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Rusty the Rooster has always been a very unique member of The Herd. He does everything in his own style and on his own time. Many of you have seen his behind the human’s legs walk. Today, the human decides to play back on The Rooster. Hope you enjoy:
Got a question for you.
Can you see the weekend from here?
Our hu-dad would love to claim that he came up with the title of today’s post all by himself. But, that would totally ignore that Jack and Moo as well as Juno and Loki all suggested it (In case you live in a country where the restaurant name means nothing to you, click here to understand the reference). Regardless, it is time to visit The Thundering Herd Annex and check in on Tartok and Ruby just in time for treats:
Did someone say treats?
Detail - Atten Hut!
Cool it with the licking of the chops, Rubester
Big Brothers - sheesh - Always trying to boss a girl around.
Love the tongues both out - some thanks for treats
Now that he is gone, let's talk about more for me.
We went walking on the Blue Ridge Parkway, where our section is typically closed throughout the winter. Normally, we have it all to ourselves, but fresh powder brings out lots of others. Here is who we shared the trail with.
Wooo - Who is that coming down the road?
One of the half dozen cross country skiers we met.
And this guy was loving running with his skier
And kept a good pace the whole time.
Kiska got a high vantage point to watch everyone pass
And all of these people were sledding down a hill
Qannik was wondering who was making all of the racket behind him
Some Pup was doing her "I wanna" song and would not be quiet
For those of you who do not know the “I wanna” song, Cheoah can be quite vocal when she wants something, which is pretty much all of the time. The trick is figuring out what she wants at that given moment so you can get a few minutes of quiet. I wanna drink of water. I wanna eat something. I wanna go to the bathroom. I wanna go for a walk. I wanna have my belly scratched. I wanna out of my crate. I wanna in my crate. And so on. Experience tells us that she gets louder and louder until you give in. And then you have a little quiet until she thinks of something else she wants.
In this case, she was bored watching the sledders and wanted to keep walking. After a few minutes of crescendo, we caved and kept walking. She has the humans well trained with embarrassment as her motivating tool. Sigh.
*******
Pups – need your help. Another of us is sick and needs pawsitive thoughts. Please cross your paws and send the best of vibes to Sitka who is being treated at the University of Georgia for a pneumothorax – which basically means a hole in her lungs. As of this posting, she was responding to treatments, but next steps are still being determined. Join The Herd in praying for a full and quick recovery. Power of the Paw!
Most of you already know our friend, Max of South Africa. Max has taken many of us dog bloggers on educational tours of his beautiful country. Knowing Max is ailing, we have invited him to share some of The Herd’s adventures today.
Max and Kiska enjoying a snowy walk
Max waiting with Cheoah for her rescue from the babygate trap.
Max spending time with Ruby at The Thundering Herd Annex
Max, Tartok and Ruby hanging out on the picket line in front of the Jeep
Max waiting on the picket line to go sled training with Rusty, Qannik and Natasha
Max and Rusty playing with balloons
Most of all, Max, we wanted you and your family to know that The Herd is thinking of you every day and wishing you the best. We would like to invite you to be an honorary member of The Herd:
Want to see where all Max has been in the last 24 hours? Here is the list (as we know it). If we left you out, please leave a comment and we will add your blog (we are updating as find them):
Clive – Assistance Dog for Autism
Romping and Rolling in the Rockies
P.S. – Happy Valentines, everyone!
Pups, we have to tell you how hard things have been this week. Can you believe that we went 30 hours STRAIGHT without any winter weather warnings? Whatever is a Siberian supposed to do? But at least some more snow moved in Friday afternoon and we had a great walk Friday night. All was right with the world because it was snowing and, very importantly, we beat the snow plow. Here are some pictures from the walk:
Red Team - in a blur
Black and White Team
Kiska covered in the falling snow
Kiska telling everyone to hurry it up.
Qannik practicing his winter camouflage
Queen Natasha setting the pace
Kodiak and Cheoah waiting on Rusty to catch up
Rusty - Why does everyone want me to stay in step?
Because I like to march to my own drummer
Woo – we are so happy. It is officially the weekend. Ok, ok, the hu-dad has to get some work done today and all of that stuff, but we are ready to go do some of this:
Hiking!
Anyone notice what is really unusual about this photograph? Yep – we are all 6 in it – with no Photoshop special effects. We screwed up and allowed our human to capture a rare picture of everyone. We will try hard not to let it happen again.
By the way, we were very literary in our Wednesday post. We thought for sure that Dave of the A04 would pick up on it.
You looking for me?
Just walking through the kitchen.
Innocent Ruby.
Yes – Haik-woo! Dave is the master of Haik-woo and has some of the best ones we have ever seen, but we tried our paw at it as well. Guess we were a little too subtle with that one. We should know better. We Sibes are not exactly known for subtle.
Have a great Friday!
Join us as we walk around checking on trees down on our fire road, watch the skiers at Cataloochee Ski, and generally just enjoy this past Saturday’s snowy day.
You looking for me?
Just walking through the kitchen.
Innocent Ruby.
Stay with us for a little bit and the title of the post will become clear.
First – Cheesewhiz. That would be one of the many nicknames for Cheoah. No particular purpose other than the Che sound. We call her Cheesewhiz all of the time and that gets some pretty funny reactions. (In the event you forgot how she got the name Cheoah – the Cherokee word for otter – please go see her page here. Now remember that we live beside the Cherokee Reservation, so people actually know we have a dog named Otter which is as strange as calling her Cheesewhiz).
Now for the stuck part. We use baby gates in strategic places to prevent certain leaping animals from going to places unsupervised. The gazelle of the group – Kiska – is a master at clearing baby gates, so we use a double baby gate at the base of the steps from the den because she has never figured out a way to leap over two baby gates on a curving set of steps. She will some day, and we have a third gate ready to go when that happens. Seriously.
The Cheesewhiz has never tried to go over the gates. So imagine my surprise when I came down the steps and saw this:
Seriously, I was not trying to get through these gates. Honest. Now put down that camera and get me out.