Frustrating Day!

I made the mistake of falling back to sleep after I let the dogs out this morning and woke up several hours later with that groggy the-world-has-moved-on-without-me feeling. I know, if I didn't need the sleep I couldn't BUY 40 winks, but...! Then, I ran into a problem... a HUGE problem (from my point of view)with the host of my website. I simply do not understand improvement when there is nothing wrong with the old model. This particular improvement makes it very time consuming for me to make any changes to my site (as well as all the others I maintain.) It took me two hours (that's 120 minutes in people years) to upload just three pictures... small, website ready pictures. This was because everytime I'd click "upload," the photo would be processed in, oh, say, 5 seconds and then the box would freeze... not the whole screen, just the box. I couldn't close it, so even if I moved to another screen, the box was still in the middle, preventing me from doing anything. And then, it would free itself up... and shut down my browser. Once I got the browser up again, I had to go back to the host site, wait for all their homepage info to upload, log in, wait for all THAT page info to appear, click on the icon I wanted, wait for it to open the next page, etc, etc, etc. There are 3 pages to fill in on the screen BEFORE I get to the page I need to start uploading the next picture. Which uploads in, oh, say 5 seconds and then freezes.... I've been thinking about moving to another host ever since these guys started messing with their site... I've used it for YEARS and the reason I chose it in the first place was it was so EASY for a bone novice (ME) to do everything. A copy of html for dummies and off I went. So, I'm going to start asking around about different hosts and putting all my stuff on disc and maybe get everything moved before my enlistment is up.

Double Doodles
A breeder in Florida asked for my help in advertising his pups and I sent him to dogbreedinfo.com and then had to do some work myself to get him started. He breeds Double Doodles which I'd heard of but never seen. Once I started looking into them, I was really impressed. And one of the nicest surprises were the photos sent me by someone who is using an F1B Labradoodle male she got from me in HER Double Doodle program. (His pups are GORGEOUS!)
What I found out in my research is there are TWO kinds of D-Doods, just as there are two (very different) kinds of Labradoodles. First off, a double Doodle is the cross of a Labradoodle and a Goldendoodle. Generally the American version uses just American Labradoodles, first generation and first generation backcrosses with the same generations of Goldendoodles. But the version that is called The North American Retriever uses AUSTRALIAN LABRADOODLES with Goldendoodles. This is a big, gigantic, HUGE difference. Australian Labradoodles are made up from as many as 6 different breeds while American Labradoodles are the mix of a Lab and a Poodle. The NAR (North American Retriever) people bill their dogs as double doodles but I have yet to run across a Double Doodle breeder (using just American dogs) who says he's breeding NARs.
I send out big thanks to Sharon McGuire of dogbreedinfo.com for adding Double Doodles to her list of breeds AND for understanding and appreciating the differences in all this Poodle-hybrid confusion.

Finally...
I'm getting a new puppy. Well, he's just going to be staying with me for a while, starting this coming weekend. My neighbor has just purchased a very well bred Scottish Deerhound puppy from one of the country's top breeders. (Her dog won Hound GROUP at this year's Westminster!) Mina (my neighbor) lives alone down the road from me and already has an older Lab. And she just found out this AM her doctor wants her to have gall bladder surgery. SO the Lab and the new puppy are going to stay with me for a bit. I'd already told her I'd help with show training and finding a handler for this guy. Deerhounds have long been a favorite of mine so I'm really looking forward to this.

Oh, before I forget
This is a photo of one of Penny's Whoodle pups. I'm not sure if it's Chase or Coldwater, but it's a girl and she's still available (ready to go second week of November.) Penny's website is www.whoodledogs.com