Spent a very boring day at Jury duty Monday –
How does the state of New Jersey compensate its jurors? With a whopping FIVE DOLLARS per day! Whoopee !
Oh wait – I almost forgot the voucher for a free small coffee OR 60 cents off any other cafeteria purchase… WOW!!!
I was thinking I really should teach Jayda some formal obedience this winter…
Not that I haven’t taught her anything – I’ve taught exercises in bits and pieces, as a diversion more than methodical, goal-oriented training. Hey – Jayda’s an exceptionally OBEDIENT dog, if not an obedience-TRAINED one :).
I have managed to haphazardly teach her some very nice retrieving skills, so I thought maybe I’d introduce her to metal scent articles ….
BLEH! ICK! YUCK! EWWW! PTHOOEY! You want me to put THAT in MY MOUTH???
Fortunately Bryce is all too willing to retrieve anything (as long as he’s well paid for his efforts) so after a little “monkey-see, monkey-do” training (and LOTS of cookies for Bryce) I had Jayda fetching the metal article. Still not with great enthusiasm – despite the cookies she’s not QUITE convinced that this is “fun” yet. It probably doesn’t help that my articles were sized for Sally’s dainty muzzle. They fit Bryce just fine, but they’re just a tad smaller than ideal for Jayda’s, um, “sizeable” schnozz.
Update 11/27/06: I must have been pretty convincing, because now she’s starting to “table surf” for it! Stands up and “steals” it off the table where I leave it and walks around proudly before bringing it to me. Bryce is jealous – he can’t reach that high!
Here are 2 new photos* of Bryce and Jayda doing agility from the “Fast Pawz” NADAC trial on Staten Island last month – enjoy!
(* Both photos by M. Nicole Fischer photography)
Finally had a “Kit sighting” Friday night, after not seeing him for several weeks. I was starting to get worried – especially having heard a coyote in the area around the time he disappeared!
He’s not sleeping here or hanging out in my yard, but whatever it was I said or did, he’s not too offended to eat the food I leave for him.
Make that, Baby’s First TWO Q’s, and her first 2 clean runs :)!
At our first CPE trial, “BabyDog” Jayda Q’d in her Standard and Colors classes, taking 2nd place besides! She had a very nice opening in Jackpot too, accumulating 33 points (level 1 dogs only need to get 16 points). She earned herself non-qualifying first place ribbons in that class and in Snooker. I was very proud of her!
Not to be shown up by “the noob”, Bryce Q’d in all 5 of his runs at level 3 (you can choose to start trialing in CPE at level 1, 2 or 3) with an assortment of placements. His standard run was rather naughty – I didn’t think he qualified, but apparently CPE has generous rules regarding faults for level 3 :)!
Colors is a strange game. It’s two nested mini-courses (about 9 obstacles each) and you need to tell the judge which one you’re running before you start. I’m not sure I see the point of it but it’s easy and fun, especially for less experienced dogs.
CPE has no teeter or weaves at Level 1. Not an advantage for Jayda because she loves them both. Level 2 can have them, but yesterday’s trial level 1 and 2 ran the same courses all day. Jackpot had weaves and a teeter on course however, so Jayda got to do them both once.
It also seemed like there were LOTS of jumps on the courses, not very many tunnels. I was glad I didn’t enter Jayda in jumpers – that was the last class of the day and she was tired enough by then. The height cutoffs are different than other registries – Bryce got to jump 12″ all day for a change.
It was an exhausting day for both dogs (and me) – they were crated inside the building and, unlike outdoor trials where they nap between runs, neither one slept the entire day!
Ever get a series of phone calls from 541-868-1309?
I did tonight. The number belongs to a “marketing group” called Venture Data (shows up on caller id as Venture Data3). If you google them, you’ll see they’re best known for the charming hobby of “push polling” (although their website swears otherwise). Push polling is when telemarketers, funded by a particular interest group (i.e. political), try to “push” an opinion on their callees under the guise of a “poll”. For example, they might ask questions like “Does candidate X’s misuse of public funds make you less likely to vote for him?”. Insinuating that there WAS a misuse of public funds by candidate X, when in reality no such evidence exists.
Nice, huh?
Anyone who has ever called me know that Bryce and Jayda, like to (shall we say) “answer the phone”. In that annoying way many of their breed like to “answer the phone” – it’s a shetie thing.
Anyway I had “the kids” out playing when the phone rang … again! After 6 nuisance calls between 5 and 7 PM I was really starting to lose patience with these folks. I was provoked… I was inspired… I had a flash of evil genius ….
I let Bryce and Jayda “answer the phone” }:D. Two shelties, up close and personal.
… Yup – that did the trick – the calls stopped.
Bad mom, GOOD dogs!!!