TERRA, COUPE DU BOIS

A coupe du bois was a traditional Quebecois lumberjack. Besides cutting the trees, it was their job to get them down river to the mills.

They became renowned for their skill, dexterity and bravery as they ran along the log jams, freeing the stuck logs and nimbly leaping from log to log as the trees roared down the raging rivers

Apparently Terra has been watching History TV.

The video below explains

Terra: Coupe de Bois from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

MISS TERRA GOES COTTAGING

Life is hard, we all need a break.

An escape from the stress and routine of our daily lives. Here in Canada there is a long standing tradition of taking advantage of the wilderness that often lays close to our door, offering us some sense of tranquility and even peace, shedding our drudgery for sunlight and water and the wind in the evergreens.

Yeh, life is hard, especially for Miss Terra, so much stress that is derived from so many decisions that need to be made, like: Which bed should I take a nap on, or which stuffie needs to be tossed around the house and which ball (the orange and blue one or the blue and orange one) should I drop in somebody's life .. Damn, the pressure. A girl needs to escape it and get up to Springhaven Lodge on the Georgian Bay and let the wind flow through her fur and the water splash across her whiskers

Miss Terra is, of course, from a very high and rarified society. Much like the blue bloods (or more accurately wannabe blue bloods) who lounge in the million dollar mansions that command the islands which dot the Bay, this border collie concerns herself with the most erudite of social activities

Such as, Olympic javelin:

Or a rousing game of tennis:

A highly charged soccer match:

The new hybrid sport of soccer and water polo called Water Polo or in the vernacular: I'm gonna drown this soccer ball

And one must always make time for a rousing game of: Find the amphibian

One, of course, can not over concern oneself with all this physical activity, that would simply be boorish. One must take some time to be still and enjoy all of nature's bounty ...

... or one could simply obsess over one's frisbee, border collie style

And if you have concluded that the sole purpose of this post was to post more pics and videos of Terra playing up north .. well .. the proper blue blood response to that would have to be ... duh

LIMESTONE CITY HOUND DOGS, I MEAN, BORDER COLLIES

This is the first blog of our recent trip to my hometown of Kingston, Ontario. This was Terra's first trip there, so Hayley seemed eager to show her some of her famous doggie haunts. OK, to be honest, Hayley was eager to go visit the resovoir and the dog park at the Memorial Centre but she knew that Terra would tag along

It's not like Hayley has any choice in the matter. A border collie choosing. Not something you really want.

It was spring time in Kingston. Mild temps. Melting snow. Mud clinging to fur with the tenacity of a supermodel attacking a high all you can eat buffet ... and the dogs got pretty muddy as well

Hayley & Terra in Kingston from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TERRA

Yikes

Two years? How can Terra be two years old. Well, she is

Here's the video/slidshow to prove it

TerraBday2Web from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY, BITE LIKE A BORDER COLLIE

Bo Jackson - football and baseball

Dave Winfield - baseball and basketball

Dieon Sanders - baseball and football

Jim Brown - football and lacrosse (no, really, lacrosse, not even I could make this up)

They are rare, these multi sport athletes, and they gain fame through their ability to excel at more than one athletic endeavour. Well, we need to add a new name to the roster of the immortals ...

On our recent trip up north, Terra demonstrated that she is no one hit wonder. She is not an athlete defined by any single disipline. She is at home in the water ..
.. on land ..

.. or even in the air ..

... Terra has proven that she is up to just about any athletic endeavour. While Terra has already established herself as a martial artist she has expanded her athletic repertoire to include various ball sports.
But this has not been an easy road. Natural talent is not enough to propel an athlete from the standard to the extraordinary. Every great athlete needs an inspiration, a mentor, a coach. And Terra has Miss Hayley ..
Coach Hayley is always there with an encouraging bark, a sympathetic tail wag, or, her most favourite motivational technique, a swift bite to the bum ..
And in this day and age, talent like this always means dollars and cents. For athlete and coach both. Luckily, they have an agent to whom they look for advise and guidance, in this case Collette who has all the financial answers ... and the ball in her hand
Now that a contract is the works, the two girls have some negotiating to do: Terra - "Let's demand free kibble forever!" Hayley - "Dumb jock, we already get kibble what we hold for is pizza! Pizza I tell you!"

But until the scouts and the managers and the owners are ready to get serious and puppy up (instead of pony up) Coach Hayley will keep her protoge in tune with that old mantra, practise practise practise .... or I'll bite your furry butt
And now, sports fans, let's go to the video ...

Multisport Athlete? from Collette Scale on Vimeo.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TERRA!

Holy crap, has it been a year already? Well no, it hasn't been a year, it's been a year ... Oh stop spinning in circles, let me explain ...

It's been a year since Terra was born down there in Guelph, but it has not been a year since we've had her. That date will happen in March and I'll make a more detailed retrospective blog at that time. You don't take a puppy home the day she is born, well you could but you'd be an idiot and mamma dog would probably bite your ass

I've posted before about doggie birthdays and how my dog trainer buddy John doesn't think "dogs have birthdays" as in, they don't celebrate them. Well kids don't celebrate their own birthdays at first, we celebrate for them and eventually the gift-hungry little buggers learn on their own ....

So did Terra get a gift? She did indeed. Her very first taste of dried liver. Beef liver is the puppy equivalent of Vic getting a Porshe for his birthday, apparently. Happy happy.

Needless to say, Terra has come a long way in a year. Physically, from this ...

... to this ...

I know, scary eh?

Terra is now taller and longer than Hayley and almost equal in weight. The coat still has some growing out to do , I feel, and maybe she'll put on another pound or two, but the physical growing is pretty much done.

The two of them have gone from this ..

...to this ...

Terra's the one on the left, by the ball, I know it's getting hard to tell. If I walk by them on the couch, I often need a second to figure out which dog is which.

The non physical changes are more important of course. Although Terra is still very much a puppy and still has a lot to learn, it's pretty remarkable how far she's come. Again, I'll leave some of this to her "year anniversary" post but besides the basic obedience commands she's learned, Terra has definitely matured, from a dog that was terrified of a bus coming towards her at night, to a dog who happily rides any form of transit from car, to bus to subway train.

It's been a journey longer than the TTC can take you, and longer than I can dedicate to in this post, but stay tuned in March for the full Terra retrospective.

But until then .. Happy Birthday Terra!

THANKSGIVING 1: THE GIRLS

Been pretty busy with work lately so I'm behind on my posting. So here is the first of two posts on our Thanksgiving earlier this month. We were delighted when Collette's brother Garry invited us up to the family lodge to celebrate the holiday. The entire family would be there including David, our latest nephew of a niece so we were very eager to attend.

Besides seeing Collette's family and being able to enjoy the beauty of the Georgian Bay in Fall, we had another inspiration to go up to Pointe Au Baril; Terra had never been there before.
Hayley has always loved going up to Springhaven Lodge; the water, the bush, the road and this time of year there aren't many guests staying there, so she usually has run of the place. We knew Terra would love it too, this dog is nuts about water. It has an undeniable affect upon her, it's like border collie crack.

She took to it like a duck to water, or a border collie to sheep or .. well, there's a video attached, check it out.

Of course Terra was a fanatic when it came to fetching the ball out of the water. That was a given. But she also got to indulge in one of her favorite sports: Herding ripples. In the video you'll see her pawing at the water but what she is actually doing is using her paws and mouth to make the ripples go where she wants them to go. No, she's not nuts, she's just a border collie.

Besides the water, the new experience for Terra was the bush. Trees. Lots of trees. Terra loves trees, squirrels live in trees and it's Terra duty to chase them out. But here in the Toronto parks you have little groups of trees, say three or four, scattered about. Up there .. well, there's a tree every foot or so. At one point Terra was pretty much spinning in circles, barking her fool head off.

Then there were the smells. Although we live in the middle of Toronto we do have a lot of wildlife around here; squirrels, raccoons, skunks, possums, foxes, rabbits .. there are even coyotes not far from here. But up north there are deer, fishers, moose, bears ... the latter of which almost said "hello" to my plastic car on the drive up. Their smells drove poor Terra crazy. Hayley of course is a good bear dog. I remember the first time she found bear scat. She came up to it, gave it a sniff and started to circle it, till she ended up behind me, pointing in the opposite direction as if she was saying "Dad, let's get the fuck out of here."

And yes, Hayley was still able to enjoy her beloved Springhaven even with an annoying puppy in tow. The old girl has, actually, come to appreciate the puppy; hey damn, I have my very own sheep to herd ..

So water, trees, critters, long walks, fetching, herding .. a very successful weekend for our girls. And us. Next post: Turkey in the bush.

Terra & Hayley Up North from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

SURFER GIRL

Yup, it was back to the Beach. Terra (and Miss Hayley of course) had enjoyed her first beach experience so much, we decided to go back a day later. Our summer here has been so cool and rainy that we've decided to take advantage of every actual summer-like day we get this summer. So Collette and the two girls and I boarded the subway and went down to Lake Ontario

On this day there was a fairly stiff breeze off the Lake so we were getting pretty good swells on the first beach the we went to, the offleash area at Kew Beach, for our fellow Trawnaites. The fenced in area is pretty rocky, and I actually don't like letting the dogs go to that beach, the slippery rocks can make it dangerous. But just to the west of the big rocks is a little gravel beach that is much easier for them to get to. It's a bit shallow here as well, so the waves were not breaking to their full potential

After playing at Kew for a bit, we moved east along the boardwalk to the big, unfenced, offleash beaches over at Balmy. Not only are these beaches much nicer, with fine gravel and sand, they are in deeper water, so the waves were really breaking here. In fact, the drop off was much closer to the beach than it had been two days earlier, the big lake was really pounding that day.

Miss Hayley is not overly fond of this kind of surf. The few times that she will swim, she will only do it if the water is very calm and still, and not too deep. Part of this, I think, is because she swims with her head completely flat on the water, her chin right on the surface. Any little swell will go right over her head and she is not too happy with that. Terra does not seem to have these issues. Not only does she keep her head high as she swims, she is just plain fearless. Miss Hayley is not very ball focused; Terra is, and no amount of water will keep her from snaring her prey.

It was fun to watch Terra figure out the whole surfing thing. She learned to time the waves so she could duck her head to get the stick or ball or whatever it was I was throwing. Once she snagged her toy, she turned her back to the waves and rode them in, paddling just enough to steer, riding that wild surf like a true California surfer girl.

And although Miss Hayley is never going to be a surfer girl, she is beginning to appreciate having her very own water sheep to herd along the shore.

And although Hayley is quite happy to herd Terra along the beach, there is no way the old girl is going to pursue the crazy puppy as Terra crashes through the waves to go surfing once more.

So, another successful day at the Beach. Check out the video to see more of Terra's surfer girl adventure. Maybe it's time to buy her a board and perhaps a new collar: Four Legged Gidget

Surfer Girl from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

TERRA'S BEACH DAY

Well, it was only a matter of time, of course. Before we took Terra to one of Miss Hayley's favorite destinations, the Toronto Beaches. We know Terra loves the water. No, not loves the water, becomes psychotic in the water. In a previous post, I've referred to water (to this point, just the water in her pool) as Terra's border collie crack. But now, at six months old and, finally, a summer -ike summer weekend in Toronto, it was time to take her to the really big pool .. that being, Lake Ontario.

So we loaded up both our girls and headed off downtown to the Beaches. In the video a the bottom of this post, you'll see a bit of the journey. Terra has been on the subway before, but only one stop; this journey is significantly longer and includes two different trains and a bus ride. Terra has never before been on the bus, but she handled it, and the long subway ride, very well. Aside from needing to bark at another dog on the train .. but hey, it's all a learning experience.

So there was little doubt that Terra would like the water, but would she swim? Miss Hayley loves the water, but she is not a swimmer. If Collette or I are swimming she will come with us and in very calm water, that does not suddently drop off, she may swim out a couple of feet to catch the ball, but that's about it. Even when herding water sheep, Hayley cannot be enticed into allowing her feet to leave the earth. Terra, at this stage, was an unknown quantity.

Well, there really should never have been a question. Although Terra was a little cautious about going into the water (caution being a border collie character trait, I would say) it didn't take much coaching. We started her on a beach that was shallow and didn't have much of a drop off. Still, this is Lake Ontario, and there were waves but it did not take much encouragement .. and a tennis ball, to get her swimming, even if it was just for a few feet.

So, we have a swimmer. Which works for Miss Hayley .. her very own private water sheep. Yay.

The nice thing about the Beach, aside from that whole giant lake thing, is the social aspect. The girls always meet friends. Like Cane, a friend from out local dog park.

And new friends, like this sweet Lab puppy, about three months old, that Terra decided would make an excellent hand to hand, death match opponent. It's that kind of magical thing that happens between puppies, they look at each other and this communication happens in an instant: Wanna play? Sure, do you? Then it's all legs and tails and teeth. Or, in Terra's case: I'll lie on you and dominate you till you show me that you can play too then they're off to the races .. or the mixed martial arts cage.

After the wrestling, it was back to the lake. This time, stick in hand, it was not difficult to entice Terra to a little dog paddling .. what did you expect, the butterfly stroke?

Normally when we go to the Beach, we like to end the day by going to The Lion On The Beach, a resturaunt on Queen St. They have a patio off to the side and they are very dog friendly. Not only do they let you tie your dog up to the patio, they provide water for them and usually lots of pets (the hand to fur kind). We weren't sure if Terra was yet up to the task. She would be laying on the street, right by a very busy thoroughfare, with lots of distractions. Well, after four hours of walking, running, wrestling, swimming, even a six month old border collie is willing to relax for an hour or so. Having hand made goodies from the Three Dog Bakery certainly doesn't hurt.

All in all, a very happy successful day at the beach. I'm sure many more to come.

Here's the video, Collette and I and our two girls, cavorting on the beach. Cavorting ... is there a sin tax on that?

Terra On The Beach from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.