Pictures, I hope!

As usual, the computer wins!!!

Kathleen will be home in the next few hours. I'm hoping she can fix my inability to find the pictures. Boo hoo!!!

Finally--- AGAIN!!!!

So, back in August when I finally got my work computer fixed up by the guy downtown who works on computers, I posted a few blogs.  I also charged up the old MacBook and thought that I was in computer land again.  WRONG!!!!!!  Computers know that I don't like them because they always act up and so they did.  Both of them.  Even Kathleen couldn't fix them.  I finally got so fed up that I ordered a new computer.  A MacBook Pro.  It came yesterday.  Let's see if it can resist driving me crazy.

My new task at the moment is to see if I can put pictures I take on my iPhone onto the computer to put into the blog.  Why would I want to do that?  Because we had a litter of puppies born on September 11, 2017, three boys and two girls, one of each sex is a blue.  They are very cute and sweet.

Ms. Brigh is going to go live with Bryce in Montana.  Her parents have named her Brigh, pronounced Bree.  Grandma Donna and Rick are looking forward to meeting her on Dec. 12th in Seattle before they make the trek back to Montana with their new treasure.

Ms. ???D is going to live in Spokane, WA with her mom, Mary, who is a friend of Terrie and Rich Richey.  Mary and a friend are coming here to get D and will leave on Dec. 16,  Mary fell in love with D's mom, Myshka when Myshka was in Spokane and Coeur dAlene at  dog shows.  She had been wanting a little blue girl of Myshka's and she gets one!!!  She will do obedience, earth dog, barn hunt, etc. with her and may even show her.  It also should be a match made in heaven. (Did I mention that Brigh's daddy is the pastor of a church?)

Trek already went to his new home last Sunday. His dad and mom fell in love with him from the first second they came into the yard.  They have promised me that they will periodically come to the Big Island to visit.  That very much pleases me.  Nice people.

Rocky will fly to Bellingham when Kathleen's best bud goes back home from a week long visit.  Charlotte and Gordon will pick up Rocky, the blue boy, in Bellingham when the Ryans land.  Nobody has to fly in cargo.  Kathleen's daughter and her boyfriend are coming for a quick visit and will take Brigh to the Lewises.

Chip is staying here for awhile after which he will go to Northumberland and live with his daddy, Henry, and the Akenside gang at Lesley Gosling's.  What a sweetie he is!!!  Kathleen has fallen head over heels for him.  He pulls at my heard strings too.

So there.  That is the puppy report.  Reese, Kathleen's girl, is now pregnant by Henry also. Those puppies are due anytime after December 16.  Doesn't look like there are many in there, but if it fulfills the puppy list, that would be good.

OK.  Now to try to figure out how to get my pictures onto this computer so that I can put them on the blog.  That is my goal for the day.  Let's see if this works in getting a blog post out there!

Curmudgeonly,
c

Yippee!!!!

We went to the dog shows on Oahu in Aiea last weekend.  Myshka started showing her pregnancy on Friday as we flew over from Kona.  Even though she was starting to show her pregnancy, she still did well at the show taking Best of Winners and Best of Opposite Sex under a very nice boy that Pam Mizuno shows for Otley. 

Anyway, I am about as excited as can be that we will have puppies in about three to four weeks.

Kathleen arrives in eight days, so it will be FUN, FUN, FUN.  Bryce, my grandson, arrives on the 5th and then leaves the 15th.  Charlotte Ware comes when Kathleen comes, but only stays until the 7th.  Kathleen leaves the 18th, but comes back for good on the 25th.  She will bring back Reese with her on the 18th.  Yippee!!!!

So, that is it for the moment.

Later,
The Curmudgeon

Finally!!!!!

I now have my computer back up.  How long has it been?  A long time....

Elwha Border Terriers now live in Hawaii, on the Big Island, in a place called North Kohala.  Nice, rural, warm year round.  What more could a person want? 

The dogs love chasing after the many and various rats, mongoose, egrets, avocados falling from trees, etc.  The curmudgeon loves eating the avocados, even though there are too many when they are ripe and freezing them does not enhance anything.  My tomato garden has been a blessing, and Costco another blessing to have lettuce.  Lettuce does not grow well in the heat in which we now live, but the lemons, limes, lychee, bananas, guavas, lilikoi or passion fruit, breadfruit, etc. grow and produce beautifully.  So much fun to plant, tend and enjoy the amazingly exotic flowers and plants it is hard to describe.  The dogs seem to love working out in the yard with me and I with them. 

I will have to walk around the yard taking pictures to put on the blog.  I can hear the clamber now!

What dogs are here with me?  Pip, my girl.  Loyal to the core.  So far.  Looking good, groomed well and in beautiful form.  Myshka, from Russia, from a REAL Russian, sweet and a ball nut just like Pip is.  No throwing the ball when both are present in the same yard!  Myshka has recently been bred to Henry who arrived from Akenside and Lesley Gosling on May 3, 2017.  Believe it or not, Henry and Myshka are slightly related!  Both are as sweet as they come and I am very eager to see what they can produce.  On September 25, 2017, Reese and Kathleen will move here also and we shall see what Reese and Henry can produce.  They are not related, besides both being Border Terriers!  Reese is yet another ball crazed BT.  Sigh.  Myshka and Henry and I will fly to Oahu Aug. 18 for dog shows in Aiea.  Wish us luck.  Myshka has her majors so only needs points to become a champion.  Henry needs them all.  It will be hard to get championships here as there are very few BTs to build up points.  I am very much hoping that Myshka is pregnant, but also hoping that she will not be showing her pregnancy by the time of the dog shows.  It will be a close call!!!  If she is, I'll just take Henry.  Maybe.

I guess I'd better try to figure out how to get pictures of the dogs and the yard on here so that I am not bombarded with vitriol.  Ha!

Yes, the white pineapples are ripe now.  No, you can't even imagine how good they are!  Yes, I am growing those too.  I forget all the things I am growing. 

So much for today and I am thankful for the computer being back in gear so that I can now bore you with my silliness and pictures, when I can figure it all out.  Finally now know how to get the vacuum to take the dirt off the walls!  How can a vacuum be complex??!!!  I guess that just shows how old and senile I'm becoming....

Curmudgeon time....

Summertime

What a nice day it is!  The three girls are out in the front yard chasing each other and eating the plums that fall on the ground. Kat used to fish them off the tree herself, but these three wait for them to fall.  I take the puppy out sometimes and put him down when Myshka is not right there.  She is so exuberant that I'm afraid that she will harm him.  I usually throw a ball and she goes off to chase it and I can let the puppy explore or snuggle up to Coug who likes to use him as a cuddle toy.  She is a very sweet dog.

We did not go to the dog shows this weekend. I would have liked to do that, but Myshka now has kennel cough and the puppy has a goopy nose discharge.  Yuck!  Poor boy.  He seems to be doing quite well in spite of the nose discharge. While Kathleen and I were in California, Woody sprouted teeth.  He likes to chew on my toes, as all puppies seem to.  I am playing with him with a tug toy and he is learning.  Four weeks and two days old. Anne may have to decide to do Agility with him if she is the prize winner!!! He started eating "real" food on Thursday when I arrived home also.  He is growing up! Doesn't take them long.

So, where did Kathleen and I go, you might ask.  We flew to San Jose and attended a Teah Anders seminar she taught with her husband, Chuck.  Mental Management a la Lanny Bassham. It was fantastic.  It will change our lives.  After that, we drove down to Santa Barbara to visit with Kathleen's boy and my grandson, Bryce, and his partner, Jack.  We had lots of fun with the boys and got lots of hugs and love.  We may even do it again someday!  Crazy thing was, we had to drive back to San Jose to drop off the car.  If we had turned it in down south, it would have cost over $800 instead of $300. We actually enjoyed our ride.  We both came home with no suntan. We spent one day at the Santa Barbara Zoo and enjoyed it immensely.  We had great tour guides!

Bryce and Jack are coming up to Bellingham tomorrow to celebrate Bryce's birthday with his family. The dogs and I will go to Bellingham tomorrow and show off the puppy to the boys. Bryce took me to the Aeroflot cargo to pick up Myshka when I flew to LAX to pick her up, so he gets to see her again.  She will like that.  I think that the boys want to come out to the farm to visit while they are in Washington, but theirs is kind of a quick trip and they may not get the chance.

We cannot go to NoseWork classes for a few more weeks since the dogs have kennel cough, so we are practicing daily.  Poor kids.  That is the highlight of their week.  They are a happy crew.

Remember to wear your hats on these beautiful, summer days.  Sunscreen also!

The Curmudgeon has struck again!

Changes and more changes

OK.  Where to start?

Muppy went to her new home two days ago. She is a character and they will have their hands full down there in Vancouver, WA.  Some of you may someday see her in a conformation ring with her new mom or her very sweet and cute son.  I don't think that dad is interested in showing the dog.  Sounds as if she may go to the 2018 National Specialty.  Mom is a vet and gives talks on genetic diversity.  I'm hoping that she will send me some of the literature she reads so that I can better understand what she is doing.  She said that she would test Muppy, whose name is now Nibs.  (They play cribbage.  Can you tell?!!!)

Kathleen and I traveled to Ohio for the 2016 National Specialty July 14th in the middle of the night.  We spent the first day finding Wilmington, Ohio and getting health tests on Coug and Myshka, including Doppler ultrasounds.  They passed with flying colors.  The second day we were there we walked around the ring for Sweepstakes.  Coug's brother, Rugby, who lives on Long Island, NY, won first in his 9-12 month old puppy class and then went on to be named BOS to Best Junior puppy in Sweeps.  Phil Klosinski had fun showing him.  I showed Coug and Myshka.  Coug came in second in her 9-12 month bitch puppy class.  We were happy as ANYtime one takes a ribbon home from the National Specialty it is something very special.  I have been told that since I attended my very first National Specialty.  So, we were very happy our second day there.  (It is 60 degrees and drizzling here today, as an aside.)

Now, to go back just a little.  I almost didn't go to the Specialty.  Timing is always essential and I had bred Pip to Rennick two months before the Specialty.  I thought that she was going to have the puppy before we left.  (That's another story.)  For a long time, I thought that the breeding just hadn't taken because she showed no signs of being pregnant.  Then, about a week before we left, I started to see nipples enlarging and milk if I squeezed one.  OK, maybe she has a puppy in there.  X-Ray.  Yep, one puppy.  Surely it will come any day now.  To the vet in Poulsbo.  She is fine, no need for a c-section.  Just wait.  Shoulders in knots.  Should I stay home??????  Shoulders in worse knots.  Chris Harrington said she'd whelp the litter.  I go, but the shoulders were in worse knots.  Left poor Chris with all kinds of instructions, books, paraphernalia, etc.  She read everything.  Had numbers for vets, found friends who would help, etc.  So, on the 16th, during the first day of the regular classes, in spite of tight, knotted shoulders, I watched the boys show.  Rugby only came in second that day in his 9-12 month class.  He was giving Phil K a pretty hard time in the ring.  I guess that we should be happy that he even came in second!!!!  Then the phone rang.  Pip had had her one puppy, no problem, all by herself, and it was a BOY.  Eight ounces of boy.  Thank goodness Chris didn't have to worry about a 2 ounce baby!!!!  Whew!!!!  So, seeing that the white spot on his chest looks like a woodpecker, we seem to be calling him "Woody" fairly often.  I call him "Fats" a lot too.  He is three weeks old today and is growling like a real terrier, is cutting teeth right on time, is getting up on all fours and starting to walk and is producing that famous puppy breath that I love.  He is about as fat as any baby BT you'd like to see without being a swimmer.  He can and does stand on his four legs!  So, yippee, we have a boy.  I'm hoping that he is good enough for me to keep, but Anne is hoping against me, that she gets him.  He will be perfect in her eyes even if he isn't in mine, she says.  I'm rooting for both of us, because I know how much she wants her first dog ever.  These singleton litters are for the birds!!! Too many people are disappionted!

So, back to the Specialty.  My shoulders relaxed and Coug went in the ring and came out with second place in the Bitch Bred By Class.  Seeing that there were 19 or 20 girls in the class, I cannot be at all disappointed.  In fact, I'm elated.  Star Ott, that wonderful person, took Myshka into the Open Class ring and came out with a 4th place ribbon which, when you see Myshka in any Conformation ring, you will wonder how she gets any placements because you might wonder how the judge even could see her!!!  She is wild and I think that Star took pity on me knowing that she could show her to much better end than I could.  Whew!!!  People love Myshka.  She is a SWEET, crazy girl, very animated.  Bard, now called Bud, took 4th in the Working dog class, from which BOB dog came.  Another ribbon.  Dusty and Karla Quinn finished Dusty's SE title one of the first days.  Coug's half sister was Winners Bitch.  Pretty nice.  Marg Pough bred her and she lives with Phil Klosinski.

The next day, after BOB, on the 17th, Elwha took 1st in the Breeders Class.  Again I was elated.  Myshka made a few cuts, down to the end, in Best Otter Head.  I think that there were only seven dogs left in the ring when he chose BOH and she was one of them.  Elwha did respectfully at the Nationals!!!!

When we got home, the following weekend, we went to Kent for helping get the tunnels ready for Earthdog and Earthdog practice.  That was fun.  Doris brought Bryce to me and I put Bryce on a plane to Montana on my way home.  He now lives with Rick and Donna Lewis in Superior and may be the luckiest boy in the world.  They love him and are trying their darnedest to spoil him!  It was love at first sight.

Zinger went to Vancouver, BC to her forever home yesterday.  She, Reese, Coug, Pip, and Ellie all have kennel cough.  That means we are all quaranteened for two weeks from when the last one clears.  Must have picked it up at Earthdog.  Can't figure out where else it could have been.  I'm hoping that Muppy/Nibs and Woody don't come down with it.  Myshka, so far, hasn't shown any signs of getting it.  She maybe didn't hold still long enough to let it catch her!  The dogs sound awful, but are playing ball as if nothing were happening out of the ordinary, thank goodness.

Tired of this yet?  I'll put some pictures of Woody on here if I can get that to work.  Couldn't get any to show up.  I will be happy when I have my computer back when we get to Hawaii.  I can't even back this up to fix some of the typos I see on reviewing this.  Rats!!!

The Tired, Old Curmudgeon will sign off....

Myshka

I imported a girl from Russia in November. She is a blue and a very wild, funny girl. I took her and Coug to four days of shows in Spokane and Couer d'Alene.  We arrived home last night. My intent was to get the girls ready to go into the show ring for the National Specialty coming up in a few days, June 12-17. My plans were perfect for Coug. She became more and more sure of herself daily. Myshka on the other hand never calmed down. BUT, she earned a point her first day, her first dog show. She went on to take Reserve the next day and the last day, but also earned her first major on Sarurday!!!!  I think it was a 5 point major too!  Wow!  I surely hope that she can calm down for the Specialty though. The judge may not be as forgiving!

Can't seem to get the iPad to work getting pictures. Sorry.

Muppy weighs almost two pounds, is trucking around on the slippery floor, bringing me toys for playing tug, and growling plenty when I pick her up.  She does fall asleep in my lap after crawling up my legs. She eats some slurry and seems to like that and her teeth are coming in!  Hard to get anything else done for watching her!

Later,

The Char Curmudgen