Happy Birthday

Today is Runza's 4th Birthday. Hard to believe. He's certainly aged quite a bit in those four years - but I still love him and so does his new family. I think they were going to have a little celebration in his honor which makes me happy.

Happy Birthday Runman!

Fun with a dab of work

Some of Ellie's issues include large statues, dogs, and stairs. When J and Mosier were here, she helped us with all of those. There is a park in the area where we could meet intimidating statues, lots of stairs and Mosier was the dog distraction! 

She started off udderly (pun intended) afraid these beasts of burden. But, with Mosier's help and some funny dancing and hugging of the cattle, she realized there was nothing she needed to be afraid of. And, I'm glad to say, she settled down into a calm, relaxed little girl.

The dogs match the limestone mural.

Another thing Ellie and I have been working on is stairs. She does great going up them, but likes to rush down them. She does a good sit at the elevation change! She's great at that!

See - no problems there.

And, she's actually doing good in this photo. I think this was like the 3rd time we had been up and down all those stairs - so she was getting about as tired as I was by that time! HA HA.

Then on to doggy distractions. Ellie usually keeps a semi-loose lead, not where I'd like it, but she's not pulling towards them. So, we walked and walked and walked the two dogs past each other. Ellie usually reaches out to sniff (like in the photo below). Mosier is so good, he doesn't even look at Ellie when we passed. Maybe Ellie will get that good eventually.

Still have a lot of work to do with the doggie distraction, but, we're getting there. We used to be clawing the air and practically dragging me to meet the dog. So, just a bit of fine tuning and Ellie will be doing well in this department.

Celebrating the Fourth at a Theme Park

Early on the Fourth, we headed out to Worlds of Fun. KSDS is having an informational booth at the theme park every weekend in July. We got there a bit early, so had time to walk the pups around and get them acclimated to the sights and sounds of the park before it opened to the people.

When I was a little girl, I loved riding this ride with my father. It's a car they let you "drive". It was fun to take my little girl for a ride, although I'm a lot worse driver than I remember being as a kid!

Ellie was a good sport, but was confused as to why she was on the seat of the car, she really kept trying to sit on the floor, so, after the pics were done, I let her down on the floor. She knows her spot - good girl!

Ellie enjoyed spending the day with her boyfriend Mosier at the KSDS booth.

J offered to work Ellie for me so I could work Seville!

Ellie is NOT a fan of mascots or HUGE (life-sized) stuffed animals.

But, she got better and at least approached them, even if she wasn't in the mood to be their best friend.

Seville watches the crowd and got a bit bored that no one was paying any attention to her.

Ellie has really come a long way with her kid-phobia. Now, it's on to other issues we continue to work on, but since this was such a major one, I'm confident those other smaller issues can be overcome as well.

One of our booths in the Americana section of the park.

A closer up pic of Talpa sitting on Ellie. I just found it quite humorous.

Towards the end, C. worked Ellie and J. switched to Mosier. Ellie loves her buddy C.

The gang!
Seville checking to see if she was tall enough to go on the train. She wasn't, but, she had a responsible adult to accompany her (me), so she could get on anyway!

Ellie and C. on their way to load on the train. 

It was Ellie and Seville's first time on a train. Both did famously!

Heading to Camp Snoopy.

As you can see, Ellie's not too keen on mascots (either that, or it's just Charlie is creepy) and Seville seems right at home with Lucy and Snoopy.

Seville, with Charlie.

Seville with Linus.

Ellie found Snoopy's dog house!

Charlie was a fan of Seville, he always looked about ready to cry though with his handup like that!

It was a blast and definitely memorable for their first trip to a theme park!

6th Folder/6th Photo

I was tagged by Tabatha for this! YAY - how fun. You find the sixth folder and post the sixth photo.

It actually, scarily enough happened a while back and I'm ashamed to say I had totally forgotten about it. The summer after I graduated from college, some friends and I took a road trip to the east coast. This is them, Lisa - yes, my bff in college was also a Lisa, John, and Aaron (I was the smart one outside the phone booth taking the pic) crammed into a UK style phone booth at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA! Ah, the memories!

Now, I tag everyone who would like to participate! Come on, you know you want to!

1 Year

Today, is my 1 year anniversary in this house! I'm so excited to be out from under the oppressive thumb of the condo HOA! It's so awesome to not have someone living above me leaking water on me! It's so awesome to have puppies! It's so awesome to have a back yard! It's so awesome to make my own rules! YAY for houses! Yay for MY house which allows me to continue being a puppy raiser, another thing that deserves a YAY!!

Seville's visit

Thursday, I got the opportunity to take Seville (Ellie's half sister) to work with me. She did great as a 14 week old puppy. My work is loud - especially out in the print shop, but nothing phased this little gal. She's SOOOO sweet.

Learning to sit at each of the doors. She really caught on quickly to this routine. It was fun to watch her brain working and figuring out that each door meant she needed to sit first. I love that about puppies - watching them process new things!

She was a big hit among my coworkers and everyone had to get their puppy time! Of course, with her being so little they were worried Ellie had already been turned in. I assured them, it would be at least 8 more months before Ellie will be turned in!

Seville loved all the attention and made sure she saw everyone! She's just so sweet! *Can I keep her?*

This in our warehouse. Ellie's not a fan of when the trucks pull up to the dock, but Seville didn't mind. She also saw some more people out in the parking lot and couldn't wait to say "hi". I do have her leash in hand, even though you can't see it in the pic! 

Her puppy raisers have been working so hard on her heel - and she had a great one already!

This is Seville by the evil press Ellie just HATES!!!! Seville didn't see what the big deal was.

Seville keeps an eye out on the entire pressroom.

Got more admirers!

Seville by one of our smallest presses. It's just the one that has the most room for me to move and take a pic - so it's always the one that gets  a puppy photo!

Seville under my desk. She liked to just sit instead of down, but she got it after awhile.

I brought a nylabone for her to bide her time with in this new environment. She did really well.

Afterwards, Seville, Ellie and I met up with KSDS friend C and we took the dogs on a walk to the park. Seville pullled a bit, but this is how she walked most of the time - very nicely.

C got to work Ellie. Ellie did really good even though when I pulled out the camera she decided to not pay attention to C and to be a dork in front of the camera.

And, just a cute puppy photo!

Marley visits

Today at work was a bit unusual for Ellie. She had a visit from one of her species! Marley, one of the pressmen's dogs came in for the day. Marley is an Old English Sheepdog. Many of my coworkers were amazed the two dogs didn't fight. (Seriously?) At first Ellie didn't know how to react. Then she wanted to play. She's been highly dog distracted lately, so, every chance I got, I made her walk by him but not visit. She got better by the end of the day with just me giving her a verbal correction instead of leash one too. It was fun to watch her catching on that when she's working she should ignore other doggies.

Here she's greeting him, naughty Ellie. But, she kept moving and didn't do her usually silly hops and after we past him, she kept moving forward. Sometimes she turns around and walks backwards. So, the fact that she kept moving was a HUGE step forward.

This was us sitting close but not sniffing or greeting.

Sean holds his dog Marley and Ellie. He's not as strict with Ellie as I am.

Ellie likes Marley.

And, some just random work pics.
Ellie looking back at Marley, but still behaving and sitting at the door.

Ellie under my desk.

She was getting a bit bored with the camera. It's not her favorite thing. 

Ellie at my desk.

In other news, on our evening walk Ellie also did well with the dogs behind fences. Usually it takes us several passes to get Ellie to walk on a loose lead next to the dogs right off the sidewalk barking on the other side of the wire fences. Today, she did it on her first pass! That was a first! YAY ELLIE!!!!!! She also ignored the birds that were fluttering around in yards and squirrels. Also a first! I can't tell you how excited I was to see how well she did! My little labby is really growing up. Also on our walk, we almost got ran over - or at least closer than I'd like to be! We were walking on a busy street and were just at the end of a long entryway to a rather busy gas station. As we were just to the other side of the sidewalk a man in a truck pulls in at a rather high speed for the turn he was making and almost clipped our heels. I was kinda shocked! And MAD! But, Ellie and I are safe and that's what's important. Ellie didn't seem phased by it at all which is good.

Pterodactyl

Ellie likes to sleep in a way that looks incredibly awkward. The PR who raised her aunt Marriott called this pose the Pterodactyl. Apparently, it was a favorite sleeping position of Marriott. It just looks so painful! I was really proud of myself for getting the camera out and taking a photo without her jumping up wanting to follow me.