Happy Birthday Moonsong Mouse

BrownStone Foster Pup Ms Silver

The BrownStone Cascade Peaks litter was 7 days old when I got the call: "could you add one more to the whelping box?"  Moonsong Kilia had only one surviving pup and Kilia herself was ill.

Three day old, 13oz, Ms Silver was rushed here from Seattle. 

 Koyuk immediately took to the little silver girl.

Metallic silver rick-rack to match her silver coat; an antelope to use as her photo milestone cascade animal; a spare nipple at Koyuks milkbar; Dowager McKenzie, Grandmom Cedar and mom Koyuk to learn from; and best of all, 7 brothers and sisters to grow and play with - we had a perfect home for our foster BrownStone Cascade Peak pup. .

As it turned out, Ms Silver didn't need a milestone animal, she had a photo milestone girl. Every time Anna came over she immediately grabbed Ms Silver as her own.

Cedar too was enamored with Ms Silver. Actually, everyone who saw her fell in love with the little blue eyed, silver coated girl.

3lb 5oz Ms Silver at 31/2 weeks.

Ms Silver at 7 weeks and ready to go back to her mother...

after another game Chinook tag. Her role in the game was to hide under the dogwalk board and leap out to tag then chase unsuspecting passer-byes.

Home-Sweet-Home reunion with mother Kilia and her new name: Moonsong Mouse. .

At three months, her ears set up in good mouse fashion.

Carie wrote about Mouse's first year: "Mouse is an exuberant, happy girl and is great with other dogs...which I credit to her 7 weeks with the Brownstone litter.  She recently drove across country with me and loved it.  She is a great companion and a great ambassador for the breed".

 Happy Birthday Moonsong Mouse. I can't wait to see you again next weekend.

Happy First Birthday Bramble

"PR" BrownStone Cascade Mt. Mazama

I finished my book Little Bee and actually got a bit of reprieve for my delay in Bramble's Blog. She along with her family are camping as I type. They sent this picture earlier this evening.

Mazama (Crater Lake, Ms Orange) aka Bramble was 11 oz when whelped with the able help of Karmin.

The color of her rick-rack was a no brainer. Karmin had been accepted to Oregon State University - black puppy - orange rick-rack.

This is probably my favorite litter, puppy picture and typifies Mazama's personality.

Mazama was 5lb 3 oz at 4 weeks old...

and quite a bit larger than Cougar at 8 weeks.

Mazama's forever family was already home to Koyuk's sister BrownStone Iditarod Taknotna (Muku). When son Ben spotted Mazama on the blog, they knew they had to get the black puppy he had fallen in love with. Mazama moved to Canada and became Bramble, Muku's and Ben's best bud.
Bramble and Muku were already tangling leashes during play on the way her new home...

where Bramble moved right in.

Bramble and Cougar at 9 weeks.

At 9 weeks old Bramble's mom sent this note: "So our little monkey pup can climb out of her pen.  She can also climb up the drawer handles to reach the kitchen counter and any treats that may be up there.  She is working on opening the rubbermaid container that holds her food.  She also likes to bring us her water dish....even when it is full.
She also has learned "sit", "down" and "spin".   She is far too clever for her own good.  She and Muku.continue to be best friends and wear each other out completely with all their playing.  
Our dog trainer was very impressed with both her and Muku.....and wanted us to pass on a compliment to you about how well you raised little Bramble!"

All of the BrownStone Cascade Peaks pups have gone through periods on interesting ear sets during their first year. Here is Bramble at 3 1/2 months.

Brambles mother wrote about the ear situation: "We shall see – today is the first day her ear has behaved like that.  It seems to bother her as she keep shaking her head to try to get it to stay down. 

Oh well...she’s cute no matter what her ears do.  It also seems that she loves to run, and loves the short trails we’ve taken her on so far, leaping over logs and other obstacles with ease.  Looks like I’ll have a great trail running team once she’s old enough."

Bramble's family are endurance trail runners and outdoor enthusiasts. Muku has been joining in the serious trail running for a couple of years. Bramble is limited to shorter hikes until her joints are mature. They both wear necessary "bear" bells when they are on the trail.

"Muku took Bramble on her favourite hike/run today.   They had such fun together!"

 Bramble relaxing after her hike.

Muku teaching 3 month old Bramble about snow (the scrapings from the ice rink)

Bramble at 5 months really wants to still fit on the bed too.

 Ho-Ho-Ho a family Christmas.

The turkey has their full attention.

Over the months as Bramble matured, the hiking trips got longer, faster and more challenging.

The family sent several videos of the dogs running on a trail obstacle course with swaying bridges, teeters, ramps... but I after several unsuccessful attempts to transfer them to the blog, I had to give up.

"Its really hard to get a photo of the dogs running with me....but here is the best one I could get of them on the "stairs from hell".  muku refused to go up or down them the first few times I took her there...but bramble was fearless as always!"

Ben on the trail with Muku and 11 month old Bramble.

As a year summary, Bramble's family wrote: "Bramble is (I think, as I’ve never measured a dog before) about 22.5inches at withers, and is 22.7 kilos as at her last vet visit in early July.

Bramble is such a sweet little girl, and very different from Muku – although they get along perfectly.   Muku is still quite motherly to Bramble and watches out for her, and gives her a good wash after a muddy run in the woods.  

Bramble is a little cuddlebug, and loves to curl up as close as possible to whichever of us is convenient....Ben, Brad, me or Muku.   She will even try to push me over so I’ll get down on the ground and let her cuddle.   She always has a toy or 3 in her mouth, and even falls asleep holding one.   She is incredibly curious and not afraid of anything that we’ve come across yet.    While very vocal most of the time with all sorts of snuffling, grunting, howling and other noises, she does not have the loud singing at mealtimes that Muku has (although lately she’s been trying to learn this).  

Both she and Muku still love their trail runs, and get out about 5 times/week.   They are both so graceful and energetic on the runs, and all my friends love to run with them.    Bramble likes to stick quite a bit closer to me and won’t usually let me out of her sight, while Muku has a more independent streak and will wander off a bit more (although both will disappear if they smell something lovely like dead fish).     Muku hates rain, and wont go deeper than her belly in the water....while Bramble is a great little swimmer and loves puddles, lakes, rivers and even rain.

The two of them are rather in love, and do not like to be separated and will be rather distraught if they are.    They are both amazing dogs (with very long tongues) and we are very lucky to have them as part of our family!"

Bramble with Cougar on her first birthday.

A Hot Day, Good Read and Enterprizing Nooks

Sorry BrownStone Cascade Mt Mazama - aka Bramble, but it was again in the 90's and a good friend came by for morning coffee and loaned me the book Little Bee by Chris Cleave. The book has totally captured me.  I laid reading in the shaded hammock all day. Now it is too late to do justice to Bramble's birthday tribute but never fear, tomorrow, I promise to publish it.

My hammock is by the pond. Throughout the day the dogs and I took frequent swims to cool off. I tried to catch a picture of the skewed expression and water flying off McKenzie as she shook off but obviously needed a different camera setting - another photographic challenge to learn.

The dogs have finished off all the raspberries and strawberries and are making huge inroads on the blueberry bushes. The apples, plumbs and pears aren't ripe yet but are still considered a treat worth working for.

This is the first year the dogs have actually picked the fruit. Deer do stand on hind legs and bat fruit down to the fawns and over the years they have grazed the branches out of reach of the dogs. Last night's batting and today's strong winds caused a couple fruit laden branches to hang just low enough for the dogs to give picking a go.

Even Cedar got in on the action. Old McKenzie just waits below until one of the others drops something for her to run away with.

Last summer this was the enclosed puppy play area.  Trask and his litter mates feasted on fruit dropping from heaven into their puppy play yard.
A year later he has figured out how to harvest for himself.

The poo will be buzzing with fruit flies in the morning.

As I was just typing, the funniest, muffled wolf howl came from the dog couch. Trask had fallen asleep with a soft toy in his mouth and was howling in his sleep.My laughing and his howling got the others really excited. Their voices joined in.  Trask awoke but never did drop his toy making for a really funny sounding, prolonged chorus. The windows are open. I am sure neighbors outside sipping cocktails in the warm evening air will have tales to tell at work tomorrow of Bigfoot or coyotes in their woods.

Happy First Brithday Liaka

"PR" BrownStone Cascade Mt. Koma

Koma (Mt.Baker, Ms Yellow) is now a lucky beach girl named Liaka. She was 14oz when whelped.

By 4 weeks only brother Wy'east out-weighed 5lb 4oz Koma.

By 8 weeks Koma was stunning. Her beautiful looks and spectacular movement impressed everyone, including the AKC judges I hired to evaluate the litter.

 Koma is now Liaka and was named after the first dog in space.

Like all the puppies in this litter, Liaka has gone through several ear sets during her first year. At 9 weeks, she wore a really cute helicopter ears to puppy class.

Halloween saw a bewitching forward set.

Liaka's ears were up during one of her daily romps on the beach in November. (Actually this was Thanksgiving Day).

Christmas Liaka's head was festooned with one ear forward and one to the side.

 In March she showed her inherent Chinook love of snow (and a reversal of ear set).

"We were at Mammoth Lakes this past week.  Laika loved the snow and frolicked in it constantly.  I have skijoring equipment which we brought with us, but I am relearning cross country skiing (last done almost 35 years ago), and I was not confident that I could control Laika and ski at the same time.  We will continue treking to Mammoth in the future and I hope to master Skijoring with Laika eventually.  By the way, there were several skijorers on the trail with their dogs each day that I was in the cross country venues".

 Liaka at 9 months playing at a the dog park

At 11 months Liaka's owner wrote: "We just returned from Mammoth Lakes last evening and I wanted to send you a few of the photos of Laika that we took there.  She is still a bit apprehensive of the water - fresh water this time - but as you can see loves playing in it.  At here last weigh in she was 58.6 lbs; that was three weeks ago.

We began classes in Therapy Dog training last week.  The organization is "Love Heels"; Patricia Dibsie trains at Nazareth House, a retirement home and health center.  We shall see how Laika does.

Skijoring will have to wait until cross country ski season, but I am hoping to get her involved in that sport next winter."

Liaka greeting a new comer at her dog park birthday party.