The dogs are now out of quarantine and released to be adopted. If you know anyone who are able to provide a good home for these beautiful and gentle dogs, please have them contact the South Utah Valley Animal Shelter. There is one mix-collie puppy, one mix-lab puppy, and one mix-collie adult (maybe two?).
South Utah Valley Animal Shelter
582 West 3000 North
Spanish Fork, Utah 84660
(801) 851-4080
Sunday morning started with all the right intentions—one of those “we’re going to get out, suck in fresh air, and build some character if not muscles” kind of intentions. We woke up at 8:30a.m. after nine hours of solid sleep, broke from our normal 2000-calorie-everything-fried-in-butter weekend morning feast and prepared instead a bland but fiber-rich Cream of Wheat breakfast. We packed some light (healthy!) snacks of apples and granola bars and called our friends Rob, Rina and their friends Brian and Judy who are visiting from San Francisco. Our great "plan" for the day was to hike to Diamond Fork Hot Springs with the dogs. We left the city around noon in two separate cars and reached the Diamond Fork canyon turn off around 1:30 in the afternoon... Then... About two miles up the narrow, two-lane canyon road, we encountered three dogs boldly standing in the middle of traffic. As soon as we stopped, they started circling our car. Initially, we thought the dogs belonged to one of the farms in the area, and we got out of the car to coax them to the side of the road. Upon closer examination of the three dogs (one black lab-mix puppy, one collie-mix puppy, and one collie-mix adult), we saw that they were very thin and without tags. The older one was injured and growled when we tried to touch her.
We called animal control, and a sheriff from Utah County came just fifteen minutes after our call—impressively responsive. In the meantime, we tried to pet the poor puppies and feed them the little dog food we had brought for Duncan and Lucy.
We found a dead deer off to the side of road and could tell that they’ve been feeding off the carcass.
We stopped couple of trucks to see if they were locals and knew the owners of the dogs, and one person remarked that they saw the dogs there two weeks ago. Either the dogs were badly neglected by their owners who live nearby or they were ABANDONED two weeks ago… Basically, left out here to freeze and starve to death. WHAT THE FR**K IS WRONG WITH SOME PEOPLE?!
Eventually, the dogs left with the sheriff, and we turned our attention to our own dog who had been going fanatical in the car watching us handling OTHER dogs. Ur, so we thought was the reason for his madness... When we opened the car door, we discovered that just maybe he was trying to tell us something else with his erratic behavior. He had a massive blowout in the car. I mean smeared and splattered all over the car kind of MASSIVE. No pictures were taken, but you can imagine the mess. Our poor Duncan! This was his first accident since we adopted him four years ago. I almost titled this post “THE PRES DAY BLOWOUT!”
We cleaned up the liquid poop (as much as possible), placed a large plastic cover over the seats, and rolled all the windows down. We finally got back on the road, drove two more miles up the canyon and encountered this:
As we were NOT ready to suffer the hour and a half drive home in our poop-filled car, we put on our packs and started walking. After all, it was a gorgeous day, and it would be CRUEL to take the dogs home without a proper run. And in spite of all the unexpected doggy events/accidents, we had a terrific afternoon.
We'll be following up on the progress of the dogs this week with the Utah County Animal Shelter. Hopefully, they've been seen by a vet, fed, and getting some much needed rest. Bright and early next morning, I took the Honda in for detailing service, and it is now good as new. More photos of our day posted here on Flickr.
A: Jen
Having moved on from the General Motors account to Verizon Business, I am now traveling to Washington DC for work. I'm not as averse to these trips (as I was about traveling to Detroit) since we have friends who live out there, and DC is an amazing city to explore when one can get away from the obligatory work stuff. I met up with Rich and Kate (our cool "city friends") on Monday night, and they took to me a very trendy Middle Eastern mezze restaurant called Zaytinya. The menu is like 3 pages of small type and unpronounceable “ethnic” words too long, so I put Rich in charge of ordering. All the dishes were scrumptious, unique, and beautifully presented, and the restaurant really does live up to its reputation and awards. Towards the end of the first course, I decided to take a stab at ordering and chose couple of dishes one of which was described as "potatoes blah blah fancy schmancy blah." It turned out to be french fries. Really, the gal from Utah WOULD order french fries.
Thanks to Mike's very patient and husbandly coaching and Matt and Kara's provision of FREE gear (S. Vanio left the goods in their storage a few years too long), I took up cross country skiing this year. Or more accurately, I've been three times. The most recent outing was a two-night ski-in trip to Big Water yurt, which is located in Millcreek Canyon, just 4.5 miles up from the Maple Grove picnic area and main gate. We were invited by Rob and Rina who obtained the permit along with Jeremy and Jodi who are engaged to be married in May. Three couples and three dogs braved the big storm on Wednesday and skied into the yurt. With the packs, a sled, and three feet of ungroomed snow, it took us almost four hours to reach our destination. Considering the load we were carrying (i.e.: Rob’s boxed wine and BOTTLE of Irish whiskey), we felt pretty great about the timing. Click here for the entire set of photos from the trip. A few highlights are posted below.
Confession #1:
I’m a blog hog. That is, I own, insist on, and DO the 99.9% of the average three-hours per week carpal tunnel workout that goes into the upkeep of this blog. I don’t even think Mike has the password to this blog?? I did send it to him once, but then I changed it without telling him… Sorry, honey. However, the notion of “our blog” is not entirely deceitful. Mike does request edits/deletions/corrections and approve all content on the blog. So far, there’s only been one post that he did not like that I removed—the post being too “MySpace.”
Confession #2:
I’ve started scrutinizing the various activities of my day to determine whether they are “blogworthy” or not. Like the other day, I shoveled the snow off the driveway—impressive TWELVE feet of snow—and while sweating and grunting, I was composing witty rants in my mind about the experience. I was prepared to set-up my tripod and camera to document the work and convinced myself that it was something that people cared about and wanted me to blog. I came to my senses at some point while thawing my toes and brain.
Confession #3:
I’ve become a blog pusher. Last week, I suggested to three friends that they start a blog and harassed three others who have blogs but have not posted in several weeks. I even gave editorial advice. Seriously, I have to learn to be content with the 50 million blogs already in cyberspace.
Going sideways, forward, backwards, and around and around:
We started this blog to stay connected with friends and family after the wedding, and it has evolved into the annual-family-holiday-newsletter on STEROIDS without limit on frequency, length, or subject. For now, blogging seems to curb my need to scrapbook with messy glues, felt, and glitter.
But, what I really should be doing is finish painting the back entrance to the house and kitchen. SIGH.
