Hurricane Deck

Well, it hasn't been much fun the last week at the Hurricane Deck Household! We've been playing the doggie shuffle since both of my girls are in heat. It goes something like this - put the girls in the bathroom. Let the boy dogs in and put them in their kennels. Put the girls outside for a few hours, then reverse! I do appreciate that the weather has been nice enough to leave them outside for a few hours at a time or the Rat Dogs would have to spend more time in their kennels then I like for them to during the day. I am VERY appreciative of the fact that Rodear and Jada were kind enough to cycle at the same time so that I have another six months before I play the shuffle game again. Over the weekend we went to the High Plains Kennel Club dog show (UKC). Rooster was being an ass, so I only showed him one show. I hope that one day his brains outgrow his ball size. Rodear showed the other three shows and she was dumped all three times - I wasn't really happy about it...

How pathetic that I've let my blog go for THIS LONG! But, it's been a wild and crazy last few months. On a personal front, I have a new occupation as a contract landman, and I just love it! The courthouse is 10 minutes from my house, and I do the vast majority of work from my home. I love having more time with my dogs. As for the dogs, well - wow - I am down to four! I did some serious paring down of numbers and recalculated my goals for the next few years. It almost feels like I don't have any dogs at all, really. The biggest news I have is that my little rabbit, fox and raccoon hunter, Sniper, is the #9 Rat Terrier for 2010. I am VERY proud of my boy - not only is he an amazing hunter, but his temperament is just to die for, and he's a beautiful representation of the breed! This year we are only hitting mostly local shows, and of course we are going to hit Premier in Kalamazoo in June. I haven't been to a show since December, and I am ready to hit the sh...

Day 2, Sunday As I have detailed before here ,I go hunting and hiking quite a bit by myself. I am always prepared for just about any emergency and I take great pride in that – plus a year or so back I splurged and bought a SPOT Tracker for emergencies, and I also buy search and rescue insurance. My best line of preparation when going at it alone is that I always let someone know when I am going, exactly where I am going, what I plan on doing, and when I plan on returning. So one would think that on my many treks from which I have safely returned, that my husband would think me capable of somewhat being able to care of myself, right? WRONG. On School Section Mountain, the husband and I decided to split up. He would take one side of the mountain, and I would traverse the other. Little did I know that he was trying to keep me in his sight; for what reason, I have no idea. I was merrily going along my way, looking into groups of pine trees and groves of aspens, stopping to listen, ...

A beautiful but chilly Saturday morning found us high on a hilltop scanning several valleys below before sunrise. Unfortunately, even from our high vantage point there were no elk to be seen once the morning was light enough to illuminate animal that was perhaps lingering over the grass. We took out the maps and quietly formulated a plan to drive further west to a patch of promising timber. Our first sign that something was amiss was a backpack left by an outcropping of rocks. We were supposed to be the only hunters on this particular section of a ranch, and it looked like we weren’t. It wasn’t hard to spot the trespassers since they had decided to stay out of the tress and instead traverse a meadow. I caught up with them and asked them their business, their names, and then asked them to leave. I had a difficult time believing, that with a backpack full of maps and a GPS unit, that they had no idea they were on private property. My husband, father in law and I decided to split u...

While I am busy putting together a post about dog paws, I will entertain you with a story that I wrote in March of this year regarding my experience in the Best In Show ring. Enjoy! I was inspired by the laughing of my sister Rochelle to write down this memory of my Best in Show ring experience at the last dog show I was at. No, we didn't win, but a grin from one of you might be worth the headache I was experiencing!! Sniper and I happily got a group one - woohoo! I was VERY excited to take him into the ring and maybe snag one of those Best In Show ribbons. However, things took a turn for the worst when I got sandwiched in between a woman with a Shiba Inu who had no idea how to bait or even work with her dog, and a very large woman in a flowing skirt who had a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (or however you spell it - small, fuzzy dog whose eyeballs look like they are going to come out of its head). Shiba Inu woman was showing a dog that could really care less where it was. Howeve...

It feels like I haven't taken the dogs out hunting in forever. All of my free time (and most of my money too) has been taken up by the project that is the basement. I am attempting to turn the basement into a decent dog space - on one side there is an epoxied floor and will be this shower wall type plastic wall covering on the bottom 4' of the walls. On the other side of the basement will be my ginormous freezer (and I am hoping to add a second), a fridge for dog stuff, shelving for storage, a washer and dryer for dog blankets, a utility sink for washing dogs in and a couch and a television - and carpeted floors. The whole place will be a retreat for me and the dogs. My husband has his shop - so I need a place of my own! Last weekend was a dog show, and I am proud that Heidi Hoser the Three Toed Wonder earned her Grand Champion title. Rodear earned 2 legs toward her Grand Champion title, and she needs 3 more. Sniper took 3 out of 4 best of breed wins, which will put him b...

I, in my infinate inability to keep my mouth shut, offered someone training advice on a public forum for their resource guarding Rat Terrier. I told them that when he does the growling bit, calmly walk over, pick him up by the scruff of the neck, and put him in his kennel for a few hours. In my own experience with Ratties, this works pretty well because the dog learns that if you attempt to guard something, you will be corrected and then removed from your treasure and the rest of the pack. I didn't think that this was in any way controversial. Oh, how wrong I was! I found out that I might as well have told her to punt the dog like a football across the room, because that is what "scruffing" is to the "All Positive" fanatics. Of course, their suggestions would lead to reinforcement of the behavior or out and out terror. There were two camps - the first camp said to "redirect the dog's behavior by offering it a treat to give up it's treasure...