Thank you Maddie Ruble for such a nice job of handling her! (I had to be in court… so I missed it! 
Tush loves to show and takes all the stress and fuss instride, just like her Dad. Isn’t she getting pretty?
I went up to the NNASC show in Carson City, NV in August. It was quite a road trip for little Tush! To a 6 month old baby, the world is pretty amazing! Tush did very well with the long trip, and was very well received at the show. It was very hot, and very windy on Friday, then on Saturday the heat & humidity went way up as a storm front was moving in. She went RWB on Friday! I was thrilled that she was competitive with the mature bitches. Then on Saturday afternoon, she was WB, and on to BoW! It was a 4 point major, one dog shy of 5 points!! Now THAT was a thrill! She knew something was up and that little fuzzy tush was really wiggling!! We decided to pack up after the show on Saturday and get ‘down the mountain’ and take the dogs to the river to swim and then head home. This little girl is a Tanner daughter out of Chilly, and I am SO proud of her. She is just in the 6-9 class so she has a fun show season ahead of her.
Little Bubbles, (AKA Bit O’Blarney Effervescence) went to her first show this past weekend. It was a zillion degrees in Santa Nella. Regardless, she had fun, which is the idea, right? She was accompanied by her two 1/2 sisters, Tush (Bit O’Blarney Badonkadonk) and Eyes (Bit O’Blarney Bluetiful) and of course Dad, Tanner (AKC/ASCA Ch Heatherhill Dazzle Me Montana DNA-VP CGC) The whole thing, of traveling, being confined to ex-pens, seeing different things, all need to be OK for a dog who may be a show dog. It is a learning process. All the girls were well received, and Tush won a large class, and came in second in the others, with her sister, Eyes coming in right behind her. The only less than thrilled member of the group was Dad, who is NOT used to sharing his trailer, his Mom, or the attention with anydog. He will get over it, because he really does enjoy his puppies..I have added a picture of Bubbles, so you can see what HER opinion was of her first dog show.
Tanner & I would like to introduce “Bubbles!”
Bubbles was born on April 20th and her biological mom (Chaos) had a really hard time whelping. She was confused and didn’t seem to want the baby, so Tanner and I had to intervene. We forced her to allow the newborn to drink every two hours for the first 48 hours, so that she would get the colostrum, but I have bottle raised her from the beginning, and she is the highlight of my life right now. We spent several weeks getting little uninterrupted sleep, but it was worth it. I hadn’t thought much about it before, but without having a dogmom to show her how to do things, I have had to improvise a little. Example: Drinking water from a bowl….I had to swish my fingers in it to show her and then let her lick my fingers. Putting her first solid food in her mouth. Dog things, that she doesn’t have an example to follow. Her Dad did show her how to go up and down steps. He trotted out one day and she followed him, stopping just short of falling down the step. He stopped at the bottom, and waited, and she fussed and cried. He stepped his front feet up on the step and nosed her and I almost could hear him say ‘come on, be brave, just step down’. She did and he bounced all around her with joy. She thought she was pretty hot stuff, too! She is a little show off, she steals things from her Dad, and he allows her to get away with it. He seems to enjoy baby sitting and plays so gently with her. Please go to my overflow website www.dropshots.com/bitoblarney to see some video of Bubbles and Tanner playing! Her BFF is Biscuit the little kitten Tanner and I raised last year. Biscuit was a little jealous, watching Bubbles get a bottle ( I think she remembered getting HER bottle) and being babied…but they play so cute together. A couple of people have asked me about her name…”Bubbles” was my father’s nickname for me when I was young. When I fed her her bottle she would get so excited and slurp and suck so wildly bubbles would come out of the sides of her mouth. I started just calling her Bubbles. Usually breeders decide on a full name, a ’show’ name first, then come up with a call name that goes with it. This time we were backwards…the call name came first. So then we had to come up with a ’show’ name to go with her call name. So, may I re-introduce you to “Bit O’Blarney Effervescence”. And she IS effervencent! Anyway, here is a picture we took in the garden last weekend…
He has been patiently waiting for his kids to be old enough to play with him. He adores babies of any kind, (see his kitten in other posts) and he has been watching and waiting. I knew he was really REALLY wanting to play with them when I saw him do something adorable. Evenings after all the kennel dogs are put to bed, is ‘our time’. He selects a toy and we chase around, play keep away, catch, etc. That night, he picked his VERY favorite, “Rodney” a gurgling lobster. He picked out that toy at a dog show, and loves the noise it makes. Anyway, he threw Rodney around for a few minutes and then had an obvious ‘light bulb moment’. He took Rodney down the hall and put his feet up on the puppy room barricade and dropped it over the side, for his kids to play with. It was SO obvious that he wanted to play with them….so the next day was THE DAY. We all went out into the back yard and was he ever HAPPY! He tried to get them to chase him with a pull toy, but they were not fast enough yet. So he just got down on their level and had a ball. He needed to teach them that he wasn’t momma, and couldn’t feed them, but once that was established, they had a ball with their Dad. He was so gentle and careful, and they were little sharp toothed demons! I really enjoyed watching them together. I hope you enjoy the pictures I took!