that fell around our place.

The horses LOVE to play in the snow, rolling and bucking. The picture above was after the first round of snow we got, with 4 or so inches on the ground.

It's so fun to watch the boys roll and play.. The tree on left split in half (not sure if the remaining standing portion will make it) and the tree on the right (you can only see the trunk of it) well it fell over. :( It's not like we eat the apples anyways, but the deer always enjoyed the fruit.

This picture was taken when we had our 12" on the ground! Beautiful!! I LOVE to ride in the snow, so I took Red out, put a blanket on him (so as to keep me clean) and got on him, rode him around the pasture a few times with his halter. It was snowing and all was silent (except for the occasional crack of a tree branch breaking). Derek came outside to see what I was up to and I told him I wouldnt be riding for much longer and joked that it was only a matter of time before Red was going to spook at something and I would be landing in some cold powder! Well about 3 minutes later, Red spooked and off I came, although like a cat, I landed on my feet.. damn horse! I decided after walking from the back of the pasture through the deep snow, it was just too much effort to get back on, only to know I would get spooked back off again. :)

Here's our broken tree.. it sure looks a lot prettier covered in snow!

Anything covered in snow is more beautiful... :) Although I LOVED LOVED this round of a wintery blast, it sure makes for a mess when it leaves.. The snow covered roads stuck around for a solid week, Derek's job was shut down for 3 days thats how bad the roads were even in town. I was only able to skip 1 day of work, my boss knows we have 4WD so it's hard to justify not going in. :( It's been a straight week of rain now and we still have small patches of snow in our pasture. We were unable to pick poop out of the corrals for 10 days. When the snow stopped and the rain started, it took another 5 days for the ice/snow to melt out of the corrals so that we could clean them up, boy do I feel better that is done!!

We've decided to sell Dexter. I think Derek is still a bit reluctant about it, Dexter's going through another growth phase right now so his butt is actually taller than Oakleys.. I think Derek sees the size potential and is worried we will regret the decision. I'm sure he is going to be a tall, well built beautiful horse, but with us trying to focus on starting a family, the last thing I need is a project! :) As much as I love working with young horses, we just dont have the place to do it here at the house and I want to focus on so many other things that my lack of committment to make time to work him, is stressful on me. He's getting to the point where it's prime time to be working him and I just am not getting out to do it. Maybe it's a lack of motivation with horses in general, I'm going through a "blah" phase.. maybe when the weather turns around I'll feel better and more motivated to get back in the saddle.. but for now we'll wait til closer to spring to advertise Dexter.

Oh did I forget to mention about Cooper, that he has this new habit of swallowing whatever he can get in his mouth, as fast as possible! The other day he ran into the laundry room and came out with a sock in his mouth. He came over to show us what he had and as we were starting to reach down to grab it from him, he realized he wasnt going to get to keep his prize, so he opened up his throat like a baby bird being fed and literally swallowed that sock WHOLE in 3 seconds! Thank goodness I had just enough Hydrogen Peroxide to inject into his stomach to get the sock back out.. a few days later, he swallowed a piece of material Ellie had found.. so another round of peroxide was given... silly dog actually likes the flavor of the peroxide, I think he's doing this on purpose!

While Derek was clearing our sidewalk of snow, he thought it would be fun to get some of the snow off the roof of the shop! :)



The horses are not the only ones that love the snow.. Cooper & Ellie think it's the bees knees.. Russell likes it alright, but now that he's an old man, he prefers warm and cozy! :)

Cooper looks so silly with his toe-balls! The snow latches on pretty good when the kids are out playing in it.

Ellie was out in the 12" snow for less than 2 minutes and she got so full of snow-balls that she basically became a walking snowball. She became bull-legged and soon she realized she was struggling to even walk so she stopped, leaned over to fall into the snow, lifted her back leg and looked at me with such sad eyes saying "help please!" I coaxed her onto the deck and this is my poor little girl...

Her entire belly was FULL of snowballs, she could barely walk on the deck even and the only way to get them all off, was to put her in the bathtub in warm water to melt them off. I love that cute little damn dog so much!!! A friend recommended a product that is used on show horses that does not allow snow to stick to her fur, we bought a bottle and will definately use it during the next snow storm because Ellie is unable to even run and play in the snow, the snowballs are such a problem for her.

When the snow was only about 4" in the yard, it was much easier for Ellie to get around, although she did still get balls that had to be removed in the tub, they were not as bad as her being in 12" of snow!

They are fighting over who gets to carry the duck around the yard!

As you can see from this round of pictures, that Cooper is lovin this weather too.. These were taken before he was neutered. Boykin Spaniels are sometimes referred to as the "Bouncing Boykins" and as you can see, that's exactly what he is!