Later this morning, we'll be heading over to the new Presto Dog Phunny Pharm. As you can read in the post immediately below this one below, we recently decided to purchase a new den for our three Shetland Sheepdogs (Lyric, Lily & Declan)  and Collie named Dougie). The place has a huge tract of land; so large, in fact, that we're going to actually require a riding mower (tractor?) to mow the lawn just to keep up with Mother Nature's annual growing season, more commonly known as Spring/Summer.

Here are pictures of our dogs:

But we look forward to the change, to seeing happy dogs romp and play in their country yard, able to course in a straight line for literally hundreds of feet before having to throw on the brakes, a significant change from the mere seventy to eighty feet the pack now is allowed to sprint in their suburban yard). To see them jump over agility jumps, running through weave poles and trotting over dog walks that never have to be taken apart and put away due to space limitations. Watching them react to the wildlife we've seen in the area, but with us present, of course, to be certain no altercations ensue.

The by-product of this activity on the canine side will be contented, tired dogs that will be well excersized, tired and healthier than they've ever been. On the bi-ped side contentedness with the dogs' reactions and the feelings that the hard work we undertook to purchase the house was worth the effort. (Since this site's mission is for and about our best friend-the dog, we won't go into the travail we faced in order to sign that contract to actually buy the place...that's fodder for our sister web site, Nescrapes.)

We'll try to snap some shots of the pack in their new area later today.

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Over the past few weeks, I've mentioned numerous times in my posts that we had to vacate the Presto Dog environs and take the pack to parks, dog food stores and various other places of interest. Granted, packing up four dogs (thrtee Shelties & a Collie) for a short outing isn't the hardest thing in the world to do, but since we did it just about every weekend we were getting a little tired of the activity.

I'm now free to say that all the hustle & bustle was for a reason...we bought a brand new den for the good ol' Presto Dog pack!

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It's St. Patrick's Day, and as we do for all holidays, the Presto Dog pack members have been properly attired to reflect the festive occasion.

Each of our four dogs (consisting of three Shetland Sheepdogs & a tri-color Collie) has had a fashionable green scarf lovingly tied around its neck, and let me tell you at least two of the pack do not like their garb! Lyric, the senior Sheltie and statesperson for the contingent, just about sulks because something "strange" has been introduced to person. Her son, Declan, is not quite as bad but doesn't like his attire all the same. The other two dogs, Lily and Dougie (the latter, our Collie extraordinaire), couldn't seem to care less that they're wearing the colorful scarves.

Since I can't immediately get to my P/C to upload pictures of the Presto Dogs, here are some links you can follow depicting other dogs who are finely regaled in their green bows, hats, etc.:

When I have access to my own P/C later, I'll try to upload some pictures of the Presto Dog pack in their St. Patrick's Day finery.

To all our readers, Happy St. Patrick's Day to you and your dog!

After several months, I finally got around to posting new pictures of the Presto Dog pack! You can either click on the Dog  Pictures link on the left-hand side of the page or click here and follow this link to check out the new material.

For those of you who frequent this site, you might want to start at picture #14 and later, as that 's where the new pictures begin.

By the way, once you go to the Dog Pictures area, you'll notice that the program I use to run this web site place the numbers of the pictures in different places on each page. (I think this happens because I'm using different sized pictures.) You might find it easier to use the "Previous" and "Next" tabs underneath each picture to move from one to another.

Enjoy!

The Presto Dog pack consists of four dogs:
 
...that are classified as members of the Herding Group. As such, we're atuned to the fact that they have a penchant for, well, herding. Before we put a fence around our property, our furry friends used to chase after unsuspecting kids who dared to run on our lawn, nipping at their heals to get them into line. Post-pickets (after fence was put up), the dogs now are forced to simply bark and run back and forth on their side of the fence when any interlopers happen to make thier presence known on the other side of the fence.

Once indoors, one might think that such behaviors would cease. Oh, if that were only true!

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In a previous post titled "Muddy Days" located a few stories down on this page, I mentioned how this time of year is difficult for most dog owners in that after lettting 'em out in the yard, little (or big) paws must be cleaned off before our furry friends are allowed back indoors. This simple task prevents footprints from appearing all over rugs, linoleum, etc.

So, on Saturday afternoon, just as we were getting ready to go out to dinner for the evening, I was perforing the paw cleaning ritual on each of our four dogs consisting of three Shetland Sheepdogs and a tri-color Collie. When I got to Lily:
 
...the sweetest dog we have, Sheltie or otherwise, I noticed that she had some blue coloring on her right-front paw. Thinking it was merely something she had managed to prance through as she was running around her yard, I wiped it off the best I could with the towel we keep outside for this purpose and thought nothing else of the matter. That was until I ventured back indoors...

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For about the first year of his life, Dougie, our (almost) two-year old tri-color Collie simply didn't follow the order of the pack. We tried feeding him when the other dogs ate, which is first thing in the morning...heaven forbid we take even an extra nano second in preparing & throwing the food down on the floor for these three Shelties where they proceed to devour it in a matter of seconds! But Dougie really never showed any interest in eating in the morning.

Here's a picture of Dougie by the fence in our yard, performing what he construes as his "guard duties" by furiously barking at innocent passers-by:

Sure, he might decide to take a drink of fresh water, which then promptly cascades out of his elongated mouth & all over the kitchen floor. But other than that, Dougie wouldn't show any interest in food until late in the afternoon when he might pick through his meal from the morning. That is, until recently.

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I just received a picture on my cell phone of our little alpha Shelite, Declan, plopped in the reclining chair in our living room. Seems he likes to reside there when I'm not home, up off the floor so he doesn't have to congregate with the "riff-raff" that resides in our den: two other Shelties (Lyric and Lily) and a tri-color Collie (named Dougie).

Three posts below this one you can read a prior story about Deckie doing this same thing the other day; see "Deckie the Recling Chair OWNER". Guess I'll just have to purchase another chair, this one just for him. After all, I wouldn't want to disturb him when I get home in the evening!

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As mentioned in the post below, we took the Presto Dog pack to a park this afternoon. Once there, I took the part of the semi-world famous Presto Dog photographer and snapped a few pictures of the pack as they enjoyed their day.

Here's a picture of three our Shetland Sheepdogs, Lyric (grabbing a cookie), Lily (hoping the cookie'll drop to the ground) and Declan, as we were providing them with a few treats:

You can see the dogs' portable water bowl in the picture, also. I try to leave out no detail when I take these shots, let me tell you!

And, while looking through some other pictures that were on the card in my camera, I came across this one taken of Dougie, our tri-color Collie, taken a few weeks ago:

He was standing out in the elements; the temperature was a mere 5 or 10 degrees, with the wind chill factor considered. But, Dougie is impervious to the weather; he has no mercy to the humans who might need to walk him outside.

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We're taking Presto Dog's four members of the canine Herding Group, consisting of three Shetland Sheepdogs and a Collie, for a trip to a local County park in a little while. If you're a repeat visitor to this Presto Dog web site, you probably know that such an adventure usually results in the posting of pictures of our pack.

And so we will. The semi-world famous Presto Dog photographer won't be able to make the trip with us, so that means it'll be up to yours truly (that's me!) to capture the moments that'll show up here either later this afternoon/evening. I have yet to complete some of the orders that I need to ship out tomorrow to my wonderful customers at eBay, where we auction agility equipment. So I'll need to really take it up a notch or two in order to get updates posted here later today, but try I will.

Clicking here will take you to the equipment we sell here on Presto Dog. By the way, we maintain a 100% customer satisfaction rating from our customers on eBay, so you can rest assured that the equipment we make is really top quality stuff! Here's where you can read our eBay feedback.

So, I gotta go and pack the dog crates, leashes and assorted other items (dog cookies!) we need when we make such a journey so the pack can be comortable. And once we get back, we'll be able to post new pictures instead of recycling the ones you've probably noticed recently here on Prest Dog.

See? We know when we've been bad to our readers!

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