Maya's Cross-Country Christmas, Callie's Gig at Grandma's and Destinee's Vacation...

Man has Destinee had an easy life since the beginning of December! Finals kicked in and Christmas took us away from home so I think she was only 'worked' a couple times all month! (there were more visits with treats though!) She'll go back to working semi-hard once we return home. And - Dave continued to spoil us by getting me new stirrups and stirrup leathers for Christmas! I'm itching to try them out, just as I'm sure she's itching to move on to learning new things! Repetition gets boring fast!

Grandma offered to watch Callie while we're gone, so I'm sure she's enjoying the basement apartment that she gets there as long as she helps Grandpa keep the shelves dusted. =)

Maya has had the most eventful month (comparatively!). Her stocking was full of amazing toys - including a kong ball that we filled with peanut butter (entertainment for a looong time). The best reaction by far though was to her new bone. Since we don't let Maya outside with bones she resorted to hiding her bone under the tree! She pranced around the house and then casually went to the window behind the tree, looked out, stretched behind some presents and miraculously appeared without a bone! Later there was another ssstttrrreeech behind the tree and voila! The bone appeared in her mouth! She had us tricked for sure! *wink*

We drove up to Wensleydale Farms for Christmas which meant over a day of being able to rough house with the boys and run like crazy before the extended family came up. Then, there was all the kids to follow and lick! Daniel began the day begging to have Maya removed from the house, but by lunch he was chasing her around trying to 'fight' her. The two girls followed Seamus singing a theme song they created just for him - I'm not sure but I think he looked more 'super' than ever before. By the end of the day the kids were exhausted, Seamus was burrowing his head behind my mom looking for a place to hide and Maya was crashing quickly. All evidence of a great day at the farm!

The next day brought a 12 hour car ride out to Pennsylvania to visit the Heaths. Maya started the ride in her spot behind the passenger seat but once semi's started to appear, she quickly became distraught. A little before Chicago, we moved her to the area by my feet where she sought comfort and love while battling the drooling and shaking that accompanied the presence of semi-trucks.

A more pathetic creature it would be hard to find! Thankfully, Chicago came to an end and with it came the low traffic and almost non-existence of semis. Maya curled up at Dave's feet while I drove and she slept Indiana and then most of Ohio away. Towards the end of the trip, Maya discovered another monster of the road - rumble strips! They appeared before an exit toll to tell drivers to slow down and again on a curvy road. Those sent her flying into my lap and attempting to crush me with her frantic movements. Thankfully, Dave bested the monsters and we made it safely to his parent's.

Mom let us borrow the pop up kennel for our time in PA, which is great! It's a little less inescapable though.... Maya discovered how to get out of it sometime last night and Dave woke up to a puppy nudging at his legs. I knew there was a reason we switched sides of the bed last night! =) Today the boys played football while Maya ran in circles trying to wear herself out. This face explains all her pent up energy!

Then Maya became all time defense in the football game and even though sometimes she'd join the offense's huddles, she never told the defense what play was about to occur. 

I'm sure you agree, her defensive prowess is what prevented this catch.

Overall, she's having a great time and is resting up for the next round of football!

Halloween - a dog's dream and a filly's nightmare.

Maya loved Halloween - so many kids and they actually came to her door!!

 

Destinee - not so much. She was a good sport though and definitely proved herself as an amazing girl. I led Divya around (who ended up being skittish in a couple places) and let Dave take Destinee. She was so chill! No scary ghosts, fog machines or big pumpkins got to her! His biggest problem was trying to keep her from eating hay that was on the ground.... She just keeps reinforcing her wonderfulness and that she'll be the 'go to girl' for kids and novices once she's fully trained.

 

Divya also rocked at the obstacle course and was spectacular. Her "spooks" weren't nearly the size of some! And no worries - they both got lots of apples and carrots for their trouble. =)

Progress!

Yesterday = project day, light version.

Dave took some wood and closed off the bottom part of our screen door! Now the hole is covered over and there was a surprise added bonus of the door benefiting from the extra weight. It's functioning much better AND Callie has been reunited with her porch. (And there was much rejoicing! yaaaaay.) Now to match the paint and get that painted over/maybe add some decorative touches so it looks super cool. He also got the hose working so I didn't have to scrub out the travel kennel by hand, phew! Doing that once was more than enough!

Maya's still getting rice and boiled chicken but things are going much better so perhaps we've dodged a trip to the vet! There's a high possibility that she ate a bit of a dead mouse and the concern is that the mouse had been poisoned. But her continued positive attitude and high energy levels seem to indicate that her stomach just doesn't like mice! Took the camera in the back yard with her today and got some cute shots. Maya's almost figured out fetch with a ball. Sometimes the whole 'holding onto the ball until you get to a person' seems to elude her. But overall, improvement. Plus she learned 'down' in less than a day. It's about time to sign her up for beginning obedience classes - I'm thinking she'll be a smarty pants!

One of those weeks.

It truly has been one (or two) of those weeks... on top of being busy with school, law journal, clinical and luma...

One of the horses at the girls' barn came down with a small case of strangles. So we're watching for symptoms and trying to check in as much as possible.

Maya decided that swallowing a cat toy that had become a LONG length soft string would be a good idea. Cue frantic call home about whether we should pull the end that was still hanging out of her mouth or cut it.

Then Dave and I saw each other for about 15 min both Monday and Tuesday. We had a wonderful house guest on Wednesday night and Maya had a dog park date with a law school friend and her dog. Not bad, just busy!

Last night we get back from small group to a kennel smeared in puppy stuff. Smeeeeeelllly. Cleaned up the floor, the kennel got a rough go through, we threw out her demolished and now brown (again, yuck!) blanket and brought in the travel kennel with sleeping bag.

This morning we woke up to more mess. So in the hour before I had to leave for a client meeting: Maya got a full fledged bath, the house kennel finished getting clean and then I went outside to see if I should be concerned about a string Maya that swallowed last week still being inside her. In the midst of that fun search (and yard clean up!) Callie got out and managed to run around the yard twice with Maya chasing her before I could a hold of her. Put her back inside and realized that if I kept our auto-locking back door even a little bit more closed - Callie would push it the rest of the way trying to get out. So I unlocked the side door and went out to finish the search and sure enough when we were done - the back door was locked!

I just got home from the grocery with chicken to boil and rice to cook for Maya's weekend culinary experience and Callie just got out AGAIN. If I didn't know better, I'd say that feline was in heat! She's crazy about the outside and has been belligerent since the screen door's hole got too big to cover (Thank you, Maya) preventing us from letting her hang out on the porch. I'm thinking a house project day is in order.....

Quick notes

1. Maya's started pointing at squirrels!!!

2. Callie apparently escaped through the screen last night and explored the backyard. Maya was growling so Dave took her outside and Callie went running from the yard to the back door once they got to the middle of our yard! Good girl Maya. But next time, keep her from leaving the porch in the first place!

3. It's hard not to burst with pride when I see how 'soft' Destinee's eyes have gotten or how tolerant she is of me. My goal is to be as annoying as a 5 year old so she can handle anything! Sometimes I just laugh and apologize because truly, I can't imagine being excited to see me! Especially on a 'Oh great, where's the lead rope going to go now?' type day.

4. Divya is such a good girl! She's calmed right down and has even started showing her soft eyes and just enjoying chilling with me. I'm happy she's doing well! Now we just have to get the girls to stop beating her up...

5. Divya and Destinee have switched stalls? At least yesterday and today they've been in the wrong stalls with the wrong names! I hope the girls decided to switch on their own and the humans just haven't felt like making them go to 'their' stall. At least that would mean that Divya gets her full pound of grain each meal and Destinee only gets a half! But perhaps more hilarious would be if the person bringing them in can't tell Destinee and Divya apart!

The Joys of Equine Massage

It's about time the chestnut filly got some blog time!

Miss Destinee has a visitor for about the next month! My brother/mom's 2 year old, Divya, is at the barn for training. She 'gets' to live in the stall next to Destinee and I try to make sure they receive the same amount of treats and that annoying 'what's Cate going to make me do now' time that they love sooo much. *wink* So far they've both conquered walking around with hula hoops around their neck, over one ear, etc. And figured out how to push the hoops along the arena. We also regularly play with and around cones/barrels/tarps/mounting blocks/poles... basically whatever we can find in the arena!

Divya is being trained by the barn's owner so I get to play nice person. Destinee is being trained by me, so we spend some time each visit working on lounging and normal groundwork along with the loving. Recently the girls have been calm enough that at least one of them gets a neck massage each visit - I put Destinee to sleep the first couple times! Her neck was super tight - all that running around and being doted on must really put strain the neck...  ha. I did a little youtube research and found some more 'moves' from a clip off the equine channel - hopefully the girls will appreciate it! Destinee is rocking the lounging - in about a month, she's almost always responding to vocal cues for walk, trot and whoa. The whip is a nice prop that I get to leave hiding behind my back most the time! I think we're getting a couple more lessons between now and May to work up to cantering and finalize the prep for putting a person on her back! Yay!! Now I just have to get back up to riding shape and maybe take a few lessons myself to work out those 'haven't ridden since Taylor' kinks. My inner thighs are already moaning.

One of my favorite sights is those two girls sticking their heads of their stalls 'smiling' at me. Almost heavenly. Especially when my baby nickers super soft. But yes, I do realize they're both hoping for treats.

Things are pretty hectic here - on top of just starting off the semester, Maya got spayed last week and trying to keep a 6.5 month Irish Setter ball of energy on 'rest' for 14 days is driving me crazy! Not to mention how cooped up she feels. Not going to lie, we're not doing so great on the 'no jumping' to see out the windows thing. She's even managed to get her paws on the counter a couple times. And boy is she tired of having to be leashed to go in her yard. Poor dear.

Door to Door Evangelists

So, I didn't really know that door to door evangelists still existed in non-Jehovah's Witness type fashion! Then today two middle aged women with umbrella's knock on the door.... it's raining so I close the door to the entryway keeping Maya locked in the living room and ask if they'd like to step out of the rain while they do their talk. After thanking me and closing up their umbrellas, the one promptly pulls out her Bible and begins reading from Revelations and telling me how God wants to do things that our government can't even dream of - like raising the dead. And that we should trust Him rather than our government, that the end times are upon us and begins to hand me a brochure which would answer my questions. Overall - she got good marks for her courage, but I must admit I was a little distracted by what was going on in the living room....

Because by this point Maya is in full blown freak out on the other side of the door - I can hear her scratching the freshly painted door but am helpless to stop her since the kind lady keeps talking. When I can't bear it anymore I peak open the door and Maya lunges - tongue out, tail wagging, ready to take these two 'bless your heart' ladies out. Exclamations of 'ooooh, an Irish Setter!' and 'She's beautiful!' ensue. The one closest to the screen door (and owner of two dogs) is the most desired licking accomplishment in Maya's eyes - luckily I was able to grab her collar and she even settled into an antsy 'sit'. That ended when she determined her sitting like a good girl wasn't reaping the reward of attention as it should and she began to 'talk' at the women - our quiet as a mouse pup! 'Talking!' Despite the clearly excited and barely contained wriggling puppy the first woman refuses to leave the brochure on the chair or the table next to the door - instead pushing towards my rather occupied hands. That exchange almost cost us the second lady, who plastered herself to the screen door and escaped Maya's ravaging tongue by a good foot. I must say, my reflexes are quite good!

Thankfully, that was the end of their task for the day so they said repeated their first observations that Maya was beautiful and charming (ha!) and said that they hoped to see me again soon. I can't help but question that last statement... while I am sure the surprise of an excited puppy was probably the least of their worries upon knocking on strangers' doors I can't help but wonder if they will think twice next time before knocking!

Dog Park Musings & Super Secret Games

Let's be honest,  I call each of my girls 'baby girl' but I took the youngest and only one to which 'baby' may legitimately still apply with me on errands today! She did great!

Maya LOVES the dog park, which has slightly affected her feelings towards the car but hasn't completely won her heart toward the wheeled contraptions. Our experiences at the dog park has lead me to wonder... are dogs breed/size elitists? Maya loves to play with labs, goldens, other medium-to-large sized dogs but won't engage in as much play towards the smaller sized dogs. She'll play if they are the only ones around but as soon as she sees a 'big' dog it's bye bye tiny!

Today we walked with a ball obsessed Springer Spaniel. He was trained very well and boy would he run when the ball was thrown! They tried to get Maya in on the action but every time they let her smell the ball, she went running in the opposite direction from the throw! I think she'd rather chase the dog than the ball, so that's what she did. He chased the ball, Maya chased him and they'd both come back ready to go again.

Dave said he's not sure he believes me but... Destinee and I have a secret game. After we're all done working, I toss the lead rope over her head and attach on the halter so it looks like reigns and isn't dragging on the ground. We work on reigning a bit and then I let her go and we play 'follow the leader'. We walk around the arena and she follows without any physical contact. Zig zags, figure 8s, just no stopping for hay! This last time we even went through an obstacle! Two barrels with a tarp between - looked like someone was prepping for a jump with water. The only problem is, if ANYONE else is in the barn she freezes. Maybe we'll pull a hidden camera someday for video evidence....

Intro

Hey all -

I figured I could try this out in response to requests for stories about our exceptional animals!

Callie Hope = 2 y.o. cat. Nicknames = Callie, baby girl, darling
Gabriella's Destinee = 2 y.o. Appendix QH. Nicknames = big butt, Destinee, Des
Maya = 6 month old Irish Setter. Nicknames = baby girl, bright eyes, mai-mai

Until I get a real post up.... Do you have nicknames for your animals?