Rainn-y Day

My sister recently adopted a lovely little liver Dalmatian from our friends Peggy and Tina at OBX Dalmatians.  OBX Right As Rainn, "Rainn," came to meet her Dal cousins today.

Here's Rainn, Tess, Jazz, Indy, and Dancer, all with their tongues hanging out after a nice romp in the yard.

Tess thinks there's no better way to get to know your new cousin than by sticking your nose in her ear!!

Here's Rainn cooling off in the grass after another round of chase and play.

After dinner, we got everyone settled down enough to snap this photo for the family album.  By the way, the third one in from the left is an imposter.  It's a fox statue that lives on our deck, but even he wanted his photo taken with these canine cousins.

We're pleased to welcome Rainn to our family.  Our Dals all had a wonderful day chasing and playing and wrestling with Rainn.  Jazz took a particular liking to her...must be a liver girl thing!!  Dancer was kind of the odd man out among all the spotted dogs, but he did a good job keeping up with them playing in the yard, and I understand that he loves to wrestle with Rainn.

Tess, Jazz, and Indy are looking forward to their next "Rainn" day!

Jazz is a Graduate!

Jazz joined the ranks of June grads last weekend by earning her AKC Obedience Graduate Novice title at the Westmoreland Obedience Training Club trial!

The Graduate Novice title is an optional title to help transition from Novice to Open.  It involves heeling, figure 8, a drop on recall, a dumbbell recall, recall over a high jump, recall over a broad jump, and a 3-minute out of sight down-stay.  Jazz completed all of these exercises nicely, and, in fact, was the only dog in the class of six who qualified.  We're looking forward to moving into the Open class, as Jazz can perform all of those exercises and is even doing some work in the Utility class!

Indy was also at this trial.  On Friday, he earned his first Rally Advanced leg with a very nice score of 97.  On Saturday, I decided to put him into Novice obedience, just to see where we were.  I didn't have high expectations and basically just wanted to get him some ring experience.  Well, the little guy did great and was on the road to qualifying...up until the last exercise before the group sits and downs.  As I left Indy in what I thought was a sit-stay and started across the ring for his recall, I heard the pitter-patter of little paws behind me.  Indy had broken his stay and was following me across the ring, and thus was not qualified.  Despite that, I was very pleased with how well he did.  He had beautiful heeling, on lead and off, and also a nice figure 8.  He did his stand for exam flawlessly.  I thought he did great for just 21 months old, and I'm anxious to continue our training and try again in the fall.

Our Gang

Here are a few pictures of the group of folks we visit the Outer Banks with every year.

This crew should look familiar...me, Jazz, Indy, Tess, and Jim!

Here's the whole gang for our annual group photo:  Kim, Bentley, Twist, Scorch, Eric, Ian, Ethan, Jim, Tess, Indy, Jazz, me, George, Bo, Toby, Shaina, Lois, Sammie, Mariann and Jim.

Here's a picture from our favorite place to visit in the Outer Banks:  Uncle Eddie's Ice Cream!!  Our gang always invades Uncle Eddie's at least once during our trip.  This year, we ran into another group of folks from Pittsburgh, as we visited Thursday evening and were all cheering for the Penguins in their playoff game.  Small world!

Diggin' the Outer Banks

As in years past, one of Tess, Jazz, and Indy's greatest joys is digging in the sand at the beach.  Here's a few pictures of this year's excavations...

Gee, Mom...I don't know how I got all this sand on my nose!!

Ocracoke Island

Today, we were happy to get back to one of our favorite places in the Outer Banks, Ocracoke Island.

This was Indy's first ferry ride to Ocracoke.  We were on the ferry with two tour buses of middle school students, and the Dals were the life of the party!

Jazz, Tess, and Indy by our truck on the ferry.  The dogs just love the ferry ride and love to sniff the sea air.

We've been visiting lighthouses while we're in the Outer Banks, so our first stop was the Ocracoke Island Light Station.

Here are the Dals with the Ocracoke Lighthouse in the background.

From the lighthouse, it was on to our favorite Ocracoke beach, where Tess, Jazz, and Indy cooled off in the surf.

While none of the Dals like to actually swim, all three enjoy wading into the surf.  Tess' new trick is to jump over the waves as they come in.  

Tess, Indy, and Jazz on a bench at the beach at Ocracoke.

Beach Photos

We're having another great week at the beach.  Here are some pictures of the Dals at the beach in Frisco this afternoon:

Here's Jazz contemplating how she's going to catch up with one of these birds on the beach.  She's tried several different strategies, to no avail.

Indy entertains himself by finding a seashell and then repeatedly burying it in the sand and then digging it back up.  He's also developed quite a knack for knowing where little crabs are buried and digging them up, too!

Tess enjoys happily romping in the surf.  She was particularly silly today, and it was fun to watch.

I was trying to take a picture of Jazz among these little purple flowers, but the flowers didn't show up too well.  Oh, well...cute pic of Jazz anyway!

Bodie Island

As part of our Outer Banks adventure, Tess, Jazz, and Indy visited the Bodie Island Light Station today.

Even though we experienced a few raindrops while we were there, we were able to take some pictures of the Dals near the lighthouse and then walk out to the Sound.

Here's Indy, Jazz, and Tess with the Sound behind them.

And here they are with the lighthouse in the background.

We've visited the Hatteras Light Station and the Bodie Island Light Station while we've been in the Outer Banks, and we're hoping to go to the Ocracoke Lighthouse this week.  Last year when we were here, the ferry to Ocracoke wasn't running because of changes in the channel after a large storm the previous fall, so we couldn't get out to the island.  We're looking forward to resuming our annual trips to Ocracoke this year.