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With the snow, the rangers have closed our section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We love when that happens, because then we can use the road as a terrific hiking area and can explore the parkway at foot speed – discovering lots of things you never see in a car. Someone had obviously had been there before us, because we found a series of snowmen built, including this little guy.
Hey, Little Guy. Cool to meet you. - Kiska
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The hu-dad has claimed to be really, really busy at work lately, so we have been terrible about answering all of your questions. (Er, and not to mention that we have well over a 1000 unread blog posts in our reader thingy, so forgive us for that, too). So let’s try to answer a few reader questions:
The horses seemed a little less pleased that The Herd.
Sam asked us about our post “A Little Snow, Finally“, “Are those horses yours?”
No, those horses are a part of the many horses owned by our neighbors, Cataloochee Ranch. The ranch is a thousand acres that stretches across the top of our mountain. We love seeing all of the horses grazing in the fields around us.
Trying to get a picture of everypup is always challenging. Like here, where Kiska is off to the side.
Hound Dog Mom asked about our post “Always Too Many,” “How do you walk them all at once, I can see something around your waist. I am always looking for ways to walk 3 hounds better to free my hands up for picture taking.”
That waist belt you see is one of the coolest things we use. It is called a High Sierra Walk-a-Belt from White Pine Outfitters. You have to replace the carabineers with something a little more heavy duty (any good outdoor store will have good ones), but the product is solid. We have been told about a competing product – the Canicross Belt from Canadog Supply – but we have not tried it yet.
What would you think if you were camping beside this?
And, finally, after our post “Campground Behavior,” 24 Paws of Love (which is a name we really love for some reason) and many others asked, “So how do you get The Herd not to sing in public???”
Well, no one said we had a perfect record. The Herd has been well known for its public singing ability. What we have learned is that we have two song leaders – Kiska and Rusty – and if we can keep them from singing, then we can keep the entire Herd quiet.
Kiska is easy. Just call her name. She thrives on attention, so a simple calling of her name and a few cuddles, and she has forgotten that she planned to lead a song time.
Rusty is much, much, much more difficult. He does what he wants when he wants (imagine that out of Siberian Husky), so getting him to stop is really tough. If you call his name, he may stop for a moment, but his lips are still pursed for singing. The key here is NOT to burst out laughing, because then song time has begun and it can not be stopped. For all of Rusty fans, you can imagine that keeping a straight face while working with him is quite the challenge.
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Our friends, Jake and Fergi, want to remind everyone of the Second Annual Worldwide Moment. We have so many friends who need a little extra Power of the Paw at the moment and this is our chance to harness it together as a single group. Please follow that link for all of the details and join so many others in the dog and cat and horse and bird and, well, every-animal blogging world.
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Our Hu-Dad shares the latest updates on his writing projects, the books he's reading, and other details in random musings posted on his website. You can check out his novels there as well.
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We have a walking belt also but it is different to both of your ones, its like this:
http://www.k9essentials.co.nz/store/icesibes-walkingrunning-belt-p-90.html
They are invaluable according to Ma!
I am glad you are such good doggies while camping it means you can go away more often!
We got to travel on part of the Blue Ridge Parkway this summer … and we don’t know if we were lucky, or what. But we saw NO cars traveling our direction (north?) and only one big pack of motorcycles traveling south. We felt really lucky … it was that way for nearly two hours. We went nice and slowly and stopped a lot. We can imagine how amazing it must be to have it to yourself in the winter!
Thanks for helping to spread the word about the Worldwide Moment. The more joining us all, the better!
xxoo
Jake and Fergi
So now all we need is a video of Rusty singing, just to see if we will sing along too:)
Have a great week and don’t worry about the 1000 unread blogs, just mark as read, and start over:)
Woos ~ Phantom, Thunder, and Ciara
Oh no….not snow….I know you guys love it but I being the dainty dane that I am do not like that stinkin’ white stuff…can you keep it in your mountains all winter and make sure none of it hits Chicagoland?? Ha Roo!! Actually it’s supposed to be in the 60’s the next few days…now that’s my kind of weather.
AAARF Kasha the Dainty Great Dane
well, i certainly would be kicked out of the camp grounds if I had Rusty for a day. I’m no good at not laughing at goofballs.
Thanks for letting me know about the waist belt. I will be checking those out for sure. I sort do that with Amiee. I hook one on my belt hoop but she has pulled off then when a rabbit pops up. Again, thanks for answering my question. HoundDogMom
Ya snow now that is exciting… When is the first sleigh ride??
Big Sloppy Kisses
Gus, Louie and Callie
Although we’ve seen our first flakes in Vermont already, it is crazy that you beat us to any decent accumulation. I think I’m ok with that though. 😉
Wow, your snow looks beautiful. I can’t wait! We saw our first flurries on Friday but it seems to be warming up again.
We really love the first picture! Thank you so much for answering our questions!
Sam
I love public singing – Layla’s, not mine – and unless it’s at a place where other people could honestly get mad, I don’t do much to stop her.
When she was young, she was so quiet I started to think she was actually mute. So when she started talking/howling, I encouraged it, and I’m still glad I did. I love being able to have conversations with her. Either she thinks that I sound more like a Malamute or she just doesn’t deign to answer other people, but when others try to talk back to her, she just huffs at them and looks at me.
But, in the rare case that I don’t want her howling, her command to be quiet is, “Shut your fat mouth.”
Cute little snowman!
The answer about the signing had me giggling. Rusty the song leader… so funny!
I love that picture of Kiska and the snowman! That ought to be in a calendar somewhere!
I have to confess, I miss singing! Hawk was our song leader and since he left, nobody has stepped up to take the lead. Perhaps you ought to record the singing for us for Christmas! I can see Rusty leading the Siberian Troublemaking Choir with a big red jingle bell collar on now!
Our thanks to the worry wart club, too! 🙂
The snow is lovely. We had flurries only!
I’ve always wanted to live in those “higher elevations”…
Happy Sunday,
~K and the Pups
We would love to hear the Herd’s Chorus. Do you have a video of them singing? (Sorry, that’s another question!)
Kisses,
Emma Rose
Funny, in our pair, R is the singer, and the same rules are about the same. You must not burst out laughing or he will join you in melodious singing!
So happy about your snow! I love the first photo. It’s a keeper!!!!!
Thanks for your kind words over at my blog. We are reeling.
The world needs more ‘Rustys’
Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra
glad you are able to use the road once the cars are banned 🙂
Kari
http://dogisgodinreverse.com/
Wow, snow! (Sorry I’m behind in reading blogs.) Minnie and Mack also sing. One feeds off the other, getting louder and higher pitched! Hugs usually get them to stop. I’d love to hear the herd sing!
Cute little snowman…did he taste good?
Drools and licks,
Minnie and Mack
Sorry just have to giggle a little here. The names Mack and Minnie immediately bring to mind the songs “Mack the Knife” and “Minnie the Moocher”. So it only seems altogether fitting and proper that they should be choral leaders – BOL!
I for one welcome our new tiny snowmen overlords.
Kiska, are you giving the little snowman some good licky kisses?
That’s a good point – I never considered how you would stop the Herd from singing!
The WWM sounds like such a great thing. 🙂
That little snowman was too cute!