I took this last year in the front flower bed. It’s hard to remember on a day like today.

Lately I’m obsessed with the blog Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. She writes a blog about her life on a working ranch. I lived in a couple of ranch houses but otherwise that’s about all I know about ranching. Which is why her blog is fascinating. She lives on a working ranch! How cool is that? The other thing that has me riveted to her blog is her photography. She takes stunning pictures. Of course her subjects  include the gorgeous open range and wild mustangs and she’s got talent. I don’t have the open range or the talent but I do think I saw a woodpecker on the tree in the backyard today.   Still Pioneer Woman has inspired me. She’s inspired me to find the beauty in my little suburb and inspired me to do a better job with my photos. I think Daggett is quite beautiful and now I’m trying to do him justice with my photo editing.

I’ve always had Paint Shop Pro 8 which is a step up from the run-of-the-mill photo editor but it’s not like Pioneer Woman and othe professionals. They use Photoshop. I’m not at that level but I want to better learn how to use Paint Shop Pro 8. Anyone have book/tutorial suggetions for Paint Shop? Any experts out there?

 Oh, and Confessions of a Pioneer Woman is incredibly popular. She gets thousands of comments.  If you go there once and you’ll see why.

Also what blog has you enthralled right now? Share with me so I can totally copy off them to make this blog better.

 I am very proud of my family. But the only one who will allow me to write about them in any detail on this blog is my dog. Daggett, yeah, Daggett with a ”d.”  

 We waited a long time to get a dog. My kids were 10 and 12. In fact a bad dog attack on one of my kids prompted us to finally get a dog. Naturally after you’ve had a dog clamp down on your knee and shake you around, you are scared witless of them. We figured the only way to neutralize the fear of dogs was to get one. The Total Canine Emmersion Therapy worked. (Yep, that’s made up, don’t try it at home.) Both of my kids love dogs… now. But this isn’t about them. It’s about Daggett with a “D.”

Daggett has made one appearance on the blog. He was marking trees at the Christmas Tree Farm.

Now if you glance at that shot you think.. that’s one gorgeous Golden Retriever. But no, Daggett is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever not a Golden. And now you’re thinking “what the ____ ?”  Daggett is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.

 We picked the breed because of it’s totally friendly personality and strong affinity for its family. Daggett has that, big time. I am Polish/Irish/German/Scotch Irish. My husband is Welsh/French Canadian and other stuff. Daggett is pure bred. It shows. While our teeth had to be corrected to fit our mouths and we all have dirty blondish hair to mark our muddy ancestry. But Daggett is 100 percent Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. Daggett’s Dad actually won Best of Breed one year at Westminster. Check out Decoy.

Daggett is clearly the best looking one in our family.  The dog books said the breed was high energy, I know now that means spazzy. But the breed is highly trainable.  Tollers (that’s the shorter name) really like complicated assignments and if they aren’t challenged they create adventures. One example of Toller ingenuity: Daggett hates when I vaccum so he runs to the plug and yanks it out of the outlet. Duh, Daggett knows that if you interrupt the electrical circuit the loud thingy will stop.

So now you know the basic deal with my dog except for the often asked question right after what’s tolling? What’s up with the name Daggett? Well there used to be this cartoon show on Nickelodeon called Angry Beavers. It was about two brothers who happened to be beavers and who were prone to fly off the handle. We tossed a lot of names around. (We had brilliant ideas: Let’s call him Achilles. Get it Achilles!Heel!)  Nothing stuck… until I jokingly suggested Daggett. It stuck. Very stuck. Here’s a picture of Daggett Beaver from the Nickelodeon Show Angry Beavers.

And since our Daggett is such a star already he really has no problem with anyone popping in this blog admiring him. And sure you can rub his belly. Seriously.  Rub it.

P.S. 

So how did you choose the name for your pet?