First Family Photo Shoot

The past few weeks have extremely busy for me, and thus I haven't been able to, until now, write a post about YOYO's journey in life. I'm going to keep this post brief, but will be retroactively publishing posts throughout the next couple weeks to try and populate the blog with more content (a.k.a. more fluffiness for you!). 

YOYO was born on April 28, 2014. With his 6 month birthday around the corner, we thought we'd capture some childhood moments by doing a photo shoot with the whole family around. One of my good friends, Simon Stiles, helped us take these amazing photos last weekend. We chose to do our shoot at The Rockeries, which is in Rockcliffe Park. It's one of my favourite dog parks around Ottawa, simply because it's usually quiet and it's got a ton of green field (we try to keep him as cleans as we can after every dog park outing, but it's hard sometimes!). The Rockeries is also ranked as Ottawa's #1 dog park according to the Ottawa Dog Blog. 

Here's a map:

The shoot went well. YOYO had a ton of energy that morning, so it was a bit difficult to get him to listen. Enough talk, let's get to the photos :)

OH! And if you're around to read this post, please leave a Happy Birthday YOYO! message in the comments :) Thank you friends!

Week 19 - Another trip out to Bruce Pit, New Video!

This past weekend was a long one because of Labour Day (we had Monday off). We brought YOYO to Bruce Pit again. This time, we were to meet my colleague Dustin and his pal Jacks. Jacks and YOYO got along well, but in the end Jacks dominated YOYO and he was left in nothing but dirt. Will have a video up soon (maybe this coming weekend) for our outing with Jacks.

YOYO's getting closer and closer at mastering "bang bang". He's able to follow my hand gestures and lie on his side every (almost) time we practice this trick!

Here's the video we made for YOYO's first visit to Bruce Pit and Lemieux Island. Enjoy!

Help us vote for YOYO on the Modern Dog Magazine!

We're entering YOYO his first ever photo contest! Thanks Dmitry for his awesome photography work back in June. Here is our entry, please help us vote by visiting this link >> Vote for YOYO on Modern Dog Magazine. If we hit 5K in votes, I think we'll be pretty close to the top ;) So remember to vote every 12 hours. And remember, if your phone is a data network, that counts as 2 votes because it's on a different network ;) Please help us spread the word! Thanks for your participation!

Week 18 - Final Shots, Bruce Pit, Grandma's and Lemieux Island

This week was full of adventures for YOYO. To start, YOYO got his final set of shots, which included his rabies. We've been long waiting for this moment so we can begin introducing YOYO to the various dog parks around Ottawa, and to meet other dogs.

When Saturday morning came around, we brought YOYO to Bruce Pit, one of the popular dog parks around the Ottawa area.We got to Bruce Pit early, around 8AM in hopes that there weren't going to be too many dogs around. YOYO got along with all the dogs there, which was great! He also avoided all the mud puddles, so we were happy with that too. We took the trails around Bruce Pit and made it back after a good 45 minutes of walking.

Later that morning, we drove out to my grandma's place to give a "formal" introduction to YOYO and my grandma. My cousin Philip and my uncle were also there to meet him. My grandma is afraid of dogs, and initially he was quite terrified of YOYO. After a while, I felt like she was OK with him :) She still didn't touch him though, lol. Here are a few photos at their place:

YOYO chillin' on the floor

Grandma and YOYO!

Uncle holding YOYO up in a standing position

After visiting grandma, we drove out to Kemptville to visit YOYO's mom and dady (Uka and Kodak). The main purpose of our visit was to drop off the small crate we borrowed from Karyne, as well as to pick up some final documents for YOYO. They all had loads of fun in the yard. We event got a nice family photo of them three :)

Uka (mama), YOYO and Kodak (papa)

Today, Kristy, YOYO and I made our way to Lemieux Island where there's an off-leash dog area. The area is also opened to dogs to jump into the Ottawa River for a swim. Kristy was keen on bringing YOYO out for a swim right when he got his final set of shots, so we did. We've also known that YOYO didn't like the water. After giving him 2-3 baths already, he's scrambled to try and get out of the tub and away from the water. But, when we went into the water ourselves (just standing in the shallow end of the river), he soon came to join us. He paced back and forth around the rocks and avoiding the deeper ends of the water. Of course, we wanted him to experience swimming fully, so we picked him up and held him in the water, keeping his head above the water of course. He picked it up really quickly! He swam back to short, and it was just hilarious watching him when he's wet. I don't think his legs are strong enough to really keep himself up above the water just yet, especially not with all that hair! Here are some photos from today's swimming adventures:

We took a few videos on our GoPro this weekend, but haven't found the time to upload and edit them just. Will get them up as soon as we can!