Tasha was a cute, blue merle puppy that I spotted when I was going from Petsmart to Office Depot in Bloomington back in 2001. She was this small, gangly, awkward little thing and I fell in love. I do not even remember what I needed at Office Depot anymore because I never made it there. I went to the bank, got out $50 and took home a new puppy.
Kota was two years old in 2001 and Tasha was smaller than he was.
That wouldn’t last and soon she grew into those ears and legs.
She was very mischievious and got into a lot of trouble. She ate the drywall in my house. She chewed through a plugged in radio cable. She ate through my expensive hand made quilt into the electric blanket wires. Even as an adult she got a hold of things, like the shorts I had treats in, or the gloves that I used to deliver those treats in cold weather. Kris’ sock, wash cloths, lots of things.
Or paper that she would steal from the recycle bin.
She was a snuggler, especially when it was chilly. She was a momma’s girl through and through.
She was an adventure pup. She has gone boating, swimming, hiking and has played agility. She has traveled from Indiana to NY to Nova Scotia to Oregon.
She loved swimming in any water, even freezing cold water!! This pic is the last time she was at Henline Falls.
And she loved puddles! Any kind of body of water she would wade into or swim through. This one time at our friend Fern’s pond we were floating out in the water for most of the afternoon and the dogs were loose roaming about. She would occasionally swim out to us, swim around us and head off in another direction. She must have done that 3 or 4 times while we were out there. But puddles, man the muddier the better!!!
In the last few years she became my trick dog. It took a long time for me to figure out how to teach her and really it just took consistency and time. In her last two years she learned 5 new tricks but all through her life she loved the clicker game. I would pull out an object, a clicker and some treats and we would play just to see what we got.
She was not so good at catching but she sure tried!
Popcorn provided some great photos too.
Like I said, she was not great at catching. lol…
We took a tricks class with an eye towards doing Freestyle. We never did but it motivated me to teach her some new tricks. This one was cute.
I taught her Heel and Side using box work. All this in the last two years.
I taught Tasha and Shadow the same trick that Kota has been doing for years, Say Hi.
And the last trick we were working on was a handstand. I never got a pic of her in the final pose but this is an intermediate picture of the training.
This is as close as we got before her death.
And agility. She was not as motivated to do agility as Kota was but she did have fun most of the time.
Her final two CPE runs to finish out her Level 2 title earlier this year.
She was a great dog and always brough excitement and life to our house. She will be greatly missed.