Leslie and Halas's Blog (26)

I've decided that if I ever rescue a female doodle, or have an opportunity to name one, I'm going to name her Fontella, after Fontella Bass. She sang that song, Rescue Me, in the '60s. Get it? I'll call her Telly for short. I think it's terribly clever. These are the things I think about as I'm driving and changing radio stations.

There's a small, local store here with a sign out front that currently reads:



Strawberries

Asparagus

Poodle and Schnauzer Puppies



It's almost always something similar to that, too. I think one time it said "Fertilizer, Birdseed, Ferrets." It's basically a landscaping and feed store, but they obviously have some animals for sale periodically. Years and years ago, before I knew much about puppy mills, and I assumed that only large corporations purchased dogs from puppy… Continue

Halas and I did our first Rally Obedience trial this weekend. We got a 94 on Saturday, and a 93 on Sunday. So that's 2 qualifying scores. One more and we get a title! It was pretty fun. The people in our obedience club are really supportive, so that just makes it more fun, with most of the people from our rally class participating in the trial. We redid one exercise in each trial, so that cost us 3 points each time. And then we just had a couple of minor errors that knocked off a few more… Continue

OK, fine. It's not bionic, but it will be much improved. On Friday, I had surgery on my right wrist to fix a tendon problem that I've been having for a couple of years. I have to wear a cast for 2 weeks, but it's not as cumbersome as I expected it to be. It's tough to do things left-handed, but I'm able to use my right hand a little more than I thought I'd be able to. Typing takes a lot longer, so that will probably limit my DK postings for the next couple of weeks. It is taking me forever just… Continue

We passed! The first time through, he did great at everything except sitting politely to be petted. He kept trying to jump, so the evaluator couldn't pass him on that, which means we failed. But we went through the rest of the test anyway, and did fine with the other tasks. They said we could just wait a little while and try again after the other dogs had their turns, so that's what we did. And the 2nd time, he sat very calmly and let the evaluator pet him. He gets very excited when people pay… Continue

Friday started out great with the notice that Halas is the cover boy and Mr. January in one of the DoodleKisses 2009 calendars! We soaked in all of the congratulatory feelings sent our way by all of our DK friends. We also told all of our non-DK friends and relatives about it. Everyone is very excited. It's Halas' 2nd calendar, as he won a contest earlier in the year and had his photo professionally taken to appear in another 2009 calendar, sold here in our area. Incidentally, the photo that… Continue