Our trip to Athens, Georgia!

Hi everybuddy! It's me, Patches! Remember when I told you that Mom and Aunt Wendy were taking me and Ezzy Rider to Athens, Georgia? Well, on Tuesday, we really went! Mom and Aunt Wendy went to meet Miss Barbara, who they say is the queen of the Airedale Rescue Group. As soon as we arrived, we found out there were FOUR other 'dales there! And we thought WE lived at Airedale Heaven!

It rained really hard when we were on our way there, so we all got really dirty and wet. It was sooooo fun! The picture, above, is me and one of Miss Barbara's 'dales. I think it was Bucky. He's the newest rescue boy to join the clan. We had a really hard time keeping Aunt Wendy from dognapping him!

This big, fuzzy guy is York. He belongs to a really great lady, named Del, who owns the house where Miss B and her 'dales are staying. York is 13 years old and he still likes to run and play like the rest of us! He also likes to sleep outside!

Here, we were having a group "sit" for treats! Only Luke, Bucky, Rocky and York participated. Ezzy and I were too busy surveying the great property they have, where we were able to run leash-free as much as we wanted! Woohoo!

Mom was trying to get all of us in the same picture, but you know how THAT is! All you can see of me, in this picture, is my banana tail!

See this cute little guy on the left? That's Luke! He is such a cutie...and very tiny for an Airedale! He makes me look like a giant! We think the guy in the middle is Bucky (or it might be Rocky) and Ezzy is on the right. When we were there, we didn't have any trouble knowing which doggie was which, but now that we are trying to post the pictures, it's a little harder to tell Bucky from Rocky! We sure hope we get all the names right!

In this picture, Aunt Wendy is about to remove my collar to take a link out of it. They found out that I could escape from my prong collar, so it had to be shortened a little. I know, I know...some peeps don't like to use prong collars, but a lot of Airedale peeps call it "power steering" for dogs. Ya know, we are VERY strong willed doggies and these collars keep us going in the right direction!

Here's Ezzy Rider showing off his wet and muddy beard. We all had a blast running through the wet bushes and reading everydoggie's pee-mail!

I was watching Luke and Rocky posing in the doorway!

Here's Bucky, Luke and Ezzy. I wonder what kind of a plan they were hatching!

This is Bucky (we think) and Ezzy. Oh yeah, and my banana tail again! Once I had inspected the entire property, I stuck pretty close to my mom. She said I was a very good girl all day. Okay, I did escape, once when we first got out of Aunt Wendy's car, but I came right back. And I did have to tell off Rocky a couple of times when he tried to hump me. I think he got the message pretty quickly! I was the only girl 'dale with 5 boyz!

This is Miss Barbara with one of the Aire-kids. She's talking to Aunt Wendy...probably about what else?...Airedales!

This is the gate that we had to go through to get to the house. Luke is watching as our mom, Aunt Wendy, Miss Barbara and Miss Del left us to go have lunch. Yes, we all stayed at Del's house and had the run of the property while all the peeps ate lunch. Nobody knows what we did while they were gone and we aren't telling! All they know is that Ezzy and I met them, at the gate, when they came back.

We all had such a pawsome day! My mom and Aunt Wendy were sooooo happy to get to meet Barbara and Del face to face. They talk to people, in the Airedale Rescue Group, on the phone and in pee-mails, but it sure was nice to see a couple of them in person!

Ezzy Rider and I were so worn out after our visit, that we slept almost all the way home!

Well, everybuddy, I have a secret to tell you! This will probably be our last post for a while because our personal secretary (aka Mom) is going to visit her family again. She will be back on April 28th and we will resume our regularly scheduled blog postings as soon as she gets settled! (Okay, we know there's no real schedule!) No, she's not leaving right this minute, but she will be VERY busy from now until she actually leaves. She's got a zillion things to do before she leaves and right in the middle of getting ready to go, she has our neighborhood yard sale on Saturday. She wasn't going to pawticipate, but since most of the stuff is already priced and still in boxes from the sale they had at the antique mall, she figures maybe she can get rid of some more stuffs!

We hope nodoggie forgets us! We'll see you all around the end of April!

Aire-hugs,

Patches (and Poppy & Penny too)