Adventures in Dogsitting

As promised, here are some pictures from our dogsitting experience:

Here is back of the main "big" house, looking across the training ring where they exercise the horses. No one has actually called this 'home' since the owner and his wife started divorce proceedings before it was done being built. This is where the contestants from The Biggest Loser stay during taping, and they use the rest of the grounds for their training. Apparently the 24 Hour Fitness shown on the show is a temporary structure that they set up in one of the paddocks near the pond by the stables. For some reason I didn't take any pictures while I was at the front of the house, but just imagine a hacienda style front with a wrought iron staircase and a big fountain in the middle of a circular driveway.

Here is the entrance to the main stable barn. There is a life-size bronze statue of a horse behind where I'm standing taking the picture. Mikale helped me by keeping Murphy from taking a swim in the pond which is on the other side of the driveway and the right side of the barn is behind them. The left side of the stables is an exact duplicate. They've got four horse washing stations and the flooring and the paths leading to and from the stables are made from recycled tires so they have a slight spring to them which is easier on the horse hooves. You cannot smell any horses here at all and they're stabling about 30 of them!

This picture was taken from the front of the big house, looking down to where the condo we were staying in was. The other condos are where the Butler and the Landscaping Crew live. That's a barn in front of the condos that's currently empty and yet another barn in the back that houses the horses that are being boarded there. To the left of the picture is a whole hillside of solar panels which they use for their power during the day. At night it's REALLY dark because, unless they've got an event going, they keep all of the landscaping lights off and the only lights in the area are the front porch lights on the condos. That wasn't very comforting after we saw coyotes pass by the condos on our way up the driveway.

Lastly, here's Mikale and Murphy at the helicopter landing area and Cheri checking out the view of Simi. All in all, it was fun to be able to explore the grounds, but I'm glad to be sleeping in my own bed again and in a little more civilized area of Simi where the coyotes are brightly lit by the street lamps, thank you very much! :)

-Kristy