Dog Nut Mom

Luce - Platinum Snooker!!

2011-12-14T21:12:00.000-05:00

Now here is something really blog worthy!!

Luce earned her Platinum P3 Snooker title in September at Splash & Dash!! She finished up on Saturday and got a spare Q on Sunday for a perfect Snooker score - 51 P3 Snooker Q's!

She has been in Veterans Jumpers at 12" since June and now is also in Veterans Snooker at 12" as well. She will come out and play if it isn't too cold, hot or damp. Now that she is over 12 years old, her age is catching up with her. She is the best little girl, but apparently didn't get the memo that she isn't allowed to get old!

Finished for the year

2011-12-14T21:06:00.004-05:00

RV is now in storage .. the one on the right.

We look forward to using it in the spring!

RV & Naughty Dogs

2011-12-14T21:04:00.001-05:00

What is wrong with this picture?

Well, you can see Luce and Blaze. What is wrong with that? Well, Blaze had been locked into the back bedroom and Luce had the front area (Hugh had to leave and we didn't want Blaze sitting and watching agility from the RV)

Blaze must have wanted to come out and Luce believes in an open door policy. No door shall remain closed!

I came out of the building and there they were!

RV & the dogs

2011-12-14T21:01:00.000-05:00

The primary reason for getting the RV was for agility. Which means the dogs need to travel in the RV.

Luce has become such an easy traveler! When I think back to 2001 when we got her ... she didn't want to get into a car. She drooled, she peed, she paced, she panted. Turns out that when she was being brought to her rescue group, the SUV was involved in a bad accident and the car was totalled. I found that out a year after I got her, after we had worked through her issues. Made it all clear!!! But now? Settles down and is the best girl :-) Can take her anywhere.

And then there is Blaze. He usually LOVES getting into a car, but barks when the car is moving. The RV was something else ... maybe the all vinyl floor? Couldn't get him in there the first day, even with using The Ball as a bribe. I finally got a big bag of treats and got him into the stairwell, and then closed the door. He wouldn't even LOOK at me :-)

Took a bit of work and a LOT of treats, but he finally leaped onto the sofa. And then over the arms onto the dinette seat.

He avoids the vinyl flooring as much as possible. We will have to get some runners. He did have to make one step on the vinyl to get to the front. Didn't mind targetting onto the vinyl as that meant MORE treats :-)

Back to the sofa, then more treats to get him into the bedroom. That requires at least TWO steps on the vinyl. He does like it back there and will go there voluntarily when we use the RV.

He gets quite comfortable back there :-)

He is seatbelted in the dinette while we are driving. Very alert. And does bark, unfortunately.

And then there is my little Luce ... curled up into a ball behind the drivers seat while we are travelling. Such a good girl :-)

RV!

2011-12-14T20:48:00.001-05:00

We did it!! We bought an RV. I resisted for a long time, but after 3 straight weekends of being trial secretary, I gave in. It is going to be SO MUCH easier to do agility stuff when I don't have to drive back and forth each day. It is shiny, isn't it? :-)

It is a Windsport 31J ... which means it is over 31' long. Haven't figured out why the naming conventions are so strange with these RV's ... you would think 31J meant 31', but no. It is closer to 33'

We flew out to Ohio to pick it up. The dealer even had a fruit basket waiting for us. Came in handy on the way home :-)

Hugh drove most of the way. In fact, he has done most of the driving so far. I need to take it to an empty parking lot and practice turning. These things are WIDE and LONG.

This is me driving home part of the way ... notice the white knuckles? Yup. Required a LOT of concentration and my arms and hands were sore afterwards LOL

This is the view to the back from the passenger seat. It has one slide ... the area where the sofa and the dinette is slides out to give more space. Queen size bed there in the back. All vinyl flooring which will be a godsend with the dogs!!

Side view ... "starboard" side, or passenger side. We had the awning closed first thing in the morning, but did have it open during the day. You can also see that the curtains are still drawn over the front windows.

And the "port" side, drivers side, with the slide out. This was at the first trial we took it to - Hog Dog Productions, south of Maryland. I helped out with scoring and the computers. And Blaze got a Super Q in Snooker!!!

Will break this down into a few posts.

Little trip to Buffalo

2011-12-09T10:52:00.001-05:00

Left on Thursday for Hugh's company Christmas party in Buffalo. He had work in the office, so we left a day early as the party is Friday night. The above was the view during the drive in the Poconos. Very pretty with the snow on the ground and on the trees, but not on the road :-)

We are staying at the Garden Place Hotel near Lancaster which is, basically, Buffalo :-) The above is the indoor courtyard.

This is a view from the breakfast area in the courtyard. Very festive :-)

Staircase leading to the second floor and a detail of little area next to the staircase.

They have little "vignettes" up on the second floor. Must be a surprise to newcomers to open their curtains and see these right outside their window :-)

We are on the first floor and this is the view from our room - so we need to keep the curtains closed :-)

That is all of the tour for now ... while Hugh is at work, I have some work I can be doing on some upcoming 2012 trials without interruption now that housekeeping has come and gone.

A Bye!!!

2011-05-29T09:39:00.001-04:00

We went to the Flexi trial last weekend. I was inspired from watching the WAO live stream the weekend before, plus Blaze and I had a great class on Wed night.

First class was snooker. Start line felt a little shaky - that start line will never be totally fixed but it is getting better. Did a 1-6, 1 and "tweet" Blaze took 6a really long and I sent him over 7a instead of 6b by mistake as I was disorientated. Big 8 points.

Standard - didn't Q but was happy with the run.

Grand Prix next. Had a few spots that were tricky and required thought to figure out the handling. I had worked on some 270's the week before and knew that if I didn't go in deep, Blaze would pull through the gap. We were about 1/3 of the way down in the run order so I got to watch some of the 22" dogs and saw where there were a few trouble spots.

Good stay at the start, kept the first few bars up. Came out of the chute - it was up hill there and I was a little behind - off course jump on left, off course weaves on right, correct jump in middle. Blaze came out of the chute and started to veer towards me - oh no! Told him to go on, jump. I had set a good line of motion going into the chute, so he took the correct jump and kept it up!

Decelerate to indicate turn after tire, he turned and was a little wide towards the off course dogwalk. Redirected to far end of tunnel. Picked him up and off to the dogwalk. Then the next tricky bit - jump after dogwalk, but show collection or we were buying the aframe. Phew, that worked with right arm up, name, jump, back up past plane of aframe, rotate and hope next jump was there - yes! Again, don't show extension, send to tunnel.

Took a step backwards, got him coming out, the stepped towards jump while facing to the left. Read it perfectly, didn't even see his beloved weaves and went straight towards the teeter! Can't say there was much of a wait for release there :-), but we aren't working on that - yet:-)

Into the 270 - step into the pocket, tell him out jump, start moving to aframe when he is committed. Step away from aframe to the left when he is at bottom as some dogs had taken the off course jump straight ahead. Oh god, please don't knock the bar! Weave (please don't pop out at 10!), jump, jump, done and CLEAN.

That was how I always want to do agility - running with the dog and us being in synch. Couldn't believe we were clean for a Q! Went back to check that it was still a Q a while later - and found out that we took first for the Bye!! There were lots of good dogs after us, so I never thought a Bye was possible - but there it was!

Now he gets to have 2 additional runs at the NE Regional. As I am secretary for that, he will be there anyway.

Still makes me grin when I think of that run a week later :-)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Happy Easter!

2011-04-25T01:02:00.001-04:00

Happy Easter!

Strange Easter this year. We stayed up too late the night before watching a movie, so we all ended up sleeping in - even the dogs. All 3 of us took a shower in time to go to church. By the time we got home and finished breakfast, it was afternoon!

And that was also strange - "3 of us" as Evan stayed at Duquesne due to his finals starting on Tuesday.

Plus the weather. It has been cold, rainy and dreary for most of the week after our high of 80 on Monday. Even had a frost warning at the end of the week. We woke up to WARM! I was going to wear winter clothes to church and had to scramble to find something else to wear! Good thing I had bought a new pair of sandals last week. Just so strange to be wearing multiple layers one day and then be in shorts, bare feet and sandals by this afternoon!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Spring is coming!

2011-03-11T22:36:00.001-05:00

First crocus about to bloom. Of course, I have taken many a picture of a crocus covered in snow, so nothing would surprise me, but I think spring IS on the way!

Have also seen 7 robins now - a group of 4 yesterday and another 3 an hour from home today.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Spring is coming!

2011-03-01T09:19:00.001-05:00

We had a lot of snow this winter season and it wouldn't surprise me to get a little more. However, I think we have broken the back of winter with the days being above freezing for a week or two now. Have had a few days in the 50's and instead of snow, had rain instead.

I bought myself some tulips and enjoyed the bit of spring they brought to my breakfast yesterday

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Over a year!!

2011-02-11T09:31:00.001-05:00

It's been over a year since my last post! 2010 was busy and it just got away from me

So far, 2011 has brought us a lot of snow.

Hoping to recap 2010 soon and maybe blog on a more regular basis. Just got a Blogger app for the iPad, so maybe it will be a little easier. :-)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Last day of 2009

2009-12-31T12:21:00.000-05:00

Let's take a look outside, this last day of 2009 ....

It snowed! Everything always looks better after it has snowed.

Happy New Years Eve!

It Snowed

2009-12-20T10:35:00.000-05:00

It snowed!

Everything looks so pretty after it snows. The jingle bells are wearing bigger snow hats than they did yesterday.

Glad I got the reindeer up before it snowed too much yesterday. They are wearing snow hats too :-)

We ended up with about 7-1/2". Not a lot compared to the 20" in parts of Maryland, VA and NC, but a lot for around here. We usually don't have a "White Christmas", so this is exciting for us.

And, yes, I measured it :-)

Enough with the snow, can we go in now?

More ....

2009-12-19T14:02:00.003-05:00

Let the wrestling begin .....

I got to watch a wrestling match earlier this morning. This was after a game of "your toy is better than mine" They each had a toy but they were eying the other's toy. Then, as if on a signal, they would stop, look away briefly, and then pounce on the other's toy. Repeat for 10 minutes.

Then we had the wrestling :-)

We've had a stint outside and now all is quiet and peaceful.

For now.

Snow & Such

2009-12-19T13:27:00.003-05:00

Wow, two blog posts in a month! Is this possible? LOL

Bought the dogs each a coat and they arrived on Friday. Luce accepted her coat without qualm, but Blaze was paralyzed in his. Just stood there and would barely move. Had to drag him outside while Luce was bouncing all around him. The next time I brought The Ball out with me ... that took his mind off of the jacket :-)

Common picture here when The Ball is out. Luce waiting for Blaze who is waiting for The Ball to move.

Today is Saturday and it is snowing. The states further south of us are getting dumped upon but we only have maybe an inch so far.

The Koi are hibernating

Blaze is getting used to his coat ... he still thinks he is going to die when I first put it on, but getting used to quicker and quicker now.

In progress

2009-12-09T13:04:00.001-05:00

Been a while since I posted again. Things have been busy and disorganized around here. Was secretary for a bunch of agility trials since August, plus went to trials, and even got to go to Scottsdale, AZ for USDAA's Nationals in November!

But the biggest thing has been our kitchen/familyroom. Under construction since August. Sigh. It takes that long when we are all busy working and trying to squeeze in other things, so it just gets done in the spare time. And there hasn't been much of that this fall!

We decided to redo the kitchen so some degree ... including painting the kitchen cabinets and stripping the 23 year old wallpaper.

Evan spent the last few days that he was home on the kitchen. We used a chemical stripper. That combined with 23 year old wallpaper placed directly on bare drywall = takes a long time.

While we were at it, we also decided to add some trim to the bottom of the cabinets. You can see the tile backsplash that we had on the walls, plus the cabinet color before we sanded and painted.

Boy, does Hugh ever hate mitering :-) but he did it :-)

The cabinet doors all had to come off, get washed down and sanded.

We also decided on granite countertops. So, the old counters had to come off ...

... before the new ones could be installed.

We are still in the midst of painting. A beadboard backsplash was put in and we also put it on the island.
In the meantime, I still went to trials and Blaze even earned his Advanced Gamblers title and is in Masters Gamblers with a Q!

And ran a bunch of trials, including a VERY MUDDY trial at Fair Hill, MD

We have now taken all of the wallpaper off in the adjoining family room ... I rented a wallpaper steamer which made the job a LOT easier and faster! But, again, the wallpaper was put on the bare drywall with no priming or sizing. I would love to decorate for Christmas, but it is kind of hard when the family room looks like this:

Maybe some lights on the ladder?

Sophomore Year

2009-09-29T16:48:00.001-04:00

August saw Evan go back to Duquesne for his sophomore year.

He moved in before his room mate. It was a dull and dreary day. This building is older and not as nice, so it was a little depressing! Sorry for the poor quality .... these were taken with my Blackberry Pearl!

Took us a lot of trips up and down the elevator to get everything in. It was raining out, so we alternated being wet to dealing with the humidity.

A couple of weeks later, Evan sent me pictures of his room after his room mate moved in and they moved things around ... certainly looks a lot better now!

It's Been A While!

2009-09-29T16:30:00.001-04:00

Wow, haven't blogged since 4th of July!

I spent most of July battling an abscessed tooth. After several root canal retreatments, I think we fixed it!

What I did do in July that was productive was to get to our annual hazardous waste collection day. Got rid of a bunch of old computer stuff that was cluttering up the basement.

It was nice to see the long lineup of cars waiting for their turn - less hazardous stuff into the landfills!

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-04T14:55:00.003-04:00

Happy 4th of July!

I made the requisite flag cake .. easiest one there is. Sara Lee pound cake, Cool Whip, strawberries and blueberries. Oven is broken, so didn't have a choice :-)

Beautiful day today. No rain, not too warm, no humidity.

Hope to get into town tonight and watch some fireworks.

VIR

2009-07-02T16:10:00.003-04:00

Hugh going around The Oak Tree at VIR

This past weekend took us to Virginia. Virginia International Raceway to be exact.

Hugh was participating in a Drivers Education event with Zone 2 of the Porsche Club of America for white group and above (ie those that can drive solo) and there was also Club racing as well.

I wandered around and took a lot of pictures from a lot of different places, so it didn't turn out as bad as I thought. Had to get used to the camera again! Also took video which I still need to edit and put together.

Hugh had some good runs and didn't wreck his car (a very good thing!)

Club racing turned out to be VERY serious for some of these people! HUGE big rigs and whole tech crews to look after the cars! And the carnage on the track! Hugh is now rethinking the whole club racing thing :-)

I need to do a lot of post processing on the pics I took. But I hurt my back again and am taking it easy this week while the office is closed!

Catching Up

2009-07-02T16:00:00.003-04:00

Been a long time since I updated. I read on someone's blog somewhere that they won't read a blog if it doesn't have pictures. I haven't been taking a lot of pictures, so I'm not posting ....

USDAA NE Regional - that went well and thank goodness it is over :-) We got decent weather with only some rain on Saturday afternoon. I tend to obsess on the things that didn't go well, but, really, it went smoothly - people keep telling me that, so I'll believe them :-)

Luce was entered only in the 3 P3 Titling classes ... and only ran one. And got a refusal at the weaves, so no Q in Standard. Oh well. Blaze was entered in one class per day. First day was Gamblers and we knocked every single bar in the gamble :-) AND broke a weave pole!! A first! Second day was snooker ... my first 0 point snooker!! He knocked the first red and was over the #3 jump before I could redirect - whistle and out in 4.something seconds! LOL

Gamblers was the 3rd day - he Q'd for his Starters Gamblers title!!!

Blaze held his start all 3 days and got all of his contacts. Missed a set of weave poles ... did that at Saratoga and Flexi as well. All 3 times it was the doing back to back weaves, him on my right. Hmm. I can't reproduce it here at home.

Had a some stress getting him measured and didn't get his final measurement until Saturday. He was measured at 21" on the nose at Saratoga by the CMJ. I was hoping to get two measurements there as it was a 3 days trial, but the other judges said to leave well enough alone, so I did. Got 20-3/4" at Flexi. First day at the Regional, I was stressed, rushed etc etc and Blaze did not cooperate, so we didn't get a measurement. As soon as the junior judge got there on Saturday morning, which was before a lot of people got there, I got Blaze measured and got his 3rd measurement at 20-3/4" YAY, done and officially a 22" jumping dog which is what I wanted! Sent in the card and he is now showing as permanently carded on the USDAA site ... just have to wait for the actual card to come in the mail.

Now going to enter Blaze in more than one run per day ... we'll leave Jumpers and Pairs alone for now and just add in Standard.

FINALLY going to go to class tonight after 3 weeks!! Should have gone to Luce's class last night, but there was threat of thunder. Won't drive for an hour just for her to sit in the car shaking. Blaze doesn't seem to care about the thunder, so we'll go. I'll take Luce in case there is an opening in his class, just to get her on equipment.

Stack o' Mail

2009-06-05T10:40:00.003-04:00

I am a trial secretary for USDAA agility trials. There are no entry limits, so people tend to enter at the last minute. It is not uncommon to get half of the total entry during the last week before closing. This year, we are hosting the NE Regional for USDAA in June. I was away for the Memorial Day weekend and this is what was waiting for me ... that is Thursday, Friday and Saturday's mail. Still to come was Tuesday and Wednesday. Yikes!

Of the total 440 dogs entered in this trial, 302 of them came in during that last week. Yikes again :-)

Good thing I expect this now and plan accordingly.

Luce, APD and Blaze's USDAA debut!

2009-06-05T10:15:00.004-04:00

We had a WONDERFUL weekend at YAgility's USDAA trial in Saratoga Springs, NY

First ... Luce finished her APD (Performance ADCH)!!!! We have needed two gamble legs for quite a while and our history shows that we get one gamble per year. Was hoping to get one as we have been "this close" at several trials.

Well, we got not one ... but TWO!!!! Unbelievable!! It was two weeks ago and I am still smiling

The weather was gorgeous the entire weekend which was a bonus. This was the first time I had been to this site and I like it. Rosemarie and I got a good spot when we arrived on Friday and helped with set up. Our tent was between some pine trees, so the dogs were shaded all day long .. plus it smelled nice too :-)

On Luce's first gamble on Sunday I was nervous. It was a gamble she could do and has done before - I just needed to make sure I really drove towards the tunnel so that she would get it. Then the teeter was right in line with the exit and so was the final jump. She got it and I knew we had enough opening points!! But ... timer malfunction. It had started and stopped. Judge asked the timer/scribe what happened, thought about it and then asked me if I wanted to run it again or to just take SCT (Standard Course Time) I took the SCT (and still placed!) for the Q!

Next day had gamblers again and I didn't feel confident about this one. Jump to tunnel that was on the other side of the aframe, then two jumps. Wasn't sure she would bypass the aframe to the tunnel. I ended up having to walk both Luce's Gamblers course and Blaze's Gamblers course at the same time. They were similar ... dogwalk along the left side of the ring with a yellow tunnel in a U Shape under the middle. Weave poles towards the back edge, aframe over to the right, gamble over to the right. Jumps and stuff in the middle :-) Had a similar plan except Blaze's included the weave poles and Luce's didn't as she is too slow in the weaves.

Blaze's run was first. I had been working the score table in the 3rd ring, so finished there, went and got Blaze and threw the ball a few times, then we were right up. Good boy, held his stay at the start and worked nicely. We did the dogwalk and he held his contact, good boy! Tunnel, weaves, jump, back to the weaves .. hmm, had to restart them, okay, tunnel, jumps, go to the tunnel under the aframe ... where is the tunnel under the aframe?!?!? Isn't there, go back and do other stuff ... horn goes and we get the gamble for his second gamble Q and 1st place!!

But where was the tunnel under the aframe?? Walk past the ring where Luce's gamble is going to be ... oh there it is!! I had run Luce's course in Blaze's ring

Luce's turn next. We were the 4th last dog. Dog ahead of us poops on the dogwalk. Handler is ashamed and apologetic ... I had seen her walking her dog but he just hadn't produced :-) He wasn't running right and we all now knew why :-) They clean it up, no problem. Luce's turn ... we do the dogwalk fine and she even gets her contact YAY. We usually can do about 10 obstacles in 30 seconds, sometimes more depending on what they are. We get to the 10 obstacle (jump after the tunnel under the aframe which was now where it was supposed to be!), no horn, okay, keep going. I always have some obstacles in reserve to loiter on .. use them all up, start going further away from the start of the gamble ... no horn!!! Finally, I stopped and said the horn should have gone because we can't DO that many in 30 seconds. Timer had stopped ages ago.

Have to rerun. Yikes. My instructor was there and asked about the dogwalk ... what if we do it again and don't get the contact .. we got it the first time? Judge says, I'll give it to her once as we did it once. We wait for the rest of the dogs to go, then it is our turn again. I did the same opening (but better this time) and Luce MISSES her dogwalk! But we get the points, horn goes and WE GET THE GAMBLE OHMIGOSH!!!!!!!

Luce's APD - I was crying I was so happy :-)

We also finished second in Team (PVP) Charlie's Luce in the Chocolate Factory was in the running the whole time. That finished up Luce's Bronze Tournament title and we are now done with Tournaments. She is losing speed and having trouble Q'ing in Steeplechase(she will be 10 in September and some of the hot shot Ch22" dogs are now in P16" in our area) and Blaze is starting to show, so will save some money.

Blaze ran in one class per day. I was worried about the #6 teeter for Snooker on the first day, plus, I was nervous about him :-) Called out too soon at the #5 jump in the closing and down came the bar. No Q. But ... he Q'd on Sunday and Monday in Gamblers!!! He held his stay at the start all 3 days, got his contacts and went where I wanted him to go. Can't ask for more than that :-) It is SO MUCH EASIER to handle him outside than in a building!!!!!

What a weekend!!

Soapstone Cat

2009-06-05T09:50:00.001-04:00

I made this cat in high school art class in the early 1070's. It's out of soapstone and then rubbed with furniture wax.

Mom had it in her house after I got married and moved, but told me to take it a couple of years ago.

View

2009-05-16T23:10:00.002-04:00

View from my end of the leash

I used to be able to post to the blog from my blackberry. Hmm, doesn't work any more.

Between Showers

2009-05-07T12:21:00.002-04:00

It has been raining off and on all day. Had a bit of a break and the dogs needed to go, so I brought along the little purse camera.

Lots of things in bloom. Crocuses and pear tree has been and gone.

The dogwoods are all blossoming now. Like dabs of bright white paint on a background of growing green.

Bright pink azaleas showing flashes of color.

Don't know what these are, but they are carpeted in patches here and there.

Yeah, and these groupings of yellow too.

Rain and Oak Trees

2009-05-07T09:16:00.003-04:00

It's raining ... again. The rain over the past week seems to have washed all of the yellow pollen away, but the last two days has brought something new. The oak tree seeds.

Yup, 'tis the season. Right now they are wet so they don't sweep up. But they also don't get tracked in to the house the way they do when they are dry. Then they get crushed and bring in dust. Or cling to socks and shoelaces and get tracked in whole.

When they are dry, we will have tumbleweeds of oak tree seed pods .. or whatever they are.

Just one of the things to deal with there are over 30 trees on the property :-) At least they give nice, cool shade in the summer.

Tulips

2009-04-29T15:31:00.001-04:00

One of the advantages of having the house listed for sale, is that I get to have cut flowers in the house. I love tulips :-)

Great class

2009-04-29T15:26:00.002-04:00

Blaze and I had a great class last week and I hope we can have another one tomorrow.

We ran two sequences and the first one just felt SO GOOD. A glimmer of what it will be like when we are more in synch! It didn't start out so hot ... jump, teeter WEEEEEE. Oops, that would be a fly off and certainly not part of our criteria :-)

Start again and we got through the whole thing, including the table, nice turns and the weaves. YEAH!!

Second sequence .... well, good thing we had the run before :-) Could not get the weaves. I could see his face ... it was almost like ... crap, can't slow down, okay, I'll just run by. Hmmm.

I have been working on Blaze's stay at the start the last few weeks. Have been doing Rachel Sanders "Bridging the Gap" without any obstacles and just doing it a few minutes here, a few minutes there. I am seeing an improvement in class. He had his toes splayed out and gripping the sprint turf :-)

Spring!

2009-04-29T15:12:00.003-04:00

Wow, a month since I posted last. It's just been crazy. Yeah, normal :-)

The picture is from the many forsythia that have been in bloom for the last couple of weeks. I do like this time of year with all the flowering trees and bushes. So pretty, but too bad it doesn't last.

Just had a very nice jumping session outside. Blaze is really reading my deceleration now, so much so, that if I don't say "jump", he shears off the jump. Which is way better than just taking each jump in full extension!!

He is also reading the rear crosses more than half the time now which is wonderful.

Of course, once we get to class tomorrow night, most of that will fade away, but hopefully some of it will stick.

Have been using one of the Bad Cuz balls outside. It doesn't get soggy, it can be washed off when it gets dirty and I can hold on to it by the feet, so my hands stay relatively clean. Plus, it bounces in all sorts of weird ways which keeps Blaze on his toes :-)

Is this a test?

2009-03-25T16:43:00.002-04:00

Oh boy, how much more do I need on my plate? Getting the house in order (that alone is HUGE), I need to finish the taxes, I need to finish the database at work, I need to get the test schedule done for June.

Everything is all at once ... why is that? I don't even want to go into further details because it is depressing. And I don't see an end any time soon.

1st of March

2009-03-01T20:37:00.003-05:00

Turns out that I did/do have bronchitis. So no class this week for either dog and also didn't go to Rosemarie's. They won't have class this coming week as I will be up in Canada for Dad's surgery.

Today was the first day in a few days that I actually had energy to do something. Not too much, but a little. Did go grocery shopping and vacuumed out my car. I even got a bucket of soapy water and washed the floor in it ... love that Honda Element! :-)

Also cleaned out the two shoe closets and threw away any shoes that were cracked, broken or generally just not going to be worn any more. And threw out two more boxes of old, old files from the basement. Don't think anyone needs home & school files from 1994 any more!

I want to gradually get rid of the JUNK that this house is drowning in!! But it is hard right now. We are going to get new carpetting upstairs, so right now, I don't have a bedroom and all of our furniture is everywhere else. Evan can't even sleep in his room (he's home on break) as there is so much stuff in there.

And it isn't going end once the carpet is installed this week. The kitchen ceiling will have to be taken down where the shower stall is to get at the ever lasting leak from there ... so mess city, here we come!

I'd like to get rid of most of the junk in the "ski room". I can then use that room to pile up boxes of things that won't get thrown away. I remember when we looked at this house before we bought it that the previous owners had that room stacked to the ceiling with boxes.

Okay, laundry beckons again. Dishes need to be done. And I have to finish cutting up chicken for the dogs' meals while I am gone. At least the garbage is outside already ... hopefully we won't get the 8" to 12" of snow that they are predicting .. I need that garbage and recycling picked up!

It's still February

2009-02-25T21:59:00.004-05:00

I should be driving home from Luce's class right now ... but am really feeling yucky right now. Fighting a cold and it feels like it is winning. I want to go tomorrow night for Blaze's class as he needs it more so I stayed home tonight.

The Keystone trial was 2 weekends ago. It went well. I was happy with most of my runs with Luce even though we only Q'd once (GP!) Should have gotten the gamble ... it was a jump, tunnel, redirect to the teeter then on to a jump. I wasn't sure Luce would go to the tunnel, but she did. She came out wide and I told her teeter ... she was so wide that I thought she was going to go past the plane and go on sideways, but she veered over enough ... had I just said "teeter" one more time .... but she sheered off at the last minute!

Grand Prix was next and we got it all ... I was very pleased with her weave poles ... fast straight on entrance. Standard after that ... and could she get the stinkin' weaves? No! And it was one of those runs that I did not feel good about. I felt like I was "saving" every other obstacle. However, she got all of her contacts in all 3 runs which was good. Even gave me a 2on/2off in gamblers which pleasantly surprised the heck out of me :-)

Monday was Snooker first ... I still don't know what I did to get whistled off :-) Gotta love Snooker :-) Jumpers ... ack, I went straight when I should have turned and so did Luce. My fault! We did a Mulligan Run after the trial was over and Luce and I got it that time.

She is such a good girl. So easy to travel with, so easy to have by ringside. She wasn't always like this, but she sure is now!

Didn't bring Blaze ... indoors at such a big trial would be too much and we still have a LOT of work to do before we should be thinking of entering any trials.

Blaze had class the last two weeks. Blaze's Aframe two weeks ago. Can we say "flying dog"? Well, he did touch yellow going up and going down. Needs to work on contacts when someone is there in judging position apparently.

Last week I discovered that he can't do the tire if it is the first obstacle. Add that to the ever growing list of stuff to work on. Also have to work on recall to heel stuff as he apparently has forgotten most of it. Sigh.

Went to a Sends & Recalls seminar this past weekend ... same one that I audited back in December. Didn't get a working spot, so audited 2 of the 3 days so that I can fix this stuff in my head a little better. It was a good seminar but I would have liked to have tried this all with Blaze as I learn better by doing. I didn't get a chance to go on Friday which was the basic foundation recalls and sends, so I'm sure how much that changed. I heard a little of it did ... I wish I could have gone just to get that part fixed in my head as well.

I wanted to get to the Kruisin barn this week, but that isn't going to happen. We were supposed to have carpet people here today to measure ... now they aren't coming until Friday and won't be installing until next week sometime. However, Rosemarie did invite me for Sunday, so we will get a chance to work again. We have a trial the weekend of the 14th, so it would be nice for Luce and I to get some practice in. I do have to say that I think we are running better as a team lately ... practicing with Blaze has improved my handling of Luce. But that isn't going to get us those two remaining gamble legs!

I've been looking over the agility calendar - would have liked to go up to New York for two different 3 day trials (double gamblers at each!) but just can't do the first one. Evan is coming home from Duquesne the day I would need to leave and I just found out that Hugh will be doing a drivers ed event then too. So, I'll just go to Saratoga. I'll need to find a team for Luce to make it worth while - if we get the Team Q, that will be her Bronze Accomplished Tournament Dog title! I didn't like the site 2 years ago at Saratoga but the new one is supposed to be WAY better. Before I got Blaze it wouldn't have mattered, but that boy needs room for playing with the ball!

Evan and I will be driving up to Canada on Wednesday for Dad's surgery so I might not even see it until I get back late Sunday night. Which means the furniture might not be put back where it belongs either .... I just hope this carpet is the right color because the "surprise" dining room carpet is definitely wrong :-(

Okay, gonna go and drink more fluids and get some sleep.

Agility Class & Training Session

2009-02-01T08:40:00.003-05:00

Got back from almost 2 weeks in Canada last weekend. Then catch up on work, laundry ... you know, the usual.

Luce's agility class on Wednesday night was cancelled due to ice, however, Blaze's class on Thursday night was a go. And then on Saturday I met up at Rosemarie's with a couple of people for a training session. I really envy Rosemarie her indoor :-)

Oh, there are SO MANY THINGS WE NEED TO WORK ON!!

Thursday night we had Mary Ellen and Alaina. I REALLY NEED to work on Blaze's start line stay. Okay, I can do that. He was releasing when I raise my hand. I worked on that on Saturday and I can see some improvement. That is something I can work on in the house. It is supposed to warm up above freezing for today only, so hopefully I can pry one of the jumps out of the ground, or even get the shed doors open, and bring a jump inside.

Blaze is dropping bars. One jump work. So, more use for a jump inside. He tends to do it when jumping very extended or very collected. I can work on the collected part in the house, but not the extended. I also noticed on Saturday, that if I can be very, very calm and quiet, he drops fewer bars. However, and Jean had the same problem with T, also a "baby dog", when I am trying to move into position to handle the next bit, then the bars go flying.

I also noticed, that whereas Blaze can find obstacles here in the yard or up at the Kruisin barn, he had problems the first sequence in class and then on Saturday. He isn't used to looking for obstacles so he ends up running by them. So, that will mean going to run throughs etc. But now now ... there is more training to be done.

While dogs did Mary Ellen's sequence, others went over to Alaina to work on dogwalk contacts. Alaina gave me some good pointers, the most important being to visualize what I want in the end contact behaviour. What I want Most important. I am willing to accept a foot or two off of the plank. I am not good enough (or let's face it, patient enough!!) to enforce all paws on. What I really want out of the dogwalk and teeter, is Blaze in a down and one elbow on the plank and at least one back leg. I need to train myself to see it as soon as it happens and give him a verbal marker, which will be "yes" Then ping pong the duration. So, I also need to pry either the teeter board or travel plank out of the ice and bring that inside also.

We also worked on the aframe on Saturday where I realized that I will accept a different performance. There, I want a down, but I don't care if his elbows are off the board ... I want the back feet ON, but given the steepness, I can accept that he might not be able to stop with elbows on. If they ARE on, fine, but he has to have his elbows touching a surface.

I was very please that he is landing ON the aframe very softly and running up. I hope he keeps that!

Luce was happy to do some agility again and running with her is so comfortable! She doesn't have the distance that Blaze does and doesn't have the "twitchiness" either. But she also understands more. One of the sequences was much easier for Luce and Zen than it was for Blaze and T due to their experience. However, Blaze can get weave pole entries that Luce can't.

It was nice to get into "agility mode" again!

Interlude

2009-01-18T21:58:00.004-05:00

Well, agility is on hold ... I'm not at home! Drove up to Canada to help my parents. Mom was coming out of the hospital and also needed to be here for Dad. The drive up was great, 8 hours door to door, no traffic and very little snow.

I had been wondering about the ramp into the house and whether it would be too steep. I was happy to see that it looked very manageable.

Of course, it wasn't covered in snow when I got here ... that came mostly last night and this morning. Here is my car after a few hours of being swept off:

There was quite a bit of snow when I got here and more has fallen. Believe it or not, there is a pool here :-)

I'll call this section: For The Birds.

Poor birds! Dad keeps this path shoveled out and replenishes the bird feeders. But look at that bird bath!

This bird feeder is somewhat protected and it still got dumped on:

Okay, bye for now!

Blaze's First Agility Class

2009-01-11T11:44:00.003-05:00

Blaze had his first agility class this past week. He had been in a few beginner classes over a year ago, but got so high, that he couldn't function.

We've worked through some of that and, plus, he is older now.

Working in the building is hard though .... he needs to stay in the car until it almost his turn. Otherwise he barks like a maniac .. or we have to tug. I think my arms are longer now :-)

This class actually splits into two sections with both sections working the floor at the same time. Well, we learned that Blaze needs to be the only dog on the floor. Sigh. Not going to worry about it yet ... hopefully by the time he ever goes to a trial outside with two rings running at the same time, he will be even better in the focus department.

We worked on his start line stay .. Jean gave me some good tips. I haven't really worked on it, so I'm not worried about that either.

The second half had a dogwalk and he FLEW off of it twice. Ended up scraping his knee up, but isn't limping. And I mean FLEW. I don't want to slow him down, but I somehow need to figure out how to get him to THINK about what he is doing. He was fine both times at the Match this weekend, but it was in a different location and I came up with a sequence in the opening portion of the gamblers to bleed off a little speed first.

I was pleased over all ... he is responsive to what I am doing so it will be a matter of him learning what my cues mean and me learning how to give him the information HE needs properly. He doesn't handle like Luce and that will take me time to figure out how to handle him properly. I didn't enter him in Jumpers at the Match for that very reason as I have no idea right now how to handle all jumps with no places to slow down or catch a breath like at a contact or weaves.

It will come ... but now it is on hold for 2 weeks. Eventually we'll get to class ... I hope :-) I didn't plan to have him entered in a USDAA trial until September Blackthorne at the earliest ... and now I have to wonder if there is going to BE a September Blackthorne ... ack, always something!

Sanctioned Match

2009-01-11T11:35:00.002-05:00

We got through the Lehigh Valley Dream Weavers Sanctioned Match!

There was a huge threat of major snow and we discussed if we should cancel or ... what could we do.

We decided to start the day and see if we could get enough classes in. And it really worked out well with the snow holding off! A lot of people didn't make it, which was understandable. But enough die hards, more than half!, came out and we had a good time. Agility people are crazy :-)

Lehigh Valley Dream Weavers is a nice club to work with. Most of the members were prepared and had really thought things through. It won't be a problem when it is time to hold a "real" trial ... finding a date will be the toughest :-)

I didn't bring Luce with me as I'm still not sure about her foot/toe. Doesn't seem 100% yet, so I just brought Blaze. He was just entered in Gamblers and Snooker so that I could try to maintain my contact criteria. He did a good job for the most part. He didn't get the gamble because he went WAY out and took something even further away! But got and stuck both of his dogwalks and the teeter. Did one set of weaves and he nailed that too.

He had a fantastic snooker run!! 47 points and 1st place! I told myself to just stay calm and I did and just tried to stay in tune with him. I walked one plan that I had and it would have required too much "snookering" with him right now. We don't have those kind of skillz yet :-) Came up with another one and it was perfect for him. He didn't drop any bars (it looks like if I slow down or stop as he is in the air he will drop a bar, so I have to keep moving and let him know before he takes off that we are going to turn or go straight or whatever), responded well, and got his teeter contacts both times. Very, very pleased. And what a rush to run him!

But now, we have to take 2 weeks off. I need to get up to Mom & Dad's and need to leave on Tuesday for almost 2 weeks. Leaving the dogs at home as Mom's leg is still too fragile to risk one of the dogs possibly bumping into her.

So, now gotta get a bunch of stuff done so that I CAN leave!

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

2009-01-01T09:30:00.010-05:00

First, Happy New Year!

And so I start 2009 ... being very, very tired because we stayed up way past midnight. New Years Eve is hard for someone who usually falls asleep by 10pm :-)

I'm waiting for the rest of the household to wake up, so I hopped on to the blog.

Last week was a PIP. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly all rolled into one week!

Let's start with The Bad & The Ugly and get that over with. Where to start? Mom fell off a stepladder 2 weeks before Christmas while decorating the Christmas tree and shattered her left knee. Had to have surgery with pins or screws and she is still in the hospital. It will be weeks before she can put weight on that leg and then months and months of rehab. She told me yesterday that the doctor said she had "destroyed" her knee.

The Sunday before Christmas had everything all covered with ice. Luce ran out on to the yard and couldn't stop and bent her outside toenail on her back right paw. Took her in on Tuesday as she was still not putting weight on it and she had to have her toenail removed. However, she is now fine and not limping at all.

Looking pitiful on Christmas Day with her bandaged foot.

Something went wrong with the hot water heater on Christmas Eve, so we only had a bit of hot water every few hours. Which really sucks when you are trying to clean up after a prime rib roast on Christmas Eve, a turkey on Christmas Day and about to have company. It was still under warranty and the company sent out a new part (a control board I think)

Then there was the fiasco in the master bathroom the day after Christmas ... pipe came apart or something and flooded the cabinet and into the kitchen ceiling and the kitchen window seat ceiling.

Enough of that and on to The Good! Well, it was Christmas :-) And, wheee!! I got a Wii! Didn't get a Wii Fit yet though ... they are hard to come by and I don't want one badly enough to pay double for it. The boys laughed when I said I wanted one and Hugh said he wouldn't use it, but, gee, guess what has received a LOT of use since Christmas? :-)

Blaze was in heaven on Christmas - he got a new can of tennis balls! Which one to play with first, oh, the decisions!

And 3 days before Christmas, I got a new car - a Honda Element! Hugh had driven out to Pittsburgh to pick up Evan for Christmas break and said the transmission was slipping in my Envoy. It had a lot of miles on it, so he started looking for a new car for me. Now that I don't have to car pool for middle or high school, I could expand my list of cars. The primary purpose will be for driving the dogs around and the Honda Element is considered one of the ultimate dog cars as it is easy to clean out and it is very boxy in shape which makes it easier for dog crates. It also gets better gas mileage than the Envoy. Oh, and it has an outlet for my iPod with volume controls in the steering wheel - a huge selling feature for me right there :-)

The bumble bee in the inset is an antenna topper that I got for Christmas ... helps me find my car in the sea of silver SUV's in the parking lot :-) My choices of colors were silver, silver and silver. I really like the Element - it is fun and peppy to drive. And surprisingly peppy on the highway as well. Hugh will build a shelf for the crates to sit on in the back and that will give me storage underneath them. We will take out the back seats as well.

Oh, just before Christmas we also bought two chairs for the living room at a company that is going out of business. I really like them. Next will be a footstool or ottoman, but that will wait until I find what I like. Unfortunately, I hate furniture shopping (almost as much as I dislike clothes shopping!) and there doesn't seem to be an Ottomans R Us store around here, so it might be a while :-)

We have had two sets of company this past week, so the house is cleaner than it was. Note, that I didn't say "clean" But it is getting there.

So, I think that is about it. We don't have snow even though it sounds like the rest of the country does ... even places like Seattle, Vancouver and Arizona. We just have either 60 degrees and mud or freezing cold and ice.

Happy New Year!

Winter Mix

2008-12-20T09:26:00.003-05:00

Again the weather people made a big deal out of virtually nothing ... for around here, anyway. We seem to live right on the cusp of weather vs no weather. Whereas Mom & Dad in Ontario got a lot of snow, and the NH contingent reports 9 inches, we just got a "wintery mix" yesterday. Rain, sleet, bit of snow.

The rain drops turned to ice in the evening and during the night. Most things have a shiny coating of ice .... very pretty.

Living Room - getting there

2008-12-20T09:22:00.003-05:00

The living room is getting there ....

We still have to buy two chairs and an ottoman. Because I want an ottoman :-) The red one there is a desk chair and the green one is one of the dining room chairs.

I Won!

2008-12-17T16:31:00.004-05:00

I commented over at Biggest Diabetic Loser at the beginning of the month and I ended up winning! The package came yesterday but I only got a chance to open it up today. I got a neat snowman mug, some hot chocolate, two jars of Barefoot Contessa sauces and a book! The original post was here

Thank you Biz!!! I love it :-)

DOCNA Weekend Continued

2008-12-14T17:12:00.004-05:00

Overall, I am very pleased with this weekend. DOCNA is such a feel-good venue and I am usually much more relaxed and do well.

Luce finished up some titles and was running really well. Weather was cool which she prefers. Plus, this was at the building where we train, so it was on home turf. She had 12 runs over the weekend and Q'd in 10 of them ... sure wish that was the case each trial ;-) Too many bobbles, all my fault, for my liking. Some would have been refusals in USDAA, so they wouldn't have been Q's. Only 2 bars down the whole weekend ... unfortunately one in the second jumpers today which meant no Jumpers title this year. My fault though ... I should have put in a front cross, I was indecisive and down it came. Need to be more assertive and stop chickening out! :-)

Blaze did 2 runs per day. Saturday started off with Standard and no stay at the start at all ... first obstacle was a chute and apparently that is just too much :-) I haven't really trained or worked at the start line stay, so when he was vibrating and just staring at the chute, I decided to just let him go. And, boy, did he GO! :-) It was chute, jump, aframe in a line and he stopped at the aframe down contact, so I was able to catch up. I was concerned about the next bit ... jump, jump, then 90 degree turn to the weaves. But, there was another jump beyond the second one with huge off course potential. I don't know how to "turn" him yet and I didn't want to give him a cue to turn and have him just take off and ignore me. I was able to leave him on the aframe (thank goodness for stopped contacts!!) and was able to stand at the next jump and release. Then just one step for him to take the next jump while I then pulled to the weaves and told him to weave. Which he did :-) I crossed behind and got up to the next jump.

The rest was lovely ... from what I remember ... it is all a blur. I know I had to do a blind cross at a curved tunnel as there was no way I was getting there for a front. And he doesn't rear cross yet ;-) Anyway, he was great, he got his first Q ever and a 1st place to boot! I cried :-)

Next run, traditional gamblers, was next for him. He got most of the opening okay ... the gamble was jump, tunnel, back over the jump, then bring them around for another jump. The problem was when they were to come back over the jump, the aframe was right there too and I was worried he would keep going for an off course. I guess I was too close to the jump and he took the bar. Oh well :-)

Today was Snakes N Ladders. It was beautiful ... he only ran by one set of weaves because I was blocking them when he came out of the tunnel and he came with me when I stepped aside. No problem ... turned us both around and he got them for a Q and a 2nd place and his first title!

Last run today was what I was expecting Friday night. Young, green dog running amok! I was debating running either of them in Strategic Gamblers as I was just too tired to come up with a plan. I should have listened to my instincts and just bagged it and gone home. Luce's run was first and it was horrible ... she missed both dogwalk contacts (first of the weekend) and I misjudged the closing and we were over time. I got Blaze out too early and he was WAY too high. No stay at the start and he just WENT. I tried to call him back but he was WAY gone. I am also really mad at myself for NOT holding his contacts as they were NOT what I had the rest of the weekend.

But, overall, good weekend ... for the most part, Blaze can hold his contacts (I REALLY need to work on myself to make sure he DOES hold them!! Definitely no USDAA trials before September!! DOCNA or matches ONLY) If he sees the weaves, he gets in them and does them all. But we need to learn how to turn and to handle ... which I knew. Also, outside trials will be a little easier as I will be able to go behind the tents and watch what is going on. At the building, I had to keep going up the building and peer through the windows to see what was going on. Plus, the very act of going through the door makes him crazy and all the competitors and dogs are all in one spot instead of spread out.

Blaze's Agility Debut

2008-12-12T21:57:00.003-05:00

This weekend is a DOCNA trial at our training building and there are usually two classes on Friday night. There typically aren't a lot of runs and not a lot of dogs or people, so I thought it would be a good place for Blaze to actually be in a trial.

He was manageable in the building ... as long as I had his tug. But he was listening even when I didn't have it ... would sit, give me his paw, nose touches in between the yelping. I need to teach some more tricks though ... calm tricks.

We did the jump and the weave poles in the practice area and he totally was focused on me and not on the dog in the ring. Very good!! He couldn't do that the first year I had him.

First was Strategic Gamblers. He held his stay at the start. He did NOT knock every bar Yes, he knocked a couple, but left most of them up. Most important ... he STUCK his aframe (twice!!) and teeter. I mean 2on/2off and didn't leave until I said OK!!!! He was going so fast that he ended up falling off of the dogwalk. And he got his weaves and FAST! We didn't Q because we crossed the finish line way too early .... like 2 seconds too early. I haven't run him before so I had no idea how many obstacles he could do .... looks like I need to plan for a LOT more with Blaze than I do with Luce :-)

Second was Snakes & Ladders. Did NOT stay at the start. I couldn't find the smaller tug, so he was ramped up too much coming into the ring. Lesson learned. BUT ... again, he STUCK all 3 contacts ... 2on/2off until the OK. And got all 3 sets of weaves!! But we didn't Q .... I wasn't fast enough and direct enough so my pull to the finish line was weak, so he turned and put his paws on the aframe again for an "E". Oh well :-) I need to be quicker with this boy :-)

So, I was ecstatic with his contacts and weaves. I had decided to put him in this trial to see if he could do them in this situation and he can!! But .... as I suspected, it isn't the obstacles themselves, it is everything in between! One small forward cue too many, and off he goes. And I am SO used to giving lots of forward cues for Luce .... this will take some time. It didn't matter with the Strategic Gamblers as he just racked up more points. He took the wrong tunnel after one of the sets of weaves in Snakes and Ladders which altered my plan .... I put one step forward and off he went!

That was the purpose with this trial ... to see where we are. He hasn't even attended a class yet, so I'm not upset. He has two classes tomorrow as well, but for some reason, I didn't sign him up on Sunday.

I also got Blaze measured ... the judge was Bud Houston who has been judging for quite a while for various venues, so I think it is a good measurement. 20-7/8" Woohooo, under 21!! Doesn't matter for DOCNA as 22" is the cutoff for the next jump height, but he needs to be 21" or under for USDAA. He didn't snap at the judge and was fairly calm for the measurement which was good too ;-) I always expect the worst LOL Unfortunately, he will need another measurement as he isn't 3 years old yet, but he is good for the weekend. I think Darryl said he didn't need another measurement now until he is 3, but there are 3 spaces on the form ... guess I should read the rules again.

Oh yeah, I also phoned the vet today and Blaze is officially heartworm free now! So the treatment in the summer worked and we don't have to worry any more.

Luce did well ... she Q'd in Strategic Gamblers for her Specialist Gamblers Title and also Q'd in Snakes & Ladders .. that is her first Q at the Specialist level as we had to start at Beginners for that class. She was moving too, I didn't have to drag her around the ring. And she got all of her contacts - not 2on/2off at a trial like Blaze gave me, but in the yellow without leaping off.

Luce is entered in everything this weekend but I might not go on Sunday morning ... other stuff to do.

I'd been apprehensive about this trial, but it went pretty much as should have been expected. I need to manage him BIG time outside the ring. I need to work on his start line stays. He has good contacts and weaves. And we need to work on handling BIG time.

But, I was able to manage him for the most part - so I am feeling better about getting him into a class situation now. I need to figure out which class and when and how I am going to manage that. He would be eligible for a class on Thursday night at Keystone ... Luce's class is Wednesday night. Two nights in a row ... eeek. But I need to keep going to class with Luce for those 2 elusive gambler legs for her APD (Performance ADCH). We are also working towards the Silver Snooker and Bronze Standard titles as well ....

Off to bed ... we are going back tomorrow and the first dog is at 7:15am ... EARLY!!

Duh Moment

2008-12-12T21:49:00.003-05:00

I had my MRI today ... and a "duh" moment as well. I knew that I couldn't wear anything with metal in it, so that meant no jeans. My sweatpants have a huge hole in them, so they were out. I had a pair of "activewear" pants that have a zipper on the bottom of the leg. The zipper itself is plastic and the zipper pull didn't attract the fridge magnets, so I wore those.

When I was checked in and all, the receptionist said we better not take a chance with the pants and gave me a pair of scrub pants ... and that was the "duh" moment. I wear scrubs to work every single day and never even thought of wearing those!!

One of the gals at work told me that I also couldn't wear metal when I go for my bone density next week ... so I will wear scrubs :-)

If I ever have an MRI done again, I will also make sure that I don't drink a lot of coffee ... and make sure I drink water for at least a day before. But not right before ... when you are laying there in that little MRI tube and you know you can't move, that's when you think you have to go to the bathroom (again) and when your nose starts to itch :-) They did the first series of scans/images (whatever they are called), then pulled me out to inject a dye for the second set. Well, because of all the coffee and the lack of water, I was really dehydrated. My veins like to "hide" anyway, but when I am dehydrated, it is really hard to find them. It took 2 people a long time ... and 7 tries in my hands and arms later, they finally got it.

Musing (Whining?)

2008-12-12T11:03:00.004-05:00

What is with the weather? Who is in charge, cuz, whoever (whomever?) it is, isn't doing a very good job. It rained for TWO SOLID DAYS. Poured rain. Not just drizzle, but POURED. The dogs didn't want to do out in it and they usually don't mind.

Last weekend it was FREEZING COLD. Of course, I was at an agility seminar in an unheated building. Of course. Wednesday, it was close to 60 degrees. Did I get to go to agility? No. Won't get into that here. I have an agility trial this weekend and what is the temperature going to do? Don't need to be a weatherperson to forecast that one.

I probably need some cheese to go with this whine. But it's my blog and I can whine if I want to.

Just an Update

2008-12-01T08:04:00.004-05:00

Just an update because it is now December :-)

The living room is coming along ... the floor is done and we bought an area rug. We are now on the hunt for two wing-type chairs and an ottoman. The drums still need to go away and we need to put in the sofa table and end table. The chair that was in the living room is up in our bedroom and the couch is still, temporarily, in the dining room. It will be thrown out ... poor Luce ... she sleeps in that a lot! Not worry, I put one of the dog beds in the a corner in the living room and will be on the look out for a nicer bed for her. She was already sleeping on the bare floor after it was done, so I have made it a bit more comfortable. She does like her little corner of the room :-)

There is still a lot of stuff in the dining room, but at least we got to eat Thanksgiving dinner in there. I brined the turkey for the first time and, boy, was it ever flavorful and tender! A little salty, but then again, the brine recipe was for a 20lb bird and ours was 13lbs. I did cut down on the salt, but I guess I need to cut down a little more.

I also made this pumpkin cheesecake. Other than the crust, it was SO good! It wasn't a dense cheesecake, but rather, was kind of fluffy. The crust got hard, like a really hard cookie, but it was good too. Other people had the same problem, so I'm not sure what the answer is.

I worked from home a lot last week. Brennan had his last day of work last week on Monday and Evan spent most of his time here out with various friends. Hugh was out of town, so I was able to get a lot done!

I also, finally, got a website up for my trial secretary stuff: www.dognutmom.com Took a bit of fiddling to find a website template that I liked and that I could update on my own. Brennan was going to write it, or find me a template, but I wasn't liking a lot of the choices. We tried Wordpress as well, but I found it hard to customize to the way I wanted it to look. Wordpress is primarily blogging software as is this site, Blogger. This site doesn't really easily allow the separate pages that I wanted. Separate pages are slightly easier to get in Wordpress, but I was having trouble with formatting. The hosting site that I went with has SiteBuilder for free and it just "clicked" with my brain, so that is what I went with :-) I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel or relearn everything every time I update something. Or have to rely on Brennan to do it for me. After all, one of the reasons I did want my own site was to be able to publish trial test schedules, copies of final confirmations and running orders when it was ready and not to have to rely on the webmasters of each individual club to do it. Not that it never gets done ... it does! But things can happen, people can be away, or they have work etc, so I wanted my own site to consolidate it all.

I'll get my first chance to update it when the test schedule for the sanctioned match I am doing is finally approved, which will be this week I hope. I got that done last week as well and it is at USDAA for approval. I am sure there will be changes as there always ARE changes. I was lucky ... only two changes for the February Keystone trial and those were changes in wording that USDAA had just decided on, nothing that I had missed .... but this is a brand new test schedule, from scratch, so I am sure there will be things that I need to change around.

I also need to figure out how to get a list of height cards that I have on file into one big READABLE list and figure out the best way to update it as well. And I want to get results on there for the two October trials. I got some of it on there already. It will be easier to produce when I am wrapping up each trial rather than go back and do two whole trials all at once.

Evan went back to Duquesne yesterday. Hugh decided to come along as he hadn't seen the school since Evan went to look at it in April. However, it rained/sleeted the whole drive there and rained/sleeted the whole way home. The drive there took a bit longer than usual as we had to slow down to 30mph at times due to fog. As we got over to the west side of the state, past all the tunnels, we noticed that the eastbound turnpike was stop and go with lineups miles long. A couple of times it was due to the salters being out and doing their job, but other times, we weren't sure. We're talking MILES long. So, after we got Evan moved back in, we got out the map, played with the GPS and took an alternate route home. Which took longer. LONG day of driving and Hugh did all of it. He wanted to drive and kept refusing our offers to drive. I slept off and on and listened to books on my ipod :-) Evan slept most of the way.

Because there were 3 of us, we were able to move Evan back in one trip. Hugh, of course, was appalled at small size of the dorm room. He was always appalled when Brennan was at school too and can't understand why everyone just doesn't live at home :-)

We didn't walk around the campus because it was cold and raining. Of course it was ... I brought my camera!

Some Changes

2008-11-09T09:58:00.005-05:00

We have some changes going on.

This is our dining room right now:

View from the hallway:

What is going on?

Well, this:

Wood floor in the living room.

I'm not crazy about the color, but the carpet was absolutely shot. Someone, not me, REALLY wanted more wood floor, so I compromised on the living room instead of the diningroom. I think this is darker than Brennan and Hugh thought it was, but there it is. Things I don't like are dark wood and brown ... and now here is dark wood and the front door and part of the porch is brown! Not really not liking that.

Luce isn't happy right now as her "hole" in the living room is gone. She doesn't know where to go, where to lie down, and is very restless. I will put down a dog bed or a large mat in her "hole" when it is all done. Blaze doesn't like the sound of the compressor when it goes off, or the frequent vacuuming Brennan and Hugh need to do.

It will look nice when it is done and we get a large area rug in there. Hugh is going too gung ho with change though. I prefer to get ONE thing done, then go on to the next. He also wanted to rip up the dining room carpet while he was at it (and just where was all the dining room stuff going to go?) and get rid of the couch and chair ...

We also got a new mattress and box spring for our bed (first time I woke up without a backache in quite a while!) So, not only is the whole living room in the dining room, but the old mattress/box spring is leaning against the wall in our room. And there are still boxes and bags and such in the upstairs hallway and in Evan's room from when Brennan painted his room. At least I moved and reorganized a lot of the stuff that ended up in Evan's room so that you can see the floor and walk around.

I am trying to be positive because I do not like change :-) However, I don't like every room pulled apart all at the same time. 2 winters ago when Hugh had Brennan painting, every single room of the house was out of whack. Either things were moved out of the room so that Brennan could paint, or a room was full of stuff from another room. Plus, Evan was going to paint his room and had moved a lot of stuff out of there into our room and the basement. That was a mess and was not relaxing at all. Then I had to get ready for one of the Keystone trials, so my time was limited as well.

I have had the last 2 or 3 weeks off from trials, so I have had some time for cleaning. Of course, now with everything moved around, and sawing and such, it will all have to be redone. And I will be gone next weekend for a trial and life is going to start getting busy again. If we can just do one room at a time, it would be so much easier and less chaotic and I would be a little more receptive to some changes.

Wider Blogging Area

2008-11-07T10:40:00.007-05:00

I found a guide to widen the actual blogging area for this template:

http://bguide.blogspot.com/2008/04/rounders-with-wider-post-area.html

Pictures and video will fit much better now.

Now I need to center the header picture (or make it bigger) ... I did it before, so I can find out how to do it again :-)

Thursday morning practice

2008-11-07T08:36:00.004-05:00

I had reserved the Kruisin barn for Thursday morning, so off we went. Blaze barked the whole way there which was very unnerving.

There was a whole course set up - Thursday morning is a good time to go :-)

I took Blaze out first. We worked on the opening quite a bit as it was tricky. Sort of a loop coming back, extending out a bit, then looping back then switching.

We needed to work on when I need to slow down or move laterally, or both, so that Blaze reads it and collects. His inclination is to YEE HAW down a line of jumps :-) However, I have been working on some jumping stuff at home where he needs to collect and come to me and work close and it seems to be paying off.

He did get it after a while. If he got the handling cues about turning, then he dropped a bar, so we still don't have it right. Sigh. At least he was doing 20" the whole time (Kruisin has AKC/NADAC jump cups, so no 22") and didn't duck under any of the jump bars like he did in September. I have to NOT get obsessed with the dropped bars and create a problem where none exists right now. It is most likely just a green dog thing.

He got all of his contacts which was good. I was very pleased with that. He wants to leave SO badly though .... I will need to continue to reinforce the contact behavior so that it doesn't become a problem. And remember that the DOCNA trial in December is for the training!!! Maybe if I tell myself that enough between now and then I'll actually DO it :-)

There were tricky sections on that 23 obstacle course, so I broke it down and we worked on parts.

I tell you, I really need to get into shape for this dog! After the aframe, it was a jump, jump, weaves, all in a straight line. Then a curved tunnel beyond the weaves but they had to take the far end of the tunnel. A front cross at the end of the weaves worked the best to get Blaze into the correct end of the tunnel, but to get to the end of the weaves to actually DO it was hard work! I didn't have the right shoes on which didn't help. So, note to self, ALWAYS weave running shoes when running Blaze!! And it was still humid in the barn! My jeans felt like I was wearing lead which didn't help matters any! And thank goodness Blaze has stopped contacts, because I couldn't get to the end of the dogwalk before he did and it was a flip away to a tunnel.

One problem we had at that section was there was a dummy chute even and to the left of the weaves. I was on Blazes left, and he took the chute the first 3 times ... if he was ahead of me, he crossed in front of me to take it and once I was ahead of him and he crossed behind me to take it. Not sure what was up with that - I need to bring the video camera. Maybe a tunnel is more of a draw than weave poles are? More visible? I was on that side? I somehow cued it? I don't know. Once he knew where the weave poles were he was fine, but we aren't going to get a second chance in a trial situation!

I was very winded after Blaze's session. I rested a bit, then it was Luce's turn. It would be SO much easier if they jumped the same height! Luce would have gotten a Q our first time around :-) Good little girl :-) We redid some parts to tighten turns etc ... actually got a flyoff the aframe, yikes! Got to correct that and I went back to reinforcing all of the contacts. She got the weave pole entrance, the little monkey ... why not at trials!!! Again, need to bring the video camera to see just what the heck I am doing differently!! I would love it if she had independent weave poles, but she doesn't and at age 9, I don't know that she ever will have. I am certainly aiming for that with Blaze!

We had a little break, then I brought Blaze back for another go at the first half which was the trickiest. I had noticed with Luce that if I moved even more laterally AND slowed down, it cued a certain turn much better than the way I had done it with Blaze. It did work better and he really collected and knew that he was going to turn. I should have thrown in some going straight at that point ... just thought of that now. He is smart enough that he knew what the course was by that point :-) Anyway, more bar problems. Hopefully this will resolve itself eventually.

We didn't get to work on rear crosses, but the extension/collection stuff was good. Didn't do any distance stuff with Luce either. I need to go with a plan in my head for her.

Unfortunately, Blaze must have very tender feet because he has some very tender spots on his pads, and two of them are slipped. I think due to the combination of doing the contacts and the mulch. So, that is it for agility for a week until his pads are better. He did this once before at the barn and I totally had forgotten about it. I will have to be more careful in the future if the contacts are out. It is only on the contacts ... when it is just jumps, he is fine.

All in all, a good session. Blaze wasn't crazy wild like he was in class that one night. He was "listening" more and I'm trying to handle more. The first time through the sequence, I was too afraid to get up to one point for a front cross as I was afraid it would push him even further out. Gave myself a stern talking to, and got up there all the other times.

Got to work on stay at the start and the first obstacle was a tunnel that Blaze VERY much wanted to take :-)

Blaze rode in the back of the car in the crate on the way home. I figured, if he was going to bark non stop, he might as well do it back there rather than right behind me in the car. He was POOPED, so other than his usual barking as the car starts up, he was quite almost the whole time home :-)

Wednesday night class

2008-11-07T08:23:00.002-05:00

We got to class on Wednesday night. Missed last week due to not having a car, so it was good to be able to go back. My usual ambivalence - usually tired by that time so that I don't want to go, but I enjoy it when I get there.

Brought Blaze along as well and he was horrible in the car. He had been settling in riding in the back seat, but that night it was non stop barking like he used to do when he rode in the crate in the back of the car. This barking makes me CRAZY!!

Our sequences were short which was fine. I like a mix over time of small drills, short sequences and full blown courses. The floor was divided into two sections with a short self serve sequence on the other side.

We got there early, so the early class was still going on (traffic is always a crap shoot, so sometimes we are on time, sometimes we are early) I brought Blaze into the building as I figured that Luce would have her time in there for the actual class. I brought a tug with me, approached the door, and expected the worst. And was very pleasantly surprised! Blaze was interested in his tugging and didn't even notice that a dog was running at first. Then he noticed and went for his tug. There was a jump and a set of 6 weave poles out on the mat and he dragged me over to that. So ... I took a chance, took off his leash and we did some jump, weave, jump combos with a reward of his tug and he never gave the actual ring a glance!!

We were even able to get up to where people were watching ... and Blaze was wonderful. He was fearsome on the tug :-) but if it means he can be managed and divert his excitement away from barking and screaming, I'm all for it! Some people didn't even realize I had Blaze there ... the most noise he made was when I stepped on his foot accidently.... ooops!

So, I was very, very pleased and have some hope that we will actually be able to attempt some runs at the DOCNA trial in December. There weren't a lot of people in class, so it wasn't crazy and there typically aren't a lot of people there on Friday night of the DOCNA trial.

Luce had a good night, especially the first sequence. We tried different ways of handling it with pushes and pulls and crossing here and then there. It was all good and I am going to try and trust Luce more on certain types of jump combinations.

I "lost" Luce a little on the second sequence. It was drizzling outside and was windy, so inside the building, it sounded like a torrential downpour! Luce, of course, equates that with thunder and she was getting apprehensive, especially when there were huge gusts of wind. She got through the second sequence okay, but not at the speed she had for the first one.

We also did the self serve part once ... it had a teeter and weaves and she got her weave poles, the little monkey :-)

Weaving

2008-11-05T16:33:00.003-05:00

Did a short session this morning with weaving again.

Also resurrected the older camera that also has video capabilities.

This is Blaze doing "soft side" weaves.

And Blaze doing "hard side" weaves out of a tunnel. The tunnel was almost at 90 degrees and I did a cross behind. He doesn't seem to care what I am doing when he is weaving which is what I want.

Wow, imbedding video actually works :-)

Training

2008-11-04T20:27:00.003-05:00

I feel like I am returning to the land of the living. What with most of the Fair Hill entries coming in the last week of closing, then pre trial prep for Keystone and then Fair Hill, then the week after the trials spent in doing all the post trial paperwork and getting both trials into the mail (by 2:38pm on Friday, woot!!) there wasn't much time for anything else. Then, I didn't have a car last week because of two stupid bolts that had gone missing from the rear brake calipers. Took them a whole, solid week to get two new ones!!

Anyway, car is back, trials are out the door! I need to start on the test schedule for Keystone's February trial. And find out who is doing the test schedule for Lehigh Valley Dream Weavers sanctionned match in January. But I can take a break from all that for a couple of weeks.

I went up to the Kruisin barn today for the first time in over a month. Worked on rear crosses and jumping with Blaze. He is getting it, he is getting it!!!! I do have to give him more turning cues or he will just keep on going. He did some serpentines as well. So cool :-) He did most of them at 20" and kept a lot of bars up ... a lot better than early September anyway :-) I do think it will come! I just have to learn how to "steer" him :-)

I also put him on the aframe (full height) and dogwalk (half height as that was how it was set) and he got all of his contacts. Decided to give him some distraction on the aframe by swinging his tug toy. He came off, so I put him back on. He then trembled and was just dying to go, but he stayed there and stayed for several reps, good boy!!

Put him away, brought Luce out. Didn't work her as much as she will have class tomorrow night. Did some weave pole entrances which she got. Hmmm. Why there and not at home? Same angle. At home she isn't bending and is going in between 2 and 3. Mulch surface at the barn, so maybe she can't go as fast as the hard ground at home? And it was a little wet at home on the weekend, so maybe she didn't feel she had good footing? Not sure. We'll see how she does on the Sprint Turf at Barto.

She does not have as good entrances as the Blazo Boy though .... I have to manage hers as she isn't reliable at anything greater than 45 degrees or so. At least she is collecting herself and making an effort to get the poles .... except for at home this weekend. Gotta be the footing. Gotta move the weave poles in the yard when it is drier out (it drizzled a little today) and see if that is the reason.

She is a little monkey and can be squirrely. As well as being a border collie I remember a few years ago when I had the weave poles on the front yard. She would only weave in one direction .. didn't matter if I was on her left or her right, she would only go from the creek side of the yard to the driveway side of the yard and not back again. That went on for not quite a week and then she was fine. But it was strange while it happened :-)

We have another session reserved on Thursday morning. More of the equipment should be out and maybe I can get some sequencing in for Blaze and work on communicating with each other on course. It is just a matter of working with him and both of us learning how to "talk" to each other. Plus he is a green dog, so that is a factor as well.

Anna was there with her new dog, Spring, when I got there. We talked for a bit before she left, and she said Tuesday was the worst day to come as the beginners have been there Monday night and nothing is out. That's okay, I can always find something to work on and there were jumps set up in the outside ring.

Anna would love to train with someone, so we might get together starting in the new year. Spring is quite different from Belle :-) It will help me stay focussed and will help having another set of eyes. And it is easier to move equipment with two people ;-) Spring will need more basic stuff which won't hurt Blaze to do. I haven't done everything with him that I probably should.

Anyway, I was pleased with the short session. I didn't stay that long as it was humid up there for some reason. Freezing back at the house, but humid in the barn. Go figure.

DOCNA Nationals - October 2008

2008-11-04T20:02:00.006-05:00

After blogging about USDAA Nationals, I did have to mention that Luce and I went to DOCNA Nationals the first weekend of October. It was up at Barto where we usually train, so it was a no-brainer :-)

DOCNA, Dogs on Course in North America, is a fairly new organization that is a lot of fun. They sort of took all the best parts of the various venues and discarded other parts. Courses are nice and reasonable, equipment is whatever is available (ie what we are used to) and training in the ring is well defined. 3 tries up to SCT and then out. I took advantage of that in August when Luce flew off the aframe. I let the judge know we were dropping to training and I put her back on the bottom of the frame. The look on Luce's face was priceless because this doesn't happen at a trial!! We then swung around, did a few jumps back to the aframe and she stuck it. Came back over, stuck it again, good girl and out! The next run was North America Challenge (sort of like Grand Prix) and Luce got her contacts, good girl :-)

Blaze will be debuting in DOCNA in December as I can go back and train. Plus it is still a low key venue which will help.

Anyway, I didn't do the whole 3 days as Keystone was the following weekend with Kinetic the weekend after that. Too much pre-trial prep work to do! So we went on Saturday only. Got a Nationals shirt and a tote bag of goodies. The judge and one of the venue owners are Canadians so they even played Oh Canada as well as the National Anthem :-) It was also a beautiful day in terms of weather and we knew a lot of people there. A lot of Kruisin Kanines folk as well as Keystone and others that I knew.

Luce did really well ... got her weave poles again. Only had one dropped bar and that was in the National Challenge which meant we came in second instead of first. Still, that earned her a silver medal for the East. The course was built out west as well (they apparently spent hours on the phone getting both courses as close as possible) and the results were combined. We would have finished 3rd in the country except for that uncharacteristic dropped bar!!

This pic is courtesy of Michelle Yon. She got one of Luce with her ribbons and medal and also got some of MABCR dogs as well as Kruisin dogs. The rest of the pictures are at Michelle's site.

DOCNA doesn't just have a warm up jump, but also has warm up weave poles. They also had one of the new self healing tires out in the warm up area, and later on, the dogwalk. I ran Blaze over them and he was great!!! Not sure if I was "allowed" to run Blaze on that stuff, but no one else was waiting to use the area and someone else said to just go ahead.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I'm glad I went. Now I can say that we went and competed at a Nationals event! We are already qualified to go next year, but apparently the weekend is being changed as they couldn't nail down the site in the West. 2009 will be the same weekend as the Keystone trial, so 2009 DOCNA Nationals is out for us ... and a lot of others as well. That made me doubley glad that I went!

Teams and Titling

2008-11-04T08:51:00.005-05:00

The Fair Hill trial was a few weeks ago now.

It was so much fun! I think secretarying for not-my-club is a little more relaxing than when I secretary for Keystone. The weather was great with no rain ... first time in 7 years or so I heard!

I've only ever done Fair Hill twice ... once with Princess back when USDAA was running it and it was still the Steeplechase and DAM Team Nationals and once, last year, with Luce. Both times I only went for one day, so this was a whole new experience.

I had Luce entered in everything and she LOVED the cooler weather. I had my old (young) dog back! We got a few Q's including a Gamble Q!!!! Two more and that is her APD, the Performance ADCH!

Rebecca & Piper teamed with Luce and me for Performance Versatility Pairs. We were supposed to team for NE Regionals. I wanted to do Team as I figured we would need another Team Q in order to earn the Accomplished Tournament Dog at some point in time. I didn't think we could earn the rest of the 10 Perf. Grand Prix Q's by the end of 2008 which is when the new Performance titling rules come into effect (finally!) By June 2008, we already had 7 GP Q's, 2 Steeplechase and 1 PVP. So, old or new rules, we had enough tournaments for the APD. New rules will mirror the Championship requirements, so for the Accomplished title, need 2 of each tournament and fill in the rest.

Rebecca had emailed me back before the NE Regional, asking if anyone had entered PVP as a draw, but it had to be someone wanted to go for a Q but understood if things happened. Or understood if she needed to pull Piper as Piper had had some medical issues the few months before. As I said, I had wanted to enter PVP, but hadn't lined anything up and was hesitant to enter as a draw as we can be inconsistant and the heat really slows Luce (and me!!) down. After all, chocolate DOES melt in the heat :-) Plus, being trial secretary means I am distracted and even less on my so-called game than usual. So this was perfect!!!

Back in 2006 when we hosted the NE Regional and I was secretary for it, I missed the Team Snooker briefing, and never had a chance to look at a course map. I walked it but it was quite a while before we could run. I totally missed that the #7 was tunnel, jump, tunnel. We were having a good run and were going for the 7 (can't remember if it was in the opening or closing!). Tunnel, jump, she heads for the tunnel and I pull her off, phew!! TWEET!!! Judge Tammy said I should have trusted my dog We came off and I was confused until someone explained. Ack!!

Rebecca understood and said she would undertake the responsibility of making sure I got to the walk throughs, tell me what I needed to know in case I missed the briefing and give me the gamble and snooker strategy. After a long series of ping ponging emails, we came up with a name, Caution, Loose Pipes!, and Rebecca even had tshirts made for us. Thursday came and I loaded up my car for the long weekend ahead and got to set up. Weather was really nice. Brennan called me saying someone left a message about being sick and the hospital and tick disease and apologising profusely. He really didn't get it, but thought he should call me. When I got to the hotel that night and was able to check my email, I got one from Rebecca ... she was the one who had called. She had gone to the ER with a really high fever and it turned out that SHE had Rocky Mountain and Ehrlichia and had to scratch. She was really sorry for pulling etc, etc.

Turns out it was for the best as it was BEASTLY hot and we had a lot of problems on Saturday because of the heat. Luce and I only had one run scheduled now that we weren't doing Team and we scratched out of that as well as it was round 1 of Grand Prix. As we had a bye (!!!!) we could run the next day anyway. Rebecca recovered as well, so that was good!!

Fast forward to Fair Hill and Rebecca and I decided to try the team again. Rebecca made sure I made the walk throughs, I actually made it to the briefings :-) She also was able to spend time with the course maps and gave me some strategies for Snooker and Gamblers.

Rebecca and Piper E'd in Jumpers but she did it so smoothly we weren't sure WHY she got an E until we asked someone. Luce and I almost E'd ... I finished rotating after a front cross and almost sent her over the wrong jump, recovered, but it put me out of position for the 180. Luce being not that fast meant I had time to peak around the jump to make sure it was the right one and we finished clean. Snooker went well for us both. Gamblers was a Time Gamble and we both finished. I wanted to play it conservatively and not lose points. Luce and I E'd in Standard. She is such an honest dog that she will try to do what I tell her even when it means I don't give her enough room and miscue her so much that I send her right INTO the jump standard. She turned around and looked at it like it had jumped out and bit her! She didn't seem to be limping so I put her in the weaves and could see the jump after the weaves that she wasn't right. I ended up taking her off the course when Cherie said she seemed to be limping. I think she just stung herself as she was fine afterwards.

We strategized over Relay and picked the half that was best for each dog. Had a couple of hairy moments with Luce and she even rolled out of the chute! Yikes!! But we were clean and we won the class!!!! The bigger, faster dogs were E'ing like crazy and that course really allowed some teams to move up above the line .... like Caution, Loose Pipes!!! So, that was our second Team Q and means Luce now has her Accomplished Tournament Dog title ... I guess it isn't official until January 1, but who is counting :-)

USDAA Nationals and agility musings

2008-11-04T07:49:00.008-05:00

USDAA Nationals happened over the weekend in Scottsdale, Arizona. This year, they had live streaming video of all of the tournament finals - woohoooo!!! They also have the videos archived.

It was SO cool to watch ... almost like being there. I was lucky enough to be able to go to the 2005 Nationals as DH offered me his frequent flyer miles, so I have been there. And that was a lot of fun too :-)

How neat to be able to watch people from this area compete .. and to see people from the North East as ring crew. I would go to do that, but getting all that time off of work and home ... and the money to fly out there .... it isn't going to happen. If I did go again, I would rent a car so that I wasn't dependent on hitching a ride with everyone else. I don't think they minded, but I hate being the 5th wheel and feeling like I am imposing.

Other than for PNS Nationals on Friday night, the running orders were up before the actual event. I was toying with setting up my extra monitor but then realized that would be excessive LOL Results were up by the next morning for the previous day for just about all of the classes which was also nice.

Great job and I hope they continue with the streaming video for other events. Really is nice for those of us at home.

Watching the streaming video was so inspiring. However, I don't think I have the mental capacity to keep it all together for a Nationals. I think running in the main ring would freak me out. I'm not consistent enough either. Luce is such fun to run - when she is running that is - but she isn't a speedy border collie. Never has been, never will be. So, a mediocre team wouldn't have a chance. But, as I say, it was inspiring and will motivate me to keep on training.

Now, Blaze. Oh my. He deserves a better handler!! The Team Relay on Sunday had a weave pole entry that I know Luce would NOT be able to do. I set up just that part (jump, tunnel, weaves) in the yard, and sure enough, Luce could not do it. I have to shape the entry for her.

But Blaze. As I said, oh my :-) I have finally have a dog that can WEAVE!! He was nailing that entrance and doing all 12 each and every time. That dog does love him some weaves :-) In fact, he wasn't reading my body cues (or even verbal ones!) when I tried to get him out of the tunnel and NOT into the weaves! He can do all of the obstacles, it is the stuff in between the obstacles that we REALLY need to work on :-) He is entered in a DOCNA trial in December. It is low key and Friday night typically doesn't have a lot of dogs entered .. .usually 30 runs between the two classes. I should be able to manage him. I just want to see what I have with him. After I got to run him in class at Keystone, I was PUMPED. But I don't want to rush it ... my goal is Blackthorne 2009. If he is ready earlier, then fine, but I NEED TO NOT RUSH HIM!!

I don't have him in a class yet due to his reactivity so I don't really know what I have. I need to get him into something - that is a goal for early 2009. I need to learn how to handle a dog like this! Luce was faster than Princess and Blaze is SO much different from both of the girls. For all of my agility life (10 years now, wow!) I have had dogs that I needed to keep motivating forward and away from me. All of my cues are for this, so the few times I have been able to run Blaze in a facility, he goes to the next county! I need to rein him in, but not too much. I don't want to lose the distance - I want a gamble dog that can weave this time, dagnabit! LOL

He is keeping more and more of his bars up here at home. He was having a horrible time a couple of months ago. I worked on it a little and it is helping. He was also running under the bars when they were up at 20" or 22" and he isn't doing that any more. He still needs to really KNOW that his job is to keep them up regardless of whether he is turning or whatever. I think he will get it, assuming I can be a good enough of a trainer to teach him that!

It will be so nice to have a dog that I won't have to drag around the ring :-) I love my little Luce, but if she is stressed or it is hot out, then I have to drag her around. SO frustrating! We sort of fell between the cracks at Keystone when I got her and we didn't have the foundation classes then as we do now. And the kids were home, so her prime years were "wasted". Not really "wasted" as I did want to go and watch what the boys were doing! But I couldn't get to class or train as often as I should have with her.

I taught with Kruisin for almost 2 years which also caused a break in training. I love teaching, I really find it rewarding. But I am not a high energy person so no way could I be out of the house too many nights a week. I was teaching Monday nights and I worked late on Thursday nights, so going to class on Wednesdays was out. I didn't even pay for a training spot at Keystone in 2006 and 2007 as I had only gone to class 8 times in 2005. That didn't help one bit and we lost some of our skills and our teamwork. I stopped teaching at the end of 2007 and started training again in 2008 and it has really helped.

Usually, nowadays, we lose Q's due to obstacle non performance .... we get all the hard parts of a course but then miss weaves, pop out of weaves there for a while, or miss a contact. She has an aversion to yellow at times :-) Now, having a slower dog does help for some of the courses does help :-) I fully comprehend that I am not god's gift to handling, but I am happy when I do recognize what I need to do and what I would do with a Blazing fast dog.

And then I do have my mis-handling moments. They always seem to happen in slo-mo with a huge N-N-O-O running through my head and my feet rooted to the spot. That part of my brain in the back there, watching and knowing exactly what I should be doing, but the rest of my brain and my body just not following through! Occasionally I totally handle something wrong and the "right" way didn't occur to me. I expect that will happen more with Blaze as he is so different that it will be like starting all over again when I couldn't "see" angles and such.

Anyway, back to watching the streaming video ... man, the handlers can, and must, RUN! I think all of the top dogs have running contacts as well ... don't think I want to go there! I am not Nationals material, so I think I need to train for being the Weekend Warrior which means stops on the contacts for me :-) If the Nationals moves to the East Coast, as is the rumor, I would like to go just for the experience and the fun and to watch the truly fantastic competition. It was wonderful back in 2005, but I didn't have a dog with me so I was free as a bird. Rumor has it that Nationals might move in 2009 already .... that is too soon! LOL

Still snowing!!!

2008-10-28T12:56:00.000-04:00

It is still snowing - this is about what we got all of last year :-)
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Snow!!!

2008-10-28T11:41:00.001-04:00

Snow in October!!!
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Black Eyed Susan

2008-10-27T08:56:00.001-04:00

Black Eyed Susan
Originally uploaded by dognutmom

Apropos of nothing, other than it is now fall and chilly outside and this reminds of the summer which is when it was taken :-)

Also, it was time to update the blog :-)

tall purple flowers

2008-09-03T12:47:00.001-04:00

tall purple flowers
Originally uploaded by dognutmom

My camera is "causing" me to learn names of the various things I take pictures of. I couldn't just leave this at "tall purple flowers".

I think it is Physostegia virginiana, aka Obediant Plant. So named because it apparently will stay in position if you turn the leaves or flowers in a certain direction. Also supposedly will stay in place if it is transplanted.

It is also known as False Dragonhead ... the flower is a little like a snapdragon. Apparently there is a flower in Europe that is the "real" dragonhead.

Whatever, they were pretty purple flowers :-)

Matriculation

2008-08-20T14:56:00.001-04:00

Lots of kids here. I'm going to have to remember binoculars for graduation. :-)
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College Student

2008-08-20T07:48:00.001-04:00

Evan is now a college student!
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Koi Pond 2008

2008-08-03T11:19:00.004-04:00

Hugh is still keeping his koi pond. He even found a baby koi in there yesterday. No, I didn't get a picture.

Earlier in the season some of the waterlillies were blooming. A white one:

And a red one:

This is a water hyacinth - they float with their roots in the water instead of in soil.

Boy, oh, boy, THAT was a lesson in not putting things off. I passed by the pond one day and saw one hyacinth in full bloom. And even though that I should get a picture of that but I put it off. Next day it rained and I didn't want to take my camera outside and the day after that, the bloom was done. ::::sigh::::

We also have a few frogs hanging around.

Frog #1:

Frog #2:

And, yes, there are still koi in the pond :-)

Here is a black and orange one eating:

And an orange one eating. It is hard to get a decent picture of the fish just swimming around, so koi eating pics are a little more numerous:

And "Skull Head" eating.

"Skill Head" is mostly white, but the markings on his head makes it look like a skull:

The fish not only like fish food, but they like algae. Apparently, they like it alot :-)

Blaze Update

2008-08-03T10:30:00.003-04:00

Blaze has been home since Wednesday morning and is doing pretty good.

He was tired for most of that day, but perked up by Thursday night. The first 7 to 10 days are the most critical as that is when most of the heartworms will be dying off, so we aren't falling for his perkiness :-) He gets to stay out of the crate if we are around, but at the first sign of trying to play or getting too excited or agitated, back into the crate he goes.

Luce has been trying to get him to play, so they are BOTH confused :-) Luce sits by his crate sometimes, wondering why he is in jail.

For the most part, however, he is fine with all of this but I don't think this will go on for the entire 4 weeks that he needs to be quiet. Fortunately, he is quiet in the crate while I am at work.

Luce and I have been going for a walk a lot too ... she is used to more activity since we got Blaze.

So, only 3-3/7 weeks to go.

Green!

2008-08-03T09:29:00.005-04:00

Our front lawn has never been the greatest due to all of the trees, and since we got Blaze last year, it couldn't even be called a "lawn" any more.

This little bluebird came to visit us back in May. As you can see, our "lawn" was really just some dirt with a few tufts of grass.

Whorls of dust kicked up whenever Blaze and Luce ran on it.

Well, back at the end of June, beginning of July, Evan did a lot of raking and then grass seed and top soil was put down.

Slowly and surely, the grass began to grow.

The result is this!

It's actually GREEN!

And now that Blaze is sidelined due to heartworm, this section is to be done next. This is Luce getting a head start on the raking :-)

Green.

A Job!

2008-08-02T09:46:00.005-04:00

Son #1 Graduated from college mid-May and has been looking for a job ever since.

Son #2 on left, Son #1 on right

Have to say he was getting a little down about it .... the job market for Economics majors is tight.

But he got a job!! It isn't exactly what he hoped he would be doing, but it is not in retail, and it is a job!!! He starts next week.

Big sigh of relief :-)

Blaze .... unhappy

2008-07-29T21:36:00.005-04:00

Blaze on the bed
Originally uploaded by dognutmom

This is kind of representative of how Blaze feels right now.

Blaze came up positive for heartworm at his annual checkup in June. Apparently it takes 6 months after infestation for the test to turn positive. So ... he either was infected before he hit the shelter, in the shelter or at his foster home in West Virginia.

Blaze had his first shot of imiticide yesterday at our vet. My vet isn't staffed 24 hours a day so I then transported him to the emergency vet down the road for overnight observation. Picked him up again this morning and brought him back to our vet for the second shot. Now he is at the emergency vet for overnight observation again. He can come home in the morning if all goes well tonight.

He seemed perky yesterday and this morning, but he was not himself when I transported him this evening. I think his back is sore from the two shots ... and he is confused and doesn't understand why I keep leaving him places.

Little does he know that the worst is yet to come. Crate rest or on leash next to me. No running. No jumping. No playing. No Ball.
For. 4. weeks.

He is not going to be a happy camper.

Red Umbrella

2008-07-29T21:30:00.003-04:00

Red Umbrella
Originally uploaded by dognutmom

Just because ....

Identity Crisis?

2008-07-17T14:03:00.005-04:00

Identity Crisis? Sort of on an identification mission around here.

I think this is Euonymus kiautschovicus "Manhattan"

One website said the fruit was a pale pink capsule and I do have some pictures of those. Need to get them uploaded ... thought I had one. But another site said it had red berries that came from the pink capsule and I just don't remember! I only pass this bush next to the front door every single day!! :-)

The tall shrubs/bushes on the creek side of the house are, I'm pretty sure, Euonymus Altus

I do know that these bushes are similar but not quite the same. Need to research more but have to go to work.

Invasive!

2008-07-17T11:14:00.002-04:00

Apparently there are a lot of plants and weeds that are considered invasive to North America.

They also seem to have ended up in my backyard.

Wineberry

These can take over a yard with the canes growing quite long. They are also covered in prickly thorns. The fruit is usually used for wine or jellies as it is tarter than other raspberry type plants.

Had to look this one up yesterday:

Solanum dulcamara

The purple flowers will turn into green berries which will then turn to red.

Also known as Bittersweet or Trailing Nightshade. This one is a noxious plant with berries that only birds can eat.

Indigenous to North America, but certainly invasive in our yard is Poison Ivy.

Leaves of Three, Let Them Be

Not truly an Ivy, but it does grow up trees, seeming to strangle them.

More Hostas

2008-07-17T09:20:00.002-04:00

The other hosta plant is in full bloom.

The late afternoon sun lit it up perfectly

Used my new lens, but had to contort myself to get a better angle

Pretty

Hostas

2008-07-16T09:16:00.003-04:00

One of the few things I can manage to grow without killing them. I need to get more.

Took this on the weekend and now (Wednesday) the blooms are gone

The stages of hostas

My Girl Luce

2008-07-16T09:02:00.002-04:00

Got this shot the other day.

Luce usually won't look into the camera. I think she thinks it will steal her soul.

Coffee

2008-07-15T16:11:00.001-04:00

You Are a Plain Ole Cup of Joe

But don't think plain - instead think, uncomplicated

You're a low maintenance kind of girl... who can hang with the guys

Down to earth, easy going, and fun! Yup, that's you: the friend everyone invites.

And your dependable too. Both for a laugh and a sympathetic ear.

What Kind of Coffee Girl Are You?

Pink Fleabane

2008-07-12T23:03:00.002-04:00

fleabane pink
Originally uploaded by dognutmom

This was in our backyard last month. Had to look this up too.

It's probably some kind of weed, but it is pretty.

Flickr

2008-07-12T23:02:00.001-04:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

A Bumble Bee

2008-07-12T22:20:00.003-04:00

I was lucky and found a bumble bee working on the bush by our front door. Maybe it is a honey bee, I don't really know the difference.

But he or she was really just bumbling around, gathering something from the dull little flowers on that bush.

Every once in a while, a wasp type bee came and bonked right into the bumble bee!

But the bumble bee just kept on bumbling along, going from flower to flower, minding his/her own business.

Flora and Fauna

2008-07-12T19:20:00.004-04:00

While I was outside taking pictures of Wineberry today, I took some other pictures of flora and fauna in the yard.

Mushroom growing up high in a tree

A butterfly

Leaves of three, let them be

Maple tree keys

A pinecone. I need to dig up a picture that I took of the pinecones forming earlier in the spring.

Wineberry

2008-07-12T18:59:00.002-04:00

While I was in the backyard with the dogs this afternoon, I saw a bunch of yellow/orange color. Stepped closer and found a strange looking plant with, what looked like, some kind of raspberry.

When I came inside, I did some research online (gotta love the internets!!) and found that they were wineberries - related to the raspberry. It is an asian plant that is considered invasive here in the States.

It has very prickly stems, or canes I guess they are really called.

They are apparently edible and make good wine. They are just starting, so I will have to make sure I keep watch on them to see them get really ripe.

Agility

2008-07-12T09:18:00.004-04:00

While we work on Blaze reacting STRONGLY to being near other dogs doing agility, we are working on agility at home.

One of the first things he learned was the table. USDAA is my favorite venue, so he is learning an auto-down on the table. Gotta work on getting BOTH elbows down on the table.

I don't have any jumping pictures ... hard to take pictures while directing him to jump :-)

His weave poles are really coming along.

He does 12 poles now and we are working on entrances ... and distractions.

We started on contacts during the winter. I decided to go with 2on/2off. Instead of 2on/2off, Blaze offered a down at the end of the contact. I've decided that is fine with me as it he will shift his body weight in order to get the down and stop.

We still need to work on jumping foundation skills, tire, chute and getting him on a real aframe and real dogwalk.

Maybe by the time he can sort of control himself at agility class or at a trial, he will have learned all of the obstacles at home.

College

2008-07-11T14:26:00.006-04:00

This is a non-dog post. But it IS about one of my kids, so the mom part of my name comes into play :-)

My younger son, Son #2, is going to go to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA this fall. We drove out there (5 hours!) on Wednesday for a pre-orientation thing on Thursday. He opened up his bank account, got his picture taken for his student card, bought used books for his courses at the bookstore and we sat through some presentations.

I hadn't been to the school before, so it was nice to see it. My older son, Son #1, came along as well. He just graduated college in May, so he wanted to see where his brother would be going to school. It was also nice to have someone along who could tell us what was important and what wasn't.

This is the view from his dorm:

Well, it isn't exactly his room .... same room number, but we got to see the rooms on the 12th floor and he will be on the 4th.

He thinks he lucked out with the view with this dorm.

Water

2008-07-09T13:46:00.002-04:00

Blaze loves the water

Luce is a little more lady like. She wallows in shallow creeks and pools

Maybe taking a few delicate sips of water

Blaze not only wallows in the shallows

But will whole heartedly WALLOW

He doesn't sip at the water, he BITES the water

All that water play then leads to a whole lotta shaking

Right down to the tip of his stumpy little tail

That felt good!

Meanwhile, Luce is thinking "what the heck?"

Both dogs

2008-07-09T11:53:00.006-04:00

Wow, 4 posts in one day. Well, we'll see how long that lasts ... it's just new now :-)

So, did a post first about Luce, then about Blaze. Now about Luce AND Blaze together! Woohoo!

So.

Both Luce and Blaze get along with each other. When Blaze first came here, he was about 1 year old and wanted to PLAY. Luce was having none of that and told him so. But Blaze is a persistent dog and he won her over. Took a few months, but he did it.

And now they play HARD every day.

(I wish that was our pool, but it's not)

So hard that I had to buy them breakaway collars

 as Luce got her bottom canines stuck in Blazes collar.  Very scary.  Good thing I was there.  Blaze ripped off Luce's tags with one of his teeth.  Could have broken his teeth but he didn't.  So, now, the breakaway collars with no dangling tags.  Got them tags that are flat on their collars instead.


(Apparently we are also working on synchronized running)

Blaze LOVES to go after The Ball.  And Luce LOVES to run after Blaze who is running after The Ball.  So it really works out!

After Blaze gets The Ball, he then brings it back ... well, almost back.  He feels it needs to be placed on the ground and then he needs to hide behind something until I pick it up again.   And Luce hovers nearby, waiting for him to move again so that she can start her outrun to head him off at the pass.  Or something like that.


(you can see his stumpy tail!)

I'm not really sure why all this happens, but it does, over and over again.



So, if I get this -



Blaze waiting for The Ball to be launched again, you can be sure that you will see this -



Luce waiting for Blaze who is waiting for The Ball.



Sometimes Luce decides that Blaze needs to be under some sort of control



which usually some "interference" on Luce's part.

By and large, however, they do get along which is great.



Playing, getting "The Ball" and interference is hard work!




(sorry about all the different fonts and stuff ... having trouble with formatting!)

Introducing my other dog, Blaze

2008-07-09T11:12:00.003-04:00

This is my other dog, Blaze.

Blaze is a 2 year old border collie mix that we got through rescue about a year ago at age one.

Blaze does everything Blazing fast, so he was appropriately named!
See his stump of a tail there? Probably born with it according to two different vets. Or maybe mama bit it off when she was biting the umbilical cord.

He learns quickly. Has blazing fast reflexes.

LOVES The Ball.

Loves The Ball and Loves to Tug.

But I think The Ball is his favorite. Note, it is always The Ball, not just the ball.

Good thing I had Luce first as my border collie intro dog, because this boy is way more intense. He is going to be a blast to run in agility ... once we get past a wee little problem.

Blaze, however, loses his mind when he sees other dogs playing agility. Or playing with a ball. Brain just falls right out of his head because he wants to do that too!! Right Now!!! RIGHT NOW!!!!! OHMIGOD LOOK WHAT THEY ARE DOING WE NEED TO DO THAT TOO!!!! We are working on that :-)

Did I mention he likes Balls? I think I did.

Okay, bye for now.

2008-07-09T10:50:00.005-04:00

I might as well start by introducing my dogs. I have two dogs right now - a border collie and a border collie mix.

This is Luce, my over 8 year old border collie

Luce is a dark, dark red, smooth coat border collie that we got from rescue at age 1-1/2 years old.

Luce was my "introduction to border collies" dog. She is a non intense, fairly low drive border collie. I had a retired racing greyhound and a lab/greyhound/pit mix when we got Luce and Luce made them look like they were dead :-)

She had a lot of quirks when we got her, but her basic nature is very sweet and willing to please.

When she came to me, she didn't know how to play with other dogs ... how sad. But, she learned gradually over the years and now my other dog, Blaze, and Luce play every day. She will only play with boy dogs though .... she can be a Bitch (note the capital B) with the other girls. And she won't play with every boy dog ... I still haven't figured out her criteria yet.

I love her ears ... one is sort of "hound dog" and the other "airplane" And her color is so dark red, it is like chocolate.

She is fairly easy to live with, not very demanding. She isn't a snuggle bunny, that's for sure. She will come up on to the bed or the couch for a minute or two, but then that is enough and she has to jump down and shake it off. Maybe it is her working border collie roots and she feels it isn't right to be too soft :-)

Luce and I do agility together. She even had a few goes at sheep herding a few years back. Ran out of time and money to pursue that, but it gave her confidence. Her pedigree came with her through rescue and her mother's side was obviously bred for color. When you don't breed for actual herding performance and start selecting for other things, you lose something along the way. It took her a bit to turn on and it would have taken time to really get her going properly. But what a rush to see her finally start to settle and move the sheep around!

I love this girl of mine.

Guess that is all for now .... bye!

Well, here goes nothin'

2008-07-09T10:41:00.005-04:00

The title says it all. I'm going to join the blog world. Might as well as I've been reading them for years.

Of course, I don't have the time to post a lot. And I'll probably forget.

But, here it is.