Teeth!

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Bryce went in for a dental yesterday and came back minus 3 teeth. Two we suspected – both his upper carnassials had slab fractures. How he could have done that and never let on or missed a meal is simply amazing! The 3rd was a tiny molar in the back that was loose and yucky. I think that was a gesture of empathy – I just had to have a wisdom tooth in the exact same spot removed!

So far he seems to be recovering nicely – they said he was standing up looking around just a half hour after they stopped the anesthesia and he’s been eating well (“ravenous” is a good term). He’s still pretty subdued and “loopy”, and the other end of his digestive tract isn’t doing well – poor guy has “the runs” for only the 3rd time in almost 9 years.

It could have been worse – his litter brother had to have TWELVE teeth removed last week!

Here’s a pretty (if somewhat hairy-eared) picture I took of him the other day (pre-dental)

Bryce's handsome face

Next, tomorrow I go back to my dentist for part 2 of a miserable root canal … ugh!

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Jumping styles

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I love looking at pictures to see how different dogs use their bodies in agility, especially when they jump. Styles can vary so much even within the same breed.

This was my beautiful Sally (1991-2006). Sally used to tuck her rear feet up very tightly behind her. She sometimes tucked her carpals on takeoff and she usually kept her head low.

Sally jumping

If she was feeling especially happy the head came up a bit and the front paws stretched out, but those back feet were always right up under her tail (as you can see in the photo below). She was light as a feather on her feet, and so pretty to watch!

Sally - triple

Bryce has a more moderate rear tuck. He always carries his head high which makes him land rather heavily on his front, and he never, ever, EVER, bends his wrists – it’s just not “manly” :)! He also jumps somewhat flatter. No matter what the jump height there’s rarely much air between him and the top bar – he’s efficient.

Bryce jumping

Jayda jumps with her head low. Not only are her carpals always tucked, I’ve noticed they’re often CROSSED besides! And she doesn’t tuck up her legs in the rear, just lifts them as high as she has to. She has such long “landing gear”, maybe its too much of a bother to fold and unfold it completely? I wouldn’t call her a “pretty” jumper, but she gets the job done. She’s also very “green”, so it will be interesting to see if her style changes with experience.

Jayda jumping

All 3 of these dogs are (and were) VERY clean jumpers who rarely, if ever, take down a bar, so it seems to be mostly a case of finding what works for you and using it!

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Where’s Brycey?

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cpe agility trial ribbons

He’s not IN that crate on the left, but if he was you’d never see him with all those ribbons :)!

We went to a CPE trial this weekend, trying to get a little farther in Bryce and Jayda’s respective classes before July 1 when the titling requirements are changing.

All in all, it was a successful weekend. Bryce went in 1 Q short of 4 titles – we qualified in 5 out of 8 runs, finishing 3 of them! After a rocky start, Jayda pulled herself together and had some nice runs also, qualifying in 4 out of 7 (those are her ribbons on the right) and even qualifying the first time I ever ran her in the rain! (I think she sort of liked it – less worrisome activity around the outside of the ring!) We left before her last class on Sunday – I hated missing that class (jumpers) but the trial was running soooo slooooow and we still had a 2.5 hour drive ahead of us.

Saturday was “family day”. Jayda’s younger cousin Clipper (and his owner Pat) made a wonderful debut and Bryce’s litter brother Grady came along for the ride. Jayda’s breeder Toni Mapes came to the trial bringing Bryce’s great-grandniece Mira along for socialization. It was great seeing them all! After the trial Saturday we all went back to Pat’s (where we were staying overnight) for some pizza, cupcakes (in honor of Jayda’s 3rd birthday Sunday) and sheltie entertainment – a grand total of 7 little pointy noses! Since we always commute to trials, this was Bryce and Jayda’s first sleepover. Jayda slept like a log and was a reasonably polite houseguest (other than using her impressive height to go around the table examining everyone’s plates, and later deciding that one of Pat’s dogs was the first dog she ever met that she didn’t like – sorry, Risk!). OTOH, Bryce was feeling restless and talkative and made little “Hmph…. mmph … hmph…” noises all night long – neither of us got much sleep but at least they were QUIET “Hmph … mmph … hmph …” noises so our poor hosts fared somewhat better!

I’m hoping for some good pictures from the weekend, will post a link after the photographer posts them on his site!

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A little Bryce video

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I don’t have any exciting Brycey news but here, for his adoring fans, is a little video clip of him retrieving – taken while playing around with the video on my new phone …

You may be thinking “What a cheesy little video” … let me tell ya, I went to great lengths to post this…

For some reason, pictures and video won’t sync properly from my Treo to my PC. Since they’re all on a 1 GB SD card, I bought a nifty little card reader … which doesn’t work! The pix and vids WILL sync to my laptop, so I had to boot the laptop, sync to it, THEN move everything to the main PC.

[begin a lot of geeky stuff]

THEN I had to convert it from 3g2 to one of the accepted formats to upload it – except my video program doesn’t understand 3g2 so after looking all over for a solution I finally cheated and renamed it to a 3gp, which was similar enough for it to convert it to a .mov!

[end of geeky stuff]

Phew!

So there! :P :)

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Jayda’s First Letters!

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It’s true! Baby-J has REAL letters after her name now :)!

She finished two CPE agility titles at our trial in February – her CL1-R (regular agility) and her CL1-H (handlers – one of their games titles). She wasn’t flashy about it, but a Q’s a Q and I was proud of her.

Here she is, posing with her two New Title ribbons.

Jayda and her first CPE title ribbons

You can’t tell from that picture, but she HATES to pose for the camera! It took me about 10 tries to get a photo with a nice expression on her face and that didn’t have her eyes, ears and feet going in all directions!

On the other hand, she’s very cute in candid shots – like this one of her playing with Jasmine:

Jasmine the cat playing with Jayda the sheltie

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Breaking News: Santa, kidnapped?

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Top Story: Santa Missing – Foul Play Suspected!

Sunday, December 24, 2006
With the Christmas just around the corner and millions of people anticipating their presents, the holiday season has taken a strange and potentially disasterous turn with the reported disappearance of Santa Claus!

Anonymous sources tell us that a ransom note, along with photos of the alleged perpetrators posing with an unconscious Mr. Claus, arrived at the corporate headquarters of an undisclosed, dog treat manufacturer earlier today.

In the photos, Mr. Claus appears gaunt and disheveled, but otherwise unharmed …

Stay tuned for more on this late-breaking story as it develops!

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