A dog's work is never done...

Hi all, Sorry to be away so long again! Our house just seems to always be busy with something! I got to experience a few "new" things since my last post.

First, I went for the first time to give blood. Xander has been going for years, and finally has to retire due to his age and his heart murmur. Score has been trying it out, but is still too wiggly on the table. Ripley is too old, and Inara is too scared...so it falls to me to be the blood donor for now. Dogs in our area can give blood through the EVBB, Eastern Veterinary Blood Bank. It doesn't take long, and they hold you on the table...so friendly, easy-going dogs are always welcome! (P.S. Dogs, they give you LOTS of treats). I did my test last month, so I'll be going in November for my first donation. They said I was very good...even though John wasn't there (he can't handle needles).

Then we did a flyball tournament, and then a flyball demo for a kid's birthday party. The demo was fun...we got to race some little kids (we gave them a head start). Then we did some disc dog demo stuff too. The kids thought it was great, and so did we! (the petting afterwards was really great too!)

And finally, I got to be at my first wedding...two of our bestest flyball friends got married. It was a fun thing to do, even though Mom made me wear a bow-tie in the wedding colors (brown and blue). She said if they had to dress up (she was a bridesmaid), then I did too. I didn't mind it though...I got lots of compliments. Also plenty of treats, as the wedding favors were little boxes full of milkbones! I was a good boy throughout the entire weekend...I'll bug John to get some pictures of the wedding uploaded so I can share them! (Mom just posted a pic! 10/25~SDS)

Along with all of this fun stuff, we worked on some more "serious" work, though with the clicker...it's all fun to me. Since it's getting colder, Mom decided that it was time for me to retrieve blankets for John, so she doesn't have to all of the time. Since they're in another room, it's an out of sight retrieve. But I nailed it, and within a few repititions, I can now run to the other room, grab a folded blanket, and drag it back to John on the couch. All on the cue, "blanket!". I also learned to put my feet up on the drawer to get pant out (I was good at pulling the drawer open, but didn't want to "get up"). Now that's all come together too. It's good to have a job you're good at!

Later!
~SDS