I wish my life were more exciting...

and I had things to write about.   Then I would update my blog more often.

Anyway, here is a cool overlay comparison of Icon and Cassidy from a USDAA trial last weekend that Silvina from Agility in Motion put together.

Icon-Cassidy Overlay Comparison GPX Feb 2012

Apollo rocks!

We went to a 2 day AKC trial last weekend and Apollo went 4/4.  He was 4/4 at the trial previous and 2/2 before that.  I don't remember what our trial before that was but I can pretty much guarantee he went 4/4. Like fine wine, Polly just gets better with age.

Other than Perfect Polly, my weekend was split by an OK Saturday (not many Q's but lots of good stuff) and a perfect Sunday.  I ran 4 dogs at this trial and on Sunday we got four QQ's!

I only got Cassidy's runs on video because I know her mom would really like to see them, but I did buy a couple from agilityinmotion.com.  I just haven't gotten them yet because I ordered late.  You will have to picture the other dog's runs in your mind.  I have added comments with each video to help with your imagination.

Cassidy Saturday Standard.  A nice run but a bar when I tried to collect her too much on the 180.  Imagine Icon and Apollo having perfect runs and Rampage being carried off after not stopping on the dogwalk ;)




Cassidy Saturday JWW.  A nice run but at one point I thought I had her head and apparently I didn't, so she took the triple instead (like many, many, many other dogs so I should have known...).  Imagine perfect run for Apollo, a refusal before the jump before the weaves for Rampage and Tammy would probably want us to forget what happened on Icon's run (but she would probably also point out that we had NQ'd before the tossed leash incident anyway :)



Cassidy Sunday Standard.  Imagine a perfect run by all!  (Rampage decided to target a piece of rolling dirt on the teeter though, it was kind of funny)



Cassidy Sunday JWW.  Imagine perfect runs by all!

More hiking with crappy photos

Oops, just realized that I wrote this blog earlier in the week but never posted it.  It's not all that exciting, but I may as well post it.

Tammy and I went hiking again on Sunday morning at Mt Madonna, we did around 8 miles.  The weather is too beautiful not to take advantage of it while we can (but we need rain!)  I took my 'real' camera so I could get some good photos, but they all turned out crappy.  Really, really crappy.  Mt Madonna on a sunny day is not an easy place to photograph 8 moving dogs!

Happy Quirk!

Group shot!
Icon and Coty practiced their time travel.
 Coty tried to convince Icon and Cassidy to dive in, but they aren't crazy! Yeah, a photo where you can actually see dogs and stuff!

Random recent iphone photos

I may have been a bit focused on food lately....

 Tomato and Feta Quinao Pilaf, a new favorite!

Thai Basil and Eggplant before and after.  YUM.

    

                                      

You can't go wrong with Pizza!

Transitioning from food to dogs.  Foster wants to play ball with the only two Kaffir Limes that my tree produced this year (but that's two more than last year!)  I have to figure out what to do with them...

Cassidy sings along with the cast from Glee.  Don't tell her I said this but she doesn't have the most soothing voice.

Icon thinks he is very helpful when I work on the computer.

Hardwear required for taking 5 dogs on a walk

Free Weekend!

We have a free weekend!  Ok, so I should be cleaning the house or doing laundry or something productive like that, but the day was just too nice to stay inside and clean.

Our day started by meeting up with Tammy for a 12 mile hike at Sanborn.  Tammy wore an 18lb weight vest because she's preparing for our future overnight backpacking trip.  I felt like a slacker since I was only carrying my daypack with 3L of water and a few odds and end.  It was probably 8 lbs at most.  She STILL left me in the dust on the uphills :).  

The hike is 100% on-leash, but we did let the dogs off for a few minutes to have a drink when we reached the 'stream' about 7 miles into the hike.  I am appreciating every glorious sunny winter day we have been having in No Cal, but WE NEED RAIN.    This 'stream' should be way larger than it is...

When we got home we rested for a bit and then I took the dogs to the park down the street to run around like crazy for a bit (mostly for Foster and Apollo who didn't get to go on the hike).  I used to bring the dogs here every day before work, but since my company was acquired by Roche and I started working with people in Europe, my days start way too early to take them to the park in the morning before work.  

I didn't feel comfortable taking 5 dogs, so Cassidy stayed home for this trip.

"

I've always wondered why people say I have long legs (I mean *I* think they are normal legs), but I guess this picture makes them look a bit long...

Foster and Apollo say, "That was fun!"

Rampage says, "That hiking thing didn't wear me out, but now I'm tired.

Border Terrier AKC

We went to 2 days of an AKC trial last weekend.  It was cccccold but fun.  I tell you, you don't get bored running 4 dogs, even at an AKC trial.  And of course it turned out that the 20" dogs were walking JWW right when I had to run Icon and Rampage in 26" standard.

Firstly I have to say Apollo is awesome.  He went 4/4 last weekend. Polly rocks!

One problem with running 4 dogs is that it's hard to make sure you also find people to video your runs.  Usually my friend Debbie is at the same trials I go to and I don't have to say anything, she just keeps track of my camera and films my runs.  But she's had miss miss some trials lately because Shadow was on the injured reserve list.  :(

So I bought what runs I could from 4 legged flix, I didn't want to buy ALL of them because that would cost soooo much, so how do I decide?  I got all of Cassidy's because I told Diana I would get hers on video, then I kind of randomly selected runs to buy.  I feel awful because it turns out I only bought one of Rampage and none of Apollo!  I only got 3 of Cassidy's because they missed our Sat JWW run (we had on off course, really my fault... but I'm sure people all over California heard me screaming her name and she went into the off course tunnel).  And I got 3 of Icon's, I missed his standard run on Sunday, which is the one we nq'd on.  I was a victim of the short chute and called too hard so he missed the next jump.  For Rampage I wanted to get his Saturday JWW run but got Sunday JWW instead, I'm not sure if I wrote it down wrong or if they read it wrong.

Anyway...  Here the videos....

Icon's Saturday Standard.  Good boy!


Icon's Saturday JWW.  Good boy!

Cassidy Saturday Standard.  After she was VERY pushy on the contacts the previous weekend, she was quite responsive this weekend.  Well, responsive in a pushy way.

Cassidy Sunday JWW. Oops :)


Rampage Sunday JWW.  Even though I didn't plan to buy this run, I'm glad I did.  His time was way off  and it's interesting to see why.  He's such a bendy dog, but he loses speed on bendy courses.  His speed has improved a bunch on the wide open courses, but we definitely need to continue working on speed out of turns.


Icon Sunday JWW.  Good boy :)


Cassidy Sunday Standard.  Good girl :)

It's that time of year again...

Time to buy new Pollyballs!



It would be really nice if companies would sell these under the name "Pollyball."  It would be so much easier for me to find them.

I think this time I may buy half of my Pollyballs in solid colors.  I bought some of these a few Pollyball purchases ago and I have a lot of them still hanging around.  The seem to be more durable than the other ones.  They are a bit cheaper too.