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Monday, August 31, 2009

Warning: Way Off Topic and Political

Okay ... you clicked on it.  This is a highly emotional and political topic.  Feel free to comment, preach, tell me what to do with my opinion ... or ignore it ... but please know going in ... you will not change my mind.

Abortion.

There was a huge protest in Bellevue, Nebraska recently.  One of the leaders is a man.  Yes.  A man.  As if men should have ANY opinion on abortion.  If a man is so damn concerned with a woman having an abortion, the time for him to worry about it is when he's wiggling his little willy around.  If he would put Wiggly Willy's Waincoat on, we wouldn't have anything to worry about, now would we?

And please people ... no matter which side of this issue you're on, please leave your children at home.  Go stand on the corner with your sign and your dog.  Leave the kid at home.  This is an issue for adults ... and the children do not understand ... nor should they have to.

J

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Cool Photo...

And i cant show it to you until i get moved. So frustrating. Had a cool storm and there was quite a light show.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Testimonials!

I love how breeders put a "Testimonials" page on their website.  I know you've seen them.  "After the Sale" ... or "Puppies in their New Homes!"
 
When you see a link like that, what exactly do you expect to find on the page that opens up?
 
"I got this stupid mutt from Backyard Border Collies (fictional name, don't sue me) and this dog is a neurotic mess!  It has hip dysplasia and CEA and the breeder won't take it back!  BUYER BEWARE!!"
 
Really ... what exactly IS the point of a "testimonials" page?  Seriously people ...
 
Happy tails.
Jodi
 
 
 

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

For All You Heel Nuts

What is a heel nut? Why ... someone crazy about the ends of a fresh made loaf of bread. Well ... I am not one. Especially from the bread out of the breadmaker. First thing I do is slice the heel off and set it aside. Well tonight as I was feeding it to the dogs, I thought about how many people would wish me dead (that didn't already wish me dead for a myriad of other reasons ... an to those people ... haha! I am still here!).

Is there a store where I can buy a life for like a month. This is going to be a long haul!

More later im sure.

JJJJJJJJJJJJ

Eeny Meeny Miney Moe!

ok ... i watched the videos again. i am back on my tiny keyboard phone and i dont care about typos. its hot as hell in my house and i will never be able to sleep. sounds like a job for melatonin. or maybe ill call mj's doctor. he is probably cheap right now.

oh yeah ... puppies. brain is not working well tonight. remember that ground beef Couch gave me? i made a meatloaf to die for, along with homemade bread and steamed crookneck squash from my friends garden swimming in salt and butter. yumola!

yikes ... can you tell i have nothing better to do? just talked to the contractor that will be doing the work on the house. yeah. he hasnt gotten authority to start the work yet. i have plenty more packing to do. i just lost my motivation over the last week or so.

Alright ... back to the pups. i have ruled out the pup i have been looking at all along ... Pelite. It's now between Beryl and the black pup whose name i forgot (not Shale).

What am i picking on? i have no idea. i picked the breeding so does it matter which pup? Probably not. They are both a crap shoot. The black pup is adorable and seems very sweet (yea ... what pup isnt?) and Beryl seems a little bratty but not over the top ... kinda like some other monster I know.

What to do.

J

Who to take?

(Sorry! They're thumbnails ... you'll have to click on them)

Pelite ...
Photobucket

Jetta ...
Photobucket

Or Beryl!
Photobucket

To make it even harder ... you can go to Brittney's blog and look at the three most recent videos ...

I think I'm leaning towards Beryl ... although Jetta is pretty darned cute. I think Pelite is a little too mellow ... or at least in these videos. LMAO! Aaaarrrrggghhh!

Opinions? (Oh yeah ... that'll help, I'm sure!)

Jodi

Labor Day camping trip

Hey all ...

Guess who is coming to town? Colleen! We are planning a one night camping trip in the Owyhees ...a long hike with the dogs on Saturday, BBQ for dinner and sleeping under the stars! Let me know if you're interested.

i am off to the library to watch puppy videos and pick my pup out. more later.

j

All the News...

It seems my internet days in Boise are done.  So i resorted to adding the internet to my phone for now so at least i can email.  Viewing or editing blogs is still near impossible.  So this is it for now.

Had a great weekend working Echo.  On Friday night Katy and I went out to Couch's.  He had a pup there that he inherited from a local rancher that no longer had time for her.  When i got there my heart melted.  There was this adorable, very skinny dull coated beautiful white factored blue and white female 3 month puppy.  It made me mad to know someone could neglect a pup like that.  Long story short, I placed her with a lovely couple in Kuna that just love her and will give her the care and attention she deserves.  They named her Jodi.

On Saturday, we putzed aroung most of the day and then met up with Dianne and Jaenne and went and worked dogs in the desert.  After a huge picnic of sandwiches and dips and a couple of beers, Dianne let some sheep out and used Zorro to move them way over to a nice hill on the other side of the little valley we were parked on.  It was quite a learning experience for me to watch Dianne never move her feet, yet work with Zorro at such a distance only using her whistle and the occasional correction to get him to put the sheep exactly where she wanted them.

Echo and I were up first.  Poor Echo with having to put up with my dumb ass.  She wasn't seeing the sheep amd I was having a hard time getting her to understand where they were.  Once she saw them, things went well.  She took every stupid command I gave her ... but at least it was all on whistle.

Next up was Jaenne and Mo.  What I saw of this run, everything looked good!  Jaenne and Mo are really a good team.

Then Katy worked Pat.  This was awesome to see!  Pat worked very well for Katy, and it was nice to see Katy working with a dog that works a little faster and a little pushier than the lovely curly butt.

After that, Dianne worked one of her young dogs (Fame) for a short time, put the sheep back on the far hill where they were earlier, walked over to the truck and said, "Who's up?" Without hesitation, i grabbed Echo and walked out to the rim of the berm we were on.  Looking across the little vally, I see the sheep ... RUNNING to the left.  Then i see something not quite visible running behind them. "Um ... Dianne ... there's a coyote chasing the sheep!"  Dianne grabbed Pat and sent him on a huge outrun.  It stopped the sheep from running into nowhereville but in the meantime, the coyote started following Pat!  Dianne was able to keep control of the whole situation and got Pat and the sheep - all of them - back safe and sound!  What a trip!  And I didnnt even have my camera on me.

Sunday, for me, was spent just putzin around, trying to figure out my internet sitation, which turned out to be a waste of time.

Well, i am sore from typing on this miniature keyboard.  I am feeling like Alice in Wonderland.  Ta ta all...

Jodi


Thursday, August 20, 2009

Update

Ok ... I got sick of arguing with Qwest about the DirectTV bundle they had me with ... and cancelled all of my services ... including my internet services.  So, I won't be around until a) I find internet service that won't charge me an installation fee at this house, and another one when I move; or b) I move.
 
 When will I be moving?  I have no idea. 
 
Good news:  The seller accepted one of the bids we submitted for lender required repairs.
 
Bummer:  The lender won't be ordering the appraisal until the repairs are complete.  The closing date will be "at least" 30 days from the date the appraisal is ordered.  So it will be a while before I move.
 
So, if you want or need to get a hold of me, please feel free to call me or text (remember my phone died a big ago?  I got a great new phone that's perfect for texting!) me at 208-412-6107.
 
Happy tails,
Jodi
 

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Started Dog Available

A nice, young, black and white female started dog has become available to the right home.  If you'd like more information, please call me at 208-412-6107.
 
(No, it's NOT Echo!)
 
Happy tails,
Jodi
 

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Mirror Image?

Girl on the left, boy on the right ...

More Cuteness!



Happy tails (lot of them!),
Jodi

Monday, August 17, 2009

Warning: Cuteness Overload

Skar's kids:









And these aren't even all of them!!! Thank you to Brittney for these wonderful photos. She does an awesome job of photographing these little ones.

Jodi

Sunday, August 16, 2009

AKC's "Financial Rescue"

I'd comment, but I'm not done laughing yet.

"Completely Different"????? Different than what???

In case the link gets removed, here is the next:

"And Now for Something Completely Different"

By Gretchen Bernardi

Falling entries, established clubs with financial difficulty, rising costs to everyone, registrations that continue to decrease—there is no denying that our sport is in trouble. That is the one thing with which we all are in agreement. When viewed dispassionately, which almost never happens, the other, often contentious issues—the quality of the dogs, the quality of the judging, whether or not to realign the groups, whether or not to accept mixed breeds into the fold —pale in comparison to the most fundamental question of the day. Can the American Kennel Club survive? And if so, how?

And the “how” is the biggest question with the most difficult answer. The AKC, the company, has done business one way for a very long time, relying on registrations to fund a growing and increasingly more expensive institution. Doing business in any other way goes against the grain, contradicts a long and honored culture. The railroad companies were in love with their trains. Camera companies were in love with film. Newspapers were in love with printed paper. AKC is in love with registrations.

There is no shortage of suggestions for solutions, but ultimately most of those are simply tweaking the ways in which we are doing business, and have always done business. Many of the suggestions offered are honest and well-meaning, but completely predictable. Some have offered completely new business models as the only possible solution to our problems.

In that vein, of something completely different, I recently received a lengthy letter from a person I have known for a very long time; someone who has been deeply involved with purebred dogs, the AKC, showing and breeding. His suggestions for a financial rescue of the AKC are so original, so completely new, that I decided to share his suggestions, with his permission, although he requested that I not use his name. I have complied with that request. Some of his ideas are so new we may find them scary, since we are often afraid of very new ideas, sometimes unreasonably, frequently without cause. His suggestions follow:

“In order to survive, the American Kennel Club must conduct a complete reorganization of all of its entities, segregating those activities governed by rules from those governed by regulations. Dog shows, including all-breed shows, sanctioned A and B matches, specialty shows and group shows, plus Retriever Trials and Beagle Trials, are all governed by rules. All other activities are governed by regulations including companion events (obedience, tracking, agility and rally), performance events (field trials, hunting tests, lure coursing, herding, earthdog events and the working dog sport) and Coonhound events. Although actual figures are not available, it is generally accepted that, with the possible exception of Agility, those events that are governed by regulations are not paying their own way, but are subsidized by registration money. In fact, when the AKC commissioned Strategic Plan was presented to the board, one of the recommendations was to simply do away with many of these events if revenue were the only consideration. Naturally, the board wisely rejected that suggestion.

“Segregating these entities would result in a “pay to play” system. All revenue generated by litter registrations, individual dog registrations, certified pedigrees and supplemental transfers must be included in the “rules” entity. All other events would come under a separate name, such as The All-American Canine Experience, or ACE, as we can call it in this discussion. ACE would then be divided into two parts, one for purebred “registered” AKC dogs and one for mixed breed “listed” AKC dogs. The competition regulations for the purebred dogs and the mixed breed dogs would be the same.

“The goal of the ACE competition would be to create a nucleus that would generate 100,000 participants. This seems a completely realistic goal. According to the 2008 AKC Annual Report, obedience trials had 122,076 entries, rally had 91,117 entries, tracking had 859 entries, with the agility trials attracting 838,392 entries. These numbers are entries, of course, and not participants, but when added to the hundreds of thousands of entries generated by field trials, hunting tests, etc., the goal would be easily attained. And surely the entrance of the mixed breed dogs into the competition would even exceed 100,000 participants.

“Since all registration-related money would pay for conformation shows (plus Beagle and Retriever Trials), including judges’ education, kennel inspections, executive field staff and all other related expenses, financing for the ACE entity would require a new system. This could be accomplished with an ACE card, similar to retail merchants’ gift cards, sold annually to participants for $100, good for one year’s participation. If participants did not want to or could not afford an up-front expenditure for the card, quarterly cards could be sold, accommodating participants who perhaps do not participate in dog activities during a specific time of the year. If the targeted 100,000 participants bought yearly cards, ten million dollars would be generated under this plan. All expenses related to these events would be paid out of this revenue, including all appropriate field representatives, club assistance programs, judge and participant seminars and all meetings and conferences of the various advisory boards that write and update regulations governing these events.

“From this revenue platform, AKC and ACE would have created an outreach program for local humane societies, many of which are currently making their facilities available for rally and obedience events. It would also leave monetary room for promotion and expansion. One added revenue source would be the design, the manufacture and the sale of the various equipment used in all AKC events. This equipment would carry the AKC name and logo, be produced exclusively for AKC events and used by AKC participants. This plan would give higher brand recognition for the organization, in addition to increasing income.

“The important point in this discussion is the equitable distribution of AKC revenue, which should be palatable to all participants in the many activities involving AKC dogs. Hopefully, we can begin to think of this plan and others that could save the AKC and the show-giving clubs and allow both to better pursue their core purposes. In the end, it all boils down to this: if you want to play, you have to pay.”

Is this too scary to even consider? I hope not. I appreciate that my friend has been thinking about it and took the time to put his thoughts into words. I hope that we all can begin to think of completely new solutions (just shoot me if I ever use “thinking outside the box,” but you know what I mean).

Gretchen Bernardi - berwyck@ezl.com

Saturday, August 15, 2009

One thing I will miss ...

Is my neighbor, Russ.   I am very fortunate to have a neighbor as kind as he is.  He's taken good care of me since I've been here on my own.  Need to do something nice for him before I go.

J


Frustration Threshold

Packing and cleaning up this house has been nothing short of a pain in the ass. It's really nice that the fucking drunk of an ex-husband of mine got to pack his few pairs of shorts and walk out, leaving me to clean up the shit around here. To add insult to injury, he was a carpenter ... only was a firm believer in screwing everything down to everything else with power tools that could build Rome in an hour. Just to give you an idea ... the table in my dog room ... I grab my screw gun thinking, "No problem ..." Press the button and nothing happens except a sound like it's dying. Awesome. There's 400 screws I need to unscrew by hand. "Fine, I'll work on taking the work table in the garage apart." Wrong. You can't even see the heads of those screws because they are sunk in 3 feet deep. When I finally do unbury one to see what the hell he used, it's a bit, of course, that I don't even fucking own!

Tell you what ... Typhoon Mary might take this entire fucking house out, but the table in the dog room, and the work table and shelves in the garage will still be here for you to rebuild the house with.

So ... I'll hire someone to take this shit apart. I'm not dealing with it. But I will resist the urge to use an axe, because I will use all of this lumber in my new house to build things the way I want them. And it will be all put together the way a chick would do it, and there's not a fucking thing you can do about it, Ed!

So fuck you! I win!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Red Dogs

Does anyone have any photos of red dogs with blue eyes that they can email me? 

Time is Crunching

So every night, when I come home, I am trying to get something done. This week, I have been focused on the pasture. Last night, I took down all the panels that comprised my lambing and holding pens, went over to my neighbor to retrieve my post puller that he borrowed, and took down all of those posts. All the materials are now stacked neatly in a good spot to just come in with the flatbed and load it all up. Tonight, I am going to take down the 165' of crossfence and all those T-posts, and also gather the loose T-posts in the pasture from when my neighbor replaced the 400' of divider fencing.

Laying in bed last night, I started thinking ... this the second week of August. My closing date is the first week of September. The lender hasn't done the appraisal yet. We just got the two bids on the "lender required" repairs, but I don't understand how they are bidding on "lender required" anything, when the lender has yet to do their appraisal. Oh well ... I guess it's not my job to worry about it, and that's what I'm paying everyone else to get done, eh? I'll just pack and assume all is well. Ha.

While I have been going through a lot of boxes and trying to organize a lot of stuff and get ready for this move, I am starting to panic. None of this is written in stone yet, and I still have a ton to do before the first week of September! And the days are starting to get shorter, so I won't have long to fix up the place once I do get it! Aaaacccckkkk! Ok ok ... I'll stop being such a dam (get it ... "Dam!" huh? huh? get it? hahaha) worry wart.

Off to work.

Happy tails,
Jodi

P.S. - Kelli, I notice you took down the advertisement for Kiva. I know you've forgotten about who has first right of refusal because I haven't heard from you personally about this, so I hope you're having her spayed before finding her a home, which would be perfectly acceptable, even preferable, to me ... because I know you are very concerned with how I feel in all of this. Thanks.

EDIT: Confirmation of visit: Aug 15 2009 1:21:40 am #22,647

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Pasture Ornament Sold!

Some of you may remember I bought a cute, but very old, stock trailer maybe about a year ago. I threatened to have a new hitch welded on it and fix it up, etc. I sold it today. It's going to a good home.

Just checked the running order for Lacamas. I wish everyone luck, especially my friend Jaenne who is running a daughter of Zip's named Mo. You might know her from her BLOG. This is only her second time running in pro-novice -- the first time was on a football field at the Athena trial a coupe of months ago. Go Jaenne & Mo!

Oh and a note for Kelli out in Pennsylvania. I see you're looking for a home for Kiva. Please spay her. Please. You yourself say on your website (fix the typo, by the way): "Kiva came to us becasue [sp] of her intense drive to..well get the sheep :) She finds it very hard to keep her teeth off of them! She does enjoy it, and listens really well, but the sheep are not too happy!" Flyball is not a reason to breed a dog. You got your litter off of her. You more than made your money back from her. Please spay her so she doesn't end up being bred over and over again. I know that you're thinking you'll place her in a good home. I thought so too. Unfortunately, I couldn't have been more wrong. I should have spayed her myself. If you send her back to me at your expense, I'll have her spayed and find her a good home, which is what I should have done the first time around. With the way it is worded on your website, people might even think that you're looking for someone to do sports with her, and then leave it open for you breed her again. You know and I know she's not breedworthy. She sucks on stock. Please ... as a "reputable" breeder, please do what's right by her and the breed as a whole.

I would have sent you an email, but you won't respond to me. At least when you read my blog, I have record that you've been here and I'll know you'll have seen this by the time you get this far in this message.

Thanks.

Happy tails,
Jodi

Confirmation of visit: Aug 12 2009 11:18:29 pm

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Too hot ...

Ok ... I'm done with the heat. You can all have it back now. Srsly. It is way to hot to sleep, so here I sit at 12:35 a.m.

Went out with a friend tonight and played some pool at a bar near my (hopefully) new house. Fun place ... big place ... decent tables ... lots of young people ... meat market ... not really my type of watering hole, but cool for what I was there for. Jeff and I played several games of pool and shot the shit for a bit. It was nice.

On the way home, the moon looked really cool, so I took a couple of photos of it. I have a few photos from over the weekend also.

If you remember, Katy and I had gone to Dianne's on Saturday evening. Dianne had a gal over ... whose name I cannot for the life of me remember ... but she had a couple of gorgeous Kelpies. I took a few pics of one of them.







Look everybody! It's a Kelpie!


And I also had fun playing with the focus on my camera ... looking out over the alfalfa field we were working in.





Mr. Zip checking out who's working "his" sheep.


Here he is just waiting for me to send him.


Man, his photos can get goofy in a hurry.


After we worked dogs, we went around back to hang out and relax for a bit. The view is beautiful.



The frogs approve ...



Last but not least ... here's the moon on my way home tonight.


Gonna try to get some sleep. 'Nite all.

Jodi

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Took a Break ...

Those of you that know me well know I had a very unfortunate thing happen last weekend that kind of took the rug out from under me. I won't elaborate here ... yes, everything is fine ... nothing I can do about it but move on ... but ... I really needed a break. So I took one.

Friday night, Katy and I went to the 127 and hung out and had a few beers. Ran into my old pool league captain who is also ... a realtor. A realtor I didn't use when I bought my house. You can imagine the joy he feels for me now. Egads. I'll have to make it up to him somehow.

Saturday morning, I headed out to Don Couch's place and worked dogs with him and his two "boys." Turns out both boys will be running in the Western Idaho Fair trial in a few weeks. Woo hoo! Anyway, we worked Echo's little ass off. Completely took her game away from her. I am working on getting her to flank off the fetch, and we had some success with that. I will continue mixing it up and see what I can get out of her. As of right now, the come bye flank off the fetch is very very tight, meanwhile, she now orbits on the away side. Hopefully this will all even out when we both get more comfortable with this.

Met Katy at the Leaf afterwards. We putzed around for a bit, and then went to the store in Homedale. Stopped by the antique store. Cute stuff! Might have to pick up a couple of things there for the house. Then stopped at the Whiskey Roe's for a beer, then off to Wilder for lunch. Went back to the house and hung out for a while, then went over to Dianne's and worked dogs for a bit, ate an awesome completely catered dinner prepared by Dianne's kids, and drank a few beers. We back to the Leaf and crashed pretty hard.

Woke up this morning, went to breakfast, came back to the Leaf and we decided to tear down the duck arena. We had to go to D&B for a few things, but came back and went to work on it. It looked bad from the outside, but wowie. I had no idea just how bad it was. This was layer upon layer upon layer of fencing. There was a layer of field fence, a layer of dilapidated wood fence, a layer of chicken wire, and there was no rhyme or reason to be had. There were staples, tie wire, baling twine, tie wraps, you name it. This was the most rinky dink, hillbilly, jerry rigged ridiculousness ever disguised as fencing. Was I surprised? Not in the least, seeing how the rest of this place was put together. It will be so nice when it's all cleaned up. For now, this duck arena is down, and there are plenty more of these "fences" to go.

Came back to the house and Katy fed us some awesome red chili ... soft taco type of things. Awesome!

Headed over to Janie's because I thought I left my sunglasses there. As it turns out, they were in my truck. But being that I was already 1/2 way there by the time I found them, I continued on. Hung out at Janie's for about an hour, talking ducks and dolls and dogs. She gave me a bunch of fresh veggies to take home. Yummy! Cherry tomatoes, big boys, a green bell pepper, a few banana peppers and a squash.

I got home, and my neighbor had taken down the fence between my pasture and his that I put up last year. He is putting up a whole new, much nicer fence. He rolled up my old fencing nice and neat and put it in my pasture for me to take to my new place. I am so excited that I don't have to buy that whole new roll of fencing!

Planted a masterpiece of a farm on Farmtown! Can't wait to watch THIS one grow! hahahahahahahahaha!!!

The puppies are getting SO cute. Brittney keeps sending me adorable pictures of puppies sleeping on their backs with their cute little pink bellies exposed for ppppfffffftttttting. Too bad I'm not there to do it! Can't wait to see what their cute little faces look like now that their eyes are opening.

Off to bed ... happy tails,
Jodi

Friday, August 7, 2009

Workin' Echo

Ok ... I need to work Echo more or I cannot expect to do well at trials with her.

So I worked her tonight.

I've concluded ... my handling sucks.

I'll be going out to work her tomorrow and hopefully we can make some headway when I can open up her flanks a bit more and take some of the pressure off. These fences around here are pretty tight.

I'll bet she's wishing she could find her handler a new home, and then go buy a started one.

J

Western Idaho Fair Trial Entry DEADLINE!

The deadline for ONLINE entries is Monday, August 10th.  This is your last chance to get entered!
 
 
 

Monday, August 3, 2009

LGD's ...

Now that I will be moving into Coyote Alley, I'll need to get myself an LGD. 
 
Just starting to look for one is making my head spin.  So many Great Pyr's ... AKC registered ... huge majestic dogs ... strung up on a thin little show lead having their giant, neatly brushed and manicured toed feet placed for them. 
 
Yeah.  Gimme one of those.  They look like they'll protect my sheep.
 
RRRRRRRRGHGGGGGGHHHHGGGHHHGGGHH!
 
 
 

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Ok ... I'm Melting

This weather sucks. I would much rather have it be 3 degrees than 103.

No, I don't want any friggin' cheese.

Gem State Herding had a meeting today and got the trial planned for Halloween weekend. Changing things up and it should be lots of fun!

Got a lot of emotionally-hard-to-deal-with crap packed up on Friday night, continued packing and cleaning the garage on Saturday, and did basically nothing on Sunday but putz around.

Saturday night, I got hit on pretty heavily by a guy who ... is allergic to dogs. There are many things that are negotiable. That, unfortunately, isn't one of them.

I looked at the weather forecast for this week. Looks like it will be cooling down a bit later in the week. I can't wait. This is brutal.

No news on the house as of yet.

I groomed 1/2 of Jag. Once I completely finish him, I'll post pictures of him. It looks like his ass exploded.

Happy tails,
Jodi