Swimming

Max in the lead, followed by Fern and Cousin Meribel

 

What a great time we had on Sunday when I met up with my daughter Jess and we took the dogs swimming at a wonderful beach on the beautiful St. Croix River.  She brought Ch. "Penny" and Penny's daughter Ch. "Meribel".  I brought Ch. "Max" and Ch. "Fern".  The dogs are all related and we call them "cousins" although Max and Penny are actually half-brother and sister.  What fun they had!

 

Max is a fanatic retriever of sticks, but discovered that abandoned soda bottles work even better and are a lot easier to spot in the river.  Not sure he would ever grow tired of retrieving things from the water.  Meribel isn't much into retrieving, she just loves to swim.  And swim. And swim.  Fern isn't a great swimmer, and she will retrieve in the water but not with the fanaticism displayed by Max. She prefers to wait in the shallows and mug Max when he gets close to shore.  Penny swims but also enjoys wandering along the shore looking for dead thing to roll on - something that Fern also unfortunately enjoys!

 

Although my weekends used to be devoted to dog shows, that's not really the case any more.  Now I tend to just do "fun things" with the dogs, like taking them swimming. After oh so many years of dog shows they've sort of lost their appeal.  Because Dal entries are so small, or non-existent in this area, the shows aren't nearly as much fun, and because we are not campaigning a Special, it's hard to justify traveling just to travel.  We've done a few specialty and supported entries this year and made those trips worthwhile, finishing up Fern's and Max's championship with nice big wins.  It's really a lot more fun when other Dal folks are present.  Not sure that we will enter anything this summer until the Labor Day specialty weekend in the Amanas, and then only if we can get away - hopefully both Jess and I will have pups at home by then. 

 

This weekend I'll palpate Fern and hopefully be able to tell that she is pregnant.  Gemma will also be done then, and perhaps there will be puppies at Jess's house too!  Fingers crossed.