Dakota Update

We are having a wonderful time with Dakota! She is fitting in well. After a few "pack walks" (ala Cesar Milan http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/dogwalk.htm) Dakota is happily adjusting to being in a household with Buddy and Ginger. Ginger of course is at the head of the pack. Dakota is walking nicely on a leash, and has learned to "come", "sit", and "up, up" (jump into the car) and we are working on "down" next.

Buddy are Dakota are getting along famously, including one caper where we left the closet door open a crack and they worked together to wedge open the door retrieve all the bones and raw hides we had in a stash in a paper bag. They have even been known to give each other knuckle bone bits as presents.

Last weekend we took her and Buddy over to a friend's new house where they could hang out in the back yard. They had a great time playing together and "helping" with the landscaping by digging holes while we painted. This past weekend we took them to a beer festival at a brewery where we camped over night. Needless to say people adored them everywhere they went.

Pre-Pyrapalooza

Pyrapalooza 2009 is coming up soon! We are getting ready to go to our 3rd Pyrapalooza.
Pyrapalooza is an annual event where Pyr owners and their furry companions gather for 3 days in Westfield, Massachusetts to talk about Pyrs, learn about Pyrs, and enjoy each others' company. Last year we were part of a spectacular turnout of 80 Pyrs and 140 humans. It is a great event for both the humans and Pyrs, providing support, education, enriching activities and networking. We are looking forward to spending time with the terrific and dedicated people who volunteer with NEPR and meeting all the participants again. This year we will participate in a variety of workshops including Tracking, Carting and Livestock Guardianship. We’ve done the carting before and Buddy even won a harness at the silent auction last year. The other two workshops should be interesting for both us and the dogs. Buddy will also benefit from expert grooming and get to be in the Rescue Parade - hopefully he won’t get so excited that his medal falls off again. Like last year we’ll be tenting with the puppies again. It really isn’t camping when you have a double height air mattress, but we’ll “suffer” through it. It is extremely handy that the sheep barns have electricity! Of course we had to get celebratory Pyrapalooza 2009 shirts and the Berkshire Brewery’s Pyrenees Pale Ale. Attending the event is free and donations are suggested for the individual activities with all proceeds go towards helping out more Pyrs. All in all this is an awesome event that we are really looking forward to. If anyone wants to join us, please let us know! If you can’t make it but would still like to support NEPR you can buy a shirt ($15 short sleeve/$17 long sleeve) or some Berkshire Brewery Pyrenees Pale Ale ($3 bottle / $27 case).

To read about Pyrapalooza 2008 and see lots of great pictures go here.

The festival formerly know as Belgium Comes to Cooperstown

In 2003, the summer after we graduated from college, we went to what I think was the first "Belgium Comes to Cooperstown" celebration at the Ommegang Brewery.  It was surprisingly fantastic.  Fast forward 6 years.  The VIP tickets sell out in 3 minutes.  We are not among the lucky despite getting the tickets into our cart.  The general admission tickets sell out in 3 hours.  We become concerned that this even has become uncomfortably popular.
Despite our misgivings we borrowed the minivan (sorry Tess, Sofia and Clint declined to hold a dog apiece for the 4+ hour ride) and packed up the camping equipment and the Pyrs.  We picked up Sofia and Clint and then made our way upstate in good time.
On our way to find a camp site we came across two people we know!  We found Robert staking out a camp site too and then Liz showed up with a load of their gear.  It was a really nice surprise to see them. We hadn't seen them in ages so it was fun to catch up.  And they are getting married this fall so that is super exciting!
After putting up our tent and watering the Pyrs we headed to the main event to get the lay of the land.  Clint and Sofia disappeared and Todd headed to the registration tent while I provided a Pyr petting station for the folks already gathered in the beer tent.  The woman who placed Buddy with us warned us that walking around with a Pyr is like walking around with Mick Jagger — every one will want to touch him.  And it's true.
We secured a table and had some excellent pulled pork sandwiches for lunch and when tasting officially began at 2pm we tasted until all the interesting beers ran out.  Unfortunately some of the interesting beers, including beers from Ommegang ran out rather quickly.  However I did manage to taste some excellent sour beers that made me very happy.
The difference between the first Belgium Comes to Cooperstown festival and this one is that the first one was an original and extremely Belgian experience. It included flag throwers, a human chess game, stilt walking, lots of seemingly genuine Belgian food. There were also many fewer people so the enviroment was very laid back and the lines to get beer were very short. It had a very nice homey feel and we even got to meet and chat with the brewmaster.

The current incarnation is much more commercial. Sadly no flag throwers or human chess and the good beer ran out disappointingly soon. But there were many many good beers to try overall. And it was a fun atmosphere with everyone obviously having a good time. There were a lot less choices of food, so we decided to go to the supermarket and get lettuce and fixings to make salads to have around our cooler (we didn't manage to make a fire).

We chatting into the evening with Liz and Robert and in addition to telling us what they'd been up to personally, they filled us in on some of the regular happenings at Belgium Comes to Cooperstown for the past few years...including the tendency for inebriated revelers to forget that foam coolers are extremely flimsy. This was demonstrated by a person a few sites over who accidently sat on a cooler, which promptly broke and dumped him onto the ground.

The ride home was *slightly* longer than planned.  The good news is that we stopped at 5 Guys to get delicious burgers (mental note: get the small burger next time).  The bad news is that we ran out of good audiobooks and had to resort to a mediocre one for the last bit of the trip.

Buddy has a chance to be in the 2010 NEPR calendar!

The organization that we adopted Buddy from (NEPR www.nepyresq.org/) is having a calendar photo contest. This picture of Buddy at a dog run in Boston has been chosen as a semi-finalist. Please support Buddy and NEPR by voting here: www.nepyresq.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=29


All net proceeds from the submission of pictures, voting, sponsorships and sale of the calendars will directly help NEPR's efforts to rescue, rehabilitate, and re-home Great Pyrenees throughout the Northeast!

We're (puppy) foster parents (again)!

This weekend we went up to Maine for a NEPR BOD meeting and we came home with a visitor! This is Dakota, who has become fast friends with Buddy. She's a 5-year-old female surrender who came to NEPR in June.

Deb and Paul were wonderful to have all of us and Buddy stay at their house for the weekend. In addition to their own Pyrs they foster several others at a time, and we offered to take Dakota to our house for a while to see how she gets along with the Budster.

As you can tell from the pictures she is at the other end of the Pyr marking spectrum from Buddy. She has much shorter tan fur and beautiful black markings around her eyes with coffee color markings on her ears. Dakota is very sweet and has an enthusiastic and playful personality. She's also a leaner and an elbow nudger. Todd found driving a bit difficult when your right arm is being poked with a cold doggy nose every few minutes.
And unlike the first foster we had—Loki, known for peeing on the front door mat—Dakota seems to be completely house broken and has been perfectly happy to be walked on a tandem leash with Buddy.

Todd was worried that we'd have to put one of them in the wagon of the car and the other on the seat of the car but turned out not to be a problem. We easily got both of them into the back seat on the first try. Buddy did try to sneakily push Dakota off the seat with his big furry butt, however we used a sleeping bag to fill in the space behind Todd's seat and she curled right up on it. Moments later Buddy snuggled up with her and put his head on Dakota's back. After that he didn't try to turn his back on her at all and by the time we got home they were like big furry puzzle pieces snuggled together on the back seat.