More Jewel

I think she looks better. Boy, we had half the manure pile taken away and it is STILL huge!!! And always in the photos, damn it!! She is SO out of shape, and that belly...........

But still maybe a little thin? I really think she looks good to me, but I hate having a vet tell me with such intensity that she is too thin. If it were my dogs I wouldn't even think about it. I would just tell the vet, no, they are just right they are performance dogs and need to be thin. With Jewel, though, since she is sick.......lyme.......I don't want people thinking she is too thin. I want her thin, her laminitis concerns make me want that, but I don't want her without much fat in the middle of winter.

I know, these are better photos with the sun out and no mud on her, but I wanted the mud photos before to show her coat smoothed out and better show her condition.

Maybe if I had adjusted my camera setting first?

Although, it was set for outdoors. And I have tried the "action" setting before and it didn't make any different. I LOVE this photo of BAM!, but it isn't clear. Damn it!

This one he is moving way too fast, but it's a cool shot. Looks like he is WAY up on a hill, but really he isn't. It's just a little knoll, but the sun was SO low in the sky that the field below is all shady. The late winter light is amazing! That snow fall is all gone today after a night of CRAZY rain. Tonight they are saying wind chill of 5 below and yet this morning it is nearly 50 degrees!!!

Silvia says

Am I obsessed with Silvia Trkman? Yep. I am not in denial, I admit it!!!!

In her latest DVD about Speed and Conditioning she mentions toys. And how you can really just make anything a toy. I get that. Spur's favorite toy that makes him INSANE is a horse's lunge whip. Roscoe, too. Snap that whip and watch the boys go NUTS!!! It's how I taught them REALLY fast weaves. Now, if I could only make that snapping sound at a trial as they are heading into the weaves, they would FLY!!!

Kitties like boxes, just plain old used boxes.............Chloe with the box I brought her for Christmas. She loved it!!!! I tossed a crumpled bit of paper into it and she dove in to get the paper!!!

Another kitty I know likes Q-tips. Or crumpled up post-it notes.

Zep, he likes old stalks of broccoli. On our farm walk yesterday he joined us and being the sheltie he is, he just barks and barks and barks. I needed Excedrin Migraine when we got home. So, I grabbed him a broccoli stalk. He loved it!!!! Until he dropped it and the barking started again. I think he would rather bark than drag the broccoli, but we kept handing it to him because it did give us moments of quiet. Hey kid, shut up and eat your broccoli!!!!

Christmas day

We shoveled in fish stew!! YUM!!!

My sister is a GOOD cook. Lobster, haddock, shrimp and salmon.

Poured over garlic bread.........

After taking the dogs for a nice long walk, we met up with Nate and decided to also shoved shit! Well, OK, it was a BIG shovel! And Nate did the shoveling. Amazing how much shit there was, even after many BIG shovel fulls taken away!

For a lot of shit!

After dinner we like to play table games. My sister bought a new one at the book store called "Dirty Minds". She said it looked cute and silly. Oh, it was silly alright. Not so cute, though. Here's the first card, which the first person reads one clue to the person on their left. That person then tries to guess the word or words from the clue. You read on down the clues if they can't guess the right answer. This one seemed fine. Didn't get the answer, but OK, game on..........

Next was Jeff's turn to read the clues to Ruby, my neice, his 16 yo daughter. The box did say for ages 17 and up. Sister Sara thought it couldn't be THAT bad, right. Wrong. Jeff starts to read the clues and turns red and giggles a little then finally says he just can't ask Ruby these clues............

Oh My!!!! We stopped playing.

Mud mask anyone?

What happens when it just turns winter and the days are as short as ever...........the horse's have a full winter coat. Some say they grow their coats by the length of the days and that does seem to be. So, for a while they will have a very thick coat, then once the days grow longer that will slowly shed. They start shedding their summer coats in August. It seems to be so.

Then we get a year like this one where the weather gets cold. Cold enough to freeze the top, um, maybe 6 inches of ground. Then it thaws, about 2 inches and rains and rains. That rain just sits on the ground that is frozen beneath. And that just means MUD.

I am thankful to have a slope and fairly nice drainage around my barn. Notice they are not sinking into muddy "moonscape"? Most barns around here do not have such slope and drainage and the horses are all getting "scratches". A term used to label a crusty bacterial ick that affects a horse below their ankles. It gets crusty and hard and sore. None of my horses have that.........yet.
Today it is 19 degrees. No mud today.

On line classes

Have I mentioned I am obsessed with running dog walk training? Oh, I have, A? A few times? Oh, like a million times? SO!!!! >:/

Silvia signed me up to continue in her January class. As auditor, I assume, I don't need any more help with Spur - he's perfect. :D I told her I was auditing Daisy Peel's class. I felt like a traitor. I even ratted out some of my friends. Seriously, it's not even about that it's just being honest. Ask Amy she'll tell you........honestly. Or is that bluntly? Or without much thought? Or in a dumb way like just not thinking if it would be a good thing to say or not. Yep, Honest Amy, that's me.

OK, so what's the difference in methods? Daisy trained her best dog with Silvia's method. Made some mistakes. Adopted her own method, based on Silvia's method. Rightio. It's really hardly Silvia's method now is it? It's Daisy's method. And what's strange is the only dog trained by this method from start to finish is her young dog Juno. I asked. She was Honest Daisy and said she didn't even think she was qualified to teach it since she had only taught her two dogs with the method. Huh? Solar was taught with Silvia's method. OK, so later she started him over with her method, but that just doesn't count. Sorry, it don't count.

Her young dog Juno is starting to look good. But, she started out really pokey and slow. Good for her that she has her running better now. I think it's good she needed to work through that. But, here's the issue I see. She had success with Juno, a low motivation dog. So, she thinks her method will work with other dogs. Maybe. Maybe not. Time will tell.

I do think her method, paired with Silvia's will produce a SMOKIN' and SOLID running contact. But, will it work with lots of dogs? I am not sure.

Here is how it starts..........slow as mollasses!!! No speed at first. OK, I think her plan is to get speed, if possible, but if no speed so long as the dog is running in a running type form you can progress along and she assumes the speed will come. The dogs I see in class are just like loping along. No speed. A few are running well, but most are just loping along. They are all still progressing. We'll see how it goes. It's interesting because there are some dogs in class who already started with Silvia's method, which is ALL about running as fast as possible or forget it. Watching them now just lope along is strange.

I am not liking Daisy's coaching at all. She is rude, snide and very, very strict. I would not have wanted her as a chemistry teacher. She assumes things that are not correct. Her website is HORRIBLE, she designed it, and it makes me INSANE, but I have told her I will hang in there as I am very tenacious.........and obsessed. If I were a participant I would ask for my money back. I know many people have dropped out because they couldn't stand her site. It's INSANE. She is presumptious and self-righteous and really needs to fix her website. She also is proprietary. All those big words to describe one small woman. She is very concerned about people stealing her work. HUH? She basically stole Silvia's work.

I think there is something to her method, but her attitude, her website, her demeanor sucks. Silvia freely offers advice. She's helped like tons of people train running dog walks. She's successful and she site is pretty good. There you have it.

Videos from the weekend

Prudence Rabbit - misprint on yps. It was 4 yps. He has once before done a 5.75 yps JUMPERS run, but no not standard, LOL!!



His jumpers for a 3rd place. Might have been 1st if he had not regurgitated a treat in the weave and "retreated" it!! LOL!! Didn't miss a beat, though, good little Monkey Pants!!!



I have to say one reason he landed so high in the placements is because two of our biggest competitors were at the AKC Invitational and two that were there NQ'd. Still, I am pretty proud of his runs and, hey - HE RAN CLEAN.
It is so far, his fastest standard time of yet. We are going for sub 40 times and this one was 42:18. I THINK it was his best yps on a standard course, but not totally sure about that.
Race, our teammate from Nationals who won everything there and is out Performance National Champion, NQ'd on this run because of a table fault. Poor little guy actually did a tumble as he slipped to get on and rolled right off. His time would have been about 38 seconds. I am happy if we are less than 10 seconds slower than Race, LOL!! That dog is AMAZINGLY fast and Laura is amazingly good!!! I learn a lot watching her.