Winter Wonderland

Snow! And once again we were out before decent photographing light. Chinooks do love snow.

They also love to catch snowballs but have yet to figure out that when missed, snowballs disappear.

Catching a stop action photo is lucky with excited Chinooks.

"Can we go play again?

Celebration

The second best thing about having the family Christmas celebration at your house is that it gets really clean The best is listening to all the happy chatter of gathering family.

Guest Lupin always raids the dog toy box but this visit she focused on collecting all the bones and antlers to enjoy under the tree.

Newlywed Clarice showing wedding photos.

Little brother John and Dave caught at the desert table.

Susan

Nami

Cousins Molly, Brian, and Andy

Sarah with father JJ.

We were so blessed to be able to host Dave's family for fun, food and fellowship.

Early Rising

The dogs would NOT let us sleep in. They, including guest Lupin, started insisting I open my eyes at 3am. In the dark the ground looked white, but so does moonlight on frosty ground. By 5:30 there was no putting it off - it was snowing and the dogs wanted out - now! It appears, Chinooks love snow even more than food. 

As I type, the ground is now totally covered. Ho-Ho-Ho.

SPYteam Class

Several SPYteam members are high school, varsity athletes and could not make the previous CPR/AED class due to scheduled games. Sunday we held a make-up class for them.

First the lecture along with idle hands to give attention to the dogs.

"Call 911"! Taylor rushes in with the AED.

Maintaining 100 compressions per minute is exhausting even for varsity athletes.

We are now ready - where is the snow?

Chinook National Speciality

Yesterday, Lonna, Jetty, Koyuk and I headed north to Vancouver to the Chinook Club of America National Championship.

happy Chinook

We did not get to set up our space until 5:30 pm

Kaltag checks out his sister Koyuk

Chinooks become fully recognized by AKC on January 1, 2013.  All judges  judging Chinooks need to attend an official  "Judges Education". This didn't happen until all 12 rings (thousands of dogs) had finished showing for the day. 

After the lecture, the judges got hands-on training.

Very handsome, BrownStone Iditarod Koltag.

We finally got to go into the ring at 8 pm - way past dinner time for Koyuk.  She was so excited to see a treat bit on the show ring mat, she lunged for it, breaking the chain on her show lead. I had to frantically excuse ourselves to the judge; find a lead to borrow; and get her back into the ring.

Poor girl wanted to be just about anywhere else but the ring. She did end up taking second best bitch (the female she lost to went on to take Best Opposite of Show - so not bad). The judge was very interested in her.  Had she been on, I bet she could have been Best Opposite to her intended, Best of Breed Champion, Oscar.

Jetty Joins Team Nookies

Jetty came over from the coast for a 5 mile rig run with Team Nookies.  Lonna was first on the bike as the carrot.

 

 After 2.5 miles Lonna jumped on the rig.

 Only 1/2 mile to go.

Ho-Ho-Splosh

What's a family to do when there is no snow anywhere and time is running out to take the Christmas card photo?