Pixie has arrived and all I can say is quite the love bug. She had a stint in a shelter where she was on death row, temp foster home in CA, a long ground transport from central CA to WA state, a night with my team-mate another foster parent, then a trip to meet my husband and me at a small off leash dog park first thing in the morning. In spite of all this she is friendly and loving with people men and women alike and with the other dogs at the dog park! She does pancake a little when new people bend over her, which is completely understandable, but she is soon rolling over for belly rubs or giving kisses. And she doesn't seem to mind the camera so I was able to get some good pictures of this beautiful girl. I will just post a few now so you can get a feel for Pixie's gorgeous self.
What a face!
Pixie greeting a stranger at the park.
Happy girl...
shhhhhh don't tell Pixie I posted this silly picture of her
Pixie and foster dog Syncline getting more pets. Love those tummy spots.
Pixie (on her back) and Syncline play. You can see more Syncline in her foster home at her foster mom's blog
It was an unseasonably warm spring day today and we decided to take the dogs to the little pond just off the trail where we walk all the time. With Sierra doing swim therapy she has gotten quite adept at swimming. We are never really sure if she really likes swimming so today when we let her have a little freedom in an area where she was safe near the pond we were surprised that she went swimming all on her own! I didn't have my camera but I did decide to try taking a couple of shots with my phone of her standing on a rock near the pond. She was actually standing on both rear legs but it is hard to tell from the pictures.
With Sierra all settled in and just awaiting her forever home to come along, we felt ready to take on a second foster doggie. Her name is Pixie. This is actually her shelter name but we really like the name Pixie and there happens to be an Ariel Pixie Scooter so in keeping with our naming theme it worked out! We hear Pixie is a 17 lb girl so a bit bigger than the dogs we have at home. We are looking forward to meeting her in a few days as she will be making her way up to WA from CA on a ground transport.
Awwww sweet girl, so glad she is out of here and waiting in temp foster care to come live with us for a while...
Looks like a tail wag and a little smile.....we are ready for you Pixie, waiting with open hearts and arms.
Our new foster doggie, Pixie, will be zooming around here soon without a care in the world.
I figured out how to get still shots from video using the snipping tool with Windows. As I have mentioned Sierra is camera shy. She isn't a fan of the video camera or my cell phone either. But that is ok she has a right to not like foreign objects and weird looking "eyes" staring at her from near or far. So because of this the last thing I want to do is to stress her out so I am getting tricky with my gathering of photos of her. After all having her picture taken and feeling comfortable with that is not a prerequisite for being one of my foster dogs :)
When she is at swim therapy we always comment on how she looks like a little river otter when she is swimming and her fur is wet, so I went through and captured pictures from the video I took of her at her first swim session. We don't take the camera or video recorder anymore because the most important thing is for her to feel good about her swim sessions where she really has to work her muscles and try new things.
Sierra has done 4 session as of this blog post and she is making small steps in her ability to walk on her post surgical leg. We noticed yesterdy when we were on our walk that every once in a while she would tap her foot down on the ground. She is still air walking and her foot just hovers above the ground, so with the newly every now and then tap on the ground this is big progress for her! She also was using all four legs this morning to try and get a toy out of the toy box and she also did a rattie run this morning and used all her legs for that. So she is steadily making progress and this is wonderful!
Here are a few pics of the little otter girl. Sorry the picture quality is poor, but at least you get to see her sweet self.
Big stretch after her swim session
It's hard to tell but when she gets wet all her spots really show and she has them all over.
Little otter face....
Slurp...
Sierra working. She can swim really fast and when she does she doesn't use her bad leg so much, so J Linn gently holds her back so she has to engage the leg that needs to build strength. Once Sierra has done a lap, then J Linn massages and extends her leg while Dave strokes her face. She tolerates this routine and so she is getting lots of therapy in just a 1/2 an hour.
It is always so nice to get little unexpected email updates about my past foster dogs. I was so excited to get a surprise update on Vespa Louise. To see more about Vespa when she was in foster care you can click here.
Her mom writes:
Just wanted to send you a photo we snapped of Vespa this weekend.
She is officially ten pounds (she started at 6!), and about two inches taller!
She also has developed about a million more polka dots, so we feel strongly
that she is part Dalmatian. :)
The picture was taken after she had swum around Lake Washington a bit
and wanted to take off her snazzy new life vest.
We're taking the girls camping this coming weekend,
so we'll see how she'll like tent camping and campfires!
Vespa has really growed up! But I love that she still has those spots and that cute little turned up nose.
Saturday was one of those perfect days in the PNW. Sierra had another swim therapy session so we decided to go a bit early and take her for a stroll in downtown Edmonds, WA before class just 10 minutes away. We parked in the residential area and walked up and down the sidewalks spying beautiful yards. The sun was out, there was a cool breeze, but not too cool, everything was in bloom and all felt right with the world. That is what "An Edmonds kind of day" is all about. We had left the rest of the dogs at home and just spent some one on one time with Sierra and it was great. I even managed to snap a few pictures of her that I am happy to share. (Note: Sierra is not wearing a harness in these pictures, Dave and I each thought the other had the harness and it got left behind, but she is not a puller so her neck was not harmed)
We didn't know why she was so interested in this yard through the fence, but when a large dog came lumping out to check us out we realized Sierra knew he was there all along.
A gorgeous lilac in full bloom!
Here I managed to catch her toofie grin...
I love this picture of her. I see you Sierra...
Beautiful Olympic Mountains across the Puget Sound as seen from the town of Edmonds
This was a really cool divider with glass insets...I love metal and glass. Sierra is checking to see who had been at this corner before her.
I loved this fountain it is about 5 ft tall
Sierra meeting a dog and his person visiting from Canada. We were able to talk to him about grain free food as his dog was a rescue and having some itching issues.....luckily Canada has such great products to choose from!
Sierra was cautious in the busy town but she got her bearings and was really relaxing toward the end of our visit.
Many of you are already Tripp fans and let me tell you his fan base is always growing. Tripp was actually a temp foster dog that we had at our home about a year and half ago and who was adopted very quickly by his moms so he never went to his permanent foster home. We are blessed to get Tripp updates to this day and also that we have been able to keep in touch with his family and have become dear friends. He is a flyball super star and I remember back when I first saw him run across my yard that I called Dave from his shop to "come and see how fast this little guy moves out!" When we were asked to take him for a few days while his moms went out of town we were thrilled!
The thing about Tripp is that he is always ready for challenges and to try new things, he is super duper smart and also very athletic. He is also a very sensitive boy and has the most darling under-bite that is to die for.
There are so many funny stories about him that an entire book could be written, possibly a trilogy. Well I thought I would post about a cute and funny thing he did today when he was in the yard exploring. He came across this little statue in the garden that is of a small boy holding a little bird. Tripp was really thrown off by this statue and luckily I was able to get in and grab the recorder to get some video of him trying to get the courage to touch/sniff the statue with his tip of his nose :)
First of all I just wanted to post a few pictures of him. He is such a love and joy forever.
Tripp is so smart, he knows his mom's truck drove out that way he is looking and he has been watching for her to come back and get him. This was this morning he was sitting in my lap. She won't be long sweet boy...
Skip and Birdie provide some distraction for him by putting on a show of play.
It is exhausting waiting for my moms....
The Tripp under bite we all know and love......and adore!
It is tiring keeping Dave's chair warm for him.
Heeelpppp, I'm falling oooovvveeerrrrr...
ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
So here is Tripp after his nap enjoying some exploring time in the yard and finding the vewy scawy statue..Sierra was helping to give him some courage until she noticed that I was recording so she scurried off.
And Tripp gets another dose of courage but can't quite make friends with the statue.
I think he found the trick! Peeing a little really helped! And why wouldn't it????
