Back From the Pawty!

We just got back from the 2009 Samoyed Southern Lawn party. The hostess is a foster mom for Samoyeds and Samoyed mixes, and she was celebrating the 6th birthday of Sammi Sue, her own Samoyed. She invited the fosters that have stayed with her before being re-homed, as well as members of an online Samoyed group that we are members of.

Husband and I drove three hours Friday evening, then three hours Saturday morning before arriving at the pawty. Other people drove just as far, or farther, and one group came from over 800 miles away! There were twenty something Samoyeds and a pit bull puppy (seen in the video), named Sharky. Sharky is a week older than Pearl. One of the Samoyeds, Samson, brought his non-samoyed sidekick, Delilah. Delilah was an honorary Samoyed for the day.

All the dogs were amazingly well behaved. The youngest, Tootsie (featured in the video) reportedly bit Sharky's ear (amazing that she could find it) but other than that, there was very little "violence."

One old boy, Muddy Waters (Muddy), has bad hips and growled at dogs who got too rough, but nothing came of it.

There were a number of youngsters roughly a year old that bounded around being adolescents. A couple of the boys wrestled and Pearl barked at them to get them to behave. She is clearly taking after our girl, Jezebel, who thought it was her job to keep order in the house.

There were also a lot of old timers barely getting around but just as loved.
Some years ago, Kody, the honey colored dog in the video, came to the hostess/foster mom with serious health conditions, including heartworms. He was in a terrible way but look at him, now! Re-homed, gorgeous and deeply loved.

One dog, Blind Willie (Muddy's adopted sibling!), is blind but you wouldn't know it. He was the only still intact male and a rescue. They are waiting to get his health stable enough to have him neutered. In the meantime, he humped everything he could find. Well, he showed zero interest in Pearl, which greatly relieved husband who has appointed himself as the guardian of her virtue.

Evelyn was a little timid and stayed close to me or her dad, most of the time. Eventually, she loosened up and made the rounds - but she kept a close eye on us. She took a liking to Gabriel, a gorgeous young male.

Pearl was the target of "chase the puppy" a few times in the beginning. Her splendid tail was firmly tucked between her legs for most of the first hour. Eventually, she relaxed and by the end of the afternoon she was trying to bring order to chaos.







One interesting thing that happened was that during one episode of "chase the puppy," Pearl gave out a scared shriek. I was watching her and she wasn't hurt - it was just a rambunctious adolescent who wanted to play. All the same, Evelyn muscled her way over, lifted her lip and gave a quite threatening growl to the young man who scared her puppy. We ended up redirecting her because she clearly wanted a piece of him if he gave her an excuse. I think she'd have lit into him if she thought he was going to do it, again. Makes me think that our gentle girl probably is a better watch dog than we give her credit for.

Pearl turned the tables and chased Candy, quite a bit. I am not sure Candy, who is about a year old, enjoyed it as much as Pearl did.

Suka, a darling young male, played bandit. One of the ladies, Emi, had made large Samoyed shaped cookies. Suka came racing by, nipped the ears off a cookie that was sitting on the plate of Candy's dad, and raced off with them. Later, he snuck into the sun room when husband was loading up his plate for lunch. He snatched a bite of cake and took off running. I asked husband if he had to throw out the cake but he said he just straightened it up and let it go. We're all dog people, afterall.

Even though Tootsie was the youngest, the judges (who owned Tootsie) decided that Pearl should get the prize for youngest. Clearly, this was not fair to Tootsie but Pearl took the present, a stuffed fawn, anyway. She dotes on that thing.

Here's Tootsie:


Here's Sharky and Pearl:


Sharky:


Here's pretty Gabriel:


With Muddy Waters (Muddy):


Here's Muddy:


Here's Humping Blind Willie:


Here's Willie and Sharky!:


Here's Sweet Evelyn:


Here is sweet Breeze:


Breeze lost her eye from a tumor but she is just lovely. You should see her coat and sweet ways. The loss of the eye hasn't slowed her down, at all.

Here's Big D - a fine southern gentleman:



Here's the birthday girl, Sammi Sue, who just dug into her birthday cake:


Sammi Sue wandered over when husband was eating his lunch. She demanded some chicken and got it! Then she demanded more. And got it!

Here are some miscellaneous photos just to let you get an idea of what it was like to have that many Samoyeds in one place:







Here is Megan Rose (Sharky's "sister"):


We drove three hours after the pawty to our motel for the night. Here's the exhausted girls at the motel after the pawty:






We drove home, this morning. The girls were really beat on the way home:



We got home, unpacked, and took a nap.