Bear River's Black Out

This is Stormy! Her registered name is Bear River's Black Out. She's our newest addition. She was born November 16th and we brought her home January 7th. The first couple days she was so timid and just laid around, walking through the house slowly. We were a little worried at first. But it only took her a couple days to warm up and now she's a normal little puppy. She seemed tiny compared to previous puppies we brought home at that age. The boys, of course, love her! She gets plenty of attention and loves to chase the boys around the house. It gets quite LOUD! Her new favorite place to hang out is in our throw blanket basket. It's near the fire, and apparently she's decided it is a warm, soft place to hang out! The first time she was in the basket I thought I'd left her outside too long, and we don't have a fenced yard, and I was freaking out looking for her. Rett did the same thing a couple days later. Now she's always there when she needs a rest. Her name is a result of the crazy wind storm that hit the Ogden/Weber area last month. Rett worked for days straight trying to get people's power back on down there and since the overtime paid for her, Rett decided that she would have a name to remind him of the storm. The Bear River runs through our area. Just so it makes sense to everyone!

The last few months, we had Chief, our oldest dog who is retired from the games and lives to hunt with Rett; Zink, who is our Field Trialer and who has been back and forth from our home to trainers during his short two years of life; and Hook, a pup who we were dog sitting for friends. Chief is a great dog. He's clean in his kennel. Almost always waits to go to the bathroom until you let him out, and is a great well mannered dog. Zink is a terribly messy dog. He never waits for you to let him out, even if you let him out. Hook was a puppy, so he was still learning how to be clean. Zink and Hook were eating twice a day and Chief only once a day. All three were on different dog foods. And some had supplements. I was taking care of dogs, airing dogs, cleaning kennels, and throwing ducks so much. Of course Rett did chores at night, but some days I felt like all I did was take care of dogs. Rett will say I'm a dog hater. Not so. I am busy with the boys and house and everything else, so sometimes I get a little frustrated with so much time going to dogs. But really, I love them, just not quite as much as Rett does! Anyway, we took Hook home on December 30th. I drove Zink to Colorado on January 3rd. So for just a few short days we had one, really easy dog. And I wasn't even here to enjoy it because I went to Utah to visit family! We are only at 2 dogs at home now, and they are not that bad. Rett got me a super cute pair of Bogs for Christmas. Bogs are a fancy mud boot. Mine are purple. I love them. I also told him that I wouldn't complain about dogs anymore because of them. It's much nicer to clean kennels and tramp through snow to throw ducks when you have a good pair of boots. And a very exciting piece of news is that Rett found a steal of a deal on a nice freezer on KSL for his shop! So now all the dead ducks that were taking up space in the bottom of my freezer are outside in the shop! YAY! More space for our food!

I have to say, I love that Rett is so passionate about the dogs. He loves them. And I complain. But I'm so glad he has something he enjoys doing. Life would be so miserable if he didn't have anything to look forward to. And we can do stuff with the dogs as a family. And that is what matters most to me! So welcome Stormy to our crazy home! We're glad to have you!