We went to visit our little brittany puppy Annie yesterday at the dog trainers place. Alyssa wanted to go with me because she likes Annie and thinks she’s the cutest puppy ever. It is nice to have Annie so close that we can stop by anytime for a visit. Annie seems to recognize me and comes right to me when I call her. She is still retrieving pretty well although she is developing a bit of an independent streak. Sometimes she’ll take the dummy and run away with it.

While we were there we got to help Chris add 3 more priefert dog kennel panels to bring his capacity up to four. He picked up another client locally this week. He will be force-fetch training a german shorthair named “Rat”. It is fun to see Chris work with the dogs. He is really fixing up his place nicely for the dog training and his future dog boarding business. Annie seems to respond well to Chris and his training methods. We hope to visit Annie again in a few days.

With all the snow and cold temperatures I have neglected the dogs a bit lately since I really don’t want to go outside when it is well below zero. The ground has been white here since the last week in November and I am ready to see the sunshine again. The snow does create a nice backdrop and I know in the Summer we’ll be wishing it would have snowed more to help fill the water tables and reservoirs with the spring runoff.

I gathered up my faithful dog training helper and we loaded Abby and Jake up for a run up in the foothills. No birds, no guns just a good time running and chasing in the snow. Travis loves to go anywhere on the four-wheeler with me. This time we took a new trail a little closer to home and stopped when were well away from the distraction of town.

Abby was content just to run and run. She is just about 9 months old now and really loves to stretch her legs and “punch holes in the sky” as Bill Tarrant would say. She is growing into her frame a bit and is turning into quite a looker. Just if she had a decent dog trainer she might be worth something.

Jake is 16 months old now and is getting a little more content to just sit back and watch. He tries to keep up with Abby but usually hangs a little closer to me. He has a good nose but is still having a hard time with gun fire and blinking birds. I am sure this is caused by his retarded trainer. Jake loves me anyways.