My Nikon went out to be fixed yesterday AND the same day the card reader (for my old Olympus) that I bought on eBay arrived so we have PICTURES !

The first new family portrait – Large, Medium and Small …

The little tot a few weeks ago…

There were some surprises on the card – a few photos I took just before I got the other camera. Here’s a pretty one of Sally and Bryce on my porch (circa June 2004)…

And some cat agility! ‘Bika as a cute little kitten …

And the one good photo I have of Kacey weaving! Yes, I really did teach a cat to weave !

Warning: Never teach your cats to do agility if you like to train your dogs someplace where the cats hang out, because you will have to lock the cats up EVERY TIME you work the dogs. Or face the consequences, which means having cats all over your equipment and in your tunnels. (This can get ugly because cats don’t like to “share”!)

Beautiful, unseasonably-warm weather here this week. Unfortunately, its been raining on and off since Tuesday. Yuck! If it lets up before it gets too cold again Bryce deserves to have some “Mommy ‘n’ Me” time to go for a nice walk.

I moved my contact-training board onto my (covered) front porch. Still haven’t put anything under it, but the warped board makes noise and bounces on the porch. Raven is undeterred – she even seems to be starting to connect the 2 on 2 off position with the place she gets cookies!

That pup is so darned coordinated – reminds me a little of Sally in that respect! She will be 5 mos old tomorrow – already has great body-awareness and no real sign of gawkiness in her growth. Looks like she may finish growing “all in one piece” like Bryce did.

Unfortunately, her lovely natural EARS are being a little rebellious – she’s teething and they’re thinking about coming up. Gotta glue them back down – they’re so pretty I want them to stay that way. I hate gluing ears – bleh!

Little Raven went to her first day of school yesterday!

After a slightly nauseous hour ride there, she came out of the car, tail up, ready to take on her new adventure. She was delighted to see that this adventure involved OTHER DOGS and greeted her classmates very nicely, play bowing at most of them. She should be so polite to her housemates – hah!

First, let me say that the Comfort King matting is wonderful! I’m kind of a connoisseur of indoor agility matting (OK – I’m downright picky!) but this is good stuff. Plenty of traction and very well cushioned besides.

Class focused on straight tunnels, the chute, tires, and bars on the ground. Raven is already somewhat of a “pro” at pipe tunnels, so she happily bounced through the straight tunnels. The chute (even held steady and wide open) was a little scarier at first, but after the first one or two times she was bouncing through that too. The bars on the ground were cake – she may be the smallest dog in the class, but she has great body-awareness and hopping over a little bar without stepping on it was a no-brainer for her.

I was happy to see her doing everything with speed and gusto – small as she is, I actually had to RUN to beat her to the end of those straight tunnels! !

The one thing I didn’t like was the way the instructor started to go about “desensitizing” the dogs to the teeter sound. Raven can be a little “funny” about strange sounds – not BAD by any means, but those are things that make her stop and think. I thought the instructor pushed the issue WAY too far and too fast, going quickly from just standing there moving the board (the dogs were all some distance away and we were feeding them) to letting the end hit the ground, over and over. Even though I kept Raven far away from it and she didn’t have a “meltdown”, she got a little fidgety and I could tell she wasn’t happy with the repetitive sound, food notwithstanding. Being Raven, she didn’t hesitate to approach the Freaky Thing on her own later (when it wasn’t moving) to see what it was all about, but a more timid dog???!!! Sorry, but if I’m desensitizing to something, I want to always work BELOW threshold and don’t want to see ANY reaction(s). Did NOT agree with the way that was handled – we may take a lo-o-o-ng potty break during that part of class next time …

No carsickness on the ride home – she was so tired she slept like a furry, little rock!

Meanwhile, I thought it might be a good idea to be proactive and introduce her to boards my way and at home. Here’s Raven, meeting the board… as you can see, she didn’t find her first board meeting in any way traumatic – she didn’t even notice the little noises it made when the slightly-warped board bounced on the uneven ground. But when we start tippy-board we’ll definitely be starting out with it making as little noise as possible – until she’s crazy enough about it not to care!

Well it looks like Raven (for those of you too lazy to read the comments on the last post, that’s what I’m calling her) is starting to settle in with the big dogs.

After that first play session there were a few days of return to “no play” … because, encouraged by her success, Raven started trying to incite them into chasing her by acting increasingly obnoxious and innapropriate – trying to herd Jayda, flailing her little feet in Bryce’s face.. If I were them I would have flattened her right there and then (Tiffy or Sally would have done the same)! Instead, they went back to ignoring her. Apparently the strategy worked – she started being a little nicer and all 3 had some nice games of “chase” yesterday and this morning.

My cats still aren’t thrilled. She’s trying sooo hard not to chase them. The other morning she walked past Jasmine (“Good girl!”), walked past Kacey (“Good girl”!) … then she saw ‘Bika and that 3rd cat was just too much for her to resist!

Herding breeds !

I can also say that I’m starting to understand the “small dog syndrome” up close and personal. I went to the store last night to buy cat food and what should make its way into my shopping cart but a little hot pink collar. Did I NEED another collar? No, but I thought she’d look really cu-u-u-u-te in it !

This afternoon we’re heading out to a Puppy Agility Fundamentals class. I took the same class with Jayda a few years ago. Nothing I couldn’t be doing for free in my living room – flat work, teaching them to understand handling, tunnels and the chute, boards, a small table, and maybe a wide channel of weaves … but she sees quite enough of my living room and I want to get her used to going to classes. I hated their old flooring and I swore I was never going back there because of it, but they’ve changed to Comfort King since then which is supposedly very good to run on.

I’ll report tomorrow!