ResqTails

I made it over to the fairgrounds today.  I am thrilled!  It looks like it’s going to be a great place for us to train.  The fairgrounds committee agreed that we can use the indoor arena the same way as the people with the horses.  We just pay for a year pass.  Here’s the best part…it’s only $25.00 for the whole year!  Isn’t that awesome?!

The person in charge said that most of the time during the day no one is there riding horses, so that’s ideal for me.  I doubt I’ll get back over there this weekend, but that’s probably ok, since I imagine that along with evenings…weekends are likely to be busier with horses too.

Anyway, here are some pictures that I took when I was there today.

Did I mention $25.00?!  Not for an hour…for the whole year!  I can’t believe it.  I can use it as much as I like for a year.  Woohoo!  Oh and I think I forgot to mention that this is less than 5 miles from my house.

I don’t know if it’s the walking, the slightly warmer temperatures, the longer days, or a combination of all those things, but we’re feeling good around here.   I really wanted to do a better job of getting all of us in better condition this year.  Not because I think I’m ever going to have to fit into prom dresses at my age.

My reasons are that I’m tired of being out of breath when I run a course with the dogs and it seems like every time I turn around I’m reading about someone’s dog being injured. Granted, there are just times when injuries can’t be prevented, but I want to make sure that I’m not asking the dogs to do something their bodies aren’t prepared for.

So, we’re walking (and a little jogging) to help all of build more stamina. We’re going to start doing our ball work again more regularly to help with strength and balance and we hauled out some jumps to ease back into agility with some low grids.

Of course, I hauled the jumps out yesterday, and today…it’s raining and snowing. Hehe, typical. That’s ok, I don’t think it’s going to add up to much.

I knew this day was coming, but I really hoped that Twist would finish his CDX before it did. Yesterday we went to our friends place to train. I was working with Twist on his retrieve over the high, and I tossed the dumbbell out and this is what happened.

So…we finished out training yesterday using a plastic dumbbell that I had with me. It’s not a perfect fit, but I don’t think that Twist cares that much anyway. He’s such a goof. Maybe I’ll have to spend part of this afternoon surfing websites for a new dumbbell. I don’t think I need any phenphedrine today and neither do the dogs, so we’ll probably stick to dog supplies stores. Dare is part of a test group for some dumbbells that Mighty Mite Dog Gear is developing, but so far hers haven’t been a good fit. So, I don’t know if I’ll just go ahead and order from somewhere I’ve already dealt with, or try someplace new. I’ll have to see.

I was hoping to have more finished by this evening than I do, but that’s life, right?  LOL  I got a call from a friend that needed my help with a rescue that they just took from the shelter yesterday.  She wasn’t acting well and her foster had an appt. this morning, so she couldn’t stay with her at the vet, so they wondered if I could run down to the vet and meet the dog and then take the dog back to it’s foster home after we were done.  Of course, I said yes…but that got the morning off to a really slow start around here.

Then, I had forgotten what a pain it is to try to clean all the printing off the silly PVC.  Ugh!  That took hours, and hours.  But…here’s the progress so far.  If you haven’t guessed, I am making new jumps for the dogs.  My old PVC jumps are from when Zoe started agility like 9 years ago and they are starting to get brittle.  I also need to have smaller jump height spacing for some of the exercises we are working with Dare right now, and I just loved the Clip N’ Go Jump Cup Strips from Clean Run, so this was my chance to try them out.  Amazing how some girls need diamonds to make them happy, and others of us are every bit as thrilled with some PVC. LOL

So, all of the jumps are cut out and cleaned off, just waiting to be decorated. Here is the first one completed.

Hopefully by tomorrow, we’ll have them all finished and we’ll be back up and running with them.

So, my friend that I train with calls it doodling when you work on the little bits and pieces of heeling position and obedience exercises. I find doodling to be a really useful tool in not only teaching and reinforcing heel position, but also in giving you something that you can use for a quick little warm-up routine for obedience before you go in the ring. I use it for keeping my dogs connected before we go in the agility ring too.

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.

I thought I better write a quick update. Last week passed in a blur as usual and I didn’t get anything posted.

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…

So, anyone else out there just have the feeling that you’re wasting your time? Not just by reading this blog, LOL but in general? I’ve been feeling that way a lot lately.

I know that part of my problem is that I hate winter. I could ramble on for pages about how much I hate this time of year. I sometimes wish I was one of those animals that just hibernates through the winter only to wake up when spring comes again. Well, enough of wishful thinking, back to reality. The reality is that I seem to find myself at about 5:00 each afternoon wondering how in the world I’ve managed to waste another day. Sometimes, it’s not even a logical thought, (since there are lots of days that I’ve really done a quite a bit before 5:00 rolls around), but nevertheless…5:00 hits and so does this now familiar state of slow motion panic that my day is gone! I scramble to get outside, clean up the yard, train/play with the dogs and start dinner. LOL

Well, I’m sick of it! So, I’m trying to look at things and see what is helping me and what is making matters worse around here. One of the things that I know is a kind of two-edged sword is all the time I spend on the computer. Depending on the day, (and sometimes the hour), reading about what everyone else is up to with their dogs and their training can really give me the motivation I need to get out and try something new with my training. Other days, I just find myself comparing what I do (or haven’t done) with what seem to me to be amazing dog trainers and people in general, and I get so discouraged with my efforts. Do you guys do this too?

So, what’s the solution? I know there has to be a balance, but I’ve never been good at finding balance. LOL I think I’ll work on coming up with something to help remedy my time wasting this week. I’ll let you know if I stumble across anything earth-shattering.

GOODBYE 2009…FULL SPEED AHEAD TO 2010!

Another year has come and gone. It was a year packed with lots of memories. Some I’ll cherish forever, and some I wish I could forget. LOL Looking back though, I can honestly say that I’ve learned something from all the experiences, both good and the not so good.

So, I’ve been spinning and spinning over what to do lately about agility trials coming up this spring. The big debate is what to do with Zoe, Layla and Raven. Sorry if this gets really long and drawn out…if only you could hear the debate in my head. LOL

First of all I don’t know what direction to go with Zoe. Zoe and I have tried a variety of the different agility venues that are out there. NADAC/ASCA, USDAA, DOCNA and AKC. In recent years we’ve focused mainly on AKC agility, with a little DOCNA sprinkled in here and there. I just can’t decide whether to continue doing AKC with Zoe, in hopes of getting her MACH2. She’s already 9 1/2. In looking back at what it took for us to get her MACH, I think we’d be looking at the liklihood of it taking two years of trialing to be able to finish a MACH2. She’s got the speed points, but she needs 18 more pesky double q’s. In two years she’ll be almost 12. I don’t even like to think about her getting older! Even though I’d really like to think that she could still be running in two more years, I don’t think I’ll want to jump her at full height at that age. Thus the debate…In my fantasy world where I have unlimited funds and time, I’d say “yes, who cares if you get the MACH2, just keep running and see what happens”. In my real world where there is a very real limit on both time and money, I think it really doesn’t make sense to spend both on a title that is probably not within our reasonable grasp.

Then Layla…I had hoped that she would be ready to enter in Novice agility in March for the Sheltie Nationals, (since they are in AZ this year). However, I never expected that she was going to come up lame and we would lose more than 2 1/2 mo. of training time this fall. Now we are behind where I expected to be with her training. It’s also the worst time of year for training more than just pieces, since we’re mostly training in our barn now. So, I can’t decide whether to try to enter her anyway…or just bag my plans for Sheltie Nationals this year.

Lastly, Raven. Raven just goes crazy to do agility and obedience at home. She has an absolute hissy fit if you go out to train one of the other dogs and she has to wait inside the house. When she gets to the trials though, she’s a totally different dog. She acts like she needs a cheerleader to get around the course. All the confidence and speed that she has at home is lacking. She just doesn’t have the temperment that handles the trial environment well. That having been said, she still has been able to get to Excellent and earn one leg towards both her AX and her AXJ. I’d really like to finish those titles and then just let her do agility at home and forget about trialing with her. It just seems so odd to me to have a dog that is just coming up on 5 years old that I wouldn’t be trialing with.

Anyway, the decision is coming up the quickest for the crew here is for January. There is an AKC trial that I’d like to enter, but I don’t know who or what to enter. LOL I think it’s a waste of funds to enter Zoe, but I can’t imagine going to a trial and not running her. I’d like to enter Raven and hopefully get closer to finishing off that AX and AXJ. And…I’m toying with the idea of entering Layla in Novice FAST, just to see where she’s really at, but I also think it’s just rushing her. Any thoughts??? Besides that I’m crazy. LOL

As I’ve already mentioned, we’ve been forced into the barn for training now because of the weather. Not only do we have snow on the ground, but the last few mornings, it’s been below zero. One morning it was 15 below zero, and yesterday was 8 below. Today we are back above zero, but it’s still miserable weather to be outside. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that the barn makes it pretty difficult to video. There isn’t enough room to set a tripod up far enough away to get all 12 poles in the clip. Instead, I have to sucker someone into coming out to video for me. So, the video for today is really blurry because my husband was pretty close to us as Layla weaved past him. Regardless, I think you’ll be able to see that Layla is now weaving without any guides. Yay!!!