Feed Polly

Border Terrier AKC

2012-01-17T21:06:00.000-08:00

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...

2012-01-16T19:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Boxerlicious

2012-01-14T19:40:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Apollo was invited to a boxer party! I love seeing him interact with other boxers. I wonder what my household would be like if I had gotten 2 more boxers after him instead of two border collies. Boxers are definitely a breed (species??) of their own.

Apollo got to meet Fia first because she can be a bit picky about who she likes. She was fine with Apollo though, they've met before. She looks like a puppy, doesn't she? She's around 5 now. She's tiny! I really like Fia despite how picky she can be about her canine friends. (Sorry, all photos were taken with my iphone so they aren't so great.)

Then everyone got to come out and it was boxer chaos!

Kahve showed me what Dexter did to the patio when they first moved in. Dexter is one solid boxer!

Dexter!

Apollo gets harassed by that young hooligan Stash.

The young hooligan Kahve doesn't help.

I love seeing boxers in good shape. I don't like seeing fat boxers, a lot of them are!

Stash is such an awesome puppy. I love him! I've already talked to Kay about Stash being a future puppy daddy. I just hope Apollo is around to enjoy it. I'm sure when Apollo is 15 he'll be as youthful as he is now :)

Treat time!

Kay brought out two Pollyballs, which had been sitting stagnant in their toybox for months with no one interested. With the Polly influence suddenly everyone wanted them! :)

Hi puppy daddy!

Polly! (with his Pollyball)

We eventually moved inside and I was fascinated by the boxer sleeping bag. Stash was SO CUTE in it. Actually, all of the boxers took a turn in the bag except for Apollo (hmm, and maybe Dexter too).

Stash is soooo cute.

However, there were some technical difficulties with the bed.

We eventually sat down at the table for appetizers and then dinner. Dexter was told, "Hey! That's Polly's ball!"

Apollo said, "Yeah, dude. Give it back."

Stash tried to let us know that our roast was almost done. It was a delicious, happy, grassfed roast.

Stash is such a good puppy! He's telling us it's time for dinner.

The other boxers were all over that. Apollo got dinner too (even though I was a bad mom and didn't bring any - he got to eat some of Kahve and Stash's kibble. He thought it was a great treat.)

Holy crap, that's cute

Holy crap, more cuteness

Ooooh, naughty puppy! (You can't really blame Stash, Debbie is a bad influence!)

Fia tried out the bed too!

Dexter almost took off with the dessert.

Apollo always gets the last word. Goodnight!

Dreams and metaphors

2012-01-13T07:43:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a dream that I was being chased by zombies. Rampage was with me and he saved my life many times by letting me know when they were getting too close or if we were running the wrong way. But at some point, the zombies must have gotten me because I felt something grab my shoulders and tear through the back of my neck just before I blacked out. I eventually woke up (in my dream) hungry and looking for food. I stumbled across a group of other people looking for food as well. We introduced ourselves and after a brief chat they suggested some places that we could search for food so we started looking together. After entering a dark building we cornered a fast-moving humanoid creature that attacked us, but the weapon it used was so weak that even when it hit us, it barely slowed us down. We pursued the creature and killed it. And then sat down at the dinner table to eat.

At that point I woke up for real. I guess the metaphor hiding behind my dream is that you shouldn't be afraid of becoming a different person. If you're ever chased by zombies, don't worry. When you're caught and become a zombie yourself life goes on.

Looking back on 2011 resolutions

2012-01-11T08:02:00.000-08:00

I've never been a big fan of resolutions but for some reason I've had them for the last 2 years. They're not big, lifechanging, unatainable things, just small things that I think will make me happier. It's been fun the last few years because after I make my resolutions I kind of forget that they are resolutions and consider them a way of life. At the begining of the next year when I look back it's like opening a time capsule. A bad memory has its uses. Another good use for a bad memory is you can re-read a book a couple years later and it's like reading it for the first time!

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

This has been fairly successful. I significantly cut down on the amount of meat I eat. I only really eat beef anymore (I love my steaks) and only about once a week or once every other week. People have asked me if I feel different for it, but I don't. The only problem is it turns out the steak I was buying from Whole Foods is not as humanely raised as I thought it was. Oh well, live and learn. Whole Foods is not the great store it used to be. I only buy my steak from ranches now, which is not as convenient. Hmm, and I guess I should mention that I fell off the wagon when I was in Europe for 2 weeks.

2. I will only enter agility trials that have rubber contacts.
Total success! It was pretty hard for me at the begining of the year when I was missing a lot of trials due to non-rubberized contacts but then I got used to not trialing so much and having a lot of extra money (entering 3 dogs is so expensive!) But by September the last major equipment supplier who was holding out went ahead and rubberized. There might be a trial or two this year where the clubs use their own non-rubberized equipment, but in general I think it's all rubber in my area. I'm pretty happy with the state of US agility now that we have the 24" weaves, rubber equipment, and breakaway tires (although I'm not a fan of the lower tire and new 6' chute in AKC). My one remaining pet peve about USDAA is the height of the a-frame. I thought long and hard about boycotting USDAA this year due to it, but I don't think I'm ready for that quite yet. USDAA trials are the most fun :)

I had 3 New Years resolutions for 2012 (which I had to go back to my blog to look at in order to remember what they were - see? bad memory) but I did think of 2 more to add.
4. I will not get a puppy this year! Everyone and their sister is getting a puppy. And they're all so damn cute! I want a puppy! Luckily having Cassidy stay here with us has reinforced that I cannot have 5 dogs.
5. Uhm, I had one more but I can't remember it. Oh well :)

Weimaraner AKC

2012-01-10T22:09:00.000-08:00

We went to one day of an AKC trial last weekend. Running 4 dogs was fun! I only got Cassidy's runs on video (because I promised her Mom I would). The only one who had a good day was Apollo, who got a QQ (love my Polly!) Rampage had a bar in Standard and Q'd in JWW, Icon had a bar in Standard and blind crossed me out of a tunnel in JWW so we got a refusal (whaaa? Silly dog :) and Cassidy and I don't quite have our act together yet, but there was some good stuff!

Cassidy Standard

Cassidy JWW

Today Apollo is glad he doesn't have hair

2012-01-08T18:58:00.000-08:00

Well, maybe he wishes he had hair after all...

All Ohlone in the wilderness

2012-01-01T21:05:00.000-08:00

On Thursday Tammy, the dogs and I went for the 'big hike' that we have been working towards. It was 29.1 miles with about 7800ft elevation gain. Most people do the hike in 2 or 3 days, but not us! We were determined to do it in one! Some might call us pioneering and adventurous, but most would probably call us stupid :)

A link to a larger map

And the elevation profile.

We met at Mission Peak Parking lot (where we will end the hike) at 6am. It was still dark out and the parking lot was disturbingly busy considering it was 6am and still dark. First things first, Tammy got her surprise christmas present from her husband, expertly delivered by Santa Channan! A Garmin Forerunner so we can keep track of our distance. I have one as well but we knew the batteries last up to 8 hours max so one wouldn't last the entire hike.

Debbie also met us there because - awesome friend that she is - she offered to drive us to the start of the hike at Del Valle regional park. Debbie has a big truck, but with 6 dogs and 3 people it was still crowded!

Gearing up. Thanks Debbie!

It was about a mile uphill before we came to the Ohlone sign-in panel. They make us write our information so if we are eaten by mountain lions they can come and find our bones.

Then we continued up, up and away! We started somewhere down where that fog is. There wasn't fog when we started though, it rolled in after. Mt Diablo rises above.

Dogs are allowed off-leash in the Ohlone Wilderness. Icon was the first to be set free.

A blessed flat portion amidst the 10 miles of almost pure climb.

And then we let them all free (except Bridget)! And we didn't see them again until we got back to our cars 27 miles later.

Just kidding... They stopped and waited for us

But, oh, they had so much fun off-leash! Most places we hike in the Bay Area only allow dogs on-leash.

Tricki had the most miles during our hike. We figured Tammy and I did 29 miles, Derby and Icon probably did 35, Rampage racked up 40 miles and Tricki probably did 45! It's all thanks to his magical tongue.

Icon is so cute!

When we started heading down into Williams Gulch (only about 3 miles into our hike, I was already tired!) the dogs thought we were going way too slow and scouted ahead. Little did they know the BIG BURN was coming.

Walking down into the gulch was very pretty. It was cool and shaded (and downhill) and we saw the only flowing water during our entire trip here. It would have been a larger stream if we had some rain....

But things that go down, must go up! They don't call this section "Big Burn" for nothing. Ouch.

Icon say, "Big Burn? It's easy!"

Handsome Rampage!

On a mission...

There was mistletoe everywhere. Believe it or not, I had no clue what mistletoe was until our Joseph D Grant hike the weekend before when Tammy pointed it out to me. After that I saw it everywhere.

Cassidy!

Oh Tricki, what a big tongue you have.

We ran into some ice near the top of our climb on the hike! Cassidy wasn't impressed.

Rampage thought it was pretty fun though.

We also passed by a whole bunch of disgusting stagnant ponds. Rampage got in trouble for going into this one! Icon is worried because Rampage got in trouble. Poor Icon.

More ice! And Tricki found a stick.

Great, more climbing.

Oh, that's kind of pretty.

The squirrel hunting has begun.

Yay, potty area for people! I think this was Doe Canyon Horse camp, about 10 miles into our hike. We thought the worst of the climbing was over at this point until we got to Mission Peak. Somehow it wasn't though!

The dogs MAY have been a bit thirsty (don't worry, we had already stopped to water them a few times before this).

Ah, refreshed!

Icon says treated water is for sissies.

Bridget was a bit tired!

The dogs try to decide, back to Del Valle or on to Sunol?

Sunol it is!

Squirrel!

Cassidy stops for a little scratch.

Oh dear, we have to climb that?

Just when we thought it would be all downhill

Our first view of Mission Peak! (above and slightly to the right of Tammy)

We're about to pass into SF Water District land, which is desolate aside from cow poop and squirrels.

But the dogs got some really good squirrel action

Mission Peak, our destination!

Squirrel!

Squirrel! (Rampage, COME BACK!)

The SF Water District section was also famous for steep climbs that make you feel like you are going to fall off the end of the world, followed by steep descents. The descents must have been greater since our overall altitude went from 4000ft to 1000ft but you could have fooled my legs.

Tricki and Rampage off hunting again.

Cassidy takes a moment to refresh herself.

Yeah, lunch time! We're at the boundary the SF Water district and Sunol Regional Wilderness, around 16 miles. Up until this point we had only seen one person. She asked to use my cell phone to call her husband and let him know she was OK and he could still pick her up the following day. Her cell phone battery had died. Luckily I had a signal when we met.

Rampage takes a dust bath.

And then a nap

Cassidy thinks napping is a good idea too.

And then we were back on the trail! The McCorkle trail, to be exact.

We started running into cows more frequently. Certain dogs (who shall not be named) got to go on leash for these meetings. The cow above and to the left of Icon was number 388. She wasn't nice. Yeah, we remember you 388, you bitch (but she wasn't as bad as one was saw on the way down Mission Peak. It was too dark to get HER number).

These guys were pretty nice.

And then we were at the Sunol Visitor center! 19 miles and 390ft.

Yay, real toilets! Oh, wait... they were still pit toilets...

But REAL water to drink. It was even filtered (Yes, Icon, I'm a sissy)

But at the back of my mind the whole time we were there was, "STILL 10 miles to go and STILL about 1700ft to climb. Noooooooooo!"

However, despite joking about stealing horses from Sunol we had no choice but to buck up and carry on.

It started off pretty fricken awful, and to add insult to sore, aching legs, we got passed by a car who's passenger waved happily at us (car can be seen upper right just going behind the hill).

But then after about a mile the horrible uphill was replaced by a gentle, rising slope. It was actually quite pleasant!

Neither Tammy or I wanted to say anything about how pleasant the climb was because we both figured we'd have some more ugly climbs ahead of us. But they never came! And then we rounded a corner to see Mission Peak! You can't see it in the photo but we could see the silhouettes of people climbing the ridge to the peak. I recognized the grove of trees below the peak from when I had hiked to the sign in panel on Christmas day. The end was in sight!

The sign-in panel! (or out in our case)

Where we came from

Where we're going. I knew from my christmas hike that from the Ohlone sign-in panel there were 4 climbs left until we started down the other side of Mission Peak.

Icon says, "Are we done hiking? Is it time to play?"

Last water break.

The fog rolls in as the sun sets

Passing to the west side of Mission Peak just as the sun goes to bed. It's definitely all downhill from here! I knew we'd be doing part of this hike in the dark, but I was pleasantly surprised to get this far during the day!

And then it was too dark for photos! Hiking down Mission Peak in the dark is not an easy task. It isn't very far (about 3 miles) but VERY steep. We had our doggy lights and headlamps so we were OK but I was surprised to see the number of people going UP the hill in the dark! They must be nuts. Unlike Tammy and me. :)

It took us 10.5 hours to go 29 miles. Not bad! Next on our list is to do an overnight backpacking trip. I can't wait!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

From my canine family (plus special guest Cassidy)!

It is a gorgeous day so this this will be a short post so I can enjoy it, but I do want to put up my 2012 goals. Reflections on 2011 will come later.

1. I am going to write on my blog more often!
2. I am going to put less energy into work and more energy into my life.
3. I am going to do more agility trials this year and godamnit I'm going to enjoy them.

Joseph D. Grant hike

2011-12-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I haven't been posting much is that I've been hiking a lot. One day while on a 6 mile hike with Tammy we started talking about doing longer hikes and got the brilliant idea of doing a full day hike. Our plan is to hike the Ohlone trail this Thursday. It's 29 miles from Livermore to Fremont. I'm really looking forward to it! In order to work up to hiking such long distances we have spent Nov and December doing longer and longer hikes.

Just before Christmas we went on a 22+ mile hike. We were supposed to be done by 3pm but we started later than execpted and it took us longer than expected (I think we stopped for too many photos!) so we finished the last mile or two in the dark.

Tammy adjusts her dogs packs at the trailhead. It was around 10am.

Starting out on the trail. Everyone looks happy because we haven't started climbing yet....

I had a bit of trouble getting Rampage's backpack to stay level at first, but after adjusting a few times it finally did.

Then we started to climb

Rampge says, "We have to climb that too??"

The blue arrow points to where our cars are parked at the trailhead. And we've only just begun!

It's hard to see but just above Tammy's head is Lick Observatory on Mt Hamilton.

First stop to pose for photos!

The blue arrow points to where we started. The hills on the other side of the valley from where we started are where will be finishing the hike.

The only time I get ahead of Tammy is when we're going downhill. She's faster than me going up!

Lick Observatory is getting closer

Rampage is just so handsome!

Tricki Woo reads about The Pala Seca Cabin

Tammy thought camping overnight here would be fun. I disagreed. It reminded me of the Blair Witch project.

Looking back at the Pala Seca Cabin (far right in the photo).

More posing! After this the hike got easier for about 8 miles since we were going along the ridge.

At one point we saw two bobcats. There is a black dot just to the right of the center of the photo that was a bobcat running away from us. It was very cool! To the left of the tree on the hill is Lick Observatory.

Stopping for a human potty break

We had underestimated how much water we would need (and the trail map said there was water on the trial, which was not true!) so we took a side trip to a fire station to refill the water. The fire station was deserted. I climbed over the fence to refill and the first faucet I found was dry! They had turned off the water. But luckily I found another one that was turned on. Phew!

Yay, a photo of me!

Everyone is hydrated and ready to get back on the trail

We stopped for lunch a bit over half way (I had my garmin with me but it died after 11 miles so we didn't get a full reading of this hike).

Tricki and Cassidy decided it would be a good idea to take a quick nap.

The dogs feet all looked fine but we decided to have them wear some booties for a while to get used to them, in case they were needed at some point.

It was pretty late in our hike when we started encountering cows, but then we ran into them pretty frequently. It wasn't so bad until we were coming down the final stretches of the hike in the dark. Then it was a bit freaky.

The sun is starting to set. Lick Observatory is on the hill. The ridge to the left behind the trees is where we had hiked earlier in the day.

Stopping for our last break. San Jose is behind Tammy.

Cassidy asks, "are we done yet?"

Icon says, "I can see our house from here!" (Cassidy is skeptical)

Still about 2.5 miles left. Buh-bye sun!

And then we were hiking in the dark. Luckily both Tammy and I brought our headlamps JUST in case.

And then at home I had tired border collies

Except this one.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T18:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Life gets in the way....

The border collies got to hike up Mission Peak this morning

And Foster and Apollo got an outing without any Border Collies!

The consensus is that we had a very Merry Christmas.

AWOL

2011-10-06T22:28:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, where have I been? I'm not even entirely sure.

I regret not finishing my EO recap, but I will summarize by saying Icon did great.

Work has been stupid crazy lately and I'm pretty drained by it. I have also been trialing more than usual, which is also very draining. I think out of the last 5 weekends we went to 4 trials. Only Sat/Sun though, I have no clue how people manage to do 3 or 4 day trials every weekend. Am I the only one doing agility that has to work on Friday???? But things will be slowing down soon, at least for trialing. No slowing down in sight at work. :(

I didn't think I would be able to watch any of the WC this weekend because I can't mess up my sleeping schedule staying up that late. But it just occurred to me that I have to be up for 5am meetings on Monday and Tuesday so even if I can't stay up late this weekend, I can get up early to watch! It's a win-win situation. I get to watch some of the WC AND it will help me get on schedule for next weeks meetings. Aren't I smart? That's why they pay me the big bucks! Or something like that...

Good luck team USA!

EO Trip - OMG EO! (Part 1)

2011-08-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

As soon as we left Gmunden (say it, Gmunden) it started to pour. It either rained, poured or pissed cats and dogs the entire trip from Gmunden to Bad Hall. We not only felt like there was an ominous dark cloud following us to Bad Hall, there quite literally was.

And this is the part of my trip where there detailed photo diary breaks up into random narrative (and any photos have probably been posted on facebook already). I didn't take many photos after arriving at Bad Hall. But that's probably for the best because who wants to see dozens of someone else's vacation photos? I imagine that my last 6 blog posts are the equivalent of my neighbors politely but determinedly requesting my presence to their vacation slideshow and me not being able to find an excuse.

When we got to Bad Hall we found our hotel with only a minor detour to the towns aquatic centre. We all got our room keys and decided to check out everyone's rooms so we could see how ours measured up. First was Laura's which was a moderate sized room with a single bed and a balcony. Nice. Then Nancy's which was a HUGE double room with a balcony. Jealous! Then Susan, who had a huge double room. No balcony, but good size room. An then me. We walk into my room and it's a single bed and... well nothing else would fit in there! It's the smallest room you could ever imagine. I ranted and railed at the front desk but they swore that they couldn't get me anything better. I managed to get a different room on the floor above, but the room was the same size and even hotter because it was up higher. Great. I had to spend a night in that room but I did manage to get a larger room with a double bed the following day. I had to pay more but since I no longer felt like I was sleeping in a coffin it was worth it.

Practice on Friday was good, not much to say about that. Afterwards Laura, Nancy and I went for a long walk in the woods near the hotel. None of us remembered our iphones, which is a shame because we would have had some good photos from that walk! We found hammocks, sculptures and a playground where we could have provided some great photos.

We also went for a walk through town and we did remember to take our iphones for that. We ran into a few Team USA members (we frequently did when walking through town - it wasn't a large town.)

When we first arrived at the hotel we were a bit shocked to see people wandering around the lobby and restaurant in their bathrobes. But that was nothing compared to what we saw around the town!

Opening ceremonies were fun once the got started. I'm not a huge fan of opening ceremonies. Not because of the ceremonies themselves, but more because of the annoying chaos leading up to them. But once we were out on the field it was fun.
"I love opening ceremonies!"

Kep could live without them.

Nika could too.

Maze was all, like, whatever...

And then the competition! (which will come in the next post)

EO Trip - Journey to Bad Hall (Part 2)

2011-08-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Gmunden was beautiful but as we reached there the weather started to change (seriously, it's fun to say Gmunden, try it. Gmunden.)

There was more water to torture Icon. It didn't matter that he had gone swimming in the morning. He wanted that water.

A swan and her goslings.

Attack of the swans!

Oh look, we're eating again!

EO Trip - Journey to Bad Hall (Part 1)

2011-08-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

I was pretty sure that Bad Hall wouldn't have much water so I had to get one more swimming opportunity in for Icon before we left Fuschl. On Thursday morning I got up before breakfast and took Icon for a walk around the lake to find a more appropriate swimming hole.

The path along the lake was arduous at times and Icon was worried about me twisting my ankle. He didn't want this to happen and affect his performance at EO so he insisted that I use a hiking stick.

After walking about 10 minutes we found a wonderful (non-swampy) swimming area where Icon could swim to his heart's content.

Have I mentioned that I want to spend a month on the lake? I was wrong, I want to live there forever!

But eventually we had to leave so I could pack and get ready to leave the most beautiful place on earth.

On the way back we met some new friends.
Icon was saying "You're lucky you're behind that fence, sheep"

The sheep responded "You're lucky you're behind that fence, dog"

We took a scenic route to Bad Hall, stopping first at a town called Bad Ischl and then at a town called Gmunden, which is really fun to say (seriously, try it. It's fun.)

Bad Ischl was an upscale town that had a mean age of about 70. It would have been higher but our new little friend was an outlier that brought down the average.

The town had some wonderful shopping. I was tempted to stop here for some fruits and veggies but couldn't think of a place to store them.

Slightly sick of walking, we decided to take a 'train' ride around the town.

We were happy to be sitting!

On one of the 'train stops', Kep and Icon made a new friend. The man seemed to love dogs so much, he was so happy to spend a short time talking to them and petting them. I was touched to see the dogs bring so much happiness to someone. This is my favorite photo from the entire trip.

On a slightly lighter note, as the 'train' was driving down one of the streets I gasped and screamed, 'We have to go there!' The store was displaying Barabapapas merchandise! I remember Barbapapas fondly from my childhood but I know my sister still loves it. I had to get her something.

Clickety Click—Barba Trick

EO Trip - Salzkammergut (part 2)

2011-08-11T21:30:00.000-07:00

We spent a day in Salzburg, which started out on a positive note. As soon as we entered old town I made a right turn and ended up in the middle of a marching army. I was told by multiple police to turn around and leave, but it took some time to find space for a u-turn...

Salzburg is a beautiful city but very stark and grey. Not at all what I expected from the sound of music. There were some splashes of color though.

More dog posing!

This cemetery looked like the place that the Von Trapps hid from the Austrian military and I really wanted to pose the dogs behind a tomb stone like in the movie, but someone had locked them for some odd reason. Maybe to keep crazy dog people out.

The obligatory church.

I'm sharing my photos in the order I took them so they may seem random at times. Here is the view from our room balcony, we had a wonderful babbling brook right behind us that lulled us to sleep.

Oh look! We're eating again!

I had a caprese salad. It was VERY good. The fries and beer were mine too so don't think I'm all healthy or anything.

Ahhh, water....

After close to 2 weeks of being tortured by water in all forms, Icon finally got to go swimming!

Dogs weren't allowed on the beaches so we had to find a slightly swampy place for the dogs to swim.

They didn't care though!

There was a wonderful open field across the street from our hotel where the dogs could romp and play off-leash.

The last day we were there, unbeknownst to us, someone sprayed the field with what smelled like liquid cow manure. Certain dogs that will not be named had a blast rolling in the field and the smell lingered for days despite being bathed... (But Icon wasn't one of them! He's a very meticulous dog and wouldn't be caught dead smelling like cow shit. Rampage would have been all over that though.)

Nancy is wondering where the weird smell is coming from.

Our last night at Fuschl am see we got a live concert in town! Icon embarrassed me by barking and tugging on his leash when people clapped after each song.

EO Trip - Salzkammergut (part 1)

2011-08-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

Really really early Monday morning we left Mellingen to head back through Basel and to Frankfurt to pick up Laura and Kep at the airport. The timing worked out perfectly, I was driving into the terminal when I got a call from Laura saying she had arrived. I was happy to be able to say I was only minutes away!

We loaded Kep and his luggage into the car and started on our trip to the Salzkammergut region in Austria.

We really had no clue what to expect for our hotel. Nancy had spent some time in the area a few years prior and remembered it being really nice so we reserved a hotel a week before we arrived.

But it was wonderful! It was in a town called Fuschl am see (which means something like Fuschl on the lake). It is a small lake in the lake region near Salzburg. I would love to rent a house on the lake for a month and spend the time swimming in the lake and hiking in the hills. Of course I couldn't take all of my dogs with me and I couldn't leave them at home so that will never happen, but it would be nice.

Hotel Mohenwirt.

Cute town

There were diary cows in the town that you could watch being milked at night. At times the smell wasn't so great though ;)

Ah, the beautiful lake. We got really lucky with the weather. When Laura and I arrived it was cold and cloudy but by the next day the weather was mostly sunny and warm for the rest of the time there!

Nancy used Ace as Swan bait. No one was harmed in the shooting of this photo.

Icon wanted the swan too! Kep wanted to smell the flowers.

On our day trips we were able to fit 4 people and 4 dogs in the car. Ace and Icon were relegated to the 'boot'. Luckily they got along.

The mountain near St Gilgen had spectacular views. I would love to tell you we walked up the mountain but we took a gondola. ;)

I tried to get a photo with me in it, but it didn't work very well. I blame the photographer.

Icon!

We had lots of fun posing the dogs in various locations. Strangers loved it too and when we were taking photos of our dogs it wasn't uncommon to have a group of 3 or 4 other people taking photos as well.

There were lots of cows on the mountain. After my experiences with the aggressive California cows I was a bit scared of these ones, but they barely moved.

Icon and I carefully approach a cow. We were both scared.

Cow!

Mad cow!

We walked some more and were passed at times by toddlers and people pushing baby carriers. It was a bit humbling (which is why I don't have photos of that)

We ate a lot on this trip (which means I enjoyed myself!) and I just loved the times we by the lakeshore.

Icon was a bit tortured by the water though. We had been in europe for a week and a half, always near the water, and he had yet to go swimming.

Kep was unimpressed.

EO Trip - Mellingen

2011-08-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

I was nervous going to the local agility trial in Mellingen, Switzerland. I only knew Marco Mouwen (and not very well), everyone spoke a different language (or two). But wouldn't you know it? Agility people in Switzerland are very similar to agility people in the US. I only spoke to a few people on Saturday, but by Sunday I felt very comfortable. The Austrians at that trial were particularly friendly. They must have known that Arnold Schwarzenegger and I are tight ;).

It could be California. Well, almost.

You don't usually see happy cows near the agility fields in California.

You don't usually have fields and rivers near agility fields in California.

And they don't usually have cute Medieval towns near the agility fields in California.

The agility itself was fun! Icon did great as was clean in all of his runs except for his last run where I didn't support the weave poles well enough and he popped out. It was a tough one though ;). Someone was nice enough to get some of our runs on video.

EO Trip - Basel

2011-08-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

My trip to europe for EO was lots of fun! I was gone for 15 days, which is the longest trip I've ever taken. And it felt long too! Luckily it was broken up into 4 distinct events so as soon as I started to get homesick I had a new adventure to look forward to. And thankfully I started my trip with a week of work instead of ending it that way. There's no way I would have looked forward to a week of work after EO!

The hotel we stayed at in Basel was very nice. The room had a dog bed and food dish for Icon.

This is the only time he used the bed.

The weather wasn't great in Basel, it was mostly cloudy and fairly cool. I'm very glad though because even so my room was warm and stuffy. I can't imagine how hot it would have been if the weather had been 'nice'.

When the weather is nice people go "swimming" in the Rhine river. I'm not sure why the rest of the world calls american's lazy because "swimming" in Basel consists of getting into the river at a point upstream and letting the river carry you down to an exit location downstream :). It would have been fun to try, but it was a bit too chilly for me. Icon was up for it though.

But "no dogs allowed." Sorry Icon!

Icon really didn't enjoy the week went spent in Basel. I worked long hours both in the office and in the hotel and there was nothing fun for him to do. One day I worked 17 hours. He was disgusted with me.

He tried hard to get my attention though.

"Look Ma!"

He did get to come to the office with me a bit. He enjoyed the bathroom humour.

When we got the rental car he was very excited.

"Let's blow this joint!"

And then we headed off to Mellingen!

Up, up and away!

2011-07-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

Icon and I head to Europe tomorrow. First stop is Basel, Switzerland where I will be working for a week. It's my first time there and I hear it is a beautiful city but I'm worried that I won't get to see much of it. My days are packed with meetings in the office and then in the evenings I'll have to hunker down in the hotel for teleconferences with my SF peeps. I thought about canceling my weekly meetings while I was in Basel but most of them include people from either Welwyn, Basel or Warsaw so it would be rude of me to cancel just because I'm in their time zone. I'm sure no one would mind if I canceled them but then nothing would get accomplished the week I'm gone! I'm hoping I can start some of my days a bit late so Icon and I can get out and do some sight-seeing in the morning before I head to work.

Next weekend Icon and I are going to a local trial in Switzerland. Marco Mouwen was kind enough to get Icon entered in A3 even though we've never done a local trial in Europe before. I'm very thankful I don't have to start in A1! I am a bit nervous about going to this trial though, I'm not sure what to expect (I'm not sure where I'm staying yet either)!

After that I'm meeting up with Laura, Nancy and Susan and we are heading to the lake district near Salzburg, Austria for a couple of days. It looks like a beautiful region and the fact that The Sound of Music was based there is a bonus. That was one of my favorite movies growing up! I can sing any of the songs from the movie on request (but you may regret it if you ask to hear The Goat Herd song).

The final stop on our trip is Bad Hall, Austria for the European Open. I had so much fun last year, I'm hoping this year is as much fun! It's an amazing experience; totally different from the world championships, which is a formal and controlled production. The EO is a huge event and there are so many dogs entered that it's very chaotic but fun nonetheless!

A bit about Rammy

2011-07-09T23:34:00.000-07:00

Rampage continues to make me stop and scratch my head in many situations. He is so inconsistent in his reactions I'm not sure what his trigger points are. He is brash and confident in some situations and then in a similar situation, for no apparent reason, he will be worried. I still can't do lessons with him; he is game for one run and then he is DONE. All of our training is done during a few minutes here and there in my back yard. I'm sure I'll figure out his trigger points eventually but he's an odd duck. But an irresistibly handsome and lovable odd duck.

I have decided to add a stop to his dogwalk because he just wasn't accelerating on the down ramp with the running. To be more accurate, he wasn't extending on the down ramp but it had the same result. Even when he didn't leap, he was just on the edge of the yellow and that's not something I can live with. If I could have done something different with his training I would NOT have practiced on the full sized dogwalk in my back yard. Due to the relatively small size of my yard it seems like the next obstacle (even if it was a tunnel) was uncomfortably close for him, which resulted in him collecting on the descent instead of accelerating down.

Rampage picked up the stop instantly in training. I put a target down, told him to target and *wham* a beautiful 2o/2o. Fading the target was simple. I had him doing 2o/2o in multiple environments; at home, at power paws, at swiss park and he was spot on almost every time.

We've been to two trials since I've added the stop and he's stopped in competition exactly... ZERO times. I figured during our last USDAA trial I would finally make him realize he has to stop since we had so many runs per day, but it certainly didn't work out that way. Since he can be weird about agility I didn't want to pull him for not stopping, but that will be my approach when we're at our next trial (which might not be until September!) In retrospect I wish I hadn't been so lax in my criteria for the 2o/2o on the teeter in trials. He has great drive on the teeter in training, but is hesitant at trials. If I had addressed that previously then I don't think stopping on the dogwalk now would be an issue.

But Rampage has been giving me some really nice stuff in trials lately. I'm still hoping that I can encourage the 'happy Rammy' and weed out the 'worried Rammy' at trials (which is the main reason I didn't want to get on his case for not stopping on the DW). The dork is qualified for USDAA nationals in all 3 events after limited trailing, but we can't get an advanced standard leg to save our lives!

This is getting long but one last thing about Rampage... His jumping has improved quite a bit over the last couple of months. We've been doing jump grids and core strength exercises and I'd like to think that is why, but I suspect that Rampage just needed to mature.

Some of the good stuff...
We had two bars in this run (The first bar was because I set him up to close to the first jump), but otherwise I liked it! Rammy likes to go in straight lines, which is a bit odd because he turns so beautifully.

Rampage won Masters Snooker and got his first super q! (Icon helped by going for less points :)

Oy Vey!

2011-07-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I've posted! I've been really busy at work and playing with the dogs so no time for the blog.

There was a new test for Lyme disease released on June 15th by Cornell University. I hadn't been throwing away enough money on my dogs lately so I decided to get Icon tested just to see what results it came back with. This test can tell between acute and chronic Lyme infection; I thought that it might give us an idea of how long he had been infected with Lyme.

Well wouldn't you know it, the test came back negative for all three antibodies tested. Icon has been tested three times for Lyme now, the first one was negative, the second one 'low positive' and then this third one is negative. Icon almost definitely has never had Lyme disease. So now I'm back to not knowing what the hell was wrong with him in Minnesota. On the bright side I don't have to worry about a recurrence of Lyme disease but now I'm worried about a recurrence of "doxycyline responsive something or other."

A perfect day

2011-06-21T21:33:00.000-07:00

Today I worked from home. It was a perfect day to sit outside and get lots of work done! Pook was a great assistant.

Icon was also very manageable, as he was easily distracted when I turned on the sprinklers. :)

]

The other dogs weren't so helpful. They wanted to play the entire time.

But occasionally Rampage just stood and looked handsome.

Except when he wanted to play.

I wouldn't want to work from home all the time, I miss the f2f interaction with my coworkers. But on a beautiful day like today, I sure loved it!

Happy 9th birthday Apollo!

2011-06-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

How could anyone resist this mug?

Closing the loop

2011-06-07T22:21:00.000-07:00

For those not on FB, it turns out that Icon tested positive for Lyme disease. Now the big question, which will never be answered, is where did he get it? Lyme disease generally takes 2-5 months before a dog will show symptoms. In some dogs it goes undetected for over a year. That's a huge window.

He was 'off' for at least a few weeks before tryouts. We went to a USDAA trial two weeks before tryouts and he ran courses happily enough but he wasn't excited ringside. I remember at one point a very exciting dog was running and instead of watching with intensity he climbed into someone's lap. At the time I made a comment about how odd that was. His times were off of what they normally are and he missed at least 3 a-frame contacts, which is totally unlike him. The whole weekend was so unlike him that I took him to an orthopedic surgeon to check him out. The orthopedist (who ironically was visiting from University of Minnestoa to cover for Dr Sams - oh, why couldn't he have just said, "Hey, maybe it's a tick-born disease?") couldn't find anything wrong with him and sent me on my way telling me I was overreacting (in a very polite way of course, he is originally from Canada).

Icon's symptoms could have started at AKC nationals, he definitely wasn't himself there either but I thought it was the dry, slippery surface. And maybe it was, we'll never know.

Anyway, Icon is still doing great. He got his Mach 4 at the TRACS trial two weeks ago and last weekend he won GP/SC and DAM Team at a local USDAA trial (admittedly it was a relatively small trial but I thought he ran great). He has 3 days left of his doxycycline treatment and then we're done. After that he will be considered 'in remission'. The treatment doesn't kill the bacteria entirely; it inhibits reproduction, which is why it requires such a long course. Quite often Lyme disease will come back. So while I'm happy that we'll be done with the antibiotics soon I'm worried that he will start showing symptoms again eventually...

Not the best weekend (very long)

2011-05-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

My trip to MN for World Team Tryouts this year has to be my worst trip ever. The only thing worse than having a sick dog is having a sick dog and being 2000 miles away from home. But on the bright side I have a really really bad memory and I'm already starting to forget how awful I felt (and I'm sure Icon has forgotten how awful he felt too). So for posterity I thought I should write a blog about it before I start asking people to remind me why we didn't run at tryouts on Sunday ;).

I knew something was wrong with Icon by Saturday afternoon, but I wasn't sure what. Icon just wasn't right. He can get moody sometimes when he doesn't get enough sleep though so I figured that was it.

On Saturday evening Kep invited us over to his room for a nightcap.

Icon just wanted to curl up on the couch. Even Kep was wondering if there was something wrong with him.

Icon said, 'Leave me alone'.

It's a good thing that what Icon had wasn't contagious or else Kep surely would have ended up with it. Kep thought Icon was saying, 'Floss my teeth, please' and he did his best.

On Sunday morning he didn't get out of bed when I did and he didn't eat his breakfast, which is very odd for him. Breakfast was ground turkey I bought from the local grocery store and figured maybe it was 'off'. I still had some food from home, but it was in the freezer and needed to thaw. I brought it to the trial with us to see if he would eat later.

Large dogs were 3rd on Sunday so we had lots of time. I took him out to walk a few times and he had very little energy, he ate his breakfast from home but reluctantly. While the small dogs were walking I brought him into the stands and was holding him. He felt warm to me. I asked my friends if they thought he had a fever and luckily one of them had a thermometer in her car so we decided to check his temperature, which was 105 :(. JD and Tantrum were about to run so I didn't want to bother them, but as soon as they had finished I asked her to look at him. They found another thermometer and took his temperature again to be sure that he had a fever and JD checked him out and sent us off to the vet.

So Kep had to come out of the car and then Icon and I headed to the emergency vet.

By this point Icon didn't want to do anything but lay down. This was pretty much the extent of his movement for the couple of hours that we were there.

The emergency vet didn't find anything alarming aside from the high fever, CBC was normal aside from low platelets. Tick test was negative, he was dehydrated so they gave him sub-q fluids and then he sent us on our way saying that it was probably a virus and Icon just needed to rest while it run its course, which was very good news. I'm thankful it wasn't anything worse that required hospitalization. It was at this point that I started wondering how long I would be staying in Minnesota becuase I couldn't fly Icon in this condition...

The emergency clinic was right near my hotel and I really didn't feel like going to back to the show site so we went to the hotel for a couple hours to rest. We had to get back eventually to pick up Laura and Kep so we returned for the Large dogs Rd5, of course Icon stayed in the car.

The main reason I didn't want to go back was I knew everyone would ask me how Icon was doing, which I didn't want to have to deal with. I know people ask because they are concerned about him and I'm grateful for that but to be asked every few minutes is a bit frustrating.

Sunday night was more of the same. Icon had a fever, Icon slept, Icon ate a bit but reluctantly.

At JD and Holly's suggestion I convinced the emergency vet to send us home with sub q fluids (I used to have a cat with kidney failure so have given sub q many times) and rigged up a drip system in the hotel to juice Icon up on Sunday night. He didn't even move for that.

I went to bed hoping he'd be miraculously better in the morning so we could take our flight at 11:30. But he wasn't :(. So I contacted some local people in MN (feeling a bit bad because it was around 6:30am) to see if there was a local internist that I could take him to. University of MN was the place to go. I spent the morning making our appointment, dealing with work, the airline and rental car and finding a hotel to stay at that was closer to the University.

We dropped Laura and Kep off at the airport and then went to our appointment.

This was the first time I've ever been to a veterinary teaching hospital and I liked them, but it takes a loooooong time for an appointment. This is because first the student will examine your dog and then they go and discuss the case with the veterinarian and then they both come back and the veterinarian examines the dog. We had nowhere else to be so it was fine for us, just interesting.

Icon's condition was unchanged, although he was no longer dehydrated (and he still had a pouch of water under his skin from my giving him fluids in the morning). The only thing this vet noticed was he has some enlarged lymph nodes. So they did more blood tests and aspirated the lymph nodes (which found nothing). The blood tests showed that his platelets had dropped again and at this point all of the vets I was consulting with (I was still in touch with JD and also my friend Kelly who was in England at WAO at the time) started talking about him having clotting problems and I had to start watching him for tiny bruises and hemorrhages on the gums and tarry black stools. We were working on two theories at this point, he had the tick born disease, anaplamosis or Immune-mediated thrombocytopenia. We were hoping for anaplasmosis, so he was started on doxycycline to see if that would help.

Since he seemed to be in stable condition and wasn't dehydrated, they didn't feel he needed to be hospitalized, which I was so thankful for. I would have been a mess if he wasn't with me.

We headed over to the new hotel and started a very depressing evening. The hotel was a complete dump and smelled funny, although the staff was very pleasant. I didn't even bother putting my sheet from home on the bed.

Icon did seem to feel a bit better on Monday night. He ate his dinner with an appetite and he seemed a bit more aware. He felt like snuggling for a few minutes. His temperature was even down to 103.3, the lowest it had been until then was 104.5.

When I woke up in the morning Icon didn't want to eat and his temperature was back up to 104.4. I felt defeated. I just wanted to go home. I spoke to the vet at U of MN and she THOUGHT it should be ok to fly him since he was stable and not dehydrated. I knew I was taking a chance but I decided to fly him home.

I called the airline and luckily got a seat on the 11:30am flight that morning. While at the airport I made an appointment for Icon at Kelly's clinic to get them to see him after we landed. The flight was uneventful, Icon was fine, and we even landed 30 minutes early.

Icon and I headed over to see our 3rd vet in 3 days.

Icon was much improved in this exam, his temperature was down to 102.4 and he seemed more alert. They took blood again and sent it out to a lab to get more accurate results. The vet there felt it was very unlikely that it was tick born based on the fact that we had only been in MN since Thursday night and ticks often have to be attached for 24+ hours to transmit disease AND it takes 2-7 days for symptoms to show. She felt he was recovering and that it was probably caused by some virus he picked up and needed to work out of his system. We decided to continue him on the doxycycline just in case.

And then we were HOME. What a wonderful feeling that was.

By the next morning Icon's temperature was down to 101. The blood tests came back normal, his platelets were back within the safe range.

I guess it was just a freak illness for Icon. I don't recall him ever being sick in the past, let alone THAT sick. It was just very unfortunate that it happened when it did! I'm taking him back to the vet on Tuesday to get blood drawn and sent away for a full tick titer, just to totally rule out the possibility of tick born disease. And then I'm going to forget the weekend ever happened.

I'm a bit disappointed that we won't be going to France this year with the world team, but probably not as much as people would expect. When I'm on the team I put a lot of energy and focus into it and by the end of last year I felt very drained. I think a year of having that energy and focus back on my own life will be very good for me.

Icon and I are planning on going to the European Open again this year and I'm really looking forward to it! I confirmed that I can combine it with a business trip in Switzerland so Icon and I will be in Europe for at least 2 weeks. The place we're staying in Austria is a resort with full service spa and wellness treatments. I just hope I will be able to leave the hotel and make it to the competition. :)

Kind of funny

2011-04-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

Rammy almost got his first Masters Jumpers leg on Friday at HT (his first time in Masters jumpers!) If only I hadn't run THROUGH jump number 4...

He did get his first Masters jumpers leg on Saturday though (and his first master gamblers)!

Getting in some serious training

2011-04-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

Hi! I'm Icon! Last weekend I gave my 2nd seminar up at beautiful Power Paws agility field!

I didn't have as many participants as last time, but this was a more focused session.

To start off the day we did some fun trick training for the handlers.

This handler was taught to place numbered cones by a jump. It's a pretty easy trick to teach your handler, but it's impressive how much distance the participant was able to get from the handler. He was at least 40 ft away and the handler put the numbers 1-20 down in the correct sequence!

The next trick is a fun one for teaching your handler to pick up their toys and put them away. It's a very complex trick, especially with TWO handlers! But this participant did a great job with his training. The handlers are even having fun doing this trick! (The participant seems a bit bored though, I didn't notice that during the seminar.)

The 'replace a bar on a jump' trick is an oldie but a goodie. You jump over a bar, but at the last minute you push the bar out of the jump cups with your foot. Then your handler has to pick it up from the ground and put it back in the cup. Handlers get so excited when you train this trick! Their voices get louder and higher pitched each time you kick a bar onto the ground and they sometimes even jump up and down. I've even seen some handler's face turn bright red. It's fun to see handlers so engaged in their training!

Something that dogs often overlook before starting agility is the warmup. You must stretch and get your muscles ready for the activity ahead. Agility is a demanding sport!

Recently there has been a rash of dog injuries related to agility. Canine masseuses, physical therapists and orthopedic surgeons all believe this can be directly linked to dogs not warming up prior to working with their handlers. Here my brother Rampage shows a good example of a pre-agility stretch. Notice that even while stretching it's good to involve your handler so they feel as though they are helping you. I encourage Rampage to seek out and engage with any available handler so I can have my handler all to myself again (I'm willing to share with Apollo and Foster because they were here before me but that Rampage is a free-loader).

Sunday Hike!

2011-04-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

We went for a hike on Sunday at Mission Peak. It's only 15 minutes from my house but this was the first time I've been there. And HOLY COW, it's crowded! I drove to the main parking lot and it was full. I drove around looking for street parking and nada. I would have had to park over a mile from the trailhead to enter there. So instead I drove to Ohlone College to an alternate trailhead.

Don't let this photo fool you, most of the hike was under open skies and grassy hillsides. On the lee side of the hill we did get some shade though.

We soon came back out into the grass.

We climbed and climbed and climbed.

And holy crap, we climbed.

At one point of the climb we ran into a herd of cows. Thankfully I had the dogs on leash! Both Apollo and Rampage wanted to go say hi to them pretty bad. The cows in the bay area are well known for charging at unsuspecting hikers and their dogs. Luckily these bovines just eyed us warily.

We climbed into the clouds! If you look way far down you can see the path that we came from.

I shouldn't have been surprised at the number of people I saw on the trail and at the summit based on the number of cars in the main parking lot, but I was. There were TONS of people. And apparently the dogs and I are power hikers because we passed at least 50 people on our way up. But one thing that made me feel warm inside each time we passed someone was that seeing the dogs made them smile. I happily interrupted our power hiking multiple times to let them pet Apollo. People also showed interest in the border collies, but Icon was uninterested and Rampage was wary. But I was very impressed with how Rampage handled himself around all the strange people!

We made it to the summit and stopped for a water break before heading back down. Apollo really struggled going downhill :(. He seemed in pain walking, going slower and slower... and slower...... but normal when he trotted downhill. I eventually just let him off-leash so he could make his way down at his own pace. That worked really well for us.

We're starting to get close! If you ignore the overexposure you can see the SF bay and civilization between the two hills.

The home stretch! Our car is in the parking lot right in front of the pool.

Mission Peak is a really fun hike. It was 6.8 miles and 2064ft elevation gain. I recommend it for the adventurous. I'm not sure if I'll take Apollo next time though :(.

AKC Nationals!

2011-04-15T00:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm a bit behind.

We went to AKC nationals a few weeks ago and had lots of fun! We didn't make it to finals or even the challengers round. Aside from the numerous, "What happened?????" questions I've had since coming home I don't feel all that bad about it. Icon struggled with the dry, loose surface the whole time he was there and watching the dogs in challengers and finals I think he would struggled there just as much or even more.

As for the "What happened?????" questions I have received since coming home I take it in a positive way (except for Greg. I mean, Tammy, get control of your man! Tell him to at least say hello to me first!) If Icon and I shocked so many people by NOT being in the finals we must have a pretty good reputation! :)

But the GOOD from AKC nationals is that we did win the ISTT combined for 26" on Friday. I know for most competitors this is considered a warm-up day, but for people interested in AKC/USA World Team it's important! (winning NAC is more important, but we take what we can get!)

I thought there were some super competitors in the 26" class this year, Tori and Rev definitely stood out by winning the whole shabang (even before leaving for nationals I predicted they'd do well), I was so happy that my good friend Laura and Kep qualified for the finals; I cheered for them the entire way! I loved seeing Terry and Presto make finals and have a clean round. Since he's so nice you may think he's Canadian, but really he's from Minnesota. They're close enough to Canada that our niceness wears off of them. Jef looked super with both Voucher and his young dog Klepto, I think there is a lot in his future with both of those great dogs. And Kelsey and Ace had a super run in the Challengers round with the fastest time of all dogs (but an unfortunate bar kept them out of the finals.)

And a special shout out for Ashley and Luka winning NAC 16" for the second time! Not only is Ashley a great competitor but he is probably one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet (he's British, they taught Canadians about politeness.) And he's taller than me, so he gets bonus points!

I'm looking forward to tryouts in May, there's going to be some tough competition this year!!!

All of the videos I have from nationals (more dogs than just Icon!) can be seen here: http://www.vimeo.com/album/1572642

Pano!

2011-03-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

Not the dog disease, the iPhone app. It's pretty neat.

This is my first time playing with it. I think I should have stood in the middle of the arena instead of at the end.

The 'indoor arena' was indeed a tent but what an awesome tent it was! Outdoors there were gale force winds that blew over horse jumps but indoors you just saw the tarp flap occasionally. Outdoors there was a torrential downpour but indoors you heard a gentle pattering that soothed your soul.

And the dirt. The DIRT! It was the same loamy sand felt mixture we had at the Thanksgiving trial. This wonderful surface isn't just amazing for agility, it's amazing for parking also! We were able to park in the outdoor arena closeby that had the exact same surface. After 14+ days of straight rain cars would have been spinning their wheels on any other surface but not on this wonderful stuff.

The boys did well. Icon got a double Q, Apollo qualified in both and is now in Exc B P Std. He went from Nov to Exc B without an NQ! We still need one more JWW Q for Exc B P, we had a little issue in one of our JWW runs :). Rampage qualified in Std, but we missed JWW due to a dropped bar and popped weaves.

I'm still not sure if I'll go back tomorrow but I'm tempted to get that last JWW for Apollo :). It's a long drive though...

Yummy!

2011-03-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not so happy how my resolution of not entering trials with rubber contacts is going. I'm not going to break it, I still think rubber is best for our dogs, but I'm not going to assume that rubberizing contacts is a panacea anymore.

The weather has been really crappy here lately. The park that I take the dogs to is usually so greedy that you never get standing water there, but when I took the dogs there today I was glad I wore my rubber boots.

The trial that was supposed to be outdoors this weekend was moved indoors on dirt! It's 2 hours away from me as opposed to the 1 hour that it would have been but I think the change is worth the extra drive. Apparently the RVs won't be close to the arena so I think I'll just drive back and forth. I'm not sure I'll go both days, I'll play it by ear. The thought of 8hrs in the car over the weekend doesn't thrill me.

My other resolution of only eating humanely raised and slaughtered meat is going well but it means I hardly eat any meat. In the last 3 weeks I have only eaten meat once, a ribeye steak. And oh, how wonderful it tasted! (I won't tell you how much I paid for it, though... Ouch!) A vegetarian friend told me that there is a term for what I am doing, "Flexitarian". I thought she was just making fun of me when she told me but it turns out the term does exist.. and it fits.

A side effect of my "Flexitarianism" is that I'm cooking more than normal. I'm not sure how long this will last because I'm pretty notorious for going through cooking spurts that die out after a month or so. :)

I had a very tasty meatless dinner tonight, I made quinoa and black beans for dinner and teamed it with some young asparagus and baby spinach. Yummy!

Stupid Rubber Contacts cont'd...

2011-03-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

Here is Icon pretending the a-frame and dogwalks are a slip'n'slide. Nice slide into the 2o/2o of the dogwalk, but that shouldn't be possible on rubber!

And Rammy didn't Q in JWW after all! He dropped a bar and I didn't notice. I hate it when that happens! :P

Hiking!

2011-03-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

We were supposed to be at an agility trial today but it was cancelled due to inclement weather so we went hiking instead. But even so, I felt like a kid who took advantage of a 'snow day' playing out in the snow.

We probably hiked aroud 7miles with an elevation change of at least 50,000 ft. Ok, it was probably more like 1200 ft or so, but it sure felt like 50,000 (as an aside I have a friend at work that runs ultra-marathons and he did a 50mile run that actually HAD a 50k ft elevation change. It boggles the mind!)

The majority of the hike was onleash but most of my photos are from the off-leash portion because it's not easy to take photos while holding leashes :)

Also, the photo quality isn't so great but I was using my iPhone so beggars can't be choosers.

Icon gets the flexi lead because he's special (read: well-behaved). Watching Tammy with her 6 dogs made me happy I only had 3 (Foster stays at home when we hike because his rear end can't keep up now that he's getting older :( ) but she handles her 6 better than I handle my 3 (or 2 to be honest, Icon is easy to handle)!

There were many waterfalls for us to traverse on our way up the mountain. It was actually quite beautiful. I'm not sure why some people refues to hike in the rain *cough* KAY *cough*.

This is top secret but Icon got to be off-leash during most of it. That's because he's just so cute (read: well-behaved)

But eventually we came to the portion where we could let the dogs FREE!

And they could swim in the wonderful clean mountain streams. Or something llike that.

But they had lots of fun.

I was a bit freaked out when Icon went into this pool. I kept having visions of him being washed downstream into oblivion but he jumped out whole and unharmed.

Did I mention it was beautiful?

And then it was time to go home! If you look closely at Icon and squint you'll see the three ticks I picked off him as I was driving home. Ick. Those were the only three I've found on any of the dogs despite hours of looking once I got home. Ticks are so gross.

Rammy says, "Lets do it again!"

Stupid rubber contacts

2011-03-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit disillusioned about the whole 'rubber contacts are awesome' thing. This weekend my boys and I had our first trial in over a month. I was looking forward to it, but mother nature decided that she didn't approve, we had some pretty gross weather today. It didn't look so bad when I left home, but about half way there it started pouring and didn't stop until I about an hour after I arrived. The ground didn't LOOK bad. When you took a step you thought your foot would land in dewey grass, but it actually landed almost ankle deep in water.

We had standard first and I felt the contacts as I was walking the course. They were rubber, but they felt a bit slick to me. But they're rubber so they're awesome, right?? Apollo went first, getting his 2nd Exc A Standard leg in preferred. No problems with the contacts. Then Rammy went next and did well aside from a tunnel refusal (which I turned into an off-course). No problem with the contacts. But when Icon went he had a wipe-out on the downside of the aframe and then almost fell off the dogwalk but saved himself.

So why the hell am I boycotting trials without rubber contacts? Are rubber contacts any safer? Today I felt that a good sanded wood contact would have had significantly more traction for in this weather. Argh.

All three boys qualified in JWW so while it was a miserable day weather-wise it was a good day Q-wise missing only Rammy's Std for Q's.

The trial for tomorrow is cancelled due to weather and next weekend is in doubt too because the weathermen are forcasting rain for eternity. I would like to get some ring time in before nationals if possible but if not... c'est la vie!

Icon's seminar*

2011-03-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Icon. Last weekend I presented my first ever seminar at the beautiful Power Paws agility field! Apparently I'm really famous because I had lots of interest with people coming from as far away as Washington and Colorado.

The first thing I wanted to focus on in my seminar was 'play'. A lot of dogs don't teach their handler how to play and I feel it's very important to keep their motivation and attention on course. Don't you hate it when you have to cheer-lead your handler the whole way?

So we spent some time having the participants engage their handlers with the toys.

You'll notice in this photo the participant is engaging with his handler physically, but the handler's full attention isn't on him.

Here is a more appropriate way to engage your handler with a toy. The participant has his handler's full attention.

Some participants tried to throw the toy to their handler, but it is much more effective if you are both grabbing it at the same time. Most handlers are very needy and require that closeness to feel motivated.

It's a good idea to bring multiple toys with you to a seminar because some handlers are picky and won't play with just any toy. I recommend that all dogs train their handler to play with anything; leashes, empty bottles, empty poop bags, etc. And of course all normal toys. It's easiest to train your handler when you're a puppy because they are distracted by your fluffy cuteness and they are infinitely more trainable.

Another major focus of my seminar was start-lines. It's very important that you train your handler to leave the startline in a consistent manner. Sometimes you have to encourage this by having your own routine at the startline.

This participant had a hard time knowing when to start because her handler didn't leave the startline consistenly. But we just had to have the participant implement a simple routine of jumping up on her hind feet before going into a sit and the handler's performance improved greatly.

The participant knew exactly where she was going after that.

We also spent time troubleshooting inappropriate behavior. One participant had a handler that was overly affectionate on the start line. This is a tough issue to address because you don't want to discourage affection overall, just ensure that your handler uses it at appropriate times.

My first seminar was a resounding success. But I have new appreciation for seminar presenters, it is exhausting work!

*Note: Everything Icon says in this post is fictitious, the seminar was actually presented by a qualified, well-known agility instructor. Not Icon :)

Spring!

2011-03-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

I've been absent from my blog lately, but for no particular reason. I was out of town a couple weeks ago for work and I haven't been trialing so I guess there hasn't been much to blog about.

I'm so happy that it's March and spring is starting to peek out and say hello. My nectarine tree is in full bloom and the leaves are coming out, the wisteria is starting to bloom and my pomegranate tree that I just planted last fall is getting some new leaves.

Nectarine blossoms

Wisteria blossom

Either I or my orange tree is a bit confused. This is the first year it has produced fruit for me and they are looking a lot more like a grapefruit than an orange. They don't taste like either fruit. My friend suggested it might be a pomelo tree.

Finally, something that makes my hands look small.

The fruit have mega rind. This happened the first year my lemon tree produced too so I'm hoping the next season will have nicer fruit, whatever it is.

This time of year I always overseed my lawn to keep it looking thick and luscious (at least for a few weeks until the rain stops and the dog pee kills it all again) . Apollo and Rampage like to 'help'. Apollo is definitely the worst with the grass seed spreader.

Icon keeps those boys in line though!

Apollo will have grass growing from his muzzle soon.

Taking a stand

2011-02-16T23:49:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-02-14T22:11:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-02-14T13:02:00.000-08:00

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...?

2011-02-03T19:37:00.000-08:00

Why, yes!

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

Polly's back!

2011-01-26T07:57:00.000-08:00

Apollo is back home! I'm so happy, he didn't need surgery. He was close though. Not close to needing the surgery, but close to having it without need.

I am thankful to my regular vet for not feeling comfortable performing the surgery herself and referring me to the surgical specialists at VSA. I am thankful to VSA for transferring us over to the medical side VMS instead of blindly operating on him. And I am SO thankful to my agility friend Kelly who works at VMS for taking great care of him. I knew she was an oncologist, but didn't realize she is an internist too. I'm sure any vet would have done their best for him, but it was a load off my mind to have someone I know and trust taking care of him.

Apollo was exhausted last night. He's looking much spunkier this morning.

So quiet and empty...

2011-01-24T21:58:00.000-08:00

Apollo is sick. He's at the vet with pancreatitis and a possible obstruction. The house is so quiet and empty here without him... It's a long story, but essentially I cleaned out the burnt grease drippings from my bbq and left that in a plastic bag on the bbq meaning to spread it on my garden. But then I forgot about it and Apollo got into it and ate the burnt grease.

In general I like my vet clinic. They have great hours, they are (mostly) accepting of the fact that I feed raw and don't vaccinate. And the three vets have been there as long as I've been taking the animals there, which has to be about 6 years now.

But what I don't like about them is that they aren't staffed 24 hrs. Apollo went there this afternoon and spent his afternoon and evening at the clinic. Then at 7pm I had to go pick him up and take him and his films, stool sample and IV apparati to the overnight emergency clinic about 500 meters away. Tomorrow morning I get to pick him up at 7am and take him back to my normal vet clinic. The worst part of this is how HAPPY Apollo was when I picked him up. He was so excited to be going home... but I just took him to another clinic where more strangers poked and prodded him and stuck their fingers up his butt.

Yay! We're going home!

Where are we now?? Get me out of here!

I'm telling Apollo to be brave. Poor guy.

Some blood results in the high range...

A sample of what still remains in Apollo's instestines. What you don't see is the little metal slivers that were once hairs on my grill brush. That's gotta hurt coming out.

Foster misses his best buddy. But not as much as I do :(

Watch in amazement

2011-01-18T19:49:00.000-08:00

as Icon and I run an Exc B Standard course with NO side changes!!

Border Terrier AKC - Icon Sun Standard from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

It was actually a pretty fun course with subtle challenges. Many experienced teams were fooled by the apparent simplicity.

It was a fun weekend overall. I thought I entered Saturday and Sunday of the trial, but it turns out I entered Sunday and Monday. Thankfully I had Monday off work so I could go both days :). I was really happy with how Rampage did. He got his first Exc B JWW Q and his first MACH points! He even got more points that Icon, but that's just because Rampage was entered in 24 and the YPS is more generous there. Icon's time was faster by a bit over a second. Otherwise our albatross remains the weave poles. I still haven't really been training Rampage on poles because I only have 20" poles at home and I don't want him doing 20" with his long back. I ordered a new set, but if I want them delivered I won't get them until the 2nd weekend of Feb. So I'm thinking of making the 1 1/2hr drive to pick them up myself on Saturday.

Border Terrier AKC - Rampage Sunday JWW from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Apollo had fun in 20" Novice preferred this weekend and qualified in everything so now is Open Preferred! (he already had a leg in each because after his first knee surgery I brough him back in preferred for a day before moving him back up to 24")

Border Terrier AKC - Apollo Sunday JWW from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Fun with video

2011-01-13T08:01:00.000-08:00

My phone was upgraded so now I have video capability. It's pretty cool, although I think the novelty will wear off pretty quickly.

Icon demonstrates his piggybank trick. The idea was to eventually have him put the money into a piggy bank, but I don't think that will happen because while we have enthusiasm for the trick, the finesse is missing. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's training dogs to be frantic while clicker training.

This is Rammy's first time doing the trick with a coin and the small metal bowl. Previously he's only done it with the large food bowl and a big plastic ring of keys. He generalized the knowledge very well. He's one smart boy.

And here's our blooper reel.

Faces

2011-01-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

My camera miraculously started working again. I love it when the laws of entropy fail and things start working again without me expending any energy :)

Icon's sure got some Cute Face

But if needed he can put a Sly Face on

Rampage shows off his Toy Face (we see this one a lot around here)

The ever popular (and large) Tongue Face

Or Handsome Face

The "I'm annoying Icon but he's ignoring me" face

Foster is too busy for Face Shots

But Polly's Faces are the best!

Resolution of 2010 resolutions

2011-01-10T18:59:00.000-08:00

Please find below my 2010 resolutions and their resolution (in blue).

1. Get to work at a reasonable time. I'm aiming for 9:30, but I think I'll have to ease my way in.
This still doesn't happen often, I'm usually in the office by 10am. But that's only because I normally roll out of bed and onto a 7am teleconference and then of course I have to respond to all of my work emails before I can leave the computer and head to the office. So while I didn't technically keep this New Years resolution, I think I would still call it a 'win'. For my company, at least ;)

2. Eat lunch (and/or breakfast) every day so I don't come home from work so hungry I can't help but eat a bag of Doritos.
I've been doing pretty well on this one the past year! I've been good at eating both breakfast and lunch, but do still occasionally eat just one. This is a 'win'!

3. Water the plants in my office more than once ever 3 months.
Another 'win' for me! My plants get watered at least every 3 months, but probably not more than that. And you can tell too :)

Resolutions are fun when you set low expectations for yourself :)

Don't look a gift Agility Surface in the mouth

2011-01-06T22:03:00.000-08:00

We went to a trial at Rancho Murieta on Thanksgiving where the surface was a wonderful pale, loamy sand mixed with felt. It was divine. I heard there was a huge world equestrian event at the facility and the surface cost $50, 000. It felt like a million.

Dogs floated as they ran on it, canine masseuses and chiropractors alike composed songs about how refreshed dog muscles felt after running on the surface. I cornered anyone I met after the trial and expounded on how wonderful the surface was. People who had no clue what agility was started avoiding me because they knew if they made eye contact I would start talking to them about pale, loamy felt sand again.

And then there was the New Years Trial.

I told all of my agility friends that they HAD to sign up for the New Years trial because the surface was so wonderful. Imagine my dismay when I arrived to find plain brown dirt. At first it wasn't so bad. We've run on plain brown dirt before. But this wasn't the USUAL dirt. It was slippery, oily dirt. Bars were coming down left and right, dogs who normally take every obstacle in their path ran around jumps because they just couldn't keep their traction. This wasn't just dirt, it was the antithesis of the pale, loamy felt sand. This was the price we had to pay for the wonderful Thanksgiving trial agility surface.

I know what you're thinking. Apollo went 6/6 at the trial, got his MACH3, could it be that bad? Well for some dogs it wasn't. My theory (which is quite possibly wrong) is that dogs with straighter fronts did better on this surface. Apollo is one example, I think he might have actually enjoyed the evil dirt surface.

Rampage seemed to do ok on the surface, he slid a bit but his only faults all weekend were weaves pole faults, but boy we had a lot of those! It's easy to blame it on the surface (and I think that did play a role, the weave pole divots were like moon craters) but mostly it's a training issue. Rammy hasn't done many weaves in the past 2 months. I was surprised at the weave fly-by's he did though. His entries have been pretty good in the past. We only got one Q on the weekend, but it was his last Exc A JWW Q so now he's Exc B JWW.

Icon was really affected by the surface. On Friday he dropped a bar in both runs and then Saturday and Sunday he qualified but he was slower than normal and his jumping was horrible, especially in his JWW runs. He was measuring and stutter stepping the whole way through. There was only one run we had where I felt like we were running close to normal, our Saturday Standard run. On our Sunday JWW run, we were even below the 5.4 yps cut-off time for World Team Quals. I think that's the first time this have ever happened in his entire AKC career.

I was relieved when we had a lesson on Tuesday and his jumping looked good. I've always known that dirt is not a good surface for Icon but I never thought it could be that bad.

And on New Years Day I started having horrible back pains. I blame the surface for that too.

Videos can be seen here, I don't feel like embedding them :)

MACH3 Polly!

2011-01-04T19:31:00.000-08:00

On the first day of a 3 day trial Apollo got a double Q to earn his MACH3 title! And then he went on to double Q the next two days too! Boy, if I trialed more he probably would be up to MACH6 by now. But if I trialed more, he probably wouldn't still be going strong at 8 1/2 years old. That's pretty old for a boxer! :)

This means no more jumping 24" for Apollo; at our next trial he is entered in 20" Novice Preferred. It's a bit sad because he's still doing so well jumping 24", but he doesn't need to be jumping that high anymore and I've heard rumors that AKC nationals might be on the west coast in 2012. It sure would be cool to qualify Apollo for that, if it turns out to be true. He'll be closing in on 10 years old at that point and might not be doing agility at all anymore, but that's what I thought a couple years about how he'd be doing at 8 years old and I was wrong then. Apollo is full of surprises.

To celebrate his MACH3 I made Apollo a 3 rib standing roast! He is not happy that he has to share :)

edit: Icon was happy to share though. As the rest of the dogs and I were hanging out on in the living room he snuck into the kitchen, grabbed the remaining roast of the counter onto the floor and started eating it. Luckily I caught him soon after the roast hit the floor. I guess the remaining roast will be cut up into dog treats. Well played, Icon Well played. You have everyone else on the planet thinking you're a 'perfect angel' but I know better now.

And what is prime rib without Yorkshire pudding?

Polly's dinner is plated.

Waiting, uhm, patiently for a release word to eat.

He started with the Yorkshire Pudding. Weirdo :)

Rampage cleaned his bowl when Apollo moved on to the meat. I love how well my boys get along :).

edit: Apollo's MACH 3 run! Thanks Sarah Beathard (nee Scott Dow) and, uhm, the other judge who I can't remember right now.

TRACS AKC - Friday Apollo Standard from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Hello!

2010-12-30T23:32:00.000-08:00

I guess I haven't been blogging lately. I've been working a lot and have been in a bit of an agility funk. It happens a lot to me this time of year, I think it's the weather or the short days. Or a combination of both. The thought of training in a constructive manner makes me want to curl up in bed and not get up. The only thing that is motivating me right now is the thought of eating and sleeping.

But having said that I had one of my best christmases (is that a word?) in a few years. My sister and nephews came to visit and we had a great time.

On Christmas Eve my sister made me Pierogie and Shishkabobs (aka shit on a stick), some traditional Fosty dishes.

The nephews are picky eaters. They had Pierogie innards and raw spinach. On a Christmas plate!

The dogs got ground beef with some pasta, spinach and a dollop of sour cream.

I forced my family to go for a walk at Coyote Hills on Christmas Day. We got lucky and missed the rain, but it was really really windy. My sister regretted wearing a hat :)

And then we just relaxed at home. After the first meeting where Rampage hid from the strange alien beings, all of the kids and dogs got along great. My living room isn't usually that messy. And there usually aren't kids in it.

We went to Alcatraz and saw Domo (played by my nephew, Jake) attack my nephew David. I love this photo :)

Jake gave Apollo some fashion advice.

And Rampage gave Jake some modeling advice.

"Tilt your head like this, Jake. The girls go wild for it!"

David and Icon went all Goth on us.

The day my family left it was very windy. My neighbors fence blew down. That's actually my front yard. Does that mean it's my fence too? I hope I don't have to pay for it....

I haven't done much agility lately, but I got out with a friend this week to make sure we got some contacts in. It was fun but I don't feel prepared for our New Years trial starting tomorrow!

I've been working a lot lately

2010-12-16T22:05:00.000-08:00

Icon isn't happy about it.

2010-11-30T19:29:00.000-08:00

We went to 2 days of an AKC trial last weekend. It was Icon's first trial back after his break and he was happy to be back! I decided to jump him at 20" at this trial (for the first time since he was 18 months I think) and he did great going 4/4. I thought he looked good jumping 20", although he was over jumping a bit. During our 'agility break' I also switched Icon to a running a-frame and they went well. But we'll see how it hold up over time and more importantly over the USDAA a-frame height change. Our running a-frame has bled over into a running dogwalk, I need to make sure that doesn't last...

SacramentoDTC AKC - Icon Friday Standard from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Apollo had a great weekend going 3/4. It was just a stupid move on my part kept him from a perfect weekend. He just needs one more QQ for Mach 3. I was hoping he'd get it last weekend so that after invitationals I could move him to preferred, but it looks like he'll have to at least do the New Years trial at 24" too.

I only got one of Apollo's runs on video.

SacramentoDTC AKC - Apollo Saturday JWW from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Rampage and I had lots of fun, but we didn't get any Q's. We were pretty close at times though! It was just babydog stuff. We got all of our contacts and had no bars down. But I definitely need to do something about our teeter... He has a beautiful 2o/2o with a nose touch in practice, but he has no clue that I expect this same performance at a trial. Luckily the new years trial will have a fun match at the end of one day so I will have a chance to let him know. And he has been avoiding the chute for a while now. He'll go in if I make him, but given a choice he will run around it. It's something I haven't practiced much with him because the chute is never out in class and I don't have a chute at home. But it would be nice to not have to escort him directly to the chute entrance on every course.

SacramentoDTC AKC - Rampage Saturday Standard from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Other videos I have taped can be seen here.

Catching up

2010-11-23T22:01:00.000-08:00

We went to a USDAA trial a couple weekends ago and I'm just getting a chance to write about it now. I've been focusing more on work than blogging lately, which is good :). In December I'm heading to Warsaw on a business trip which should be... interesting. On December 5th I'll arrive home from AKC invitationals around midnight and then head to Poland the next morning. I guess I'm just glad that I don't have to miss AKC Invitationals for the business trip. But this is the 3rd year in a row that I'll miss the December Bay Team UDSAA trial. I really wanted to go this year because they have rubber contacts!

The USDAA trail we just came back from was a weird experience for me. It was weird because I wasn't running Icon (he has been on a break since USDAA nationals... returning this weekend at an AKC trial!) and Rampage got lots of Q's, but I wasn't happy with many of his runs. How weird is that?

My video camera is broken so I don't have any videos from the weekend, but a friend was there on Saturday and was able to video some of our runs.

Apollo qualified in everything I entered him in, although he hit the broadjump in Rd 1 SC and dropped a bar in Rd 2 SC. I only got his Saturday Jumpers run on tape.

Apollo Jumpers NAF USDAA 11-13-10 from debbie chun on Vimeo.

Rampage qualified in pretty much all of his non-tournament events (aside from one Snooker and one Jumpers where I pulled him for breaking his startline stay). They weren't pretty Q's though. So he got 2 Standard Qs for his AD title and is now in Masters Jumpers, Gamblers and Pairs (!). I certainly don't feel like we're ready for masters in any of those categories and I apologize now for all of our future pairs partners :).

Rampage Sat Standard

Rampage Standard NAF USDAA 11-13-10 from debbie chun on Vimeo.

Rampage Sat Gamblers

Rampage Gamblers NAF USDAA 11-13-10 from debbie chun on Vimeo.

When I watch his videos I really don't like how Rampage jumps 26". I don't notice it when I'm running him, I just notice that he feels slow. But watching the video he struggles at 26". Once he gets into masters I think I'll switch him to performance 22" for a while to see if he just needs to mature a bit still.

Rampage Sat Jumpers

Rampage Jumpers NAF USDAA 11-13-10 from debbie chun on Vimeo.

Don't diss Apollo

2010-11-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

It has come to my attention that someone wrote on her blog about last weekend:

"We had a nice [Jumpers] run, but Apollo the boxer, of all dogs, beat us by .13. (Sorry, Apollo, I know you're a good dog and you're handled by a National Champion and World Team border collie handler, but [insert 2nd place Jumpers dog name here] usually 's time is notably faster than yours. Maybe that was just your course! I'll let you have it this time.)"

Well let me say that YES, I'm offended. I'm not quite so obsessive about keeping track of results as some people but I know that Apollo has beaten this dog on more than one occasion, to the point that us beating this dog is not a shock to me. Sure they beat us sometimes, but we beat them too.

It was not just "our course", we won jumpers both days and beat [insert 2nd place Jumpers dog name here] in grand prix as well last weekend. And considering Apollo was only entered in 4 classes, that's a pretty damn good record.

This is also not the first time this person has 'dissed' Apollo on her blog, although the first time someone pointed it out to me and I just laughed and ignored it. I believe the person said something like (this is definitely paraphrased), "If Apollo can make it to [the 2008] pGP finals and get 3rd place, imagine how much better [insert 2nd place Jumpers dog name here] could do!" Well Apollo didn't just finish 3rd place in 2008 pGP finals, he finished in 4th place in 2009 pGP finals. That's more than this dogs owner can ever claim.

Say what you will about me. I don't care if you call me a bitch and never talk to me again. But don't diss my dogs. And no one. NO ONE. DISSES. APOLLO.

Pollyballs!

2010-11-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

Yay! It came!

Open it!

Fine, I'll open it for you!

Pollyballs!

I love my Pollyball!

We love our Pollyballs!

Who's Pollyball is that?

My Pollyball!

Videos!

2010-10-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, I didn't get either of Icon's Steeplechase runs from USDAA nationals on video, but here are his GP Semi's and GP Finals

USDAA Nationals - Icon GP Semi's from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

USDAA Nationals - Icon GP Finals from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

And last weekend Apollo and Rampage went to an AKC trial (poor Icon is on a break until Thanksgiving, he's not happy about it) and Apollo went 4/4 with a 1st, two 2nds and a 3rd.

Del Valle AKC - Apollo Saturday Std from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Rampage got his first Exc A JWW Q (and his 2nd, but that was was a mistake - not that I'm complaining!) and Open Std title (for realz this time. No more nasty letters in the mail from AKC telling me we only have 2 Open Std legs)

Del Valle AKC - Rampage Saturday JWW from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Del Valle AKC - Rampage Sunday Standard from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

It was REALLY windy and wet on Sunday. Watch Apollo's 1st place jww run on an uber twisty course... If you can see anything!

Del Valle AKC - Apollo Sun JWW from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Groundhog Year

2010-10-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

I have lots I would like to say about Worlds and USDAA nationals and hopefully I will find some time to get around to it. I will definitely post whatever videos I have but that still might take some time.

First I want to take a moment to reflect back on a rather eerie observation on the outcome for Icon and I at all of our 'large events' in 2009 and 2010 (EO not included since I didn't go 2009).

	2009	2010
AKC Nationals	2^nd place 26”	2^nd place 26”
AKC WT Tryouts	1^st place Large cumulative Saturday 1^st place Large by points overall	1^st place Large cumulative Saturday 1^st place Large by points overall
Worlds	1 clean run out of 4 :(	1 clean run out of 4 :(
USDAA Nationals	Steeplechase – 3^rd place Grand Prix – 4^th place	Steeplechase – 3^rd place Grand Prix – 4^th place

I've always known Icon was consistent, but that's pretty weird that we finished EXACTLY THE SAME at every large event this year as he did in 2009! It would have been nice to improve somewhere, but staying the same is definitely better than getting worse! :) Hopefully we'll make the AKC/WT again next year and get to go to France so I can try to improve on that performance.

Oh dear

2010-09-22T14:12:00.000-07:00

The fundraiser for the AKC WT and Kathie has been going very well! No WT member was required to participate in it, but pretty much everyone did!

One downfall of doing a great job with the fundraising is that the ticketing process is not very streamlined. I generated tickets (from a pretty handy site www.raffleprinter.com) and sent them out to everyone and they had to print and assemble them into ticket books of 10 tickets/book.

(stay with me, this story is going somewhere)

They look really pretty in color but I'm sure most (or all!) printed them b/w. I know I did!

After assembling them into ticket books and someone donates we have to write the person's name on each ticket. For the first book of tickets I made the person write her own name on her tickets but she didn't seem to be so thrilled about it so I decided that going forward I would just write the names in for people. Most people donated in multiples of 10 so I would write the name on the cover page and store it away to write the names on each ticket while watching tv in the evenings.

(there's a point to this, honest)

This is fine, but OMG this is inefficient since we've had lots of donations. For example, Ashley Deacon donated his Steeplechase Winnings from two USDAA events, a total of $136. That's a lot of name writing!

So, now to my point.

I'm about 1/3rd of the way through writing down names, removing staples and placing the ticket stubs in a ziplock bag for safe keeping. I chose a ziplock bag because I don't want anything to happen to them on the trip to Germany (like, say, my shampoo leaks all over my clothing). Pretty smart of me, eh?

I leave the bag of ticket stubs on the coffee table because I do a little bit most nights. The bag has been there for a few weeks at least.

But today is either my lucky day or my unlucky day. I left for work and got about 5 minutes away before I realized I forgot my laptop at home. So I had to turn around and come back home. As soon as I entered the house I knew someone had been up to no good. I wanted into the living room to find....

Oh dear!

Someone was trying to destroy the bag of ticket stubs! Luckily no ticket stubs were destroyed, but there are a few tooth depressions in some of them...

I know the guilty party is not Foster and I'm PRETTY sure it's not Rampage. I had to look at the forensic evidence to decide if it was Apollo or Icon.

I think the evidence clearly shows it was a team effort. Icon worked on the upper left corner and Apollo on the lower right. Their motive is still unknown. The best theory I have to keep Icon appearing like the perfect dog I think he is, is that he wanted to give each of these tickets his own personal blessing. Or maybe he saw Apollo trying to destroy the bag of ticket stubs and in his attempt to save them he also damaged it himself.

All I know for sure is that I'm glad I came home when I did! If the ticket stubs were destroyed it wouldn't be the end of the world because we have a ticket tracking spreadsheet where we record everyone's name beside the ticket number. But boy that would not have been fun to re-create and re-name so many tickets!!!

WOW! Tunnel Bags!

2010-09-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

Can you BELIEVE how great these turned out?

Nancy Holmseth from TunnelBags has designed and created these amazing tunnel bags. Each star has the name of a team member embroidered on it. This is a collector's item, to say the least! These are the *GRAND PRIZE* in the USA WT giveaway! It's not too late to donate or participate!

49% goofy, 51% business

2010-09-19T22:16:00.000-07:00

We're making progress!

Rampage is starting to figure out the game. I wish I hadn't broken the flow after he didn't stop on his teeter because that's when the goofy began. And when Rampage is on the table I'm not feeling myself up, I was just trying to stick my run order numbers back on. One even fell off near the end and almost distracted him :)

I'm still not happy with our contacts. I'm not a fan of the one-hit in the yellow execution that he had on his a-frame and his dogwalk looks like he takes small choppy steps instead of extending. Powerpaws now has rubberized contacts and he seems so much more comfortable on them. Icon also clearly prefers the rubber a-frame. I really hope all agility organizations REQUIRE rubber contacts in the very near future.

SFD AKC - Rampage Open Standard from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

So cute

2010-09-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

Sarah Johnson took these photos at the regionals at labor day and they really show Apollo's personality. The little dog is Holly Newman's newest addition.

Apollo has always loved puppies and small dogs.

It's pretty hard for me to look at these photos because it shows how gray Apollo has become in his face. It's so odd to me because when I look at him every morning he looks exactly like he did when he was 2 years old. I guess that means that it's me that's becoming senile :). But that's ok so long as Apollo's smile wakes me up for years to come.

A day in the life of Pook

2010-09-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

Pook is undeniably the most aggressive and effective beggar in my house.

Pook: Hey there, MeatLady! Why are you working on a Saturday night?

MeatLady: Hi Pook! Well I'm working because we have a production roll-out this weekend. It's just a small roll-out, but it will provide us some important timing information for a very large roll-out at the end of October. So I need to collect metrics and ensure everything goes according to plan.

Pook: Uhm... (awkward silence)

Pook: So... Anyway... Something smells good. Did you put something on the BBQ?

MeatLady: Why yes, I'm grilling a steak!

Pook: Ooooh, a steak? YUM!

Pook: Can I have some?

MeatLady: Well Pook, I don't know... I need to keep my strength up so I can work and make enough money to buy you your cat food.

Pook: PLEEZE? I'm so old and cute!

MeatLady: Well OK, maybe just a piece

NOM NOM NOM

To go or not to go...

2010-09-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

My decision on whether or not to go to USDAA nationals this year has always been hinged on if we got our bye for SC and GP semi-finals. After our SC Finals run at regionals last weekend I thought my 'big decision' of whether to go was made. We missed the first weave entry and had to reload so I figured bye-bye bye. But it turns out the top 2 placement times were pretty slow so the SF bye qualifying time was quite generous. EVERY 26" dog in the SC finals who didn't E got a semi-finals bye!

So now that I have both bye's I need to make a decision. I have sent my entry in (only GP/SC, I don't have the vacation time or energy for DAM team) but I'm not fully committed until I purchase my flights. It would be fun to go but we'll have just arrived back from Germany 9 days before and the thought of jumping on another plane so soon after that makes me want to crawl into bed and not get out. Or maybe it's just the fall-like weather making me feel that way. :)

Regionals

2010-09-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

I had a great but tiring time at the Bay Team SW Regionals this year. My big mistake was entering THREE dogs in DAM team! That's a lot of runs in one day! But along with being tiring it was also fun, and all three of my teams got Q's. :) It was also pretty fun that Icon's DAM Team won! But I'm really excited about Rampage's first DAM Team Q. He performed very well for his team. We had a bar in Jumpers, a bar and a missed contact in Standard and did acceptably well in Gamblers and Snooker. But no E's which is the most important thing in team!

Rampage and I had a couple of recurring problems that I need to focus on, the main one being the fact that he popped out of the weaves in both SC Rd1 and GP Rd1. That's not a big deal in itself, but I didn't even notice that he popped out on either of them until I heard the whistle. That's some mighty bad handling on my part!

I wasn't happy with any of his contacts on the weekend. He was in on some, he was out on some, he got called for some he was in on and he got gifted on some he missed. But none of them were what I was looking for. His a-frame was especially discouraging for me because I was really happy with it the weekend before at the AKC trial. I don't mind if I eventually have to go to a stop on the dogwalk, but I refuse to go to a stop on the a-frame.

Some video highlights...

I was happy with Rammy's weave entrances all weekend. We had some nice stuff and some baby dog stuff in our SC run.

Bay Team Regional - Rampage SC1 from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

BayTeam Regional - Rampage GP1 from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

BayTeam Regional - Icon GP2 from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

BayTeam Regional - Icon SC2 from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

TunnelBags!

2010-09-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

We have a last minute surprise addition to the USA WT Giveaway Prize list! Nancy Holmseth from TunnelBags has offered to donate a set of patriotic red, white and blue TunnelBags for the giveaway! This might just beat out the softshell jacket for the title of 'first prize'. Maybe we'll call the TunnelBags the "GRAND PRIZE"!

It's not too late to get your giveaway ticket! Or to donate, of course :)

*09-Sept-2010 Update*

I just heard that Nancy is going to make these tunnel bags EXTRA SPECIAL. Stay tuned for details. I'm pretty excited about it!

Mensona AKC

2010-09-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

This summer I have mostly been doing 1 day of AKC trials, mainly because it gets really really hot in Dixon and I know that on Saturday we're done by 10am or earlier so I just enter that day. Other considerations are the cost of running three dogs. Can you say *cha-ching!* Of course we've had a ridiculously cool summer so my heat precautions weren't really necessary. The cost precautions still were though...

But last weekend I went to a full THREE day trial Fri-Sun! I even got to stay in my RV (I really miss that part of multiple day trialing. I love my RV!) And I couldn't have been happier with all of my boys!

Like a fine Napa wine, Apollo just gets better with age. He had 6 gorgeous runs over the weekend with some 1st places :). I messed him up on 2 runs so we only got 1 double Q but I'm having more fun than ever with him!

Mensona AKC - Apollo Friday JWW from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Icon had 3 picture perfect runs in a row, but on his 1st run on Saturday morning he was holding his right paw up for a bit after his run. Of course I freaked out and had a vet friend look at him. She found nothing but a bit of sensitivity in his 4th toe. And he was fine after she checked him out. But I scratched him from JWW and his Sunday runs. It turns out he had a cut deep in the grooves of his pads, probably from stepping on a stone or something sharp on his last run.

Mensona AKC - Icon Friday Standard from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Rampage showed me his potential. He has always been great at collection, but he showed some nice extension this weekend and OMG, this dog can turn!

(ignore everything that happens after Rammy takes the tunnel for the 2nd time)

Mensona AKC - Rampage Sunday JWW from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Can't forget Foster! As ever, he was my loyal stable pony keeping all of the other dogs happy and in line :)

Thank you to the WT Gear Sponsors!

2010-08-31T21:36:00.000-07:00

How awesome! We have sponsors for all of our WT Gear Giveaway prizes!

The Softshell Jacket is sponsored by Aqua Dogs Rehabilitation in New Jersey.

The Duffel Bag is sponsored by Paw Parade located in Washington. Paw Parade is a new online store that will be launching soon!

BOTH Sports shirts were donated by Jan DeMello of Hob Nob Border Collies in Washington.

And BOTH Baseball caps shirts were also donated by Jan DeMello of Hob Nob Border Collies

Jan gave a very generous donation of $200 and said she was donating $100 for each Hob Nob on the 2010 world team, referring to Icon and Presto of course. :)

The US Agility Team has a blog!

2010-08-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

There's not much action there yet, but I'm sure there will be! I plan on posting there about our Team Practices. I just need to find some time...

USA Agility Team Blog

And THANK YOU to everyone who has donated and received tickets for the US WT Giveaway so far! The response has been amazing! More on that later too :)

2010 USA Agility World Team Gear Giveaway

2010-08-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

The 2010 USA Agility World Team is excited to announce that we are having a 2010 USA Agility World Team Gear Giveaway this year! Anyone can get a ticket, you don't need to buy or donate anything!

However, we are asking for people to support the USA Agility Team with donations. Half the donations will go towards our hard working Assistant Team Coach, Kathie Leggett, who travels to WT Practices and the World Championships on her own dime. The WT could not function without everything that Kathie does. The other half of the donations will go to the AKC/USA Agility World Team, which will helps to pay for practices, amongst all of the other costs involved in sending WT members to Germany. We are hoping to have 2 practices in Germany on the actual competition surface, which is an interesting sandy mixture. This will allow us to kick some European butt, er, I mean show the world what great sportsmanship USA has!

Now, back to the exciting part... The Giveaway!

The drawing will be held at the USA Supporter Dinner in Germany on Sept 29th. Agility Vision has graciously offered to record the drawing and post it to their website so you can watch it happen and see if you win (it won't be live-streamed, but will be uploaded soon after)!

See your local World Team Member for your Giveaway ticket. If you don't have a local WT Member near you, you can email your favorite one, or email me at c.fosty at comcast dot net. And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE consider donating at the same time. Any amount can help, even $1!

So what are we giving away? Really cool team gear with the USA Agility Team logo embroidered on it! This logo is generally reserved for ONLY World Team members, so it's a pretty cool to own one!

Please let me know if you or your company is willing to donate the cost of a giveaway prize (contact me for expected costs.) You will be publicly thanked during the giveaway and any way we can before!

(note: all prizes will be purchased after the drawing so we can get the correct size and style - mens/womens - from the Giveaway winners)

1st Prize

A Softshell Jacket in Red or Blue!

(men's style available)

2nd Prize

A Duffel Bag in Red or Blue!

3rd and 4th Prize (two will be given away)

A Sports Shirt in Red or Blue!

(men's style available)

5th and 6th Prize (two will be given away)

A Baseball Cap in Red or Blue!

Your 2010 USA Agility World Team thanks you!

Rammy does AKC

2010-08-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

We went to one day of an AKC trial on Saturday. We didn't have many Q's and I even ran Shadow, so I had lots of chances! But Apollo won 24" standard, which made my day. I know how awesome Apollo is of course, but I love it when he shows the world :)

My camera battery died so I didn't get any runs on tape but thankfully Greg and Tammy got Rammy's runs. No Q's, a bar and a refusal in Exc A JWW and 2 refusals in Open Std. That's ok though, our goal is just to make trialing fun right now and I think Rammy would say, "Mission Accomplished". It sure would be nice to get that last Open Std leg though...

Rammy Std

Rammy JWW

An uncanny resemblance

2010-08-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

Am I gifted, or what? And to think people say I'm not artistic....

(imagine the ball is a tongue - this was the best profile pic I could find, he's always looking at me!)

"Dear Channan, why don't you ever have photos of your dogs anymore?"

2010-08-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

I had an email from a friend asking me why I don't take photos of my dogs so much anymore. I guess I used to be more prolific when it came to photos of my boys.

There is a valid reason for my laziness, er, I mean lack of photos. In a nutshell the reason is simple. It's for the safety of my dogs.

Lets take tonight for example. Icon and Rampage were laying just outside in an very cute way. So of course I grab my camera to take a photo.

As soon as I touch the camera the dogs move from their very cute positions to look at me. It's was sad they lost the real cuteness, but I told them to stay and was hoping I could still get a kind of cute photo. However, even from the first photo I took you can see that trouble is brewing.

Both of the boys know I have the camera. Icon is already whining in the photo but is too well behaved to move and Rampage knows that Icon's about to go nuts with the camera there.

And then chaos ensues.

Icon runs towards the camera and smashes his head against the lens. Poor guy, he thinks the camera attacked him (maybe taking photos will be easier now!) Then Rampage does his little "*Woof-woof* I'm running around with a toy *woof-woof* in my mouth not looking *woof-woof* where I'm going *woof-woof*" routine and takes out a jump with his shoulder, yelps and comes up limping. He seems fine now, but it was scary!

And of course after that I can't get a photo to save my life.

So there you go. That is why I don't have many photos of my dogs anymore.

More about Prague

2010-08-03T22:12:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday morning after we dropped the dogs off at the hotel we set out again on our sightseeing. We went to the Jewish Quarter which housed the ceremonial hall, cemetery and synagogues.

We went through the ceremonial hall

Marcy did some shopping

We saw the Jewish cemetery which had over 20000 tombstones and estimated >100000 graves.

We also went to a bunch of Jewish Synagogues but we weren't allowed to take photos inside. They had a lot of interesting artifacts from around the war but the most amazing thing we saw were pictures rescued from Terezin, the place where the Jewish citizens of CZ were sent during the war. The pictures were mostly by children and showed images of life in Terezin. It was very moving. For each picture there was a note saying whether the artist survived or not. Many Jews died there although Terezen was not comparable to places like Auschwitz.

Then (on a happier note) we went for lunch. There was a No Stress restaurant.

But we decided on the Stressful one. But it was a great choice, they had good food. This was my favorite meal in CZ.

Even better with fries!
(photo by Marcy)

We found a door the perfect size for Marcy at the astronomical clock. Marcy wanted to get a picture of my by the door but I wasn't being a good sport :)

Oh, look! We're back at Wenceslas Square. How did that happen?

We were very lucky that I had my iPhone with me because we used it constantly to find out where we were and how to get where we were going.

Interesting and depressing mural about how war and rebuild will be going on for infinity.

We ended the day having dinner at a pizza place that was really good! It was right close to our hotel and had good reviews online. I meant to add a review of my own after our meal but forgot. I will get to that once I remember the name of the place.

More Prague

2010-07-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

I got some photos from Marcy so I will go back to our fist days in Prague. All the photos below are from Marcy Mantell.

Icon gave me fair warning about his future suicide attempt on the Charles Bridge when we were crossing the first bridge. I should have recognized this reckless nature brought on by the Prague air.

The first place we stopped for lunch (where the dogs fell asleep fast)

I look good with a Sheltie!

My ham with butter meal. I look SO impressed.

I ran out of money, thank god Icon was there to get more for me.

lesson learned (contains references to vomiting)

2010-07-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

I fed the dogs Red Snapper for dinner. It was the first time they had it and it went over great, they all loved it.

Until about 3 hours later... Then Rampage started puking it up. He puked the whole meal within 4 episodes. The first two looked alarmingly like the projectile vomiting which is a warning sign of a bowel obstruction (the last 2 were just normal horking pukes). He was laying on the floor in the living room and all of a sudden he made a *Gurp* noise and a chunk of fish flew out of his mouth and landed about 3 feet away. We were all pretty surprised, I think Rampage most of all!

So I was actually relieved when Apollo started puking up his Red Snapper too, although he wasn't as dramatic as Rampage. At least I knew it was the Snapper. I still don't know for sure if it just didn't sit well with them or it was 'off' but I'm guessing it didn't sit well because Icon and Foster were fine and so were Rampage and Apollo after getting it out of their stomachs. Apollo even tried to eat it again, but I figured that might not be the best idea so I stopped him.

I really want to add more seafood into the dog's diet, but I think that's the last time I'll feed Red Snapper.

All roads lead to Wenceslas Square

2010-07-29T12:51:00.000-07:00

Since the dogs were so tired on Tuesday Marcy and I decided to leave the dogs at home while we went sightseeing on Wednesday. But of course we had to take them out for a walk first. Well the "walk" ended up being over 3 hours long. Good thing the dogs were both recovered!

We started out at a park around the corner from our hotel.

And soon found another park.

We saw a guy rolling a keg down the street. No one but Marcy and I thought this was odd.

Dogs are welcome in most places. But it's quite obvious when they aren't.

When we were at park was saw a lady with a huge un-neutered Rhodesian Ridgeback on a flexi leash. She was about 30 feet away on the grass and as we passed her I was disgusted to see her tell her dog to sit (which he did) and then start hitting him in the face with the flexi handle. The poor dog just sat there and cowered. What a bitch.

We ended up at Wenceslas Square, which is basically a long and wide street with lots of stores. I was happy to find a Starbucks. They have really crappy coffee in Prague. We seemed to end up at Wenceslas Square whenever we went out for a walk. It was a bit freaky.

Standing on the museum steps and looking out to the square.

Icon wanted to go swimming in the fountain. At the fountain I was asked by a family if they could get their photo taken with him. It was a bit odd but I said yes. The lady said he was beautiful and looked just like her dog, who is a COCKER SPANIEL! How on earth does Icon look like a Cocker Spaniel???

View of the museum from the other end of the Square (which was really more of a rectangle).

What a job to have! We passed guys installing cobble stones near our hotel. They look like prison workers in their clothes. They weren't though.

Prague!

2010-07-29T11:35:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful city. Lots of old buildings and cobblestones. It's very commercial though. At times I felt as though I was walking through an amusement park that was trying to look like it was Prague.

I was disappointed in the photos I got. They never look as good as they do when you're there but they were extra bad on this trip. Oh well :)

I traveled with Marcy and Wave and we arrived in Prague at around 9am. We decided to try and get accustomed to the time change and go out and sight see right away. It wasn't easy since neither of us slept on the plane, but we managed and I didn't even get very grumpy until around 5pm.

Our hotel was in a good area, within walking distance of pretty much everything in Old and New Prague.

To the right is Charles Bridge (total tourist trap) and to the left the big complex is Prague Castle.

Icon tried to convince Wave to go swimming in the river, but she didn't want to get wet. She's such a princess.

Cops and segways are common sights in Prague. Not always together.

Surprisingly, the dogs didn't fare as well with the time change as we did. We regretted taking them sightseeing on Tuesday because they were so tired. Wave was especially tired, she could barely keep her eyes open.

Icon was too though. He passed out really quick when we stopped for lunch and didn't move until we stood up to leave.

Gate to Charles bridge.

On the bridge. A tourist trap complete with religious musicians. Wave really didn't like those guys.

I had a scary moment on the bridge when Icon decided to jump up on the stone fence of the Charles bridge. He knew water was down there but I guess he didn't know how far! If I hadn't grabbed him he might have gone over. I generally consider Icon to be a sensible dog, but he certainly wasn't showing sense then!

We ended the day going out to dinner with Rob, Derede and Wings. I got "ham with butter" for dinner and it was exactly that. Cold sliced ham and a pad of butter. That was the only really disappointing meal I had in the Czech Republic.

Welcome home Icon!

2010-07-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

Icon's brothers wanted to welcome him home and congratulate him for doing a great job at the EO.

So they insisted that he get a steak for dinner to celebrate.

Pook had to inspect it first.

Hmmmmm, maybe I should eat this instead of Icon....

Is this for me?

Are you sure??

Ok, if you insist...

Oh, you have to cut it up first...

Are you done taking pictures? Can I eat now??

Nom

Nom

No time...

2010-07-10T20:45:00.001-07:00

Haven't had time to post anything lately, so here is something for your amusement.

Bay Team USDAA - Icon GP from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Videos

2010-07-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, here are some videos. The 4 legged flix people told me they wouldn't get them up until the end of the week due to vacation but it looks like they go them done before. The did a good job of managing expectations.

It's interesting how in some runs he looks comfortable doing agility and in others he still looks like an awkward, gawky adolescent. It seems the 'comfortable' runs are becoming more frequent though.

Rammy SC Rd1

Bay Team USDAA - Rampage SC Rd1 from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

This is the bad a-frame Snooker run. Ouch, it is worse than I remember it. He totally went 'splat'.

Rampage - Sat Starters Snooker - Bay Team USDAA - July 2010 from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Our Starters Pairs title! How lucky am I to have 3 good pairs partners in a row. I guess I know the right people ;) Rammy's part was REALLY hard for baby dogs in this one. It was a natural path for the dogs to go tunnel - jump - tire instead of taking 2 jumps after the tunnel so I decided to over handle with a front cross followed by a rear cross. It worked out though ;)

Rampage - Sunday Starters Pairs - Bay Team USDAA July 2010 from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

All of his videos can be found here.

A hair, a hair! I swear a hair!

2010-07-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

I was really happy with how Rampage did this weekend. It was a huge weekend for him with 6 runs Saturday and 7 today since he made it to SC finals! He got all of his a-frames this weekend and I was happy with all of them aside from a one-hit yellow wonder in snooker. The one-hit yellow wonders are scary enough on an AKC a-frame but on the USDAA a-frame they are downright heart stopping (one hit yellow wonders is when the ONLY hit the yellow on the way down). He had nice a-frames after that one though so I think he might have learned something... His dogwalks were all good aside from his two stupid standard runs. For both runs we missed qualifying by just the dogwalk (although we did have other acceptable bobbles.) We even had 4 good dogwalks in our gamblers run today but the judge got mad and said to me, "That's called loitering!" Well it was a stupid gamble that I didn't even want to attempt and anyway it wasn't loitering, it was training in the ring! So there.

He was starting to show some weird bc behavior today by getting freaked out around the ring at the ring crew, but he redirected back to his leash pretty well. He definitely gets distracted when Icon screams as I run him. He'll have to get used to that though because I don't see that changing anytime soon...

So Rampage ended up with his Starters Pairs title (thanks Tricki Woo!) and Starters Jumpers title and a SC Q! We had a bar (he actually hit the stanchion) in the finals so we weren't in the money but that's OK, Icon brought home $51 :) In Snooker and Gamblers we just need one more Q. Still need 3 in Standard though :(.

But still, I swear he had a hair in the dw contact on Saturday's Std run. He has really long toe hair! Really!

The stuff of nightmares

2010-06-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

I have looked through a lot of courses from the EO 2010 judges and they are tough. Definitely tougher than the WC judges courses I have seen. But there was always one judge who I couldn't find courses for, Mikhail Khirillow from Russia, AKA Кириллов Михаил.

This morning I had no 6am meetings (yay! Actually my earliest meeting this week is 9am so I am loving life) so I was able to spend some time looking for courses before work. Sadly, regrettably, I found some.

As they say, ignorance is bliss. I think I would have been happier going to EO without seeing these. Now all I can hope for is that Mr Михаил only designs courses for the small and medium dogs.....

WT practice #1

2010-06-28T15:52:00.000-07:00

We had our first WT practice in San Jose last weekend and I had so much fun! It was held at Power Paws where I normally train so it wasn't an exotic trip like it was for most of the other WT members. I'm not complaining though! :)

Everyone looked great at practice, but the large dog team looked particularly good. For one course we had a competition between jump heights where the team with the best overall time won (course faults then time) and of course the Large dogs CRUSHED the shelties in the Small and Medium heights!

In August we head to Argus Ranch in Washington for our 2nd practice. I feel sorry for the WT members on the east coast but I'm sure glad both of our practices are so close to me :).

All 4 of the large dog team. Can you see Presto? He's kind of hiding in back.

Happy birthday Apollo!

2010-06-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

You're 8 today!

Oh! Is this for me? Why thank you!

Hey, what are you doing over here?

I know it looks good but you can't have any. (he did actually share with the other dogs and Pook)

Can I nom now?

Shaddy's back!

2010-06-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

Shadow has come to stay with us while her mom is at a hunt test in Oregon with her awesome young lab, Nalu.

So I guess this means that Officer Icon has solved the case and Shadow has been found. I think I'm feeing inspired to finish K9 Cops (the graphic novel).

A picture's worth...

2010-06-14T07:41:00.000-07:00

I think Rampage is telling me I need to move a bit faster!

A judge's perspective

2010-06-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

How cool, Lisa Selthofer wrote a blog about how to run one of her courses before the course was run but didn't post it until after the course was run (clear as mud?)

Lisa's blog

It is so nice to get a judge's thoughts about what they think is challenging about a course and how they expect people to handle it. And yes, Lisa, I really really wanted to front cross between 15 and 16 with Icon but your tunnel jump sequence from 12-13 just didn't let me get there. It was fun being able to pull and rear cross the poles, though. We got style points for that, right? :)

Here is Apollo running the course

Belgian Terv AKC - Apollo Sat Std from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

And Icon

Belgian Terv AKC - Icon Sat Std from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Rammy

2010-06-07T14:44:00.000-07:00

I didn't get many runs on my camera this weekend due to the chaos of it all, but I did get Rammy's first and last run on Saturday.

His jumping looks funny in pairs! Why was I so happy with it on the weekend? I guess just because he kept all but one bar up. I'm hoping that it wasn't this bad through all the runs. This was his first time at 26"

NAF USDAA - Rampage Pairs from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Jumping was a bit better in our GP run, but he was obviously more tired. We also got a gift on the dogwalk. ;)

NAF USDAA - Rampage GP from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

A successful weekend. Kind of...

2010-06-07T06:58:00.000-07:00

On paper the boys and I had a successful weekend. But I didn't come out of it feeling very successful. I'm sure that most of it was due to the fact that it was SO HOT. I made a point of drinking lots of fluids but I just couldn't seem to find energy at some points.

Apollo was only entered in what he needs for his silver ADCH. He got his Silver Gamblers title and a Q in relay. He only needs 3 more pairs legs until his silver ADCH and he will essentially be 'retired' from USDAA agility. I'll still enter him in a run or two each trial though so Polly will always feel like the special boy he is. He also won me $6 in Steeplechase. He finished third with a bar. Actually, he took down the whole jump. Poor guy.

Rampage showed some moments of brilliance this weekend but also moments of needing some more training (like staying in the weaves)! I was EXTREMELY happy with how he handled the 26" jumps. But I wasn't a fan of most of the starters courses. For Gamblers and Snooker I really just wanted to create a flowing course for him but the obstacle layout didn't allow for that. And I don't know why the judge had such a fetish with turning your dog to a tunnel underneath the dogwalk. He qualified in 2 pairs runs (we got very lucky with our pairs partners!) and jumpers, gamblers and snooker. BUT, we didn't qualify in any standard runs! On Saturday we were called on the a-frame and on Sunday the run was essentially a mess :). Oh! And Rampage qualified in his first ever GP run! Amazing! And Rampage was official declared the most beautiful dog at the trial by the Starters/Advanced gate steward. I couldn't help but agree :)

Icon qualified in everything this weekend. BUT! He missed 3 weave entries this weekend, which is not normal for him. And we had 2 bars, also not normal. One of them was the cause of our 8 point Team Snooker run. Doh! Luckily our team won anyway :). He did win GP, Std and Team Standard though. But missing all of those weave entries was odd.

Making good use of my time in a meeting

2010-06-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not used to sitting in meetings at work where I don't play a large part. It's pretty boring. So I'm making good use of my time by posting photos!

Rammy is such a poser!

Kahve is such a boxer!

Molly looks pissed.

Icon's hard at work. "You shall not pass!"

Dog or stuffed animal?

Handsome Pook. He's the only cat I've ever met that is going grey in his old age.

ISC Courses

2010-06-02T23:18:00.000-07:00

ISC Std

I loved this course! It was so much fun to run. I think Marq does a great job as commentator for AgilityVision, but I also think AKC should bring him back as a judge for tryouts. Or MAYBE he should design the course and then someone else can judge it. And then he can do a commentary and it would be like an 'inside' commentary because he designed the course. Brilliant! I think this is the way AKC should go :)

Icon was the only large dog to go clean and under time on this course. A few dogs went clean except for 1 or 2 bars. The other challenges were coming inside the 270 on 4-5. At least one dog went from 7-16 (I was worried about that!) EVERYONE was worried about the 7-12 sequence but putting a front cross in before 11 was easy-peasy.

No one chose to take the outside from 15-16. That's good because I swore to smack anyone who would :)

One person chose to take her dog to the outside of 12, but IMHO the inside of 12 was the better path. I might have reconsidered this with rubber contacts because you could maintain speed and not worry about the approach, but in this case the approach to the dogwalk was definitely better on the inside of 12

A few dogs took the 20 tunnel after the chute at 17 and at least one dog sliced through the standards on the broadjump on the tight turn at 18. A note for anyone interested in international agility. Practice severe turns on the broadjump!!!

ISC JWW

It was mostly bars that got the large dogs in this class. The irregular spacing on the line from 15-20 resulted in a lot of bars down and a few off-courses to the #7 tunnel after 16.

The weave entry at 4 claimed a few dogs, but most people (including me) overhandled with a front cross.

The sequence at 9-12 was the only one where handlers really chose to handle differently, and there was one clear winner amongst the choices. Some people chose to rear cross 10 but that either resulted in a refusal at 10 or the dog coming through the gap between 10 and 11. One person chose to serpentine 10-11 but that didn't work (I can't remember exactly what her dog did, but it didn't work). At least one dog took the off-course jump #17 in this sequence (impressive!) A few handlers chose to front cross after 9 and after 11 and that either worked fine or caused the bar at 11 to come down. The most successful way of handling this sequence was to double front cross after 9 and then go into the 270 and front cross again before 11 and send to 12. This also put the handler in a good position to front cross between 13 and 14.

Fun weekend!

2010-06-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

We had a fun weekend at the Memorial Day AKC trial. It was a 4 day trial but I had to work Friday so I only went 3 days. In retrospect I should have signed up for only 2 of them because I was pretty much done and ready to go home by Sunday night. Now that my birthday has passed I'm not the spry young chick I used to be. Two days of agility is certainly enough for me.

Rampage and I had a fun time. It was his first trial jumping 24" and I was happy with how he did with the height. He had one bar in his first run, but kept them up the rest of the weekend (although on a few jumps he had some odd take-off spots). I was NOT happy with any of his contacts. He didn't get called on any of them but I'm not sure he was actually in on any dogwalks and while he was in for all of his a-frames I didn't like the performance on any of them. I also learned that when it comes to handling we're not quite ready for Open yet! Novice was so easy! And we miss it! :)

Apollo did awesome! Not one bar all weekend and only one Channan mess-up away from 3 double q's. He seemed extra slow on Sunday but that could be because while I was walking courses first thing in the morning he found and ate the dinner I had out to thaw for all 4 dogs (another Channan mess-up). I'm not sure that he got all of it, but he probably go the lion's share. Rawr.

Icon was perfect, as always! On Friday after his root canal he was tired and grumpy but by Saturday morning he was raring to go. Neither one of us was pleased that we couldn't tug but we lived through it. Again Icon was just one Channan mess-up from 3 double q's but he did get his MACH 3 on Sunday and won both ISC rounds and the ISC combined (admittedly, Icon was the only dog to run clean in both). All of the courses were incredibly fun this weekend, the European flavor lasted throughout all of the courses. Straight tunnels abounded! The judges were Marq Cheek, Dan Dege and Lori Sage. I will post the ISC courses at minimum since I always appreciate it when other people post them.

Phew!

2010-05-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

Icon is out of anesthesia from his root canal. It's always nerve wracking experience. The procedure went well but Dr Holmstrom said that the fracture went up above the gumline so he had to clean that up too.

Next step is that he'll have a shiny new crown built and then he'll have to go under anesthesia again in a couple weeks to have that put in place. The bad part about having his consultation and procedure on the same day is that I somehow had myself convinced that this would be a "once under anesthesia" procedure and he'd come out with his crown today. In hindsight it was unrealistic considering even in people it takes 2 different visits.

Driving him to the vet this morning I was wondering how they would have a crown that would fit and imagined they had a room full of pre-made crowns in different materials and every size imaginable and they would take him in to pick out his perfect crown . Kind of like how Harry Potter found his wand. As I said, unrealistic. On the bright side the cost wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. The benefit of going through two TPLO surgeries and a GI blockage is that other things seem cheap!

Dr Holmstrom said he'll be fine to do agility as soon as tomorrow but I don't know if I'll run him. I think I'll just play it by ear. No tugging until his crown is put in though. Icon won't like that!

He'll be ready to go home at 1pm. I'm going to leave work early and pick him and work from home in the afternoon. I can't seem to focus here at work!

Happy Birthday to me!

2010-05-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday! It was actually an exceedingly normal day for me aside from all of the facebook messages I got :).

My birthday present from the universe is that Icon's dental vet had an opening for surgery Friday morning so Icon has been moved up from the following Tuesday. I'm a bit nervous because he's scheduled for surgery without a consultation, but I'm sure I'll get all the information I need on Friday morning. At this point I'm not sure what it means for him at the trial this weekend. A bit of a bummer since they have the ISC classes. But I would definitely prefer getting Icon's root canal over with sooner rather than later.

Another birthday present is that my regular vet also called to say that Apollo's urine culture came back negative so he doesn't have a kidney infection. Always good news!

I leave you with a photo from last years WC in Austria (photo by Dee Anna Gamel)

"An unfortunate elimination"

2010-05-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I spent some time watching the VOD coverage of the IFCS World Championships. The commentator was funny in that every time someone went off-course he said, "An unfortunate elimination." Like there are ever fortunate ones!

I was disappointed in the coverage of the event and rather surprised at the small size of it. There didn't seem to be any spectator seating at all! I'm sure when it's in the USA in 2012 the coverage will be better. I thought both American and Canadian teams did a great job on some tough courses though!

----

On Friday night Icon and Foster smashed faces and Foster's face won. Icon's upper canine was fractured. :( In a panic I called Lena to figure out what to do. Left to my own devices I would have rushed him to the emergency vet. But thankfully Lena talked me down and told me that while it's important that he gets looked at as soon as possible, it's not an emergency vet type situation.

Incidentally, I already had a general checkup appointment for Apollo at my vet the next morning. Apollo has been acting "subdued" lately. I thought it was just an age thing, but when Kay was watching my boys she mentioned that Apollo was quieter than normal so I figured it wouldn't hurt to get him checked out.

At the appointment Dr Rosato confirmed most of what Lena had told me the night before about Icon's tooth. Then he had blood taken for pre-surgical purposes. And Apollo had... Well I don't want to embarrass him but I mentioned to Dr. Rosato that other dogs seemed obsessed with smelling and licking Apollo's private parts so after a rather gross check she decided to flush a certain area. Sorry Polly. And I'm sorry I know what the word smegma means now. Gross.

Monday morning I called the dental vet recommended by Lena and Dr Rosato. I could get an appointment with the dental resident on Tuesday or with Dr Holmstrom on Friday. I told the receptionist that Icon had a fractured canine and the pulp was showing but she said that it's only an 'emergency' if they are under a year and a half because then they can save the pulp. So I chose Friday but wasn't sure about my decision... Dr Rosato called a bit later to say that Icon's blood work was fine (but Apollo's urinalysis showed some blood and protein in his urine... that's another story) and asked if I had made an appointment with Dr Holstrom. I told her about my conversation with the receptionist and she said she'd give them a call just to make sure.

Dr Rosato confirmed that waiting until Friday is not going to cause any problems and that they had June 1st reserved for us for a root canal. So it looks like unless Dr Holstrom magically decides that he can reconnect the little tooth piece I saved from Icon's accident (I can dream, can't I???) he'll be having his root canal on June 1st.

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And I have so much more to say! I guess I need to blog a bit more frequently so my posts aren't quite so long!

Apollo with commentary

2010-05-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

Apollo's standard run with expert commentary by Marq Cheek - I mean Kay Chandler. Kay, for future reference I don't think Marq would say "bummer".

Casa de Fruita AKC - Apollo Standard from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

CERF and turf

2010-05-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

The local AKC trial this weekend had a CERF clinic so for Saturday I registered Icon and Rampage for that and then signed up Apollo and Rampage for agility. Icon is on an 'agility break' until the end of May. Icon wasn't impressed to be at an agility trial and not doing agility, but he got a lot of lovin' and pastries so he wasn't too upset.

Both Rampage and Icon passed the CERF with flying colors. Apollo did great in both of his JWW and Std runs, but missed a double Q by a bar in Standard. We both had lots of fun though. :) Rampage did great, qualifying in everything. But of course none of the runs were perfect :) In JWW he seemed to think that 8 obstacles were all he had to do and tried to leave the course. I got him back and the last 9 went well, though. Our standard run was nice execpt for the a-frame. Oy, we have to fix that. And FAST (we got our novice fast title!) was good except he flicked away towards the dogwalk at one point. He's just a baby and I've already turned him into a mother flicker!

Casa de Fruita ACK - Rammy Open JWW from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Casa de Fruita ACK - Rammy Novice Std from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Casa de Fruita ACK - Rammy FAST from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

I should be working...

2010-05-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

But I have enough time to post Icon's videos. :)

2010 AKC/WT Tryouts - Rd 1 Icon from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

2010 AKC/WT Tryouts - Rd 2 Icon from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

2010 AKC/WT Tryouts - Rd 3 Icon from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

2010 AKC/WT Tryouts - Rd 4 Icon from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

2010 AKC/WT Tryouts - Rd 5 Icon from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

27

2010-05-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

I picked number 27 for the draw order. There are 35 large dogs. It's good for round 1, but if my calculations are correct (they are quite possibly not!) I will be 9th for round 2 and 8th for round 4. Not awful numbers, but not the best. Round 3 and 5 will be by reverse seeding so if I get a bad running order for those I will be able to blame no one but myself. :)

Icon is doing his part to prepare.

ZOMG! An update!

2010-05-05T23:23:00.000-07:00

It was delicately pointed out to me by Celeste that I completely missed the month of April in the blogosphere. I was surprised to look at my records and see that she was absolutely correct! Where did the month of April go? I look back and try to remember... Was I in a coma? Maybe in a fuge state? Possessed by demons? Probably none of the above. I know I spent about a week of April sick and missed a few days of work. With that, the work I missed for AKC Nationals, the two days of work I missed for the 4 day USDAA trial and the 3 days I missed going home to visit family I've been spending a lot of my spare time working at my real job (note: in the corporate world "vacation" means "you'll do it later in your spare time"). So something in my personal life had to give. And blogging lost to American Idol, although tonight I managed both! Buh-bye Aaron! (oops, sorry! Spoiler alert!)

Rampage is finally starting to show some signs of maturity. For at least 5 minutes a day he gives a good impersonation of an adult canine. He earnestly believes the world revolves around him and the rest of us are starting to give in and agree with him.

(note: photo not taken during Rammy's 5 minutes of maturity)

Icon is looking good, which is something of a miracle considering the horrible tire crash he had a few weeks ago at HauteTracs. But he's fine now. :) And I think I was more traumatized than him. I'm not totally recovered from it yet.

Apollo is starting to show his age in some ways, mostly in his stamina. When we go to the park the other dogs run the whole time, but Apollo now spends about half of the time eating grass. His stamina is fine at AKC trials when he has 2 runs/day but he can't handle USDAA trials where there are more. But that's OK, I'm starting to ramp down his classes at USDAA trials. We'll get his APD Silver and then he'll mostly retire (maybe enter a class or two for fun). He needs a few pairs and a gamblers for his Silver, I think. He'll retire from AKC by Invitationals in December or earlier, if he tells me he's ready. He has been running great in AKC lately though :)

Foster is shedding lots. And lots and lots. I remember thinking to myself that I would never get another dog that sheds like Foster. That worked until Rampage came to live with us. Rampage sheds lots too. I may just collect Rammy's hair and have it woven into yarn. It's a pretty color.

Tomorrow Icon and I leave for WT Tryouts. It's just been within the last few days that I've started getting nervous and excited. I hope we can do well but we haven't trained as much as we did last year. Or I guess more importantly we haven't trained as FOCUSED as we did last year. I'm not saying we haven't done anything, we've been going to class and doing European course work with friends and practicing fundamentals at home. But last year I had weekly expectations, schedules and courses planned leading up to tryouts and I just didn't have the bandwith for it this year. So Icon, being the amazing and talented dog he is, is ready and prepared but I am just hoping I can keep it together and not disappoint him.