We’ve Been Tagged

Yeah we’ve been tagged by 2 Brown Dawgs. What a nice surprise and oh how fun this will be, they have ten questions for us to answer so her goes…

1.  Describe yourself in 7 words.  (This is our moms opinion not necessarily ours.)

Cheyenne: mouthy, bossy, stubborn, clingy, smart, sweet, loving

Riva: sweet, energetic, bouncy, smiley, cuddly, loving, happy

Maia: sweet, loving, attentive, energetic, aloof, pretty, adoring

Titan: silly, fearless, loving, troublemaker, bouncy, energetic, blonde

2. What keeps you up at night?

Cheyenne: nothing

Riva: nothing

Maia: my brother

Titan: having to go potty

3. Who would you like to be?

Cheyenne: well myself of course!

Riva: ditto

Maia: my Aunt Cheyenne, so I could sleep on the bed

Titan: my dad so I could get those birds

4. What are you wearing right now?

Cheyenne: my fur coat

Riva: ditto

Maia: my brothers slobber

Titan: my birfday suit

5. What scares you?

Cheyenne: being left behind by my mom

Riva: the thought of being in trouble

Maia: card board boxes

Titan: nothing so far

6. The best and worst of blogging.

Cheyenne: we love reading about everyone’s adventures but we don’t like some of the secrets mom tells about us.

Riva: ditto

Maia: what’s a blog

Titan: huh!

7. The last website I visited.

2 Brown Dawgs to get these questions

8. What is one thing I would change about myself.

Cheyenne: not a thing I am perfect!

Riva: I would come back when I am called, oh wait that’s what my mom would change

Maia: not a thing I am perfect!

Titan: I want to be like my dad!

9. Slankets yes or no.

Cheyenne: no way!

Riva: no way!

Maia: I go along with the big dogs

Titan: huh…

10. Tell us something about the dog that tagged you.

2 Brown Dawgs is a great blog with 2 big Chesapeake’s, Thunder and Storm and one little one, Freighter. They have the most amazing photos to share and tons of training information for us retrievers. Little Freighter just came to live with them a little while ago but they have known him his whole life and shared all the precious moments of him growing, well so far, he has a lot more growing to do yet. Thunder and Storm are great retrievers who just recently received some pretty great awards for their abilities.

Geesh that was much harder to do than we thought it would be, except for #10.

So now to pick 8 bloggers to tag, no pressure and if you have already been tagged just post a link to your post and answers.

Bassasblog

Collies of the Meadow

bongodogblog

The (mis)Adventures of Sage

Dusty Rose Chesapeakes

Laurie Bartolo

Vizsla Inspiration

rumpydog

 

HAVE FUN!!

Genetics 101

Well the seminar was fantastic! Claudia Orlandi did a wonderful presentation, and hands on demonstration. I think Cheyenne was disappointed though, she had a different idea on how we should have spent our afternoon  

Instead of just telling you about how good the seminar was I thought I would do a series on what I learned starting with the basics of genetics. I find the whole world of genes and how animals are put together absolutely fascinating, so here goes my first post of many, Genetics 101.

The father of genetics was Gregor Mendel through his work with plants and peas he discovered that traits don’t blend, you can find more information on him here.

Every dog has 78 chromosomes or 39 pairs in the cell of the nucleus, they are rod shaped structures. The 39th pair are the sex chromosomes and the other 38 pair are called autosomes; these determine things like the body structure and temperament. Along these chromosomes are the genes and they also come in pairs, one gene from each parent goes into making the puppy and the genes in each puppy of a litter are different.

Each pair of chromosomes are called homologous and the place a gene is located on the chromosome is called locus. There are dominant genes and recessive genes, when genes are the same either both dominant or both recessive they are called homozygous and are considered pure for a trait. Gene pairs that have one dominant and one recessive are called heterozygous, these are considered not pure. The dominant gene overrules the activity of the recessive gene.

Phenotype is the external appearance of the dog and genotype is the genetic make up of the dog. You can not tell by the phenotype what the genotype is because of the hidden recessive genes. So I will stop here  and show you a few pictures from our day…

 

 

 

 

 

 

                     Cheyenne being examined

Our friend Chemmy

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe the ducks are over there…what no ducks

Watching the dogs

                  Hey where did everyone go

Chemmy and her mom

              Cheyenne loves her Uncle Dave

 

So that’s it for today, stay tuned for more Genetics 101 in the weeks to come.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Playing With Mom

Wordless Wednesday~What are you doing up there?

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

WISHING EVERYONE A VERY HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Claudia Orlandi Seminar

This Saturday I am attending a seminar on breeding and anatomy; this is being presented by Claudia Orlandi, Ph.D.. She wrote the book “ABC’s of Dog Breeding” which is a home study program covering the genetics of breeding. I read and took the test in the back of the book a couple years ago, sent my test in to the AKC and received a completion certificate.

I have been waiting for a long time for her to come to Michigan again to give her seminar and now she is finally going to be here and not only will I get to hear her lecture on this book I will have the pleasure of hearing the lecture on the “Practical Canine Anatomy and Movement”

But wait it gets better, they have had such a large group of people register that they did not have enough dogs to use for the hands on anatomy section so they sent out an email requesting dogs. I thought about it and figured what the heck I will volunteer Cheyenne and great news they accepted my offer. So not only do I get to attend a seminar I have been waiting a long time for my beautiful Cheyenne gets to go with me. My friends over at Dusty Rose Chesapeakes will also be attending with one of their dogs, in fact it is because of them that I know about this book.

I love to learn all I can about the genetics and structure of dogs and I think you can never stop educating yourself. There is always something new to learn and in the long run it helps to make you a better breeder.

One Last Award

I mentioned in my post More Awards to Share that I had one more award to share. This one is a little different than previous awards and it was given to us by the Island Traveler, we are so humbled and honored by this particular award and I think you will see why when you read about it here. It is the Hope Unites Globally Hug Award

One particular paragraph really jumped out at me

“These people use their available resources–a smile, a hug, a helping hand, a listening ear, a voice, time, money, possessions, education, personality, talent, websites and blogs—to make a positive impact on the world and make the world a better place to live.”

Since I have started bogging I have read some amazing blogs and although I have not met most of you in person I feel like I have through the stories you write. All of you open up your part of the world and share it with the rest of us and I just want everyone to know how blessed I am to have the opportunity to share with such a great community of friends. So I am passing this award on to everyone I am currently following.

2 Brown Dawgs

bassasblog

AKG Inspiration

Basset Momma

browndogcbr

bumpyroadtobubba

Collies Of The Meadow

DogDaz

bongodogblog

Doodlemum

Dr Rayaa’s Online Veterinary Journal

Dusty Rose Chesapeakes

Gravel Creek Chesapeakes

jodistone-Life with Sampson and Delilah….The 411

joelle

Just Ramblin

Laurie Bartolo

Dogs Rock!!

My Brown Newfies

rumpydog

Monica’s Tangled Web

The (mis) Adventures of Sage

The great thing about this award is you can share it with as many people as you like, you can find all the guidelines here.

Thank you again for this wonderful award Island Traveler, if you have not visited his blog you really must he has wonderful stories and pictures to share of his family.

God Bless all of you!

Wordless Wednesday ~ My Heart Dog

SHADOWDANCER

February 17, 1993 ~ August 7, 2004

More Awards to Share

This has been a long time coming but a while back we received the prettiest award from 2 Brown Dawgs, the One Lovely Blog Award, see it over there on my side bar isn’t it pretty! Thank you so much for the lovely award and your wonderful comments, I enjoy your blog very much. So today I have finally gotten around to sharing it, the award is to recognize the work of fellow bloggers and to let them know that their work is appreciated and I do appreciate everyone’s blog. All of you put so much time and effort into everything you post.

So my picks for this award are…

Jodi Stone-Life with Sampson and Delilah….The 411 Jodi writes about her two labs and all the fun and adventures they have and you will get a real laugh out of some of the stuff Delilah does.

Basset Momma We are new to this blog but I can tell it is going to be fabulous, check out her wonderful Basset’s

Collies Of The Meadow This is a very lovely blog packed with what else…very lovely Collie’s.

Laurie Bartolo Laurie is a fabulous photographer and I enjoy looking at her photos, plus she is a fellow DKC attendee

DogDaz We are also new at following this blog but she posts some pretty cool stuff.

Bassasblog Well what can I say about this blog except Bassa is a beautiful Caucasian Shepard so you really should check her out.

Again thank you 2 Brown Dawgs for sharing this award with us.

I still have one more award to go so stay tuned!

Versatile Blogger Follow up

A few weeks ago (yes I am very behind) I posted about the Versatile Blogger Award given to us by DogDaz, you can find the rules here.  So without further ado here are my picks for this award:

Just Ramblin She has some wonderful pictures and of course two wonderful dogs, a Chessie and a Newfie.

The (mis) Adventures of Sage She has great adventures and oh yea she loves mud.

My Brown Newfies She writes about her kids, the Newfies and all kinds of interesting things going on.

I hope you will drop in on these wonderful blogs and see what they are up too.