Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Overdue update- Meeting other English Shepherds






Chandler had a great outing to meet another CT resident's female English Shepherd crew,
Nixie, Finn, Flurry, and Irma last weekend. Also present was chaperone
collie Willie. Despite being a goofy boy, he managed to blend well
into the pack and only got corrected once for uncouth behavior.
(After which he gave many apologies for biting too hard-he must be
playing with too many pit bulls and labs.)

First introductions were to Nixie and Willy in the Southbury dog park,
where it was difficult to decide whether Nixie or Chandler was faster.
My friend observed that Chan was "all boy"..and I had to concur as he was
making an utter mess of himself splashing around and wrestling with a
poodle in a huge mud puddle, much to Nixie's disgust.


Fortunately the mud was soon washed off as we took the entire crew off
on the rear trails to a tiny beach on the Pomperaug River. I'm just
hoping her girls will someday finally teach Chandler to swim a bit
more, as he's mostly a wader. Flurry had a good time retrieving
floating biscuits, however.

Unfortunately the morning ended too soon, as the "girls" had a hiking outing
planned with a friend, and the dog park was getting a bit too full for
the enforcer nature of some of the ES. Both Chandler and I are
looking forward to the next outing.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

on the dangers of Petsmart...

...or more accurately, the dangers of being well known to Petsmart employees! *laugh*

The scene: Supplement/books/cleanup and housebreaking aisle, where I am practicing stays with Chandler.

Groomer: Chander! What a good puppy! (Chandler just got groomed yesterday, and apparantly behaved very well.) Does he like toys? (to me)

Me: Yes, actually he has one of those pastel sheep.

Groomer: Oh, you have to see this one, everyone loves them. (Leads the way to the toy aisle and takes down a loofa dog.)

Chandler: *sniffsniff* *GRAB* *CHOMP!* *tugtugtug*

Loofa Dog: *squeeksqueek-wahwah*

Chandler: *chomp* *chomp* *tug*

Groomer: Oops, he's got the tag off already.

Me: Well, I guess we're buying that one...