sally's first win picture!!

and got a little moxie in there too! little snoot....
sally actually did a LOT of winning at that show, she won three classes (amateur, jr, and green HUS) and was 2nd in 2 others (amateur WP and Sms). All in one day! What a good girl...

shes so coy... *WINK*

missing you ro

did you love sleeping on daddy's shoes because it made you feel like your breath wasnt all that stinky (in comparison)??

i miss you so much, even tho you had dragon breath. i just posted your tribute, finally, but it went under "June 10th" because it was a draft... :( i hope at least JJ will see it.

Introducing: Todd T. Frog - the 23 year old aquatic non-mammal member of our aminal family

we ordered Todd thru the mail, he came as a tadpole. he was a science project, he was totally clear when he was a baby so we could see all his organs and watch him grow. we had NO idea he'd live this long... his 21st birthday was crazy. you should have been there. everyone got sloshed.


Todd is very civilized - we feed him with a spoon. which i finally got on video, after 23 years. i thought i'd better get good pictures and video of him before he croaks.

sally's big day!

sally showing in western pleasure over the weekend - her first real broke ride! yay! she's officially "finished"!

REPOST FROM JULY 2007

yeah, i already posted this. because i was the original movie poster poster.

and i didnt even have to replace the face.

dis bwog sud be MAH bwog.

cuz it IS mah bwog. wook at ah mah boooootifuh piksoes. ah am da best at cwosing mah eyes jus wen mama is twying to take mah piksoe. wew, se soudnt fwash dat wite in mah eyes wike dat!

pwuty posors...

joon, dats dest mama whiswing. se dest wants yoo to wook at hur. yoo don haf ta wean yo hed wike dat.

mox n joon - tugowarathon

happy bees

missin you bad today, ro-ro

here ya go jj... proof

that i did indeed wake up at 7am and go for absolutely no reason at all to run 3.1 miles by myself!!! would have been a lot more fun if you were here for me to torture and make you go with me... although i would have kicked your butt!!

no aminoes involved but it was still funn.



no aminoes, but e's puppy was there to cheer on his auntie!!

kisses to ro...

i miss you my girl.

IN YER FACE...

big sister, little boo

i am missing you today, robanna... we went to castlewood to pick out your rock from the river...

this is a forward, you may have seen it - but if not, here you go.

Have you ever heard that a dog "knows" when an earthquake is about to hit?

Have you ever heard that a dog can "sense" when a tornado is stirring up, even 20 miles away?

Do you remember hearing that, before the December tsunami struck Southeast Asia, dogs started running frantically away from the seashore, at breakneck speed?
Do you know that dogs can detect cancer and other serious illnesses and danger of fire?

Somehow they always know when they can 'go for a ride' before you even ask and how do those dogs and cats get home from hundreds of miles away?

I'm a firm believer that animals - and especially dogs - have keen insights into the Truth.

And you can't tell me that dogs can't sense a potentially terrible disaster well in advance.
Simply said, a dog just KNOWS when something isn't right .. . when impending doom is upon us .. . they'll always try to warn us....

i miss my robanna :(

note: she wasnt really sleeping and she's no good at pretending to sleep.

note: see the TP next to the pillow?? JJ will not let me buy kleenex for the house. CHEAPO!!

junk in the trunk...

its da boo!

new nickname for moxie...

skunkyface. grammy made it up. took me a minute to get it, i thought she had just rolled in something gross.

back scratching...

one of charley's favorite things. the two older more sophisticated girls get to wear fly sheets and they care not that charley has to roll to scratch her bugbites.

the boys on the moon

pikes peak is the weirdest and one of my most favorite of places. jj took us there for my birthday. you should totally go there on a foggy rainy day - driving thru the fog then breaking out of it halfway up was amazing.

look at my cutie boys.

my brother's puppy...

you should have seen my dad try to get into the hammock... talk about entertainment... i thought it was going to flip over and dump him on the ground.

one door closes and another opens...

the same day we lost rosie, grace was bred and conceived for a 2009 foal by the great stud Do You Have A Minute aka "Spanky" ... some kind of weird aligning of the stars... the resulting foal will be named after rosie, however if its a boy i have no idea what to name him!! rossi?? and i'll have to keep it forever and ever.

heres a pic of grace...

and of the daddy-to-be...

The Beginning...

rosanna, rosanna....

my beloved rosanna -

you were so tiny when i brought you home from michigan in 1995. you picked me really, you came running to me and crawled into my lap and licked my face as if to say, "you cant go home without me!" i brought you home in a blue shoulder-bag to surprise eric and dad, and they were just as delighted with you as i was. i named you after the 80's song rosanna, and sang it to you all the time.

you loved sticks, getting "fresh ones" straight from the trees, jumping to unbelievable heights to reach them. you loved swimming, any old water would do, even an oversized puddle from a hard rain. but i think your favorite was always donnell pond. you could wade and smack the water with your paw so it would splash up and you could bite the splash. you used to command me to do this for you til you figured out how to do it your damn self.

you loved hiking, any old hike would do... but you especially loved hikes into the woods with jj for a day of being a crag dog. i think your favorite days were ones you could combine all your loves into one. swimming and chasing sticks at the crag.

you were fast as all getout (tho grampy always said "she isnt fast but she sure is quick")... you loved herding the ball in the yard and would get it going so fast, and then circle it around to bring it back... you loved chasing tennis balls and would do it til the end of time if you could, and you loved chewing them in your strong jaws and plucking all the fluff out of them... you loved killing squeaky toys and removing the squeakers, and rolling on your back going "arr, arr, arr..." and you loved rawhides and bleached bones, and would enhiliate them in minutes.

you loved your tennis ball probably more than anything in the world. maybe tied with swimming. you pined for the ball when you could smell it thru a closet door, and once you snuck one into the house you would head straight for the coffee table or sofa to shove it under, then play your own made-up game of "get it out."

you did more tricks and knew more words than any dog ive ever seen... i once made a list of all the words you knew, it was well over 100. you knew the names of all of your TONS of toys. you could sit and down within days of coming home as a baby, and my favorite tricks of yours were bang, the nose-flip-treat trick, and "go" - and of course herding your ball. i thought you were so smart, you learned tricks so quickly... i even gave you a doggie IQ test which confirmed my belief that you were a genius.

you always kept the horses in line in the barn... while i was cleaning stalls you would stand guard at the doorway and make sure they didnt even think about stepping a foot out into the aisle. they didnt even want to put their noses over the fronts, you would jump up and nip their noses to tell them to get back in there!

you loved rides in the car, even if it was just to the grocery store and back. or thru the carwash. and even the long and gruelling drive to ohio and back, eating and drinking on the run and having to potty on a leash in a hurry. we took you to telluride and you sat so forlornley between your brothers, but with never so much as a nasty look to them... you used to ride in my lap in the car until you got too big, then you loved the passenger seat so you could be the co-pilot.

you loved the park and junglegyms, with slides and tunnels and things to climb on...

i loved showing you off - anywhere we went people would stop and comment how well-trained (certainly not by MY doing, you were born trained) and beautiful you were, pointing out your racoon tail... you always loved to escape thru the autumn olives to go swim and play with the kids on the other side of the pond, and they loved you and wanted to keep you because you looked like a wolf. you loved little kids, especially boys, because they would always throw a ball or stick for you.

i took you to denison during exam week freshman year and hid you in my closet after my roommate left for the summer (so she couldnt tell on me!). i wanted you to be with me always, and was always so sad to leave you in findlay - tho your grammy and grampy loved you almost as much as i did. i know you loved it at their house, but that you also loved being in colorado - everytime we went back and forth you were so excited to return to the place you remembered and loved so much. it was fun to watch you realize we were getting close, recognize the surroundings, and get so excited to be there.

you were my lone companion when i lived in columbus, and would sleep in my little twin bed with me, and go to work with me at the vet's office... which you hated until you realized you'd get to chase balls in the backyard and eat frosty-paws all day!!

i know i will cry many many tears for you - you were with me from high school, 17 years old, until the week before i turned 30. i grew up with you. i hope i loved you as well as you loved me... i hope you felt loved and had everything you wanted... i am so thankful that you lived a long full life of 13 years, and enjoyed every minute clear up to the end. the day you left me, you got to ride with jj to evans for one last crag trip. and i cuddled you lots and gave you lots of special things to eat, even tho you didnt feel much like eating them. i am so thankful that you waited for me to come home to you, so i could say goodbye. you were such a huge part of the biggest part of my life. you were a defining element in how i grew up and grew into an adult. i love you so much, and you will always be in my heart, and it will always hurt that you're gone. an empty space that will never be filled by anyone or anything else.

the sun is rising on my first day without you. i know it carries you to a wonderful place, with endless swimming, sticks, tennis balls, and bones... and i hope you can still feel my love as i still, and always will, feel yours.

my rosanna.

a moment of silence...

there will be a strange silence in my house for a long time.....

carrot and stick....

have you read my profile?? one of my favorite movies of all time is on TV and its at the part where they go to niagara falls and the dude says "have a happy.... whatevah" in his niagara NY/canadian accent that always reminds me of jj...
if you can post and name the movie i'll give you a tootsiepop next time i see you. which will be between June 7-17th probably!

if you dont post on my blog i will hit you with a stick. or get rosie to.

Charley

She's a foot taller than last time ya saller! (and she's got some junk in dat trunk!!)

on a parallel note: i decided to video myself on Sally today due to lack of a handy videographer (i need to make some friends) - so recalling some recent both ingenious and tragic events done at the hands of my dear and retarded husabawand, i decided to film myself with a tripod and remote. the remote didnt work. so after 15 min of riding around and then checking the footage, i found there was no footage. so then had to leave sally in the arena alone (she was happy to try to eat grass and unhappy that she could not reach it) and turn it on manually then run back to her and get on and go... half the video is footage of an empty arena (as sally and i were outside the screen unbeknownst). some is me running back and forth to the camera, and sally wandering the arena riderless. i may end up posting it if i decide it is worth looking at for entertainment purposes. at least the video camera is still in one piece. my tripod was set up in the grass, unlike toopid noodoehead who set up his tripod on the concrete and then forgot it was there and ran into it, knocking it over and breaking our very nice and very sadly missed little camera into many pieces. :( i realize this is longwinded. jj is starting to rub off on me. and i havent even seen him in like 2 months.

agility pictures

mox-a-box-a-rox... she wants to go SOOOOO FAAAAAAST!!

moxie agility

ok, here it is. first combo she got excited and ran amok. 2nd one she did pretty good tho! she loooooooves the tunnel more than anything in the world.

senior citizens day

at the horse show. Moo is 57 and a card-carrying member of AARP. Grace is the equine equivalent, but probably even older, like 75 in horsie years (she's 15 and has had 3 babies!! a REAL broodmare!). So here's some pics from the day... Exciting, I know. Me in the aqua, and the army jacket and jeans (sweet ghetto outfit) is Moo.

...intermission before the very exciting pictures and/or video of da box-a-rox doin her thing on tha gili-T course... tearnmup. n barkin like cra-Z...

its been a while!!

whoa... not that there hasnt been any animal activity since Feb, there certainly has been. It's been so consuming wrangling my mammals that I have not found the time to post any postings regarding such wrangling!! my apologies to no one. here's a stock foto to tide you over until i have pics and video of mox-a-box-a-rox TOTALLY CRUSHING at agility. can we say FLASHED FA??!! ya to da boo.

ps. deese r not ma kittehs. and i had no part in stacking them thusly either. but some one had a really grate idier.

outing preparation philosophies....

oh how we differ....
on a particular saturday at castlewood in january: jj's attire, a tshirt.

same day, same place, my attire: long underwear, pants, snowpants, more long underwear, longsleeve shirt, sweater, TWO puffy down coats, mittens, wool socks, scarf, hat.
reasonable outfit for the weather, probably somewhere between the two!