We decided to have a few friends over with dogs (all healthy and immunized, of course) on Saturday to help with Ozzy’s socialization and just to have fun. The house seemed very crowded, but there weren’t that many people. I think it was the Leos, Saint Bernards and Swissies that made it seem crowded. Of course, when it cooled off a bit outside and the yard was all shaded, it was even better!

I think you’d prefer pictures to reading my diatribe…

Ozzy having sleepy time around the time they started arriving.

My pretty girl, Indy.

Ozzy attacking his new BFF, Cash.

Ozzy and Rufus, the puppy addict.

Leos and Swissies!

Juli, part of Juli’s human, and Cash. Juli has a blog too.

Indy was nice to Vasey’s human despite the fact that they did not bring Vasey.

Remember our good friend Reggie? He’s another blue-eyed boy.

Juli in “jail.” Sticking the face through there must be a Swissy thing. No other dog breed visiting our house (our living there) has ever done it.

Pretty Leo girl!

Recharging.

Is my puppy! Back off!

Beowulf got love too. And he tolerated Ozzy. Probably because he had Cash to torment, though.

More recharging.

I don’t know why, but I love taking pictures of Swissies from this angle. Cash was more than happy to oblige.

I think Cash needs a Swissy puppy of his own to play with, although he technically is a puppy himself.

Ozzy likes to climb on dogs when he plays with them. Most of them are ok with it, including Cash.

Cash and Huntley got in some good play time too.

See?

And then all dogs (except for Huntley) got tired and crashed.

Then humans continued on for a while, but I don’t think I’ll post any of those pics…

The event was held in Springfield, Illinois at the fairgrounds. Because I have a few things coming up that require me to take vacation, I wasn’t able to make it for the entire week. That’s ok, though. I didn’t have any dog to show, and we haven’t been competing in any working events. (Yet.)

Indy and I drove down on Wednesday night and made it early enough to see some of the Top 20 event. The building was quite warm, and the area outside was very wet and muddy from all the rain they’d had during the week. We stayed for a little while and spoke to a few people, then headed back to the hotel.

Getting into the hotel room for the first time (with Indy) was rather interesting. I had already carried our stuff into the room before I took the last load (computer bag, purse) and the dog. Well, we got to the room, and Indy decided she didn’t want to cross the threshold. She braced herself on the ground, pulled, and was out of her collar. As she ran around the parking lot freaking me out, my hotel room door was wide open with her leash and collar on the floor. In hindsight, I should have picked that up first and then hauled arse to get Indy, but I wasn’t thinking too clearly. I just reacted as I was worried about cars in the lot. We played chase for a bit. I caught her by the scruff once, then lost her and caught her again. My (cheap but favorite) Crocs sandals were muddy and ripped. Yup, ruined. But I did finally get her in the door after much embarrassment and perhaps a bit of anger. Go figure, nobody helped.

After things calmed down a bit, we wandered around the grounds and ran into a few people. We met a cute Entlebucher named Kip. Yes, I want to steal him. And I learned that his breed is pronounced “entleebucher.” I still want to steal him.

The next morning, we showed up for the “how to” weight pull event, and then watched the weight pull. I’ve never been able to make one of the Lake Shore Club pulls before, so this was great. I was able to try on a harness and determine what size Indy wears. I wanted to get her to pull the big cart since we’ve tried tires and other smaller things, but I didn’t want to do it during the event because I thought that would stress Indy a bit too much for her first time. Well, that never happened. I’ll get her at the next Lake Shore event…

It was a lot of fun to watch the event. I took some pictures (to follow) and pretty much passed Indy around to strange people as much as possible. Well, I guess only one of them was actually a stranger to her. She did very well. A wonderful Swissy named Bridger (check out the skijoring article for more about him and his human), won the event pulling 4009.8 pounds, which is over 35 times his body weight. It was fantastic watching the two of them–they are a great team.

So, I did take a few pics. The lighting was poor, and I have been too lazy to touch them up. My apologies. But I don’t want to wait any longer to post, or it just won’t happen.

Here’s Monty in the “intro to” part of the day. They start them off on a smallish tire to get them used to the harness and having something move behind them.

Indy and her nervous ears posing.

Our friend Tank resting between pulls.

People will do all sorts of things to get their dog to pull.

Moose Moose talking back.

Here’s Louie and his human. Brian is trying to convince Louie to pull. It was Louie’s first weight pull event.

Here’s Bridger and Teresa after the record breaking pull. I cannot take credit for this picture…

That’s it for now! Thanks for reading.

Some of my favorite people had to let their wonderful Swissy, Copper, go to the bridge last night. Copper had been suffering from epilepsy for some time now and put up an incredible fight. But it was time.

Copper got to spend some time at the beach yesterday – one of his favorite places. Check out his beautiful Swissy Smile.

Please think good thoughts for Copper’s family right now. He would want all of us to remember the good times, I think.

Run free, Copper. I’m sure Gryffin and Luna were there waiting for you.

Basja and Vasey spent a few days with each other back in February. Remember when we were dog sitting for all the people fortunate enough to spend time in Hawaii? So they know each other. They did the whole air kiss thing upon meeting.

Of course there was butt sniffing with each other and the new dogs they met.

And there was general silliness and playing.

And of course, Indy poses for pictures. We have her trained well.

Diego the Dane was fascinated with Vasey.

I know this is a boring pic, but it’s just to show you that a lot of people were out at 8am on Sunday at the dog park.

Diego kept coming back to Vasey.

Indy doing her kangaroo impression.

Chew toy? Or another dog?

Tobias the DDB with Indy.

Please tell me why my girl dog loves rolling in wet grass so much?

This is Fred the Newf. He apparently likes kids a lot. As in jumps on them and knocks them over. So he was leashed since there were quite a few.

If there’s a Basset, I will take his/her picture.

Our esteemed weekend guest.

Why is it large dogs are attracted to Beagles?

One last quick romp…

Then it was time for home. The park is no longer considered off leash at 9am. Sad. But the dogs were happy and tired.

Thanks for looking!

We were very lucky. The weather on the lake front on Saturday was fantastic. I got there around 8am, got a nice parking spot that would let me avoid most of the traffic on the way out, and was enjoying near 70 degree temps. By the time the walk started at 9am, most people (including me) had removed their warm layer of clothing. I think the weather made the event more attended than last year. This is just the area away from the registration tent. It’s not even where all the free stuff was.

This is Zera, a 4 year old girl Swissy, and part of her human, before the walk.

We walked with Lucy, a gorgeous Plott Hound mix, Zera and Vasey. It was not easy getting a picture of them together.

We came pretty close to a posed shot with just the three Swissies.

I think we were near the middle of the pack when the hike started at 9am.

It really was a gorgeous day.

Indy was interested in every Basset that we saw. Go figure.

Around the half-way point, we stopped to see if any of the dogs would play in the water.

Everyone did go in, but there was no romping around. This was actually Indy’s first time in the water. I let her go in a little bit and didn’t push the swimming part. Heck, it was Lake Michigan on May 1st. The water was still quite cold.

The funny thing is that for the rest of the day, Indy was super tired. It was only 3 very slow miles, and it wasn’t warmer than 75 degrees. It must have been all the people and other dogs that wore her out.

Thank you to everyone who supported us and the Anti-Cruelty Society!

Team Swiss Lick is in the top 5 teams for amount raised right now! If you are interested in donating to our team, you can donate through our First Giving page, which you can find here.

It’s supposed to be a nice day tomorrow, assuming the rain stays in the evening/early morning hours like it’s supposed too… Check back next week for pictures!

That is a serious question, because unless she’s wearing a pack with weights, I have no clue.

We met up with Vasey and one of her humans again for a nice, long hike perfect (other than the terrain) for pack hike training. The location was Waterfall Glen, which is right by Argonne Labs. Actually, I think the long trail we hiked (9.5 miles) may actually go around Argonne. It was cooler and we didn’t wear a pack this week. Indy had a couple of scabs in her front driver side “arm pit” that may have been from the pack the weekend before, so we went without it. I’m guessing that’s why she was still energetic at the end.

For some reason, Indy wasn’t tired the rest of Saturday. We did that hike in 3 hours. Heck, I burned over 1100 calories just walking at a good clip. But was little Miss Swiss tired? Nope. She spent some time barking and attacking us in the yard and not resting in general. She got another walk (short) on Sunday and spent more time attacking us and the yard tools. And she was a lot of help to Dan while digging holes for new shrubbery. But tired did not seem to happen.

I have somehow created a monster.

Since I haven’t done much weight training with Indy recently, we stayed at a consistent weight (10lbs) throughout the entire walk. Vasey has been doing much more training, so she started out with 20lbs and worked her way down to 12lbs. In a pack hike, the dog must carry 20% of their total body weight in their pack. It’s usually water and drops gradually throughout the hike, but you can not dump a lot of it at one time.

The girls were eager to go at first.

Excited even.

Since we were walking the forest preserve trail, we saw a few deer here and there.

And yes, the girls were interested. I’m not sure if they wanted to chase them, or if Vasey realized that deer=venison which is her main protein source…

Somewhere around mile 7, Vasey told us she was tired.

But we all made it to the 9 mile mark in 3 hours and a few stops.