I am trying to clean my house

I did some laundry, too. Washed Roscoe's fleece from his crate, it's white and has paw prints on it and I got it at Home Goods. Apparently, there are fleece and there are fleece. This fleece is cheap and one washing has it falling apart!! I ended up with fleece "bunnies" on all my wool socks. I shaved my socks.

And you thought those sweater shavers were a gimmick? Nah. They work and they work really well!! Especially when you wash a cheap fleece throw with pretty Smart Wool socks. Shit, those socks are EXPENSIVE and were a gift from a friend. I love those socks and they looked pretty crappy after washing with a cheap fleece from Home Goods.

Now I need to empty it and do the other sock! And you thought I had an interesting life!? Really, I am always amazed when I hear people read this blog. My life isn't THAT interesting. I shave socks!

And more Spur!!

I could never figure out how to save an old video off of youtube, so I decided to just film it from my computer screen. It worked fine. So, I experimented and made a little movie of Spur's transformation! Kind of cool, but I can't add text with the basic iPad iMovie program I have. It allows some music, photos, some simple editing stuff, but I don't know how to add text. What I might do is add text to a photo since I am able to add photos. I'll figure it out if I can, but for now here is my simple movie.

NOT funny!

OK, so it is all gone now, but still. Somehow waking up to that just made me grumpy! The flowers? They actually probably were very happy because it has been very dry. We need more moisture right now. Rain would be better than snow, however. Just for my mental state.

More Spur, it's all about Spur lately

And Roscoe isn't too keen on that. I try to get lots of Roscoe time and training, too, but when I am training Spur often Roscoe gets pissed. He peed in the house a couple times and that happened before when Spur was getting more training. He's now crated or has a belly band on for certain times. Damn!

We had a team trial this past weekend. Crazy busy trial and I was trying to redeem myself with my teammate by making sure to get a Q because I NQ'd us the last time. What do I do? I E on the very first run, ACK!!! I did a blind and did not connect with him. A stupid, "novice" mistake. He took an off course. TWEEEET, goes the E whistle. Damn IT. We then ran the next three classes REALLY well and managed to get into 3rd place out of 17 with our National Champion and his brother in 2nd. And then I E in Relay. Damn IT!!!! I made another stupid decision to run the half of Relay that had the teeter. It was teeter to tunnel and I thought that would really make him happy and the other half was really tough and my teammate is much more experienced. But, after the teeter he scooted off, like he sometimes does when it frightens him, and took an off course. BUT, we still managed to be JUST above the cut off and got a Q. PHEW!! Team is SO crazy!!!! Relay counts for like 40% or something. Thank goodness she ran her half clean. We made the cut off by something like 25 points, which isn't much.

I don't have any of the teams runs on film. I have his steeplechase runs, but no team runs. He had a very nice standard, under 40 seconds which is pretty good for him. And only 3 seconds behind Race, the National Champion, which again is REALLY good. We can sometimes be 10 seconds behind Race, LOL!! Race is ..... um .... lightening fast!!!!

His starts were not great this weekend. The courses were HARD. Like first jump a slice to the BACK side of the second jump. How demotivating! Another was jump, jump straight on to the BACK side of the third jump which was striaght on. Another really sucky way to start. I have to say this weekend's courses made me look forward to running some more AKC courses, LOL!!! Usually, AKC has nice long straight starting obstacles to get some speed up before doing something twisty and turny.

I'll post his steeplechase runs tomorrow, for now you'll have to do with Friday's practice. We ran the sequence and I think I did a better job of getting my verbals out in time. That's pretty BIG for me, LOL!!!!

Um, it's too hot!

It was 80 degrees yesterday! That's all well and good, but without any leaves on the trees there was no shade. I was out in the sun ALL DAY. I lathered up with sunscreen, but I felt like I had been beat up by the end of the day. It sucked my energy. The sun, an energy sucker.

I walked a lot of dogs who were REALLY feeling the heat.

My horses with their winter fur still, tried to find shade in the bare branches of the honeysuckle bushes. The only shade I could find were some areas of pine trees. It's INSANE!!!!

Today is nicer, but it is very dry. Dry and windy and the brown grass makes for a very high fire danger. Some cigarette butt tossed to the side of the road could easily start a brush fire.

I am trying to do my online class homework, but it was SO hot!!! My last work was on Monday and the glare from the sun messed up my video. The whole video thing is such a pain, but I DO love the class.

Here is our latest. Doing multi wraps for the first time. Spur thought they were kind of boring, but he sure needs this work. Lots of reinforcement for jumps. Jumps are NOT his favorite and they re certainly the biggest number of obstacles in agility. So, building drive for jumps is pretty important!

Super fun USDAA trial on Sunday!

No gamble, darn it, but that's how it goes. It was a gamble we could have gotten if I had handled it differently.

The last course of the day was the highlight, though. It was jumpers with a very international flare! Why "international"? Back sides of jumps, threadles, crazy stuff everyone complained about as they saw the map. Uh, OK, we watch the international folks run courses and ooh and aah about them, yet complain when we get a course in our little local trials??? Huh? I couldn't wait to tackle this course!!

For one major reason.......jump #18. It had a wrap possibility that was much like what we have been practicing!!! ***Follow the numbers carefully!!! This course was not what we normally see at our little local trials.



Spur was one of only a select few who ran this clean. He was the fastest of the three performance dogs in all heights to be clean, by over 5 seconds. :D He did well and he wrapped 18 like a champ!!!! On #8 I pushed to the back side, then him into the threadle to the back side of #9 and then let him jump behind me with a blind as I tucked in after 9 so he was then on my left for 10. 10 - 11 doesn't look so hard, but it was a definite slice and for some dogs who jumped 10 big they missed 11 all together. The threadle had many people stumped. And managing 18 a lot of dogs knocked that bar.



He had a really nice standard with hardly any time lost on the table, good Monkey Pants!!

OMG, I learn so much from video!

Here is Spur's first sequence for our online class. I am SO late with my cues. What is WRONG with me??? LOL!! He does pretty well, but boy do I need to get those cues out faster and earlier.



Roscoe did it first to help me learn it and BOY he sure doesn't know how to jump and wrap tight. Hah!! He had fun, though!!!!



The little Leta had to come out and play!!! She's TOO much!! She loves her balls!!!