Gumbo: Golden Retriever X
Maple: Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever
Aslan: Labrador Retriever
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Baby’s first road trip!
Pulse has done so well this trip. She rides in the kennel for hours like a pro. Sleeps great for car camping and motels. She is fearless and confident on the frozen lakes and around crowds of tourist. My goal was to create a well rounded puppy. We don’t need to be perfect just yet. But she’s proving to have a lot of potential to get there 😍
(Swipe to see me pretend to be a penguin)
New sheets for the new year!
We got new for our bedroom and guest room. These sheets have a 1500 Thread Count level of softness. I could feel the softness as soon as I laid on them! The sheets were lightweight and easily fit both our mattresses. As a dog owner, it was nice that pet hair does not “weave" itself into fabric, and high performance yarns offer better protection against claws. There are so many different color options. Best part is has a free swatch program where you can order free swatches for color matching and to feel the fabric .
We missed but everyday is National Golden Retriever Day for this golden cross.
Did you know Gumbo isn’t full golden? 😅 he’s actually 15/18 golden and 3/18 Lab!
Back to Banff!
Tomorrow we are heading back to Canada with to see Banff in all it’s frozen glory. This time I’ll be taking Pulse and Gumbo. Maple got to go on the last two road trips just herself. This will be Pulse’s first road trip so I’m excited to see how much she will enjoy it.
Also still so so sad that Lake Moraine is closed to public vehicles 💔
We love shopping local
The best feeling is walking into a pet store and seeing they sell the food that your dog eats. I can trust that has . And better yet, I love supporting local stores. They are all family and employee owned in the Pacific Northwest.
And if there isn’t a Mud Bay near me, I can always go online to see where I can find my dog’s food and favorite treats.
Find your nearest store with new store locator.
Check out www.stellaandchewys.com/where-to-buy
The girls 💜♥️
As much as I absolutely love Gumbo with my whole heart. I might be a girl dog person 😅 they’re more serious, thoughtful and smarter. Although I’ll probably still end up with a male because I don’t really like the idea of a female co own because I’m paranoid of having my dog sent away for a couple of months for breeding/whelping.
Waterfalls and
Recently got an iPad to edit photos and videos on. Does anyone edit on a tablet vs a computer? I like being able to take on the go more than a laptop. But the laptop is more streamline and easier to import and export everything to a hard drive
I’ll be back here in T-2 weeks. But this time it’ll be Gumbo and Pulse. I feel bad not taking Maple but she got to go solo on my last two road trips. It’ll be a good experience for Pulse and Gumbo is so easy it doesn’t even feel like another dog.
I have this jacket from a random Utah souvenir shop and a couple years ago had the exact fabric… so alas I needed to be matchy matchy. Now she makes matching custom dog and human hoodies!
Future professional waterfall chaser.
It’s been fun hiking with a new puppy because they’re so interested in everything. However that also poses the problem as Pulse is too busy looking at everything to look and pay attention for photos 🤦🏻♀️
We love you little child 💕
The finishing piece to our puzzle. This dog fits into our family so well. She loves us both and her siblings. And she’s such a fun puppy full of personality, s***k and smarts. So blessed to have her. She’s gonna be quite the adult dog. I’m so ready but also not ready for her to grow up.
Photo by
Hanging onto my sanity for dear life.
These last two weeks have been pretty hard on my mental health to where it affected my physical health as well. I am in the process of switching medications due to personal reasons and it’s been causing me to have lack of sleep. This has made me more sensitive to my emotions and usually that results in my being very crabby and annoyed at the world. Not to mentions it’s been one of the most busy weeks at work with a lot of very sick acute patients on our unit. Hoping this week is a better one 🤞🏻
Remember everyone to take care of yourself first! What is something that motivates you or makes you happy? Give me some new things to try!
Pulse wasn’t always going to be named Pulse. I actually was juggling between a couple names. I liked the name Wonder but also the name Pictus. Pictus means Painted in Latin. After one of my favorite animals, the African wild dog. Because sable and red Merles can sometimes look like an African wild dog with their markings. When I took a poll of my friends and then asked the breeder who knew the puppy the best, we all decided the name Pulse would fit better. I seriously can’t imagine calling her Wonder. Pictus is still cute but maybe we will have to make that into a nickname…
Is there a name your dog was suppose to be?
Happy New Year’s Eve.
Somehow another year has flown by. The most memorable thing was getting little moss Pulse. However the other dogs had some amazing memories. We took 3 road trips, started two new dog sports, and spend way too much money on things we (didnt) need.
Hoping next year we can do bigger and better things!! ❤️
How is she growing up so fast. She turned 5 months on Christmas but I haven’t taken any new photos.
Pulse • 4 months old
Our first full year of competitions for Maple. We did four different sports: Agility, dock diving, barn hunt and rally (even though we didn’t train hahah). Here is our list of accomplishments! Hoping this year we can go to dock diving regionals and nationals. Go to west coast open and some usdaa regionals. I’d love to get on the podium at least once for SOMETHING😅 but does that involve training.. probably.
Las Vegas Premiere Cup 16 inch - 4th place
Various USDAA titles getting her into Masters/P3 division
Rally Novice title
Barn Hunt Novice Title
Barn Hunt Open Title
Dock Junior Title
Dock Senior Title
Dock Master Title
Air Retrieve Junior Title
Hydrodash Novice Title
NADD Regional Invite to all three disciplines
NADD PNW Regional hydro dash novice - first place
NADD National invite to all three disciplines (did not attend)
NADD Ranked top 10 in Tollers nationwide for all three disciplines
Dock Diving PB:
Distance - 24’2”
Hydro dash - 20.78
Air Retrieve - 15’
Merry freaking Christmas from us to you.
My favorite holiday because I just love spending money and buying things for people. Talk about needing to feel validated about myself 😅
Everyone asks what you got for Christmas, but what was your favorite gift you GAVE to someone?
Who did the Christmas photos the best this year? Next year Pulse will know more tricks up her sleeves to impress us all
Photos by
“Sable is just a cool word for brown”
I’ve always been in love with the color sable/sable Merle in border collies. I know it’s frowned upon in certain breeds to prioritize color over other aspects of the dog. But when I was first on the hunt for a border collie, color wasn’t that high on my list. Yes it’s important to me, more so “is the dog cute” because heck I’m going to look at the dog for 10+ years. I want my dog to be cute! I also just have a thing for matching color schemes. So I told myself I’d love sable or ee red because it matched my retrievers. I love flashy markings. I’m a sea of dogs, I wanted one that could be identified. I think there are also people who just love bi black and white border collies and there is nothing wrong with that! My priorities were health first (parents health tested), temperament, color, gender, etc. I kept in close contact with Pulse’s breeder when they were born asking questions about all the puppies because even though I had a preference in the colors (it was a colorful litter), I wanted to make sure the temperament was the right one for me. It’s funny because I actually wanted a non Merle sable but the female was super reserved and wouldn’t be as driven as I wanted.
At the end of the day what I’m trying to say is there is no problem with having a preference for things in your dog. It’s your dog. You’re paying the money for it and you’re the one who will be living with it. Make your prioritizes known. I’m not saying breeders are going to like that, but it also does help that you might be open to other puppies if something else fits your bills. But never ever feel pressured into taking a dog that doesn’t feel right to you.
Pulse was everything I wanted in a border collie. The more I work with her, the more it becomes apparent that we will be a pretty good team.
Happy 8th Birthday to the high-ridin'-est, rootin'-tootin'-est cowboy hero of all time, Sheriff Gumbo!
I had to get him a Toy Story woody cake because he got to meet woody this year at Disneyland.
I could write a sappy post. But I think I’ll just cry. Another year of memories.
I love you my sweet bubba boy so I’ll leave you with this…
You be the sheriff, I’ll be your favorite deputy. Let’s always reach for the stars because you got a friend in me 🌠
The snow was a paid actor. Can’t believe the day we went to get Christmas photos, it was snowing enough to get the flakes in the photo!
Photo by Fuzzy Butt Pet Photography
Puppy’s first Christmas!
Pulse went to a tree farm yesterday and rocked it. There were tons of people, dogs and kids. She didn’t pull to go see everyone. Stayed close with me and even stayed for photos. It was definitely a lot but she maintained her composure. It wasn’t a formal training outing and I let her be her normal puppy self. I need to remind myself that not everything needs to be a strict training session. I want her to be comfortable with the sounds and environment before expecting her to work and focus 24/7.
We go to a Christmas farm every year because I love them and they’re so nice for photos but unfortunately I’m allergic to real trees. So we have a fake tree at home. We still like to go support the local tree farm but buying Christmas decor like wreaths. This time we bought this little wooden snowman for our outside decorations!
The one who keeps me going and his prodigy.
Gumbo was always in tune with me. Maybe that’s because he was bred to be a good boy. Was by my side 24/7 for a whole year while I raised/trained him to be a guide dog. Then we bonded more when he got career changed and I adopted him. Then a couple years ago I retrained him to be my service dog. However as amazing and perfect as he is, he’s getting older and isn’t sharp enough to learn some new tasks that I want to teach. Then comes Pulse. I wanted a dog who could be a sport dog, adventure buddy and my next service dog prospect. She’s doing amazing and something finally clicked where she’s way more food motivated, focused and picking things up way faster. I’m excited to work with her and train her and see how she does to fulfill both my wants and needs in a dog. But no pressure baby girl, we will grow and train at our own pace. Life isn’t a race and let’s enjoy every moment!
An appreciation post for this man right here. Literally I don’t know how I got so lucky 🥹
This past weekend, Jared drove 2.5 hours down to Eugene to be there if Sydney and Ego () got their last QQ for their MACH. She would have needed to run clean all three days and be 3/3 for QQ. After running clean on Friday and Saturday. I called Jared that she might get it on Sunday and he asked me that time he should come down. No questions asked, he wanted to be there for Sydney since she is the first out of all of us to get an AKC championship. Unfortunately a knocked bar cost them a clean run. So basically he drove 5 hours just to spend a couple hours at the show site with us. And of course Maple and Gumbo both didn’t run clean in standard either. So sorry we wasted your time Jared 🥲
But seriously, find yourself someone who will not only support you but also your friends because he understands how important they are to you.
Photos by
Little pup in a big world
Gotta work on our photo skills. Her stays are coming along but she would rather look at everything else 😅
(Foam in her ears to help her ears stand up. But they fell out after like a week 😅)
I need to get more photos. The last two road trips I wasn’t able to take him due to the longer more strenuous hikes we were doing. We were also planning on taking him on our anniversary trip but then ended up with COVID. So he hasn’t been doing a whole lot of shrimp activities. However he still gets to play with him (sparingly because the new puppy thinks Shrimp is just another toy)
But I’m excited to take them to Canada this winter in a couple months.
He turns 8 in a month and I’m crying on the inside. Okay I’m crying on the outside too 🥺
I don’t even care that this is a cellphone photo and I’m too lazy to edit it.
They’re absolutely perfect and they match in color as red dogs.
Also don’t let pulse’s size deceive you. Her ears make her look taller
Anyone else love mountain tourist towns? I love buying souvenirs and walking the dogs around. It’s nice to take a break from the constant driving or hiking.
When we stayed at it was right on the Main Street in Edwards, Colorado. There were SOO many good restaurants and cute stores. We are Asian food and bagels. Also visited a cute pet store to get some treats and chews for the drive home.
, , and
We got a cake for Pulse from to celebrate when she came home!
I think she was still like 12 weeks here. She turns 16 weeks on Monday. How time as flown by and she’s still a dumb puppy 😂
Exporting with my two red heads.
This week is going to be a very sleepy one. Full work week and the barn hunt trial with Maple this weekend!
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