Cooper & Spicy's Kingdom : Glorious Sunday!

What a beautiful day it is today! We woke up to sunshine and warm weather. The temperature is in the mid 20s. I have been craving for warm weather for some time now and finally got it today. I put sunscreen on and sat on the deck for a few hours. I have tan marks to prove it :-) Wow! I cannot say it enough, how great to finally get some warm weather. The good part is, of course, that we get to spend a lot of time outdoors. The bad part is that not a whole lot gets done inside. Oh well, the inside stuff can wait. It is almost the beginning of May and I feel like all I want to do is soak up the sunshine. I have an interesting observation to share, and this is mainly for the benefit of all my friends who have dogs. Our house is up on a hill, quite high up, and as a result, it is often very windy. Today is no exception. You can actually hear the wind howling through the trees. It is a good thing for two main reasons: 1) on a hot day, you always get a breeze. 2) when black fly season starts, we should be spared for the most part, at least that is what we are told. It makes sense, if it's too windy , the black flies will stay down below.... for now, we are being gullible and believe what we are told. The proof in is the pudding as the saying goes, so when black fly seasons starts, I will report back. Back to our observation: we are now pretty sure that Cooper doesn't like the wind. On a very windy day, like today, he doesn't enjoy being on the deck with us. He sits by the door and wants to go in the house. How do we deal with this? We give him the best of both worlds, at least that is how we see it: we keep him outside with us for a while so that he gets used to the wind, and we also let him be in the house alone while we stay outside. We will continue conditioning him to the wind as we spend more time outside. Having said all this, tonight we are barbecuing steaks, so wind or no wind, the Coop will out there salivating!

This past week went by very quickly. We went to Toronto for an overnight stay and a hair cut. It was good to see our friend Linda (and hairdresser) again. We did a bit of shopping also. While we were away, Cooper was at Camp Talemaker, having fun, fun, fun. Nathan and Darlah were happy to see him, and Cooper was happy to see them. As soon as we got to their house, the Coop knew exactly where he was and got so excited. It is good for him to spend some good time with his Havanese buddies. He got to spend a bit of time with the newest litter, three 7 week old puppies. He was growling at them at first as he thinks of them as gremlins. They are so tiny next to Cooper.

This morning, we went to Muskoka Agility Dogs (MAD) to watch what they call the "Fun Match". All the dogs that took agility last year got together today to practice what they learned in a fun way. This is where Cooper will take his agility lessons starting this coming Wednesday. I attach a few pictures that Russell took. We met Dan and Lynda, the owners of MAD. They have a great set up and we think that this will be very good for Cooper (and us). We also met a lady who teaches obedience. She is now running a class called "Focus" which is about strengthening the recall command. We will be enrolling Cooper in that class which will start later in May for six weeks.

Russell and I are doing well. I continue my music lessons. It is getting more complicated as I move forward with my lessons but I will get there. I practice as much as I can but not as often as I want. Not enough time. I continue to take fitness classes at Good Life Fitness and I enjoy them. Russell joined a gym and will start going this week. He was finding his "seniors fitness classes" not challenging enough.

That's about it for this week's blog. In addition to the MAD pictures, I attach one that Russell took last night, just before sunset. You will notice that the lakes have thawed completely. On that note, the flood levels have gone down and things are almost back to normal in the Muskoka area.

Have a great week everyone!