This One's For You, Sam!

A certain someone has been bugging me lately to do a blog post... I complained that I had nothing to update about but since she is one of my favourite people, I relented and here is what I have been up to lately.

Fielder turned THREE on August 10! Crazy to think of when he was a little mop of fur who fit into the palm of my hand. I emailed his handler, and I got back a very nice email that said they were doing well and he is a very smart little dog. She also sent a picture of the two of them at their local Walk for Dogguides!! I was VERY happy and excited to see my little man in jacket for the first time since grad. It's a little weird since I cropped out his handler to respect her privacy, but here is HED Fielder!Lately I have been really missing being an active puppy raiser, as well as the good old Samysnat and POOP Group days, so one day when I was very bored I made this picture. Hard to believe it's been a whopping 24 puppies between the four of us! Every single one of them have been so special and unique, and as much as they've affected their puppy raiser, they've also held us together and made our friendships that much stronger. No one quite understands what a puppy raiser goes through as well as fellow puppy raisers do:)

As to what I've been up to here in Halifax... the Tall Ships Festival came to town this year, and a couple friends and I went to the waterfront to see them. It was pretty cool, although scorching hot and resulting in a sunburn. This is one of the many tall ships passing through during the parade.
Last month there was a day where I saw service dogs EVERYWHERE! There was a CCI team, a yellow lab with his handler who was a young boy. I actually stalked them around the waterfront for a while because I thought the blue jacket was a SSD team from Dogguides, but was still very happy when I saw it was a CCI team. Then there was the gorgeous black lab from GDB. It was very cool to see him leading his partner confidently around, stopping at curbs and a door. Lastly, I was very lucky to run into a CVC team from Dogguides. Since they were from my school, I was confident enough to say hi and have a little chat (instead of "Hi! Your school is awesome, I know because I creep people's blogs who raise for your school!"). It was fun, and I hope to see them around sometime.

Of course, I didn't get to pet any of those dogs, and I have been extremely dog deprived lately, so when my friend Katie and I decided to randomly go on a roadtrip to Quebec, I was very happy to stop at our friend's house who has two dogs and two cats. This was my best friend for the night, Zorro:

After we left her house, we went to Quebec City where our one and only mission was to have a good poutine. (Note for my American friends, poutine is a french/Quebecois dish that is absolutely amazing- french fries covered in gravy and cheese curds. Yes it is a heart attack on a plate, but so worth it). If anyone goes to Quebec, eat at Chez Ashton's. This poutine was easily the most delicious poutine I've ever eaten in all nineteen years of my life, hands down. The cheese curds were so fresh they were still squeaky, and the hot dog on top was the best idea this chain's ever had. I pretty much wolfed this down in two seconds.

We also went to the famous Chateau Frontenac and hung out there for awhile. That's me in the pink shirt!

Those are the only really noteworthy adventures from the past month or so. I've spent a lot of time working and hanging out with friends. This past week has been a bit of a bummer, though. My ear hurts pretty badly thanks to an ear infection, the boyfriend's gone home for a couple weeks, and I'm covered in itchy bug bites after a trip to the beach last week. I know, poor baby, right? ;) One thing I'm grateful for is that school doesn't start for another week and a half, and all our friends who left for the summer are slowly starting to come back. The weather, which was humid, muggy and in the 30's (high 80's fahrenheit) all of last week disappeared after Hurricane Bill passed by on the weekend, and is now a much more comfortable sunny 20 degrees. So here's to fully celebrating the last weeks of freedom before school with friends and beautiful weather!

Also, here's to being 19 (or 20, in the case of my friend)and thinking it is perfectly acceptable to build and play in a fort on a Friday night to hide from hurricanes.

ps. To Ruby, who commented on one of my posts, I don't know which and can't find it now so I can't track down your profile/contact info. School to raise for in Toronto- there are none, but the one I raised for is the closest to it, running out of Oakville (an hour away by car), and Breslau (close to Guelph). It's called the Lions Foundation of Canada Dogguides, website is http://www.dogguides.com/. Good luck and let me know how your puppy raising adventures go!