Not that it matters, but what am I?

Happy Sunday evfurry one!

Some of you might remember when I first got started blogging and you saw my picture of how I looked when I was in the slammer for three months.  Some people thought I was Border Collie/Lab mix and others thought I might be Spaniel/ Lab mix.

Because I was pretty pushy, and very willful, my Mom thought that I was Borador (Border Collie/Lab) and that is what she called me for a long time. 

However, (and you saw this photo yesterday) when winter comes my furs are curly and thick, which is more Spaniel like.  So my Mom looked up some things about the Spanador and she found lots of things that are just Me.

Living with a Spanador

Personality: The Spandor is a happy, friendly, loyal, jealous, crazy bundle of joy that loves walks other dogs and people. They love playing ball and carrying one around. They just love everybody and everything. (This is not me, I am no ballplayer, but I do love peoples!

Temperament: The Spandor is never agressive but loves a good play fight. They are very sweet, playful dogs who can be reserved around new people until they warm up to them. (This is me!)

Family Dog: The Spanador is a great family dog. They are typically very gentle with children, smaller dogs and cats. They can be rambunctious at times so care should be taken around the elderly or small children. (This is me, too, I just get carried away but try not to with little people, I just love them, and I don't hurt old peeps because my Mom is one.)

Shedding: Depending on the coat, the Spandor can be a low to heavy shedding dog. (Woo, ask my Mom, every morning I get a brush, and its full of my furs.)
Grooming: The Spanador requires daily brushing as their coat gets matted easily, especially the fluffy hair on the legs during the winter.
Training: The Spandor is a great dog to train. They may have some jumping issues though and should be trained not to jump at a young age. The Spandor may be hard to crate train as they do not like to seperate from their owners or other companions. Start crate-training at a young age to help eliminate this. (This is me again!, I love to jump and get in somebody's face, but my Mom has learned to train me not too.  It is hard for both of us, but she keeps at me!  She has also taught me basics and to shake paws ( I love to do this with peoples I meet!)

Behavior: The Spandor is a loyal, smart, energetic and loving dog who absolutely loves attention. (This is me, but I also love my bed!)

Barking: The Spandor barks when they want to play, feel scared or threatened, when someone comes to the door or sometimes in their sleep. They have a deep, Lab-like bark and like to grunt. (This is me too, and my Mom didn't get the grunt at first, but now she hears it sometimes.  After I get up from a nap, I go find my Mom and bark at her a couple of times just to say " hello, I'm back on the job!"

Weather: The Spanador loves all weather. (This is somebody's dream because I hate storms, thunder, rain and wet feet, don't like the summer heat, but I do love spring, fall and winter!  Especially tromping through the snow in winter.

Exercise: The Spanador loves walks, the park and the beach but they can also be happy curled up on the sofa beside you. They are happy with one long walk and play daily as well as longer country walks. They can be over exercised especially when young so you should build up to longer walks and make sure they have a day of rest every couple of days. This is pretty much me, I know I can be overexercised when its hot like yesterday, but mostly I hang out in my back yard then.  In the house, I love to play with squeaky toys and have everyone I have ever got.  I only wrecked one because I didn't like its face or color.

Physical Ability: The Spandor can be a jumper, with the ability to jump on to or off of tall objects. They can even jump very high to see out windows. (Yep, I can do this but my Mom sort of discourages it.)

Size: The Spandor is around 20 inches tall. (This is exactly what I measure, exactly!

Companionship: The Spandor makes a great companion dog. They love being with any living thing. They are very social and loyal dogs. They love to sleep right in your lap no matter how big they get. They don't like being left alone and will follow their owner from room to room. (This is me, right on the money!)

Eyes: The eyes of the Spandor can be blue or brown in color. (I'm brown but the only blue eyes I see are those beautiful Huskies, like
the OP Pack!
Body: The Spandor has a small to medium, athletic body like a Labrador Retriever, but with shorter legs. (Thats me too.)

Forequarters: The front legs of the Spandor are shorter than a Lab's.

Tail: It is possible for the Spandor to be born without a long tail looking like it was docked halfway up or they can have a long tail. (My tail looks like its docked half way up and its thick, very expressive.)

Color: The coat of the Spandor can be black or light tan with a few white patches and markings. (I have a very small white star on my chest.)

Coat: The Spandor's coat is medium to long, very soft, shiny and can be curly. (Thats me, curly, curliest in winter!)

This is too long, I guess, but its been fun finding all of this stuff out.  So I think you can call me Stella Spanadora which sounds cool, doesn't it!

Cheers and hugs,

Stella Spanadora (formerly Borador), Zkhat and Jo

 

Bashful Stella

This is Jo to tell you a story about Stella, who needs some help, friends-wise.

Do you remember when I took a fuzzy picture of what I thought was a Vizsla dog in our back door neighbor's yard?  Dennis's Dad was mad at him and I thought maybe he had been sold to our neighbor.

It isn't Dennis, thank DOG, but it is a nice dog who wants to play and make friends with Stella.  But she is Bashful and he is Bold.

Bashful Stella



Bold Big Guy

Tonight when she went outside, Bold Guy, came tearing down from his house, running in circles, and Stella did a little too, but then she ran for our house.  It seemed like it was just too much for her.  Bold Guy waited a while and then gave up, went back in his house. 

So what do we do, Friends, these dogs have two fences between them, but they both might want to be friends if one didn't seem so scared?

I am sure that Stella has not forgotten Tsar, but it would still be good for her to romp with this handsome guy, don't you think?

We will be hoping for your advice and also we all want to wish you a very happy long weekend.  It might even cool off for us!

KB's beautiful black lab R has been sick and we are eager to hear he is well soon.  Lets remember to wish the boy well, and hope it isn't serious.

Cheers and hugs,

Jo, Stella and Zkhat whose sign says

KB Country in a Book

Jo here with a little book review for you.  You know  when you find a book you really love, you just yearn to tell everyone you know about it, and this is that kind of book!

This is Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild

written by Craig Childs.  I'll bet many of you know Craig Childs from his contributions to NPR's Morning Edition.  Mr. Childs is a naturalist and adventurer, who lives somewhere in KB Country, western Colorado.

In this book he has written about 35 of his adventures in essay form,

from interrupting Ravens in a ceremony, to a face off with a mountain lion at a desert water hole.  He has traveled most of the western USA and has a mystical attitude to most every animal he meets on his way.

This book is as exciting as any book of fiction I have ever read.  Childs says "I have written this book to share nuances that I have witnessed, to cultivate a familiarity with animals in their most original of contexts.  At times I have been blasphemously arrogant and then learned from them to be quiet.  There is, of course, an instant drama to an encounter, but remember beyond the single moment is the long and ornate process of living. The life of an animal lies outside of conjecture.  It is far beyond the scientific papers and the campfire stories.  It is as true as breath. It is important as the words of children." 

Childs is a poetic and eloquent writer.  You won't be sorry if you find this book and read it.  For me, I want to read it again, especially the essay on Ravens.  Childs has also written several other books and has an interesting website as well.

Happy Weekend to you all.

Wishful Wordless Wednesday

WHATTA WEEK!

Stella here:  We had the very best time this week that anybody could imagine.  A local agency was offering help with yard work, house work  or painting your home, so my Mom applied since our yard has turned into kind of a forest.  My Mom just asked for help to clear away overgrowth of plants and bird-planted trees.  So the lady at the agency told us we would have some helpers starting Monday.

(Click on any picture to enlarge it)

This is what we got:  Two adults and four teenager kids.  The adults helped them to figure out what to do and the kids went right to it (along with the adults!)  They went all around our house, cutting trees, digging up roots, clearing up the mess and hauling it away.  Then they decided they had to paint the garage, which hadn't been painted for a long time.  They all scraped off the old bad stuff and it took about a day and a half, then they started painting:

One important guy was missing from this picture because he (Ben)

was painting on the other side of the garage. 

You can't imagine what a huge and beautiful change this was.  They put on two coats of paint and it just shines!

This group came from Wisconsin and Illinois, being part of the Catholic Heart Work Group, and sponsored by the Mahube agency.

The weather was hot and pretty miserable for this kind of hard work but you would never know it from this group.  Smiles all day, and simply the nicest people I have met in a long while.  Lots of teenagers have reputations as being lazy, but these kids worked harder than you could imagine, for four days, kept smiling and even seemed to be having fun at it.  Then they would take a little time, come in the back yard and play with me, Stella!  I did get into some paint though, and it went on my chin:

My Mom said it could have been way worse!

This is the front before they hauled the cuttings away.  We have an

Amur Maple which are the leaves and branches you see and they cut it so perfectly.  We all love that tree.  The curtain you see open is Zkhat's look-out.  She checked out what they did but was scared to get close to the workers.  Such a wuss!  She will never know how good they were to me!

It is so hard to find people these days who will do this kind of work for pay, and to find these willing workers in my yard who thanked me for letting them help me! (at no cost) It was just the most wonderful four days I can imagine, seeing good people putting their faith to work.

So, Roger, Mary Ann, Shannon, Morgan, Ben and Mike, if you are reading this, know that we will love you forever for your good nature, kindness and hard work!

If you would like to learn a little more about Catholic Heart just click and read!

Love and hugs,

Jo, Stella and Zkhat

From All Three of Us!

From Jo:  Way too hot for me!  I saw this video this morning on Dog Art and thought you might like it if you haven't seen it    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpIp0Ebao8k  I just loved it.

From Stella:  Thanks for the nice comments on the shaking picture.

It came from this lake   and even though  it was a cloudy day, it was a pretty place to be.  Here is a picture of me when I started to get dry!

You can see my furs are all ruffled up!

It is too hot to walk there today, though, so we are staying home and keeping as cool as we can.

Here is Ziva Zophia Zkhat!

Thank you for the nice letters you wrote me when I talked to you about forgiving Stella for putting her mouth over my head.  Most everyone said to forgive her, its the best thing to do, but also most of the comments came from DOGS!  My sweetie, Tober, said he didn't blame me for being upset for so long and didn't even know why I would want to share a home and Mom with Stella.  But I am going to go with the majority.  Here is where I officially forgive Stella for putting my head in her mouth.  She still likes to jump at me, just a little so she can see me run but she knows she is not allowed to mess with me personally.  So we will see  how THAT goes.

We hope you are all well and braving the hot weather.  September is always a nice month for us, but we are not sure what August is going to be like.  We hope it won't be a repeat of July!

Love and hugs to everybody and we are saying prays for the victims of the Aurora, CO shooting.

Jo, Stella and Zkhat

How to Keep a little Cool!

This is my favorite way to keep cool.  Walk a mile to the Lake, jump into the lake, get totally wet, come up for air and then SHAKE IT, SHAKE IT, SHAKE IT!

This is so very much fun because sometimes there are kids around you and they squeeeee! when I do this.  But I don't care because I love it.

Here is something else that is fun.  If you have a nice deep bowl of drinking water on your porch or deck, you can first stick your whole face in it and get soaked.  Then stick your front feets in it and give your Mom a big hug.  Oh, does she ever love that!  Some things like this are worth doing over, and over and over again!

I hope that all you pups are happy and healthy, and for those who are sick we send our prayerful good wishes!

Wet sprays on you for coolness and big hugs for love,

Stella who wants winter to come!