Ok, so you know how sometimes you have unexpected side effects to something that you’re trying? Well, we’ve been experiencing that with Brynja lately. So, she’s got some fabulous personality traits, that are also presenting challenges. One is that she LOVES people, so much so that she thinks everyone is meant to be her friend. The other thing is that she’s curious and that’s wonderful too, except when she’s pulling whoever is on the other end of the leash around to investigate whatever caught her eye at that moment. whether It could be something as small as a piece of trash, a bottle of sensitive skin care products, or a moving object like a butterfly.

I have to say that I’m grateful she’s as small as she is, but it’s still really obnoxious to have a dog pulling on a leash so much. So…I decided to use a head halter on her. Well, the funniest thing happened. Not only did it give me more control over her nose/head as she tried to dive for stuff, but it had an unintended side effect too. I never realized that people would think she was wearing a muzzle. ROFL I haven’t had a single person come up and try to pet our “cute puppy”. In fact, much the opposite. I have people giving her all kinds of space. It’s hilarious. I guess they think she’s a biter. It’s not exactly what I had in mind, but it sure is helpful to not have everyone you meet want to interact with her.

Anyway, I think I’ll be chuckling about this for weeks. Brynja, the “vicious” puppy. hehe.

Days late as always, I’m finally getting around to posting about the Utah Sheltie Specialty. We had a great time spending the day with a group of the nicest people anyone could want to meet. Twist was entered in Open B Obedience, Veterans and Rally Excellent. Raven was entered in Rally Advanced. Well, I have to admit that between the three of us, Raven, Twist and myself…Raven was the star of the day.

Twist did well in Open B, in fact he qualfied until the out of sight down stay. Of all things to fail, the exercise where you just have to lay there and do nothing. LOL He did ok in Veterans, though he anticipated that there would be a drop on the recall and overall, he’d used up most of his attention in Open.

After lunch we did Rally and that’s when it became obvious that Twist wasn’t the only one that had used up all his brain cells. I got lost and tried to go from station #6 to #13. Hehe. Somehow in the midst of the mess I made of things he still managed to qualify, but it wasn’t due to my handling. Raven did a really good job in Rally Advanced and earned a Q and a second place with a 95. Fortunately, I didn’t get lost and neither did she.

We had a friend snap a picture of the dogs with all the fun prizes that they won, but it’s really not a very good picture of any of us. The dogs look squished and miserable, and you can’t see all the cool prizes very well. For all you know we could have won a t nut in that big pile of goodies, but we didn’t.

Anyway, we had a great time as usual, and I hope we’ll be back again next year to redeem ourselves. LOL

Well, it’s the last day of April. I think this may be the first spring that I haven’t been itching to get the agility equipment out of the barn. I usually make it to about March before I start second guessing the weather to see if I dare drag everything outside. If I’m being patient, I might wait till April. Here I am sitting a few hours away from May, and I haven’t got a single jump out yet.

I can’t really blame it on weather, we’ve had a really mild winter and a warmer spring than usual. In fact, we’ve been mowing the lawn, fighting with weeds, and wishing I had some nice garden furniture to relax on, but the agility field remains strangely empty.

I guess there could be a couple of reasons. One is that Zoe has been coming up lame on one of her front legs off and on since last fall. I can’t figure out a consistent cause. Some short walks on leash she’s come up so sore she wouldn’t put weight on her leg. Other times we’ve gone for much longer hikes off leash and she’s been fine. The vet here hasn’t found much that’s conclusive. Another is that Dare is still rehabbing from the bilateral Illiopsoas strain and even though she’s improving she’s not ready to do agility yet. Brynja is working on lots of foundation stuff and I just don’t have the motivation to get the equipment out to work Raven.

It’s definitely been an interesting winter/spring with the illnesses and injuries. I hope the summer proves to be much more uneventful and that the empty field will be filled with colorful equipment soon.

For now, it’s going to sit empty for at least a few more days.

In general I’m not a big shopper. I have two things that make me spend money. My dogs, or if I think I’m finding a stellar deal on something.

It seems like there are plenty of places that sell used clothing, exercise/fitness equipment and even Used Instruments. Can’t you just see all the Shelties lined up playing a bunch of these drums?

Can you imagine if there was a website that sold used dog training stuff too? You could have departments for all the different sports and you could have equipment and books and DVD’s. I know I can’t be the only one out there that buys DVD’s and books and training equipment and then finds out it either doesn’t work for my dog, or I just don’t have the time to use it. It would probably be a really dangerous site for me to find though. I can just see me spending more than I normally would because I thought I was getting a deal. LOL Probably good that right now it’s just in my imagination.

It’s amazing how a puppy can get the older dogs to play. Twist didn’t really want to play to start with Bryn at first, but before long, he’s racing around inside the house like a wild banshee. You’d think at his age, he’d be asking himself questions like what is progene?, not…what is the fastest way around the living room furniture.

Raven is usually such a stick in the mud when it comes to playing. In fact, if she’s outside and the other dogs are playing, she’s most often the fun police. Since Brynja arrived though, all bets are off. She didn’t know that Raven wasn’t the biggest player and she didn’t really care. She just kept trying, till one day Raven gave in to her attempts and they’ve been good buddies ever since.

After breakfast, in the morning is their favorite time for zooming around the yard. I had some time the other day and got to sit outside and watch them play while I took pictures.

Sure is nice to see Raven out and running and playing so much these days.

Sometimes I wonder what people would think if they ever went through my dog training stuff. Have any of you ever had friends come over that don’t do agility or aren’t involved with dogsports and they wonder if you’ve had plumbing problems recently? I mean what other reason could there be for someone to have so much PVC, right?

Or how about the people that think that ask about your fitness routine with the balance balls and discs and treadmill? Only to be surprised when you reveal that you couldn’t balance on one if you tried, but your dog can sit, stand, down, sit pretty and balance with ease.

Or the musical instruments, “are you taking up a musical instrument?” “I didn’t know you played the drums”, they say. The looks continue to be quizical when they find out that the dogs have better rhythm than I do, and that’s obvious because I have a metronome, but that’s just to regulate my walking while heeling in obedience. I’m sure I could find a dual purpose for some Headphone Amps too.

Another favorite was when I ran out of ice gel packs for the dogs, and I had to use the frozen veggies. I decided the other day that I am not alone. A client brought me peanut butter to stuff the dogs Kongs and it was labeled “Doggies” I assume that’s because their husband has asked the same question mine did the other day when I was unloading groceries. Is the string cheese for us to eat, or only for the dogs? I sure am glad that he’s such a good sport about sharing so much with the dogs.

So, the blogs got hacked again. I really don’t understand how or why or what satisfaction comes from someone doing that, but it sure gets old. My friend is working on getting things back to normal soon.

So, Brynja has been learning all kinds of fun things lately. My husband is doing a great job training her. They are a cute pair. One of the things they’ve been working on is skateboarding. She’s really starting to get the hang of it. Since Dare’s on limited activity Brynja and Randy have pity on me and let me take a turn with training too. Here’s a short clip of her skateboarding.

We’re still making trips to Salt Lake for Dare’s rehab treatments each week. She’s progressing, but honestly, I’m not the best at judging how much or how fast…obviously if I didn’t realize there was an injury in the first place. Yesterday I decided to go a little early so I could do some shopping besides. Nothing fancy like la mer cream or anything. More like Costco run for coffee and cleaners and stuff. Figured it was good to make use of the time and fuel I’m already spending to get to Salt Lake in the first place.

Today is our 18th wedding anniversary. Our friends are coming up on their anniversary too, (not today), and he’s been looking for 3rd Anniversary gifts for her. I was trying to remember what we did for our third anniversary, but I honestly can’t remember. In fact, I will be the first to admit that I’ve been looking at the calendar wrong for the last week and thought that the April 1st was on Monday. LOL I’m terrible about remembering dates.

Anyway, whether I am good or bad about remembering what day it is, I do know that I’m really fortunate to have shared the last 18 years with Randy. I’m not one for recommending getting married young but I know that even if I had spent those 18 years looking for the perfect person I wouldn’t have found someone better…

Twist is such a nerd! I love the boy, but he’s really a dork. All the Shelties eat and sleep in their crates. So, Twist has been sleeping in his crate for about 8 years now, ever since we adopted him. This last week has been interesting though.

Several nights this week something unusual happened. Twist went to bed like normal, but then shortly after going to bed, he started barking and I could hear him spinning like he needed to go outside. I get up, let him out of the crate…he doesn’t want outside.I put him back to bed and he protests…loudly for hours. It’s like he just woke up one night in the crate and realized that he wasn’t loose. It probably isn’t as funny if you haven’t ever been around Twist in person, but if you had been, it’s no stretch of the imagination to interpret his baffled expression as…”Hey!!! How did I get in this crate?”

I’m really not sure what I’m going to do about it yet. I can’t for the life of me figure out what brought it on. If there is something that scared him, or that is making it uncomfortable to be in his crate, I’d like to be able to figure it out. So far though, I can’t make heads or tails of what’s triggered it. Maybe I need to change the atmosphere in that room. Maybe if it had a yoyojam atmosphere he’d be happier about staying back there. Maybe not though.