We now have 2 puppies. We still have Cub the giant Great Pyrenees puppy, and now we have a little Corgi puppy named Sasha. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Animals

We currently have 8 dogs in the house. This is down from the high of 10 just a few short hours ago. If you haven’t heard, we took over Tails by the Bay for the winter, and get to live in a nice house and take care of dogs all day. Well, Skippy gets to take care of dogs all day. I still have to work in town, but the tech support business is picking up, so I’ll be doing less of the 7am-5:30pm gig and more of the open schedule gig.

The house has two floors. The main floor has the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and our bedroom. That’s the dog’s floor. Upstairs has a closet, a sitting room/office, and a small hallway that overlooks the kitchen on one side and the living room on the other. That’s the cat’s floor.

Jacques and Cousteau have adapted surprisingly well to their new living situation. They occasionally wander down to the main level and thread themselves through the many many dog legs between the stairwell and the kitchen, where they greet us and remind us to feed them. Most of the time, however, they just sit upstairs in their cuddle cups, snoozing in the amazing amount of warmth generated by the wood stove. They sometimes don’t even muster the energy to look over at the door as I come through to work at my computer.

We will sometime hear them going nuts, running around and attacking their scratching post. Today, we watched as Cousteau flung himself off the edge of the loft and onto the big window frame just below it. And then he jumped back up.

During the day, Skippy and I take turns escaping upstairs to work on the computer. With a house full of dogs, including a 4-month old Great Pyrenees puppy (who gets into everything), the computer/kitty room has become a Fortress of Solitude for us.

We’ve been here just over a week.

Here are some of the dogs we’ve been taking care of:

Tia

Jak

Cub (the GP puppy)

Bubba (Cub’s older, smaller brother)

Kayla (Ms. Sneaks Into The Bedroom For Naps)

Belle, the droopy dog

Animals, Life

I always enjoy my visits to the local veterinary clinic. Especially if I’m there doing tech work, and not because our dog shook hands with a porcupine using her face. One week it’s puppies, the next an eagle that was found flopping around on the beach with a broken wing. This week, it was an owl.

A Northern Hawk Owl, to be exact.

It had apparently fared the worse in a contest with a large window. The day before, it was wobbly and couldn’t do much at all, but when I saw it, it had recovered sufficiently enough to sulk in its cage and soundly ignore the pieces of chicken breast and baby hamsters (don’t ask) that were occasionally pushed towards it.

It still couldn’t fly, and seemed to want to protect its left side. It flopped around the room for a minute, then settled in to stare at us staring at it.

It wasn’t very big, especially since everything in Alaska seems to default to Supersized.

Owlbert (no, I didn’t name it that, the vet tech and the doctor did) made its first flight since the accident, though not with its wings, when it took an airplane up to Anchorage to finish out its rehabilitation with wild bird experts on Saturday.

Update 11/11/09: I’ve been informed that the owl is recovering nicely, and is gladly eating whatever tiny and squirming food is placed in its cage.

Animals, Photography

Remember the mama and baby moose that visited the house a few months ago? These two:

We’ve seen them passing through more than a few times since then, though always when it’s too dark to really get a photo, or when they’re already too far away. This morning, I was playing with the dogs outside when I realized Macgee hadn’t moved for several minutes, and was staring intently across the road. When I looked more closely, I saw the moose pair making their way through the neighbor’s driveway towards our house. I grabbed the dogs and put them inside and managed to get my camera in time to take a few photos.

Mama:

Teen:

Animals Wildlife

After a year and a half in Alaska, Ashlee finally met a porcupine. This morning, just before leaving for work, I took the dogs out for their morning potty break. Both dogs immediately heard/smelled something in the fireweed that surrounds the yard, and ran towards it. I didn’t see or hear anything, but managed to pull Macgee back on his leash. Ashlee wasn’t on a leash, and emerged from the bushes seconds later with a face full of quills. A trip to the vet, some sedation and a steady hand later, and she’s no worse for the experience.

Hopefully she’ll think twice before investigating further strange rustlings in the brush, but I won’t hold my breath.

Animals