Comments (0)

By wpadmin, December 23, 2011 9:44 am

Well another year coming to a close! Who saw THAT coming?

I’ve been a very bad blogger lately and I blame Facebook. It’s too easy hop on there and post a quick status instead of a lengthy blog post, and after several status updates the blog post seems redundant.

Somehow we got through the Fall agility season fairly well despite only having use of my teeny-tiny yard to train in. Jayda (who just moved into the B classes this summer) is now 2 Q’s from her MJP, halfway to her MXP and, after several weekends in the “one little thing” club, finally got her first double Q. She’s also just 2 Jackpots and 5 Standard Q’s from her C-ATCH2. Despite her issues, I’m really enjoying her these days. Jayda is the poster child for “good egg” and she really has no technical/equipment issues at all – getting good runs out of her really comes down to choosing venues where she feels “safe”, and I’ve added a few more of those to our list this year. And at home she makes me smile, she makes me laugh – I adore her !

Raven started out the season really well, only to fall apart in the end. Not sure what’s up with her – if it’s a confidence problem or something physical. Probably a little of both. She tested negative for TBD’s, but to me she looks “stuck” in her mid-lower back so a long-postponed trip to the chiropractor is definitely in order, probably followed by some remedial training and a lot of cookies.

Bryce is still in clinical remission. If I look at him at certain times and in certain light, he looks exactly the same as he always has, but looking at him closely he seems to get older by the minute. He’s developed some really odd quirks, and I have to wonder if we will share another New Years after this – that makes me sad. I know I’ve been saying that since his cancer diagnosis, but he IS almost 13 1/2 now. I ran him in agility a couple weekends ago – just CPE Fullhouse (Veteran, Level 5.) I found a nice do-able strategy for him, we had a good run – qualified and placed with time to spare, but I could see him get a little “confused” at one point. It may be time to fully retire him – will totally miss running the little guy, but it would be nice to end his career on a happy and dignified note.

Speaking of agility, I am going to be teaching agility part-time again next year ! I’m excited and a little apprehensive all at once, having been away from it for several years, but I do miss it. I love agility and I like helping other teams learn and be their best – simple as that.

Hopefully not a bad omen that I got miserably sick (sore throat, coughing, sneezing, laryngitis, sniffling, fever, not-sleeping, tapering off to just a lttle sniffling and coughing now) after spending a weekend at the facility where I will be teaching – or maybe it’s some kind of really weird good omen?

Kitties are good. Kacey and Hat have become BFF’s – they often sleep together and there’s a ridiculous amount of mutual grooming. Cuteness overload! Kacey is doing pretty well at nearly 16 – I do have to watch her eating, since Biki often noses her out and eats her food! She’s a skinny little thing to begin with so I’m always giving her “snacks” – she doesn’t complain.

Cassie (left) now has the run of my upstairs room most of the time, and is pretty friendly with Hat and Kacey. I need to bring the dogs up there more often so that they’re “familiar” to her when she starts to come downstairs. Biki refuses to even go upstairs and LOOK at her (though she’s curious enough to sit outside the door) – I have a feeling it will be ugly when those two (who are probably real-life sisters, or half-sisters) finally meet!

Cassie is a little snugglebug with me, and now that she’s not constantly on alert like she was outside, she’s relaxing and learning to play. She loves her catnip and is just starting to see the fun in wand toys. She may be getting a new name for the new year – “Cassie” and “Kes-Kes” started turning into “Cassandra” and the urban-chic “Kessindra” which has lately turned into “Cindee”. It seems to fit her.

I love that Cassie/Cindee and Hat are both safely inside now, but it has its drawbacks: After years of freedom from rodent pest problems, there are icky mice in my basement again, and even worse, I had a flying squirrel in my house again a few weeks ago! I think I need another “porch cat!” Any takers?

Comments (0)

By wpadmin, September 26, 2011 3:42 pm

In the spring and fall, agility trials are so plentiful around here that you might have a choice of several venues and locations on any given weekend. This past weekend there was Skyline’s CPE trial in Stony Point and two AKC trials – a small one on Long Island and a larger one in eastern PA. Door #1, door #2 or door #3? The CPE trial was the closest and being a Skyline member I rarely pass up a club trial, but I’m prioritizing on AKC these days so I broke with tradition and went with door #2 – the Long Island trial.

I’m not at all sorry I did! While participants at the other trials ended up slogging through a cross between agility and mud wrestling, we had great footing and not a drop of rain. If I were to be picky, I would have preferred it to have been about 10 degrees cooler and a little less humid, but it overall we lucked out big-time. A great judge and some fun courses rounded out the weekend.

Big news of the weekend was that Raven got her AXJ on Saturday on a very technical course which didn’t yield a lot of Q ribbons! We had some weebly-wobbly lines which cost us time, but her short body and responsiveness make her fun to handle on that kind of course.

I don’t always bother to take a toy when we win one, but I couldn’t resist that one – it’s a Halloween bat and it’s too cute!

I think Jayda would have done well on that course too, had she not taken down the triple early on. She was feeling rather stressed on Saturday and I think she was taking off early, because she ticked the triple on her Standard run also. After she dropped the bar, I decided to try a blind cross in part of the course – I was really itching to try it, but would never have had the guts if there was a Q on the line. It almost worked – I didn’t give her long legs quite enough room and pushed her to the wrong side of the jump. But she took the cue nicely and didn’t even look at the off course tunnel – had I stepped a little deeper into the pocket and given her the room she needed, it would have been really nice – that move is filed away for future use .

It was a jumpers kind of weekend. Sunday’s course was promised to be a “wahoo” course, and it was, with lots of running for dogs and handlers alike. On Sunday Jayda was much more relaxed and this time BOTH girls Q’d in JWW. Raven started out very sluggish (she’s not a fan of hot weather) but picked up speed about 4 obstacles into the course, JUST squeaking by on time for her first MXJ leg. Jayda finished the weekend with a beautiful, attentive 1st place run, beating Raven’s time for her 4th MJP leg and the most points she’s ever earned in a Jumpers run! Wahoo, Jayda !

So the new Family Challenge is on: Which sister will get her Master Jumpers title first? Stay tuned!

Comments (0)

By wpadmin, July 10, 2011 11:09 am

Summer’s here and we’re officially on summer break – time to catch up on the blog posts. I hate running in hot weather and the girls aren’t big fans of it either, especially Raven. We’ll do an occasional indoor trial (if we can get in!), but otherwise it’s time for us all to kick back, take a break, do a little training.

Since my last post, we did 2 more AKC trials, 2 NADAC trials and a little bite-sized bit of a CPE trial. The first AKC trial we had entered 3 days of a 4 day trial (4 days is too much for all of us!) The courses were challenging, which I expected, knowing who the judges
were!

We had a reasonably productive weekend – 1 Q in Ex B JWW and 2 Q’s in Ex A Std for Jayda, 1 Q in Nov Std and 1 Q in Ex A JWW for Raven. Considering that most of Jayda’s runs were in what I’ve come to refer to as “the cootie ring” (she’s ALWAYS spooky and distracted in that ring at that site), I was happy with that. Raven would have finished her Nov Std title if not for the chute – poor mite, she’s just not that confident about it yet .

One judge was thoughtful enough to post her courses ! Here’s one of the standard courses – I did some very “dog specific” handling with Jayda between 4 and 9, which worked out well for us. Not sure how I would have gotten Raven through that section – something to try.

Thursday Ex. Standard

Here’s Friday’s Ex JWW – it was a fun course that ran nicely. Both girls Q’d on this.

Friday’s Ex JWW

The Sunday jumpers course was tough but fun – both my runs had glitches, and I was surprised that on my front cross after 15 BOTH girls ran past me into the wrong course tunnel entrance! Hmmm – that HAD to have been me, unfortunately no video .

Sunday Ex JWW”

The NADAC trial was the weekend that some folks predicted the world would end … and for a short time Saturday I thought they might be right, when Jayda made time in Open Jumpers and again in Open TNG! Raven rocked the entire weekend, and Bryce had a great run in Tunnelers on Saturday. Altogether, we started off with the possibility of finishing 7 titles – we brought home 6 of them .

I was pleasantly surprised with Raven: Sections of the field were very soggy from a week of rain and although they tweaked the course to make it safe for the dogs, some of the handler zone footing was awfully mucky. Normally, I RUN with her, but self preservation left me gingerly tiptoeing in spots, which made things kind of “interesting”. I came away from the weekend in awe of how much she’s matured in just the past 6 months – she’s really shaping up to be a wonderful partner!

The CPE trial was two days, one run per dog each day. I avoid outdoor trials in June and the only reason I entered was to get old man Bryce’s Ch-WC. Mission accomplished.

Some pix of Bryce:

The other AKC trial was indoors and it was quite hot. I wisely left Bryce (who was a little under the weather) at home and skipped a couple of classes. Still Raven (who does not do well in the heat) got her second AXJ leg and Jayda finished her Excellent Standard title, so it was worth the trip. I had never run Jayda in a soccer stadium before and was very pleased with how relaxed she was (after she got over her initial “OMG,OMG,OMG where ARE we?”) She was relaxed enough that I was comfortable leading out on her. Leading out on Jayda in an unfamiliar place? I think that’s a first!

Comments (2)

By wpadmin, May 8, 2011 10:37 am

In human terms, they have the abilities of a toddler, yet among their own kind, they’re adults in their own right.

Some of them sass back to you just like teenagers!

Sometimes the love and understanding flow easily in both directions.

Other times, the relationship is more complicated…

They may delight you with their boldness and joie de vivre.

Or they may be shy and require lots of nurturing.

You live in the shadow of knowing that they will probably cross over the bridge before you… And that most people won’t understand when you don’t “get over it” in a day or so.

Yet you wouldn’t trade the joy of those 13-or-so years for the world!

Happy Mothers Day to all my fellow FOUR LEGGED Moms!!!

Comments (0)

By wpadmin, May 3, 2011 12:24 pm

Last weekend we did the SCOR NADAC trial. Cheap entry fees and close to home – how could I resist? We lucked into some beautiful weather and had a lot of fun. BTW, totally LOVED that they chose to offer “per owner” discount pricing packages. I run multiple dogs and since I don’t run any of them in all classes I usually wind up paying top dollar for my runs. Thanks SCOR, much appreciated. I wish more clubs and venues would price like this!

And we even have some video! I rarely think to ask anyone to video my runs and I really should do so more often. I’m not the most elegant handler and I usually cringe when I watch the playback (blame my parents – I NEEDED ballet lessons, I got piano lessons) but I always come away with something to work on. Anyway, huge thanks to Jane and Sue for videoing us!

Bryce likes NADAC because not only do they let Little Old Men like him jump 8″, but there are so many classes without contacts that he gets some variety too. Several people commented on how happy he looked this weekend . Here he is in Tunnelers:

There’s no such thing as too much Bryce, so here he is in Jumpers. There’s a hill on this field and the old man wasn’t lovin’ those uphill sprints. Can’t say I blame him, by the end of the weekend my legs felt like LEAD!

Bryce had an “interesting” Hoopers run. He started out running normally … all of a sudden he sat down and started pulling at his tail hair. TOTALLY unlike him to stop mid-run, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything that hurt (a leaf, maybe?) so I got him moving again. Did a few more hoops, he stopped AGAIN. “Restarted” him a second time, finished the course (squeezing in just barely 1″ under time). As soon as he jumped into my arms I reached around to see what was going on back there… and tangled in his “pants” was a 6″ long pine twig! Yep – that would do it. Poor guy – he ran the course and got his Outstanding Hoopers title with a STICK stuck on his butt! How embarassing! (Sorry – no video of this.)

(I made a point of doing “inspection” before the rest of our runs!)

Raven was looking great in all weekend. When she’s “on” she’s so much fun ! Here she is in Tunnelers. She went wide on those 180′s – that “bungee” effect you get from some fast dogs when (ahem!) the handler stops moving (I “flailed” too – ugh!) – but she isn’t as obstacle focused as my “big dogs” so if I’d taken off running I would have risked her missing the tunnel entrance altogether. See? Something to work on.

Jayda ran well all weekend, but we struggle for time in the upper levels. She’s right on the “bubble” and the least little hesitation puts us over, which kind of sucks. NADAC’s big distances between obstacles are the worst – she’s faster on more tightly-spaced courses. For those of you who don’t know Jayda, Jayda really enjoys DOING agility but she’s a VERY nervous and environmentally sensitive dog. She’s MUCH better than she was, but it’s difficult for her to let loose and RUN at a trial. However she often makes up in steadiness for what she lacks in speed. We made time on this course and finished her Elite Regular title.

Note the little look over her shoulder as she came out of the blue tunnel. Photographer was back there, I think.