Walking, Walking, Walking

58 degrees with a light rain.  In a few minutes I will take Holly out for her first walk of the four she will get today.  Because visiting ladies have a giant crate in the basement, but no access to the yard, they get 4 good walks a day.  Because they never get to pee in my yard, and always go out the side door from the basement, my boys never get too stressed about girls in season.  Argus is "sniffy" and a little distracted right now, but handling things fine.   I hear the horror stories of dogs howling 24 hours a day about girls who need their attention, but that's never been my experience.  Some of them have howled when they hear the side door or the side gate open as we leave for a walk, but that's about all.  Dogs in my neighborhood never run free, so we're safe from unwanted attention, and just go up and down alleys, which are more interesting than walking streets and sidewalks.

Holly is doing well, and we've come to an understanding that she will not rip my arm off in an attempt to catch every rabbit or squirrel she finds.  She's actually walking quite nicely now, though always on the watch for potential prey.  She's been a really good visitor so far and is easy to manage.  We'll do breeding number two tonight, and a third on Sunday.  Timing works out well as we've got a chilled semen breeding for next week, a lovely champion girl from the southeastern US.  Owner had hoped to drive her up, but the timing was bad for him, so we'll go the chilled semen route.  Five of Argie's Champion kids were conceived that way.  It's easier on me to drive him back and forth to the Repro Vet for collections, but I rather miss getting to know my doggy "daughters-in-laws".  It's really a blessing though, in really hot or cold weather!

In addition to Holly's walks, Argus & Fern each get one too.  The bad news is, I'm tired.  The good news is, I've lost three pounds this week!  Only two more to go and I will be exactly where I want to be again.

Argus gets a reasonable amount of use, but is by no means a "hot" stud dog.  My Rob was one of those and we had many many visiting girls for him.  He was almost impossible to collect, and that was back when it was still relatively easy and affordable to ship bitches for breeding.  We occasion had two girls at the house at the same time, either two for Rob, or one each for him and his son Morris.  THAT was a lot of work, but Rob left a legacy of many wonderful offspring.

Fern had her third training class last night and is coming along well.  Again, she did her recalls and came to ME rather than racing around the ring to see her doggy friends.  I'm always surprised when a Dal this age actually comes when called - too many more interesting things out there.  She's doing well on her Sits and Downs, and last night we started Stays.  In addition we work on show-type stacks, as well as Watch, which means she stands for a cookie rather than sitting - we'll need this for the show ring.  Amazing how quickly pups catch on to things.  She's not quite the chow hound that some of the Dals are, but works pretty well for food treats as long as I use some variety.

Now, she needs to do an overnight with someone new.  Any volunteers?