Wacky Wednesday

There is nothing better than walking into the play area and seeing dog that I have known for years (dogs I have seen grow from silly little puppies to well adjusted adults) light up and come running to me. Today my big smiles and bright eyes came from Deuce the Rat Terrier and Molly Rae the Wheaton. They jumped all over me, pretending they had never learned not to jump in obedience class. I, being the trainer, of course did not encourage the jumping and only said hi once they sat. (or did I?????) Then around the corner came Keira the Swiss Mountain Dog. No one greets me the way she does. She bounces on her back legs while whining a cute excited hello. I love this place!

The newer kids say hello too and greet me with enthusiasm, each day they get more excited to see us again. I gave my “welcome” kisses to Heinz the Shepherd, and Ryleigh and Enzo the Retrievers.

I look over, after my hellos and see Jackson the white Shepherd caught Ryleigh’s attention and they are wrestling. Their mouth’s are open and they are flailing around in bliss. True love sparks again. Koda and Bella the Shepherds run by, they are boarding for the first time after coming here for play dates for over a year and are doing so great! Guinness the Husky/Shepherd Mix and TJ the Aussie dance the night away in the center of the mist spray outside. Then I see Cali the Pointer and Sawyer playing follow the leader and chasing each other around the outskirts of the play area.

Off I go to the inside area of the big dog room and I see Taylor the Aussie and Sherman the Corgi wrestling. Bailey the Black Lab Puppy wants in so bad he is circling them and barking. They give in and the three of them run around like the wild dog posse that they are. Maggie and Brady the Labs are playing keep away with the ball. I watch the frenzy with glee as I say hello to Malibu the Lab (a.k.a. Malibu-bu-bu-bu…) and his brother, Snickers the Chihuahua mix. Yes, the little Chihuahua mix that runs the big dog room! What a riot.

As look to the side of room I see some nappers, getting ready for round two of the day: Betsy the BC Mix, Molsen the Retriever, Brennen the Flat Coat, Kihei the Samoyed, Lulu the Black Lab, and Jake, Dakota, and Kirby the Weimies. Little Jake (“Poopies”) & Kleinsea the Weimies were close by too. In front of the row of nappers was Walter the Newfie. He was laid out like a bear skin rug.

In the small dog room Bentley the Terrier Mix, Tanner the Basset, and Sadie the Puggle were a tumbling swirl of fur. If they are not tired tonight, nothing will do it! Roxy the Whea-poo puppy made her debut in the small dog room and was a big hit. She’s our first of this breed, and boy is she cute. Gismo and Rusty greeted me with their usual wiggles and hugs.

The trainers stayed busy today with all of our Training dogs. Maddie, Jane (Aussie Mixes), and Sydney (Aussie) got to run around and do agility with Julia today. They thought that was a blast. Choco (Beagle) and I bonded while working on resource guarding. Bandit (Berner), Mochi (Sheepdog), and Jackson (Shepherd) got their one on one time too. Then in puppy class we got to play with some fun puppies and their owners. What a blast that is. All the trainers got to come today and participate, which was really fun. A big shout out to Bailey (Puggle), Sammie (B. Lab), Ehvie (Aussie), Dakota (Lab), and Gracie (Samoyed) and their people too. Great job today guys!

We’ll see you all tomorrow for more fur flying fun and slobbery kisses!!

We Be Blogg'n

Whew! Things have finally calmed down since the summer rush. We've been so busy taking care of your kids we haven't had time to blog. Well this week, you get one every day. First, some updates. No real news yet on the new facility. We are still just plugging along with the city approval process. Once our paperwork is processed and our hearing is set, we will be able to predict an opening date. We have however started interviewing for the many job positions we will have open. Email us for details. The next cool news is our BARK N BOO Halloween Party. We set the date for Oct 20th 6-8pm. Come in costume, play fun games, and win cool prizes including free daycare. Check out website for details.

The air in the daycare today was silly happy play. Corby the poodle was practicing his gymnastics including his double backflip. Trooper & Ditto were playing the ole bait and switch game. Trooper would lure them in and Ditto would grab them from behind. Then all three dogs would play chase. Digby the Golden and Marble played hide and go seek with Loke around the play equipment. Gator, my pup, picked Harley the puggle as his favorite play pal today. Bailey the b lab, kirby the doodle, and Duffy W the wheaton were a three way wrestling match. Duffy the other wheaton (yes two Duffy wheatons) and Max the Basenji were a good match. Roxy the vizsla and Maggie the lab kept chasing each other around playing keep away with the very popular red balls. Blue the basset and Rocky the boxer really liked each other. Rocky was three times Blue's size but always layed down so Blue could tackle him. Bubba and Sally the goodles kept TJ the aussie busy. Hanks the boston terr and Bentley the puggle were unstoppable. Roxy & Lucy the aussie became best friends today. Heinz a new german shephard and Jane were best friends too. Ozzie & Kallie the schauzers graduated to the big kid room and initiated Katie the new retriever by teaching her the chase game. Buckeye & Mochi represented the Sheepdog group. Bunker & Cosmo the vizsla's kept everyone on moving and hopping. Roxy the yellow lab and Bella the ShepX got up on their hind legs and loved the wrestle in the air.

Lola the aussie rescue for adoption started her training program today. She loves the attention. Pebbles the latest aussie rescue was adopted today by Julio, one of our employees. Goodness they are cute together. She's going to be spoiled rotten. Pebbles best friend today was Romeo the boxer pup. Sadie the puggle has the moves and can out dodge any chaser. Sabrina the Grt Pyrnees loves to lay in the water and let puppies wrestle on top of her. Izzy the Golden and Bailey the Boxer were evenly matched in the wrestling ring. Sammy the y lab and Boone the springer collapsed in a heap to nap after zooming around after each other. As I walked up to say hi to them they both wiggled their tails furiously and offered up their bellies....simultaneously. Brutus the Mastiff and Betsy the border collie mix were an odd match but they loved each other. Who are we to judge, right? They pick their own friends. Bandit the berner and Ollie the terrier mix were together most of the day. When Ollie gets too rambunctious, Bandit just sits on him....it's hysterical. Baloo the b lab kept collecting all the nylabones into a heap and then tried to pick them all up at once. Jezzy & Jasper the cattledogs were the official supervisors today. Peyton the Aussie Mix was full of her normal kisses and cuddles. She makes us feel so special. We had a few faces we hadn't seen in awhile: Vaq, Jazzy the shep X, Shilo - our big grey faced boy, and Harry the newfie mix. We were so happy to see them today.

The small kid room was fired up first thing but then mellowed into sun bathing and brushings. Bailey the puggle was going all day long trying to play with everyone. Olley was a new westie who was getting into the groove. Shelby the shihtzu and Bijoo the Coton were best friends and kept each other very busy. Dash the doodle pup and Belle the terrier mix really loved each other and kept chasing in and out of the tunnel. Ben, Albert, and Old Man Charlie the Cavaliers were happy and sweet and joined the sunbathers later in the morning. Bandit and Skittles didn't stop for sunbathing and just kept the play going. Coco the Bichon and Skippy the papillon liked to mouth wrestle and then fell asleep on top of each other. Chewie was back for more fun today. He has a rare blood disease where his blood won't clot so he keep an extra eye on him.

That rounds out our busy day today! We look forward to seeing at our party in October!

Project Updates

The new webcam is up and running now. By request, we extended the hours of the webcam (including Sats), it is MAC assessable, and it's super easy to setup. Took me less than a minute to download the active x component to see the cameras and I am computer challenged. However if you have any problems, you can contact onlinedoggy.com and they will walk you through the process. They have great customer service. The small dog room is not quite going as scheduled. We are upgrading the flooring. We are still trying to decide on flooring for the new facility and we came across the newest state of the art flooring for daycares. It still a cushioned matting but then a rubber product is poured on top to give it a seamless finish. It's a common product used in high end humane societies and sports clubs. We decided to try in the small dog room first to see if it was all it is supposed to be. It's very very expensive. The install process got delayed and unfortunately we had already pulled up the old flooring. So the little kids are hanging out in another part of the facility.... a change of scenery for them that they seem to be enjoying. They got brand new toys too! You can still see the little kids on the dogcam. The area they are in is actually larger so they are just going crazy with fun. We hope to have this completed by the weekend and get the kids back to their sun room. I am also working this week on getting the website updated. We have lots of fun things coming up, tons of pics to post, and the August email newsletter will be coming out.

Bark, Wrestle, & Roll

I arrived at Wags this morning early in the am to get started on several projects. We have had a string of bad luck with technical devices. First our color printer died so we purchased another which ended up having a defect and we had to return it. This meant that birthday bags and first day report cards were put on hold which was really a bummer. Then our main server blew up. We were without our kennel program and accounting program for 3 days. Wow...what a nightmare that was. The staff were incredible about picking up the slack though. We couldn't make any boarding reservations so we kept a huge list that we finally caught up on. Then we lost several days of inputing invoices and we appreciate all your patience while we sorted it all out. Finally today our server is back up and running. We also had no email access this whole time so we will busy returning all the emails tomorrow. The final straw was the webcam going down and dealing with a really bad contractor. Luckily online doggy.com will be coming to our rescue and it looks like it might be up by Monday. We are so excited.

So I head out to the play yard to get my fix of playing with the dogs. That always makes the day to day business problems fade away. As I look across the play yard, it looks like a whole mass of whirling tornadoes skimming across the yard. No, not wind driven tornadoes, but dog driven tornadoes. Dogs matched up into teams of two and became wrestling tornadoes. Millie the golden vs Brennan the flatcoat. Kirby the doodle vs Cally the golden. Range the golden vs Sophie the weimie. Jave the c. lab vs Bisky the corgi. Abby the Golden vs Abby the y lab. Cooper the rhodesian and Frankie the gr dane were the biggest wrestling match. Courderoy the boston was all over the place and was her own tornado. Joey the y lab vs Molson the golden. Jackie O & Gracie played tag team tornado with siblings Abby & Murphy the aussies. Ben the golden vs Callie the aussie. The mos interesting match up was Padme and Pasha the doodles. Lily, Lotus, Roxy, & Jessie watched all the action with great interest and then fell asleep in a 4 way pile. Angel/Flare/Bella/Roxy/Hurly the aussies created one huge blur of fur nipping at each other's ankles taking turns being the sheep to be herded around. Sally the beagle showed her sister Lucy the ropes and helped Lucy learn to play. Liam also brought his new brother Lucas to play today. Finally, Oliver the Terrier and Sexy Socks the beagle were rockin and rolling today.

In the small dog room, Molly the Terrier and Chuck were bff. Milky & Austi the malteses really hit it off. They were up on their back legs wrestling and then chasing each other around. Jake & Gretel played with the new baby yorkie Lola. Roxy & Gizmo wrestled atop the jungle gym. Hutner the Chi Mix and Daisy the Corgi loved each other's play moves. Toby & Kona the shihtzus played kissy face. Avery, Maggie & Riley the cavaliers got preferential tummy rubs.

Lola our new aussie rescue was visited today by Spartacus's parents. She's a 4 year old blue merle aussie looking for a new home. We'll see if it's a match or not in a few days. Tank & Dash were brand new Italian Greyhounds today. Scooter showed them what daycare is all about. Bomie finally got more comfortable about playing with the dogs. Enzo was a new golden retriever that had no problems jumping into the group. Lastly, we had a film crew out here today. They are starting a new show for Animal Planet and they did screen tests for us to possibly host the show. How exciting! More updates soon! Remember you can post any comments below.

WebCam Update

We are so excited to have found a new webcam contractor and provider. Onlinedoggy.com will now be running our webcam. They are sending us the new equipment and we should receive it mid week next week (around August 8th). This new system is top of the line and the customer service is also top of the line. You will still be able to access all the cameras and the log in process will be much simpler. We will still allow for up to 100 people to log in at once so you will never get an error message. Yes, all activities will still be recorded. Once the system is up and running, we may switch out our cameras as well. We purchased them 5 years ago and the technology has improved greatly since then. The new system itself may clear up some of the quality issue so we will wait and see on that. The best part of onlinedoggy.com is that they provide all the customer service to our clients. If you encounter any problem using our webcams, you can call them direct and talk to live computer support to get it working on any computer. We will post more once the system is live....hopefully next week.

Wags & Wiggles, Part Deux

Yes, the rumors are true. We are starting Wags & Wiggles, Part Deux in the Irvine Area. There isn't too much news to post yet on the project. We just started drawing up the plans and submitting the appropriate paperwork to the city. This is going to be quite the project. The building and lot are huge. We've already had a huge response of people wanting to attend the grand opening which will probably happen sometime late fall. Don't worry all your favorite people will still be at the original Wags. We are only stealing Lysa away who will be co-owner and running the new facility. There are many things to prepare for this new venture so that is why I have been slow to blog and get new pics up on the website. For all you recent class grads, the pics will be up by the end of the week.

Today at daycare, the dogs had so much fun. With the recent heat and rain, we had quite a few attendees today who took the opportunity to run and play. We had the misters going full steam so everyone stayed cool and active. In the small dog room, Slinky, Teddy and Coconut came in ready to rock and roll. Boots the BC pup and Chuck did major zoomies chasing each other around. Cali the Golden Pup held her status as the smartest pup of the day. Sadie the sheltie loved playing in the water bucket. MJ, Bailey the ShihTzu, and Charlie the cutest cocker pup were always in a wrestling pile. Oliver & Tiki the chihuahuas reigned king and queen on top of the jungle gym. Sookie and Rascal the papillons became fast friends and followed each other constantly.

In the big dog room, Rachel, Jillian, and Tim had all the good gossip on the dogs today. They couldn't wait to share for the blog. It was definitely husky day today with Paris, Zoe, Brody, Grayson, Kodiak, Bonita, and the new one ....Tara. Wow, it must be a record. Max the Aussie the Buck the Airedale were tumbling and wrestling from one end of the yard to the other. Rootbeer and Dollie were so happy to be here on the same day today. They really play well together. Opah and Cali were in heaven, wrestling right under a mister in the yard. They layed in the sun to dry off and rest up for Round 2. Tessie and Jojo were best friends today. Tessie started to flirt and Jojo obliged. Lily the wheaten and Padme the doodle played hide and go seek. Kelly's mom reported that all she has to do is say my name and Kelly starts to run around looking for me....that's so awesome! She followed me everywhere today. Sadie the B. Lab and Harley the JRT were totally in love and were up in the air bumping chests and wrestling. Jackson the ShepX (one of Dave's favorite dogs) and Wrigley the y. Lab were best friends. Rascal the Hound who is so super sweet gave us tons of kisses. Lucky the Golden the Jane had a love affair today. Ashland, a new employee, has fit in great and gave tons of butt scratches today to Sammy Jo and Frankie. Jake the Shep had quite a lot to say to Melissa today and he kept us entertained.

Thanks for coming by to visit us today. We love all your kids...every single one.

First I have to tell what great fun we all had at the Del Mar Wags for Wishes Event. It's the largest dog event in the US. There is agility competition, lure coursing, obedience, conformation, flyball, frisbee, dock dogs, the works. A lot of our agility students were debuting for the first time. Our agility clients become great friends as we take the journey together to train our dogs to compete in a team sport between man (or woman) and dog. It's quite the undertaking. Neither member of the team speak the same language and are from totally different species. The human member of the team must be patient, have a really good sense of humor, and above all get excited about their dog's training. My own dogs did very well this weekend. We didn't get tons of q's (qualifying runs) this weekend but we ran fast and had fun. That is ultimate goal. My students on the other hand rocked the house. Lysa with Guiness got 1st place in jumpers. Julia with Parker also got 1st place in jumpers. This was only her 2nd trial. Ian and Misty also got a 1st place with a blazing front cross the finish their course on top. Ian let me run Brandy his other sheltie in Novice. Her and I love each other. Lisa and Benson the lab came back after a haitis. He didn't qualify but he tried really hard to please his mom. Donna and Jezebelle were extremely impressive. They got 2nd place, their first run of their very first trial ever! She blazed her other courses as well. Diane with Buster the Brittany had great fun. Buster did his weaves ...yeah! He even conquered his fear of the chute and panel jump. Ranaye let me run Claudia the great dane in her first trial. She was a little worried and looked for mom but finished off strong. Bryce (son of Ranaye who is only 12) got to run my dog Easy in a masters level course. It was a great thrill for him and he almost qualified! He's a cool kid. Our cheerleaders consisted of Roxy the Cockapoo, Tchotkes the chihuahua, Tango & Lizzie the border collies, Max the Basenji, and Chezzy the Irish Setter. These guys are up and coming teams to watch for. Seeing all my students & friends running an agility course and having fun gives me such great happiness. Another great moment was when my puppy Gator got to try lure coursing for the first time. His natural instinct kicked in immediately and he chased that thing with a vengeance. By the third day of lure coursing, he was barking and screaming while chasing that darn bunny (not really folks....not a real bunny...it's a plastic bag on a line that goes really fast around a field). Gator will talk about his lure coursing adventure in our next email newsletter. You can sign up on the website if you don't get it already.