Spring Birthdays - 17/52

Spring - 17/52

I suppose I might as well come clean.  I completely forgot about the red dog's Birthday this year.  It's probably good that she didn't remember either.  Regardless of whether or not either of us remembered, she did turn 8 years old on May 6th!  I can't believe she's 8 already.  Or that I've had her for almost 4 years.  It doesn't seem nearly that long.  I also don't want to admit that she's not as young as she used to be, but I will say that she's really matured into a wonderful dog.

The last couple weeks have been really busy for me (my excuse for forgetting), but next week I need to do some location scouting.  So Iris will get to come with me to scope out some more parks in the area.  A walk in the park sounds like a pretty good way to celebrate.

Happy Birthday beautiful red dog!!!  And here's to many more!

Close Up - 16/52

Yeah, I'm playing catch up on my photo blogging.  Rather than force you took through a million photos of the red dog, here's a few of the red dog disguised as a grey dog.

Close Up - 16/52

Yup, that's my girl.  Always has to know exactly what I'm doing.

Birch Trees - 15/52

Birch Trees - 15/52

Here's a shoot I did a few weeks ago but haven't had the chance to share yet.  I did post the final image (above) on my photo blog, but I really wanted to share some of the outtakes here.  Because there were A LOT of outtakes!  (Outtakes brought to you with minimal editing...)

I took Iris over to a new park to get some landscape-type photos, and I immediately fell in love with this cluster of birch trees.  Iris did not.  I think it was probably a combination of being in a new place, it being VERY windy out, and my forgetting to bring the usual bribe (supermodels don't work for free, you know!) added to the fact that I only had a 6ft leash so I kept having to tie her up to get far enough back (my roommate later asked me why I didn't bring the 30ft long line.  Which is a very good question.  And maybe something I should remember next time).  I ended up with a dog would refused to look at the camera.  I pretty much had to wait until she just happened to look at the camera for a split second.

Yup, she's still not looking at me.  Actually, she thinks the whole thing is pretty funny.

(click on above photo for slightly larger view)

Ok.  It is kind of funny.

It might be starting to get less funny and more boring.  Definitely boring now.

I did (finally) manage to get the shots I was looking for.  Without much help from the red dog.  Next time I'll remember the bribe.  Until then, she's not looking.

Thanks Iris

Dear 2011, the residents of condo C1 kindly request that you give us a break  Just for a little while.  We'd really appreciate it.

It's starting to get a little ridiculous.  If it can go wrong this year, it pretty much has. 2011 has been just one long string of back luck for the three residents of condo C1. Job losses, health things, totaled cars...  The latest is a broken dishwasher.  It seams minor compared to everything else, but it's still resulted in a mountain of dirty dishes. And with everything else, washing dishes has been a fairly low priority.

This morning I decided to clean the kitchen and wash everything since we're having company tonight.  I was stacking the clean pots/pans on a towel on the floor next to me, and I had a pretty good stack of clean dishes going. I figured I could get the whole house clean by lunch, which would give me the rest of the afternoon to get some work done.

Instead, Iris just walked over and puked all over the pile of clean pots and pans. Sometimes you have to laugh at life.

Training, Trials, Seizures, Etc.

On Saturday, I took Iris over to watch some of the NADAC trial.  I really wanted the opportunity to work with her around other dogs in a fairly controlled environment.  Given all of the problems we've had with other dogs around the condo, I fully expected to work well away from the other dogs to keep Iris under her threshold.  Instead, Iris did awesome!  She was able to be fairly close to the other dogs and even stayed pretty quiet while I chatted with some friends.  It seems the good news is her issues with other dogs in the condo complex are not transferring to other environments.  I was very proud of her!  I was really glad I decided to head down to the trial.  Good training session with Iris, a chance to catch up with some agility friends and talk dog for a bit, and I even managed to get the camera out for some photo practice.

Early Sunday morning, Iris had a couple of seizures.  Damn!  So she went 15 weeks, 4 weeks, 3 weeks.  I'm not sure what that means.  Other than the 15 weeks stretch, she's always been in the 3-5 week range.  I'm wondering if bringing her to the trial was too much?  I think stress can be a trigger for her, although she didn't seem overly stressed at the trial.  She had four seizures Sunday morning (typical) and then was fine all day.  At about 11:00 pm, she had another seizure and then a couple more in the middle of the nigh and early morning (unusual).

She's been fine all day other than just being generally, strange and crazy.  It's not unusual for Iris to act weird for about a day after her seizures.  Today, she's been obsessed with going outside.  I have no idea why.  After taking her out a few times only to have her just stand there in the grass, I started ignoring her.  Not easy when all she wants to do is walk from the door to me to the door to me.... She gets fixated on the strangest things.  After a time out in her crate she seems to have settled down now.  Tomorrow she'll be back to normal, but today she was definitely weird.

Speaking of weird, Iris has a seizure smell. After she's had a couple seizures, she has a very distinct smell.  My roommate thought Iris smelled funny on Saturday night (before Iris had any seizures) but didn't really think much of it.  She's going to pay attention to it in the future to see if maybe Iris starts smelling weird pre-seizure.  It would be interesting if she does.

My Dog is Weird - 14/52

My Dog is Weird - 14/52

Iris loves being upside down.  She loves having her belly rubbed, she loved sleeping on her back.  Sometimes I think she just likes seeing the world upside down.  Upside down Aussie is a pretty typical thing to see around here.

Yup, still upside down.  Not much variation to the photos if she just wants to see the world upside down.

Oh hai!

So just when I thought I was finished with this post, I looked over at my sleeping Aussie. She was actually sleeping right-side up like a normal dog!  Oh wait.  Look closer.

She's still weird.

Window Watching - 13/52

Window Watching - 13/52

If Iris could have her way, her usual view of the world would be through the window. She's the self-appointed supervisor of our condo complex, and she loves watching the world through the window. Since the bedroom is on the third floor, she can see the parking lot, lawn, and street.  It's probably the best view in the house for watching the world go by.  Iris is not really supposed to be supervising, but lately she's been able to look without barking.  So I've been letting her get away with it. She thinks I don't notice...

(Playing a little catch up here.  If you follow my photography blog, you've already seen this one!  But I want to keep all 52 weeks of Iris in one place).