Yasashiikuma

Much stuff going on today! An interview, a load of tasks completed, a not so happy vet visit, and playing with a new toy!

So for my interview this morning I decided I would wear my nice new grey suit. You know, the one I bought for the Nationals, that ended up staying home in a garment bag hanging on the cupboard door?

Nothing like losing 20 lbs and having the suit fall off before you even get to wear it ONCE!! The waist now drops 6 inches from where it was when I bought it….that means the legs are 6″ longer. Hmmm…rolled up suit pants are not in style last time I looked. So Shelley had to attempt to baste up a hem on the pants. Oh boy…..

Well it wasn’t a horrible job, but I think I’ll take the suit into Frank the Tailor and have him redo it, together with taking in the pants!

The interview went fairly well, but of course one never knows! Another one on Monday.

Then I came home and had to bring in the horses to wait for the vet. Manitou is in very sorry shape despite all the food I’ve been throwing at him, so I figured he was in need of worming and having his teeth floated again. Nero isn’t in tip top shape either. I was beginning to wonder if something was severely wrong with the quality of the hay I had.

Well both of them had very sharp edges on their teeth which were impeding their grinding ability, plus they each had a tooth at a funny angle that needed to come out. For those of you who don’t know – horses teeth grow all their lives, and the shape of the tooth and the angles change, which is why up to about 12 you can pretty accurately tell the age of a horse by its teeth. At 31, Manitou is long past that, and Jim told me his teeth are pretty much useless now, so I am going to have to soak alfalfa cubes and beet pulp for him and feed him separately from Nero so he gets to actually eat it. It also means I’m going to seriously need to look at boarding the horses this winter so they don’t lose condition again, being in a more heated barn. Hopefully Manitou will pull out of this – but right now he looks like an SPCA case.

Then, after Jim left I took some more pictures for Penni. Before I lost my job I had ordered myself a new lens for my DSLR, so it got a tryout today.

First here is a shot of Chase playing Peekaboo behind one of the uprights for the new fence (don’t get me started on that subject!!) This was taken off the back deck over 100′ away! I’m happy with the clarity!

Anyone remember my little wolfhound puppy? Well he’s now a BIG wolfhound puppy….puppy being the key word here! He’s lovable, sweet, and klutzy! And he is convinced that he is a corgi. The problem being that, as you can see, NOTHING is out of his reach! He grabs things off the counter or the grooming table on his way out the door and then its Catch Me if You Can!

Today for the first time this year I actually noticed the scent of the lilacs They are my favourite flowers, not necessarily this colour – but the darker purples, and cranberry coloured ones, and my one at the front which has dark purple flowers with white edges.

And here is a smile for you: (you’ll need to blow this up to look at it), I found this while trying to look up some other information on line. You want to read about the second “Marriage” – Cooper-Martin.

Okay, did you read it? You know what everyone was wearing? Even the flower girl? You can picture it in your mind?

And here is an actual photo of the event from my photo album! It is funny what you can find online these days!

We got some pictures taken while the puppies were having playtime together so here are a few of the kids.

Here are Corey (Yasashiikuma Encore Performnce) and Sam (Yasashiikuma Play It Again Sam) the two boys that we are running on from the litter from Hunter and Rocky. They are 11 weeks now. Corey has got the ear thing perfectly, Sam may need a little assistance.

Brogan is now 13 weeks and 50 pounds. He came to us 5 weeks ago at 28 pounds so he is basically gaining at the rate of 1/2 a pound a day. He’s already outgrown one crate and is close to outgrowing the second. We have three more sizes to go – the 48×36, the Midwest Giant, and the Midwest Colossal. Now if Donovan and Ruari could both fit into the Colossal, Brogan should not outgrow it!

Sam and Brogan playing “Catch the Rabbit”. This game will eventually evolve into “Herd the Wirehaired Cow” Right now with Brogan sadly lacking in agility in comparison to the corgi puppies they lead and he follows.

I love this one. This is clearly a case of Sam trying to entice Brogan into some sort of mischief. This reminds me very much of Alanna and Penny as puppies – the Brawn and the Brains

This is Ember with Brogan. She is actually a couple of months older than he is and therefore is his major playmate. We only let him play with the little guys under supervision because he’s such a big klutz that an accident could happen all too quickly. But Ember keeps him in line and tells him when he’s too rough, putting him down to the ground. Hey Brogan!! CORGIS have up ears…wolfhounds have rose ears!!!

And this is a shot of Ember, just because I love the way she looks in this photo – I just wish the posts weren’t in the way!

It has been very busy around here the last couple of days! I haven’t had time to write with all of the exciting things happening.

On Saturday we all went for a long car ride down to see Dr. Lorna and Dr. Ed. Everyone there kept saying “How Cute!!” and I know they were talking about me. The boys are getting fat, Corey is over 7 pounds, but I’m nice and slim and pretty with my girlish figure at 5.5!

There were a lot of “pokey things” there…temperature pokey things, sharp pokey things, and I even got a microchip so I’m a bionic puppy!! I can leap tall buildings in single bound, lift giant bags of puppy food, but in normal life I’m just a cute little adorable puppy. I’ll only be Echo-the-Bionic-Puppy when necessary to fight the forces of evil…or when one of the boys steals my favourite toy!

	Guess who this is for! After we got home from the vet Grandma went off for a long drive and she was gone a long, long time….at least until suppertime!! When she came home she brought a new brother for us
This is our new BIG brother, Brogan. He’s 10 days older than us, but he’s not as fast, or as agile! We can literally run circles around him! He does seem to like Pete best of all though – they tell each other secrets! Grandma says he only has two brain cells, and that for his first birthday the “brain fairy” will come and drop a brain in his ear. Poor Brogan!! Its much more fun to be really smart right from the beginning.
	On Sunday we had LOTS of company. First we had a visit from Dover’s mommy and daddy. Dover is going to go live in Toronto which is a big place and he’s going to have a new big sister to show him how to be a good dog.
Sam thinks Brogan is kind of neat to have around because he gets great big monster sized cookies, and if he doesn’t eat them then we can share!

After that a lady came to give us our tests. I must have done really good because I’m going to go live in Michigan and that’s where Brogan came from. He says its very nice there, but we have to go over a huge, giant, gi-normous bridge to get there, but its close enough that I can still come back sometime to visit Grandma and Grandpa Grandma says that my special name is going to be Yasashiikuma Hello Hello, but you can still call me Echo.

Grandma took pictures all during the test – and Grandpa is applode them – or something like that so you can see how good I was.

After the tests Grandma and Carrie, the nice lady who did our tests took “Glamour shots”. Now you can really see how beautiful I am!

Pete really liked the cheese, and he hopes his new Mom and Dad in Texas have lots of it for him!

Corey	Dover
Echo	Pete
Sam

Oh I see Grandma making us dinner. I’d better go!

Love

Echo

It’s been far too long since an Irish Wolfhound has been in permanent residence at home, and today I went to pick up Brogan and bring him home. This little guy is all legs and feet which he’ll need. He has huge pawprints to follow in as a great-grandson of Ruari and great-great-nephew of Donovan.

He is only 10 days older than the “Repeaters” yet the heaviest Repeater Corey, at 7.1 lbs is only 1/4 of Brogans weight of 28#.

He met Chief and Ember tonight as his first playmates to welcome him home. More pictures will come tomorrow in daylight.

Welcome home, little boy.