Spring has sprung

At least for a few days. This long weekend had picture perfect weather.

It was nice to just take my 4 dogs for a little outing to the river.

It wasn't so easy trying to capture everyone in one shot however. Beezer was on squirrel patrol as usual, but he did take a quick break to swim in the river for the first time this year.

Reckon was just pacing along as usual. And then he found his own version of a stick.

Amigo was up for a game of fetch, but no swimming for her.

An Avion was circling and trotting around everybody constantly. With something in her mouth of course.

We then went for a little stroll along the trail. 3 brown dogs in front.

And a little black one behind me.

My dogs are so good looking. If they didn't have drool and green stuff all over their face...

Hope this good weather continues!

4 months

Here we are at 4 months already. I can hardly believe it. She weighed 21.6 pounds as of March 27th. Which is approx 3-4 pounds more than Beezer was at the same age. So I'm guessing she'll be around 55 pounds full grown.

Her fear stage (I'm still calling it that) is improving. She will still bark, but not for nearly as long. I can tell her to go greet anyone and she does. She will take a treat and stand there patiently while being petted.

Her thing now is to carry something in her mouth. It can be a ball, a small tug, anything. It seems to soothe her. And it's pretty darn cute.

She's teething and has a slight overbite, and her legs won't stop growing. Awkward...

I love her dearly, and she makes me laugh every day, but I am still worried about her.  She just seems to have this "edge" about her. I hope that socializing and learning to be calm will help her learn to cope in what she would consider a stressful situation.

Why do all my dogs make me cry at some point during their life?!?! Not fair.

In other positive news, Reckon has started his 2x2 weave pole training and is doing stellar!  When the weather allows we practice, and I think it's going very well.

I signed up the Beezer Skedeezer for Regionals this coming June. This boy is kicking ass. I am above and beyond impressed with him. He is fast and happy and just so much fun to run.

This is the first time I've tried to get a family photo. Fail.

Playing in the backyard

This is how she helps with gardening.

This is what she does when she gets put in her x pen when I'm gardening or sweeping or hosing or wiping anything. She screams blood murder and will escape if she can. I'm sure her motto is "if it moves, get it"

She is going to be a little B*tch

At least that's what I see now. At 14 weeks and 18.4 pounds she is really coming into her own.

She also hit a fear stage late Feb, just before I left town for a week.  I HATE fear periods, and I am really really hoping this is what it is.  She is barking at everyone, especially men.  She's gone from a confident happy social pup to a fearful barking lunatic.  I HATE IT.

Make it stop.

I'm trying to be patient and take her out every day.  I try getting people to feed her if they are interested, but she is hesitant to approach them.  She is much better with women than with men.  If we can't get anybody to stop and feed her, I'll do the look at that game.  Problem is, people are usually walking, so she can still be barking when they leave.  Grrrrrrr.   I'm afraid she thinks barking makes them leave!

We will get through this.  We will get through this.  We will get through this.  Successfully.

Good thing she is still cute and tugs like a maniac.  And I may be bias, but smart as a freaking whip.

She has learned sit, down, wave, head nod, and we are now shaping scooting backwards on her butt.

Stationary commands are becoming difficult though, as she wants to offer the last trick she learned.

She still plays with Reckon all the time.  And she still looses her temper.  Poor R.  She gets a lot of time outs in her x pen for taking things too far.

But I love her.  

They won't stop playing

Seriously. They can now be out together and play for HOURS. It makes me so so happy, especially since I wasn't too sure what Reck would do with a puppy. He even lets her take toys and bones out of his mouth!

Now the problem is keeping them quiet. The only way to do that is to keep them separated, which I do for my sanity.

They even share the tunnel :)

Seriously they won't stop playing.



I can't tell you enough how good R is with little Avi. The only time I stop their play, is when Avi gets too rough. She can throw quite the temper tantrum. R is so patient. She can hump his head, and pull of his lips and he doesn't do a darn thing :)

They love each other

They can play for HOURS on either side of the xpen. Which is loud and distracting, but it makes me so happy :)

They can play with each other face to face, but only if I hold Reck by the collar and he is in a down. Otherwise, if she runs, he pounces. He's not being mean, but his full mouth chomp devourers her whole body. Not that she cares, she can dish it out right back. He is so good with her. He just lays there, rolling around as Avi climbs on him and bites his neck. It's interesting to watch how similar they play.

They will be a good match when she's a little bigger


Videos to come.

socializing 101

The best part about new puppies, in my opinion, is the socializing. I love taking them everywhere and seeing them take in the world. It's especially joyful when said puppy is confident and social. With Avion, I want her to learn to be calm when being handled and saying hello. Reckon missed this lesson and it's a humongous pain.

I also want her to work with me whenever and where ever. So I've been taking her to tons of places to explore. After she's done checking it all out, we work. Just a 15 second game of tug and focus is all I want. She's doing brilliantly.
It may take us 10 minutes to walk a block, since she's up and into everything, but she's a pleasure. I just love watching her.

We let every kid who wants to say say hello.

And this girl WILL be able to be crated at the vet clinic when I work, God dammit. I will have one dog that can stay in a kennel or crate and not scream their head off. This is part of our socializing routine. Learning to settle.

It's a work in progress...

I'm not too sure how to put this...

...So I'll just say it with this:

Yep. I got a puppy. A Malinois puppy. How could you resist this face?

That's a naughty little face...

She was quite the surprise when I brought her home Sat Jan 28th. I picked her up from the airport (which was delayed) and brought her home where Aunty Emma was having a birthday party. SURPRISE!!

Everyone thinks I'm crazy, and I don't blame them. I am. I have known about her for a while, but didn't want to tell anyone just in case it didn't happen. Jenn from Malinger Kennels asked me to raise a pup for her a while ago, but with Reckon being under a year and just starting to become quite the handful, it wasn't the right time.

But when she contacted me a few months ago, things just seemed to fit. Long story short, here she is!

Now to the fun stuff. I ADORE her so so much, all 8 lbs, 10 ounces of her.


She is exactly what I pictured a Malinois pup to be like (sorry R). She is social and confident and has a full deep bite to die for. I cannot get enough of her "you can't stop me" attitude. Nothing fazes her. She climbs on everything and anything, and quickly learned to scale the baby gate and climb over or escape the x pen.

The only time I've seen her a bit uncertain is with loud noises or when you pick her up. She would shake like a leaf as soon as you held her, but put her on the ground and watch out, she's off exploring!

She's getting better with being held, and noises aren't such a big deal anymore. I love that even if she is startled, she bounces back in a matter of seconds.

And the energy on this girl. Oh vey. She doesn't have the regular play for 10 minutes and crash for an hour. Nope, it's more like crash for a total of 39.7 seconds during the entire day.

I can't wait to start this girl in French Ring and Agility. I know she's going to be awesome to train and watch :)

Practicing her leg bite on Aunty Jodes.

You might be wondering what she's called. Well that wasn't an easy quick decision. I had a list of names stored in my phone (because that's what nerdy dog people do), and I would run them past Jenn,(now would be a good time to mention that she is on a co-own. This just means that she is my dog, but Jenn has breeding rights IF she passes all her health tests and gets a few titles in numerous venues) but she wouldn't like them or we couldn't find a call name that tied in with a registered name.

Since this would be the first dog I got to choose a registered and call name, I wanted to get it right. Names are a huge thing to me. They have to be unique, fun and have meaning (some sort of tie to their personality, background, etc).

This pup had quite the history already. She was conceived in Thailand, whelped in Toronto and raised in Vancouver. Quite the journey! I wanted a name that would fit in with some sort of flight or contract theme. Originally I was going to get a pup from Mexico that Jenn was shipping over. Her pick female would be exchanged for the Mexican's pick female. However, the pick female has a deformed paw and would not be breeding/sport quality. Jenn didn't want to send her only Beta/Klene female to Mexico, so she asked me to raise her. Ummm, ok!

So, after a lot of back and forth emails and uncertainty over whether I'd be getting a a pup, we narrowed it down to a few picks. "Foreign Affair" "Let's make a Deal" "Destination Unknown" were a few from a list of dozens and dozens.

I really really really liked "Frequent Flyer" because, let's face it, that made perfect sense! She is a frequent flyer. But no call name came to mind. Then, just 2 days before she was due to arrive, Jenn saw a commercial for RBC Frequent Flyer Program, otherwise known as "Avion"

I said it out loud, mid hike in the forest, calling it loudly, shortening it, picturing her little face.

4 weeks with Jenn in Toronto.

It seemed to be the one. Plus, Avion translates to "plane" in French. Even more perfect!!

And so that's how this little cheeky monster became, Avion.

I love her so much already. I can't to see how this little girl grows up.