I'm sick.............

ME! ME!! I can't believe it! ME??? I NEVER get sick. I haven't even had a cold in years! Of any consequence. Seriously, I am immune to anything, but I guess that's over. I definitely have The Flu! Fever, chills, cough, sneezing, sore throat, the works. I am bummed. I had to cancel class tomorrow night. Our LAST agility class at HappyTails!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! I already sold Roscoe's slot to a friend and if by some miracle I recover by tomorrow night I will bring Spur, but the way I feel now that's unlikely. And I hope I am better by Friday for the Rally trial. ??????

Home from the trial!

We made it before the bad weather came in, phew!!!

Well, no MAD dog title for Roscoe this weekend. He was awesome, but we didn't get the gamble. It was TOTALLY do-able and completely my fault. I only wish we had not been 8th dog in because I sure saw how some of the more experienced handlers were handling it and I could have done it that way myself. But, the show ran little to big, so Roscoe was one of the first to do it. Still, we did great in Snooker for our third Super Q and a win!!! That's all we need for his ADCH (Agility Dog Championship), other than of course all the other q's he needs.

Here is his winning Snooker run for that Super Q!

Feel The Rush Agility trial this weekend

My friend talked me into the four hour (ugh!) drive to CT for this trial. It should be good, the last one we did ran really well and was great fun! I have six runs on Saturday and my goal is to get Roscoe's Master Gamble to get his MAD title!! That elusive Gamble leg is all that's holding us up! Something about "Roscoe MAD" dog cracks me up! Colby still in Advanced runs two runs on Sunday and we leave early to make it home at a reasonable hour. Masters dogs run Saturday, Advanced runs Sunday. Spur will tag along and get some show scene experience.

We are practicing!!

We have our first Rally Obedience trial coming up next Friday. I am a little nervous because we never practice in a room with carpeting. I know Roscoe and I know that might distract him and make him want to sniff the floor for any tidbits he might find. His stomach rules, you know. I tried to find some photos of him doing his adorable heeling, but all I have are the ones from the Carolyn Scott Freestyle seminar. They are cute and show what good attention he has and how nicely he heels! He loves obedience work!! My biggest fear is stepping on him, he heels so closely to me. I have stepped on him plenty, but good little man keeps trying and stays nice and close! I prefer him to heel looking more straight or at my feet, but as many dogs do he cranks his head up to look at me. He is a flashy little heeler with his high stepping Hackney Pony action from his front legs! Very cute!

He makes me proud!!

Roscoe KICKS ASS in obedience!! Tibby Chase LOVED him and complimented our work. It felt really good!! He would do an exercise and she would say....."Just like that everyone!!!" Good little man!!!! He just looks so adorable heeling and doing his routine. And he can go on and on all day without tiring. I did bring Colby and Spur and worked them some, too. My friend Carolyn brought her mini-aussie, who petered out in the afternoon. She is one of the puppymill bust adult dogs that Spur came from and she just gets over-whelmed and shuts down. I offered Roscoe to Carolyn if she wanted to work him later in the day because I was working Colby at that point. She took me up on it and he worked for her like a champ!! Carolyn knows him well and knows not to try to pat him, just put him through the routine and give him treats. He worked SO well for her. Tibby even said........"Oh, you get the good dog!". I almost burst out laughing. "The GOOD dog"???? Roscoe???? But, really he was very good, never snapped at any other dog and there were some BIG dogs there. A huge Newfoundland, two Bernese Mt. Dogs, three goldens, one who was very grumpy and snarly. Roscoe never made a peep, so I don't think anyone knew he was aggressive.

My only cripe was one lady and her Bernese Mt. Dog came up near us. She wasn't paying attention and her dog shove it's nose in Roscoe's butt!! WHAT????? Luckily, I had Roscoe in my lap facing the other direction, keeping him occupied since it was close quarters and I immediately gave him a bunch of cookies. I tried not to snap at the lady, but I did blurt out......."He's NOT friendly!!"....... and I know I had a scowl on my face. I can't help it!!! Keep your snotty nosed big goofy dog out of my dog's space!! Roscoe doesn't need an anema from any dog, let alone a big, goofy, hairy one! He was a good boy and forgot about his Bernese colonoscopy and munched on his treats. He actually might not mind such an exam if it means endless cookies!?

Look at those nicely done nails!!! You can tell by his expression he isn't too impressed. He hates to have his feet touched and......O.......MY......GOODNESS...........my hand is touching his paw!!! Good little buggar only barely complained, though, when I did them. He sat patiently eyeing the yummy turkey ham I had ready to reward him with. They then all got baths and sat in the warm sun to dry. My house is so passive solar oriented it was about 80 degrees in the living room in the afternoon. We had a GREAT woods hike and Roscoe was only barely cold. Stella's Mom got some videos, hopefully she will share and I can post them here.

We are all looking forward to our seminar with Tibby Chase tomorrow!! Off to go cut up more training treats!!!

Plans for this weekend

It looks like the weather should be fairly nice, so after a nice long woods hike I will bathe all the dogs. They haven't had baths in months and after the Amherst trial and ALL THAT MUD, they all could use a bath. Plus, all the winter crud that builds up on their skin must need to be scrubbed. They all enjoy a good hot brick nap in front of the woodstove and there are always ashes there no matter how much I vacuum. So, with good strong sun there should be plenty of sun spots for them to lie on towels and dry in the warm sun tomorrow. Plus, it would be nice to have clean dogs for the Tibby Chase seminar on Sunday. I hear Tibby is excellent and this should be really fun. I found out another class mate is going with her golden, so that's nice. I will know someone there. The dogs are all loving rally class, so it will be good to work on precision and better understanding of the signs/moves.

And, with baths comes nail trims. Colby gets done every other week, but Roscoe I do monthly maybe. Spur gets done when ever, his nails don't grow that fast, but I like his paw fur nice and trim so I do nails often to make it easier to trim his paws neat. So, Spur will get nails and a paw trim, too!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

OK, so I tried to get Roscoe to hold this lips, but he would have NONE of it!! These silly lips "talk" if squeezed too hard and he kept activating them and then he would shake and "kill" the voice!!! LOL!! Colby didn't hold that tight, so it didn't set off the voice. That would be Colby holding the big fat red lips!!! She sends everyone a kiss for Valentine's Day!! Which makes more sense anyway because Roscoe wouldn't be sending ANYONE kisses, ever!! Brat!

Vaccine titers

I just got the results back on Colby and Roscoe's titers. Both dogs, regardless of the fact that they have not been vaccinated in over 6 years, both have excellent titer levels for both parvo and distemper. How cool is that?? I needed this paperwork to show the folks at "It's A Dog's World" in York for the Rally Obedience seminar we are doing this Sunday. I have all dogs signed up, but Roscoe will really be my focus dog. The other two will just give him a break once in a while.

Just shows you that we are probably very much over-vaccinating our pets!!! They just don't need all those vaccines!

Yesterday's agility trail

Amherst NH at American K9 Country, AKC agility trial. Colby double Q'ed for number 12 2Q, so she needs 8 more for her MACH (Master's Agility Championship). Roscoe managed to SMOKE his standard run, 5 seconds faster than Colby's run, but was WAY too high in his Jumpers run and ran to an off course tunnel. He has been a bit crazy lately! I love it, but it may get old if that keeps happening. I have to figure out how to manage the crazy man!!!

It was a fun day, but AKC trials run SO slow and we didn't get home until 7:30. Should not have taken SO long. I just don't understand why they can't figure out how to run the trials better. USDAA can do 5 different classes and still be done by 5:00!! It was also incredibly muddy! My truck needs a good clean out. The crates beds need to be cleaned and the whole truck needs vacuuming. Mud season is a bummer with dogs!!! Spur could really use a bath right now!

Beach race video

I can't seem to figure out how to load this here, so you have to click on the link -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObTj9b5O51k&feature=channel_page

Roscoe is in the purple coat, Stella the shihtzu is in the pink coat and they are chasing Spur!! Great fun!!!

Lovely walk on the beach!

Yesterday the tide was low at 2:00 and we managed to get to OOB for a nice long walk. We walked almost to the Pier and back, which is about 5 1/2 miles. The dogs did a bit more because they don't walk in a straight line, they chase seagulls and each other and are up and down finding crablegs to eat. It was wonderful! Great conditioning for Roscoe. It's so hard to keep him in good condition in the winter. His feet get so cold, so managing in the snow is very hard or impossible for him. If we can make it to the beach the sand is do-able for him. We have an agility show tomorrow, so I have to do what ever I can to keep him in good shape. They all had a ball. We walked with the shihtzus and Mary and her two labs. Stella's Mom took some videos, which I will post here as soon as she sends them to me. They are very cute of the dogs all chasing each other. Except the labs who think the little dogs are just plain silly!!!

Another snowy day?? Oh MY!

So, what's a "dog person" to do? More trick training!! Roscoe knows a ton of tricks. One of the benefits to tricks is no matter how BAD he can be if he does a trick he will make people smile. It never fails! What is fun is that by performing the trick he can defuse a tense situation. I use tricks when I am waiting in line at the in gate to run an agility course. All the competitors are tense and anxious, but they watch Roscoe "REV YER Engines!!" (he kicks out his back legs repeatedly and it is SO cute!!!) and everyone relaxes and takes a few breaths! Or, someone might approach and I have to blurt out my usual....."He is NOT friendly", but then I have him wave or roll over or back up or kick out his back feet and that person who just moments before tensed up, now relaxes and smiles. It helps in SO many ways.

Our favorite winter past time on these snowy days is to train MORE tricks!! I searched Youtube for some fun ideas I had not tried and found this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-2LdFoHEck&feature=channel_page and this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaJXkbdOIzY&feature=channel Both show how to teach these tricks, so I got started right away with the hind leg book trick instructions. Roscoe picked it up in no time, but I had no doubt he would. He is used to his kick trick, so he already has hind end awareness. I then brought out Spur and tried it with him. It took Spur a little longer and more of a struggle to figure it out, but we have a start. Funny how some dogs are not really that aware of their hind legs. I remember thinking when Spur was a puppy how his back legs just seemed to follow, not that his mind was setting them where they should go, but that they just follow along by default. He is much more coordinated now, but still this hind leg lift trick wasn't as easy for him as it was for Roscoe.

HappyTails training center is closing!!

We are all so bummed! It is SUCH a great space for training. HUGE room, lovely rubber mats, nice equipment. They just couldn't make a go of it and have sub-leased it to another non-dog related company. It just stinks! I can't believe Portland, Maine can't sustain an indoor dog training center!!!! We need to find a place!!

Will it ever go away?

All this snow!! I know some times a few warm days, some rain and it disappears remarkably fast, but right now it seems like it will take forever for it to go away. Little Spur is only 14" at the shoulders, so this photo shows how much snow we have. I dig them a "runway" around the yard, so they can at least have some running space out there. We are also quite lucky our neighbor takes his snowmobile and makes us trails. And with the rain we got on top of the last snow, these guys can walk on top of it for the most part, so our walks are pretty good lately!