Ski Trip



Rugby came with us on our mini vacation this year to Wisp. This is not the first time Rugby has stayed with me in a hotel, but I think it is the first time he has stayed with me in such a busy hotel. The whole first day I argued with Rugby over the appropriate use of his voice.

 He was certain that he should use it to silence our noisy neighbors. I was certain that he should not be using it at all. He compromised with me by saving his voice for only the really offensive behaviors of our neighbors instead.

Most of the time, really offensive behaviors are preceded by slightly-offensive behaviors, or not-really-offensive behaviors. For these noises, Rugby would growl as opposed to bark as part of the compromise. Being the opinionated little dog that he is, he did this guilt free and looked in the direction of the noise.

When the behavior became more offensive that this, but less offensive that "really" offensive, Rugby would then look at ME and growl. He did this as if to say, "I know you don't like when I yell at people but if you don't make them stop I will have no other choice. You do hear it don't you?"

At this point I had to remind him there were indeed other choices to be made, like ignoring the noise all together. This reminder was followed every single time by a deep sigh, laying down and letting slip one more grumble about the entire situation by Rugby. He has to make sure he gets the last word in!

Celebrate... Day 25

We made it, all 25 Days with new pictures for each one of them! This last one was the hardest to get. We searched all over for a good picture at our grandparents house and finally settled on using their shirts as our red and green objects!

It was a wonderful Christmas, especially since Rugby got to visit with all the cousins and his favorite person in the entire world (not an exaggeration)... my grandfather.

Disgust... Day 24

Rugby wore pink today. I don't know how it happened, and neither does Rugby.

He is an outgoing dog, and has a big personality that screams "I AM A BOY." And somehow, the pink did not compliment that trait at all. We will make sure to leave the pink to the girls in the future.

Make sure to get to bed early tonight, or else Santa won't come! Rugby is already sleeping.

Playful... Day 23



How dare I forget to bring Rugby's jacket to Applewoods today? Although he doesn't ask to come in, it is just too cold for me to let him run in the pack for too long. I think Rugby would have preferred the cold to having to come back in to defrost. Poor guy. Won't matter tomorrow either since he is getting a bath and is definitely NOT going out to play!

He will have to settle for some indoor playing and fun instead. :-)

Worn Out... Day 22

Finals are over, and we are wasting no time starting our winter break! We got up bright and early to make it to the Open/Utility class this morning. Oh boy did Rugby work hard!

One of the things we worked on was doing scent articles with a couple delicious and smelly Zuke's Power bars as a distraction. You can see them in the first picture.

He kept waiting for me to tell him he didn't have to finish so he could avoid those treats completely. Better not to make a decision at all than to make the wrong one, I suppose. He sniffed half of them and then look at me like, "It's not here I already checked." Then he would go back to work checking the same half of them and look at me again. "It's NOT HERE.... I checked!" He did prevail after some time. What a good distraction those treats were! We need to practice that more!

After a nice long morning of training all the dogs went out to romp in the yard, including Rugby. What I didn't realize was that while we were training, it was warming up to a toasty 45* outside! The previously frozen ground was now much softer and what was left of the snow was melting quick!

Needless to say, when I called Rugby back in to take our red and green picture he was GROSS! Muddy feet and dirt spread all throughout his coat. He had not only been running with the unusually large number of Labs we had today but had found something good to roll in too. We borrowed Ellie's comb and tried to clean his face up a little. You can still see some dirt streaks in his beard though.

We borrowed Sugar, the lab for our photo today. We figured with his nice working retrieve and a whopping 84lbs to work with, he met the requirements for the pictures!

Thanks for carrying Rugby around, Sugar!

Mini malt... Day 21



We were wandering around etsy when we stumbled across this way-to-cute maltese sculpture by Lynda Pleet, at Pleet Art. She has lots of other dog breeds too, and even some life size sculptures!

This is one of Rugby's early Christmas presents. He isn't too excited about it, but I was! :-p

Last Day... Day 20



There was some good holiday fun happening before/during/after/around the Utility class tonight. It is almost Christmas after all, and there are no more dog classes until next year!