We lucked out and had a gorgeous sunny (cold) day so I packed up Brutus and Hera and met with Bev and the Newfy girls Gabby and Misty at the Companion Club Dog Park.  They had fun running around.  The weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse tomorrow so it was nice to get out and take advantage of the sun.

With all the rain we have been having the water level has significantly improved and the pond is full again. The temps have been relatively warm for the last few days so the ice coating over the pond was reduced to a thin crust which the dogs easily penetrated.  I tried to keep then out of the pond - my efforts were in vane. Hera got in within SECONDS of arriving at the park. And the first chance Brutus got off leash near the pond he made a bee-line straight for the icy waters and submerged himself.

Brutus was absolutely invigorated by his dip and wanted to play.  He danced and pranced and jumped and bounced around finally getting Hera to join in his folly.  I have never seen him play this enthusiastically with Hera before.  It was really cool to see.

Brutus and Hera were getting a little wild and Gabby desperately wanted to join in, but she has an ouchie knee so wasnt allowed.  I didnt think it was right to let Hera and Brutus act like fools infront of her so I put the kibosh on their fun.  I am so mean…  I think I can see daggers flying out of Brutus’ eys.  He looks so pathetic.  He certainly has those “woes me” eyes mastered.

It was so good to spend some time outdoors with our favorite Newy girls… They were wearing the collars I gave them for Christmas.  They look absolutely stunning in their Sew Crazy Dog Lady collars, don’t you think.

Misty wearing Hearts on a Chain

And Love Birds Gabby wearing Sparkly Snowflakes and Brutus wearing A Pirates Life for Me

Apollo goes to the vet in the morning for a recheck on his ear.  Things were looking really good until this morning.  We ran out of the ear drops a few days ago and now the icky puss is back.  The vet has been closed for a couple of days because they moved into their new building.  We’ll see what happens. Paws Crossed.

Gallery

The legend or myth regarding Saint Bernards carrying kegs on their collars had its start in the early 1800’s in England. ‘Lion’ a Saint Bernard from the hospice was imported to England in 1815.  As young boy of thirteen Sir Edwin Henry Landseer was so impressed with this huge and majestic dog that he drew a picture of the breed. The boy’s famous brother, Charles Landseer made an engraving of the picture and published the work.

In 1820, at eighteen years old, he painted two “Alpine Mastiffs” (AKA Saint Bernards) saving a traveler in the Great St. Bernard Pass. The painting was entitled: ‘Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler’. His father and teacher made a popular engraving of this painting in 1831.

One of the dogs pictured in Landseer’s painting was carrying a wooden keg or cask of wine from it’s collar. Some say this is purely artistic license and that the dogs never carried kegs. Others disagree because of other supporting evidence that the dogs from the Hospice did in fact carry brandy or wine for lost travelers. In any case this is the painting that started the legend or myth of Saint Bernard dogs carrying kegs on their collar.

Myth, Legend or Truth… the world may never know. I think they are pretty cool and love to take the boys out in theirs!

Our barrels are cured and functional from Dan “the Keg Man” Jordon - and no, there’s nothing in them.

I have found Saint Bernard Barrels at these online shops:

• Saint Specialties Walnut Kegs - these are AMAZING handmade barrels $$$
• The Robins Nest - They have some great custom design extras $$$$
• Thousand Oaks Barrel Company - $$ (sells on ebay as well)
• Dan “the Keg Man” Jordan - we like ours $ (sells on ebay as well)
  

We’re back up and running! Sorry for the inconvenience.  I know its been a real inconvenience for me.  Remember a week or so back when I renewed my domain name.  Well, they (my domian register) dropped the ball and it wasn’t manually renewed and expried.  It took about 24 hours to resolve the propagation issue (for the most part) but I am still not seeing it on Mozilla Firefox - it should be soon.  Email is back up and running and everything should be running smoothly with in a day. Never fear, we didn’t go anywhere and don’t plan on it anytime soon!  Gotta love the internet.

The weather has been beautiful for the last two days so it hasnt been a total loss.  I got a few shots of Apollo and Brutus enjoying the sunshine.

Zeus doesn’t get much face time around here.  He doesn’t really like to have his picture taken and to be honest, since he’s a black dog, he’s pretty hard to photograph.  I thought I would try to capture a few for your viewing pleasure.

I can’t belive how much grey he is getting around his muzzle.  Time sure marches on.  Speaking of time… Father Time is about to turn the page on my calendar marking the end of 2008.  I have some adorable “New Years” pix saved for Wordless Wednesday’s “New Years edition” so stay tuned.

Tomorrow we are going to pick up a copy of Beethoven’s Big Break on DVD… I just love the Beethoven movies!

Edited 12/29/08 to add….

Apparently Zeus is NOT happy with my son for being gone for several day.  In fact he is down right pissed, literally!  I let him out last night with the other dogs at midnight before I headed off to bed.  He did both his business, came inside and went to bed, as per usual, with my son.  I opened the door for him this morning and don’t you know he CRAPPED all over the floor! GRRRRRR  then, to make matters worse, he had hiked his leg in my son’s laundry basket and pee’d all over his CLEAN clothes!  He has never done that before.  UGGGG!  Clearly he was not happy.  Now I have to do his laundry, again.