First big snow of 2012

Central PA finally got a pretty decent snow fall this weekend and since I personally love the white stuff I couldn't wait to get out and do some shoveling (yeah, I'm weird), clear off the van and then hook up with a friend to take the dogs for a walk with her new puppy!  "Ravi" joined Helen's household a week ago and like most of us that participate in performance events, she wants to expose him to new things on a daily basis and what better group to have him meet than the dastardly duo!  And as you can see, the pups did have a great time running and playing in the snow...

Ravi, Swing, Hank

And here is a shot of the cute boy.  Helen informed us that he was 13 weeks old on Saturday.

He joins her household with two other Samoyed's, Spice and Paxton.  All I can say is that is a LOT of hair to deal with!

Hank was up to his old tricks of finding sticks and playing keep-away with anyone that wanted to steal his prize.  Here you can see Swing just entering the shot in an attempt to snag that awesome stick (which was much bigger when he first found it but slowly lost most of the little limbs as he ran between the evergreens and did his best to keep Swing and the others from taking it from him).

I need to get the clicker and dumbbell out and start shaping a retrieve with him (the part about giving it to me will be challenging).  Swing is learning to pick up the dumbbell and give it to me and I've been using the clicker for that exercise, I think it is an easier way to train the pick up versus using the traditional method of placing the dumbbell in their mouth.  Especially while they are teething and their mouth and jaw is changing (and at seven and a half months that is happening everyday).

Ella, Gracie Dot and Milo have all sent notes about what is going on in their lives and I'll get some of those comments posted in a separate blog entry.  Thank you for sending those updates and as always, keep them coming!  Today (Sunday) Howard and I are taking the munchkins down to visit Amy and Michael and one of the topics of discussion will be what shows to look towards for these two.  It will be a grayt visit, as they all are!

Winter has finally arrived in our world, we hope that the rest of the M&M crew are staying warm and enjoying the snow (if you have any).  Only six or so weeks until daylight savings time kicks in!!!!

 Dodge and Ravi (no, he didn't roll him!)

Weims and Sami's!

7 months old!

The M&M litter turned 7 months old yesterday (sorry guys, I meant to post this yesterday)!  Swing continues to have growth spurts and she's looking less and less like a puppy and more like an adolescent now.  Yeah yeah, I guess you could say that she is supposedly almost 7 years old in human years and therefore no longer a baby.  Anyway, I haven't measured her but I can safely say that she stands at least 23 inches tall and while in the vets office last week (Dodge was getting a booster shot) I popped her on to the scale and she was just under 53 pounds!

Howard told me that Hank/Beau weighed 46 pounds at his most recent visit (he was playing with brother Max and sustained a slight shoulder sprain so he's been resting this week with no playing.  I wonder if we'll be able to keep Swing away from him at training this weekend?  I doubt it, Hank will have none of that!) and the last time I saw him  he was slightly shorter in height and length than Swing.

I received a note from Gracie Dot with some pictures and I will post that this weekend.  She is looking quite cute and a lot like her bigger sister.  And we also heard from sister Ella who is having a good time with her puppy training and some agility work too (I think it was reported that she is a border collie in a grey suit, or something like that!).  We'll hear more from Ella in her own post as well.  So the only one left is brother Milo.  We need a report Art!

Happy 7 month "birthday" puppies!