I Don't Get It

Hey guys, it is me Ruffles!

I haven't posted an "I don't get it rant" in a long time.  Mainly because I had Mom perfectly trained.  It took a while but I accomplished my mission.  But recently, things have seriously gone astray.

First, Mom says, "Ella had puppies".  Now I have seen these things and they are not puppies.  I love puppies!  Puppies play, bark, romp, walk over my back, wrestle, play tug, and these critters do not do any of these things.  I don't get it!

Second, Mom says, "Ruff I don't have time to throw your ball for hours!"  What the heck?  I had her trained to throw that ball until I decided the game was over.  I even trained her to fetch it, if I didn't like where she threw it.  What is happening?  I don't get it!

Third, I am sleeping with Mom Kathy instead of Mom.  Mom Kathy doesn't understand my bed rules.  She allows Rainbow to sleep up beside her, and I am at the foot of the bed.  Good grief!  I don't get it?

Fourth, Mom isn't catering to my eating schedule and habits.  I prefer my kibble fully mixed with wet food, a good handful of cheese on top, and then I bark at it for 20 mins or so then I eat.  Mom actually said, "Ruffles I don't have time for this nonsense today, eat or go hungry."  The nerve! At least she mixed it up good and put my cheese on it.  But  I still don't get it!

Finally, when we have visitors they fawn over those hamsters, Mom calls puppies.  Now seriously, this is completely unacceptable!  I am King Ruffles.  My subjects come to fawn over me, not hamsters!  Now I get a few scritches and a good boy Ruff, then on to the critters.  I REALLY don't get this one!

Things better get back to normal soon, or I am going to start a bark revolt.  Mom hates barking....hehehehehehe...now there's an idea.  Gotta go and start my bark revolution.

City Sister, Country Sister

While Dora the Explorer poses gracefully beside the blooming daffodils at the Georgetown Library...

Her country bumpkin sister, Rainbow,  is doing her best to look like she has been "rode hard and put away wet!"

Maybe it is because we haven't actually ever frozen this year, and the backyard is a complete mudhole.  Anyone have any ideas for seeding the dog yard?

Puppies!

I am a weeeeeeee bit busy with our first litter of puppies, so meet me over at our www.riverbendcardigans.com website for a puppy fix.  I suspect I'll have much caper news as soon as the little kids are mobile!  For now, see you at riverbend!

Dora Plays Magic Dog

Jill sent this adorable video of Dora the Explorer  playing with her Magic Dog game.  My favorite part of the video is how Dora waits to be invited to participate in her favorite game.  Good girl, Dora.

(Dora is out of the Music X Russ litter.  They are now 2.5 yrs old.  It hardly seems possible that all that time has come and gone.)

It's Me Again...

Hello folks it is me Shaker again.

Today I kept the world safe from lions, and tigers, and bears. 

Mom says, I am watching way too much TV but I did liberate two sticks, 3 leaves and a ton of mud from the back yard.  Not a bad days work, eh?

See ya.

Shaker Baby...Not

Greetings...It is I Shaker.

They call me Shaker Baby but do I look like a baby?  NO!  I am a watch dog.  I am very good at it.  Russ is not!  I have posted a couple of pictures of me on duty.  So you can see I am not a baby.  How am I going to get them to stop calling me Shaker Baby?

Musings of a Demented ...Corgi owner!

Yesterday, I picked up a Dremel and started the grueling exercise of nail trimming.  Rainbow simply groaned the entire time.  Shaker was a bear!  He tried to leap off the grooming table, shook his foot and generally created a wrestling match.  Which leads me to why I was so weakened when I picked up Ella's back foot.  She wiggled and giggled but I got the back foot done.  Feeling empowered I moved forward.  At which point she shook and flicked my hand off like I was a fly.  Unfortunately, I dropped the Dremel on the concrete floor where it was scittering around like a fish seeking water!  And Ella simply looked smug! 

I successfully finished up the Dremel experience this morning while I was fresh and STRONG!  So again feeling empowered, I decided that today was the day, Russ and I would get back to business on training for the performance ring. 

Yes, it has been a long time as I had to recover from the wildly humiliating ring experiences that occurred in 2009, when he peed twice in the ring! YESH!!!

So I filled my pockets with treats, nabbed a leash, Russ and headed outside.   Before we got to the end of the driveway, he decided that cars were far more interesting than me.  No worries, I was ready for that one.  I increased my fun quotient and he was back to me.  He remembered his heeling at different speeds!  Imagine my surprise!  But, of course, he wanted to watch my feet and not look at me.  He wasn't the least bit interested in any of the food I had in my pocket, so it was almost impossible to get him to raise his head.   (Who ever heard of a non food motivated corgi?)  Anyway, I upped my "fun" "good dogs" when he even so much as gave me a glance, but this is going to be a process!  Now you would think that I would have quit while I was marginally ahead, but NOOOO, we were half mile from the house.

So I decided to move to sit/stay while I walk around him.  He completely ignored sit!  He gave me his now legendary, "I don't get it" look.  When I finally got him to "sit", he was rock solid on stay and walk around.   But what was the deal with no "sit"?    I tried several more times on our walk and if he decided to pay attention he would "down".  Obviously this is going to take some more work. 

Earlier training picture.

Well tomorrow is another day.  Stay tuned for more training musings!

Reflections on Christmas' Past

I am slowly putting signs of Christmas 2011 away in boxes, and I am struck by how just about everything survived, well except one little fuzzy snowman.  But seriously, no one rampaged the village, stole the low hanging ornaments, knocked over the santa collection or bulldozed the nativity scene. 

As Christmas' go it was pretty boring!  It must be time for a puppy!

Christmas Toy Graveyard

This year the kids all got "road kill" toys, and still managed to fill my living room with stuffing!  I cleaned a pile of it up again this morning, along with various pieces of tennis balls, toy limbs,  assorted ears and wood chips.  Then I carefully collected all the toys and deposited them into their basket.  I came back about 10 mins later with the vacuum cleaner hose and found this...

 Well they certainly have had a good time! 

Why is it?

Why is it that my dishwasher is always filled with more dog bowls than human dishes?

Music says, "she doesn't care as long as it stays that way, and her bed is perpetually fluffed."

January Snow Play

I personally don't get it, but these clowns love the January cold and snow. 

Yep neither foot is on the ground.  How does he do that?

This is a particularly good example of what is really going on when I am yelling "Come, I am cold!"

Yep a whole lot of not coming!  And these are the ones that are all obedience trained!  Best selective hearing on the planet!

But gratefully they finally all listened.  And yes, that would be Shaker as always bringing up the rear detail!

Plans

As many of you know, we are planning our first litter of puppies, and to say the least we are quite excited. But one of the big hiccups for me and the puppy stuff is the whole issue of bringing more dogs into this world and what that means overall. So Kathy and I decided if we were going to occasionally have a litter of pups, that we had to figure out how to give back to the canine world.


The first thing we did was rescue, rehabilitate and rehome a black lab mix named Bailey. I am happy to report that I have had many conversations with Bailey's new forever mom and she is adjusted and happy in her new home. (Although Bailey wishes to report that she is not crazy about salt on sidewalks. I told her I was sorry I didn't find her a home in Arizona, but her new mom was going to get balloon boots.)  But that didn't seem like quite enough.

Now as much as I would like to keep every puppy I produce in our planned litter, some are already spoken for, so I had to figure something out that would allow me to go forward in good conscience. I am all to aware that a free puppy, way to often, equates to no long-term committment to the dog. (We only need to look to the aforementioned lab mix for proof in the pudding.) So we decided that we would have all of our puppy homes donate to a good canine charity rather than giving any money to Riverbend. This decision left me feeling clear-headed about our decision to bring more albeit beautiful puppies into the world! (It is perfectly acceptable to read and see bias in the last sentence.)
So then the decision was which one? I spent the last days trying to figure out if we had a local canine charity I could get behind, and unfortunately all I found were loosely run organizations without real organizational capacity, or ones that their administrative overhead far exceeds acceptable standards. (I could spend hours ranting about organizational capacity, but will spare you my tirade.) So I turned my sights to national canine charities. Well I won't spend too much time recounting the travails of that mess.

But the long and short of it is, we have chosen Corgi Aid as our charity. I spent several hours reviewing their IRS 990's this morning, and I see nothing but good! Further it appears from these public forms that their administrative overhead is nearly 0%. Which means just about every dollar donated is used for the health and well-being of a rescued corgi. How much better can it get than that?

I can follow my father's oft words of wisdom..."at the end of the day, you only sleep with yourself. Let's that guide every decision." I do, and will continue to!

Shaker vs. Horse Play Ball

We are continuing with our blue theme today!  Shaker loves these horse balls!  (Thanks to Missy and Chas for this one.)  When he isn't pushing it up hill, chasing it down, barrel chasing it, he is removing the handle.  Which is what he is up to in these blue pics!  I might add that it was 14F at the moment he was engaging in this behavior.

Fun Police

Jill T, human mom, of none other than Dora the Explorer, asked about Music yesterday, so I decided to show the world my little bundle of Fun Police (aka Music).

Music believes it is her role in life to let the world know how UNACCEPTABLE it is to horse around. 

Well let's let the pictures speak for themselves.

"Must always be alert to potential play!"

"Oh no I see play!"

"You aren't playing, are you?"

"Ha, I found the ball players, and must stop them now!"

"I could have sworn I said, 'STOP'!"

First snow 2012

It is January 12, 2012, and we are having our first snow!   The whole thing is quite surreal.  Yesterday it was 54 in January!  Anyway the cardis are crazy happy that finally winter has sprung.  Here are a few snaps from their morning romp!

Russ unburied his favorite ball!

Ella contemplates her options.

Shaker stole the aforementioned ball.

Rainbow says, "Game on!"

Riverbend Cardigans New Adventure

Well things have sure been busy around here so posting has been sparse!  We rescued, trained and found a forever home for a lab mix named Bailey, rescued and found a forever home for a Doodle.  I must say if I weren't so committed to my cardigans, I would have kept that Bailey girl!  She stole my heart, hook, line and sinker!  But I know that she is much better off in her new home where she is the one and only!

The kids and I have been busy getting ready for the winter that has yet to materialize, but when the time comes...we are ready!  Ella and Russ were particularly helpful in filling the wood racks.  They only stole and relocated a few dozen pieces.  I guess they thought we should expand the number of places we burn!

Shaker continues to make me laugh every day.  I swear it is impossible for him to complete a day without  cracking me up!  Last night he was so determined to spread himself across my lap that even with much wiggling on my part he just rode out the earthquakes!

Rainbow continues to be our little Rambo, but the little turd is certainly an endearing little critter.  I hope to start agility with her in late spring.  Stay tuned for many embarrassing adventures with that endeavor!

Music, well as long as she has a couch and a pillow she is a happy girl.  But she has put in a special request for dog doors when we build the new house.  We will take her memo under consideration.

But I digress from the intent of this post.  I am starting an adjacent website that will be dedicated to our conformation and performance events, as well as an occassional litter of puppies.  I have deliberatly tried to stay away from mixing our at home adventures and our ring adventures, so this new site affords me the best of both worlds.  It is without a doubt a work in progress.  For example, I do not have Russ' page up as I have tons of pictures to load before doing him justice.  But be that as it may, have a look and tell me what you think.  It can be found at http://www.riverbendcardigans.com/

They call me...Mellow Yellow

I ordered a mess of thundershirts between the doodle with separation anxiety and Ruffles thinking he should have complete access to Ella, I thought I was going to loose my mind! 

Well the thundershirt turned Ruff Ruff into Mr. Mellow.  We actually started calling it is his sleepy shirt.  Shaker wanted to know if it make him look slimmer?  And as far as the doodle...well today is better than yesterday!

So for good measure I ordered another one for Rambo...hopefully it will work on her the way it did on her father!

Spa Day

Spa day, sma day!  Hey dudes, it's me Shaker Baby again.  Mom calls it  spa day...bath, blow out and nail trim, but we here at Riverbend call it "torture chamber day".  I mean seriously, what makes her think it is great to be stuffed in a tub, soaked down, lathered up, soaked again and then have that darn noisey blower turned on?  And then she grinds our toes off!  Yesh!

But hey one good thing happened, a little "Wookie" (aka 5lb Yorkie) got revenge for all of us.  Mom came up sputtering about that darn Yorkie being harder to trim than all the Corgis.  Then we saw the evidence!   The Wookie had exacted great revenge by scratching the begisis out of Mom's arms while she was holding him during his nail trim.  Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa....say we the corgis!!!!!

Holy Rabbits!

We have a little ritual here at Riverbend...the humans eat dinner, clean up, feed the dogs, turn on the yard lights, make some noise to scare off coyotes and bobcats, then head out to the dog yard for romp and business session.  Works well, runs smoothly...that is until tonight!

I opened the door to the yard, and immediately saw what was going to make my life difficult...a rabbit inside the fence and loose cardigans!  Russ spots it first and takes off after the little bugger.  The rabbit runs and smokes itself on the fence.  Russ is close but the bunny regroups and heads across the yard.  (Meanwhile to know avail I am bellowing..."RUSS LEAVE IT!")  Once again the cotton tail smokes itself on the fence.  Apparently the green wire is invisible to rabbits too.  Ruffles and Music are now teaming to bring the game home.  CRAP!  All I can envision is blood, fur and wrangling the carcass out of someones mouth...probably Ruff Ruff.

Mr. Rabbie makes one more run at the fence and gets to his shoulders and is STUCK!  I elevated my crap comment to #$%^!  I made a run for the fence in an attempt to beat the dogs and protect...well let's face it, me from having to clean up a huge mess.  Of course, Ruff made it first but just then Rabbie made it through the fence link!

Stupid Rabbit...I bet he won't be visiting Riverbend again any time soon.  I guess it turns out we aren't that hospitable to rabbits!

Flashback

I have been a very bad blogger, but I am going to make an effort to do a much better job!

Any who, the first snow of the year visited Le Claire last night and the cardis were nuts for it this morning.  Unfortunately, none of the morning pictures turned out.  Quite possibly that was a blessing, as most of them involved me pleading with them to come in and they respectfully declined my pleas!

So as I was reviewing the series of bad snow pictures, I found these spring ones of Ruffles and his beloved but deflated soccer ball.  Cheers!