Dogs learning to drive... really!

That looks like ellwood driving!

A Dog and racoon kissing

awwww so cute!

A well trained dog

This has to be one of the best trained dogs ever!

A dog riding a dolphin

It's a dolphin.... it's a dog..... IT'S DOLPHINDOG!

Denver the dog gets busted!

That is one guilty dog!  Busted!

Dolphin Kisses Dog!

This Dolphin and dog kissing scene is amazing!

I passed my Pet First Aid course with flying colours!

Wow, I just heard the great news from the instructor at Walks'nWags... I passed the Pet First Aid course, with 100% on the exam!  Thank you, thank you!  Walks'nWags is a Vancouver based company, and is Canada's premier Pet First Aid instructional school, with classes all across Canada and the USA. I researched a number of alternative training courses, and found that Walks'nWags appeared to have the most thorough instruction course, and also had a distance learning program. Because I live in Lillooet (5 hours from Vancouver) The distance learning program was for me. I found Lisa the program leader to be helpful and friendly and I discovered that the extensive learning materials, and the challenging scenarios and questions put to the students really made one think outside the box. I assumed I already knew most of the things I would learn... I was wrong. There are so many important and helpful tips and lessons in the extensive user friendly manuals they provide, that I now feel well armed and confident in any animal emergency.

Our Whiskerclan

Tatonka (Do you know it means "Buffalo" in Lakota a la Dances with Wolves?) is the Matriarch of our little whiskerclan. She's a big, brown/brindle Bouvier, gentle, yet firm when she wants her way. The boys can be rambunctious at times, and a low growl from her means "game over" Bouviers are known for herding with their bodies, rather than nipping, and she occasionally herds us, or her brothers, or the cats when we arn't going where she wants. She comes from a shelter on Vancouver Island, where we got her as a puppy. She had a springer spaniel named Silas back then, and Silas raised her as his own. Silas died suddenly when Tatonka was only 3, and it affected her deeply. She was forlorn, lost and depressed.. we all were, Silas was such a special dog. We then got Ellwood from the same shelter several months later in the hopes it would bring Tatanka out of her funk.

 It took a while, but Ellwood was ever eager to please her and he won her over. She still has her moments. Hope, followed by sadness when we go somewhere she'd been with Silas, but then again, we all do. Ellwood is a silver/gray Briard cross, and a bit smaller than tatanka, but very wiry and fast.

 When he runs, his bouncing run is like a cheetah, and faaaaast! We got Ellwood as an adult, and the shelter said he had been transferred down from a Prince George shelter. They cautioned us that he had some quirks, and would require a lot of love. They were so right! Oh my Ellwood! He is scared of the sound of birds, driving in cars, farting sounds, and when running with the other dogs, will bark inanely and circle them with his speed, with an idiotic, "look at me" look on his hairy mug, while his siblings try to put up with this annoyance politely. He will talk at you with a wide variety of sounds, and get so exasperated when you don't get it. He used to bolt at every opportunity and come back an hour late from God knows where, until we discovered that letting him run long and hard with the car on a deactivated no exit road seemed to satisfy his bolting urge. Dogs love running hard and fast, and we have discovered all our dogs love car -running. We moved from Vancouver Island in 2005 to the dry interior of the Cariboo, and soon met our boy Kodi.
Kodi is a tan short hair mid size dog with the body of a doggy Adonis. He's a swarthy sweetheart, with the heart of an angel. He's the only dog we have that ever growls at the cats, and then they just rub up on him even more...he's their favorite! grrrr. He's like a shadow, the way he is always at our sides. He was a local dog from the new neighbourhood, but the owners had their own crisis's to deal with, and we gratefully adopted him from them

Our prayers were asnwered. Our little trifecta, was complete. Tatanka had a second fan in her fan club, and Kodi immediately took it upon himself to massage her from top to bottom thoroughly much like one would eat a corn cob. When he stops chewing, Tatonka stamps her foot and snorts, and Kodi gets back work.

The 2 boys are the barkiest, but luckily, since we're in bear and cougar country, the neighbors don't mind, and the dogs get to shout a little. (Boys!) Tatonka only joins in with her own deep "woof" if it's something serious. And when Tatonka woofs, everyone listens.

Kodi is always the first alert for bears, and strangers, and one time when a wildfire broke out on the hillside above our isolated little group of homes, it was Kodi's barking that brought us outside to see the fire, and call the fire department. The wind changed badly just a few hours after the fire was contained, and had the FD not got there when it did... I shudder to think. Yay Kodi.