What a week!

Bugsy and Comet at the dog park training yard.

   The picture above was taken after an hour and a half of Bugsy and Comet running around the dog park. We then spent another hour in the training yard because I locked my keys in my car! Whoops. At least it was a beautiful day to be locked out.

     It's been one heck of a week. My birthday was last week and after a rough morning at work I came home for a nap with the dogs. It was refreshing. After my birthday nap a few rousing games of fetch, some playtime in the yard and a training session for each dog. Then I decided to spend the rest of my afternoon volunteering at the Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control Center or CRACC. That day I ran into a problem I have never run into before! So many volunteers at the shelter we were each waiting to take a turn to use the exercise yard! What a great problem to have! So after a little face time with a few cute canines I stopped into the cat room where I ran into the same problem!
HERE is a link to my current favorite dog at CRACC.

     Bugsy and the basketball playing trick have had a setback. While training, his collar caught on the laundry basket and scared the fuzzy pants off the poor dog. It was as if the basket was chasing after his face. Bugsy balked and wide eyed backed himself into a corner where I held him still and quickly snapped off his collar.  After that we spent the rest of the training session working on rebuilding a positive association with the evil laundry basket.
Come calmly near the laundry basket=Treat
Sit next to basket=Treat 
Touch the basket=Treat

     We worked with his collar off. Because there is a highly likelihood of his collar catching again during training I am brainstorming ideas for a new "basket". The next day, I got the flu and spent 2 days in bed. Now I'm playing catchup with everything and the basketball trick is on the backburner.

     Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting, accessing and transporting a small sable and white dog (border collie?) into rescue. This is not always a fun task but this little dog is a treat! Here are a few pictures I took during my short time with him. Look at that face! Those eyes! One blue, one brown/gold!

Upgraded to front seat!

You don't expect a dog you just met to ride like this!

Personality!

     As you can see he is quite the charmer! He sat so politely in the kennel with a smile on his face that when we got to our destination I took him out to potty and spent the rest of our time together schmoozing it up in the front seat of the car.


     In other news I made some cheese today! Leftover from the cheese is plenty of whey. As I was researching what on earth to do with the whey (Compost? Water house plants? Cook? Bake? Pet food?) and discovered there are many things to do with it, I read some blog posts recommending it as a dog food supplement. So the bottom of the pot, the whey with some itty bitty curds floating in it is all for the boys. I gave them each a little with tonight's dinner and they loved it.

Ground beef, potatoes, carrots, dried tomatoes n apples

, curds n whey

Quart of curds and whey