Duffy Takes Charge!!

Duffy and Kylo

Duffy and Chance

While Duffy was down in Olds with Dave for 9 days, he had the opportunity to dispense some discipline to another dog. Dave's friends Rick and Les were over, along with Les' black Spaniel Kylo and Chance who may be a Pug or Pug mix, who was not wanted by some family member and Les took him.  Duffy has known Kylo since Kylo was a little puppy and they get along great.  But Chance--he's a dog that snarls, snaps, tries to bite other dog's faces, and is generally aggressive. He treats Kylo like this too.  Well the 3 dogs tore around the garden and the back patio, but Chance was always nipping and snarling, etc.  Duffy put up with this for 3/4 of an hour--Duffy is very tolerant of all kinds of animals.  When we meet other dogs who are snarly, he whines, like "Aww, what's the problem, I just want to be friends!" Magpies sit on his back, pull his tail, he does nothing except maybe move a little. But I guess he has a threshold for bad behavior after all, because he put his paw on Chance, held him down, put a little weight into it, and went "WOOF" in Chance's face! Like "ENOUGH, you little squirt!" Chance stayed down, didn't struggle and when Duffy took his paw off him, Chance was a changed dog.  No more snarling, growling, snapping, biting. And he has stayed that way--Les says he's so much better behaved!! Yeah for Duffy!! I am so, so proud of him!! He has never snarled, growled, or snapped at another dog and he showed in this case that he could get the message across without violence!! Did I say that I am very proud of him??!!! ♥♥♥♥ Unfortunately Dave didn't get a picture of the disciplinary action, but he and his friends witnessed it and all were amazed!

A well-deserved rest!!





Remembrance Day

November 9

Today would have been my mom's 89th birthday.  Happy Birthday Mother! I love you and miss you. ♥♥ 

RIP Hickstead ⊰ A Champion

Yesterday, November 6, one of Canada's finest athletes, Hickstead, died of a heart attack in the jumping ring at a competition in Verona, Italy. I can't imagine how heartbroken his pal and rider Eric Lamaze must be feeling. Hickstead was a Netherlands born Dutch Warmblood stallion, born March 2, 1996. He and Lamaze had a wonderful career together, culminating in their winning a gold medal and a silver medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. In 2010 they won 1st place at the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky, and after completing the feat of 4 clean rounds, Hickstead was named "Best Horse in the World". This year at Spruce Meadows, the pair won the $1,000,000 CN International, for the 2nd time in their career. Hickstead joins Ian Millar's fabulous Big Ben now, who died in 1999. May they keep each other company until their human best friends join them.

A little hectic...

The past month has been a difficult one and a busy one. My dad has been quite ill, in fact 2 weeks ago, I thought we were on the final road.  But he has rallied somewhat, but is much weaker and less able to do things like feed himself, or talk.  It's sad to see and of course reminds me of my mother's decline all over again. I have been going to the General nearly every day and that in itself is exhausting and it's so hard to get anything else done in a day. I haven't bothered much with emails or FB or even blogging all the things I could have--just don't have the energy or sometimes I don't really care. There are a few people I try to keep up with though. If a person has never gone through care giving for an elderly loved one, or a terminally ill person, it's really hard for them to understand how draining and emotionally and physically exhausting it is.  There is nothing harder to do in this world.

Duffy has had increasing digestive issues--often I am awakened to let him out at 1 or 4 or 5:30, and consequentially don't get enough sleep.  I simply have to get with a homeopath to work on Duffy's vaccine damaged gut :(  My damaged leg still bothers me and lying on my left side (which is my favorite) is hard to do.  For those of you without FB, I sliced up my leg in July with a weedeater, when the cover flew off.  Major ouch, let me tell you!  And what I thought were lateral cuts, have turned out to be a lot deeper than I thought.  As Dave put it, I pretty much turned my leg into hamburger! Eeesh!

But life goes on, and Second Wind Dreams put on a Christmas Craft and Gift Show yesterday and today, so I was there all day yesterday and a couple of hours today. We had a 50/50 draw and a raffle with nice donated prizes from the crafts people. Here are some pictures from yesterday.

Crafts people rented a table for $30 for 2 days--which is a pretty good deal--money going to SWD

I managed to spend some money too!

Wooden roses/flowers

Priscilla, Diane, Doreen (standing), some lady who's wondering if she should actually drink from that cup, and Claire

Dianna, Kay--talking on the phone--and moi

Dianna and Kay, looking at the camera this time, but Kay still talking on the phone, and moi!!

Farmfair starts tomorrow and the Canadian Finals Rodeo starts next Wednesday and today I was down at Northlands stuffing Aggie bags for the schools kids coming in next week.  That's why I was only at the EG for a couple of hours.We are going to have almost 1000 kids, Grades 1-3, coming next week. We worked like dogs from 10-1:30 getting those bags ready--2 of us (there were 8 volunteers) didn't even take a lunch break.  The little stuffed cows arrived late so all the bags that had been done had to be stuffed with them and then counted into groups of 10 and tied. On Monday I get to help register the school groups and hand out those bags!!  Save-on is a sponser for the Abert'a Own Agriculture so we stuffed Save-on plastic bags--we don't want to see them for a long time!!

Tomorrow is the River City Round-up in downtown Edmonton with a caravan of 30 wagons and 25 outriders, all coming right to Churchill Square.  I am working as a games assistant, but hope to get some good pictures to post tomorrow!!  Dave took Duffy down to Olds yesterday, because with me being away from the house so much, it wasn't going to be fair to Duffy to be alone.  But they will be back next Friday, and we are going to the matinee performance of the rodeo!! Yee Haw!! By the way, I bought a genuine cowboy hat!! Lammle's Western Wear is a sponser of Farmfair and the CFR, and is offering 20% off their merchandise to Northlands volunteers, so voila, time to get a hat. Maybe I can find someone to take picture of me in it!!!