We took a short road trip up to Sonoma today and visited a few wineries. Cline Cellars in Sonoma, CA has many Chinese Pheasants. I was quite fascinated with these beautiful birds. I wish I had taken the time to photograph their descriptions so I could provide more information here.
This pheasant was a rather shy fellow, preferring to hide in his cloak of lovely feathers. I did manage to get one shot of him walking.
After visiting the birds we stopped at the wine shop and were greeted by this nice fellow.
After a few minutes of pleasantries, I realized that I was talking to a wax statue. 
I’m rather disappointed in my recent attempts at photography. I don’t know why I have all but given up a hobby that makes me happy. I obviously need to get back out there and use my camera more.
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Lexie graduated from PetSmart Puppy Kindergarten this afternoon. I have very mixed feelings about the class, mainly because I discovered that one of the pups in class was not properly vaccinated. We considered dropping out, but since she was fully vaccinated by the time we found out and the routine and learning under very distracting circumstances was good for her we decided to keep her enrolled. Besides, we didn’t want her to be a kindergarten drop-out. I did decide to enroll her concurrently in Sirius Puppy Training, which I’m really pleased with.
I just learned last week that we would be tested on all that we learned in the eight week class. I wasn’t too worried (ha!), she went into the class already knowing many of the commands, but her staying skills leave something to be desired and when she’s in pet stores the leash isn’t very loose.
We got to PetSmart a bit earlier and we practiced walking around the store and she was doing great. When it came time for her to actually test, she did great! She even did a sit stay and a down stay for me. She only broke the stay when I turned around…that was really my fault because I’ve been encouraging her to come to me by turning around. She is much more reliable on visual cues than verbal, so she did what she thought she was supposed to do.
I tried to get some graduation pictures, but she was too tired. We went to the beach yesterday and I took her to the dog park this afternoon, so when we got home all she wanted to do was sleep.
She got up when I went to go to the kitchen, but she basically just positioned herself in front of the door.
I tried to add some distractions that usually get her excited like fuzz and my other furkid George, but she still wasn’t up for a photo shoot.
I finally gave up and let my baby sleep.
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We took Lexie to Pacifica today to play in the ocean, she had a great time. She got to romp in the surf, retrieve, play with other dogs, and dig to her heart’s content.
She has no fear of the water now and swims great; we kept her on a long lead because she liked to visit folks while they were enjoying their lunch. Plus her recall with so many distractions leaves something to be desired, but hey, she’s still a puppy (19 weeks).
I can’t believe how big she’s getting, when we had her weighed two weeks ago she was 37 pounds; I think she must be close to 45 now.
Lexie got to make a lot of new friends too!
She even got to learn about butt tucking from a pro.
She was one exhausted puppy when we got home!
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