Puppies at Vispera

Well, after 2 years I can say that we will once again have puppies at Vispera. Meg is halfway through her pregnancy and I am so excited to finally have puppies from this amazing little girl. She is such a neat dog to ahve around and spend time with. She has been lucky enough to be spending her time at Hound Junkie with me for the past few days...... She is very good company. She is also getting some special attention at home, sneaking into our bedroom at night ;)

I rub her belly everyday seeing if maybe it grew over night. I'm looking forward to seeing what little bundles we end up with and watching them grow. Camryn is now 3 and I'm sure will be mommys little helper when the puppies come :)

Trying to get the yard all cleaned up before the snow flies, we have so much oats/alfalfa growing wildly around our place it's hard to get a handle on it. We have managed to get quite a bit of grass planted this year considering how wet and cold it was this summer.........

Will keep you updated on Meg's progress!

Summer is slipping away

I am taking a few moments to upload a few pics from today. I haven't had a chance to take any pictures this summer. Things have been so busy. It always bothers me when things get to hectic because life is too short not to be doing things you absolutely love. I'm at a pretty good place right now, have a family I love, dogs I love, a store I love, a business partner I love and many many friends. It's just hard to sometimes find the time to fit everything in.....
Today I spent the day at home with Camryn and we had a wonderful day together, cleaning/playing and getting into mischief :)

I am looking forward to hitting the road with Rayne in a few weeks to the CNASA Nationals in Saskatoon. I'm going to catch up with aussie folks and family. I hope that Rayne & I do well but I'm going to be thrilled just to be there :)

Remember to always enjoy the day.............

Latest News

Where has the summer gone??? It seems like only yesterday the kids were getting out of school and now they are already getting ready to go back!!
Things with me and my family are great. We have been so busy with the acreage/new store and general life that I haven't had much time to sit and reflect.

We are still impatiently waiting for Meg to come into season so she can go visit her boyfriend Tray. Not sure what she is waiting for........

The new store "Hound Junkie" is going very well. It is so satisfying coming into work knowing its yours and not having to answer to anyone. It's a lot of work and stress but I know it's going to be worth it. We are developing some great relationships with some of our regular customers........

I am also gearing up for the CNASA Nationals this Sept 1-5 in Saskatoon. It's going to be a blast to meet up with so many aussie people and see all the great dogs. I am only taking Rayne with me. I was hoping to have Meg ready to compete in the arena trials but with only 1 clinic under our belt and no training time since then we are no where near ready to compete. So, Rayne and I will head up there and play in the confirmation ring.

I am also planning on getting my 2 girls back into agility training. Both girls are going to be great ~ I just have to make the time to train.

Will hopefully get some new pics of the crew in the next few weeks :)

WOW

what a busy few months. I'm sure nobody will even read this as they are sick of coming to this blog only to find the same old rant. But I will post what has been happening anywyay.....
It's been a looonnnngggggg 3 months but I can finally say that my project is finally up and running!! A friend of mine and I opened up a new store in Lloydminster called "Hound Junkie". It's an upscale Horse & Hound Boutique store, that we are in love with!! It's a joy to come to work everyday and know that you built this wonderful space.

I did happen to sneak away the May Long weekend and attend a herding clinic with Meg. It was with Dave & Trudy Vicklund and although I'm sure Dave is a wonderful instructor Meg & I spend all 3 days with Trudy. I am so impressed with both Meg & Trudy!! Not once did I scream or yell at my dog and by day 3 she was covering her stock nicely and was even thoughtfull and responsive. Meg is very one sided so we have to work on that.........
here is a link to Meg working. Thanks to Billie for taking the video.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQYhvJDBD9LA&h=96f55

I will be posting updated pics of our store as I can.........

Bye for now.

Meg

I just wanted to write a little bit about Meg. I didn't plan on getting Meg from Cathy when the litter was born but some things happened in my life and I felt like I needed a little puppy. So, from the moment I saw the little sausage with the full copper face I knew I wanted her. Poor Shane (my husband) didn't even really have a choice. I just showed him a picture and said that this was our new puppy. He wasn't pleased but he knew better than to argue......
One lovely summer day I headed down to pick up my new pup from Cathy with Shane & my good friend Shelley and it was love at first site. She was the cutest little thing.........until we started home.......... She was in a crate and SCREAMED the whole hour home. It was a horrible sound LOL. I was still in love though.
Meg has been a treat since she came home, she has a passion for drywall, especially when she can fit her feet through the smallest hole in her crate to pick away at it. She also had a choice as a puppy to chew up my very expensive CHI hair straightener or my $10.00 hair dryer and guess which one she chose? All from within her crate mind you........
The really great things about Meg are that she loves everyone. She especially loves Camryn (our daughter) and will put up with anything. She will also try anything! She is honestly a great little agility dog and if I had more time to get to a few trials she would have a ton of letters behind her name.
I am taking her to a herding clinic in a few weekends and I can't wait. The few times she has been on stock she has been a star. She is a fabulous little worker.
My favorite memory of Meg right now is a few weeks ago we were in Camrose at the spring dog show and we had an ASCA show on the sunday night. We needed 1 more bitch to make it a major so I threw the little blue dynamo Meg in to make enough bitches. I wasn't feeling so well so my good friend Terry was handling Rayne and I asked her daughter Taylor to handle Meg.
Meg was thrilled to be with this great young handler!!! She spend most of the time going around the ring jumping up and down and when Taylor tried to stack her it was like trying to corral a monkey!! Meg was flipping on her back and spinning around because she was so thrilled that she was with Taylor.
It was a huge hit with the audience and I was thinking "Taylor, if you can handle this little weasel in there, you can handle anything!!"
Taylor went on to win her class with the little monkey!! It was unbelievable and I will always cherish that moment :)
Thanks Taylor :)

And thanks to Cathy for my little blue girl. She is a favorite around here :)

updates

Wow, it's been forever since I updated this!!!
Here goes.......
In case anyone is reading that doesn't know, Meg is not pregnant. I'm not sure what happened, all I know is how dissapointed I was when we had the ultrasound. We will be trying again with Tray and look forward to the puppies when they finally come.
We travelled with Rayne & Meg down to Camrose for BRCA spring show and 2 ASCA shows put on by the ASF club of Alberta. It was a very fun weekend that was capped off by my little girl Rayne winning BOB in the Sunday night ASCA show. The entry was about 26 aussies and some beautiful dogs were there ~ we were thrilled with the win and I want to thank my good friend Terry Stickle for her expert handling of Rayne!! It was wonderful to watch my little girl in the ring :)
Some other highlights was Ice's son Ralf (owned by Terry) winning the BOB in the ASCA show Saturday night.
ALSO ~ Breeze a girl from my Ice x Hillary litter earned her CKC Championship going Best of Winners and winners bitch twice. So proud of Sandy & Breeze

Spring is around the corner so we are very busy getting the yard going. We will be constructing my sheep fence and hope to have sheep soon to start training on for the CNASA national show this fall in Saskatoon.

that's all for now :)

pregnancy progressing.........

Meg is on day 31 today (approx.) and seems to be gaining her appetite back. I have started her on some puppy food with cottage cheese mixed in and she seems to like it. She hasn't grown very much this past week so I hope she will start filling out soon. She definately has a "different" body shape but she's not as big as I thought she would be at this stage of the game. She is loving being the only dog in the house on the nice comfy cushion, the others are banished outside right now just because it's soooo muddy and with our home only being 6mths old I want to keep it looking as nice as I can for as long as I can :)

We weren't able to get much grass seeded before winter set in so we are virtually in a mudhole except for our driveway which thank heavens we decided to get professionally done. It was 3 HUGE loads of gravel and alot of shaping but it has made a world of difference........

Will keep updating as Meg progresses.