It's been about a week or so since the unofficial/official opening ot the Presto Dog Phunny Pharm. And so, you may ask, what's new?

Well, every evening when I get home from work, I first grab a bite to eat. As I do so, five pairs of ever-so-friendly and intense canine eyes watch as I pick up my fork, place food in my mouth, and repeat the process over and over. You'd think I was a composer leading a band or something the way they rivet their eyes on me! (BTW, I have been known to share a morsel or two {or three} with my faithful companions!)

But after several minutes, my repast is over and I utter the five words the pack's really been waiting for me to say: "Who wants to go out?" (Did you really just count the words to see if there were five of them?) A cacaphony of sound are emitted as our four Shetland Sheepdogs named Lyric, Lily, Declan and Maggie and tri-color Collie named Dougie all bark their answers my question. To the best of my knowledge their answers are always YES!

So, five leashes are placed around their necks and they're led out to the garage where I stop for a couple of seconds to put on my outdoor shoes. I then lead the pack to the gate where we enter the Presto Dog play ground. One by one leashes are then removed and soon all five dogs are soon running, barking excitedly and chasing a variety of different colored balls that I kick around for them to fetch or simply chase after.

By the way, I neglected to mention two other items I bring with me as I head out to the dogs' play area. These are a blue water jug filled with a handful of ice cubes and cool, delicious, refreshing water:
 

...and a handful of "poopie sticks:"


The former is to replenish (a.k.a. re-hydrate) our pack after they've been running around like, well, a pack of dogs. The latter are to mark where any of the dogs might decide to recycle food nutrients they ingested hours previously. These brightly-colored sticks are dropped near to where they make their deposits so the offending area can be easily discerned when one of us goes on poop patrol. Hence the name "poopie sticks." They were created after my Presto Dog bride asked aloud if there was some way we could mark where our dogs do their business. I thought about the problem and came up with...poopie stcks.

A second shot of our newest creation...poopie stcks!



Since I took the pictures of these sticks at dusk, you can't really appreciate that they've been spray painted with a liberal amount of land surveyor's day-glo orange paint so they can be seen from real far away. This marks "the area" for clean up later and helps to prevent that infamous squoosh! sound we dog owners dread so much.

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It's Labor Day, 2007, and we're still celebrating the opening of the new Presto Dog play ground. We finished fencing in the whole area & decided to relax by letting our dogs run free around the pasture, chasing balls, butterflies and each other.

Here are some pictures I took as the dogs enjoyed themselves:

Blue's the color of the day! Up above are two agility tunnels, one open & the other a closed chute our dogs have learned to run through.

My son Chris puts the Presto Dogs through their paces in their new play area.

Immediately up above, you can see Dougie, our tri-color Collie, nudge little Maggie onto the "walk-it." This is a piece of agility equipment she loves to course over.


As Lyric the Sheltie relaxes under a white plastic table, Dougie slurps down a drink after a tiring run around the pasture land. See the blue jug? There's another great shot of this important part of our outdoor activities following. Read more about it below...


Each and every time we take a trip out to the Presto Dog play area, we take along a jug of cold water. This is partly in case I get thirsty, but mostly for our dogs, four Shelties & a Collie, who all work up tremendous thirsts as they run around their brand new play area. It's a wonderful jug, performing its chores with nary a complaint. Our hats go off to the jug that tirelessly provides the drink we crave as we expend energy on the Presto Dog pasture land.

Perhaps I should attempt to construct "An Ode to a Blue Jug," similar to the work of John Keats (1884)? Bravo, little blue jug!

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As promised, here are a few picture from the grand opening of the Presto Dog play ground, celebrating the completion of our fence project:

The shot above depicts Maggie, our six month old Sheltie, as she's happily completing her walk through an agility tunnel. This was her first experience in the equipment & she took to it like a champ.

From left to right, imediatley above you can see Declan, Dougie (on the portabed) & Lily congregating as big Doug takes a rest for a few seconds.

Up above is a picture of the new Presto Dog canopy. We bought this so that the dogs would have a shady area to congregate in when they're done running around.

Shhh! That's Lyric catching a few winks after running all around the new Presto Dog pasture land!

Dougie looks around his new fenced in pasture land and is quite happy at what he sees.

More pictures to come, showing our dogs at play as our grand opening celebration continues over the beatiful Labor Day weekend.

Today's the day we "officially" open the brand-spankin' new Presto Dog playground!

For the past seven, eight or more weekends, I've been constructing a split rail fence around our new large piece of property. Posts here on hte Presto Dog web site can attest to the details of my endeavors, but suffice it to say it's been a long, arduous project.

Anywho, this afternoon/evening we're gona have all kind of fun activities for our four Shetland Sheepdogs named Lyric, Lily, Declan & Maggie and our tri-color Collie, Dougie. There's going to be races (where all competitors will be winners and recieve prizes, agility equipment to be traversed (with food rewards for the competitors), ball chasing, stick fetching, a barbecue that'll include a magnificent steak for the dogs (albeit a cheaper cut but will certainly be appreciated, I'm certain), foods for the bipeds in the family (me & the Presto Dog bride) and a slew of pictures that'll capture our day of fun 'n frolic.

So come back later, perhaps tomorrow, to check out how or efforts pan out!

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Future posts will revert back to the regular font we use (the one you're reading right now) but I just had to take a moment ro revel in our accomplishment. Pictures are forthcoming in a day or so, and definately for the grand opening of our playland next weekend.

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The temperature outside was about 84 degrees and climbing as I began permanently setting posts in the ground around the Presto Dog property. Avid readers of my rants here on this web site can attest to the fact that the construction of our fence has been a project and a half. (If interested, you can peruse some of the posts below this one, usually labeled with the words "fence" or "post" in their titles, for specifics.)

My work on the posts involved setting 'em permanently in the ground at 90 degree angles so they'll be straight as you look at 'em. As noted, I began kind of late in the morning & it was hot! However, by the time I quit at 12:30 p.m., I had touched, co-erced and finagled about 55 of the posts into the ground at the desired angle. 55! And I think the temperature must have reached a blistering, sweat producing, sun-scorching 93 degrees by the time I made my way back into the air-conditioned comfort of my home.

So, there are a mere nine posts to go until I'm done with this aspect of my project. And the, all I need to do is afix chicken wire to the fence so our pack members are safe in their new playground.

I anticipate doing these last two chores tomorrow.

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It's been weeks (months?) since I first started on the fencing project that'll provide a secure area for our dogs to use. Our land needed to be marked for post holes, a guy with a heavy-duty auger contracted to dig the holes in our extremely rocky terrain, posts put in holes when he was done to be certain all were at the same height, holes dug deeper with a post hole digger for the same reason, rails attached to posts, gate entryway posts cemented (after being positive they were absolutely level), gates attached, all posts trued to a perfect 90 degree angle and finally, chicken wire afixed to all so that the dogs will remain on our property.

All but the last two items have been completed for the area in the rear of our home. This is a huge tract of land (coming from a person who previously resided on a 50' x 100' postage stamp piece of property) and the work involved setting literally hundreds of feet of the aforementioned posts 'n rails.

Here's a picture of our new fence & one of the two 10' gates as you're looking at the left side of our home:

But this weekend I'll being truing up & afixing the chicken wire. I anticipate I'll be done & able to let the dogs free to run around by late Saturday/early Sunday. This'll be the first time they've been off-leash since early May when we left our prior fenced-in residence.

As noted in an earlier post, we're gonna have a celebration for the grand opening of our long-awaited canine playground here at the Presto Dog Phunny Pharm. Our four Shelties named Lyric, Lily, Declan & Maggie and big Collie namedDougie are going to enjoy their new environment so much! Maggie has never been off a leash because she came to live with us after we'd moved into our new home. So it's going to be especially pleasurable watching her romp through the grass with her fellow pack members.

Here's a shot of the yard with posts (way off in the background, right below the tree line in the picture) that have been trued to 90 degree, perpendicular angle:

I'll be taking loads of pictures so come on back for a gander.

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I finshed putting up the two cattle gates...
 


...that are gonna keep our four Shelties and Collie within the confines of the Presto Dog property. And by the way, it's perfectly straight, a 90 degree angle that Pythagoras would be proud of! The slant you see is merely the pitch of the ground that gently slopes away from the house.

As I've mentioned in the past, putting up a post 'n rail fence may not seem like a big deal for some readers, but it's been a task that's pretty much consumed all my weekends (and some evenings after I come home from work, too) for the past month or so.

Rather than go into specifices (which, by the way, can be read if you look at the postings below this one here at Presto Dog), I'll instead state that all I now need to do is true about 3/4 of the remaining posts to as close to a 90 degree angle I can get and tack chicken wire to the bottom of the fence & I'm done. At that point the dogs will have their huge playground to play with their agility equipment or simply run around free, chasing each other and playing to their little hearts' content.

Here's a picture of the second gate (at an oblique angle on the left) on the opposite side of our house:

I'm so close to that goal and can't wait 'til I see 'em running about & enjoying themselves!

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Believe it or not, the Presto Dog playground for our five dogs is almost completely fenced in!

I spent last night positioning posts so they're as straight as possible, given the fact that huge subteranean boulders sometimes prevents me from achieving the favored position of a 90 degree angle. I still need to complete the fencing that'll come out from the house itself to meet the fence along the sides of our property as well as install three gates. But after that, all I need to do is afix chicken wire to the darn thing so the four Shelties and Collie stay where they're supposed to be. At that point, it'll be play-time supreme at the new Presto Dog World Headquarters!

We're thinking about having a big party in celebration for the grand opening of our playland. Our dogs'll love it...we'll be featuring burgers, treats, a pool for them to jump into, huge troughs of water (especially for Dougie, our Collie who consistently befouls all water bowls strategically placed around the house for the rest of the pack), agility jumps, tunnels, weave poles and an assortment of other things for our dogs to eat & play.

Wait'll you see the pictures of our gala event!

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I've written about it, pined about it, dreamed about it and perseverated about it ad nauseum. Seemingly endless posting have appeared here and on my other web site, www.Netscrapes.com.

And what, you may ask, is this all-encompassing concept that's taken over so much of my time? Why, it's the fence that surrounds the Presto Dog property. As a contingent thought pattern, I've also spent hours wondering about the gates that are needed to be placed at various locations on the fence. And, to show you that I have moved along on this tpoic, that I have made some progress in this endeavor, here's the very first picture of the very first gate I put up down in the corner of the Presto Dog property:

Funny thing is, we don't really anticipate using this particular gate too often; I put it there just in case we needed to get to the back of our property for some yet-to-be-realized reason. The little splotch of day-glow orange looking through the top two rail on the left side is our approximate property line. (We had the place professionally surveyed a couple of months ago in anticipation of the work I've been doing.) As a point of reference, the actual property marker for this side of our land is about 12-15' back from the gate.

Hey, it's been fun doing this project, learning how to persuade rocks to move aside for my fence and all. But knowing that I now have a prototype for constructing the other three gates we're putting up in much more visible areas is the real value I've taken away from this particular task.

Our five dogs: Lyric, Lily, Declan (pictured below), Dougie and Maggie are gonna love it when they're able to run free, estimated to be in about another week or so.

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