It has been quite awhile since I posted. The summer was wonderful. It was a rare day that Don and I did NOT let all the dogs loose. We got into a nice routine every day and it was a joy to be able to let all the dogs interact on a daily basis. I only worked one job this summer much to my relief and thus had some extra time to spend with the dogs. They are all doing well although I see the age creeping up in many of our dogs. So many of them are now 10 to 12 years old. But all are healthy and that is the important part.
Don and I built a couple of new "freedom" pens. These are huge areas where we can leave dogs loose all of the time. We now have more dogs off the chain than we do on the chain. But we always bring everyone back into the main yard when it is time to let everyone loose. I never want to create more than one pack so it is important that they all interact every day.
All the SCL dogs are doing great. Shaman (shelter dog) is becoming more bold and often comes in the house now. He is still terribly shy but loves to play and doesn't have a mean bone in his body.
We also have another dog and looks like she will stay here for life. I was firm on not getting another dog as 30 is quite enough to look after and care for them physically and mentally.
But Raja is now a part of our group. She was at the shelter for a very long time. At one point there was a person in Germany who was going to adopt her and another dog named Foxy. It dragged out for a week and in the meantime a person from CT who had adopted another shelter dog had emailed me saying she would take Raja. At the time Raja was already spoken for so I told the person in CT that she was already adopted. Well, when the German adoption fell through we went and picked up Raja and brought her home much to the joy of the person in CT.
BUT.....she was terribly thin and a picky eater when we got her. Found out that she is a much older dog than we thought. Since she has perfect teeth we thought she was a fairly young dog....but....she is probably over 10 years of age. She had 2 large mammary tumors which were removed when she was spayed. Luckily they were benign.
So she is not going to travel to CT and will live out her life with us. She is still very thin but her coat is gorgeous now (it was so ratty when we got her) and she IS eating much better.
We also think she is deaf or very hard of hearing. She doesn't like other dogs surprising her and will lash out at them. So we have kept her in a large pen and let her loose with just a couple of dogs each day. She loves people and comes if we can get her attention to see us. She loves cuddles and pets. We will run her with the older group this winter and just take a day at a time with her.
We are anxious to start running the dogs but at the moment the 4 wheel drive is broken on my truck so I can't haul the 4 wheeler anywhere. And until we get more snow I can't run the 4 wheeler out of my house.
Luckily the shelter has very few huskies right now. SCL pulled 5 dogs into the group over the last 5 weeks (North Pole, Kodiak, Raz, Vicki (now Nicki) and Alma). Alma will be going to Michigan to her new home by the end of the month. Chalupa got adopted into a great home recently so that made us all quite happy.
We are praying for a good snow winter this year. Lots of skijoring on our agenda!