The Pilgrimage to Sunnybank

This weekend The Gathering at Sunnybank is being held in Wayne, NJ.  The Gathering is an annual event held the 3rd weekend of August by the Collie Health Foundation.  Sunnybank was the home of author Albert Payson Terhune and his famous Sunnybank collies.  Like most collie lovers, I grew up reading Terhune’s books about his beloved collies.  And our annual pilgrimage to Sunnybank is something I eagerly await each Summer.  I’ve written so many posts about Terhune, Sunnybank, and the collies, that I’ve included some of the links down below.

As this weekend is the 30th anniversary of The Gathering, the CHF planned something extra special…Jon Provost, the actor who played Timmy will be attending! 

We will be making the drive to Sunnybank tomorrow with Shannon and Tempest, and hope to meet “Timmy” in person! They are also doing the Collie Memorial tomorrow morning, and our Ryder will be included.  It’s been 11 months since my best boy left me, I still miss him, and I’m glad he will be included in the memorial.  After the memorial, all the puppies will get to strut their stuff in the puppy match.  I’ll update the blog with pictures soon.  But if you are within driving distance of NJ, and if you love collies, come attend the Gathering in person, it is such a memorable experience!

Jon Provost

Past Sunnybank posts:

Our Sunnybank Weekend

Our Visit to Sunnybank

The Gathering of Collies

Sunnybank Remembered 

It All Started with a Book

The Gathering at Sunnybank

A Collie named Lassie, a Place called Sunnybank

Sunnybank Then and Niw, Always Beloved

It’s That Time of Year

More Puppy updates…

Three of our puppies have gone to their new homes.  Mark is now called Simon, and in a wonderful home.  His new family has already taught him many new tricks, and they hope to get him into a dog modeling career.  So you may see him in a commercial or advertisement one day!  They also agreed we could show him, so he is going to work towards earning his championship.

Christina left last week, and is living her best life on Cape Cod!  She has been renamed Frannie, which suits her beautifully.  She has discovered a love of the ocean life, and her new hobbies include swimming and boating!

Derek, Izzy and Meredith are growing up so fast and went for their 2nd vaccines this week. The veterinary staff loved them! Derek left us yesterday, so we don’t have any new photos yet.  But his new family already adore him, and his new name is Leo!  This video was from earlier in the week.

The beautiful Izzy, now named Tempest

Izzy will be going to her new home this weekend, and Meredith will be staying with us.  Meredith had a name change too.  Since the name was no longer being used, and fits her so well, Meredith is now called Shannon.  The name “Shannon” was in honor of one of our favorite collies, and is also the name of a loved family member, so we still wanted to use it.  And it fits our new girl perfectly…

And there was one other new addition to the family…my newest Grandson was born two weeks ago!  I now have four beautiful grandchildren! (Which is one of the reasons I’ve been so lax about updating!) We are so grateful for the wonderful new homes all our puppies have found.  We are wishing them all a lifetime of happy memories!

Love Is….

 

Sweet senior Sophie

Enjoying the Summer sunshine together!

Updates - Sam and Silver

 Sam and Silver, Dean’s littermates, have been busy trying out dog shows!

Silver, or Slyvie, has become a beautiful young lady.  You may remember we were originally calling her Shannon, but it just didn’t fit her personality.  As soon as we tried out Silver, she came running, so Silver it is!

 Sam is a handsome boy, and as sweet as they come.  Both Sam and Silver did great at their first real dog show, and earned their first points towards their championships.  They are entered next weekend in another two day show.  We are hoping it isn’t too hot, as it’s an outdoor show.  More to come about these two cuties!

Updates - Dean

It’s been a while, much longer than I realized, so it’s time for an update! (The 1st of many)

We made the very difficult decision to let Dean go, but happily he went to live with our friend Ava.  While I love Dean very much, we knew we just couldn’t keep three puppies from the same litter.  Ava has been wanting a puppy from us for a while, and Dean just seemed perfect for her.

It ended up being one of the best decisions we ever made!  Ava is giving Dean the best life, they are trying lots of new things…like herding…and agility…

And he is learning to be brave around scary monsters…

And he has even discovered a love of swimming! Our past collies never liked swimming, but our new generations seem to love it! (Thanks to our collie Mamas, Peyton and ZuZu!)

Ava loves her boy so much, and she is giving him the best life.  She is also great about updating us on their adventures, so we will get to watch Dean grow up.

The puppies!

Scarlett has improved and is fully recovered!  A huge thank you to everyone who reached out to us.  Our sweet Scarlett means the world to us, and we are so grateful for more time together.

The puppies are growing up so fast!  We are absolutely in love with our Peyton puppies, they are so sweet, snuggly and smart!

Meredith and Mark

Mark

Meredith

Christina

Derek and Izzy

Derek

Izzy

Christina

The puppies at the vet office, time for their 1st vaccines!

Scarlett Update

 First, thank you everyone for your comments and well wishes!  We made the decision to try a conservative approach, as she would not be able to undergo a surgery at her age.  So her veterinarian advised there was no point in aspirating the lump.  She felt that putting her through the pain of the needle aspiration, when we wouldn’t be able to surgically do anything, was unnecessary.  We decided to treat it with antibiotics, and see if that helped.  Fortunately, they are helping, as she is walking on that paw now.  (Fingers crossed she continues to improve). 

Picture of Scarlett, 2 years ago

For now we are cautiously optimistic that we will have our girl with us for a little longer.  

My Beautiful Girl…

My Scarlett turned 14 on May 1st.  For a collie, that is something to celebrate.  We lost our first collie, Lad at 7, and we lost Abby, Holly and Kori at 12 years old.  We were blessed to have Ryder with us for his 14th birthday too.  I know we were given a gift, having her with us for all these years, but I was still hoping for more time.  But this past week she hasn’t been doing so well.  She has developed a mass on one of her back paws.  It’s very painful, and she’s having trouble walking.  We are taking her to the vet today, and while I’m hoping it’s something treatable, like an infection, I’m very worried that it’s something more serious.  So please keep our perfect girl in your thoughts and prayers.

This video was from Monday on our evening walk.