Meet Ember!

On Tuesday, I picked up our new puppy, third Border Collie, and fourth dog. I've decided to call her Ember. She's about as cute as a puppy could get, don't you think?


The trip to go get her was eventful, to say the least. Winter driving sure is fun... NOT. In the Pacific NW, this winter has been pretty uneventful, with warm(ish) temperatures and not much moisture. That is, until this week. Of COURSE there would be a huge winter storm system the week I actually had to do some serious driving! Murphy's Law, I guess.

So anyways, last week I was pretty stressed about it since I knew what was to come. I had planned on driving down on Wednesday, and coming back Friday, but that didn't look like it was going to happen. I watched the ODOT road condition cameras with an increasing sense of doom. It was already snowing in the mountains and showed no signs of stopping. Then, on Sunday, there was a five-hour window of sun and warm temperatures. After watching the cameras for a few hours, and encouraged by the amount of melting, I decided to make a break for Boise. I'm glad I did! The roads were, for the most part, not bad at all. Here's a pic of the worst part of the pass on Sunday:


The first night, I slept on my friend Mollie's couch. I had a great time visiting with her and her sister, Grace, drinking cake flavored vodka (yum!) and looking through photos of Miss America contestants from this year. The next day, we went out for sushi (oh Shige's, how I've missed you since I moved to Kennewick!) and then I drove to my friend (and agility instructor), Mary's house. She drove down to Utah with me the next day to pick up Ember.

Tuesday dawned bright, sunny and CLEAR. Mary and I got a pretty early start, wanting to get the 4 1/2 hour (one way) drive out of the way in order to be able to (ideally) get back before dark. The drive was easy, with bare pavement and sunny skies. It was nice. We made good time, and arrived in Plain City at the breeder's house around 1 PM. The breeder let the puppies outside to play and greet us in the front yard, and Ember was definitely the one most interested in people. She was also the cutest... but I'm probably a little biased ;)




She still had plenty of spirit, though... hehe


Bark!











She was a total star on the ride back to Boise, other that getting car sick once. She sat on my lap the whole time, either sleeping or chewing on a toy. What a good puppy. I was very impressed. Aside from being a little whiny, she was good once we got back to Mary's house, too. And she was very good at bedtime, sleeping quietly in her crate until 6 AM!

On Wednesday, when I woke up to take Ember out for the first time that day, the ground was bare and it was pretty warm out. By 10 AM, it looked like this:


Ember took the snow in stride, and pottied outside without much difficulty. Pretty good for a little puppy! The snow came up to her chin at times.

Unfortunately, as soon as it finished snowing (8" worth!!) it started to rain. By the next day, it looked like this:


I've never seen so much standing water in Boise before. It was pretty bad. But thankfully, all that rain meant that the roads were clear and nice. I decided to make a break for home yesterday. Even though it was nice visiting with Mary, I really just wanted to go home. New puppies are stressful! ;) The drive was really good until AFTER the mountains, surprisingly. Then it was terrifying. It was 42 degrees and cloudy over the pass, with wet but good roads. Off the mountains, it was 22 degrees with freezing rain and horrible slush and ice. What normally takes me about an hour (Pendleton - Kennewick) took almost 2 1/2 hours. Cars and semis were sliding around and chains or traction tires were required. Thankfully, my car handled it very well. And Ember was quiet! She's such a good little traveler.


We made it home around 4:30 PM and quickly got everything set up for her. She had some dinner (hand fed, of course) and played for a few hours. She also met the other dogs. Scully mostly ignored her, and Moss was very sweet and gentle. I think everything is going to be fine with all of them. Even Cedar isn't being as bitchy as expected. Good dogs all around.



Some stats:

Miles Traveled: 1182.1
Hours Driven: 18 hours 32 minutes
Hours of White-Knuckled Terror on the road: 3
Puppies who were quiet in their crates all the way home: 1
New mamas really, really ridiculously glad to be home: 1

Success!