meta : the beginning

Meta at 5 weeks

Meta is approaching her 1st birthday [May 31] and so we are feeling especially thankful for her - even more than usual ; )

We searched far and wide across the States and even overseas to find a breeder we felt had the right philosophy about raising pups and the right manner in general.

Many, many of them were like, “Here’s our pups and here’s our prices!”

Ugh.

Not so with Lynn and Gardner Gray of Bluegrass Kennels, who were as inquisitive with us as we were with them. That’s the sign that these folks LOVE and CARE about not only their pups but also where their pups end up making new homes.

So, consider this our big THANK YOU to them for being that way and for making our experience a truly great one - we corresponded for months and months before making a commitment and let Lynn decide which of her pups would be the best fit for us, given our environment and expectations around how this new addition would fit into our lives.

Bluegrass Kennels is located in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, which makes for a very scenic drive into Pringle [where the Grays are located] if you’re into it. If not, they also offer other options to get your new pup to you, via either air or land.

Pollee and I chose to drive to Pringle to meet the lil girl and bring her home but we realize not everyone is able to do so.

If you’re looking for a breeder you can trust, our experience with the Grays couldn’t have been better.

Meta is as happy, healthy, sweet, smart and gentle a pup as we’ve ever met. Fortunately for us, she’s ours!

Good luck with your quest finding just the right pup.

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bath:#2

Since we’ve brought the lil girl home, this is only the second bath we’ve ever given her. Even when we go out to play in the mud, her coat has this uncanny ability to clean itself in short order.

So, she hasn’t had much experience in thee ole tub. She didn’t seem to mind it too much when Pollee cleaned her up though :

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pups:wrestlin’

Meta loves to play with her pal, Theo, but he’s in it for more than she realizes - luckily, it only leads to more innocent pup-wrestlin’!

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meta:road movie

This is just a quick clip from our road trip last week to Winona - not smart to drive and shoot at the same time [for very long, anyways]

This lil girl makes a great copilot!

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roadtrip:winona

Good thing for us the lil girl loves roadtrips!

This quick excursion to Winona was no exception as she rode shotgun when not darting from window to window to take in the rich smells of the Heartland :

2008:Spring

Welp, even tho the snow’s not gone yet, it was warm enough to grill!

Fortunately for us, our pals Joe and Jennie invited us over to their place to do just that.

Meta played with her pal, Theo, while the humans grilled out for the first time this season : ahhhhhhhhhh, grilling…and grill we did - all the meats shown below our pal Joe picked up at Everett’s and MAN, everything was fresh and delicious!

If you’re in MPLS, find your way to Everett’s for tasty meats!

Note, the photos of Theo and Meta below were taken AFTER an hours-long wrestling session [which explains why they look so…mellow] :

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Blue-Eyed Girls

These two ‘lil girls have eyes that kill :

This first snap was just taken of sweet MJ on vacation with Ry and Lu in France

Meta getting her picture taken in the studio across the hall

They don’t just look alike, either. They are two of the sweetest, unassuming and playful life forms other humans will ever encounter.

There are certainly plenty examples of Meta on here already, so how about a clip of MJ dancing around the Saint-Remy weekly market :

You two are gonna have your hands full with that one!

“Too cute” is the understatement of thee century.
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kong:goner

welp, the last great hope bit the dust today as the lil girl went for the gusto on this roughly 8-month-old chew toy slated as the ultimate for pups.

for meta they last about that long but only under 3 or 4 months of heavy chewin’

nonetheless, we are not dismayed - we will continue our tradition of kong because it’s still one of the best pup toys ever invented.

it isn’t hard to find more hardcore kong fans to agree with that :

here’s how the toy was born :

The story begins with a German Shepherd named Fritz who enjoyed chewing rocks. This activity wore Fritz’s teeth down and frustrated his owner, Joe Markham. One afternoon while working on his Volkswagon Van, Joe noticed Fritz dining on rocks once again. Out of desperation he disassembled the Volksie he was working on and threw the parts near Fritz to see if he could be coaxed away from the rocks. Radiator hoses didn’t work - neither did anything else until he pulled off a boot from around the suspension and gave it to Fritz. He loved it. The KONG was born! While Fritz invented KONG, it was Markham who realized the potential of this odd looking toy. Markham refined the toy’s design, developed a super-strong rubber formula and began production in 1976. Today, Markham continues to sell this toy as well as other great products all over the world.

you can hear him tell the story himself here.

meanwhile, in the slideshow below, you can see meta’s gone back to a delinquent rawhide in the meantime, which she likes to chew against a shoe, the back of a leg, anything that gives her leverage and is attached to/on/close to the people she really loves.

the fuzzy bits mixed in with the kong-remnants are pieces of a shag rug in the living room that they were tangled up in before pollee noticed and was able to act fast

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frisbee:first catch

Just for posterity’s sake, today Meta made her very first frisbee catch!

Like her, our first pup, Fiddle, was a natural at playing and we had many versions we’d play at Capital Park, Sandy Beach and all over the trails where we used to live in Juneau.

Here’s a snap of Fiddle taking a break from playing frisbee on the airstrip in Eagle, Alaska while on one of our trips within the state :

Rule #1 is : you never have a camera when you really need it

So, I have no image of the event, tho, it is secure forever in my memory. Which is good, especially in this day and age where we seem to take entirely TOO MANY photos, videos, etc.

At the end of last summer she already loved to play frisbee but would let it fall to the ground before nabbing it and returning it to whoever threw it.

Today, she made her very first catch and then pranced around for a good little while as I praised her. She was indeed a proud lil pup.

Spring is almost here and no doubt it will be a good, long summer.

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meta and me

our new pal, dwayne williams, took this picture of us last weekend - she is such a total ham :

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