Hola, everyone.
I was an active member here for a while, and then I dropped off the Chaz map. A lot has happened to me over the last few years, and I honestly can't remember when I last posted. I searched my own posts and this forum is so active its kind of hard for me to pinpoint the last post I made. I see some familiar faces here from before, and I occasionally get people on other sites saying "Oh I remember you from Chaz!" so I decided to drop back by. I've actually all but eliminated message boards from my 'net experience lately, so coming back to this one is an indicator of its quality.
A little bit of catching up:
What happened was that my husband and I separated in early 2009. I tried to stick it out in Oklahoma, but I couldn't find a job and the house was 3 months in arears. So faced with these choices -- go home and live with mom at the tender age of 29, or strike out in a new direction -- I took up a generous offer from Matrix kennels to pack up and move in with them in west Texas. The short version of our deal is that I take care of a baker's dozen of APBTs in exchange for a room in the house. Sort of a live-in dog nanny. I took a job at a grooming/boarding kennel down here, so my day is largely taking care of other peoples' dogs. Its fun at times, but I've also been known to occasionally mutter "Man, I'm so sick of dogs."
There were some unfortunate losses besides just my marriage. Priest, our beautiful male APBT, had to be PTS because he couldn't handle the chaos in his world after his stable home broke up. His mind was blown. Very sad experience for everybody who had to be involved in the euthing of a promising young dog, but it bore with it some valuable lessons. I also parted ways with our cat, Kiba (went with the ex) and both of our snakes (rehomed). I still have my girls, Loki and Terra. And in spite of some people growling about this, I've made peace with my ex on a friend level.
So at present, I work at lot. And then I work some more. Holidays being a time of family for most people, I'll be busy in the boarding kennels at work. My family is all up in St. Louis anyway. Lost a bunch of weight the first year here, found 30 lbs of it back and trying to find the motivation to shake loose of it again. Oh yeah, and 2 months ago I replaced my aging Saturn SL2 (which I loved to death) with a Chevy HHR, so I've got a little more room for dogs and whatever else. The cool thing there is that I cleaned up the Saturn and gave it to a co-worker in need. That's my big pay-it-forward for the next decade. LOL!
I still show my dogs, just not nearly as much as I used to. Terra finished her UKC and ADBA CH titles since being down here, and got her UWP (weight pull) and URO1 (rally) titles. She also passed the ADBA's Safedog test and got her CGC. Plus she got her health-testing done and has so far passed everything. Loki's got her URO1, too, but her big achievement was that she finally got her UCDX title (open obedience). So at 8 years old, she's more or less retired. Got a few skin tags and some grey hairs, but she likes hanging out on the big bed well enough. Terra I hope to finish up her UWPCH and then get to work on obedience and agility.
Some recent pics. If there are enough pics here that it qualifies for the photo section, pre-emptive apologies to the mods.
Loki:
I was an active member here for a while, and then I dropped off the Chaz map. A lot has happened to me over the last few years, and I honestly can't remember when I last posted. I searched my own posts and this forum is so active its kind of hard for me to pinpoint the last post I made. I see some familiar faces here from before, and I occasionally get people on other sites saying "Oh I remember you from Chaz!" so I decided to drop back by. I've actually all but eliminated message boards from my 'net experience lately, so coming back to this one is an indicator of its quality.
A little bit of catching up:
What happened was that my husband and I separated in early 2009. I tried to stick it out in Oklahoma, but I couldn't find a job and the house was 3 months in arears. So faced with these choices -- go home and live with mom at the tender age of 29, or strike out in a new direction -- I took up a generous offer from Matrix kennels to pack up and move in with them in west Texas. The short version of our deal is that I take care of a baker's dozen of APBTs in exchange for a room in the house. Sort of a live-in dog nanny. I took a job at a grooming/boarding kennel down here, so my day is largely taking care of other peoples' dogs. Its fun at times, but I've also been known to occasionally mutter "Man, I'm so sick of dogs."
There were some unfortunate losses besides just my marriage. Priest, our beautiful male APBT, had to be PTS because he couldn't handle the chaos in his world after his stable home broke up. His mind was blown. Very sad experience for everybody who had to be involved in the euthing of a promising young dog, but it bore with it some valuable lessons. I also parted ways with our cat, Kiba (went with the ex) and both of our snakes (rehomed). I still have my girls, Loki and Terra. And in spite of some people growling about this, I've made peace with my ex on a friend level.
So at present, I work at lot. And then I work some more. Holidays being a time of family for most people, I'll be busy in the boarding kennels at work. My family is all up in St. Louis anyway. Lost a bunch of weight the first year here, found 30 lbs of it back and trying to find the motivation to shake loose of it again. Oh yeah, and 2 months ago I replaced my aging Saturn SL2 (which I loved to death) with a Chevy HHR, so I've got a little more room for dogs and whatever else. The cool thing there is that I cleaned up the Saturn and gave it to a co-worker in need. That's my big pay-it-forward for the next decade. LOL!
I still show my dogs, just not nearly as much as I used to. Terra finished her UKC and ADBA CH titles since being down here, and got her UWP (weight pull) and URO1 (rally) titles. She also passed the ADBA's Safedog test and got her CGC. Plus she got her health-testing done and has so far passed everything. Loki's got her URO1, too, but her big achievement was that she finally got her UCDX title (open obedience). So at 8 years old, she's more or less retired. Got a few skin tags and some grey hairs, but she likes hanging out on the big bed well enough. Terra I hope to finish up her UWPCH and then get to work on obedience and agility.
Some recent pics. If there are enough pics here that it qualifies for the photo section, pre-emptive apologies to the mods.
Loki:
