"God, that is SO cute!!"

That's what Shona said about 14 year old Roscoe's SQUEEKING at the start line. He is an amazing old man!!! Poor little guy slips in his weaves, but hangs in there!!! 

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!!

Colby update! She is doing SO much better!!

We have been bringing out her special ball every morning. It makes her very happy!! Spur waits patiently for her to leave it and then he grabs it. 

Not sure what Roscoe said to him, but his body language shows he is about to flop over in submission! He's such a weenie.

She sometimes just stares at it!

 Then stares at him when he takes it.

 Then they both do this little look away thing. A truce. 

 We lowered her prozac and no longer have to give her xanax to have an appetite! She is even eating kibble and dry/hard cookies! Go figure. I am bummed about the snow, but she did go snow shoeing with us yesterday and did well! We found dry ground on the farm.

This beautiful blue bird was sitting in the morning sun yesterday. I wasn't at the right angle, but still you can see his red breast glowed in the winter sun!!! Everything is so grey and white right now that his little red breast caught my eye easily even though he was way up in the tree!!!

Damn snow!

So, storm Nemo can through and dumped 34" of snow here. I feel "lucky" as we had such high winds that my dog yard was pretty clear. HOWEVER.......this massive drift landed on my fence and gate and right in front of Jazz's stall door.

 The bummer about it is I had to shovel out Jazz's door AND as this melts it will sag my fence. I have new photos of that, as I just returned from digging it out as much as I could, but no time to load them this morning. The photos just don't do it justice.

Poor Colby was just starting to really enjoy her snow free farms walks. I am afraid it is going to take a very long time to get rid of this snow. She just doesn't do well in the snow. She can't see well in it and the footing is too hard for her. She likes her regular farm paths, where she knows the curves, the stumps, the footing really well. And it is too deep for Spur at the moment. I need to get out and pack down a snow shoe path for him. Oi!!

Class video from two weeks ago. This was a Master's Challenge course from a trial our instructor attended. It was fun! Lots of pushes, which we are working on.

Dory sucks!

That's what I am calling today.........Storm Dory. Get it? Dory was the fish that sprung Nemo. We weren't even really supposed to get snow like this until Nemo arrived later. We have about a foot already!!! I have had to shovel four times already just to get the Pin Heads out to potty. The weather on line says today is supposed to be "much warmer" than yesterday. Huh? It is 17 and that's as high as it got today, so far. They said it would be around 30. Still saying that on my weather station on line. What???? That's DOUBLE almost what the temp is now. Not really looking forward to Nemo arriving. I guess maybe Nemo has arrived, I don't know. We are just getting dumped on!!!

I can't believe just this week I was doing this.......



This was a fun practice. What I like most is how happy Spur is!! And playing with his frisbee in training, that is HUGE!!!! He sure is a different dog!

From USDAA via facebook

United States Dog Agility Association wrote: "All potential rule changes stemming from the recent Board meeting will be announced by July. That's the only info we can share at the moment. Thanks!"

Geez. All this privacy and anticipation. I'm going with the change. NO more training the table for Spur!!! 

I wrote Andy Hartman as he was the only one who wrote me back last fall when I asked for the change and was actually NICE about it. Some of the others were just snide and said things like........"We won't be changing, it is what makes us unique!!" USDAA is the ONLY venue that requires a down on the table.

The construction zone!

We still need the glass enclosure/door put up, but it is DONE with the tiling!!!!

 The vanity is a very dark cabernet color with contrasting white marbley top. The walls will be a butter yellow and cream white trim.

 There are French doors to the big closet room area, but I doubt they will ever be closed. Rich thought they should be there in case we ever needed to put a blow up bed in there for someone. MY thought was ultimately some day to put in a clawfoot tub in that area, but since we already have a tub in the other bathroom we decided to forego that at the moment.

 The partially blue door is the door to our bedroom. That was our old closet door/area. There will be wire clothes rack just to the left of that door that I will probably put up a drape/curtain to keep the sun off the clothes. We used to just keep the shade drawn on the window, but it brings in nice light all afternoon. The floor in the closet room area is the old pine boards. They will get a fresh coat of stain.

I must say I am not so happy about the tile color. Can't believe I am saying that, but it is much more beigey and brown than it looked before putting it down and finishing it. Maybe once the vanity is put together and the paint is on the walls and items put around and a rug it won't look that way to me, but goodness I have to admit that.

What the HELL???

Again, another trial, another single Q. We haven't double Q'd in two months??? More??? It is a serious drought! I SO wanted to qualify for AKC Nationals this year. They will be held in PA next spring and that is a totally do-able distance!!! We need 4 double Q's and 500 MACH points and 20 total Q's. Last year by this time we had 6 double Q's and nearly 400 MACH points. I just don't see us catching up at this point. I don't know. I do have a few trials coming up, and certainly feel like we will get 4 double Q's, but the 500 MACH points are going to be tough. We can't get points if we don't Q!!! Yesterday he got 18. Sigh..........

But, I do have some VERY good news!! Heard a rumor yesterday that USDAA is going to make the table positionless. Meaning, just like AKC the dog only has to get ON the table, they don't have to lie down. That has been a major bummer for Spur and for many dogs. In fact, I know some competitors who will not even trial in USDAA because of that stupid rule. It is the ONLY venue in the WORLD to require that. It causes so many dogs to have their person give them a verbal beating to go down, it takes TIME - Spur usually takes about 5 seconds to go down with me having to really get on him about it and it SUCKS. I was to the point I had decided we would never bother to Q in standard ever again! This rule won't start until September and when it will actually take effect, I am not sure. My friend said she heard it from a judge who is on the board. So, hopefully it is a true rumor!! We are PUMPED!!!!

I am also pumped that all our snow has disappeared!! YAY!!!! That has made for a MUCH happier Colby. She was even "running" on our walk yesterday!!! In fact, she has been so happy lately she hasn't needed her xanax to have an appetite and has eaten without it for five days in a row!!! She is definitely feeling better!!!!

Sorry, no new photos, but here is Spur's homework. We worked again on threadles, serps and pushes and he is doing GREAT and then some rear cross work. An exercise that I think was very fun for a dog who isn't keen about RC's.