Hi everybody!

Funny I've been thinking about all the puppies lately too. Wondering how everyone was doing especially Joss which is great to hear that he is doing so much better! and I love his new pictures.Here I thought we were going to get to see some St Paddy pub crawl pictures Amber.

Iz is awesome, wonderful, I could go on and on. We're really lucky because not only do we have warm, beautiful weather all winter but we live in a farm/horse community where there are tons of places to run and ride. Iz goes running with me a couple of times a week and she is finally getting really good at riding with me after being stepped on when she was 4 months old. Got her toes smashed! Riding has been a challenge because I usually ride one horse, put a horse on each side and the dogs have to heal on the left when we cross major streets so it's a trick to teach them to be two horses off me but Iz has picked it up and it is so much fun to ride with my dog again.

We had to give up our runs in the desert because the rattlesnakes this year are unbelievable. I almost ran right over a tangle of them with the horses two weeks ago, had to be at least 8 of them in a snaggle in the middle of the trail. Yuck! So taking Izzie up to snake break her in two weeks. Then we can hit the desert again.

She is in LOVE with birds and unfortunately Bunnies and I just don't have the heart to stop her from chasing them even tho my husband yells at me. The other day at a water shed area, must be about 50 acres, we ran into a pair of ducks. Iz took off after them and they flew just in front of her about three feet off the ground and made a big swooping circle quacking the whole way with Iz hot on their tails (literally) yipping like crazy. As soon as I called her off they plopped right back into the field. Mean Ducks!

We don't have any behavior issues. I guess she's house broke, never had an accident, pretty chew broke, can't get her to stop stealing the cat food off the wash machine, (doubt I will ever break her of that) but caught her once on the kitchen counter top and she's never been up there again. We keep a long line on her when we're out and about, even though I don't hold onto it, and I haven't really started working with her on healing but she sit/stays, we're up to two minutes although she always has that look on her face like "what did I do wrong? Why am I in time out?", and comes back when called even in the heat of a duck chase. She never bothers other people when we're out (pet peeve of mine I hate when strange dogs run up to me) nor bothers or usually even looks at other dogs. She loves to go down to the neighbors barns and visit with everyone and interestingly enough she is very people particular. She either likes them or not immediately. Setters usually love everyone, but we've come across a couple of people that Iz had an instant dislike for. Strange! So I know I'm getting to the spot where I have to start with serious training but I'm a procrastinator.

Funny story. My husband was outside late the other night dumping manure buckets in the front yard garbage cans. He comes back in and 5 minutes later I hear Izzie bark and I say "where's Iz?" course my husband has no idea and Iz barks again and I open the front door and there is she is. He'd locked her out front and she ran around to the front door wanting in. Was so excited when we opened the door. I don' t know if she thought we wanted her to run away from home or what.

She is a hairy mess. I've never seen this much hair on a setter in my life. It is so thick on her back you can't hardly get the shampoo out of it and it just curls and stands up all over after a bath. I am dreading her adult coat.

I told everyone I could go on and on! Keep in touch. Lora

Here is an update about our dog. Amber is doing fine. We microchiped her finally and completed all immunizations for the first year.
She is very active, still jumping A LOT. We are redoing our backyard and it’s been difficult with so active puppy not to have a backyard. We’ll do hydro seeding and new fence any day now, but still minimum a month need to wait until can go there and play.
I was advised to use just plain long cloth line. I tided it to her harness and we went for a run on a field not far from home. Now when I think about it, it might seemed funny – it wasn’t that time. Amber run to my daughter’s friend and started jumping on her. Little girl felt on a grass screaming. I was trying to hold to the rope and got lot of rope burns. I lot some of my skin on fingers. Both hands were badly burned. Even my daughter not understanding what’s happening tried to help me and grabbed the rope and also burned both hands. Amber was just trying to play with little girl – she was fine – just felt down and got scared. We learned a good lesson and I am writing to all of you to share my experience. We did went for another run same day in the evening – because it is a very good idea. But that time I took my husband and my son with us. And most important – gloves to hold the rope. Amber loves those runs. It’s the only runs she got. She chasing balls and sometimes brings them back to us. We also visiting dog parks, but usually only on a weekends.
I am planning to sigh her for next obedience class. Also I started clicker training. Don’t have much time to do it yet. Still trying figure it out for myself.
I am sorry that I disappeared for so long. I was checking site once in a while, but nobody wrote anything there. I do hope we’ll be back on keeping in touch with each other.
Just want to say that you support means a lot for me and thank you all for being close by.

My family and I went to local even – “All Setter Symposium” last weekend. We loved it! I got 3 lessons of grooming (3 different persons were teaching me). I got almost all tips on video.
But most fun was hunting. Amber did very well. I also have a video, but don’t know how to change a format to place on this site.
We had quails. After all events were over – we went back in to the woods and looked for more birds. I don’t have any pictures – I took only video that day. Need to figure out how to get picture from a vide file. May be one day.