Spanky and the Fire/Helicopter

Well, I will start this post with pictures! I have been wanting to take some cute pictures of Spanky before he leaves. He is such a handsome dog that getting cute pictures was not very difficult. :) Anyway, I cleared my camera card and charged the battery in preparation for Spankys big photo shoot. Here are my favorites from our shoot a few days ago.

Spanky in my neighbors corn field. The guy is a huge farmer and yes, I did ask him and he said he would be "honored" if I took pictures. He is an interesting guy. :)

Spanky in my yard. I like this one, but I wish his neck flab wasn't sticking out so much over his jacket.
This is classic Spanks. It makes him look so puppyish too.
Just so handsome! I love his droopy jowls and you can really see them in this pic.
And Action shot this was his official "I am done with pictures" picture. Hooray!!
And now for Spankys amazing accidental outing. It started with my friend calling me and telling me that she had major cabin fever and had to get out of the house. I am always up for a sporadic outing so I went over. We decided to cruise the mall so off we went. When we got there both of us noticed a HUGE fire over in the parking lot, so nosey people that we are we decided to check it out. There was a mass of firetrucks there along with booths and helicopters and cranes it was crazy. So we parked and got out to get a closer look. The signs everywhere said that it was National Fire Safety Week. I had no idea so we walked around to the booths, checked out some firetrucks. Here is me and Spank by a fire truck (He even met some firefighters in uniform but unfortunately didn't get pics. :(
Then we walked around and saw a Helicopter so we went and checked it out (no pics of that either because I took video, you can see it at the end of the post) and talked to the pilot for a while. Then they said that they were taking off so me and my friend decided to watch. We were literally no more than 20 feet away while it was taking off it was amazing and windy. I had my friend film it so I could take off if Spanky got freaked out but he did wonderful and didn't even move until the helicopter started lifting off the ground and then he just sat up and watched. I was so proud of him especially with some of the issues he has been having he was perfect and I was so happy with him.

After that they said they were going to do one more burn so we ran over to watch. The "burn" is what we saw in the first place but missed the rest while we were parking and didn't know what was going on. It was so cool, they lit this tree looking thing on fire with propane and the firefighters had to put it out. It was amazing to watch. Here are a few pictures of Spanky and the fire. We could totally feel the heat. It was awesome.
Again Spanky was PERFECT. Didn't flinch at all he hardly noticed that there was a fire except it lit rather quickly and when the heat reached us suddenly he looked over at it and then nothing. I can't even explain how happy I was with him.

Here are the vids. They are kinda long but you can see me and Spanky at the end of the helicopter one. :) It is just too cool not to share.

In the fire one my friend asks what the beeping is and I said it is something on their belts. Later we went and asked one of them what they are and they said it is a location device. If they are still for 30 seconds then it starts chirping and if they are still for 1 minute then it is a constant chirp so that another Firefighter can locate them if they get lost in a building. I thought that was so interesting.

I have to admit that Spanky totally impressed me. Had I known all that was going on there I probably would not have brought him. But I totally underestimated him. He has given me hope that maybe he might be able to make it to training. He was stellar with all the distractions like popcorn all over the ground, little kids running all over the place, peoples pet dogs walking around and barking up a storm, mobs of people coming up to pet him, a helicopter taking off, and a huge fire and he didn't bat an eye. Words cannot describe how proud I am of him. Even if he does get career changed now I am happy with this amazing leap that we have made with the issues he has been having.

After all of that we went inside the mall and walked around for a while before heading home. My boy slept really well that night. He totally deserved it and got tons of praise, pats, hugs, and all of the above. Can I just say I LOVE this boy!