He Would Have Been 7

Today would have been Duke's 7th birthday. We still miss our pup SO very much! Not a day goes by that we don't think about him. This pic was taken a year ago today. Check out my other blog, Cross Creek Farm for another pic of Duke.

3 Months Today

It has been 3 months since we lost our sweet Aussie Duke. I didn't even realize it as I planted some daylilies around his grave today. Its just like I knew I should do it today. Then little Jimmy helped me pick up a bunch of small rocks to make a border around the grave area which I am making into a small flower bed (I will have to post a pic later as it didn't even occur to me to take one until it was too dark). It is in the middle of a pasture so we are going to have to fence it, but I am making sure to use "horse safe" plants. We are also going to add a bench and plant a memorial tree. It looks over the creek so it will be a nice relaxing sitting area. Oh Duke, we miss you so much!

On a brighter note, sweet little Bo is growing so fast and is so rambunctious! He is learning so well and doing great with his clicker training. He can already sit, lay down, shake, get in his "bed" (crate), stay for a short bit, and he almost has roll over - which is a big deal because Duke would NEVER roll over, not even to get his belly scratched! Bo on the other hand just loves to have his belly rubbed, he is such a roly poly little guy.

Ooo, and there are plans for a little furry playmate for him in the near future (a Christmas present perhaps??) I will keep ya posted ;-)

I hope you all are doing well, I am sorry I have been a horrible blogging friend lately. I am working on making my rounds to visit everyone, I miss you all & hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!

Thankful Thursday - Clicker Training

Let me start off by saying that I am soooo Thankful for our new puppy!! He is pretty much awesome. And he is learning very quickly. I have started clicker training him. I clicker trained Duke and he did very well. It is such a great training method and it really gets the dog's attention. Here is some info about it. I had posted a video of Duke closing the door and my friend Ter asked how I taught him, so I thought once we got a new pup I would post about it.

The way I trained Duke was with clicker training. Check out clickertraining.com, it is a great site full of resources. You get this little clicker thing and you are supposed to click it when your pet does something you want him/her to do. You don't even have to use your voice because if you click when they sit for example, and you keep doing it every time they sit (well, when you are having training time), they learn to associate the click with what they are doing at that moment. Then you immediately give them a little treat. We used little pieces of cheese or these little tiny dog treats. It is a really great tool. I started out with the Clicker Training for Dogs kit with the book, click-a-trick cards, clicker and treat sample. I bought another book later on, Clicking with Your Dog, and it is a great book. Very thorough and it is full of different tricks and sometimes a couple different methods of clicker training each one. Here are a couple links to items I use (I tried to link to the specific clickertraining.com items, but it only shows a general link):

Clicking with Your Dog book

Clicker

Starter Kit


Here is a short clicking lesson:

The way I taught Duke to close the door was to get him to put his nose on the door on the side that you push to close it. As soon as his nose touched the door, I clicked & treated him. We did that over and over again until he got it down pat. Then we worked on getting him to push the door a bit with his nose and as soon as he did I clicked and treated him. And we did that over and over. We just kept at it a little at a time until he finally pushed the door all the way closed. At some point I stopped clicking and treating until the door was getting closed all the way. He actually learned very quickly so it didn't take as long as I make it sound. It just depends on how quickly it sinks in. I also taught him to open the door, that is what that rope was for on my doorknob. He just had to learn to pull it (when training I made sure it stuck through the door so the door didn't latch and he could pull it) to open the door far enough to get his nose & head in and open it the same way he was closing it. The video is a bit after he learned to do it all. He figured out his own way to do it, as you could see he pushed the rope with his nose so the door would latch and then used his rear to close the door all the way, it was so cute! And he was always using his paws like hands, that was cute too, but scratched my door up!

Here is the video if you haven't seen it:
Dukers

Clicker training is really fun, really helps with the communication between dog and owner and its a great way to strengthen your bond with your dog. I hope this info is useful to someone and thanks so much for stopping by for Thankful Thursday!

Find Me Friday - Honoring Duke

Well, due to the passing of Duke this week, I have decided to change the name of Peekaboo Friday to Find Me Friday, in honor of our sweet pup. We used to play "Find Me" (our version of hide and seek) all the time and it was one of Duke's favorite games. So I think Find Me Friday is a more fitting name since Duke was the inspiration for this idea in the first place. Here are a couple of pics with Duke in them. And of course I am reposting the two pics of Duke in the creek. =)





If you are new this week, all you have to do is post a photo of whatever you want (within reason of course, keep it clean people! ;-) ) and it has to have some element of "peekaboo," "hiding" or "camouflage" in it. Think of one of those hidden pictures where you have to find the hidden images. Or a green frog blending into the green leaf he is sitting on. There are tons of options! Have fun with it!

If you would like to join in, please make sure to link back to my blog and use my button if you like. If I decide your image is inappropriate, I have the right to delete your link. Other than that, have fun and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! Oh, and I plan on having weekly themes in the future, but if you don't have a photo that falls into the category, you can still participate. And I don't mind if you add this into another Friday blog carnival. As long as you remember to link to me, that is great! Ok, that's all for now, lets see those photos!

Here is a new button for you to use if you would like to participate. Thanks!

<a href="http://www.theblessedcountrymom.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f208/nuttzi/findme.jpg"/></a>

Thankful Thursday - Duke

I am so very Thankful for the time we got to spend with our sweet precious Aussie, Duke who died suddenly yesterday. I am super Thankful for the photos I took the day before he was hit by the car, they will forever be cherished! We miss you so much Bubs, you were such a good boy! One thing I forgot to mention yesterday about our boy is that he could also carry a balloon without popping it, I taught him to hold the knotted end in his mouth. He could also give high fives and wave. Ohhh Duke, how we miss you!

I want to add that I am also so Thankful for my wonderful friend Angie, she was there in a heartbeat yesterday when I called and told her what happened. Thanks for watching Jimmy for that short time, it gave me a chance to reflect on Duke by myself for a little while as I drove to the vet. Love you!!

And thanks for everyone's very kind and sweet, comforting comments. I am so blessed that you take the time to share these experiences with me.

This is Duke as a puppy, he was sooo cute and just a sweet little furball! This image was on my old geocities website, I am so thankful I found it!


Here are a couple more pics I found from when he was a puppy.




Do you have something to be Thankful for? Let everyone know about it! Just enter your name or name of your blog and add the link to your specific Thankful Thursday post (not your blog's homepage please!) Also, please add the Thankful Thursday logo or link to my blog in your post. Have fun and thanks for joining me!

Goodbye Slick Silver Duke

This is the hardest post I have ever had to write, yes, even harder than the one about my mom passing. It sounds odd, but I was at least prepared (for years really) for my mom's passing. This was just so unexpected. Jim and I are absolutely heart broken. At about 10:30 this morning, our sweet, loving, beautiful Australian Shepherd, Duke, registered name Slick Silver Duke, got hit by a car right in front of our house. I was out in the rain attempting to move the car seat from my car to our truck. I don't know why I didn't let Duke in the car with me as I was unbuckling the seat, or why I didn't just leave him in the house for a few minutes. I ALWAYS know where he is and NEVER let him anywhere near the road! All I know is that I let my guard down, turned my back for what seemed like 2 seconds, then I heard him barking as a car was slowly driving by. It was this old man that ALWAYS drives slowly. The speed limit on our road is 55 mph, but he always drives really slow. Duke usually never paid attention to the cars driving by but he did to this one because I am sure he thought he was coming to "visit" so Duke must have gone to "greet" him. I didn't see what happened, but I did see immediately after he got hit, actually it took me a minute to realize he HAD been hit. He was jumping around, barking deeper than normal and I thought he was just excited about the car, but I was too late. He had already gotten too close. He ran up to me and then just collapsed by the sidewalk.

I immediately called Jim at work and he was on his way home. Then I called the vet and told them they were coming. Jim got home, put Duke in the truck and took off as I waited for my friend Angie to come and get Jimmy so I could then follow Jim. After Angie left with the baby I took off to the vet, which is about 20 minutes away. I was about halfway there when Jim called and said Duke was gone. He was about the leave the vet to bring him home to bury him so I went on home myself. I got home, Angie brought Jimmy back from their errands, and finally Jim returned with our sweet, forever sleeping pup. We cried (I probably shouldn't say that Jim cried, but he did, he will be so embarrassed if he reads this, Love you honey!) for a long time.

You see, we picked up Duke together when he was a puppy, brought him home to my house and he was like our kid. When I had to move out of my dad's into an apartment not allowing dogs, Duke went to live on Jim's grandpa's farm where Jim was living after college. They did everything together, he was pretty much Jim's dog after that. Once we got married and moved into our house, we were a family and I got my doggie back but he and Jim still had this awesome unbreakable bond. Jim always looked forward to cuddling with Duke when we went to bed. Sometimes Duke would even be under the covers with his little head sticking out at the top, too cute! I admit I was a bit jealous, but it was very sweet (again, he will prolly be embarrassed I am telling you this, he is quite the manly man!).

Duke was an amazing Aussie, he was so smart! He could turn the light off, shut the door, bring you stuff, put laundry in the dryer, throw trash away, he never chewed anything that wasn't his, he never dug up the yard or my flower beds, he would lay down and go to sleep when you told him it was bedtime, if he was licking himself he would stop if you told him to, he knew all kinds of tricks, he loved to catch the frisbee and fetch the ball and the big rubber horse ball, he loved chasing the 4-wheeler and playing in the creek, he stood still when it was time for his heartworm & flea medicine, he jumped in the bathtub when it was time for a bath, he stood still when hosed off, he shook his fur to dry off on command, he was the BEST watchdog and he loved all the farm animals. He was great with the cats and they all loved him. He was wonderful with Jimmy, letting him pull on him, brush him, pet him and even sit on him occasionally.

We loved our dog so very much and wish so so much that we had finally put up the fence across the front yard so we didn't have to worry about this very thing. We just hadn't gotten to it yet. The whole rest of the yard is fenced so it would not have taken much to do the front and install a gate at the driveway. I am so sorry I let my guard down this one time and let my sweet bubba doo (this pet name came from "puppy dog" I know, we are weird, but we loved our boy!) get hit. It only takes one time. I wish with all my heart he had just gotten hurt and we had time to "learn our lesson" and put the fence up. Please, if you have something you have been putting off that could save your sweet pet's (or child's even) life, please put it off no longer! I read a very sad story about a horse that had to be put down at Laughing Orca Ranch, the neighbor had a very short fence the horses could pretty much just step right over and they got out, one got hurt and had to be put down. You would think that after reading that and crying over that horse, I would have insisted that Jim put our fence up NOW, but I didn't. Ohhh how I wish I had! Our Duke would be right here with us, wandering around, panting, wanting to play ball, just wanting to be loved on. We miss you so much bubbas! That'll do bubs, that'll do!


Here is a video I took of Duke when he first learned how to close a door. I think this is from 2005, maybe early 2006. Please excuse my dirty room lol =)

Dukers

In Loving Memory of Slick Silver Duke. January 27th 2003 - July 22, 2009.
These 2 photos were taken the day before he got hit, I wanted a couple good pics of him
so I could draw him. Now I will be doing a painting of our sweet boy.