The Phelans

06-08-11 Random visitor

phelans — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:05:00 +0000

I found this guy (or gal, not sure) wandering in our front yard tonight after work. He hung out in the shade under one of our hastas for a while. We removed all the leaches, showed him to the neighbor girls, then we all took him to the pond and let him go. He was quite friendly, as far as snapping turtles go (he only tried to bite me a few times).

01.30.2011 – Christmas pictures and Owls

phelans — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:51:49 +0000

It’s been a while since we posted anything again, so here are some pictures we haven’t posted yet.

These are pictures of Nico and Enzo from Christmas:

And these are pictures of some short-eared owls we had flying around the pond out back earlier this month. There were as many as 7 or 8 at the same time:

07-28-2010

phelans — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:32:59 +0000

Finally took a few pictures of the finished shed.

07.23.2010 – It’s finished, I promise.

phelans — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:39:56 +0000

The shed has long since been built, honestly, I promise. There is still a little bit of work to do to completely finish it (installing a piece of angle iron across the opening for the door to protect the OSB, closing in the bottom so critters can’t live under it, nothing major), but it is finally in use. We finished building the lofts a few weeks ago, and have started to move stuff out there for storage already. Just haven’t taken any new pictures, but hopefully we’ll do that sometime soon so I can post them.

Our weekends have been very hectic lately. We found a club that trains Schutzhund, so we’ve been spending the better part of our Sundays there with Nico. It’s really interesting, and I think Nico will do very good. Of course, we haven’t taken any pictures there either, but maybe I’ll try to take some Sunday when we go.

We are also busy training for the Dog Sports Open, a personal protection trial we’re going to up in Michigan in late August. It will be the first time we spend a weekend in a hotel with both dogs, so that in and of itself should be interesting. We know the trial itself will be intersting, Cheryl loves to have fun with the handlers and dogs at these tournaments. There is a video from the 2007 DSO towards the bottom of this page if anyone wants to get a feel for what we’re in for – I think the first 4-5 minutes are obedience, the protection starts after that.

http://www.ccdsa.info/dogsportsopen.html

05-27-2010

phelans — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:00:08 +0000

Well, momma duck snuck away with all the ducklings without us knowing, so we didn’t get any pictures of them after they hatched. We didn’t even know they had hatched. From what I’ve read, once they leave the nest they do not come back, so they are out at one of the ponds nearby.

Last weekend we built a shed in the backyard with the help of a friend of ours Dave. Here are a few pictures of the shed being built. It was finished yesterday, so we’ll post some finished pictures here after we finish painting it. These were all taken on the day we started on it.

05-10-10 RIP Steve :(

phelans — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:40:11 +0000

Our bearded dragon Steve passed away over the weekend. He was 10, maybe 11 years old – I got him when I was still in college.

Here is a picture of Steve:

He was a great lizard, he’ll be missed for sure. Rest in peace Steve.

04-29-2010 – New pictures

phelans — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:01:32 +0000

We’ve recently discovered that we have a mallard duck nest in our front flower bed, probably less than 4 feet from our front door (in the first picture below you can see our front door mat). Last year we had barn swallows nest on our front porch, this year we seem to have added mallards to the list. While we did not think the barn swallows were coming back this year because there is no nest yet, I did notice both of them (a male and female) were spending the night on our porch just last night – so I’m sure the nest is going to be built soon. Here are a few pictures of the momma mallard duck as well as the nest.

We are obviously keeping the dogs out of the front yard for the most part so they don’t bother her, and she seems to be pretty tolerant of us walking near by, so long as we move slowly. It should be pretty cool when the eggs hatch.

Our friend Kristen just got a new puppy, Blade, a German Shepherd from the same breeder we got Nico from. She brought him over a couple weekends ago to spend the night so he could meet Nico and Enzo and they could all get used to each other. Here is a picture of him sleeping on Kristen – in this picture he was only 8 weeks old, judging from the size of those tree trunks he has for legs, he is going to be one big boy.

Kristen and Blade

And one last picture, Nico and Enzo on the couch together. Nico has the “please get this puppy off of me” look on his face – for good reason, I don’t remember, but I’d be willing to bet that within 60 seconds of this picture being taken Enzo was probably chewing on Nicos ear/leg/foot/something. It’s a good thing little Enzo is so cute, because he’s quite a pain sometimes.

Nico and Enzo on couch

03-08-2010 random pictures

phelans — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:36:46 +0000

Just installed an app to allow posting from my phone. Trying it out with a pic I just took – Enzo is trying to get a ball from Nico, and a random pic from ice climbing a few weeks ago I had on my phone.

01-25-2010 – Nico video

phelans — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:16:45 +0000

Over the weekend we made the trip to CherCar Kennels in MI with a friend of ours who is interested in a German Shepherd Dog. While we were there, they were nice enough (as they always are) to allow us to do a bit of training with Nico. Below is a video of Nico in the very, very early stages of his protection training.

Nico absolutely loves the protection work so far.

01-13-2010 – New pics and updates

phelans — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:02:42 +0000

Well, it’s been a very long time since we’ve updated the web page. When I logged in to update it I also found 8 legitimate comments that were flagged as SPAM, so that’s why there were never approved and posted. I’ve since approved them, so thanks for the comments.

Since the last update, Nico has been awarded a couple of UKC titles in Dog Sports, he got his Family Obedience title as well as his Protection Alert title (which makes his “official” name ‘PA Cher Car’s Nico Suave, CGC’). We attended a trial up in Michigan put on by Capital City Dog Sports, the club that trains where we got Nico – a great bunch of people that made us newcomers to that world feel extremely welcome.

We also “fostered” a new pup, which quickly turned into us adopting the new pup (we flunked fostering, which I’m sure doesn’t surprise anyone that knows us). We’ve named him Enzo, he’s roughly 6 months old, and we have no idea what breeds he might be. Any guesses? He’s currently 35#’s (at roughly the same age Nico was already 67#’s, so he’s a little guy by comparison). He’s a lover, complete lap dog that absolutely loves affection and attention. We think we may do agility and therapy work with him, but we’ll see how his training progresses. Here are a few pictures of Nico and Enzo – some were taken in late Ocotber, around the time we got Enzo, and some were taken at Christmas.