A sleepy girl on the way to LA. She got to come in the salon while Lynne got her hair cut. She was an angel...

Summer fun...Kallie loves playing in the hose!

Kallie got her new summer haircut yesterday. She looks very cute but boy is she bald. I don't think we will clip her that short again!

They no longer fight like cats and dogs...

Another afternoon of catch in the park. Daylight savings is one of the besthings to ever happen to Kallie!

In case you were wondering how fast she really is...

After quite a hiatus Kallie and I are back in the game...

We have so much to report it is hard to know where to begin. We have been spending alot of time at the park since the weather has been so beautiful. We met another Cattle Dog there just the other day. His name was "Red" and he is about seven months old. His brother was there too but he was not allowed off of his leash with Kallie there. I am going to assume his name was "Blue" because he was a Cattle Dog as well. "Blue" is 15 years old and is mostly blind and partially deaf. He acted like he was a happy old man though. It was a banner day in the life of Red. He got his first taste of the JollyBall! Kallie let him borrow it for a little while. She sat next to me and watched like a perfect princess...OK, not perfect but she did sit there and wait, salivating...It took Red a little while but once he figured out that he could not pick it up he started to get the hang of it. His mom said she was going straight home to order him one after she saw how crazy Kallie was about it. Another Cattle Dog hooked...

Another beautiful day at the park with the Jollyball. Kallie is forever indebted to Velcro for making Dad finally order one for her. Now that Kallie is a certified barn dog she uses the barn dog lingo...Kallie's favorite: "round 'em up!!"

Kallie's new friend Penny was very patient with her as she learned the ways of the barn. She put her in her place when appropriate and conceded when she and Kallie went for a tossed ball. Penny knew Kallie was way faster!! This is a picture of the girls playing with the biggest JollyBall they will ever see.

Kallie & Moriah
Our trip up the coast brought many memorable times and taught us a few lessons along the way. I learned another lesson in patience driving down Highway 1 to pick up my wife from a weekend with her girlfriends in Bodega Bay. I was sure for a few minutes that the logging truck I was stuck behind was going even slower just to vex me. Kallie learned what it is to be a farm dog. Her lessons are surely more valuable than mine. We spent every day at the barn where my mother stables her horse, Moriah. Kallie was in heaven. She had acres on which to roam and a thousand new experiences to enjoy. I was so proud of her. I never had to whistle more than once for her and she was welcomed into the barn community with surprising speed. The are a tight knit group of dogs that live at the barn and Kallie fit right in with them. If I only had pictures of Kallie getting herded by Penny. What a treat it was to see her get a taste of her own medicine. Our cats would have laughed hysterically... Kallie also learned what a horse was. This was a major step for her. She had a few moments of trepidation but she acclimated to these new new creatures with amazing speed. I guess it must be an instinctual thing. She followed Moriah just behind her shoulder and was very wise to keep a safe distance when walking. My father was most impressed with her respect for the horses.

We have returned to beautiful rainy Southern California after a gloriously sunny trip to Oregon. Go figure...We had a wonderful time, my wife in Bodega Bay with her girlfriends and Kallie and I on Oregon's southern coast. I had every intention of documenting our trip in a journal style with daily entries. I would like to say that technical difficulties kept me from this but the truth is we were having too much fun to stop and write. These photos are from our first rest stop just south of the mighty Redwoods. They have set up a beautiful pet area with plenty of room to run. Kallie was so excited that she did not wait for her ball to chase. The first stick she could find did the trick...

The first day of our trip to Oregon...Up at 4:00 AM to beat LA traffic and what do we discover? A stinky dog, who was just given a bath last night. She ate something she was not supposed to and threw up on herself. It was a smelly ride to our first stop in Turlock. There is a local petstore that came to our rescue. For a nominal fee you can use their bathing facilities. Kallie was a good girl and did not get too embarrassed when a crowd gathered to watch. We now have a fresh smelling dog for the next leg of our trip.

Another day of fun with the JollyBall...

I love my bone...

Kallie's first romp wth her new JollyBall...it was hard to keep up with her! My first mobile video blog. Not a bad video for a phone...

A rare treat...

First Trip to the Groomers

Here are the promised pics from her first trip to the groomers. They gave her a pretty little bow and one of the worst haircuts I have ever seen. I could not get a good photo of the haircut but the cut her hind quarters so that her hair was sticking up at three different angles. She had two big cowlicks on her rump!! I guess it is somewhat fitting, but she has not been near any cows lately... They also cut down her fur on her hind legs (I like to call them "mudflaps") more than I would have liked. It has all grown back to a reasonable state and she sure smells alot better, so all in all it was worth the trip. The girls at the groomers were delightful and as usual Kallie was the star of the show. "She is sooo cute for such a wild looking dog!!!" My wife is certain that the expressing of her anal glands has made all of the difference in the world and I would have to agree. She was stricken with a terrible case of coccidia when we adopted her and she had horrible diarhea for quite a while after she came home. I am sure that this let to some of the impacting of her anal glands. Either way she smells much better now.

We are excited that the rain has finally subsided for a few days. It has been nice been nice to have a leisurely stroll instead of a hurry up before it rains walk. We are going to brave the park tomorrow. We will see how soggy it still is. A little mud never hurt anybody anyhow...

I am extremely excited about our trip up the California coast to Oregon. We have already begun making preparations for the trip. Today I am signing up with mobile blogger so that I can chronicle the journey. Through my Pocket PC I will be able to take pictures and video and post them to the blog with commentary all the way. Kallie is going to the groomers tomorrow for a bath and a hair cut. I will post some before and after pictures. She will have her nails clipped, ears cleaned and her anal sacs emptied. For those of you who do not know, dogs have two glands just inside their anus that periodically need to be expunged. I had never heard of this until I watched an episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe worked as a dog groomer. I spoke with the groomer today and she said that they routinely squeeze the anal sacs as part of the grooming process. These are the scent glands that dogs are sniffing when they greet each other. Normally the process of defecation supplies enough pressure to cleanse these sacs. In many domestic dogs the type of food they eat does not allow for this cleansing to take place due to the consistency of the feces. I will not go into this subject any further, but if you are interested there is quite a bit of information at veterinarypartner.com. We are also looking to get Kallie a winter coat for the freezing conditions we will undoubtedly face. Most of the coats on the market are much too bulky, especially for a dog as fast and athletic as an ACD. My mother offered to design and make her a coat while we are visiting. She has made them in the past for her Italian Greyhounds and the are extremely functional as well as much better looking than those you can find in the stores. I am not talking about a Gucci jacket for my dog. I am talking about a functional piece of equipment for her while we are in the field or at the barn. The coats are really neat and they will work perfectly for Kallie on many future trips.

Kallie is crate trained. This is a decision my wife and I made before we adopted a dog. This was one of the smartest decisions we have ever made. Kallie does not love her crate. She does not dislike it either. It is a place that she goes for bedtime or when both of us leave the house. I have seen the destruction that this puppy can cause when she wakes up early from a nap on the couch with me. If she does that in five minutes I shudder at the thought of what she could do if given the run of the house. Not to mention the cats. We have two cats that have been with us longer than Kallie. The older cat tolerates her well. The younger cat hides until he hears the crate latch or the leash snap on...smart cat. More on them later. Some people find it cruel to crate train a dog. I believe that is essential to their well being as well as our sanity. I would hate to come home to find that she had hurt herself or hurt the cats. It has also been a good tool in the establishment of ourselves as alphas in the house. She knows that she is greeted last and must wait her turn patiently upon my arrival home. The crate has never been used as a punishment. It would be entirely unproductive to lock her away for misbehaving. The crate comes with us when we travel. It makes us much more tolerable house guests. People tend to mind you having your puppy at their house less when they know she will not be causing too much trouble. She rides in the backseat of the truck when we drive. We do not put her in the crate in the back because it gets too cold. She has been up and down the state of California with her crate and has a trip to the Oregon coast planned in a couple of weeks. Who knows where we will go next, this is only the beginning of her many journeys.

This vicious mutt is the newest addition to our family. This is Kallie. She is a one year old Australian Cattle Dog. What a bundle of energy she is. Why do they rip off the ears of all their new toys first? Anyone who owns an ACD will know what I am talking about...

She has been such a great addition that I felt compelled to give her a blog of her own. Maybe other ACD owners can share some tips on how they handle their dog's training and behavior and who knows, they may learn something from our experience. I would love to hear any stories and I welcome any advice on how to deal with this breeds many challenging behaviors. As we all know it pays to be creative when dealing with these extremely energetic and highly intelligent canines.