Puppies

Puppies first solid food-July 19, 2011

Jumping Off Cliffs

It has been very hot here for the last week.  Like upper 80's to lower 90's.  We're not used to the heat, so we find ways to cool off.  One of the ways, obviously, is swimming.  On Thursday, Elliot went with his Uncle Guyle, Jeremy's brother, who's 15, and a family friend, John, to Plymouth Mine Lake, which used to be an open pit mine.  They jump off the cliffs on the sides into the crystal clear, extremely deep water.  I don't know how deep it actually is, but there's definitely no chance of ever even coming close to the bottom.  Luckily, they are all good swimmers and there's lots of good places to climb back out of the water.  The next day, they went again, only this time Elliot's other uncle, Jeremy and Guyle's brother, Tobi, who's 19, went along and Jeremy and I decided to check it out, too.  I did not want to jump off the cliffs, just wanted to take pictures.  Jeremy decided to jump with the boys.

Tobi just after he jumped in the first time.  The water is clearer
than any other lake locally, with the exception of Lake Superior.

Jeremy just jumped in.  He's under the splash.

The cliffs, and some of the lake. Its pretty big.

A better view of the cliffs.  Had to stand pretty far
away to have a vantage point.

Tobi getting ready to jump the highest cliff, which is also where
I was standing to take most of the pics.  Its like 40 feet up we think.

Tobi midair on the big jump.  Snapped the pic as soon as he
jumped, but still didn't get a good shot!

Tobi climbing out after the big jump.

Jeremy just hitting the water.

Tobi jumping from a lower spot.



Elliot midair.



Elliot jumping again, i think.

Updates

I've been told that I should post an update on earlier posts.  The first big thing to update, obviously, is the puppies.  They are about two and a half weeks old, have their eyes open, and are starting to walk and wrestle amongst themselves.  Here's a little video.  There's no sound-blew the microphone on the camera while recording the hookup of a team of dogs (they were very loud).

 In other news, the bantam chicken chicks are looking like even smaller chickens.  They are a bit over a month old, and are feathered out pretty well.

The pheasants managed to hatch out several chicks, but were unfit to care for them.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until a few of them died, so I only managed to save three of them, and then one more died after that, so now there's just two living in an aquarium on the kitchen table.

One guinea hen is sitting on the nest that we found about a month ago.

Its kinda hard to see her, but I didn't want to get too close and chase her
off the nest.

The plants around the pond are looking nice, if I do say so myself.

I did finally get barley straw for it, but its only been in for a week and
a half or so and its supposed to take a couple weeks to start working,
so waters still green for now.

The doghouse project is coming along nicely.  All but 3 of the boys have the new house setup...

And all but five of the girls.












The kids have been doing alot of this:

Reading

and this:

Surfing the net

But Elliot did get a haircut Thursday:

And Autumn looked pretty cute when she went to the Teen Dance at Festival Ironwood Thursday night:

The Big C

We had our first official dog casualty due to cancer this week.  Its kind of a long story that ended abruptly on Tuesday.
Shyboy, one of our consistant, hardest pulling wheel/team dogs got into an arguement with one of his kennel mates about a month and a half or so ago.  He was injured on one of his front legs, fairly badly, but we've seen worse.  At first, it seemed like he'd nurse it back okay himself- no significant swelling, he was keeping it pretty clean, but it seemed like it was taking awhile to heal.  As kennel owners, we feel fairly good at judging the need for vet care.  We do as much as we can ourselves, in order to keep the bills to a minimum, as well as the stress for the dogs. 
Then he missed his first meal.  He never missed a meal.  So we decided it was due to the leg injury and we brought him into the house and cleaned and dressed the wound.  He was a great patient.  Only tried once to remove the bandage and then left it alone.  He started eating again the next meal, maybe not with the usual gusto that he was accustomed, but we figured that was because of the change of being indoors when he wasn't used to it.  Looking back, it did take two weeks or so for the wound to seem healed enough to go back outside, but we really didn't realize how long it was.  He was eating pretty good all this time.
We finally decided it was time for him to go back out to the dogyard because he was getting no exercise and his wound was fairly covered over with new tissue.  Then he started turning away from meals pretty regularly, and eating very slowly when he would eat at all.  We thought that maybe it was because he was mad he wasn't getting the extra attention that he had been.  He had no diarrhea, no vomiting, wasn't running a temperature.  Any one of these symptoms would have really thrown up a red flag, and he was still eating, just not the way he used to.  During this time, about a monthlong span, we had some pretty hot weather, and he was one of our heaviest coated dogs, so we tried to tell ourselves that it was the heat that was bothering him.
For the last week or so, he would only eat if we doctored his food up-a little canned food mixed in, maybe an egg.  Then he went two days straight without eating anything.  Time for a visit to the vet.  That was on Friday.  We got the news that we were both, by now, fearing.  He had a cancerous mass in his abdomen.  We think it involved his kidneys, and all we could do was take him home and keep him comfortable.  We didn't want to have his last experience be that vet visit.  He was so scared there that he bit one of the assistants.  He was not the type to do that unless he was terrified.  Poor Shyboy.  So we brought him home and spent the weekend with him, took him out to the woods one last time to run loose and enjoy himself.  We couldn't persuade him to eat anything, but we think he had a good last few days.  Something better for him to know and us to remember than a vets office.  He passed away on Tuesday, July 12, 2011.  He will be very missed.

Shyboy on the right.

On the right again.

On the left this time.

During his last loose run.

Getting a drink on his last walk. The dog next to him is his mother, Spring.

Shyboy
October 29, 2004-July 12, 2011
RIP