Another Birthday, A Winner, and So On...

Let's start with the birthday! Three years ago today Halo had her first litter -- we call them the East Litter. It was our "E" Litter and so all of the puppies have "East" in their names in honor of their grandma, who died when they were small (Abra was Pinnacle's East of Eden -- plus her assorted titles, of course!).

So our Plus-Size Model, Asia, is CH Kaibab's Enter from the East TDX, CD, DD, CGC and she is three years old today! Something fun about her name -- I named her after a song written/sung by Jewel, who is one of my favorites. Lisa Ebnet, who owned Asia's dad, is friends with Jewel and when she heard Asia's registered name, she shared that she was actually one of the first to hear that song after Jewel wrote it! How ironic is that?! And I picked "Asia" as a call name because it starts and ends with an "a" and has four letters -- like Abra.

I LOVE Asia!!!! I love how big she is, and how she just wants to do whatever she thinks I want her to do. She is sweet, happy, fun, and LOVES to work. As you know, Asia is getting ready for Variable Surface Tracking tests -- she is entered in two -- keep your paws crossed that she gets in as they will be drawing for tracks since more enter than they have tracks to run.

Asia is a great tracking dog but that VST is HARD work -- it typically takes a dog 45 - 60 minutes (or more) to run a full length VST track, and the dog is really working the whole time. And so Asia doesn't just need training, but she also needs to be in shape to do her job. I am BIG believer in exercise -- for people and dogs -- and so Asia just did her second 4+ mile walk of the week -- well, Zoey and I went with her, of course. I was going to take a lovely picture of her with the birthday crown but decided to just show you what my dogs REALLY look like -- I took this on our walk with my phone so not the best but you get the idea:


But she cleans up well -- here is the "other" Asia -- the Plus-Size Model...


And Sharon sent these pictures of Asia's littermate, Jemie -- Happy Birthday to cute Jemie!!!!! Now this is a dog with a great life -- Sharon is WONDERFUL :)



I think that ends the birthdays for the month, and speaking of birthdays -- we have a winner in the cow code contest! But first -- I also love the cute cow toupees -- they are adorable!! Second -- how many lawyers does it take to post a comment to the Blog?! More than one apparently because The Good Sister had to send the cow code contest answer via email since she cannot figure out how to post in the comment section :)

The Good Sister, who is just ten months and 26 days younger than me, lives in Santa Barbara and has -- without any intention or malice -- managed to make all of her siblings look just "less" by comparison. However, she is too darn nice to be mad at for being so darn nice and good -- sigh. So she is universally loved and extra smart, and therefore was able to crack the cow code (but not figure out how to post it as a comment) -- she writes:

"I know the answer! The tag in each cow's left ear shows its birth date! Christine was born on April 20th, just like me!

Do I win a bagel???"

This is basically the correct answer -- Cow 420 is Christine because Christine (aka The Good Sister) was born on 4/20. Cow 424 is Kim because Kim was born on 4/24 -- but Kim notes that Cow 424 could have other names -- that is because Kim is a twin, and his younger sister has the same birthday! Cow 410 is clearly Jim-Bill because that is the birthday of my dad, Jim, and his identical twin, Bill. And Cow 400 -- well, what else besides Fool???

Christine the Good Sister does not win a bagel -- although I always have a good supply in my freezer and would share if she would visit. No, I am going to send her a slightly used CAT named Karma who will handle any rodent problem in the neighborhood!!!! Isn't that a great prize????

And speaking of rodents -- I wanted you to see how happy it makes Chippy that I understand his request for nuts...



And speaking of happy, I was THRILLED with the Old Ladies today. I was on a walk with Maize and Halo (after walking Asia and Zoey 4+ miles) and Halo spotted a deer, which she wanted to chase but I had her on a leash so no luck with that. But two seconds later we spotted the doe's extra cute fawn stuck in the fence -- YIKES!!!!! Dogs - fawn -- dogs -- fawn -- what could I do?! I told those girls to stay and went and got the fawn free from the fence, and that fawn then ran down the road in front of the dogs -- less than ten feet from them!!!!! And what did my girls do????!!! They stayed :) Oh my gosh -- if I would have been wearing buttons, they would have popped right off my shirt because I was SO proud of them :)

And now we all need to do something that we can be proud about -- I am going to take an allergy pill and spend the next 3+ hours mowing the lawns -- sigh...