Barn-Raising Party

You don't even need a shovel :)

Prince and Pearl in heavy snow

Party Girl

Soley was at work with me on Saturday. She LOOOVES the attention that she gets and I'm sure she feels like the party collar enhances her cuteness.

Tindra was also quite pleased with herself over the weekend as she got to be a show girl on both days - didn't win either day, but she clearly enjoyed the one-on-one time with us.

Tindra and Soley

Here's our scruffy litle red dog - she is ungroomed in this picture, not even brushed.







Someone else had to get in on the action -
One day we will try showing them in brace . . .

Sigga and Max

Here is Sigga at 6 months with her sire Max. Sigga has such a pretty head and expression. They just had their first really cold day in Maine so I hope Sigga can grow some undercoat soon.

Fingers are crossed that Tofra Icelandics will get their Christmas wish of a litter of shiny red puppies (actually they would arrive in early 2010). The sire is Skessu Skolli who is Tindra's grand-sire on her father's side. There are some pictures of Skolli in this blog posting:
http://tofradogs.com/blog1/2009/11/27/happy-thanksgiving-us-friends/

Yesterday we went to visit a litter of Cardigan Corgi puppies! These are the Corgis with tails :) I have a crush on Cardigan Corgis hehe, something about their elegant lines and soulful expression, and corgi puppies are just too adorable for words. This was a great learning event as we got to help with the puppy aptitude testing. Then the puppies were evaluated for structure, and this was broadcast by Skype to a future owner in Norway and a future owner in US was watching via streaming webcam video. The breeder in Norway could talk to us and ask to see different things while the puppies were being stacked. Amazing how dog breeders can use technology these days! For my next litter I'll try broadcasting the structure evaluation. I took a few still photos during the broadcast (eval photos had also been taken the previous day).



Pal
I love the red and sable colors - it is much less common in Cardis than brindle.



Buddy - brindle male



Amie- fluffy girl



The long-hair version of the Cardi - not accepted for show but very cute!


What cuddly puppies these are! Every single owner is going to be thrilled with their new addition. Rocky the dam is such a happy girl. I also saw the lovely Best in Show winner Dolly (half-sister to this litter) and a magnificent dog, Hunter, who is Dolly's sire. The adults were racing around in the back yard during our visit, and Hunter looked just as speedy and agile as the younger dogs, at 13 and a half years old.

Teh Cute - a preview :)

Puppies are ADORABLE !

Bearing with Winter

This is Scott's second new hat for the winter. Purple is his next favorite color after red, and the earflaps will be very functional for the really cold days. I fiddled with this hat for some time before I was happy with it. I bought the pattern on-line and it is well-written, but I needed to go up in yarn weight to get a man's size hat - then I decided to add a lining (baby llama!) and change the crown of the hat so it would also be stranded knitting. I wasn't really consistent with how I did the decreases in pattern but I couldn't "bear" to re-do it again!

Tindra was at a CKC show on Saturday with Scott. The other ISD wasn't there as her owner unfortunately got lost on the way to the show site and arrived about 15 minutes after judging - how frustrating for her! It always seems a little more worthwhile if there are 2 in the breed ring so at least one dog gets a point towards their championship. So Tindra won Breed and then they waited around a couple of hours for group judging. I had to work on Saturday so Soley got to join me. She enjoyed wearing her party collar and being the centre of attention whenever possible. Soley has grown in her winter coat and compared to her last store shift, a couple of weeks ago, she is much fluffier.

We both felt like we were coming down with colds today - possibly from the early morning start yesterday (well, it was early for us anyway). We need to rest and feel better in the coming week since we have been invited to visit a litter of puppies on Saturday - they are not Icelandic sheepdogs, but another herding breed (not Shelties either), and there will certainly not be a new addition to our family, the visit is just for fun and the education of watching the litter being evaluated. I have admired the puppies on webcam and I'm sure in real life their cuteness will be unbearable!