Taking a stand

I haven't written anything about my new year's resolutions for 2011 yet, but I have two.  They are totally unrealted to eachter and I think they both could be very challenging to keep.

1.  I am only eating humanely raised and slaughtered meat. 

For those who know me, this is big.  Huge.  I LOVE beef.  I could easily buy a club pack of ribeye's and have 4 nights of eating only steak for dinner.  I used to do it a couple times a month. But I've driven past Harris Ranch on I-5 one too many times to be eating commerically raised beef anymore.  I can no longer ignore the fact that the meat I eat lives a miserable life of overcrowding, mud and methane fumes.  Their miserable life must seem like Utopia when they are thown into a semi-truck and it is transformed into a world of anxiety, fear, blood and finaly terror before they are slaughtered for my consumption. 

But I'm not willing to give up beef.  If there was anyone on this planet who was born to be a carnivoire it was me.  However, I can choose to buy beef that was humanely raise and slaughtered.  I plan on buying my beef from http://www.pratherranch.com/ in the future.  But due to lack of convience (and my preference for fresh over frozen meat) this means I haven't been eating much meat protein lately.

I don't eat as much chicken/turkey/pork as I do beef but the same principal stands (along with milk/eggs/etc).  So far I'm still eating fish as I always have, but my friend has threatened to make me read a book that will prevent me from eating fish all together... I'm not sure my body could handle such a huge protein drop.

2.  I will only enter agility trials that have rubber contacts.

I think that rubber contacts are the future.  But more importantly they are the safest for our dogs.   The only way the agility community can ensure that ALL organizations require rubber contacts is if the competitors speak with their wallets.  In 2011 I will not enter trials that do not have rubber contacts (I'll make an exception for national and international events, but I have confirmed that 2011 AKC nationals will have rubber contacts.  Woohoo!)  I've already had a challenge with this because the USDAA trial at NAF last weekend had rubber dogwalks and tables but not rubber a-frames or teeters.  I chose the AKC trial with rubber contacts instead.  But NAF is one of my all-time favorite venues so it was a very painful decision to make.  I have my fingers crossed that they will rubberize their a-frames and teeters soon!

We had a fun weekend at an AKC trial.  Rammy had three good runs and now is in Exc B Std as well as JWW.  I need to decide what to do with him jump-height wise now that he's totally in Exc B.  I am against dogs that measure into 20" jumping 24".  This stems from the times that Apollo lost a 1st or 2nd place due to a 20" border collie beating him.  It won't be as important once July comes and they stop giving multipliers for 1st and 2nd, but I would still hate to be taking a 1st place ribbon or toy away from a true 24" dog.  Not that Rampage is so SUPER FAST that he'd always win at 24", but I still don't think it's fair. 

So I have to decide if I'll enter him 20 or 26.  I'm pretty happy with how he's jumping 24 but I really didn't like how he looked at 26 at the USDAA shows he did.  But our last USDAA was 3 or 4 months ago so it could be possibly he's matured a bit and will handle 26" better, but then maybe the 2" increase pushes him over the edge.  I do train with Rampage at 26" but Rammy at trials ≠ Rammy in practice.  He's a quirky boy.

As mentioned above, Rammy had 3 nice runs last weekend.  But the 4th... oh, that was not pretty.



But while Rammy's run was not pretty, it was nothing compared to Icon's JWW run!  I feel sorry for the poor guy.  He knew where to go but I totally got lost and forced him over the wrong jump.  He was so confused... My excuse is that I barely got to walk the course since I was running Apollo in Open Std in the other ring and then I was discombobulated after Rammy's disaster run just a couple minutes before.  And my pants kept falling down.  That never helps.



But I'll end with a couple good runs!




I didn't get any videos of Apollo since he was in Open and Exc A.  He's moving up the performance ranks quickly, but damn what a stupid rule to make dogs go back to novice.

For those who don't know Rammy's door knocker doppleganger came from, it's from the movie Labyrinth with Jennifer Connolly and David Bowie.  I loved this movie when I was a kid!

A resemblance...?

Why, yes!

And Rampage sounds like him too, with and without the ring!  :)