Off to the beach today!! Again!!

This is definitely the BEST part about winter. The fields may be brown, dead and blah looking, but the beach.........THE BEACH.......winter runs on the beach are absolutely fabulous! The dogs can run and run and eat crab legs and chase seagulls, it's awesome!

These shots were taken last Friday when I met with Mary to walk with her "new" dog, Skipper, who we thought we might need to help find a home for. Mary's aunt died and Skipper is now looking for a new home. She thinks now her other aunt may take Skipper, which would be really nice! He is a sweet, shy, nervous little poodle, but starting to come out of his shell and will make someone a nice companion. He's really cute!!It was cold that day, but the sun is so strong it warms things up nicely. Still, the tide left a big lump of frozen sea foam to navigate.

Spur just LOVES racing on the beach!This is such a common look for him when running. Ears flat for more aerodynamics, mouth slightly open, lower teeth showing!This shot was last Friday, Spur is 2 1/2...........
This shot was taken when he was 5 1/2 months...................

Talking about obedience trials the other day.

Roscoe's last leg on his CD was at American K9 Country. We were chatting about whether or not they put down obedience mats or just did the trial on the rubber mats. I had to go back and find the photo of him doing his stays next to the Irish Wolfhound. Poor tiny boy, looks SO weeny next to that dog. Notice his "Flying Nun" ears.........a little stressed?........ya think??? So, they apparently do obedience trials right on the rubber. I simply couldn't remember.

Our next trial is coming up. Rally-O at the Wyndham in South Portland for the Collie Club trial. I am a little nervous about his performance on carpeting. The last trial we did on carpet he sniffed a LOT, but it was the day after the MinPin Specialty banquet and breed dogs had been on that carpet, also. It SMELLED! We need to practice a few things, since he is now a member of the 100 club, we are expected to get a 100! I would be fine with a 99....maybe. He has been SO high at Rally class lately. Like high to the point of heeling on his back feet, which we looked up and there is no rule against it. So long as he is in heel position. But, it looks sloppy and crazy and frantic. However, our experience is he settles and gets serious at trials. Never forging like he does at class. It's the same way in agility. In agility he is NUTS in practice. Absolutely NUTS, taking obstacles here and there, zooming off to take things WAY away from me. At trials, not so much. The stress? The environment, me? Who knows, but trials are always a little less exciting. In obedience we are both more reserved and careful and precise. Hopefully.

Funny, with Spur trials seem to be pretty exciting, which is nice. I think eventually Spur will starting finding trials WAY more fun than practice, but time will tell. He is still way too young and early in his "career" to know how it is going to go. He is SO different from Roscoe.

Mole munching and more sideways photos, damn it!

So, I did say you wouldn't see any rodent parts, but I guess there was still a tiny bit hanging out. :O Most of it was already choked down, but this is what I first saw when I panned my camera over to Roscoe. (BTW - I never did get a better photo of The Spurminator on the hill. Oh well.)The next swallow and it was gone........ Looking for "leftovers"?.....

OK, so what the HECK with the sideways photos????? I was SURE I had it figured out. I just don't get it! I have them saved right on picassa in their files, but they still end up loading here sideways!!! >:/ This is Precious, sleeping in the warm sun. Who was it that said picassa was the way to go?????.......

And this is the result of our Pileated Woodpecker pair.............

Huh, and this photo I cropped, so what the HECK???? I took this of Spur running FULL out on his dog walk at home. I am pretty sure his next step puts his back feet just at the top of the contact zone, darnit. That's just how he strides - when full our running. I am just going to have to live with that and probably get pissed at a lot of judges who can't judge back feet on contacts.....sigh........ If I can GET full out running on his dog walk in trials. It's his happy place, at home. Running.........full out.........

More winter shots! Sideways!

OK, I was told to download picassa for my photo program. Trouble is even though I have rotated the photos in the program, they STILL come up sideways????? It is EXTREMELY frustrating. Have I told you lately how much I hate computers? But, really I DO love them. WHAT???? It is a love/hate relationship, for sure. Makes me NUTS!

Here is adorable little Leta looking out from the barn as I do chores - SIDEWAYS - ARGH. She is SO cute and SO friendly now. She will be starting a training program come warmer weather. Too cold for treats right now and bare hands, handling the treats, but she will be doing some training come spring. She is SO silly and active and adorable. I just love her!! Very much still feral, but she LOVES me. And here is FAT Juno. She is an older gal and still very feral. She lets me pat her, ONLY if I approach slowly or happen to catch her in her snuggle bed. She is SO sedate and inactive. I have her on DIET food now. I am hoping come spring she will be more active, but basically she is a "retired" older gal and just hangs out, sleeping and eating her diet food. I am limiting it now, even in the dead of winter because she is SO fat. :OMy three posing on the boulder. They look so detached? I think they are listening. The critters are active right now with the sun warming up the soil during the top of the day. Roscoe caught a mole/vole/shrew yesterday. Ate it up in one gulp. I have learned that once it's nearly down there is no stopping him. I can grab, shake and scream, but that little buggar can swallow something SO fast it is AMAZING! I'll post those photos tomorrow. Don't worry, there will be no rodent parts coming out of his mouth, it was gone before I realized it, choked down and swallowed like a snake would swallow a frog - whole. Well, not so slow, but similar in it's process? I was busy photographing Spur again at the top of "Road Kill Hill" and before I knew it said rodent was half way down Roscoe's hatch, so I clicked away at the gulp! ICK!

Dead of winter

Out back on the farm we have a small hill we call "Road Kill Hill". It's a dead zone, where the farmer leaves dead ground hogs that were trapped and killed on the farm so they can watch the turkey vultures have a meal. They actually haven't left anything there in a long time, but we still call it that. It's just a small knoll/rise and full of rabbit? holes? Could be ground hog holes, but they don't look big enough. The dogs LOVE Road Kill Hill. They love sniffing out the rodents, on occasion catching a dumb mole or mouse. In the summer it is loaded with grasshoppers to catch. This time of year, it's pretty quiet but there is some rodent activity. The dogs love it no matter what time of year!!

The sun was SO bright the other day I tried to capture the blue sky background, the dead golden grasses contrasting Spur's incredible coloring. Somehow the sky didn't come out as blue and Spur's coat didn't shine like I remember. I think what I did wrong was not set up with the sun completely behind me. The sun was off to my right a little. (if you click on the photos I think they will come up full version - bigger) And Spur was SO focused on something on the horizon he wouldn't look at me. And then any time he did he came running to me!

Perhaps if I had just come up closer on this one. But, look at that TAIL! LOVE that tail.....

He is about to pounce on something in the grass. And, look, even Spur squints in this bright light.....

See, I called his name and here he comes, Roscoe quickly behind him!....

It's the dead of winter and the grass is sure showing it. Not much green around right now.

Goodbye blanket of denial! Covering up with blame!

You left me feeling chilly, denial. Blame is warming me now.

I can't deny it any longer. Colby is going blind. OK, so that sounds so melodramatic, but seriously she is losing her sight and it is affecting her performance and daily life. Affecting her performance in agility so that I must be smart and not allow her to do things that put her in danger or chip away at her trust in me, like what happened at the trial last weekend. She forgave me, I think. The trial was an "eye opener", .......geez, pun intended, a BAD one, but hey................ She can barely open her eyes on a bright sunny day! She has PRA - Progressive Retinal Atrophy. This was diagnosed last year, although as I looked through her photos I think it started long before. My photographer friend, Helen Peppe, was always complaining about Colby squinting!

The eye is made up of the cornea (outer part that covers the eye), the lens (the colored part that allows light in) and the retina (the back part of the eye that is essentially the "film", allowing light to be processed into colors and signals through nerves to the brain). The retina has photo receptors, rods and cones, and those break down and deteriorate with PRA. This is what Colby has. Asking her to judge jumps and tunnels and walk a long plank or teeter in agility is not such a good idea any more. Perhaps mid-summer when the sun is high and shadows not so bad we will see how it goes. Yesterday, when that photo was taken, it was extremely bright out and she managed to catch Charlee Bears in her mouth, so her day light sight isn't so bad, yet. Her ability to see in low light and shadows and her night vision is definitely affected. The other night she nearly refused the stairs before bed, then did them ever so slowly. I may put some bright marker, or paint some shape (how about a yellow paw print!!), on my risers. Right now my stairs are pine board with dark maroon painted risers.

It's sad, I can't deny this any longer. I want to cast blame. I blame my vet for not seeing it sooner (it isn't treatable, so what good does that do?). I sometimes think I should have waited to do her knee surgery until her eyes broke down more. That would have given us those six months to compete, instead she was recovering from knee surgery. Having those months back with good eye sight would be nice. but would that have been good? I dunno. I wish her ophthalmologist had prepared me better. I DID ask for advice on her doing agility and what to look for, but she was so vague. I wish for the time and money I spent she had given me more information and guidance. Blame, blame, blame, sure feels about as good as denial. Warm and pink and fuzzy. No...........

Start line, smart line!

OK, I need a start line behavior. I remember someone, some clinician? Some instructor? Some author? Someone saying to me once that start lines should be treated like any other "obstacle". Trained as if it is obstacle #1. Actually, I do believe that person was saying "start line stays" should be treated that way. Well........I don't DO start line stays. I did, once before. For years with the MinPins. They are obedience dogs, they stay. I can't even remember the day I made the decision to stop doing start line stays. It was years into our competition. Colby doesn't mind start line stays and does fine! She's not that much of a worried dog. Stays don't bother her much. She'll stay, she's a good little girlie.

Roscoe? Stays can totally bum him out. Self control work is very hard for him and leaving him in a stay sometimes breaks his trust in me. I can see it in him. He looks at me like I have betrayed him. Seriously, he can bore those eyes into my head like a drill sometimes. Like Cin's pup Zep. Ever look directly into HIS eyes? He will bore a hole and suck out your brain cells!!! Roscoe, he just tells me I suck and leaving him in a stay is a BUMMER MAN!!

The day I quit start line stays with Roscoe I had a DOG out there. I had a partner. He breathed such a sigh of relief!! It was THAT clear. We never did another. I have struggled a lot with simply running, however. Instructors sometimes don't even know how to deal with running starts. I have been to seminars where they want me to "just try" the start line stay. I have to argue and explain that what I need MOST is help dealing with a running start line, thank you very much!! Amazing how hard that is for some.

OK, so that's the trouble. Most instructors do start line stays. It's well practiced, they train it, they do it, it's the deal, Muffin Heads. Start line stays! Running starts, not so much. And I need help with it. I need help dealing with the mental preparation. I am going to try to train the bouncy game better with Roscoe. He likes it, he's well trained to do it, I think I can make it a regular occurance at start lines.

Spur - I need to figure something out. Stays are uncomfortable for him, too. And "uncomfortable" isn't the right feeling to start an agility course with, now, is it?? Right now I am doing a rev up sort of game that I can see he is figuring out. I say "Ready, ready, ready??? GO!" and he does get ready and I see him looking at which obstacle he needs to be ready for. However, it isn't fluent, it isn't well practiced and I haven't done it that well at a trial, yet. I tried the bouncy game with him last weekend, but that also isn't all that well trained. He does it, but it isn't fluent like with Roscoe. I do have a new trick I just trained that he loves and he DID at the trial last weekend just outside the gate. A jump off my leg to a little flip like move. However, I am not sure that's the best start line performance? It means I have to perform something and that may make me a little behind on my take off? I don't know. I may try it. I need impulsion from him at the start, so that's my next project.

I have done TONS of rev up games with toys. Holding his collar until he is straining and releasing with impulsion to a toy. But, that's not all that realistic for us at a trial. I won't be taking a toy into the ring. I need a behavior I can take into the ring and use to get impulsion at the start.