BrownStone Chinooks: February 2017

Monday, February 27, 2017

Rest in Peace BrownStone Lupin

BrownStone Lupin 12/11/2003-2/27/2017

Miss White 12/11/03

McKenzie with her daughter

Miss White day 50

Day 56 with mother McKenzie

Day 60

Miss White now Lupin joined her forever family on day 65

Lupin settling in to her new home.

I have been so lucky to be part of Lupin's extended family and thus have a myriad of pictures to go with wonderful memories.

With the addition of A, always tolerant Lupin became a play-toy, snuggle bunny...

consumer of all dropped goodies...

bed and...

comforter.

Lupin retained her family role after the addition of K.

As the girls grew, so did the adventures.

Gentle Lupin was always game for anything.

Lupin lived a wonderful life and added so much to those who loved her. Her passing is deeply felt.

Grief for her hurts enormously.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

BrownStone Trask the Stud

Years ago I fell heads-over-heels in love with a girl named Mountain Thunder Scarlet but my Willy died and Trask was too young so the pairing did not happen. Not all has been lost. Trask was breed, long distance, to Scarlet's daughter Mountain Thunder Calamity Jane this weekend. The breeding was a bit complex and paws are crossed to it's success but the two of them should produce some of the most awesome Chinooks ever.

The beautiful Calamity Jane

I was contacted by Jane's co-owner, who was in Europe on a business trip at the time, about breeding Trask to Jane. Problem was that she went into season early so this had to be an ASAP arrangement. The other problem was that Jane lives with her forever family in the Chicago area and Trask is in Eugene, Oregon. The third problem was that the repo-vet was in Willsonville, Oregon. Oh yea, the weather was predicted snow and freezing rain.
Lab tests are used to tell when a girl ovulates and then there is only a three day window for insemination. We planned to take advantage of two of them. Not wanting to make an early morning, bad weather, several hours drive north, at the last minute, I arranged to stay Wednesday night at my sister's house in Salem, 1/2 way there.
Thursday morning, after scraping the ice from the overnight freezing rain, we headed out to the repo-vet. We got there an hour before the lab results came in from Chicago. Jane was not ready.
We drove back to Salem bummed. I arranged for another night's stay in Salem and used the spare time to work on my iPhone skills.

At home, my dogs have 24/7 access to outside where they can pee/poop. I don’t have a clue as to a schedule. When I could not get him to go, I remembered that Trask has never pooped on leash. But we had no other choice. We also had to try at the on-leash dog park about 3 blocks away and way downhill. Even the park was on a slope. My sister’s house has million dollar views but there is a price to pay when you have to walk an excited, powerful Chinook downhill, on icy sidewalks. I know he had a lot more fun than I did. SO much fun that he decided to wake me several times to “go”. After about 10 o'clock, it was too icy to chip the ice off and drive the van to the park. I probably really scandalized my sister being drug around at all hours in the night in slippers and a sweatshirt over PJs only to have Trask mark every bush in the neighborhood but hold all else in.

The appointment was scheduled for later on Friday. We got the "it is a go" results before we arrived at the vet.

A happy boy during the "collection" procedure.

A little repo-vet humor.

Trask "relaxing" after the deed was done...

but then there was counter surfing to do too.

On the way back to Salem I stopped in for a celebratory brew. I found a bottle of Rascal pinot gris...

bottled right near the repo-vets office.

Trask of course was not interested in wine or posing for that matter...

after his dinner, he was quickly asleep.

The next morning, after a few middle of the night potty excursions, we awoke with a song. His howls got the dogs next door joining in. (My sister may never let me back into her neighborhood.)