Eve Day 3

Eve is a very smart dog. (if I do say so myself!)

One of the tricks we taught her is to bow. We started teaching her this because she always stretches and it looks like a bow, so we just started teaching her that way. Now she is pretty good at it, and we're pretty proud of her!

We think it would be fun to have her bow at graduation.

Here you can really tell she is bowing!

Eve day 2

Well I did say Eve loves to spend time on her back, didn't I?

Tonight I was trying to teach her some tricks, and she always thought I would be happy if she rolled on her back... I think her thought processing was something like this... "Well, I don't understand what you want me to do, but you can rub my belly while I think about it!"

I love her facial expression here -- "Why are you taking my picture and not rubbing my belly?!"

Eve day 1

So we got an email from Barb (Regional coordinator for Guide Dogs), and it said Eve will be going back on May 8th.

With a date, it seems much more real that Eve is really going away. I'm trying really hard not to get sad, but I know I will miss her.

So, my project is to take a picture of Eve every day I have her for the next month, hoping to capture all the things I love about her :)

Here is the first one.... I sometimes think Eve will get career changed because she spends so much time on her back. She LOVES getting her belly rubbed. That's not such a bad thing. And then she'll fall asleep on her back too... what a silly dog!

The Owl

My mom is good at finding interesting things online... :) The most recent one she passed along was this website:

http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox

It is a live feed of a barn owl nest which already has 4 baby owls and one more egg waiting to hatch. It is addicting. Hence I was planning to go to bed 35 min ago, and here I am, but oh well. At this moment it has over 10,000 viewers. The power of the internet is amazing (and crazy!).

You can buy this mousepad below at http://www.transferit.com/theowlbox/

Come on Spring!

Last weekend was beautiful! And I mean beautiful! It makes me so excited for spring!!

On Saturday, it was super windy, but that didn't stop us from taking a trip up to Estes Park to celebrate my Dad's birthday. It was really beautiful weather up there too -- and as we were sitting by the back patio eating some guacamole, some elk wandered into the field. This was the view from the patio -- pretty nice entertainment!

We weren't the only ones who thought it was quite entertaining! Eve was fascinated and watched them intently through the glass.... Eve says, "Please Mom, I'll be good, I just want to play with them!"

Bailey didn't quite see what all the fuss was about, but he decided to check it out too....

On Sunday we went on a hike by Twin Owls. The trial was muddy and icy, but the views were beautiful!

On Sunday I came home and enjoyed sitting in the sun for a few minutes, before taking in some sunshine and actually physically running to Target! It was so nice we even aired out our house for a while! Yeah for sunshine!

Photoshop Actions

I am trying to make a poster of Eve... in the process I learned about Photoshop Actions, where you can download certain effects to pictures. Here is one I've been playing with today....Eve always gets excited when the doorbell rings --- sometimes she barks, even though she shouldn't. Our leader said that somehow that is usually built into dogs persona.... I think Eve just secretly hopes that it is someone to visit her! Of course everyone who comes to our house comes to visit Eve, not us!

P.S. It was Rob at the door!

The Eve Eval

Yesterday Eve got evaluated by our regional coordinator for Guide Dogs. Our evaluation was at 6 pm, so I had all day to make Eve tired (and hence well behaved) and to clean her up. I gave her a bath and then let her play outside.

Eve did awesome at her evaluation. It wasn't anything like I thought it would be -- it was very basic. We did some checks to see if the dogs were scared, such as walking over a cardbord box or walking by a dumpster when the leader was banging the lid closed. All the dogs did great. There was nothing Eve couldn't handle :)

These are a few of the snapshots that I took with a portrait lens of a semi-wet dog...

I like to think of Eve as a speed skater in this picture -- look at that angle of her body!