WE ARE STILL HERE!!!!!! WE MISS YOU ALL!!!!

WE ARE HERE-
Hey,....so sorry, it has been a long time since my life got turned upside down and boy, what a summer and Autumn.  First off I have to say I love my blogger life and my blogging friends have been so much a part of my life, following what they are doing and talking about what we are up to but when I hurt my leg and doing agility was out of the question and it got hard to even do most training with my dogs...it felt funny talking about the dogs, not much was going on....and it was a little easier to stay away I guess.  SOOOO I hope I can keep what has been going on short, but still catch everyone who has wondered where we were up.

After Spring agility camp...way back when ....I had injured my leg, I know I tore my meniscus- the cushioning behind the knee cap, and torn some tendons or ligaments -who knows what because the doctors don't seem concerned about that, because of injuries I had when I was a kid and when I broke my knee a few years ago the knee is in such bad shape they say fixing anything is out of the question, the only thing to do is to do a knee replacement.  Well, when I finally got to see a specialist he agreed my knee NEEDS a knee replacement and there is nothing else to do but he said he highly recommended I not get one because I was too young and it could potentially need to be redone twice more at least in my life time.  That was devastating news because I really cant walk much and it impacts not just agility but my daily life a LOT!  So the first specialist injected some hyalurine acid into the knee, OUCH, which after a few weeks worked well enough that I did not have to use a cane but it only lasted a few weeks.  I was referred to a specialist specialist, hahahaha, because the specialist said my case was too complicated for him.  It took 2 months to get into the specialist, specialist, but I have an appointment next Friday!  I have come to the point where I have really decided living now is what I have to insist on, and I will worry about the future when I have to, so I just wonder how long it will take to schedule the knee replacements if it takes two months to even see this surgeon. 

Along with hobbling around I started water aerobics, which has been heaven and I really enjoy-it has helped me lose 25 lbs as of this morning!!!!  yippie!!!

As far as the dogs we all had a full summer of just hanging out and being dogs ;0!  It has been hard on Cricket, the lack of exercise but she has been a trooper.  A thousand things I could have trained or done to keep them active but...I just needed to shift gears a little for awhile ;-)  

At the end of the summer a great opportunity came up.  A friend of mine, Breezes breeder who owns Cherry...the same Cherry that lived her for quite awhile a few years back....had to be out of town when Cherry was going to whelp a litter.  She asked if I would take care of Cherry and her pups.  It has been great, and has kept me very busy and having a lot of fun.  Cherry had her six pups 3 weeks ago. 

These are the babies at 3 weeks old: 
Newton Blue Merle Boy-the biggest guy:

Raisin-black tri girl

Fig-black tri girl who LOVES  me, LOL!

Doodles-black tri girl-an explorer

Krisp-black tri female-always the first up playing and the last to go to sleep, very playful right now

Peanut-about half the size of the other guys but sooo cute and playful-he holds his own!

I have been trying to do all the fun stuff I have read about to enhance early learning with the pups.  I did the early neuro stimulation to increase their brain power, played classical music which increases neuro pathways, let them watch the flickering lights from the TV which increases their neural pathways in the brain and spend a lot of time talking to them and changing their environment around, I make sure each gets some alone time with me/us and I spend a lot of time with them as a group.  It is soooo much fun to watch them.  Here is their pen, I have it set up so they are in the middle of the living room and in  the middle of life in the home, there is a little bedding area, then a potty area--and at three weeks they are doing great going in the potty area...then there is an area with toys, and perfect for play. 

Here are the puppies playing from yesterday morning:

 

 

 

HERE IS THE CRICK STAR-she is awesome with everyone, small puppies to big dogs, to any people she meets, can not say how much I love this girlie! LOL!

 

ANYWAY, so that is what we have been up to in a nutshell, hope to catch up on everyone as quickly as i can, thanks to everyone for wading through this long post and thanks for everyone who has always been out there for me and gave me so much support over the years!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Just checking in with everyone always means a lot!