BAM! turned 8 yesterday!!

Cindy and I had a great birthday farm walk with BAM!. We spotted some idiot poodle people in the distance (I don't say that lightly, I have HAD it the idiot poodle people on the farm - they let their dog shit huge shit's and don't pick it up!!! It is PRIVATE property!!!!), so we had to stay close to my place, but the fields are clear, so he got to run and run and we got to watch his awesome ability. This dog is the prettiest red head! He has such incredible athletic ability. Absolutely fantastic to watch move. I wish I had brought my camera, but I forgot it, darnit. So this is from last winter.... I know I have more BAM! photos somewhere, but ever since I started using picassa I seem unable to find photos. It seems SO poorly organized and makes me nuts sometimes searching and not finding them! Probably my stoooooooooooooooooopidity, seeing that I am sooooooooooooooooo not good with data entry. You think?

Spring is HERE! To stay?

Spring is one of my least favorite seasons. OK, it IS my least favorite. It's SO brown. Brown grass, brown mud, brown trees, brown dirt, brown, brown, brown. Here is Colby racing back along the path, Spur following along behind. How brown is that??? Brown, brown, brown. The tiny sprouts of green appear from under...... the brown......

The horses apply their...... brown....... mask facials and full body applications......

Kind of like the facials people spend a lot of money on and got to fancy shops with fancy names like "Soma" or "Akari" or "Belissimo". My horses.....they go to the "Dry Lot". The BEST mud applications are at the "Dry Lot". Not sure why we call it the Dry Lot? It's hardly dry. Well, some days it is, but mud season.......I mean Spring, it's not really dry. The "Wet Lot"? Somehow that doesn't sound right. The horses have their own spa application. I love scraping the mud off, dead winter hair coming with it. Just watching them apply their mud masks is enjoyable, no matter how brown. OK, so THAT part of spring I like. I like some other parts, too, but really the brown is.......well.......brown............

Collie Club Rally O trial report!

Well..........what can I say, Roscoe didn't continue his perfect score card. Nope, not HARDLY, the little monster!! He was way more comfortable there then I thought he would be. It is, after all, a hotel. Strange place for an obedience trial. They put down plastic in the seating and crate area, over the rug. It made warm up slippery and strange. But, he did fine. Fine enough that he was kind of a brat! We failed the three steps back. Gotta say, that didn't surprise me. I had to regroup on that exercise when I realised I trained his backwards weaving around my legs with the same cue word I use for the back up three steps. Dumb ass, I am.

So, failed that = 10 points off. I should have started the exercise over and tried it again, but I didn't. That would have been only 3 points off. Then as we come around by the crowd the little buggar takes a DETOUR!!! Detour, detour, someone in the crowd might have something good to eat!!! Alert, alert, here comes Roscoe!!! Um, NO, little shit, thankfully came running back to heel position, so actually no points off for that. Good GRIEF, DUDE, what WERE you thinking???? NO, you are not going to go steal food from the nice old lady in the skirt smiling at you thinking you are so cute with your high stepping Hackney Pony prance! NOT!!!!

Then, he pulls off the rest of it pretty well, but his honor stay..........OI! He whined and cried and complained the WHOLE time!! He was supposed to sit while the next dog went, but NO, little shit has to go down, sit up, go down, whine, whine, whine!!!! I was ready to roast him on a spit and feed him to the crows! >:/ Of course, everyone watching says he did "Such a super job! Great little dog", and on and on it went. I asked them if they SAW his stay??????? They were all like.....Oh yeah, but his routine was so cute! Um, cute, doesn't get a good score and he got an 80! ACK! NOT a good score.

And to top it off somehow we got put into the A class. We are supposed to be in B, since both dogs have CD's. So, the runs won't count. Just as well, I don't want an 80 score on his record! Let's just pretend it never happened - K?

Colby, she did good. Good little girlie, she is. She stayed in her sit with only a little whining. What's with this whining Pin Heads? She had two points off for going to sniff the wall. The wall??? Um, OK, whatevah? Then two points off for a crocked sit and double command I think in the corner, or something, but it was not bad for a 96. She was distracted, but not terribly bad.

My friend Lisa and her Shih Tzu's?? They ROCKED!!! Her first time doing Rally and her tiny Stella won her class with a 98. And Douce would have a near perfect score, but she messed up a couple of the exercises. They looked AWESOME!! Stella beat a doberman, a golden, a german shepherd and a collie!! How cool is THAT????

Roscoe's routine -

Colby's routine -

Douce, the shih tzu's routine. In Novice they don't have to do stays and are on leash -

Stella's routine -

Rally-O, here we come!

Collie Club trial today in Portland at the Marriot. I am a little worried about the footing. They cover the rugs with plastic. It will be interesting to see how my dogs handle that. Colby especially has issues with certain places. She did NOT like "It's A Dog's World", at all, and basically shut down on me. Judy said she wasn't THAT bad, but I think so. Not sure we would qualify if Colby pulls on of her......"MA! I DO NOT like it here and you are mean to make me work through it!".....routines. Roscoe, he should be fine. But, one never knows. He looked pretty good last night at class, but he is such a case at times he could get weird.

I'll try to get videos.

Wind, wind, go away! Come again another day! Wait a minute.....no do not come back, ever!!

Is that unreasonable? I mean, seriously, what good is it?? OK, so it spreads the seeds and pollinates the plants and carries molecular particles around the earth. Um...sure....but....could that happen in a gentle breeze??? NO? Do we really need 30-40 or even 90 MPH wind??? Word around the hood is they clocked 90 MPH winds in Cape Elizabeth last Thursday night. The cause of many, many issues here in our tiny town, leaving SOME people still without power. I just nailed up a board on my broken barn window.

Seriously, Muffin Heads, look what the wind does to The Spurminator's adorable papillon ears -Wind - you are not my friend!

You know, as winter's go, this one hasn't been SO bad!!

I mean, look at this photo from last year......... Could he BE more pathetic? The poor buggar was SO cold we basically wrapped him up to keep him warm, literally. The green vet wrap was to keep the deep snow out of his booties! He looks so happy about it all, doesn't he??? This, a dog who hates his feet touched!

HE thinks this winter has been just fine!! And my back does, too!

I think 17(?) yo old Zeus would agree.......

Making his way through the last big snow fall we had, in, um......January?

He manages, but he is getting older. Certainly, this old boy has outlived more barn cats then many and can help lengthen the short average life span of an outdoor male cat!!! You GO boy! He even plays with the girls in the barn now! It is SO cute! Nothing like age to settle a grumpy old man!

Yikes, crazy storm here!

They said something about 90 MPH winds clocked in Cape Elizabeth. Maybe not at my house, but close? We lost a couple panes from a window in the barn, an old apple tree, some roofing from the lean-to, but really not much damage! My neatly packed up agility stuff, gathered under my dog walk was strewn all over the place. PVC jumps everywhere!!! Dog wall fell over. Ladders supports blown into the prickers. NOTHING broken!!! I couldn't believe it!!

I took this opportunity to paint a new plank for my dog walk. Got that done and today I put it all back together. Phew! It looked like a war zone out there, but it's all back, neat and tidy again. And we have INTERNET!! How sad is it that I am really thrilled about that? Without it for four days I read more of my books and magazines, I watched several training DVD's I have been meaning to watch (Jenny Damm - GREAT BTW!!!). I did a bunch of trick training! Amazing what you can do when you are not sucked into cyberspace??? Really, that's kind of sad, but I missed cyberspace. I missed my cyber chat, my cyber world. I missed my trusty weather radar updates. I missed stupid TV shows.

But, we are back. In full - back in business!

I am reliving my day yesterday, a seminar with Lo Baker. WHAT fun!!! Roscoe LOVED it!! Back at Crappy Tails, where Roscoe simply goes NUTS and has SO much fun. It isn't the best footing for him, but he sure loves the atmosphere, the HUGE space. The seminar was SO fun. Lo is awesome, our fellow students were nice and fun to watch and I learned a TON. Spur even came out and did some work. Poor little paw wringer knocked a bar while we warmed up, so that set us back some. I was hoping Lo would see him jumping better, but after he knocks a bar he worries and worries and jumps REALLY early and big for fear of knocking another. Oi! But, he recovered pretty well and did some good work. He seemed happy enough at the end, so that's all good.