The typical way it starts is with a little chaos!

Then everyone settled into their walk, except that Penny’s nose took her into a sagebrush. Deep into the sagebrush. LOL I don’t have a clue what she was looking for.

Then Dare had to stop to pose for me at the top of the hill. I guess she was actually just watching all the other dogs waste their energy, but it was a nice pose for me with the mountains behind her.

Hmmmm….this group just looks like trouble. Watch out world!

Twist and Dare taking in the view. Aren’t the rocks in the background cool?

Happy Raven face!

I think everybody’s having a good time.

Lucy loving the water

Zoe NOT loving the water. Might have had something to do with the fact that she’d just found a disgusting dead deer to roll in and so I thought she could use an impromptu bath before the ride home.

Dare is such a poser.

And the walk ends much the way it began, with Layla barking at the dogs to keep going! She might be telling Raven to “put down the prevera wrinkle cream grandma, and run, run, run!” Or maybe not. LOL

And then here are some from yesterday. After the obedience trial we took Twist, Dare and Layla for a hike before we drove back home. You can see it was a beautiful, much warmer day! Yay!

As you can see, keeping my house clean for the next little while is going to be a real task. LOL It never ceases to amaze me how dirty these two can get. But, they sure do have a good time running and playing out there, so I guess a little clean up is well worth it. In fact it’s not really anything to complain about. It’s not something serious like if someone we knew had Mesothelioma Cancer or something. Today I’m really grateful to have what teeny tiny problems are mine. I’m going to try to keep in mind that these two muddy girls are trying to tell me that spring and warmer weather are just around the corner.

I’m not sure what we did before digital cameras. I think we must have taken over a hundred pictures. It’s just so nice to be able to take as many as you like and then just see them immediately on the computer and find a few that turn out. I think I’d go into withdrawals if I had to go back to my old film camera. LOL It’s so nice with the puppies too, because I have so much better record of them growing up than I do of my older dogs. Anyway…here’s some of the pictures. Enjoy!

Anyway, I am just taking Zoe and Dare with me this time. Dare is going to be trying to get her CGC this weekend, and I also still needed to get her microchipped. So we’re making a stop at our friends with Sheltie Rescue of Utah and chipping her this afternoon, and then we’ll head on up to the trial. I’ll try to get video of whatever I can throughout the weekend, but no promises that I’ll get it posted before I get home Monday night. No promises for Tues either, since after I get home from the trial I have to turn around and drive to Cedar City for an appointment with our accoutant to get the taxes done.

Anyway…I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Anyway, today I took Dare out and we worked on the “finish” part of the recall in obedience. I want her to be able to “finish” from both sides. Right now, I’m still using both a verbal and a hand signal. I will have to fade out one or the other before the skill is ready for the obedience ring. We also are working on an “in” which means that she needs to be aware of her rear end and move it as much as needed to keep her body in heel position. We are also working on reinforcing heel position by just taking one or two steps forward with her in position. For agility we are working on directionals, though I have serious doubts that I’ll be quick enough to use them when I really running a course. LOL So today we worked on “right”, “left”, and “back”

I think it was Diana that mentioned that it was recommended that she have Miley weave around her legs for a part of an agility warm-up routine. It sounds like a great idea, so I think I’ll be searching for videos to help me figure out a plan on how to teach Dare to do that next. Anyway, here’s a short clip from our training today.

They all were excited to get started….

As we went further, no one had walked on the trails yet, so we had to make our own.

Eventually most of us decided that we’d let my husband make the trail and we’d just follow.

You’ll notice that the exception to that statement is Lucy. She just can’t stand to not be in front of everyone blazing her own trail. Then Layla soon decided that she was too big to waiting for someone to make a trail for her either and broke out of the formation. Here she is making the leap….

And then sinking into the deep snow. What a silly girl!

Here’s my favorite bridge on this walk….

and Dare coming back over to check on why I’m not coming…

And a little sheltie “family” picture….

And then the races as we went back to the truck. Penny was the judge, and obviously Twist got distracted at the startline. What a shocker!

Looks like Zoe is the winner, and…..Twist is still distracted. LOL

And finally the best place to be when you get home from a cold winter’s walk…

/>

I’ve been working on getting our little office/laundry room textured and painted, and now I’m just waiting on my husband to finish up his part of staining the cabinet doors and hanging them. Then I’ll post pictures.

Things have been incredibly slow for both the cabinet shop where my husband works and also here at the boarding kennel. They layed off employees again at his work. One was a close friend of ours. Feels like a repeat of last year already. The only good thing about it, without much work at the shop, it gives my husband some time to work on finishing up projects around here, like the office. The computer at his work had miscalculated his vacation time that was used last year and so he had some left, so they let him just trade it out for the materials that we needed to make the doors for the cabinets. As for the boarding kennel, things always slow way down after the holidays are over, but this is ridiculous. I haven’t had this slow a month since I started the business. I’m going for nearly a week at a time without a single boarder. It’s scary.

The dogs are all still doing great. Layla and Raven are entered in an AKC trial at the end of the month. Can’t believe it’s only a couple weeks away now. We’ve really been working on Layla’s tire and her broadjump. Hopefully, she’ll handle them both without any problems at the trial.

The weather is still cold, but warmer than it has been. We still have too much snow on the ground to train outside and we are supposed to get snow each day this week, but so far, it’s not turning into much.

I totally embarrassed myself on Sunday. I had gotten an email through one of the lists that they were bringing Jim Basic back again this year for another distance seminar. Well, I got all excited and emailed and said I’d love a working spot in the beginner part. Then, I looked through my bills and reality set in. Unless things really pick up, it’s just not going to be possible. So, I sent out an email explaining what was going on, and unfortunately…didn’t pay any attention and sent it out to the entire dog agility list, not just to the person putting on the seminar. Ugh! Talk about embarrassing.

Oh, one of my friends down here that has Belgian Malinois is going to have her first litter in about 6 years. I got to go with her to the ultrasound a few weeks ago and yesterday for x-rays to see how many puppies to expect. Looks like at best count, 8 or 9 but they were packed in there pretty good, so there may be more. I get to go help with the whelping, (don’t know how much help I’ll be), so I’m really excited!

I guess that’s about it. I need to get out and take pictures of the dogs and some video, but I haven’t done it lately. Maybe later on this week…