Happy Late Father's Day

to all the fathers out there - most especially my own ;)
A special guy with a heart of gold he has tolerated, and supported, my animal habit for many many years even as he pretends he doesn't like most animals (the ones in his house have always been much loved - even he'd admit)!

Toronto City Workers are on strike - why would this matter to me you might well ask? Well it directly affects my ability to play agility as I'm spending my lunch hour today moving 31 or more animals around then supporting the foster homes they end up in. The picture is of one of my charges... a ferret with no name yet..

I hope the staff are right and they aren't picketing the animal control buildings today. I don't like crossing picket lines for a whole lot of reasons.

Brody is staying with mum. I think I may take Thea to Aunt Judy for the week too. Tom is away. It's the last week of school so it's crazy.

Ah well a lovely long summer lurks just around the corner and will happen no matter what else happens too :)

a little of this; and then a little of that

Imagine this for me if you will... I actually occasionally visit non agility blogs ... mostly introduced to me because of my other great non-people joy in life (that would be our Prince Edward County farm). Shocking I know - bit some of you might be glad as Terri over at Clay Hill Farm is having a give away of a very cool necklace (and earrings)

Right on the necklace is a great quote "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." Aesop . Fitting for so many of my agility friends ...


On another, unrelated, note Sally jumped off our deck this week. It was about a 7 foot drop. She landed upright and kept going but I tell you my heart STOPPED. Talk about bold .. and crazy and such a Sally thing to do. Of course it was the short cut to her ball - nothing like an obsessive bc (mix in her case) to demonstrate drive! She didn't stop for a second to think about it - grabbed her ball and raced back to me - I was careful to throw it obviously down the stairs for the rest of fetch time.

brace yourself - the dandilions are scary

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here is her drop - she didn't even touch the railing - just flung herself over it ... YIKES

back at it .. what fun!

Spent yesterday @ Absolute Agility at a CPE trial.
Really have to say I do not get why so few people attend our CPE trials
What a great venue to start a young dog, play with an old dog or just enjoy a great day with your dogs.
I like AAC games just fine (snookers and gamblers) but CPE has such variety - jackpot (the rules can change from game to game), Fullhouse, Wildcard, Colours, Snookers too - and jumpers and standard of course.
I like the variety a whole lot!

Apparently the dogs do too - Sally earned 2 Qs ... one jackpot and one wildcard - GO SALLY GO - jackpot was truly a lovely run - listening, working hard and so much fun ... it's amazing to run a dog you can send from half a ring away to an obstacle!
She did a brave teeter in another class... happy, confident and nice to see.
She did get a little sniffy and loopy in the middle of the day but all in I coudn't have been much more pleased with her than I am.
My only goal with Thea was to have fun - we did have fun and we blasted through many courses too - she worried a little about jackpot and snookers but SMOKED the jumpers run and earned a nice tidy Q in wildcard too!
Brody was amazing - he earned 4/5 Qs only missing the last one because I didn't want to demotivate him with a hard call off once the whistle went for the last jackpot ... we just enjoyed the course ending on our own terms. He earned 27 points in Fullhouse (the only one of my dogs to do that game). We've only done Fullhouse twice before - once with 27 points and once with 21. Fullhouse is weird - you have to do three singles (jumps), 2 three point obstacles (6 weaves, the double, the spread and tunnels) and 1 5 point obstacle (aframe, dogwalk, teeter) not all obstacles are out on the course and you have to do more than that to get to your point total generally.
Wildcard is a cool game where at three places on the course you have to pick what obstacle you want to do (like maybe a tunnel or an aframe; or weaves or 2 jumps). Thea ran the course in 27 seconds with 47 allowed for her height and Sally ran in 45 with 43 allowed for her height. It was a good warm up for both of them.
Then we had jumpers - it was a lovely figure 8 course - fast and long ...
Thea ran in 35 seconds (with 61 allowed); Sally in 50 seconds with 56 allowed; Brody took 30 seconds with 56 seconds allowed.
The two jackpot rounds were fun - they give you time in the opening (40 seconds) to rack up as many points as you can then some weird thing to do in the closing (though sometimes you can do the "gamble" part at any time apparently - I've never seen it). Yesterday for one class you had to do a 1,3, and 5 point obstacle after the whistle and boot it for the table; in the other class you had to get through 3 of 4 tunnels. You only have 17 seconds from the time the whistle blows til you have to hit the table and stop the clock. It's a bit tricky to figure out. The tunnel jackpot was the last course - and all my guys had fun on it. Sally was amazing scoring 42 points in 55 seconds to Brody's 28 in 51 seconds and Thea's 45 in 72 seconds (I'm not sure how she got so many points and was so overtime - but we had fun!)
The snookers course was BRUTAL ... the reds were in tough spots and there weren't a lot of ways to get big points though Brody got 34 points somehow (I'd be hard pressed to explain how). Thea got 19 points - not quite enough for a q though she was very brave. Sally got me membership in a very exclusive club - the zero point club as it's known. She blasted past the red jump she was set up to take and hit a tunnel at a hundred miles an hour. I was glad snookers was in the middle of the day. It would have been a sad note to end on :)

finally ...

a trial in our future!
Taking Sally, Thea and Brody to a cpe trial on Sunday

oh my!

entered everything for everybody so we should all be exhausted :)

pompeii is back :(

This little wee dog who should have had a few years of happy being spoiled came back into our lives. His forever mom was evicted and returned him. Words can't express how saddened I am. He stunk of urine, was matted, has a bacterial skin infection, is blind, deaf and has lost almost a kilo (a LOT to lose when you only weighed 3 kilos to start with).

He is now clean and matt free but he spends his waking time slowly spinning circles. Doggy dementia is not kind.

Hank was THRILLED to see him. Knew who it was instantly and has been gentle and respectful all along. Sally is curious but alarmed by the spinning I think so has given Pom lots of space.

His orginal name was Matty as he was such a mess the first time he came into my life, we renamed him Pompeii as he had an explosive bark and lots of Pomerian character ..he has lots of character and is very dear ...

gearing up to work

Building a shed today and grabbing moments in time to run weaves with Brody and Sally.
The floor for the shed was a ladder of sorts so all the dogs did some footwork.
Miss Sally worked on wait and GO. She also decided the shed side up against the woodpile made a good stand in for the aframe and went up and over the wood pile. Crazy girl!
Everybody had fun leaping on and downing on the table. I lef tit very wobbly on purpose and it didn't phase anybody for one second.

It was nice to be fooling around with equipment a little. Brody LOVED it. 6 weaves as if he'd been working them all winter. Amazing really.

What do you value?

Food above everything? Being warm and cosy?

perhaps a sheepy tug toy on a bungee cord?

if so you'd relate well to either Sally, Thea or Brody. They are so different to each other it's astounding! (In case you are new to this blog - Sally is the toy worshipper, Brody thinks anything is worth doing if you get paid in food, and Thea is all about creature comforts!)

I was working Sally a little today with the fleecy and wow - talk about a motivator .. I had to actually alternate with kibble as she was TOO ON.. especially with the little bit of table work we did. Ran the 2x2 a couple of times - BAM WHAM flying through them - tomorrow I'll have to get 6 poles up for both Brody and Sally if the weather holds ... Sally's enthusiasm motivates me!

We worked wait - she wants the fleecy so badly she'll even let me tug with Hank with it and hold her stay ... AMAZING.. or maybe she's finally growing up?

It was fun to work a little .. actually great!