Author: Amanda C

Happy to say that Quinn is now home with us! Adoption papers were signed, microchip information was transferred, and he happily loaded up and came home with his new people and dog friends.

We headed out on Friday morning with Delia and Stewie. The town where we were picking him up was about 4 hours away, so our plan was to take our dogs up on Friday, spend the afternoon at the nearby lake, and then go get Quinn on Saturday morning before coming home. We figured that would be better than subjecting them to an 8 hour car ride in one day. We got there, grabbed some lunch, and immediately headed to the lake. We planned to hike around the outer loop, which would have been about a 2.5 mile loop.

It was quite hot, but it was shaded and we had water and were in no hurry so I thought we’d be ok. Delia was loving it. Stewie hated it and wanted to die. We made it to the very first scenic lookout point, less than a mile in, and he plopped down and refused to move. Then the plan changed from doing the outer loop to turning around and going back the way we came, which required me cajoling and half carrying him at times. Delia was bummed. Stewie was thrilled.

Then we pretty much just vegged at the hotel for the rest of the evening, which Stewie seemed to much prefer, especially since we had a California King and both dogs could fit on the bed with us. Sunday morning we headed out of the hotel bright and early to make the 40 minute trek from where we stayed to where we were supposed to pick up Quinn. Both of our dogs were still pretty tired from the day before so when we pulled up to the park and got out, we had nice normal calm sedate dogs for the first meeting (muahaha planning success). Stewie was just like “Oh hey there, equally little dude” and Delia looked at him and walked away, completely disinterested. So much for being worried about their initial meeting.

Quinn was very sweet and came right up to us for pets. When I led him off with Stewie around the park he just fell right into step like this was totally normal and no big deal. We chatted a bit with the lady from the rescue, let the dogs hang out for a while, and then, with absolutely zero commotion, loaded him up and hit the road for home. He never looked back. Once we were rolling he laid down in the back of the SUV and slept the whole way, in various poses of adorable squishyness. I’m pretty sure I spent most of the drive turned around in my seat taking pictures of him sleeping.

On the way home we stopped at the pet store to get him his own collar and leash and let him pick out a toy. Once we finally got home he hopped out and waddled inside. He briefly looked around and checked out his new digs, wandered outside into his new yard, then came in and plopped himself down like “Ok cool, we’re home.”. Totally seamless. By the time he’d finished assessing that we were adequate, we’d already fallen in love with him. How could you not?

Saturday evening and Sunday we just hung out around the house, getting acquainted, and getting started on teaching him hand signals. He doesn’t seem quite 100% deaf, he can hear it if you clap really hard, but he’s pretty darn close to it. As the weekend went on he definitely started looking for us, watching us, and wanting to follow us around, so we haven’t had any problems yet with getting his attention or keeping an eye on him. He’s a little bit of a velcro dog right now. Poor guy, I’m not sure that he’s ever had a ton of attention or been nearly as spoiled as our dogs are.

Basically we are in love with him already, he’s transitioned pretty seamlessly so far, and I think he’s starting to love us too. It really couldn’t have gone much better. Welcome to the family Mr. Quinn!

Trying to be quick today, because we’re about to pack up and head out the door…

Anyone who knows me probably also knows that I really love corgis. I might be mildly obsessed. But, I already have a dog and Rob has a dog, so I’ve always just said “someday” I would get a corgi. Then a situation came up where a friend was looking for a home for their dog, and we talked about our capacity to add a third dog. We decided that we could do it, but that particular dog ended up not needing a new home after all. It didn’t take long for my thoughts to click over to “well… we could fill that third spot with a corgi…”. Rob was not so enthused about the idea originally, but he said if I could find one from a rescue type situation that needed a home, and preferably one around the age of our current dogs (7 and 10), he’d be ok with it. We have a “no buying dogs, must adopt” policy in our house.

After a little bit of emailing to the corgi rescue groups in Texas, I struck gold. One of them had a deaf 8yo corgi that had come to the rescue a couple months before, but she hadn’t listed him for adoption because she didn’t think he’d find a good home. His age fit right in with our two current kiddos, and the deafness issue doesn’t really bother us. I talked about him a lot with the rescue, talked about the two dogs I already have, went through the adoption application process, did a home visit, and got approved, all of which took a while to get done. So this weekend we are finally on our way up to North Texas to get him. I never wanted to say anything about all the “adoption proceedings” on here, lest I jinx anything, but now that we’re at the very end of it hopefully I’m safe. Knock on wood.

We’re taking our two dogs with us to meet him and make sure everyone gets along. They’re pretty laid back and supposedly Quinn is too, so I’m hoping it’ll be uneventful, and then we to bring him home. Fingers crossed everything goes well! ERMAGERD CERGI!

Tell me your corgi name, because I’m endlessly amused by this. Captain Squiggy Bunnybottom, signing off.

 

 

Some of you may remember my post from a while back where I was considering buying a new body protector for cross country. Once I finally decided which one I wanted and what color I wanted, I was of course immediately unable to find the right size/color anywhere in the US. But I did notice that Riding Warehouse (my faves) carried the vest in black, so I figured I’d email and see if it was possible for them to special order it in navy, since they’ve done that for me before with other things.

They answered me quickly with an “absolutely, we’d love to” (they’re so nice I always want to poke them to see if they’re real), they put the order in for me, and we proceeded to wait. Having had items backordered from other companies before, I am always skeptical about arrival times, especially when they’re coming from overseas. I tend to order it and then forget it. But the projected timeline they gave me ended up being spot on, and I got a notification once they knew when it was expected to hit. When they received it they immediately (for real, within a day) had it on a truck to me, and it arrived 3 days later. Did I mention they had the best price of anyone in the US? Did I mention shipping was free?

I’m waiting to do a review/comparison post of the Airowear vs the Tipperary until I wear it a few times, but visually and structurally the difference is huge. I let SO play the “HIT ME” game with me wearing each vest and boy could I tell a difference. But more on that when my thoughts are more organized. Do y’all have input on what type of review you’d like to see? I can do pictures, as is typical, or I can do a video review like you see on a lot of tack shop websites. Maybe a mix of both? Anything in particular you really want to see about one or the other, or comparatively? If you have specific questions, get them to me and I’ll address them in the review.

I also ordered a few more things from Riding Warehouse (because happy early birthday to me?) one of which is my long-coveted navy DSB boots. Once again they had the best price and free shipping. They’re pretty and I love them.

I tried one more time to buy something from Smartpak a few weeks ago, mainly because they were one of the only shops left on the entire Internet that had still had a few of the now-discontinued shirt that I wanted. Once again the experience left me very very frustrated and required me getting pissed off before they offered to make it right. They resolved the situation and it ended satisfactorily, but I am officially done with them. I tried. I really tried. Riding Warehouse is just way better, and cheaper, and faster, and nicer, and has never once made me want to stab them in the eye. That’s saying something.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who took the time to read and comment on my thread last week about the KEP Italia incident. I was not at all prepared for the ensuing whirlwind that my post caused. Once it hit social media it just blew up, and is now sitting at 8,000 hits and still getting hundreds more by the day. For several days I was drowning in comments, private messages, and emails from people on both sides of the fence. Whether you agreed or disagreed with what I said, it led to a lot of good discussion and spurred a lot of subsequent research on my part. Most shocking (and honestly horrifying at times) to me was just how much absolute misinformation is out there in the general public. I encourage everyone interested to research safety standards and the testing that goes into helmets for all the different certifications (yes there are different ones, no they aren’t the same). It might surprise you.

I admit that after answering all those messages and talking about it for days straight, my brain was mush by the time Friday rolled around. My limit for intense discussion had been reached and surpassed by quite a ways. So I did what any normal person would do and soothed my psyche by obsessing over unicorn stuff and finding more ATC swag for our team.

I know what you’re thinking about that picture. “OMG Amanda, is that a unicorn tapestry rug?”… why yes, yes it is. Majestic AF, isn’t it? When I saw it on eBay I figured we really needed a rug in our tack stall at AEC, so I offered $9 for it and within minutes it was mine. I had the fleeting thought that maybe I was going a little overboard with the unicorn theme… was I taking it too far? Then I laughed, realized that wasn’t possible, and ordered us a rainbow fringe curtain for the tack stall door and some Always Be a Unicorn white and rainbow silicone bracelets. Once you’ve committed to a unicorn theme you’re kind of obligated to take it a few levels too far, right?

By “some” I mean 25. Sharing is caring. Thinking about doing some kind of contest for a unicorn swag prize pack… ideas on what kind of contest?

I barn/house/cat sat last week where I board while the owners were on vacation, so for several days in a row I fell into the habit of coming in from the barn and settling down at my laptop to peruse the interwebs for unicorn stuff. I found so much stuff that would be great, like this unicorn bust

but it’s $95 and I just don’t roll that deep.

I also thought this “Goth Unicorn Mohawk” had real potential, but Bobby wouldn’t agree to wear it. Way to be a buzzkill, Bobby.

Other things I saw were just really confusing.

But I did order some glittery PrismFoil “I am a Unicorn” tattoos. Mostly because I couldn’t think of any good reason not to.

After I ran out of unicorn-related internet (sadly, it IS finite) I worked a little bit on the outline of our Course Walk idea, because it’s gonna be pretty elaborate. I decided a while back that we would tell a story throughout our series of pictures, and said story requires props and costumes and planning. Taking it too far? Neehhhh. This really just shows how deep my self control issues run.

 

 

Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself, so I can’t resist Zen Baby Horse‘s Everyday Fails blog hop. No one is perfect, we all make mistakes and do ridiculous things sometimes, not to mention that horses are the most humbling thing I’ve ever come across. But it’s ok to fail, because that’s how we learn. Why not celebrate our failures just as much as our successes? We all take this sport very seriously, but sometimes we have to embrace the fail moments and inject a little levity.

Did you know I’m basically a professional mane sniffer?

Sometimes you just gotta get down in there and take a nice deeeeeep whiff.

This one is called The I-Can’t-Commit-to-a-Distance. Poor Charlie was a saint. This photo proves that there’s a horsey heaven, and he’s in it.

Jezebel’s first open ditch produced quite the deer leap. Monsters.

I still don’t really know quite what happened here, but that’s about as derpy as you can get.

That time I tried to take NICE PICTURES with my two HORRIBLE DONKEYS

That time Kai kind of forgot how big 1.00m is and left me clinging to him like a monkey

and then the other time

and then the OTHER time.

Charlie’s (and my) first Training level event, when he tripped in the water and we both came inches away from taking an unexpected bath.

That time I really loved the long spot

and the other time

okay it’s basically all the time.

The early days of Henry, when he was obese and downhill and overbent and I remedied it with intense piano hands.

Remember that time I won a bridle for 2nd and Bobby won a rubber bracelet for 3rd? I remember. Oh boy do I ever remember. #bobbyfail

and of course, even though this is 16 years old, it’s still the best video ever…