:Saturday, Nickelday, NickeldayNot.
Posted: August 4, 2008 Filed under: DRambles on Black Mountain, FFT Lhasa Apsos 1 CommentTouring wine country several years, we stopped at Kunde Winery. Sunday, Monday, Kunde.
That’s the word game our guide shared to help us remember the pronunciation of Kunde.
I tried to come up with a catchy lead-in for this blog entry. When I was kid, every Saturday was Nickelday. Mom would give my sisters and I a nickel and off we’d trot to Clanton’s Grocery. It was small neighborhood store, a block and a half away from home. Behind the wooden counter was the candy. Candy bars – way bigger than today’s candy bars! – cost a nickel. Once in a while I’d chose a candy bar, but most of the time I chose penny candy. It felt like more for your money…all that candy in a paper bag.
Saturday. NickeldayNot. Julie drove four hours to help. The dogs needed grooming….shall we say. I was going to put a spin on the following story… Julie suggested “realizing life is telling you its TIME to stop doing something that has been a huge part of your life”. Or “just because you Love your animals doesn’t mean you can give them the home they need.” Julie took two dogs out of the situation; she wanted to take all five.
It’s now Monday morning. Rick and I have basically been without water since Thursday. It’s been a little crazy and, once again, TIME has passed. The well man is coming this morning. This blog entry could sit, waiting for me to spin a story, but enough waiting. I’ll get down to the bare bones facts. The story can unfold later, as needed.
These dogs need homes!! They are female littermates. Julie brought one of them back with her. She also brought back their grandmother, who will live out her last years with Val and Marlena. I will be taking in a male from this situation, placing him when the right home comes along. It isn’t like Julie and I needed more dogs. We are both in the process of placing a young adult or two of our own. As we’ve written about in the past, once a dog fulfills its role in our breeding program, that dog Gets Lucky. As responsible breeders, we can’t turn our back on these dogs, any of these dogs.
I will get the Center Stage page updated, share more photos and information about each dog, spotlighting one each morning on the blog, but in the meantime here are the two littermates.
Megan…
Mariah
And thrown in for good measure here are the dogs Julie and I are currently wanting to place in forever homes of their own…
Wyatt…
And Rosey…
Please keep these dogs in mind. Do you know someone that’s been thinking about getting an Apso? Please let them know we have dogs in need of Forever Homes. The right Forever Home, of course! Help!
:Tammy and Jill
Posted: August 2, 2008 Filed under: Apso Aficionados, FFT Lhasa Apsos 2 CommentsThe colors in this photo are great. Love the color on you Tammy!
:Happy 8th Birthday
Posted: August 2, 2008 Filed under: FFT Lhasa Apsos 1 CommentToday is Vickie’s Frankie’s 8th Birthday, along with his siblings Rose, Tony, Eve and Birdie. These puppies were born at my friend Steve’s house. I was somewhere, in some other state, at some swimming pooling. Their dam, Danielle, delivered them within an hour and a half, early in the evening. Talk about an easy whelper!
Nine weeks earlier Julie left a message for me…after several hours of partying with Lhasa Apso people during the Fargo dog shows. “I don’t want to show other peoples’ dogs. I want to kick butt with our dogs. When you breed Danielle to Aaron I’d like a male. His name will be either It Had To Be U, call name Tony, or Gotta Be Me, call name Frankie.”
We were still in the recovery phase from RD. It seems like a long time ago. Since 1996, the year RD was confirmed in our breeding program, so much water has passed under the bridge. This particular litter represented the first second-generation litter of the New Plan; biopsy status known on both parents and all grandparents. I had already decided to go forward as a breeder. Julie still wasn’t sure. She was showing dogs for other people, seriously thought she’d never breed Lhasa Apsos again.
Look what drinking wine with other Lhasa Apso breeders can do! She even had call names chosen!
I’ve long since lost contact with Birdie’s owner. Eve is with Steve, as she has been for all but 2 1/2 months of her life. Julie selected Tony. He quickly finished his Championship, winning most…maybe all…his points as a puppy. Initially I kept Frankie and Rose. Frankie went to Vickie when he was ??? six months old. Vickie suggested he go to kindergarten at her house. Ha! He must have been a slow learner. He’s still there.
Here’s what Vickie wrote this week… “And speaking of TaterMaterMan, he has a birthday on Saturday!! Can’t believe he’s turning eight. It was just yesterday he was my tousle-headed puppy. He’s taken on a new job lately … squirrel hunter extraordinaire! Quite serious about it, too. If that bushy-tailed bugger ever falls off the fence, he’s a goner.”
From left to right, Rose, Tony and Frankie..
When Rose was a little puppy, 4 or 5 weeks old, she told me her name was Rose. I know that sounds strange, but that’s how it seemed. I was in the puppy room and this clear message came to me. “My name is Rose.” I took that, combined my hope for a great renewal with our breeding program and came up with FFT U Just Remember as her registered name. It’s from The Rose sung by Bette Midler.
just remember in the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed that with the sun’s love
in the spring becomes the rose
:Kathy wonders…
Posted: August 1, 2008 Filed under: Lotsa Lhasa Info 6 CommentsI have always heard that a dog’s strongest sense is their sense of
smell–they discern through their nose. But Tess, our bugling guard
dog, set up a racket in the kitchen when she saw a huge paper monster
(a shopping bag) quietly sitting in the hallway. She was in a frenzy
barking to let us know we were under attack by a strange object. Our
other 2 dogs wandered over to sit by her, more interested in her
behavior than concerned about the shopping bag. Pete and Sophie lead
with their sense of smell always. Pete is the most curious of the pack
and will patiently watch and study something before sounding the bark
alarm. You can actually watch him lift his muzzle high into the air,
catching scent…almost working his mouth as if to taste the new odor.
Tess appears to be much more sight oriented–barking at her own
reflection in our sliding glass door or woofing at a shovel left on the
porch, out of it’s usual place.
Has anyone else observed these behaviors in their own dogs? If Only
You Knew How Much I Smell You is an entertaining little book by Roy
Blount of dog stories.
Kathy
Kunza at FleetFire Timbers 