What a wonderful day

Life sure doesn't like to stand still, does it? This morning I woke up to another day at work, only to check my blackberry to see that my company is being bought out by Roche. The senior executives at Genentech had no clue the offer was coming, and neither did I! It's basically a done deal, just the price has to be decided. The reason for this is that Roche is already a 56% majority holder in Genentech, and there's not much that we poor people can do about it. On the bright side, stock went waaaaay up today. I even sold some :) And most people feel that it will go waaaaay up still until the takeover is complete. So, maybe I'll make some money out of it. The bad news is that Roche is notorious for consolidating and laying people off. More good news - the are also notorious for having good severance packages and I hate my job right now so I'm not sure I would even mind so much.

The next "fun" thing to happen to me was that the bus that I take to work now got into an accident on the way home. We rear-ended a car, who I think had already been in an accident. The bus was fine, but the car pretty much totaled. The bus is actually now taking us the rest of the way home. Later than normal though :(

But what does this have to do with my dogs or agility? Well nothing really, except the possibility that it might affect my ability to Feed Polly.

Feelings of guilt

At work I am notorious for coming in late. If I'm in by 9:30 my manager celebrates. Most people think that I probably wake up at 9am and hop in the car, but that's just not true! I would get up at 6:30 (ish), have a cup of coffee or five, then take the dogs to the park for their morning run around, come back home and have another cup of coffee, shower then finally head to work. But recently my company started offering a bus shuttle from the park and ride near my house to work. Since I drive my SUV 60 miles a day (both ways) and cross a bridge, I figure I'll be saving over $400 a month taking the shuttle 4 days a week (I can't take it 5 since one day Icon comes with me for class). BUT. The shuttle leaves at 7am, which means I get up at 5:45 and leave to catch it by at least 6:40, which doesn't leave me enough time to take the dogs to the park. The most they get now is a quickie walk around the block, which I only do because otherwise Polly refuses to pee for me. So they are gettin gway less exercise now. And then when I get home from work I always have the best intentions of taking them to the park, but I'm soooo exhausted I just don't have the energy so I end up playing with them in the back yard. Anyway, I really feel guilty about the lack of exercise they're getting. But I did take them to the park last weekend and the grass is so brown and dead I think it would be hard on their feet to run on it, so maybe it's for the best.... yeah. I'll just keep telling myself this :)

Polly's official!

my house

When I was checking the value of my home on www.zillow.com (ugh, boy it's fallen in value) I found this lovely photo of my house taken, probably April 2007. I thought it was cute because there are agility jumps in the back yard. I must have just been starting jumping stuff with Icon since they are in a rather simple configuration.

It's interesting to see the changes that have happened to my house since then. A huge hunk of the cement is gone and replace with grass. I did that last July-September... what a pain in the ass that was! The Loquat and 2 apple trees that are barely visible along the back fence beside the outdoor shelter are gone (but I have 3 stumps I don't know what to do with now!) and the biggest change is that there is no more honda civic in my driveway since Jay has moved out! Haha.

Time off and other stuff

So Canby didn't go quite as well as I hoped. No semi-finals bye's in GP for Polly OR Icon! Both E'd! Haha. Oh well. Otherwise I was very happy with them.

Last weekend we were at the 3-day Bay Team USDAA trial. Icon went in needing a snooker, gamblers, pairs for his ADCH and he managed to get them all :) That was really nice. On Saturday during our pairs run 3 or 4 dogs in a row were blown off the dogwalk due to windy conditions and Icon was one of them! Thanks to that, we didn't get the last pairs Q we needed. But LUCKILY we had 2 pairs at that trial and Terry and Heath were our pairs partner. But on Sunday morning when I ran Polly during snooker, I just KNEW that Icon and I were destined to get our ADCH that day on the afternoon pairs run. I knew, because just after taking the first jump of the gamble, Polly pooped in the ring!

"Why would that predict getting an ADCH for Icon," you ask? Well just moments after Icon got his MACH on June 1st, Polly pooped in the ring! (more like explosive diarrhea). So now we know that Polly pooping in the ring is a predictor of great things for Icon and I.

So now that the bay team 3-day weekend is over I have quite a long break from agility. I don't have anything else in July and probably nothing the first 2 weeks of August (I suspect I'll be working those weekends). I am not entirely sure what I will do with myself, but I think I need to come up with a training plan for the dogs so I do, in fact, do something and don't just sit on my rump the entire time.

Some initial thoughts on training during my time off from trailing:
1. Work on speed over contacts.
2. Wicked weave entries at speed (not easy to do in my back yard)
3. One jump work with the triple (now that I have a triple!)

I'm rather looking forward to my time off at this point, but I suspect after the first weekend or two I will start chomping at the bit to get to a trial. But realistically, I'm a bit burnt out from agility. Icon got his MACH and ADCH and I'm floundering a bit for motivation right now without a specific goal.

The end of an long, painful era (or why invitationals sucks)

Last weekend was the end of the AKC invitational qualification period for me and Apollo. The 'official' end is June 30th, so there is technically one weekend left, but I opted to go to the Canby regional instead of another weekend of AKC. The only reason I took that option is because Apollo is pretty solidly in 1st place for invitationals (and they take 5). Last year I also opted to go to the Canby regional instead of an AKC trial and Apollo ended up #6 on the invitatioanl list. #6 by TWELVE POINTS. That's one run! ONE RUN and we would have been there! It was a sad and painful experience that took me a long time to get over. Well this year I was sure that I didn't want to end up in the same position so I really pushed Apollo. We had some awesome trials, which is the reason we made it to #1, but we also had some really unlucky/crappy trials. For example, at the December Rancho trial he was hurt and I had to pull him. At the new years trial he got pneumonia and I had to pull him. At the Del Monte trial we had an 0/4 weekend with explosive diarrhea in the ring for one run (oops!) and then last weekend, at our last trial to get invitationals points, which I entered JUST for Apollo since I don't really like the site (although they have really improved it since I last trialed there) and with temperatures in the 100's, he got hurt again and only got to do his first run (where he totally crashed through a bar). I had Wendy adjust him after the run and do accupuncture and apparently he was 'pretty messed up'. Poor guy! I've been resting and massaging him this week for Canby regionals, but if he doesn't seem ok I just won't run him. It's not like we're going to be winning the pGP anyway! On the bright side, I didn't bother entering him in team so at least he has fewer runs.

But there were some highlights during our AKC invitational qualification as well, like the Pahrump trial we went to last November, which catapulted us from solidly within the pack of 5 boxers to the top. Then in January we travelled to Portland for the Rose City Cluster and Polly had perfect weekend going 8/8! In January at a trial down in City of Industry, Apollo got QQ #20 for his MACH (the next run after getting QQ #19! I'm so lucky that it happened that way since we can often go months and MONTHS without a qq!). And then our final happy time was at the Terv trial in Palo Alto where he had another perfect trial going 4/4 under Lisa Miller and Dan Selthofer. Boy do I ever love their courses!

I don't think I'll ever 'campaign' Apollo for invitationals again, although it's so easy to get bit by that bug when you see yourself in the top 5 list. After Invitationals in december this year, I think I will start ramping down his agility, but we'll see what happens.

To summarize, invitatioanls suck.

So tomorrow morning I'm off to Canby for the NW Regionals. I'm very nervous about it and was dreading it for the last week or so but I'm finally starting to look forward to it. The competition will be fierce, but Icon and I will just do our best and hopefully will get a bye to the semi-finals for both GP and SC.

Happy birthday Polly!

Yesterday was Apollo's 6th birthday! That is 42 in dog years or 60 in boxer years. But he still has the emotional capacity of a teenager. That's why I love him so much, though!

Polly says, "Huh? What's a birthday?"


But Icon said, "Hey I know what a birthday is! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! "



Well at my house on your birthday you get a ribeye cooked to perfection ALL to yourself! Polly was all over that!

Icon was sad though. His birthday isn't until December! But no worries Icon! At my house you also get your own steak of you do something special at agility! If you recall correctly, you got one after your MACH on June 1st. You have ample opportunities coming up, such as the NW regionals you can try to do something nice (like if you win GP I'll give you TWO steaks) and you'll get one when you earn your ADCH too!



Foster didn't care about birthdays or steak. He just wanted to fetch his frisbee!