One Drop Aussies

Spice = Genius

2011-11-29T23:14:00.000-05:00

Yep... that sums it up.

Wow - I suck!

2011-11-19T00:18:00.001-05:00

Has it really been since July since I've blogged? I guess Facebook is my blog. That suits me better. Short and to the point. :)

Well let's see... had a great time at Skyhoundz. Tali qualified for freestyle at the last chance qualifier which is probably one of the hardest competitions around. We were amazed and surprised. Spice came in 1st in microdog at the qualifier (very cool but not as hard to do as what Tali did) but that qualified her for worlds as well! A very very exciting day for us! Tali didn't have enough oomph to do 2 days of competition so didn't fare well at the actual worlds competition but she at least did better than last year. Spice did great for a baby dog with no routine finishing 8th in microdog! Can't wait to see what they do when they have a routine!

On to AWI Finals at Purina. Jack and Tali were qualified so we drove 17 hours to Purina Farms. It was a quick but fun trip. Tali did well enough to make the cut to the 2nd round but speaking of cuts, she cut her tongue in the 2nd round and that pretty much ended her routine right there as she isn't the type of dog that can work through that. :( One great thing from the weekend is that Jack played Groovy in D&A on Sunday and she did great! She's been doing pretty well at doing FS in public the past year or so but just hasn't been brave enough to play D&A - guess she has to get too far away from "dad". Well she did it at Purina and did awesome!

Canis Major season is upon us and Tali is doing well in SuperSport D&A with both Jack and I. Jack is judging freestyle again this year so isn't competing. I haven't been able to practice with Tali so I am just doing D&A instead of freestyle. Spice did well at the 1st Canis Major with me but has been dropping discs at the last 2 Canis Major. Not sure what that is about since she is normally a catching machine. The HUGE Canis Major news is that Groovy attended the last one and played D&A with Jack. Not only that but they placed 1st! Soooo awesome! I am so proud of her, she's come a long way! This event last year she would play FS but wouldn't play D&A.

We have 2 more Canis Majors and that will be it till January or February! It's been a great disc dog season and I expect next year will be a lot of fun. Jack's been putting a lot of foundation on Groovy and Spice the past few months so hopefully it will pay off come 2012!

One last new thing for us is our logo. We've finally got one for One Drop! Personalized DK Vaulting Vest and discs coming soon!

Oh yah - Jack and Groovy won best Freestyle in the Spooky Jam contest with PVybe.com - that's how he won the vest! Their video is below!

Spice's first beach trip!

2011-07-31T21:33:00.002-04:00

Had a great time though next time we'll go when there aren't waves bigger than her! :)

DACOF 2011 is complete and we rock!

2011-06-28T10:41:00.000-04:00

DACOF 2011 was a BLAST and to top it all off our team ROCKS! Victorious Secret came in 3rd place out of 55 teams! One spot up from last year where we placed 4th out of less teams (can't remember how many from last year).

More importantly though it was a lot of fun and Tali ran really well. She hadn't been feeling 100% leading up to the competition so I was worried that she'd miss a lot of weaves and/or drop bars. Well she only messed up 1 set of weaves, had 1 dropped bar and looked very comfortable running so I consider that a huge success. She was able to contribute to the teams score on 3 out of her 5 runs - she's a nice consistent dog (minus 1 rd anyway) for an event like this. Check out her runs... thank you to Sarah and team for videoing!!

Tali VS DACOF 2011 from Sarah Duke on Vimeo.

Spice came along to be a cheerleader and because I wanted to see how she'd handle the environment. She was awesome. Super friendly with everyone, curious about the dogs running, willing to tug near the rings, etc. Just her general awesome self! :) Hopefully she will be running in Novice on Team Victorious Secret for DACOF 2012!! :)

Worrying is over and DACOF is coming!

2011-06-23T22:09:00.000-04:00

All went well with Spice's hip xrays last Friday. She came through the procedure just fine - the staff loved her AND her hips look great. We'll get the official word in another week or so but the vet who did the PennHIP eval said she felt confident they were nice. Take a look yourself.... this is the OFA view - 1 of the 3 views they do for PennHIP. We also got her elbows done so those are going off to OFA. I'm not sure if her hips will go to OFA too or not. The drawbacks of having your hubby do the deed. I had to hear about it all after the fact.

This weekend coming up is DACOF - Dog Agility Competition of Florida. Love this event! Tali is running in Open again - just goes to show how little we trialed in the past year! She earned her OA title but she's still eligible to run in Open in DACOF until she earns her AX title. No worries there! Hopefully she does well... she's been a little off lately. I don't think she can handle cross training. That or something involved in either doing weaves, the dogwalk or 20" jumps bothers her in a way that doing freestyle and D&A does not. We've done very little training this week and kept her to just toss n fetch - hopefully she can stay sound for the weekend! In any case we'll have fun running with the team! Power of the Pink! And little Spice gets to come along to cheer everyone on - yay!!

Sitting here nervous...

2011-06-17T14:27:00.000-04:00

while Jack is en route to a new vet we've never been to before with precious cargo known as Spice! She gets her hips done today... fingers crossed all goes well with the procedure and that she's got no orthopedic issues! We don't have a good track record in this department (2 out of 4 who have been tested have issues)! Here's hoping and praying we can beat the Fahle dog odds!

Fun HOT weekend ahead

2011-04-07T22:42:00.001-04:00

This weekend we'll be in Auburndale, FL for the Skyhoundz Southeast Regional. Saturday Tali will compete in freestyle. We have no expectation that she'll qualify this year and that's OK - she doesn't really perform well on that Skyhoundz Worlds FS field. We had entered Groovy and Spice in team time trial but found out tonight that they don't do those at regionals anymore - bummer. Jack went ahead and entered Spice in regular freestyle and is just going to do baby stuff with her so she'll have something to do that day. If it's looking pretty "calm" and not crowded maybe he'll try Groovy too - we'll see.

Sunday is Distance and Accuracy - Tali and Spice both will be entered. Maybe Groovy pending on where her brain in this weekend and how she handles the environment. Jack has to catch a plane out of Tampa at 5pm so we have our fingers crossed that we won't miss anything at the regional having to leave around 3 - HOPEFULLY it'll be done by then! We shall see! What I do know is that it will be HOT this weekend - high of 90... and it's only April!

Looking forward to hanging out with everyone and seeing our California disc dog friends who are "east coasting" it this week after being at AKC nationals last weekend!

And last but not least... Groovy turned 2 last weekend! Here are two pics of her at TWO! Finally starting to fill out and look less leggy!

Catching up!

2011-03-17T22:08:00.001-04:00

We've been so busy playing with our dogs lately I haven't been blogging about them!

As promoted in the Spice at the Florida Quad video Spice competed in the Florida Quad in late February. She played with Jack in the men's division. This is normally a spot reserved for Ruckus but he just can't run that much anymore so Spice got moved up into that spot. She did GREAT! She and Jack made the finals, earned an awesome shirt and cool trophy and came in 2nd place overall. It was an awesome finals round with Jack, our friend Chris and our friend Jason all going head to head to head for the 1st-3rd spots. Very dramatic and fun to watch! But really Spice did great the whole weekend because she came in 8th the day before in the Total Performance Toss N Fetch division out of over 60 teams! Tali did well at the competition too! On Saturday Tali and Jack competed in the AWI freestyle competition. Tali made the cut to the top 15 and finished 7th out of 39 teams.

Two days later Spice came in heat - what timing! She ended up missing the toss n fetch competition in South Florida as a result but Tali supported team Fahle by finishing 6th or 7th with Jack out of 50+ teams! Groovy impressed us by playing some freestyle on the sidelines. She was a little spooked by the environment but overall did very well and we were very happy!

In the mean time Spice and I have begun agility classes at BonJon/Sonlight. She is doing very well and enjoying herself quite a bit! The first week of class I was reminded that I hadn't taught her to down yet! Things weren't going well with that effort once started either. Jack questioned what type of down I was trying to teach (one from a stand vs. from a sit). I got Jam and showed him what type of down I meant. Spice was there when I did. A couple of seconds later when I tried it with Spice again she did it! She's had it ever since! So a week later in class she was able to down on the table and even in the middle of the lowered dogwalk! Cool dog!

This weekend coming up we have a USDDN freestyle and toss n fetch event in Land O Lakes, FL. Very much looking forward to it. Tali and Jack will be doing freestyle. Spice and Jack will be doing toss n fetch as will Spice and I. Our friends Jason and Andrea will be staying with us this weekend and that is always a lot of fun!

Some pics from the Quad and AWI!

Photo by Sarah Duke

Spice's catch to secure 2nd place!

Some Groovy Disc Dogging Video (and a little bit of Spice too doing baby dog stuff)

2011-02-15T13:59:00.001-05:00

Spice and the Florida Quad

2011-02-12T19:57:00.000-05:00

This was fun to make... do they have visions of a big win? No... but that's only cause Jack isn't a quad type thrower - he excels at the 40-50yd throw instead but he still likes to go and have fun!

So yes... Spice is his 2011 Quad dog. It'll be fun but also a little sad. Sad because we had hoped Ruckus would have one more year in him but he just doesn't have the stamina anymore. Sucks getting old I guess... but Spice is happy to step in (though Ruckus isn't happy she is!)!

What about me? My quad dog is Tali girl. We too have no hopes for a win but we'll have fun trying!

Zitella Solomon Catch for the Cure 2011

2011-01-31T23:28:00.000-05:00

Had a GREAT weekend this weekend. Every year our disc dog club holds a fundraiser toss and fetch event that raises money for the Cancer Society, BC rescue and Aussie rescue. It's a fun event because its laid back, low key and everyone is there to have a good time for a good cause. I was especially excited about it this year because it was Spice's disc dog debut! We entered Jam, Groovy, Tali and Spice.

Jam... well Jam was adorable and caught a few discs! She certainly was a crowd pleaser!

Groovy... Groovy was not too comfortable with the environment. There was a skate and bike park at one end of the field. Kids and weird noises are not her thing. She played a little but wouldn't go past the 10 or 15 yard line cause that put her closer to the skate park! But hey... at least she played! She and Jack also did a freestyle demo after the competition was over and she did very well with that. More discs in the air gives her less time to focus on what's going on around her! We were pretty happy with that!

Tali... Tali and Jack put on a toss n fetch clinic on Saturday and won the competition! Tali and I did quite well too coming in 6th place! Very proud of that girl!!!!

Spice... Spice did awesome for her first competition! We still have a lot of work to do... a lot of foundation stuff for sure but considering she's not quite 9 months old and only been playing with us for 2 months she did great! She definitely showed herself to be Jack's dog! During his toss n fetch rounds with her she was focused and returned the disc each time - even with me sitting on the sideline taking photos! With me? Not so much... she went visiting! LOL I'd be offended but I already knew she was more his dog than mine! She and he also did a freestyle "demo" and she did good with that too. Definitely need to get a go around or through installed on her... she definitely is still resisting that but it'll come. I did some click and treat work with both behaviors tonight in the house and she did it quite well... it's just outside with a disc that we have to get better ingrained. She finished 15th out of 29 with Jack though which is pretty decent and her first round she had a 100% catch ratio with 4 catches! Not too shabby! Looking forward to the things to come with that kiddo!

On Sunday I took Spice and Jam over to my friend Bev's house for a playdate and photo session. Spice had a great time playing with Bev's dogs. It was a lot of fun to see her romping with other dogs. She especially loves Clark the Corgi and Focus the BC... but then again all my girls LUV Focus! :)

Some pics of our weekend...

New play thing!

2011-01-23T18:33:00.000-05:00

I got a new laptop a couple of months back - I've switched to a Mac. I also got CS5 including of course Photoshop. I do not find Photoshop to be intuitive at all. Usually I can figure out most photo programs just playing around but this one frustrated me so last week I signed up for an online course. I haven't quite finished the course and I've already learned quite a bit - and this is just a basic beginners course. Very exciting. I've been having fun playing with some photos this weekend and thought I'd share some of my new skills on my blog. Still a work in progress obviously but having fun along the way!

The before and after of two of the pics I've played with...

Spicy musings

2011-01-22T00:16:00.000-05:00

I have quite a bit of catching up to do on this blog. Totally haven't written about our vacation, totally didn't wish Mickie a 12th Happy Birthday on here and write a mushy post to go with it and totally haven't stayed up to date on Spice or Groovy training info. Well those posts will all have to come another time.

Tonight's post - well tonight's post is about Spice and her oddities but they are oddities that I already love.

Spice is a very cool dog and very unlike my other dogs. Well... she might be a bit like Ruckus but only a bit. She's much more confident than he was at the same age - though I do think she's going through a bit of a fear period right now. She was barking at a sock under the bed this morning - when I pulled it out she jumped back! Once she saw it was a sock she tore it out of my hand and started "killing" it! :)

Spice is... well she's just different. I'm trying to figure her out and I'm sure that will go on for years. She's awesome but odd but still awesome. One word that comes to mind is stoic. Not truly stoic but somewhat stoic. She loves to play disc but doesn't go out of her mind about it. She loves to be with us and near us but again, doesn't go out of her mind about it. Well except trying to be friends with Mickie - she gets pretty excited about that - much to Mickie's dismay - but then again - maybe Spice sees it as her job to be her friend so is employing every method to do so. I guess really it's that she's more business like. One nickname for her is Napoleon - she does try to control resources around other dogs - not in a mean way - but in a "I'll take that cause I'm Spice" kind of way. Very full of herself too!

She listens very well and learns very fast. Unbelievable really how well she listens - especially considering she's 8.5 months old. She is excelling at disc. She LOVES butterfly tosses - she does go slightly out of her mind for those I guess. She's very serious about 90% of the time - but in a good way. She's an observer. One of her disc oddities is her total dislike of us attempting to teach her a "go around". It's like she is either uncomfortable behind us or sees it as wasted real estate. I haven't decided which yet. She also doesn't like to play into a fence... she definitely has that working aussie pressure thing going on. It took us quite a while to get her to do overs and unders for the disc and I think it's related to the above issues but she's finally got that down and is happy to do them. She definitely doesn't want to get up in your business with one exception... butterflys! Turn a disc over and BAM she is on you for it. Cool but odd.

I hadn't really worked any behaviors with her other than disc related ones, house manners (no you can't take food off my plate or stand on my laptop keyboard, etc.), leave Mickie alone manners, etc. I hadn't done any shaping or anything with the clicker. The other night I decided to teach her to shake. That failed miserably... she is not foot oriented. So then I switched to a nose touch to a post it note pad. She did fine learning it but during our session I had a feeling come over me that she was too "good" to be asking her for silly pet trick behaviors. Now I've taught every dog to nose touch to a target so this isn't a new behavior for me to teach or anything. The feeling quite surprised me and I'm still not sure what to make of it. But it was almost the feeling that she was "telling me" something like "hey - just show me what you want - don't treat me like a chicken pecking at a piano at the fair". Weird eh? Needless to say we haven't gone back to the nose touch yet... I know in my head it's likely this thought came to me because of a book I read a few weeks ago but I know it's also partly due to her business like attitude. We shall see... this journey is going to be an interesting one! Of course she isn't really my dog at all - she's Jack's so I "can't" really get involved with her as much as I want to. I'm really trying to let him do most of the stuff with her but she's so cool I can't help myself. I told her breeder the other day I want a Spice of my own so I don't have to share her with Jack! LOL

Anyway... not sure if any of this made sense... just figured I'd write it all down to see if I could figure out what I was thinking! :) I love this dog. She's awesome! But she definitely makes me think in ways the other 5 never have! In the mean time I leave you with some pics of the Spice Girl from our disc dog play day last weekend. OH! She LOVES kids! Imagine that! Not a common trait with my dogs - Mickie is the only one that LOVES them. Ruckus likes them (though he didn't used to). Tali is comfortable with them to a point, Jam is tolerant of them when they are under control and at a distance and Groovy thinks they are aliens. Then again Groovy thinks most people are aliens or zombies! :) Anyway... some Spice pics...

Kiera helped me walk Spice back to the car when we were done playing. Along the way she said "You should keep this dog. Spice is a good girl!". LOL No problem Kiera - this dog isn't going anywhere!

Disc Dog and Birthday weekend!

2010-12-12T22:22:00.000-05:00

This weekend was the CFDDC Christmas Party and also my birthday! Our friends Jason and Andrea came up from south Florida mid day Saturday and stayed overnight with us. My friend Sally came over Saturday too and we had some disc dog fun! It's cool that Sal is getting more into the sport and I see disc dogging in Tex's future! Jolly of course already loves it and is a natural.

Anyway... Saturday we played with the dogs. Groovy did great! I wasn't sure if she'd be willing to play with strangers here but she did - she even played a little disc with Jason! She and he were buddies by Saturday night! Spice did awesome too - she was very happy to play with whoever would play with her both people and dogs alike!

Saturday night was the party and as always the Walkley's put out a huge spread of awesome food. This time the theme was Southern food. Couldn't have been more perfect for my bday! The gift exchange was fun as always and the Fahle's did quite well at the awards ceremony too! Jack and Tali won Supersport and Tali and I won Open! Woo hoo!

This morning Jack had to fly out to Pittsburgh, KS. His high tomorrow is 19 degrees. Crazy! Jason and Andrea hung around a bit and all the dogs (well not all) many of the dogs got to hang out and play together. Spice and Kai love each other! Tali loves Kai too! It was a good experience for all of our dogs and a good "warmup" for our North Carolina vacation over New Years.

Some pics of our weekend...

Groovy checking Jason out to make sure he wasn't the boogey man!

Frisbee is a dangerous sport! Actually she had no clue she was hurt!

One of every color!

Kai fits in perfectly with our red girls!

Identity Crisis 2010

2010-12-10T23:56:00.001-05:00

I think that 2010 will be known as the year of my dog identity crisis. We started the year as Hi-FiAussies - then tried out the name Jammin' Aussies for a while but for a variety of reasons didn't hang on to that (see older blog post on this topic for more detail). Then I decided a few months ago to go with One Drop Aussies and for the most part I still like that name BUT... while searching for names for Spice I came across a word I hadn't seen before. The word didn't work out for a name for Spice (though might name a boy dog a portion of the name in the future) but I shared it with Jack and we've been discussing switching from One Drop to it. We haven't gotten any banners or discs or anything with One Drop except for the website - somewhat because I haven't been willing to pull the trigger so to speak. So what is this new name we are seriously considering? Zimzala! Zimzala Dogs to be precise. What the heck is that? It's a surf term that means "a free spirited person who finds peace with the sand between their toes". That pretty much sums up Jack and I both. Of course it means ocean sand but maybe sand from the disc dog field counts too! ;) One Drop connected us to our love of the islands through it's reggae roots but I felt a bit constrained by the reggae theme. This gets us more where I wanted to be originally. I've run it past a couple of folks and it got the thumbs up - more enthusiastically than One Drop did. So... very likely you'll see this blog name change again! :) A new website too of course! Hopefully this one will stick!

Spice's 1st Disc Dog Training Video!

2010-12-09T00:16:00.002-05:00

Spice Monster

2010-12-06T22:33:00.000-05:00

Well Spice AKA Spicy/Spice Monster/Baby Spice/Spice Girl/Spicer/Short Stuff/Short Spice/Spices (and the list goes on) has been here for 1 week and 1 day so far. Let me just say she's awesome! She totally knows her new name, she's got "drop" down quite well. She's a very very quick learner! She is great in her crate and she did very well at the agility trial this weekend with the hubbub and people. She had no issue at all playing disc with me off to the side. Total focus on the game - it was awesome. I have to keep reminding myself she is only 7 months old!

Now before you go thinking "Come on Kat - no dog is perfect" - you are right... no dog is. If I had to fault in her it'd be her dog skills. She's somewhat of a dog nerd and is too insistent on being a dog's friend - even if said dog is growling at her and telling her to go away (Mickie and Groovy) and the ones that don't do that to her (Jam and Tali) get pummeled by her in your face kind of play and then don't want to play with her for a while. Hopefully she'll learn some more doggy social skills as we go. Tali is a good teacher - she just needs to feel more confident around Spice to feel comfortable giving those lessons. I just watched them play tonight and Tali got on to her for being too rough while stealing a toy. Spice is now sitting near Tali wanting the toy but just glancing over occasionally to see if she still has it. I think a little learning occurred! :)

Jack is head over heels for her already - after every disc session he comes in singing her praises - even when I'm there to watch! It's so cute! Here are a couple of pics from this week...

Pooooor Groovy

2010-11-28T21:06:00.000-05:00

This weekend in Texas Groovy got to do a lot of herding and unfortunately that has resulted in a torn pad. Well really it has resulted in a torn off pad. An area about the size of a nickel and couple millimeters thick is missing from the main pad of her front left paw. Poor thing - she can't walk without limping and worse yet for her - she's on crate rest! Hope it heals quickly. :( Here is a pic of her from herding this weekend. It was fun for a while!

Groovy herding with Terri Carver of Maximum Aussies (Spice's breeder)

Groovy calmly watching another dog work

We have a name!!

2010-11-28T19:47:00.001-05:00

Introducing Spice! (Registered name still in the works) And no that wasn't on the list of names and no it isn't a name I love but Jack likes it and we are going to have fun with it. Sometimes she'll be Frisbee Spice and then other times Spicy and then other times Super Spice... it'll be a fun name so I'm cool with it.

She's beautiful, drivey and focused! Can't wait to learn more about this girl.

Names...

2010-11-24T13:44:00.000-05:00

It's fun to think of puppy/dog names but can get tiring too. Of course if I wouldn't obsess about it before I meet her it'd probably be better but that's the problem - dog names is something I think about sometimes even when I'm not getting a dog! LOL Last night I wrote down all the ones I liked and then had Jack tell me which ones he definitely did not like. That left us with 12 or so. Here's the list in no particular order... and some pros/cons/extra info about each.

Cricket - I LOVE the name - Jack just likes it. A con is that Groovy has a littermate named Cricket but that doesn't really bother me. Another Con is that is sort of sounds like Mickie - I'd think she'd get used to it though since it isn't Crickie but Cricket. Registered name would be something related to Jiminy Cricket I think. "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" or something.

Penny - Jack and I both like this name - neither of us love it. It's not unique or super cool or anything but we still like it. Registered name would be something to do with "Lucky Penny", "Find a Penny", etc.

Chili - Jack really likes this name - I'm OK with this name. Don't have any ideas on registered names and such. The name was inspired by the fact that she's from Texas.

Gidget - we both like this name. Registered name would be Little Surfer Girl or something like that and as such ties into our island thing Jack and I have going on.

Ting - we both like this one too and it's actually been on the list since Jam's list. Ting is a pineapple soda we drink when we are in the islands. Also folks down there say "thing" as "ting" so to say everything is great is everyting is great.

Jelly - goes with Jam! :)

Bunny - is just darn cute.

Grits - "Girl Raised In The South" cause she was...

Love Bug or June Bug - cause they are cute to say

Dandy - from the movie Tombstone "You're a dandy if you do". It means a fine or good thing.

As you can see by the length of explanation some of these have had more thought put into them than others... but they are all on the approved list. I also LOVE the name Friday but Jack doesn't care for it. I think my next dog that's mine alone will be Friday - even if she isn't born on a Friday (Fern was born on a Friday and we are meeting her on a Friday).

We'll see... we have to meet her to know for sure but we certainly have plenty to go on! :o)

I leave you with a pic of "Fern" taken while at school with Terri the other day. She comes with an off switch too!

Getting excited for our Texas trip!

2010-11-23T10:10:00.000-05:00

Two days from now we leave for Texas! Of course I'm excited to go meet our new dog (new name still undetermined) but I'm also excited for all the fun that is planned the short time we are there!

It'll be a whirlwind of a trip leaving here Thursday after Thanksgiving lunch and returning Sunday afternoon. We hope to get to Baton Rouge on Thursday night and then arrive in Brenham, TX by 2 or 3pm the next day. At that point we'll get to meet some online friends Kim Dostie and her husband. We've emailed back and forth a few times over the years but have never met in person. And Jack will get to meet Terri as well. Terri I had met a few years back. We plan to play with dogs that afternoon doing both herding and disc dog stuff. Groovy is coming along and will get to work the sheep. She hasn't seen any since early October and it's supposed to be 50 something degrees so it could be a rather insane event! :) We'll finish off the evening with dinner out.

Saturday morning we get to do more herding and then we'll take off around 1pm heading back home. We might get to see our disc dog friend Brian Muck at some point as he is going to try and come out (he already herds at Terri's on a regular basis). And apparently at various points throughout our short time there we will get to meet a variety of other folks who love Fern (our new dog's current name) and want to meet her new family! Apparently she comes with a pre-installed fan club! LOL No pressure there!

It should be fun and I can't wait!

Canis Major #5 - Tali, Groovy, Jam and Ruckus all rock!

2010-11-22T16:42:00.001-05:00

This past Saturday was the final disc dog event of 2010 for us - Canis Major #5. We had a great time as always and the Fahle's cleaned up quite nicely in terms of success!

Tali and I... our freestyle was not as nice as last week but it wasn't too bad. I changed some stuff around and didn't get it nailed down in my head so we kinda ended up making up crap as we went. I also have failed to successfully pull off the "KatBat"/"Katamaran" at a Canis Major - kinda bummed but we'll keep practicing - I can nail it in practice 80% of the time or so - just can't when I'm a little pumped and nervous! (The KatBat is the behind my back throw followed by a backhand brush with the other disc). I also STUNK up D&A - have no idea why but oh well. We finished 2nd. Sadly (sort of) this means I have won the Open Division for the season. I say sadly because I only competed 3 times so really winning shouldn't have been an option but that's how it goes in that division. The good news is my winning kept our director's 4 year old daughter from winning. Why is that a good thing? Cause whoever wins has to move up to the higher division in September. I don't think it's cool to make a 4 year compete against the likes of Gary, Jack, Andrea, Jason, etc. Of course me competing against them won't be much different but at least I am full grown and an adult! :)

Tali and Jack needed to place well to win the Supersport (D&A) division and they did just that even with a less than stellar showing! The less than stellar part was Jack - he wasn't throwing as long and threw some out of bounds - Tali caught every single disc though. And to that point when I was doing so horribly and threw one into the scoring tent she actually went in and got it - that is HUGE for her!

Old man Ruckus had some nice D&A in him the other night and placed 4th in Supersport with Jack! Old red dogs rule!

Jam... Jam caught 3 whole frisbees in D&A the other night. That's a record high for her! She also wowed the crowd with her high flying leaps! Maybe with another 6 months of bite work practice under her belt she'll catch 5 or 6 in one competition! LOL Luckily what she lacks in drive she makes up for in cuteness and temperament!

Groovy - Groovy got another chance to "compete" again this week. Again - she and Jack aren't competing against anyone but are going out there and jamming and getting a score. She was much better focused this week AND she played D&A and she played it very well! Jack kept her close - nothing out of the 1 point zone - but she caught all 4 tosses and they did a lot of tugging at the line for reinforcement. She looked awesome and that was with a leash attached! Here is their video... and again I'm supposed to say "this is not a real routine - it is not a finished product, etc.". He's so sensitive about that (and hence her videos aren't posted on Facebook). There is definitely hope for her being a real competition dog some day. Problem is we'll have to "start all over" this spring since our competitions aren't usually at this same park then. But we are really working to increase her disc drive even more so that the game overrides the environment. Keep your fingers crossed with us that it works!

Groovy's freestyle debut! (and Tali rocks too!)

2010-11-18T22:56:00.001-05:00

Jack hasn't been competing in Freestyle this Canis Major season because he's been judging. That's OK when it comes to Tali because that let's me do freestyle with her but the drawback we didn't consider that meant he wouldn't be able to play with Jam, or do his once a year routine with Mickie or debut with Groovy. Shoulda thought that out a little better! Well we talked with the club folks and they said it'd be cool for Jack to "compete" in the lower division. He'd earn a score but wouldn't be up against anyone in terms of placements or points. That worked for us!

So.... this past week we signed Groovy up. We hoped she'd get out of the car (sometimes she finds competitions too scary for that) - and she did! We hoped she'd be willing to play on the field (we'd been playing with her on the field after the competition) - and she did! We hoped she'd stay focused and not worry about the crowd or judges and she mostly did! Here is her video though I must - for Jack's sake - tell you that this isn't a real routine... they don't have a routine - just a few segments - thus this is in no way a finished product! We also felt the music was pretty appropriate for Groovy! LOL

As for Tali and I... we came in first again (I was only competing against 2 other people!)! :) I even wrote down a routine and remembered 3/4's of it! Woo hoo! Here it is...

New and exciting events coming up!

2010-11-17T23:52:00.001-05:00

This weekend we took Flash with us to the disc dog competition. He LOVED everyone. Couldn't get him to acknowledge that a frisbee existed but he loved everyone and he played with a rabbit fur tug for a short time. So... Flash is definitely just a foster and is looking for a permanent home. Several of the folks who met him this weekend concurred... he'll possibly play disc one day but it'd take some work and there is no guarantee. Should be easy to find him a home though... he's just about perfect other than his continued lack of interest in the disc. We got him to pounce on it some and bring it back to us but he won't tug on it much and has zero interest in it outside of our garage training room. However hand him a green tiny stuffed bear and he'll entertain himself in the backyard for 10 minutes with it! :) He's so cute! Jack and I both agree though... if we are going to get a 6th dog it's got to have disc drive right off the bat and the mental stability to handle competing. Flash had one - not the other.

Well... enter the new and exciting thing. A friend of mine saw me with Flash this weekend and realized I might be open to adding a 6th dog to the family. She told me about one she knew was potentially going to be available because of not growing big enough for the breeder's needs. This breeder herds with her dogs over acres and acres of land. Said dog is only 16" at 6 months and isn't likely to make it to the needed height to cover the ground she'll need to. (This in an of itself is an interesting statement on aussie size but I don't have time enough to blog about that). Anyway... I didn't think much about it that night but decided to run the news past Jack the next day. He was quite interested. Additionally there was some chatter about this dog on Facebook later that day so I shared the chatter with Jack and he asked me to email the breeder for the story and I did.

Long story short... there will be a new dog in the house soon!

More info to come but the basics are:
- 6 months old
- 16" and 20#'s
- red merle
- already catching short tosses
- tugs like a demon on the disc
- awesome temperament (currently spends her days entertaining special needs kids at a school)
- related to a slew of dogs that rock at frisbee including our very own Ruckus AND Groovy!

We are very excited! She'll be arriving Thanksgiving weekend! Gobble Gobble!

Tomorrow's blog post will be about Groovy's freestyle debut and mine and Tali's 1st place finish in novice freestyle on our 2nd time competing! :) It's been a good week so far!

Introducing...

2010-11-13T01:17:00.001-05:00

Press play before scrolling to get the full effect of this post! :)

Flash - our foster dog!

The solid colored girls (including Mickie) LOVE him! The merled girl and the red boy... not so much!

He came with the name Flash... and since he arrived I can't get this song out of my head when I say his name!

More info to come as we continue to evaluate this little man.

Basic Flash Stats:

10 months old

28 pounds

18-18.5" tall

Great temperament

Likes to play fetch with soft toys but isn't crazy about the disc yet

Fahle Dog Training Center is now open

2010-11-13T00:35:00.000-05:00

I'm sure we'll come up with a better name for it... but for now FDTC will have to do. Of course it's only open for us... well other folks can use it - but it's purpose is mainly for us to have a place to train our dogs when 1) it's too dark 2) it's too cold 3) it's too rainy and/or 4) when we want to work something in a contained non distracting area (and that something might be a someone - like Jam!).

What is the FDTC? It's our garage with foam matting covered by turf. I'll post some pics in case whoever it is that reads this blog didn't see them on Facebook. We've worked in the garage, I mean FDTC every night this week. Jam is a frizBEAST in there. It's awesome. Groovy is too but Groovy is a frizbeast in the yard too. All the dogs love it in there. Well... Tali isn't quite sure why we play in there... but she's getting the idea. It's been great. We are hoping we can build Jam's drive in that environment and have it transfer outside come spring! We shall see if the little princess plays along with that plan!

Rolling out the carpet

The finished product

Tali rocks!

2010-10-26T10:39:00.000-04:00

Maybe someday I'll write up a post about how awesome she did at USDDN (way better than we expected considering how she's been feeling lately) but for now this is a brag on Tali and how well she did doing freestyle with me! :) We still have a TON of work to do but for only practicing for 3 days it came out pretty OK and more importantly we had fun!

Tali and Kat's First Freestyle!

Two pics of Jam from her agility trial

2010-10-26T10:32:00.000-04:00

Here are two pics of Jam from her agility trial. HUGE thanks to Betsy Walton for getting these for us!

Yes... we have an over-jumping problem!

Jam prefers kisses as her post run reward!

Jam competed in a real agility trial!

2010-10-05T11:37:00.000-04:00

In two weeks Jam will be 4. A few days ago she debuted in agility! Nope - we don't work fast - well Jam's brain doesn't anyway!

I haven't been training Jam in agility for a while. She just never really seemed to enjoy it all that much and it was a battle getting her to focus. Over the past several months though Jam has been offering agility behaviors in lieu of doing disc. Like we'd be working on disc (we being her and Jack) and she'd go do a dogwalk and stop beautifully at the bottom and be all proud of herself. While up in Michigan at Pawsitive Vybe we'd have dismissed her to go do her own thing while we talked and after a few minutes of sniffing she'd go do the tunnel WAY out in the corner and then come to us all happy with herself. She did this with the teeter too. Very odd but cute - then again pretty much everything she does is cute! The trial this weekend was the last one being held at my friend Cindy's place and Cindy encouraged me to enter her since Jam was somewhat comfortable there because of herding. I warned Cindy she'd probably pee on course but she said it'd be fine.

So this past weekend I day of show entered Jam. Day 1 we ran colors. She stayed with me the whole time and didn't pee! She skipped some jumps and I didn't fix them so we didn't Q but she did GREAT! No peeing! On Sunday she was in Full House and Standard. In Full House she got to do contacts and loved it. She missed some jumps again and I only fixed two of them so we didn't Q since you need 3 jumps but again she had fun and stayed focused! I had zero hopes of her Q'ing in standard cause there were 18 obstacles and many of them were jumps. Since when does Level 2 standard in CPE have 18 obstacles?!? Obviously when I entered her I was expecting fewer but no big deal - this whole thing was an experiment just for fun anyway. Well rather than describe what happened I'm linking the video. The closing was 4 or 5 jump and had I not overly praised her for the next to last jump she would have ran that portion smoothly! Unbelievably she Q'd and even more unbelievably she placed 1st! Woo hoo! (and I like to clarify since it's CPE and Level 2 - there were actually other dogs running in her class in her height that Q'd! LOL)

Jam's First Agility Trial

She very obviously needs jump work. I knew this already but hadn't bothered since I always figured she'd NQ us by peeing on the course before we ever got to a jump. So I guess now we'll work on that a bit more (and did so last night in fact). She also is used to jumping 20-22" at home and I entered her at 16" thinking that'd be easier for her but I think it messed with her a little. I think I'm going to practice her at 16" at home some more and see how she does at the next CPE trial. Even if she measures over 18" for AKC I'll probably enter her in preferred should the day ever come that she does AKC agility. And same for USDAA... I'll just run her in performance I think. We'll see though - I may change my mind if she starts turning on for real!

As for Tali... she did very well this weekend. She's definitely not running 100%. I had to stretch her out a lot before her runs to get her to jump normal on the practice jump. She is going to the chiro today. Hopefully we'll get some sort of info about what might be going on. But none the less she ran well once stretched out and Q'd all but 1 of her runs and in that one she got the gamble but due to my bad planning we were 1.5 seconds over course time. :( A few more steps closer to her C-ATCH. Lots of standard legs to go but we are getting closer to finishing out some of the Level 5 games!

This weekend coming up is Canis Major #2. Jack is judging freestyle so can't compete in Freestyle but hopefully Tali and Ruckus will do well in D&A for him! I'll be throwing for Tali (provided she's feeling better) and most likely Java Bean! Should be fun as always!

I'm buried in photos... be back later!

2010-09-28T23:12:00.001-04:00

No time to blog lately... was editing and posting photos from AWI and our trip up north... just about the time I got those done we went to Skyhoundz Worlds - now I'm working on those photos. This coming weekend I'm shooting the CPE agility trial in Groveland so then I'll be buried in those! Oh and crap - still haven't finished Canis Major #1 pics. Good-Dog Sports - come see us! >

Soooo... no time for blogging. Here's a summary though.

Trip up north was awesome... Groovy did awesome... we learned tons of stuff.

We officially quit our class at KETCH. Just can't make it to the 6:30 time slot often enough and don't practice enough to keep up with everyone else. Disc dogging is where its at anyway! :) Agility will come eventually...

Trip to Skyhoundz sucked... loved hanging out with our friends but hated many of the results we came home with in addition to the fact that something is wrong with Tali. She's doing better but is still hesitant to jump up on the bed and into the car. Saturday night she wouldn't do either on her own. Extremely depressing... more on this trip and the last one later once I'm caught up with pics.

Today was Jack's 40th bday - I gave him my blessing for him to go car shopping. He's a happy camper now! :)

More to come... someday!

One cool pic from the weekend - thank you Sarah for taking it!

V A C A T I O N ! ! ! !

2010-08-31T23:40:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow we are off for a long overdue vacation. Haven't been on a "real" vacation in 2 years - like the kind that lasts at least a week and where you go somewhere for that week. This one is different in that it is totally dog oriented but it still counts! Can't wait! Here's the plan...

Drive A LOT, visit Wolf Park, visit Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, go watch last chance AWI qualifier, Jack and Tali compete UFO competition, Jack and Tali compete at AWI competition, hopefully visit the Disc Dog Hall of Fame, sight see on the way to Michigan, Disc Dog B&B with Apryl and Ron and then more driving A LOT and see some stuff along the way.

The one glitch in our plans? Groovy came in heat last Wed. or Thurs. Should be fun! Sat. and Sunday will suck cause she'll have to stay in the car or at the hotel but she's got the green light to be at the B&B so we are looking forward to working her there on both disc stuff and fear stuff!

Now I'm off to bed... got to go to work for half a day before all this fun can begin! Just can't begin to describe how happy I am to not be working for the next week and a half!

All hail Dr. Latter

2010-08-22T11:30:00.000-04:00

This past Monday I took Tali to Dr. Latter (chiropractor). She's been slowing down lately (see earlier post about her getting older) and more recently hasn't been jumping as high or putting in the extra gear needed to get the longer tosses on double throws. She even hit Jack in the head on an over which has never happened before so I figured something had to be wrong and hopefully it was something Dr. L could fix vs. her hips having taken a fast turn for the worst. Dr. Latter found 2 spots out of whack. We waited till Wednesday to try a little freestyle... she seemed to do a little better. Then Jack worked on her routine Friday and Saturday night. Friday she looked really good and Saturday she looked awesome! Hooray! Gooooo Tali!

Saturday herding

2010-08-21T18:30:00.000-04:00

Today we went herding... it wasn't a great day - the sheep were being buttheads but Groovy did a great job of getting them out of the corner (with my help and encouragement) but she definitely had more confidence in that situation than she has in the past. They weren't budging for Clue (Cindy's dog). We had about 5-10 minutes of good herding but somehow Groovy bit her own tongue at some point and we had to stop to get her some water. After that the sheep were done - they had been "bad" all day so we called it quits early. Sal and Tex weren't having any success either. Something had the sheep upset. I'm excited about next week though. Groovy is going to learn pen work in preparation for the ASCA trial in November! We might also work on some directionals too! Very cool! :)

Groovy herding a few weeks back

Book update...

2010-08-19T17:27:00.000-04:00

Since my last book update I have finished listening to Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson. Loved it! Highly recommend it. Bev is listening to it now even though she hasn't listened to gods in Alabama yet which has connecting characters. I'm interested to hear how that changes ones perspective. I keep trying to come up with my favorite Joshilyn Jackson book but really I love them all. The best I can do is say that The Girl Who Stopped Swimming is my 3rd favorite and the other 3 flip flop for 1st and 2nd place depending on what part of the book I'm thinking of at the time.

I also just finished a book called Belong To Me by Marisa de los Santos. Belong to Me on Amazon I enjoyed the book. It wasn't Joshilyn Jackson good but it was still very good. Funny thing is when I was almost done with the book I happened to notice the quote on the back of the book. It was a quote by Joshilyn Jackson about how much she enjoyed the book. WEIRD but neat! I picked it up on sale and thought it sounded like it might be good but never noticed the quote till I was almost done! Belong to Me is mostly a story about friendships with some family drama thrown in. I give it a 3 paws up (out of 4 paws of course!).

I am just about to finish up a book by Sandra Brown called Bittersweet Rain. I don't believe I had ever listened to Sandra Brown but I'm not sure. The book is good - definitely kept my interest. It has a lot of um... "romantic scenes" in it. Sometimes I had to laugh at the many ways to describe various body parts in various states of "romance". I'll just leave it at that. Nothing wrong with diving into a "trashy romance novel" now and then. Not that it was trashy per say but you know what I mean.

Picked up 3 more books today on sale... this is becoming an addiction... :) At least I can sell them back once they make all the rounds!

Herding Rocks

2010-08-10T22:07:00.001-04:00

This past weekend Groovy and I went herding again at Cindy Elliott's place. For the first time *I* did good at it. Cindy had "obstacles" out - a Y chute, some gates (using barrels), a cone, etc. I asked Cindy to tell me where to go. Magically once I had stuff to do it made all the difference in the world in my ability to actually herd with Groovy. I guess it made it more like agility - I had a course and knew where to go and had to figure out the right handling moves to get there. Whether or not that's the traditional way to learn herding I don't know but it worked for me! :) Here are some pics that our friend Liz McGuire took - thanks Liz!

The look of the feeling of satisfaction!

BUSY weekend but FUN!

2010-08-04T17:56:00.002-04:00

Wow... what a busy weekend but busy with fun stuff!

Friday evening I took off from work about an hour early and Jack, Tali, Groovy and I headed up to Chris' house to have Chris, Jack and Kota practice pairs. Tali and Groovy both got to practice as well and did well. Groovy was pretty confident (for her), she willingly got out of the car (sometimes even that is a struggle), walked around a bit, was very cautious of Mike and Julie but functional and she even practiced some (just so long as the discs went nowhere near Mike). After practice we went to Chris' next door neighbors how for folks to cool off in the pool (Chris is long term house sitting). Tali let me put her in but would get right back out. I didn't try it with Groovy cause scary Mike was in the pool! :) She did well with the other dogs running around the pool area and although nervous handled herself well. After the pool we put the dogs back in the car and grilled out and hung out for a while till it was time to head back home. Got some neat pics of an Osprey that flew by with a fish in it's claws... here's one.

Saturday AM Groovy and I went herding at Cindy's. We split the lesson with Sal and Tex. It was HOT but Groovy did really well. She has the proud title of being the first student dog to ever work Cindy's ram! :) And said ram (as well as 1 other ram and 3 wethers) didn't give her a bit of trouble (apparently those aren't the easiest kind of sheep to work). I got lucky and didn't have to work Groovy - Cindy did it all (thank goodness as the ram head butted her once). It is much more enjoyable to watch my dog work than me be confused about what the heck to do but I know I have to get in there and learn so we can get ready for the ASCA trial in November. Groovy had no fear at all working those sheep and to prove that she's becoming a good little stock dog she even voluntarily jumped in the stock tank to cool off! That was a first.

From herding we rushed back home, packed up and headed down towards south Florida to hang out with our friends Jason and Andrea. We had been planning to do a big disc practice day here at the house for CFDDC members on our new field but the tractor STILL isn't working so those plans just weren't working out. As an alternative Andrea suggested we come down there sometime so we took her up on it. It was a good little trip for several reasons. 1) It was a good test drive to see how Groovy might do on the upcoming road trip to Illinois and Michigan. 2) It was fun to jam with some of the south Florida disc dog crowd. 3) It was a good way to get to know Jason and Andrea better and 4) they have an AWESOME pizza place by their house with awesome chicken parmesan pizza. I must have some more of that some day!

Saturday evening some friends of Andrea and Jason's were there and our friend Donna came for a bit as well to check out a dog that the Rigler's are fostering. Everyone played with their dogs getting tips and hints from everyone else. Jack showed the Rigler's some different tosses and we all talked about routines and such. It was pretty cool. Groovy did awesome! She came out of the car and played right away. Didn't care about the people there at all! Tali was kinda slow and pokey but it was HOT. Later on we had that awesome pizza and watched a movie.

Sunday AM we ate breakfast and headed out to Jam some more. Their friend Amanda joined us as well. Interestingly enough Groovy had more trouble with this small crowd than the larger one the day before. She also had a big problem with Jason and was barking at him a lot. We tried something new and put the girls in an expen (Groovy, Tali and Jam came along for this little trip) instead of their fold up crates. This gave Jason the opportunity to toss Groovy treats from a distance and slowly work his way closer. In the end he was petting her and feeding her treats from his hand! BONUS! She played really well and Andrea and Jason helped Jack work on his disc placement for back vaults. Groovy has been learning vault foundations for the past few weeks and had been doing takes from me and from Jack but we hadn't progressed to an actual toss yet. Sunday the first vault toss Jack tried with her she caught and it was beautiful! Here's a pic below... nothing great in terms of a pic but still cool that I got her first one on "film"!

Groovy has good hops!

The girls watching Jack play with Moxie

(Recognize anything in this pic Sarah? Remind me to give it to you when you drop off or pick up the dogs this weekend.)

It was an exhausting weekend but a great one! Groovy made some real progress and that was the best part! This weekend coming up should be low key - or will hopefully be low key. I'm dog sitting Trinity and Java Duke all weekend and herding on Sat. AM with Groovy but other than that it should be a chilled out weekend.

Joshilyn Jackson books

2010-08-03T14:08:00.000-04:00

I am really enjoying her work. She has written 4 books so far and I'm listening to the 4th one now. I listened to them in the following order:

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

gods In Alabama

Between, GA

Backseat Saints

They were written however in the following order:

gods in Alabama,

Between, GA

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

Backseat Saints

Without having finished Backseat Saints I'd say that gods and Between are my two favorites but I'll say for sure once I'm done with Backseat Saints. I really love the stories though and find myself continually interested and wanting more. You know the "I can't wait to drive home from work so I can hear more of the story" feeling. I came across Joshilyn's work via a sales table at Books A Million in Columbia, SC on a recent road trip. Normally books discounted to $10 are just OK but I really enjoyed The Girl Who Stopped Swimming enough to look up the author and order 2 more of her books on Amazon. I wasn't 1/2 way through gods in Alabama when I got back on Amazon and ordered Backseat Saints.

I could sum up each book but then I’d be afraid I’d give something away… just know that they are VERY southern in nature. That’s obvious with the gods and Between books just by the titles. The Girl Who Stopped Swimming takes place in Pensacola, FL and Backseat Saints in Texas. Joshilyn reads her own books in all but one. I love her voice and accent and therefore take pleasure in having her read it to me. I find that I hear a southern accent in my head when I write about her books… LOL! You likely won’t have the same issue I’m sure – I just tend to pick up a southern accent pretty easily.

A few more tidbits… Two of the books connect and those are gods in Alabama and Backseat Saints – there is a minor character in gods who is the main character in Backseat Saints – her name is Rose Mae Lolly. I’m on disc 5 of that book and am enjoying the connection. I don’t think it’d be an issue to read Backseat Saints first but again can’t say for sure quite yet. Also, there is a supernatural element to The Girl Who Stopped Swimming that isn’t found in the other books. One other last tidbit… just as you can’t experience living in the south without religion being a part of it Joshilyn’s books bring that in as well. The main characters in her book aren’t necessarily actively religious but they bring their religious upbringing and/or religious family into their character… it’s a part of their personal baggage. I find it not only amusing but quite accurate. I have heard members of my family or friends say things folks say in the books as it relates to church, God, morals, levels of honesty and chasteness, being Southern Baptist or Catholic. It’s pretty funny and Joshilyn knows her stuff here.

I guess that’s all I’ll say on this author and these books… as you can tell I really like her work. Another gal at work has listened to 1 or 2 of her books and enjoyed them very much as well and her background and life experience is pretty different than mine so that tells me that Joshilyn is good despite the fact that I connect with tiny portions of various characters of hers. I hope you’ll check her out!

Books I've been reading lately...

2010-08-02T16:40:00.001-04:00

OK - well since I'm just starting this I have to catch up so I'm gonna do a quick listing of the ones I can remember of late... this is more for me than for you so feel free to not read this post! :) Might take me a while to actually post this one and certainly these books will not be in any particular order.

Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card - Science fiction - quite good - would recommend. I call it Harry Potter in space minus the magic and instead of going by school grades you go through Ender's life from kid to adult. Of course really only the first book is Harry Potter like but that kinda set the tone. It's good stuff overall though - if you can handle reading about life in space, aliens, alien wars, etc. Here is a link to learn more: Info about Ender Series Some day I might listen to the Shadow series mentioned but I was kinda Ender'ed out and moved on to other things.
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay - this is a great book and I highly recommend it. Sorry Sal and Bev it isn't mine to let you borrow but I bet you'd like it. Sarah's Key on Amazon It takes place in two time periods - modern day France and WW II France. I learned a lot about how the Jews were treated in France at that time and it was a very moving story. It's been a few months since I've listened to this book and it's the one of the ones that stays with me the most.
Picture Perfect - Jodi Picoult - kept my interest but wasn't anything special. Sal already listened to this one and agreed it wasn't one of Jodi's best by any means.,
Pirate Latitudes - Michael Crichton - decent book though you have to listen/read through a lot of sea battles between pirate ships. It kept my interest and there were parts that I really enjoyed. Of course with my obsession with the Caribbean it was neat hearing about some of those locations from a pirate perspective.
Dog On It - Spencer Quinn - This is a private detective/who done it type of story however it's from a dog's perspective. The PI in the story has a dog and it is from the dog that the story is written. Kinda dorky but kinda fun. The author certainly inserts very cute dog behaviors in to make it more authentic.
Your Heart Belongs to Me - Dean Koontz - A pretty typical Dean Koontz story though not one of his best ones. It's about a heart transplant patient who is haunted about the transplant. Interesting twists and turns but again not one of his best.

That sums up most of the ones as of late that I can recall. I'm know there are a few more but I'll remember them as they make their way back to me in the rotation of audio book listeners that surround me. Of course there are 4 books I haven't mentioned and those are the ones from Joshilyn Jackson... I think I'll write about her books in a separate post as I really like them a lot. This post is getting long enough. :)

New subject - non dog related

2010-07-30T13:44:00.000-04:00

Lately I've been going through audio books like there is no tomorrow. I enjoy each and every one of them - some more than others of course - but they are becoming a blur in my mind as a result. I've been listening to audio books on and off for probably 5 or 6 years now and I definitely can not recall all that I've listened to. I started thinking I need to make a list but I know myself well enough to know that I won't remember to keep up with said list. So, what to do?

Last night I had checked out my new favorite author's website (which is odd in and of itself as I don't often have favorite authors much less look them up) and then landed on her blog and then ended up on another blog about what books various authors were reading of which she was one. I started thinking that maybe I should write a little something on my blog about each of the books I listen to. That maybe if I did it here I'd keep up with it a little better - maybe. This would serve 3 purposes. 1) It would help me keep track of what I have been listening to. 2) It will let my friends Bev and Sal know what books I have and they can let me know which ones they definitely want to borrow (though I know the answer for Bev is "all" cause she, like me, will listen to most anything to help the long commute go by faster. 3) For everyone else besides those two who are bored enough to read my blog it may at times let them know about a good book out there. This DOES NOT mean I'll always be writing full fledged reviews... I know there is no way that is going to happen but I'm sure I'm likely to say a little something about the better ones I listen to - maybe! And if I don't, well #3 is less important than #1 and #2 anyway! :)

I think I'll write a separate post about the books I've been reading lately so I'll be able to tell at a glance what book(s) I'm talking about... more to come...

Groovy rockin' it in toss n fetch

2010-07-21T23:33:00.000-04:00

A video of Groovy playing toss n fetch tonight with Jack. He brought home a video camera from work so I wanted to try it out and what better subject?!?! :)

Groovy Toss N Fetch

AKC Agility in Perry, GA

2010-07-14T22:02:00.001-04:00

This past weekend was really fun - very tiring - but really fun!

Tali and I drove to Perry, GA (5 hours away) on Thursday evening for 3 days of AKC agility indoors, on dirt with AC. Can't beat that in July down here that's for sure! I had been to a trial at Perry once before a long time ago with Mickie but this was Tali's first trip there and it was my first trip "alone". Last time Sally and I carpooled and shared a room. This time I drove up on my own and stayed on my own (Jack stayed home to do schoolwork). I'm such a big girl! ;o) LOL It's been a while since I've been away on my own like that... back it the day it was nothing at all to drive 8 hours to Columbia, SC and live by myself but I guess we get more cautious as we get older?!? Dunno... All went well though and I'd definitely do it again.

As for the actual agility part - well that went awesome. Going into the weekend I needed 3 legs in Open Standard and 3 in Open Jumpers with Weaves. I did not expect to come home with agility titles. I thought that if we got lucky we'd get 2 legs in each but that we'd see how it went.

Friday and Saturday we ran jumpers first and standard 2nd. I don't really even remember those runs at this point. Bev has them on video and I'll get them at some point. What I do know is that we Q'd them all though none of them were "clean" Q's. We had weave issues on every run. I believe Friday JWW was a 10th pole pop, Friday in Standard was a pop mid poles - she was stressed from coming from the teeter and I suspected we wouldn't have clean weaves with a teeter to weave sequence. Saturday in JWW we had sniffing at pole 3 and the weaves were the 2nd obstacle and in Standard we AGAIN had teeter to weaves and she was stressed and went and sniffed in a corner as opposed to weaving resulting in a refusal. I have GOT TO get an aluminum teeter! Mine just does not compare in speed or noise. Mine is slow and creaky as opposed to fast and "bangy". (Is bangy a word?!?) The jumpers runs minus the weave were awesome... she was really drivey and faster than normal. It was a lot of fun. One of the standard runs (don't remember which) was a train wreck in terms of how it felt but we Q'd anyway! The other went well enough if I recall. Her increased speed definitely threw off my handling some... or more accurately required me to be more timely which I wasn't a lot of the time but we still managed.

Sunday we ran standard first and then jumpers. Sunday standard was a blast... we had a bit of a mess in the opening but the rest ran so smooth including perfect weave poles! That was a run I won't soon forget. A clean Q and a 2nd place not to mention her OA title! Woo hoo! Our only NQ of the weekend came Sunday afternoon in JWW after waiting around ALL day to run. That kinda sucked. Had I known we were going to NQ I'd have gone home many hours before! :) Tali popped at the 10th pole and I attempted to fix it at that pole and she went in between 11 and 12. We fixed it again but that was already 2 refusals so I knew we were done in terms of a Q. We had a missed jump a bit later and just kept on going on but overall the course was really fun to run and again - even on the last run of a 3 day weekend Tali was drivey and fast so I was still quite pleased.

Take aways from the weekend... 1) obviously we need more work on our weaves - she's pretty good at entries but we have a popping problem while in the poles - very often at 10. 2) I need a louder and faster teeter at home so she can get used to it and be confident during our trial runs with that obstacle. 3) Apparently I have "running" contacts now! LOL Not once did she stop all weekend but she also didn't miss at all. She stops at home 100% of the time. If her not stopping in a trial means she only goes to 90% accuracy... well I'm OK with that. Problem is that I have no way to know if letting her run in a trial setting is going to cause issues down the line. Being that she is almost 7 years old I think I'm going to lean towards letting it go and see what happens. We don't have visions of a MACH or nationals in AKC simply because we don't trial enough to have those visions. Frisbee takes priority... 4) She was faster than normal this weekend... I hope that sticks though it may have been a function of running in the AC when it was near 100 outside! We shall see!

So all in all we ended up with her Open Standard title and 2 legs towards her Open Jumpers title. Considering Ruckus is still (and always will be in Open) and it took Mickie months to get out of Open, getting through Open standard in just 4 days of trialing is a pretty good improvement! LOL We'll be in Exc A forever though if I don't get those poles fixed. I busted out the treat and train this week... we'll see how that works and go from there! She likes it - that's for sure.

Here are some photos from the weekend. A HUGE thanks to Sarah for being willing to grab my camera and take these photos. Since I take photos at several of the trials we attend I don't get a chance to get any of Tali and the trials I've been to lately where there has been a photographer has resulted in just OK pics and certainly not worth the high prices they are selling them for.

Our running dogwalk ;)

DACOF 2010

2010-07-05T13:50:00.001-04:00

We had a great time at DACOF 2010! Team Victorious Secret of Good-Dog Sports finished 4th! Everyone did a great job and contributed to the outcome! Tali ran great - we had no teeter issues (hooray) but a few popped weaves at the 10th and 11th poles. She ran clean in terms of no off courses (except one caused by the popped weave pole) so that was great. Already looking forward to DACOF next year! Up next is AKC agility in Perry next weekend! Hopefully we'll get a few Q's but more importantly we'll be sure and have fun!

Groovy's progress

2010-06-21T23:09:00.000-04:00

I haven't talked all that much about Groovy lately and that's because she's been going through a bad period. Since about February she's been really scared of stuff again. We had highs and lows in Feb and March but April and May were just full of lows and "just OK". In April she did really well one day at a disc dog competition however the next day she freaked out completely. Other than agility class I made a point to not take her anywhere major to kind of let her brain reset. In May Jack tried taking her to that same park the competition was at but with no one around and she couldn't handle it at all. In agility class she did OK but not great. The past several classes I've had to pull her out of her crate in the car to go - but she does OK once we are there. I started to get really concerned which prompted me to do some research online about homeopathic treatments for dogs with fear and stress. One of the first things I read about was supplementing with Vitamin B complex. I recalled hearing that from a woman on a aussie health list a long while back and so I thought I'd give it a try. It's something I had around the house already and it's water soluble so why not. Groovy's been on it about 3 weeks now I think. Whether or not it is the reason for our recent progress I'm not sure but I do have a different dog on my hands lately! I've noticed more confidence around the house... she wasn't getting spooked by noises in the yard as easily. Two weeks ago when our friend Allison came over with her dog Kicker that we were dog sitting she did really well with her being here. This past Friday our friend Chris came over to practice disc with Jack and Groovy did really well with him too - she even played frisbee WITH him. Saturday I took her to Sally's house and she got out of the car right away, walked in like she owned the place and was happy to greet Sally and Kathryn. She's only been there once and that was a year ago. She played disc with Jack in Sal's yard and did a little agility too! On Sunday we had a fathers day gathering at my mom and dad's and since my brother and his kids couldn't make it I decided to take her along. She did pretty good. She warmed up to my sister right away, to my brother in law after a while and sort of warmed up to my teenage nephews later on. The big win of the evening though was that she'd play the entire time. Sure she was eyeing them up suspicious of their next move but she'd chase frisbees and balls that they'd throw. She begged food from them and did tricks for food during dinner. She just wasn't all that sure about them when they moved around but overall did really good for not knowing them at all and the behavior I saw was more typical of aussie adolescent angst that I've seen before.

So... hopefully this is a new leaf we are turning over. I know I've said before it's 1 step forward 2 steps back with her but this sort of feels like maybe we are doing 2 or 3 steps forward and maybe 1/2 or 1 step back. We shall see...

In other good and related news her disc drive has increased A LOT over the past 1-2 months. Jack is REALLY enjoying playing with her in the yard and she's got some neat moves they are working on (some of which can be seen in the video I posted the other day).

So hum, burn incense, pray and keep your fingers crossed we continue heading the right direction!

Aging friends...

2010-06-18T23:53:00.000-04:00

Tali is such a good girl... she's a completely different dog than when she arrived here. Gosh I guess that was... 5 years ago or so! I swear she had been punished for putting toys in her mouth before getting her because everytime I'd pick one up around her she'd turn her away from it - very much an avoidance behavior. Now she's a disc dog and a pretty darn good one especially if one factors in her beginnings!

At the end of May Jack and Tali competed at Freedom Weekend Aloft in South Carolina. They were already qualified for Freestyle but we like the competition and wanted to get Ruckus qualified in toss n fetch so we went. Rucky did get an alternate spot so that was cool. Tali and Jack just did OK. I think they finished in the top 15. Certainly not either of them's best but not horrible either.

Last weekend we competed at Florida States. Jack and Tali finished in 11th in freestyle for the 3rd time at that event I think - they placed 9th in toss n fetch. Again not their best but not horrible. Jack messed up his opening and closing but the middle was really nice. My encouragement and recommendation to Jack was that he had all summer to figure out his routine and get it down pat so that he and Tali both would know what to do whether it was hot or cold, they were nervous or not. He's got a routine but he's constantly tinkering with it. That's admirable because you want to push yourself to be better but with two big competitions coming up in September it's time to get the sucker nailed down.

With all of that said though Jack started going back and looking at Tali's freestyle videos from years past. A few lessons learned there! 1 - They have both come a long way. 2 - Jack has improved a lot. 3 - Tali has slowed down a lot and doesn't get near the height she used to. That last tidbit is kind of depressing... I mean yes she is getting older and that's to be expected but she's only 6. Her athleticism scores haven't gone down - in fact they've gone up over the years but I suspect that is because she is more focused, drivey and accurate now than she was before. While she may not be flashy and big air she can catch almost any toss with any spin at any angle practically and turns on a dime to adjust for them. It was just sad to see though how much more conservative she is now with her speed and height. We knew her speed was down because she's not getting to the 2nd disc on several of his 2 disc throws lately but we didn't really realize how much slower and we didn't remember that she had height at one point. I guess since it was never big air we didn't notice. Overall in the larger scheme of things this is not a tragedy and it's something Jack just needs to adjust for, but it just is no fun when you first start seeing signs of aging on your dog. She's still got a long life ahead and plenty of playing time to come (God willing) so we aren't freaking out or anything... just adjusting to our little smack of reality we just got. She does have that one bad hip and that could be a factor as well. A trip is planned for the doggy chiro sometime in July and who knows... maybe we'll see a new dog after that though she doesn't seem to be in pain but you just can't ever be sure with dogs. In any case in another 3 months we'll have 3 veteran dogs in the house... with that said though Ruckus seems to be doing great (he and I placed 4th in intermediate TNF last weekend!) and Mickie is hanging in there and plays toss n fetch in the yard most everyday. Most folks wouldn't guess that they are 10 and 11 years old.

Below are some pics from the last two competitions... we love that Tali girl! Next weekend... DACOF (agility)! We are running on our own team this year - Good-Dog Sports Victorious Secret! It's Sal, Bev, Sarah, Gary, Brenton and Kathryn. Should be a lot of fun!!

The photo above was taken by Steven Donahue at Freedom Weekend Aloft - thanks Steve!

Freedom Weekend

Florida States 2010

Also, one last thing - BIG congrats to Gary and Fergie for winning Florida States!

Groovy Disc Doggin'

2010-06-14T21:55:00.000-04:00

Here's a video of Groovy and Jack practicing last night. She's really doing very well with her disc skills! Now we just have to get her to be brave enough and willing to play the game in front of other people!

Groovy Disc Doggin'

CPE Nationals

2010-06-04T16:56:00.000-04:00

June 25-27th Tali and I attended CPE Agility Nationals in Kissimmee, FL. We had a fun time hanging out with some agility friends during and after the event! I don't attend agility trials that require an overnight stay all that often. There really is no reason to since there is so much local agility and we travel for disc dogging quite a bit. This competition was drivable but our friend Andrea offered to share her room for the weekend and Tali and I took her up on it! That was really nice to only have to drive 10 minutes to the event and back. Razzy (Andrea's BC) wasn't thrilled to share her space with Tali but Finnegan (her Papillon) was very happy to hang with us. He's such a cutie... I definitely have to get a Pap someday!

As for the actual agility portion of the weekend... we had a lot of fun and did quite well! 7 out of 9 Q's and 1 placement in standard! Tali ran very well in that environment and she and I had a fun time just hanging out with each other - no other siblings attempting to steal time away!

The event was really well organized. We got a GREAT goodie bag when we arrived - LOTS of good treats and some toys. Shopping the vendors was a lot of fun too!

Overall I give the weekend a big thumbs up! I doubt I'll go again next year - I believe it'll be somewhere WAY up north but I'm glad we got to go this year!

This is a picture of Tali during one of the down times at nationals - like I said - she was quite happy there! We'll be attending DACOF at the same location at the end of June - I'm looking forward to that quite a bit!

Purina Incredible Dog Challenge - Eastern Regional

2010-05-27T16:41:00.000-04:00

I started this entry about a month ago but just haven't gotten around to finishing and posting it... I finished writing it a week or so back and wanted to wait until I got home to post so I could include pictures. Apparently I am incapable of remembering that once I am home so I'm gonna go ahead and post this without pics cause I'm really far behind!

April 16th and 17th we spent at the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge - Eastern Regional. We had a lot of fun as it is a great event and they treat the competitors really well.

Friday was just practice for those teams that were invited and a try out for those teams who were looking to earn a spot for Saturday's competition. I was really pretty worried about how Tali would do with the environment. Big crowd, camera guys on the field, etc. Friday was not near as crazy as Saturday - small crowd, no camera guys, etc. Tali did OK... a little slow and not too drivey but not bad overall. Our friends Chris and Chuck earned spots for the competition Saturday so that was very cool.

Saturday was a much busier day and it was a lot of fun watching the other dogs and handlers in agility, dock diving and Jack Russell racing. I took pics during each event and was pretty happy with the results. Steve Donahue let me try out the Canon 300mm lens that he rents for these events. NICE lens. Someday when I win the lotto I'll have to pick that one up!

As for Tali and Jack... Tali did really well! She didn't care at all about the cameras or the camera guys. She had nice speed and drive for her. Jack did really well too. He did a good job interacting with the crowd at the beginning and end of his routine and did a great job with his tosses. He was the last to go and the wind kicked up for his round which messed them up a little but not too bad. They ended up coming in 4th overall which is about what we expected. Donna Schoech and Diva came in 1st, Preston Dean and Sienna 2nd, Mark Muir and Rocket 3rd, Jack and Tali 4th, Chris Engel and Kota 5th and Chuck Hensley and Rico 6th. The only negative part was that it was pretty evident that Tali is not a Purina type of dog. The crowd oohs and ahhs over large vaults, big leaps and fast running for long bombs. Tali does none of those things... one of the drawbacks of her lack of insaneness for the disc but hey - she has come SO far and has taken us so many more places than we would have ever predicted that it's OK with us. She's such a good girl. She plays this game because we ask her to and she plays it well! She really is a very versatile dog. Not an MVA type of dog mind you but a versatile one none the less! We love her so much and are so proud of her and all that she's accomplished thus far!

Tali is a rockstar!

2010-04-14T17:29:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was the Skyhoundz Southeast Regional Qualifier. Always a great competition and we always have a good time. Jack has been fortunate enough to qualify every year we've attended. In 2006 with Ruckus in distance and accuracy, in 2007 Gary and Bayer in Pairs freestyle (and then qualified at the Open qualifier with Ruckus in microdog freestyle - placing 2nd at Worlds), in 2008 with both Tali and Ruckus in distance and accuracy and with Gary and Bayer in Pairs FS and finally in 2009 with Tali in distance and accuracy and Gary and Bayer in Pairs. Fortunate is actually even an understatement considering only the top 4 go in D&A and FS and only the top 2 in Pairs FS. Not to meniton the southeast is FULL of talent in both D&A and Freestyle.

This year Skyhoundz changed the rules to make room for a new youth division. Only the top 3 freestyle and D&A teams would be moving on. This got us a little worried though Jack had never finished below 3rd in D&A in the years he qualified for it. As it was, we never expected he'd be able to make the top 4 in freestyle much less the top 3 considering he hadn't even made the cut to a 2nd round at a Skyhoundz event though he came close to the cut last year.

Well... on Saturday it was pretty windy and a lot of the competitors had trouble with the wind. Jack considers the wind his nemesis so he was pretty nervous about it. He just hasn't gotten to the point yet that he can think about where the wind is coming from and adjust accordingly all while remembering his routine and getting his disc placement just right. He and Tali went out there though and had a good round in round 1. Not their best ever by any means but apparently good enough because they made the cut and were #1 going into the 2nd round. We were SHOCKED! Happy but shocked!

Next came the D&A round that goes towards the overall freestyle score. Jack was nervous again because of the wind but he managed to sail the discs right down the middle of the field. He and Tali came away with a decent round of D&A of 13.5 points. Not their best but hopefully enough when all was said and done.

Then it was on to the 2nd round of Freestyle. Jack and Tali went out there and rocked it - probably one of their best competition rounds I've seen. Not perfect by any means but still quite good considering the wind. Tali was on too - very drivey and focused. Would it be enough though to stay in the top 3? We had high hopes and sure enough - they not only made the top 3 they won the whole darn thing! Woo hoo! Definitely not an expected outcome but certainly a very exciting one!

Day 2 of the weekend was the Pairs Freestyle and D&A qualifier. Jack, Gary and Bayer did awesome in their round and came away with 1st place. If they can do as good as that at Worlds they have a real shot at the podium! We will all have our fingers crossed for that! New this year though was Jack joining our friend Chris Engel and his dog Kota as a pairs team. Chris lives about 1.5 hours north of us so it's hard for them to get together and practice but they managed to a few times. I personally didn't expect them to qualify this year however Kota must have because she was a catching fool and did a great job - the best ever for her in their pairs routine and they actually qualified after having to do a 10 second tie-breaker against our good friends Bob and Colleen Heygi who have qualified in previous years.

As for D&A... again the wind was tough and the cut off for the top 6 was 11 points or something close to that. Pretty bad... Tali and Jack managed to make the cut and land in 3rd going into round 2 however they only got 2 points in their 2nd round so no qualifying spot for them this year. The wind was pushing the discs down at the last minute and Tali just wasn't kicking it into gear to snag them for some reason. Oh well... no big deal... she more than pulled her weight on Saturday and pulled off a very unexpected win so we'll cut her some slack about D&A! :) Ruckus tried for a spot as well but the wind and such just wasn't working in his favor and he didn't make the cut. I'm sure that we'll try again at the open qualifier with them both but we won't be holding our breath on that one - SOOOO many teams compete at the last chance qualifier - it makes it tough but we'll see!

All in all it was an awesome weekend! Couldn't have asked for more and couldn't be more thrilled. Now we have to gear up for the upcoming weekend - the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge! That should be a ton of fun and certainly the win last weekend takes some of the pressure off of this weekend coming up. The goal for this weekend is to just get out there and have some fun in front of the crowd as a "celebration" of their win from last weekend. Whatever happens with the placements happens... they will just enjoy the moment in the process!

Here are some pics of Jack and Tali from the weekend. I'll likely post later tonight or tomorrow with Pairs photos and videos from last weekend so stay tuned!

Groovy Girl Update

2010-03-24T17:23:00.000-04:00

Figured I'd do a Groovy only update...

Disc work: She's doing great. She really loves to play and that's what she wants to do most when we are at home. If we are in motion in the house in any way and make any motion towards the front door she runs and stands there looking at you like "I'm ready to play - you wanna?". It's so cute and just what we wanted in our next dog. Yesterday was agility class day so she wasn't allowed to practice disc like the rest of the dogs. She was pretty upset about that and snuck out the door twice running into the front field to play. The first time she came back voluntarily. The second time however I think she had figured out she wasn't playing that day so there was no volunteering to come back. It was Jack who let her out so it was Jack who got to wrangle her back in. He told me that by the time he got out there (he had to put shoes on first) she was way out in the cow pasture. That used to be a problem - her going after the cows - but for the past month or two she has chosen disc over cows every time. The problem still comes when we aren't out there to play disc... she opts for cows. Anyway... she was WAY out in the cow pasture just running (no cows around this time). Jack said he grabbed two discs and clapped them together and the moment he did she came haulin' butt back to him. Very cool. It'd be nice if she responded to her name that way but alas... we'll get there someday!

As for her disc skills... she's doing much better about not circling as bad. She can now stop in front of you and wait for the next move. This seems like a small thing but seriously... she would get started circling and never stop. She's like a shark or something that way (or worse yet - a Border Collie :) ). She's getting the hang of butterflies and catching the disc at varying angles and spins. I think she'll likely never be as accurate and agile as Tali is. Tali can read the discs so well and adjust her speed and direction very quickly to get the disc. Groovy is more of a freight train and can't adjust her body as quick - however she is still under a year old and seems to be getting better. She's faster than Tali that is for sure, so disc placement is more important in terms of getting them in front of her - whereas Tali you just don't want to get them too far ahead of her. It's definitely a different game with Groovy and Jack is really enjoying learning ways to work the differences. Below is a video of her from this past weekend.

As soon as she conquers or at least gets a lot better with her fear of people in public and she'll be ready to compete in toss n fetch. Fingers crossed that her disc drive is going to start overriding her fear stuff.

Agility:
Groovy is doing very well. Our weak areas are stay, weaves, men near by and loud unexpected noises. Stay - we are working on. Weaves - well we are starting to work on them. She isn't quite yet a year yet after all. Men and noises... well we've been working on that from day 1. She's playing tug a lot more in class now and if she does freak herself out seems to be able to recover better. Her teeter the other night was quite good considering what a scary obstacle that has been for her in the past due to the loud noise it emits. Overall I'm pleased with her progress considering her age. In another month or so I'll (get this) "decide to assume" that her growth plates are closed and start getting more serious about weaves, jumping, etc. She'll be 1 on April 2nd so I think it's a pretty safe assumption. I really want to get her hips pre-limmed (and thus know her growth plate status) but I can't imagine that whole process will do anything to bolster her confidence about strangers so I haven't done it yet.

All in all the kiddo is doing well... of course as always it's a few steps forward and a couple back but we are indeed making progress and having fun along the way.

CPE weekend

2010-03-19T14:19:00.002-04:00

Last weekend Tali and I went to a CPE trial in Groveland. We had a lot of fun. She Q'd 3 out of 5 on Saturday and 3 out of 4 on Sunday. Her weaves rocked all weekend! We NQ'd in Jackpot due to time (I mis-judged the timing in the opening - grrr) and it was a traditional gamble to boot - oh well. We NQ'd in standard due to a teeter issue and a tunnel vortex. I forgot what we NQ'd in on Sunday... oh she went under the tire and then back jumped it in colors. Oh well... the teeter issue is troublesome - the tunnel vortex is just lack of practice. I'm still pretty happy about the weaves though!

Groovy came along both days. She and I had a fun time playing frisbee in the field on Saturday - she did really great. She wasn't comfortable going too close to the rings so we took it easy and stayed where she was comfortable. On Sunday Jack came and met some of the disc dog guys to practice. Jam came too! She did pretty good practicing in the field - for Jam anyway. Groovy totally wigged out about there being people in the field that was empty yesterday but after watching Tali play a little frisbee with Jack she snapped out of it and played with him though a good distance away from the strange men. She did awesome though. She was a little braver walking around the trial site and even took cookies from our friend Sherri. Hopefully soon she'll get a little braver and be ready to compete a little in toss n fetch. We shall see...

The time changed on Sunday - woo hoo! I've been tired all week but it's totally worth it to have it be lighter later. Groovy and I have practiced agility twice already this week (normally that practice only occurs on Sat. and Sun. due to lack of light) and Jack has had some really great sessions with all the dogs including Maximo. Max is learning quickly and his drop at a distance is coming along - he can drop it about 4 feet out now which is a huge improvement. He is really getting the hang of some of the vaults too! We tried the "Ron Watson barrel" vault training method with him... the little weirdo refuses to get on the barrel. So much for that! Jam however thinks the barrel is awesome and in just a few days her vaulting off of Jack's body has improved tremendously. Vaults and skip tosses are her favorite disc moves I think. She's so silly. Meanwhile Groovy is becoming the queen of zig zags which is also a big accomplishment because for a while we couldn't get her to stop herding us and were starting to think that her whole routine in the future would have to be nothing but around the worlds! Tali now has somewhat of an opening "routine" - something Jack's never bothered with before. Nothing fancy but it's something that will help fire her up so that's a bonus!

This weekend we don't have much planned. Some disc practice with our friend Chris, dinner with Jack's family, church on Sunday and that's about it. Then next weekend we have a UFO local - woo hoo!

USDDN Fun N The Sun

2010-03-08T16:45:00.006-05:00

This past Saturday our disc dog club held a USDDN qualifier. Kind of a small event for a qualifying event but that doesn't take away from the fun! It was pretty windy and that impacted almost everyone's game, including Jack's of course. He did well on his first round with Tali and well on his toss n fetch round with her however he tried to alter his routine on the 2nd round to account for the wind and very quickly found himself in a mess so half way through he just quit trying and was laughing his way through it. Needless to say it was his worst freestyle in a long time! The good news is that almost everyone seemed to have similar problems and thus despite his issues he and Tali still qualified for USDDN finals in freestyle. They almost qualified in toss n fetch as well and that was with Jack throwing short tosses to build Tali's confidence back up. Seems she is still a little spooked from her quad experience and wasn't going all out for the tosses but I think that last round of TNF and going short really helped. We plan to get her out several places between now and the UFO local to continue to rebuild her confidence.

Jack played with Maximo in freestyle just to give the little guy experience of doing freestyle in a competition environment. They have no routine and certainly don't have several of the elements required of USDDN freestyle but it was all for fun and for experience. Max did good in his first round (with a little bit of getting side tracked looking for french fries on the sideline) and great in his 2nd round. Jack made a point to keep him more engaged and reward him with tugging in that round. Even with his modified freestyle Maximo was a crowd favorite. He had a lot of folks coming up to him telling him how cute he was and such. He was eating it up! He's a cool little dog! My mom, dad, Aunt Barbara, sister, brother in law and nephews all came out to the competition and got to see him play. He's got quite the little fan club going! It's really going to be fun to see Jack and Max grow as a team as Maximo plays so much different than our other dogs. He'll definitely teach Jack as much or more as Jack teaches him!

On a Groovy note... I brought her along this weekend and made a point to take time to be there for her and work through some of her fear. There were definitely points where she didn't want to come out of her crate but she was never shaking like at the Challenge. I had planned to even crate her out of the car but she seemed to be doing well so kept her at the tent. Towards the last part of the day I took her out and played some disc with her on the side and she did great. After the competition was over Jack did the same and again she did great. I think she's gonna be alright in the long run... we just have to be patient and not overwhelm her. I also think I've figured out that she does better if her crate isn't covered. That way she can see what the noises are and not get so freaked out by them. It's a theory anyway... we'll see if it holds true.

This weekend coming up Tali and I have a CPE trial. Groovy will be along for the ride. It's a really small trial and at the same location where we herd so I'm betting she'll do well but we'll still take it all in in very small doses.

Purina bound!

2010-03-05T16:22:00.002-05:00

Jack got awesome news this week! He and Tali were invited to compete at the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge - Eastern Regional! It will be held in St. Pete, FL April 16-17. I am so proud of them and how far they've come!!

Seminar/Challenge/AWI/Quad weekend Part 2

2010-03-02T17:04:00.003-05:00

OK... so we covered all the awesome news about Tali... now on to the rest of us.

Friday's seminar with Ron Watson and Apryl Lea - We had a great time. It was really cool to have disc dog training in a format that I'm used to learning dog stuff. Up till now so much of disc dog training has been "figure it out yourself". I find it kind of nice to have someone actually talk about in depth foundation training, etc. Of course coming from an agility background that's what I'm used to so it makes sense that part of the seminar would appeal to me. Jack isn't the best student in the world (teachers often are not) but he enjoyed it very much and we both learned a lot. Jack worked Tali in the seminar and I worked Max. I did play with Groovy during down time and she did quite well. Very focused on me and the disc and considering I was playing in a sheep pasture filled with sheep treats I was pretty happy about that!

Exciting side note!!! In a change of events... Maximo is staying! Mom had a change of heart the Thursday before we left for Orlando. She wants to give it a go with Max. They are going to fence in their yard which should help get him some exercise without him having to be leash walked for it. Hopefully this works out well for them, for Max and for us too. It's very exciting to see Jack work frisbee with Max. It'll take a while for them to become competitive for various reasons 1) he doesn't live with us and they only get to work together 2-3 days per week 2) Max has some foundation stuff to learn (like "drop") but he gets better every session. Someday though I think they will be a very competitive team.

Challenge/Quad: Max did OK with me in toss n fetch. While he is a freestyle maniac he loses focus in distracting environments in toss n fetch. Nothing that can't be overcome and he was getting better as the weekend progressed. I played with Max in the quad. We don't really have any timing down so we didn't do all that well but we did get a 34 yard catch and that isn't too bad. He was a good boy all weekend and the girls (Tali, Jam and Groovy) ended up loving him by the time the weekend was over.

Groovy - Groovy did great on Friday as I mentioned. I didn't work her in the seminar as I thought it'd be too much on her not to mention she isn't really old enough to be doing a lot of the disc dog stuff. She did do great the times I did play with her. Her focus and drive are really coming along nicely. We learned several tidbits at the seminar that will help us in our training with her and I'm already seeing a difference in her since then. Groovy also did great at the hotel (minus a few minus of slipping her leash and not wanting to come back - giving me a heart attack because she went both near a pond - think gator bait - and near a road at 10pm at night). She slept well, she did well with the hallways, elevators, strangers with just a few woofs here or there. Groovy did not do well at the competition site however. Saturday morning she got out of the car all happy and seemed quite normal walking over to the tent. A couple of hours later I went to get her out of the crate to walk her and have her meet my aunt who came to watch. She was huddling in the back corner shaking. Not good and I have no idea what set her off as her crate was covered and it was Jack on the sound system. It might have been a barking dog in the next tent but who knows. She had done so well at the Canis Majors in November I thought we had made it over this hurdle but I guess it's 2 steps forward 1 step back... or maybe 1 step forwards and 2 steps back some days. After I did get her out of the crate I let her spend the rest of the day crated in the car which she was much happier about. When I walked her I kept her away from the crowd and she did fine. She even played some frisbee with me later that night as Jack was helping pack up the club stuff. I was impressed again with her drive and focus - but mind you - there were maybe only 15 people left and there were quite a ways away - but you got to start somewhere. Interestingly enough she was "normal" back at the hotel that night. Sunday we didn't even get her out much - again she was crated in the car and was very happy about that. We just walked her a time or two and kept her at a distance. This weekend we have a competition that's local. I'm going to bring her but I'm going to keep her crated in the car and I plan to make a point of walking her, rewarding for confidence and playing disc as close to the competition as she is comfortable. We'll see what happens. She really is at the age where aussies generally get spooky about stuff... the "problem" with Groovy is that she's been spooky on and off since she was 11 weeks old. Last weekend aside I think we are making progress and I really see her drive for the disc increasing every week so I'm sure that will help when we can play in some of these places that scare her.

Speaking of drive increasing... I played disc with her Monday night. Jack usually gets home first and gets to play disc with her on the weekdays. Well he had to work late so I got home first. I didn't feel well and was missing her agility class so I made a point to at least get her out for a few minutes to get the beans out. WOW! We had an awesome session! Here's a pic of her from Sunday - she turned 11 months old on Tuesday!

Ron Watson seminar/CFDDC Challenge/AWI Qualifier/Quad weekend - Tali

2010-02-26T16:24:00.005-05:00

By the title it looks like we had a busy weekend last weekend... and well we did! Busy but fun!

I started to write a whole weekend wrap up but found it to be too long and cumbersome as one post so I am going to break it down by doing one post (this one) that focuses on Tali's weekend and then another one that focuses on the other 3 dogs that went with us and our experiences.

Friday was a disc dog seminar with Ron Watson and Apryl Lea of Pawsitive Vybe. What a great experience. More on that in the next entry. Tali was kind of a putz (in other words distracted and not drivey) at the seminar but we really didn't work the dogs much at all so it was OK.

Saturday was the CFDDC Challenge and AWI qualifier (Ashley Whippet Invitational)... Jack hoped they'd do well but didn't really figure they'd be able to make the top 5 considering who all we knew was coming to the competition. For their freestyle round Jack wasn't at the top of his game (he was sick with a sinus infection and had been all week). He didn't get off a few of his tricks and sort of fumbled a few others but none in a way that caused bad tosses or dropped discs. In fact several folks complimented him afterwards and we both were kinda like "???" BUT I guess when they don't know the routine by heart like Jack and I know his you don't really know what was missing! As for Tali's portion of the routine... she was on fire! She was drivey, focused and accurate. The best I've seen her do yet I think. Jack and I both felt really great about that but still didn't figure they had finished in the top 5. Tali definitely carried the team though and in the end they actually ending up placing 5th in the AWI qualifier! We were shocked to say the least! Below is a pic of Jack with the other qualifiers... Congrats go out to Danny Venegas and Jumpin' Jack, Gary Duke and Bayer, Angela Ewtushik and Rally, Donna Schoech and Diva. And also there is another pic of Tali during freestyle that day.

Sunday was the quad. Ruckus is on R&R for a bum back right leg (recurring injury spot) so Jack had to choose between playing Maximo and playing Tali. Max hasn't really practiced the long bombs with Jack so Jack played with Tali even though the Quad has never really been her thing. As is normal for her in the quad she wasn't driving to get the discs and as such had a lot of misses. In her 1st round with Jack he just had to play safe to move on and that worked out fine, but when he needed her to go longer she just wouldn't kick it in high gear. She was the same way with me last year though we still managed to make it to the finals. It's strange since the quad field is so wide and there is hardly any crowds on the sidelines. She can do regular D&A in a more crowded environment just fine so there must be some sort of vibe going on at the quad that makes it feel different for her. Who knows... no big deal though as neither Jack nor I have the distance in our arms to win our divisions anyway! It's just a lot of fun to play and especially to listen to the trash talk! :)

Sooo... overall a great weekend for Tali. I'm really anxious to see the day when both Jack and Tali are "on" at the same time during freestyle and see them play in a competition like I see them play at home all the time. That hasn't happened yet but someday when the planets align just right it should be quite the thing of beauty! :) Oh - and of course Jack is already tweaking their routine with stuff he learned at the seminar. That should be fun to see the outcome of as well!

Bad blogger indeed...

2010-02-17T15:27:00.003-05:00

Been MIA for a while... I guess that means nothing major to report. Tali and I have done some trialing in CPE and USDAA. We got a new dogwalk the other day! Woo hoo! That'll be nice to have. Next piece of equipment to get is a table I think. Table issues killed us one day at USDAA.

Groovy's been doing good in agility class. She kinda sucks at collection work. She CAN do it - just doesn't come natural to her like it does Tali. Then again she is SO long in the body she isn't really built for it. Her disc drive is increasing! We still have to get the message across that the best thing about disc is catching it vs. just running with it while it flies but that'll come.

This month mom and dad got a new dog - a rat terrier/cattle dog mix. His name is Maximo. Unfortunately he has proved to be too much dog for them so he's looking for a disc dog home. He's a great dog though - wonderful disc drive and athleticism. I wish Jack and I could keep him but I don't think he and Ruckus would get along. And really he needs a home that has more time for him than we do with working full time and having 5 dogs already. It'll suck to get beat by whoever takes him though - he has every ability to be a top level disc dog. We will miss the little dude for sure.

This weekend coming up we have a big disc dog event. The CFDDC Challenge and Quad and on Friday we'll be attending a disc dog seminar with Ron Watson. Should be lots of fun. Will post with our results after the weekend!

Here are some favorite pics from the past month...

Love is in the air!

2010-01-09T01:57:00.003-05:00

Not sure why - but Ruckus has been a big fan of Jam lately. Maybe Groovy is starting to smell like a real girl vs. a puppy girl and he just hopes its Jam and not Groovy! LOL

Mickie Moo

2010-01-02T14:19:00.002-05:00

I love Mickie! She doesn't get much mention on Facebook or the blog since she is retired but oh how I love this dog. I was getting some pictures off of Jack's camera and came across this one I had forgotten he had taken back in October. Mickie is the best snuggler in the world and has always been super in tune with me about knowing when I need a snuggle. It'd be nice if she didn't have sand people eyes in the pic - but I still love this picture just the same!

Finally going to register my dog!

2009-12-30T13:41:00.004-05:00

I figure its about time to get Groovy registered with ASCA (and Jam too for that matter - though most of the delay with her was the breeder not me). As a result I have to take some pictures. You'd think that'd be easy considering how addicted to taking pictures of dogs I am... but taking pictures of them stacked from the sides and the front isn't my idea of fun so it hasn't gotten done. Two out of 3 angles were successful yesterday with Groovy. Still have to get acceptable photos of Groovy from the front and Jam from all sides. Below are the two "good" ones. I definitely should never show in conformation!

And an action shot for good measure!

MIA!

2009-12-29T01:28:00.005-05:00

Where the heck have I been? Sometimes I'm not even sure. Basically though the past 3-4 weeks have been pretty insane. First my mom's dog AJ passed away at too young of an age due to heart failure (Ruckus' half brother). Very painful for all of us. Then my dad got a bacterial infection in his blood and landed in the hospital. Got sort of better and came home then quickly landed back in the hospital again. He had surgery on 12/23 and finally came home this past Sunday. Needless to say that leaves little time or wanting for me to blog. It does however remind me how important family is! Also my Facebook "family" was tremendously supportive with prayers and good thoughts... all were much appreciated.

The dogs hung in there... between lack of daylight and our crazy schedule they haven't gotten loads of attention but still have gotten enough.

Tali has trialed quite a bit lately. At a CPE trial earlier in Dec. she Q'd 9 out of 9 runs - all in level 4 or 5. She finished as the runner up in the Super Sport division of our Canis Major competition. Recently she finished her Novice Std title and Open Jumpers title in ASCA. A great month for her overall!

Jam - is well Jam. An awesome pet and occasionally a good performance dog. Maybe someday she'll want to do more but we'll see. Like I said though - she's a great pet and excels at that job! :)

Mickie and Ruckus are aging with dignity. Ruckus still goes all out for his discs - I have to remind Jack that the boy is 9.5 years old and to take it easy sometimes. Mickie is a wonderful snuggle bug and constant couch companion. She'll be 11 soon - hard to believe.

Groovy is... well... most often lately we call her "Destructo Dog". She continually finds new ways to get into trouble. I remind Jack that difficult puppies often make wonderful adults (Mickie is our case in point). We'll just keep our fingers crossed that is actually true. She is doing well in agility class and we've started herding recently and she's quite the natural. We are still working through some fear issues but she is slowly doing better.

Well that kinda catches us up... below are some of my favorite pics from December.

Herding photo by Sarah Duke

Tali NA, NAJ!

2009-11-11T21:32:00.004-05:00

This past weekend Tali and I went to our first AKC trial in a while. Going into the weekend we needed 1 standard leg and 2 JWW legs to finish those two novice titles. We also were entered in FAST for the first time as a team. Well it was a great weekend! We went 4 for 5! On Saturday Tali Q'd and got 1st in FAST, Q'd and got 3rd in JWW. Our standard run was OK - a super slow down on the table and a missed aframe contact (which is a first) kept us from Q'ing. Sunday was a great day - Tali Q'd and got 1st in JWW and also in standard! Woo hoo! Standard was really nice too - one of those runs that felt good the whole way through. Thanks to my friends Sarah and Bev for videoing for me and for Sal and Bev sticking around to watch Tali earn her NA title!

Groovy Girl

2009-10-23T16:50:00.002-04:00

I haven’t really talked in depth about how Groovy is doing in a little while so before I forget to chronicle some of the stuff that’s been going on I better do that. This whole blog thing has come in handy for being able to look back and see how she was acting at various times in her life so far.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago she has re-entered some sort of fear period. It’s right on time for her age – though her last one was not “textbook” in its timing – it was late. It started the day we left for Skyhoundz (Sept. 24th). An hour into the trip I got her out of the car at a stop we made and she started woofing at a man across the parking lot. That was new. Then at the competition she got freaked out a few times and at the hotel she’d woof at people on and off. We missed agility class that week due to me not feeling well. The following weekend we had a trial down at Palmetto and as I mentioned she did OK on Saturday but didn’t even want to leave her crate on Sunday. Hmmm… That Monday in class she was scared of the teeter noise and of the chute noise but otherwise was happy to be there and to see everyone. She did pretty well on our road trip to USDDN. A few freaked out moments but more “good” moments than bad and she even played a little disc off to the side with Jack and had a blast herding ducks. When I walked her I walked her with Mickie who LOVES every person she has ever met – I think that helped Groovy be more confident. Monday night in class however was a bit of a disaster. She was good at first – happy to be there and see everyone. We did a lowered dog walk twice and she liked that. Our first “station” however was next to the teeter bang game and that did it. The first bang came and she wigged out. Wouldn’t play with toys at all anymore and would barely take food within 20 feet of the teeter. She would take food further away and did well on the stations where the reward was food but would not play with her toys at all. I left feeling really down and out. Luckily the next session doesn’t start till 11/2 so we don’t have to go back and continue experiencing that and I have a little time to work on the issues away from class.

This past weekend was a CPE trial up in Groveland. I took Groovy along on Saturday. Jack came too. I only walked her by the ring 2 or 3 times and she did well. She woofed at a few people but would eat treats from them and be happy about them after that. She’d play disc with Jack in the field and did pretty good considering there was sheep poop all over the field. So as to ensure we ended on a good note I left her at home on Sunday.

Yesterday Groovy stayed the day at Sarah’s while we were at work then afterwards we went to Bev’s to work on Groovy’s teeter issues. Groovy was cautious in Sarah’s backyard and got spooked by a folded up patio table umbrella in the neighbor’s yard. She sort of got over it. She was willing to play disc a little so that was good. At Bev’s she started off quite scared of the teeter noise (had another dog working the teeter while Groovy and I stood 20 or so feet away from it). After some time and rewarding with cheese by the end of our time there she was making the teeter bang herself (it was raised about 10” and she’d put her feet on it to make it go down). Hooray! She enjoyed playing with Kate and trying to play with VooDoo. We’ll be returning to continue working on that. In the mean time I found some YouTube videos of dogs playing the teeter bang game on aluminum teeters. I think I’ll play those at random (and loudly) while she is playing with the other dogs in the house. Not sure if it’ll help but I figure it can’t hurt.

At home she freaks herself out on occasion – not sure at what but she finds something to be scared of and bark at for a few minutes and once the other dogs get all upset, go investigate and find nothing out of line she eventually calms down. I figure I’ll just let her work through that stuff on her own… that’s pretty normal for her age… even Jam went through some of that around this same age.

The good news about Groovy is that her disc drive is growing daily and she can catch and return 10-12 yard throws on occasion. The other day she caught two in a row! She’s so funny – when Jack or I come in from working a dog in the front yard Groovy runs to the back door and stands there staring at us with this look of “OK – it’s my turn!”. She doesn’t get it isn’t her turn EVERY time one of us comes in though we’re so thrilled by her excitement we do indulge her much of the time but are always certain to end each session with her wanting more (which sometimes means she gets carried in the house because she doesn’t want to come in yet). We even played disc with Groovy in the front field last Sunday without her being on a long line and it went quite well! Last time she was out there not on a long line she went and found her own fun so her listening skills and willingness to work with us are increasing too! Below is a link to some photos of her playing "long line free" in the front field!

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/GroovyFrisbee101809#

USDDN Finals

2009-10-19T22:17:00.002-04:00

The weekend before last we drove up to Cartersville, GA for USDDN finals. Tali was qualified with Jack in freestyle and in D&A with me. Ruckus was qualified in D&A with Jack. Groovy and Mickie came along for the ride and Jam stayed home with grandma for the first time.

The run down...

Tali and Jack finished the National Freestyle finals in 16th place out of 44 teams (the cut was at 15). We were pretty disappointed they didn't make the cut but oh well they did awesome regardless! Well the next morning we found out one dog had to withdraw due to illness (last I heard the dog was going to be fine) and so Jack and Tali made it into the finals. Another person dropped out after that and two more teams made it in so there were 16 teams competing in the international finals. Tali didn't have as strong of day on Sunday for the international finals but still managed to come in 14th place. Not bad for her!

Tali and I competed in the national D&A finals. I had no hopes or dreams of making the cut to the international finals - just was proud to have qualified and wanted to go out there and do my best. Well I met that goal for sure with a 15 in round 1 and an 18 in round 2! That put us 23rd out of 37 teams! I was very happy with that! Tali was awesome and caught everything I threw!

Ruckus and Jack had an awesome weekend. They came in 5th in National Toss N Fetch finals and 8th in International TNF Finals. Not bad for a 9.5 year old dog that is a good 3-5" shorter than most of the dogs competing in that division! :) Red Dogs Rule!

Groovy had a good time on Saturday when we tried our hand at duck herding! They had a little instinct test set up at the event. Groovy did great!

Below are links to videos from the weekend... enjoy!

Tali and Jack - National Finals Freestyle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4C8pqnhFmg

Jack and Ruckus - International Finals Toss N Fetch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Wct2HzhiI

Groovy herding ducks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dNZOVEtdb0

From USDAA to USDDN

2009-10-07T17:20:00.002-04:00

The dog world sure is full of acronyms... let's see how many I can fit in.

Last weekend I took my ASCA/AKC aussie to a USDAA agility trial to work on her AD and a Q for the DAM team "TRD" - we earned several Q's and a couple of NQ's. This weekend I am taking my ASCA/AKC aussie and my non ASCA/AKC aussie to USDDN in GA to compete in disc dog events that they Q'd for at previous USDDN events.

Or in English...

Tali and I had a great time at the agility trial last weekend where she did very well and did a good job of helping earn a qualifying score for her team "Tuff Red Dogs". She did not earn any qualifications for her Agility Dog title however but the team classes were more difficult than the regular classes so it's great she could run the harder courses clean.

This weekend coming up Tali, Ruckus, Jack and I will be competing at a disc dog finals event in Georgia. We all had to qualify at previous events in order to compete this weekend so it's kinda cool that I get to compete too!

In Groovy news... we have most definitely hit a full fledged fear period again so we are doing our best to work our way through it. She didn't do too bad at the trial on Saturday but was totally overwhelmed at the trial on Sunday. Hopefully the road trip this weekend won't be too much for her but I feel safer having her with me knowing what she is experiencing than leaving her home not knowing what she is experiencing. We shall see how it goes... maybe I'll get lucky and this will only be a 2 week fear period and she'll be over it by Friday?!? :) I'm not holding my breath...

Wow - I suck at blogging!

2009-10-02T16:50:00.002-04:00

:)

Well if you are a friend on Facebook then you know what I've been up to... if you aren't and you care what I've been up to lately - well join Facebook and read over my profile for the last few weeks! ;)

OK - just kidding (sort of) - here is a quick run down of the highlights.

Canis Major #1 - rained out twice - 2nd time produced some awesome dogs playing in puddles pics. http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/CanisMajor5InLakeOtisAndrew# One highlight was Groovy choosing to play disc with Jack for about 10 minutes instead of chasing dogs - and she was off leash!

Trip to Skyhoundz Worlds - Chattanooga, TN: (Facebook has a photoblog of the weekend)

Thursday - left for trip - took 4 dogs - Mickie stayed home with grandma. Groovy puked an hour into the trip but that was it for the whole weekend so maybe she's getting better about that. We stopped in Calhoun, Georgia for Groovy to try her hand at herding. Took her a while to catch on but she did good! We met Donna and Tony Padgett of Coosawattee Aussies - SUPER nice people. I should be able to post the video soon. It became apparent on the trip up that Groovy is re-entering a fear period which she is right on time for according to many books so not unexpected at all.

Friday - Open Qualifier - Tali kinda sucked - wouldn't drive towards any of the discs on one side of the field. Ended up placing 40th or something out of 60+ teams... far cry from last year's finish around 14th or so place. Oh well... even dogs are allowed to have bad days! Ruckus was a superstar - he was entered in Expert and Masters (for dogs 9 and over) D&A. In Expert he placed 15th out of 149 dogs. In Expert he placed 1st (out of a handful of dogs). The neat part is that had he had his 2nd rd 1st he would have made the cut for Expert and his total score would have put him in 2nd place in Expert and he would have qualified for Worlds in D&A. Not bad for a 9.5 year old dog.

Saturday - Freestyle Worlds - we weren't qualified so slept in late - by the time we got going they had already called the competition due to rain so we spent the day in the hotel and at Walmart. Went to the banquet that evening - very nice event as always!

Sunday - D&A Worlds (and the rest of Freestyle) - Tali again had an off day - she did well but dropped the disc on two returns in the 2nd round which is very unusual for her. This caused her and Jack to not get in a 5th throw which caused them to be 1 place out of the cut for the 3rd round. Overall she placed 13th - so not bad at all considering she was competing against the top D&A teams in the world (Skyhoundz World) and it let us head home early as the competition didn't end until 3 hours later (7 or 7:30pm).

Groovy's fear period kinda acclerated on Sunday and she totally freaked out when we walked her without another dog with us - if we had other dogs with us she was fine. Hope this fear period ends soon and with no emotional damage as she was doing SOOO good before it came on.

This weekend coming up we have USDAA agility with Tali! We are running on a DAM team with our friends Sarah (with Java) and Michelle (with Sheltie - Tuff). Our team name is "Tuff Red Dogs"! Tali is also entered in starters standard. We have our Q's in all the other starters stuff so that'll be it for the weekend! Looking forward to it!

Growin' up!

2009-09-19T15:59:00.003-04:00

Groovy and Jam in June 2009 (Groovy 8.5 weeks old)

Groovy and Jam in Sept 2009 (Groovy 24 weeks old)

What is it?

2009-09-17T21:32:00.004-04:00

You tell me...

Washed out weekend and the trick worked!

2009-09-15T20:34:00.006-04:00

Well so much for our first Canis Major competition - it was cancelled due to rain. Funny thing was it hardly rained up here. Oh well - it's been re-scheduled for this Sunday I think. As a result of it being cancelled Groovy, Tali and I took a trip up to Groveland to watch a little of the CPE trial. Groovy had never been there before and she did very well. She was happily greeting everyone - men and women alike. Even men with hats and glasses - large men too. She was the welcome wagon lady. She did not care for the dogs barking in the kennel (there is a boarding place on this property) but it didn't keep her from functioning normally - just made her a tiny bit jumpy with other noises but not enough that she couldn't hold her sit stays and down stays we were practicing. Towards the end of our visit I went over to an open area away from the rings and threw a few short tosses for Tali then a few rollers for Groovy. Groovy did great (Tali too of course)!

Sunday it did actually rain up here so we didn't do much. Late afternoon we did get to go outside and play some frisbee with the dogs. They all did great - especially Groovy who did a few real catches (5 feet or so) and Jam who caught her first real back vault!

As for our mat trick - it actually turned out quite well. Last night was class and it was time to show what we had taught them. I did my little spiel about teaching her to read, set the mat down and after looking at me for about 5 seconds she "wiped her paws"! Hooray! The instructor thought it was quite cute. Hooray Groovy for cooperating! LOL Maybe I'll attempt to get it on video sometime...

One of Groovy's catches!

Mickie's Border Collie impersonation

Jam's first back vault with a catch! (I swear there is a disc there and

that she caught it! I did not however "catch it" on film!)

Frisbees - they aren't just for catching!

2009-09-12T21:09:00.002-04:00

They double as food dishes and as pillows too apparently!

Been a while...

2009-09-12T01:13:00.003-04:00

What have we been doing... um... let's see.

Labor Day weekend was pretty busy. Saturday we went to a disc dog practice at a local park. We took Tali, Jam and Groovy. Had a good time - the girls had fun too! Groovy was letting all of her admirers adore her and loving every bit of it - even with Chris who she hadn't seen since Florida States and who she wouldn't let near her at that time. Oh how times have changed... Jam was officially off of restriction from her spay the day before practice so Jack threw a few short tosses for her and she did quite well.

Sunday we took 4 of the 5 dogs dock diving. What fun that was! Jam stayed home because she doesn't like water at all - only swims at the beach if we make her so we figured jumping into a pool was not going to be up her alley either.

Dog by dog run down...

Mickie... thought that the sign sort of floating at the pool edge was solid ground, went to step on it and was the first one in. She didn't voluntarily get in again after that which surprised me because she likes water a lot.

Ruckus... the star of the day to some degree. He would go in for the ball. Now I didn't say jump in... just go in. Like slide off the edge into the pool. Not bad though for a dog that hasn't gone swimming in several years. He'll be returning.

Tali... she's so biddable. She'd go in because we asked her to. Not for a toy... just because we called her enough. It's like you could see her say... "Well OK - if I have to... but only because you are asking me to". She'll be returning too.

Groovy... this was Groovy's 2nd time at the pool. The first time she was scared even though she swims like a fish. She wanted no part of jumping into a pool that is 2 feet below where she was standing. This time she still wasn't going in for a toy but by golly have Tali go in and 2 seconds later Groovy jumps in. And yes - I meant to say jump... probably a good 2 foot jump too! She'll be returning as well.

On Sunday evening Sarah came over for agility foundation practice... then on Monday we didn't do anything but hang out around the house. No agility class due to the holiday but we sure did have a ton of homework. Hopefully we've practiced enough this week but somehow I doubt it!

One thing we are supposed to have done was to shape a trick using a prop. I'm attempting to teach Groovy to wipe her feet off on a doormat that says "Wipe Your Paws" however it's not going all that well. I'm thinking maybe I should have gone for a trick that is about carrying things instead... that seems to be more her thing. We'll see though... I thought it'd be amusing to say I taught her to read... hold up the mat to have her read it and then put it down to have her wipe her paws! :) It'll more likely be she'll just go stand on it and move her feet a little. Oh well! We are doing well with some of our other exercises at least!

Tomorrow is Canis Major #1 which means frisbee season has officially started - hooray!!!

Another full circle moment...

2009-09-02T16:25:00.004-04:00

Groovy is growing up for sure and not quite a puppy anymore. We had another "full circle" moment this week. The first was at the trial last weekend. This one was last night when my sister and brother in law came over to the house. It's the first time they've been over since I had them over for dinner about 2 months back. At dinner Groovy would not go too close to Randy and was scared any time he talked. She was only moderately friendly with Laurel but still very reserved and fearful overall. This time however she greeted Laurel like a long lost friend and was quite friendly with Randy. Somewhat cautious or maybe submissive is a better word but still very eager to see him and get to know him. I asked them "So how do you like my new dog?". They both agreed she was a totally different dog. Needless to say I was beaming ear to ear. The other night at agility class this gal that took puppy class with Groovy commented on how different she is now as well (this is as Groovy is pulling me to get to her to say hi). I've got my fingers crossed that at least some of this outgoing'ness (is that a word?) sticks. At minimum that the new level of confidence sticks! She doesn't have to love everyone (though she's so cute when she wiggles at people it'd be nice) but indifference with confidence is OK too. We'll see... she's still so very young but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Here she is on a day when both ears were cooperating - the rest of this week it's be one "normal" and one rose ear!

Gang symbols?

2009-08-30T19:41:00.003-04:00

Do we have a new gang starting here at the Fahle Ranch? And to think we moved out to the country to get away from all of that type of influence!

CPE Night trial - Tali and Groovy news

2009-08-29T12:27:00.008-04:00

Last night we (Tali, Groovy and I) went to a CPE night trial at Pasco Paws in Zephyrhills. We had a lot of fun even though we didn't get home until 3am in the morning! SOOOO glad we aren't entered tonight.

Tali had a good night - Groovy did too but more on that later. She was very focused and as the evening cooled off her speed increased. She's such a good girl now! We NQ'd our first run which was Gamblers. She came out of the tunnel and crossed behind me which made me almost step on her which made the whistle blow before I was ready which put me way to close to her at the gamble line too soon. Oh well...

Next was Wildcard. She did awesome and we Q'd and got 2nd!

Standard followed and we had a beautiful run with nice weaves. I screwed up and forgot to front cross in the beginning which caused a bobble but we stayed on course however the next to last obstacle was the teeter and Tali flew right off of it despite me gearing down and telling her "Easy" because I could see she was going too fast. My fault for never training a solid "you stay on it until it goes down" teeter. It's her first fly off in a long time though so no big deal in the overall picture of things.

Next was colors - another beautiful run with a Q and a 1st place!

The last run was snooker. Not sure why snooker at 2am is a good idea but it always seems to come last on these night trials. I tried something I've never tried before and that was 3 - 7's in the opening and the 7's were weaves! (6 poles) Tali didn't get a good entry on the first set but nailed the other two and the weaves in the closing. It was a lot of fun and we Q'd and got 1st!

As for Miss Groovy Girl - she did awesome! This is the "same trial" that all of Groovy's fear issues started. That was 9 or 10 weeks ago. What a difference some time makes. Last night she got out of the car happy and bouncy. She greeted everyone with wiggles and affection - men included. It was like a whole new dog! At the end of the evening I even pulled out Kelli's wobble board and ladder and she was tugging like a maniac on the wobble board and did good work on the ladder. I've got my fingers crossed that this Groovy is more of the "real" Groovy because I sure do like her! :) There were a lot of aussie people there and she was a hit. I got to see her brother Seven. He is much bigger than her though we never had them side by side to see an up close comparison. Overall it was a great night for all 3 of us! Next trial isn't until the first weekend of October but disc season is starting in mid September! Woo hoo!

Groovy at 10 weeks

Groovy 2 weeks ago at 19 weeks

Jam's doing good!

2009-08-28T15:39:00.002-04:00

Jam's spay went well and she is recovering nicely! Her hips look good to the vet and they look good to me. Hard for me to see what is going on between the ball and the socket in terms of space but everything else I know to look at looks really nice. We'll see what OFA says. I never count my chickens before they hatch when it comes to orthopedic issues! Keeping her on R&R for another week is going to be a pain in the butt but she's doing really well with it so far.

Tonight is a CPE trial with Tali - should be fun - just hope we don't get too rained on!

Jam's "big" day

2009-08-25T21:31:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow is a big day for Jam... she'll hate every minute of it though since she is getting spayed and her hips xrayed. Why is she getting spayed at the same time she is getting her hips done? Because while she is an excellent pet and companion and is absolutely adorable she just does not have the focus and drive to be what I consider breed quality. Maybe someday she will but even so - do I really want a pup from her and have to wait 3-4 years for the focus and drive to kick in? Nope... I don't. I bet she would have made a great mom - she's doing a bang up job of being a big sister to Groovy. I've known for a long while though that I wasn't going to breed her so that part of it isn't going to be hard on me tomorrow. The hard part for me will be the anticipation that 1) everything goes safely and 2) to see what her hips look like. So say a little prayer for Jam Jam that all is well tomorrow... we love that little red headed airhead!

A pic of Jam in one of those moments of focus and drive! Maybe someday she can sustain these moments for more than 30 seconds at a time! :)

Groovy graduates and more...

2009-08-23T14:47:00.005-04:00

This week was a busy week for Miss Groovy. On Sunday she went to the park with us to watch Jack practice frisbee with Tali and practice pairs with Gary and Bayer. She had a nice time practicing her behaviors for her Puppy K graduation that was coming up on Tuesday.

Monday night was her first agility class. It's a foundation class that is safe for young dogs to participate in - no jumping or anything until they are old enough. This week we just talked about playing with our dogs, tug, etc. We had to get up in front of the class and play with our dogs without any toys. That was an easy one with Groove - just run away from her and a game begins! Then we had to get up in front of class and tug. This I was worried about because while she likes to tug she is hit or miss in strange places in addition to the fact that she is losing teeth. Well she tugged and even more impressive is that she tugged with our instructor who she didn't know before that evening! She was a very good girl and I was so very pleased!

Tuesday night she graduated her Puppy K class! She graduated in the top 13! (that's a joke - there were 13 in the class and the instructor kept telling folks that) She did sits, downs, stays and loose leash walking with flair and success and her "pattycake" trick was a hit. Even more impressive though was her saying hello to the small children and men and not minding at all when Mike the instructor put her graduation cap on her head. I was shocked and surprised. She's like a whole new dog lately! Hopefully it sticks!

Thanks to Sarah and Jack for the photos!

I'm a copy Kat - Vote for which of my Hi-Fi Aussies is your favorite!

2009-08-19T15:33:00.004-04:00

My friend Sarah who is the one who got me to blog to begin with put up a poll on her page to vote for which of her dogs is her readers favorite. I thought it was a cool idea so I put one up too! So go vote and feel free to leave a comment about who you voted for and why! I'm curious to know!

Interesting week...

2009-08-15T23:03:00.002-04:00

It's been an interesting week for Miss Groovy. Tuesday was puppy class 5 of 6. Groovy was so well adjusted and "Miss Social". She was giving kisses and love to the guy sitting next to us... yes - I said the GUY! She was totally at ease the whole class - didn't even mind when I handed her leash off to the instructor to do a recall.

Today was dock diving. I think Jack and I had visions of it going a lot better than it did however as I know with other dogs of ours - just because you love water at the beach doesn't mean you love it in a pool. She wasn't about to jump off a dock that's 2 feet off the water for a toy or even for cheese or even for me or Jack. We worked on her just swimming from the top step instead. We'll have to build from there. There were still some very "braggable" moments today though. For one Groovy was again "Miss Social" yet she has never been to this place before or been around any of these people before. She was loving up on everyone and had no reserve at all after about the first 5 minutes there. Amazing and wonderful! The other great moment was after the class was over Jack played a little frisbee with Tali (who we took as a "backup" dog but who never tried the dock diving today). Groovy was totally into what they were doing so when they were done Jack put Tali up and did a few rollers with Groovy. She did amazing! Woo hoo! :)

This week we start a new adventure too! Beginner Agility on Monday nights! Tuesday is puppy class graduation as well. She had to learn a trick for graduation and our trick is "patty cake". Will have to get it on film once it's perfected. It's a trick I taught Mickie but haven't taught anyone else. Groovy got it pretty quickly! She's a smart girl!

Things are never simple with the Muck Man

2009-08-13T13:15:00.003-04:00

Well it doesn't look like it's a cracked nail so they did xrays. The Xrays showed degenerative changes in the foot (this is a foot he hurt previously so we have other xrays from 2 years ago). It doesn't appear to be a bone infection or cancer - so that's the good news. The specialist is somewhat concerned about the soft tissue inflammation though. What it is and why his toenail was bleeding we have no idea. So... anti-inflammatory, antibiotics and rest are the course of action and we'll reasses in a week.

The good news is that as of last night and today he isn't limping hardly at all. So maybe he just hurt his toe and had I given it a few days he would have been fine but since we xrayed we saw the degenerative changes and only think it's something worse. We all have our fingers crossed that with a couple weeks rest he'll be good as new and ready for the Canis Major season and for USDDN Finals in October! At 9.5 this is very likely his last season competing in toss n fetch (he's already retired from freestyle) so we were hoping to make the most of it... we shall see. The most important part is that he stays healthy and happy!

Tiny Bubbles

2009-08-08T16:33:00.004-04:00

Jack and I were at my nephew's 5th birthday party today. They had bubbles for the kids and had tons left over so I brought a bottle home to see what the dogs thought. The only dog even remotely interested was Groovy. She couldn't figure out where they went when they "disappeared". Pretty cute! Ruckus in the mean time found a tennis ball and proceeded to bark at me to throw it. Um... no hopalong - you can't play ball if you can't walk good on all 4 feet!

Poor Ruckus...

2009-08-06T21:51:00.003-04:00

The poor little man cracked a toenail while playing ball yesterday morning. :( We took him to the vet today and since it is at or below the base Dr. Hooks recommended removal for a faster recovery. Frisbee season starts in 5 short weeks after all! So on Tuesday Ruckus will have his nail removed and a dental. Hopefully the poor little dude is feeling better soon.

New use for a Chuck-it?

2009-08-03T22:29:00.005-04:00

Groovy is slowly getting the concept of fetch... in the mean time while the other dogs run off after the ball this is what Groovy sometimes stays to do! I never really thought of it as a good tug toy...

So easily excited!

2009-07-30T22:07:00.005-04:00

When you are an owner of a new puppy it takes only little things to get you excited... for instance - Tuesday night at puppy class our loose leash walking work was not so good however the reason it was not so good was because Groovy was wanting to visit the people we were walking past! I found this to be VERY exciting! Who needs a dog to walk loose on a leash anyway when you live on 10 acres? Another for instance... at our informal pup class that we have at rotating places Groovy took a treat from TK (someone she's been VERY scared of since she was 10 weeks old) - this I found very exciting as well! And today's exciting moment - Groovy went out the doggy door on her own and went poop unattended! Woo hoo! That is huge as she has not wanted to be out there on her own quite yet. Nope... doesn't take much to make me happy. The good news is this is true of most "dog people". Example? Sarah's excitement today at finally getting the giraffe toy in her Happy Meal so Kate and Java could have it! :)

Here are some pics taken by Sarah on Sunday and Tuesday. Thanks Sarah!

Groovy and I at the beach

"Shake Your Groove Thang!"

Puppy class friends - Groovy, Kate and Blitz (via cell phone camera).

Want to take a guess at how many pics it took to get this one?

(I don't know the answer but Sarah might)

Groovy and Kate

Beach Baby and Run Run Run!

2009-07-27T15:28:00.002-04:00

What a fun weekend we had! Saturday was our disc dog club’s annual picnic that is held at Ft. Desoto which has a dog beach. We always have a good time at this event and I look forward to it every year. Our eldest dogs are not “dog beach friendly” and Tali and Jam only somewhat enjoy themselves there so while it’s fun for me the dogs would probably be just as happy going for a hike or something. Well with the addition of Groovy that has changed. She LOVES the beach. Someone suggested that of course she should – it fits her name. Works for me!

When we arrived it was just about lunch time so we sat and ate with everyone. Groovy was quite comfortable in the group of people – more so than I expected her to be and than she has been. Even with 2.5 year old Kiera around there were no woofs or anything. Kiera did get a little warning when she got into Groovy’s space too much for too long but in all honesty Groovy did awesome with her compared to her last few kid outings and was more curious about her than fearful. After lunch we walked down to the dog beach. I left Groovy’s short leash attached to her in case she went running off or something. We set our stuff down, walked towards the water and Groovy walked right in and started swimming around as though she had been at the beach 10 times before. Jack and I looked at each other in amazement. The more interesting thing is that Groovy would swim up to complete strangers to say hello (men included). Again, Jack and I exchanged looks of amazement – especially when she proceeded to do this on land as well. What dog was this? We didn’t know but we didn’t care and certainly hoped to take this “new” dog home with us. Tali came with us on this outing as well and swam more than she normally does. I think she’d love the dog beach if it were only dogs she knew – it’s all the strange dogs that kind of wig her out but it’s good for her to experience. The day was so much fun. Here are some links to a slideshow of pics and a video. Folks will think I was deluded when speaking about Groovy’s aversion to men when they see this because she is so confident and friendly in the video. The difference was amazing. Needless to say we’ll be going back to the dog beach soon!

Pics:

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/CFDDCBeachDay2009#

Video of the social swimming butterfly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjzEE21bNwo

On Sunday Tali and I attended a 5 hour small group lesson with Wendy Pape. The group consisted of us, Sarah, Gary, Bev, Sally and Kathryn. It was a good time. We all learned a lot and ran our butts off. It was even not too bad of weather for the first few hours as the rain kept things cooler than normal for a while. Tali did very well on some very difficult courses. I didn’t do too badly either! Wendy was able to help us with our 10th pole popping issue and showed me I could be places I wouldn’t have thought I could be. I was also glad to see that 2 or 3 times when I wanted to handle something differently than most it was actually the way Wendy would handle it. Good to know my brain can still function well as it relates to difficult handling. Haven’t been on tough courses in a long while since Mickie has retired and Tali is still at the beginning levels in most venues (Not that any venue has courses as difficult as the ones that Wendy makes up!). Hopefully by the end of this trial season coming up Tali will be at the upper levels but we’ll see how it goes this year!

Ear update? I untaped them for the trip to the beach – one advantage of using this method! By Sunday we had 1 rose ear and 1 “regular” ear. As of last night we have 1 ear taped and 1 ear not. We’ll see what happens!

Marshmallow head!

2009-07-22T22:18:00.004-04:00

She's so cute with her marshmallows on! :) (Why is it spelled mallow but everyone says mellow? Anyone?)

Yes... we've established I'm vain. But to be honest - had she arrived at 8 weeks old with rose ears I'd have left rose ears as I don't have any issues with rose ears. However - her "new" rose ears don't suit her as well so that's why I'm taping. We'll see what happens!

Splashin' Sunday

2009-07-20T15:33:00.007-04:00

Yesterday we started out with puppy “class” at our friend Kathryn’s house. It was puppy pool time and child socialization time. Groovy had a TON of fun playing with her brother Seven, a BC pup named Cab, Poppy the adorable swimming Corgi, Pixie the Chinese Crested and assorted IG’s. To be honest – most of the playing occurred with the herding breeds as the CC and the IG were too busy bumming food off of the humans to play with the pups. I am VERY guilty of indulging them in their wishes too – they are just so darn cute and seem so polite when begging since they weigh next to nothing when jumping up on your leg and looking at you longingly… much different begging style than the aussies and clearly I was not immune! I have a few new doggy friends though!

Groovy did really well with the puppy mom’s, running around to say hello and greeting them all. She was rather confident for not having ever been there before, etc. She did OK in the big pool. Wasn’t petrified but wasn’t having fun either. She and I just hung out in the pool together with me holding her and letting her swim and get out on her own. There was a baby pool as well that she, Cab and Seven enjoyed playing around. Notice I said around… Seven and Cab were in and out – Groovy was pretty much just around with no real desire to get in (more on that later). The cutest though was watching little Poppy swim and seeing her tail/nubbin’ spin around like a crazy rudder… SOOO adorable.

Groovy was not comfortable when Tristan (Kathryn’s son) came out. He is 3 but a very dog savvy 3 year old (living with 6 dogs of his own). She woofed at him a little while he was in the pool and some when he was out of the pool. She would eat treats from him though which is something new for her. Normally with men and children she steers so clear of them she won’t eat treats. She even ate treats from Kathryn’s husband as well. She didn’t “like” him but was at least willing to get that close to him. That’s progress! Problems come with this progress however in that now that a little bit of her fear is gone she is what I *think* is curious and aroused by small children. Not a good combo of all three feelings for a little 15 week old brain to deal with… fear + slight curiosity + arousal… gonna have to work out a plan in that regard for sure. The good news is though that she was willing to do behaviors and play with the other dogs with both of them around.

The puppies played for around 2 hours with very little resting. We were amazed. It was actually not hot out (due to continual threatening rain – though luckily it never actually rained). I think the pups were enjoying the reprieve from the heat. It was fun to watch little Poppy do a body dive on top of the pile of 2 aussies and a BC – all of which were more than twice her size. No fear in that little one! I’m not sure that Bev thought it was as fun to watch! :)

After the playtime at Kathryn’s I took Groovy over to our friend Sally’s house who lives literally just 5 minutes away. Groovy and Tex love each other so I figured it was a good chance for her to go somewhere else new and have fun. Turns out she was a little too tired to hang with Tex (no surprise after her busy morning) so we only let them play for a short little while. After Tex went back in the house Sal got some treats and coaxed Groovy into her baby pool. It worked! Not that I hadn’t tried that several weeks ago at Kelli’s but Sal must have good pool kharma! After that Sal and I stood around talking while Groovy explored her small yard that has the pool in it. I actually watched Groovy get bored/run out of ways to entertain herself. She NEVER gets “bored” in our fenced in backyard which I guess is a testament to how distracting the place is thanks to all the woodland animals that come through. It didn’t take long though and Groovy began entertaining herself with the zoomies which promptly included jumping in and out of the pool and biting the water. It was SO hilarious and Sal and I were laughing out loud watching her antics – of all the times to not have my digital or video camera! I guess Groovy finally figured out the fun of water and why her brother Seven is so obsessed with it! I guess I better get a baby pool before the “season” is over!

Groovy spent MUCH of the rest of the day sleeping with a little bit more playing in our yard with our dogs and finding ways to get in trouble in the den while Jack and I watched the last episode of Dexter. I thought it’d be good to have her hang just with us and just chill. No other dogs… no real activity going on. Well needless to say we had to pause several times to remove things from her mouth – things we didn’t even know were in the den (AKA “The Mancave”)! She is definitely a 15 week old pup through and through! :)

Below are some pics of her from Saturday evening… Enjoy!

Groovy head

Groovy butt

Groovy "killing" her toy

Shake it!! (and that rubber heart is pretty darn heavy)

Saturday chillin'

2009-07-18T15:56:00.004-04:00

Not much on the agenda for today... Jack and I went to our nephew Nathaniel's 7th birthday party and then back home. The fur kids have gone out several times to play ball and such and now all are taking a nap. A nice relaxing day... as promised some pics of Groovy's current earset. Also a nice pic showing how well Ruckus is tolerating and is getting more comfortable with his new little sister! I measured her today - she's around 15" tall at 15 weeks old.

A good week!

2009-07-17T21:43:00.004-04:00

Well I wasn't feeling well when I got home from work today so we didn't make it to the NADAC trial this evening... :( That's OK though - there is another one in August and we'll be sure and hit that one!

Groovy turned 15 weeks old yesterday and weighed 18.2 #'s at the vet on Wednesday. She's growing up fast!

Monday we went for a walk with her and Jam and stopped along the way to see the miniature horse. On the way back dad was coming down the road and stopped to chat. I wasn't sure how Groovy would do with this as she'd never seen a car on our road, had never seen a person talking from a car and still is a little unsure about dad. Well the car didn't phase her, the talking head sticking out of the car didn't phase her and once dad opened the door to say hi to the dogs Groovy took Jam's lead and was very happy and wiggly to see Grandpa! Hooray!

Tuesday was Groovy's first puppy class. She did very very well! Of course she already knew everything that we learned but she's there more for the social aspects anyway. Our teacher is a male - I planned that on purpose! She did great with the VERY full class of people and dogs. She'd hide under the chair a little if a man or child got too close (within 3-4 feet) but other than that was doing her sits and downs like a pro. She loved all the other dogs and I think having them around helped her feel at ease. Groovy also got to spend the day at Duke's Doggy Daycare (Sarah's house) and got a good report card for the day! :) Oh and for an extra bonus - she didn't puke on the way to Sarah's, on the way to class or on the way home (and she had a ton of treats at class)!! Woo hoo!

Wednesday was her big trip to the vet. She did great! Wasn't running up to greet the techs but was not scared either. Didn't puke on the way there or back and enjoyed watching the kitties in their cages up front!

Monday and Wednesday Groovy was "evil puppy" in that if I called her she'd look at me and go the other way. Grrrr... so we've hit that stage have we? Wednesday she ducked under the barbwire fence and out into the cow pasture. She had no intention of returning anytime soon but a baby cow decided to check her out and that scared her enough to come join me on the other side of the fence! The cows were way closer than they normally are and she was actually scared of them at first. I put her on her long line and we just sat and watched them for a while then she was fine. She is officially on "long line lockdown" any time she is out front now.

Thursday was a whole new day for Miss Groovy! Mom was over at the house during the day and told me how well Groovy had listened to her out in the backyard. Then Thursday evening I took her out in the front yard on the long line to watch the other 4 play frisbee (one at a time). Every time I called her name she turned and ran to me - without even having to pull on the long line or anything. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised! :) She also chased a few rollers too!

So overall a good week... not much planned for the weekend except our puppy playgroup/class on Sunday. It's swimming pool and kid socialization day at Kathryn's. Should be interesting!

This is a pic of Groovy from this past Sunday... her ears had gone "rose" a couple of weeks back and after a week of not going back to "normal" I taped them for about 5 days - intended to do it for longer but one fell out. Yes - I'm vain and I know rose ears are acceptable but she is just so much cuter with "regular" aussie ears. Well these ears seen in the picture stuck around until yesterday... now the rose ears are back with an occasional higher set button ear (note the singular there - the other ear stays rose). Interesting... I'll give it a few days and if the rose ears stay it'll be back to tape again I think though I have to say this round of "rose ear" is better looking that the last round... will have to get a pic of the current state of ears sometime this weekend.

Florida States and a Groovy recap

2009-07-13T11:25:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was the Florida State Disc Dog Championships. Jack had been out of town all week in Kansas. He literally arrived at the airport at 11:40am, arrived at the house around 1pm and we were leaving by 1:20pm. We had to be in Jacksonville by 5 and literally showed up right at 5pm. Thanks to our friend Colleen for registering Jack and Tali for us so they could play.

It was a fun competition but felt very frantic due to us arriving so close to the start time for freestyle, etc. Tali and Jack made the cut to the top 10 for toss n fetch but Tali was “off” and did not play either TnF or Freestyle like she normally does. Oh well – it was still a good time.

I guess we are due to catch up on Groovy… well let’s see… She’s growing like a weed - up to 17.5 pounds at 14 weeks. She’s getting along SO well with the pack. This past week I’ve allowed Ruckus and her to interact some and while it’s clear he doesn’t care for her he is tolerating her nicely. She is doing an excellent job of steering clear of him too.

On the socialization front… over the past two weeks Groovy has been to DACOF, Florida States, Petco, Petsmart and to my mom’s – meeting my aunt Barbara and playing with mom’s kittens some more. She’s a busy little girl! She did OK at DACOF. The event was indoors and there are dogs and people everywhere. She was pretty scared about some loud noises when folks were moving stuff around and she was scared of men once they talked. She greeted most women very happily. She did well walking around the place with Jack, Tali and I visiting the vendors and meeting some new people and dogs. She also did well just hanging out with Jack in the stands watching the activity below. She did pretty good at Petsmart though she wouldn’t take treats from the manager or a boy that was there. She would at least take treats from me while standing near them. She did well at Petco too. At mom’s house she took a little while to warm up to my Aunt Barbara but once she did they were good friends and she was doing tricks for her. She’s becoming more and more comfortable with my dad too.

She did pretty well at Florida States. She didn’t really want to greet anyone except two teenage girls and our friend Kay. She also was totally freaked out by the speaker system when we were within 20 feet of it and a man’s voice was speaking. She was totally fine with the music though which I found interesting. She did get over the men’s voice on the speaker issue by the end of the competition though so that was good! More good news is that while she didn’t want to greet anyone or take treats from them (though I did get her to eat baby food from a woman or two) she also was not petrified when men standing near talked. She was comfortable greeting dogs “attached” to men and being in their general vicinity while they were speaking. This is progress! By the end of the competition we were hanging out with a group of friends and she was totally comfortable doing so. She wasn’t loving up on any of the people but was completely OK just hanging out with them and their dogs. She has excellent dog skills and definitely feeds off of the dogs around her which is a good thing since all the dogs we hang around are confident at competitions, etc. The best part of the day though was when I took her over to watch Jack practice his routine without Tali. She was very intrigued with him playing disc by himself. I let her run over to him and he started playing with her a little doing short rollers and running around with her. She loved it and had a blast. We were very impressed that she’d play with him in that environment (granted we were a good 100 feet away from the crowd, etc.) not to mention these were full sized discs!

We are still hit or miss with the motion sickness while in the car. She got sick on the way to Petsmart, on the way to Petco and on the way home from Petco. She did not however get sick on the way to or from DACOF or Florida States. An empty stomach seems to be the key to preventing puking – unfortunately that is not something I can always control – especially for evening outings as I don’t know when she’s eaten the treats in her frozen Kong during the day. In the mean time we travel with extra towels in the car! *sigh*

This week Groovy starts a puppy class on Tuesday night at a new place she’s never been and we’ll be at a NADAC night trial on Friday. Speaking of the night trial… little Jam will be running in tunnelers and touch n go. We’ll see how she does! Some folks may call it a debut but I just call it a test. Also speaking of Jam… she rocked at her Frisbee practice last night and we actually happened to be videoing their practice so hopefully I can put a link up to that video later on. If only she played like that every time! She’ll get there though!

DACOF 2009

2009-07-07T13:29:00.002-04:00

DACOF 2009

This past weekend Tali and I competed with fellow teammates from Pasco Paws at the 2009 Dog Agility Competition of Florida (DACOF). This agility competition is different than all others in that there are no “Q’s”, no individual titles to be earned, etc. It is one where you compete as a team. Three dogs from each level form a team (for a total of 9 dogs). The top 2 scores from each level count towards the team total. It’s based on time and points. Two teams represented Pasco Paws – Achieve and Believe. Tali and I were on team Achieve. This was my 2nd time running for Pasco Paws – in 2007 Mickie and I ran on team Achieve which placed 2nd overall (out of 30+ teams). This year was kind of sad not being able to run with Mickie but I was excited to give Tali a chance to run. Fortunately for us and for Pasco Paws Tali has not being doing a lot of AKC or USDAA and had no novice or open titles from those venues. Even in CPE she just finished her Level 3 standard titles a few weeks ago. All of this means that she was able to run as a novice dog at DACOF.

I wasn’t sure how Tali would do. She’s never been in an environment like that (indoors, on dirt with stadium seating and 3 rings running at one time). Well I couldn’t be prouder of my girl. She did phenomenal! She had one millisecond of spacing out in her first run and that was it. The rest of the weekend she was focused and ran clean minus a few missed weave entries (which luckily don’t count in novice). Out of her 5 runs she placed 1st in one, 2nd in one, 3rd in two and 4th in the other. Even cooler than that she won High In Level Novice 20” dog! What a shock and surprise! Even cooler was the fact that our team Achieve placed 2nd again this year and the other Pasco Paws team Believe placed 3rd! J

I find DACOF to be very enjoyable – I love the team camaraderie and the atmosphere. Who knows… maybe I could be a flyball person if only it weren’t such a loud sport!! ;)

Here are some pictures of Tali and I with our loot from the weekend…

2009-07-03T13:52:00.002-04:00

OK - so it appears I stink at keeping up with blogging. I suspected I would be! :) For weekly pics and stuff Facebook is the place to go - I'm good about posting photos there at least!

Well... let's see...

Last Thursday my sister, brother in law, mom and dad came over for dinner. When is the last time we made dinner for that group? Um... maybe never? Maybe 10 years ago? :) The things having a new puppy will do to you! Randy and Laurel were very accomodating to work with Groovy. Groovy, as suspected, found Randy to be very scary. He's big, he's got a deep voice... she was quite scared. Mickie is our "never met a stranger dog" so I let her be out with Groovy and that helped some. What helped even more was having Tali come out and play with Randy. Groovy warmed up to him some and definitely relaxed as she became willing to walk near him and sniff him and stuff. Good progress... Dad came over a bit later. This somewhat set Groovy back a little but she just hungout under our chairs while we ate. All was going well until something fell off the buffet and made a loud noise. Groovy was back to eyeing the men suspiciously. *sigh* By the time everyone left she was doing better again but not like she had been earlier. Not a success but not a failure... we definitely have some work ahead of us...

Sunday we had our first puppy class. Our friend Kelli who owns Groovy's brother Seven had the idea to have a rotating puppy class. There are several of us who have pups right now so the plan is to have class every week and half or so and have each class at a different person's house so the pups get used to working in a variety of environments. The first one was at Kelli's. The pups (2 aussies, 2 BCs, 1 Corgi, 1 Chinese Crested and 1 Rat Terrier) had a great time interacting with one another and working the various stations Kelli had set up. Groovy did ladder work, wobble board, a short tunnel, etc. Kelli also had her husband TK come out to do some socialization with men. Groovy wanted nothing to do with TK though when Seven was playing with TK she was willing to be near TK. Gary was there too - she doesn't mind him one bit though. He falls into the same category as Jack - a "safe man". Overall though I was pleased with how she did. She was friendly with the ladies and did well with the dogs (minus one spat with the Rat Terrier but they quickly made up). She tugged and chased a roller or two. Overall a good experience. Next class is out here at our place!

This week we spent several evenings at my mom's house. Mom just got 4 new kittens and so I took Groovy over to meet them. She LOVES them - especially the little black one named Amalie. She did very well with dad on Tuesday and Wednesday and is starting to greet him happily. Good progress there! Wednesday my nephews were over. She wasn't too sure about them (they are going on 5 and 7 years old). She woofed at them when they did something too "strange" but otherwise kept her distance and hung out with us. Not great - but not horrible. On Thursday they were still there as was their parents (my brother and his wife). She did very well with Nathaniel (the older boy), sniffed him and generally didn't mind him being near. She was scared of my brother's voice and was very cautious of what Josiah was up to. Every time Josiah came near she got some peanut butter (which she loves) and the boys did pretty well at staying calm around her. She pretty much just sat on the couch between Jack and I watching the whole scene. It worries me that she gets so stressed and worried about men and small children but we'll continue to work through it. I'm hopeful that with continued exposure and no negative experiences she'll at minimum be able to just ignore men and kids. She doesn't have to love them... she just has to be non reactive to them. Frisbee is full of both men and kids so getting to that point is a big priority.

Other than the socialization issues she is doing awesome. No accidents in the house for several weeks (though I'm very good at managing it). I haven't taught her to use the doggy door yet but will soon now that she isn't eating every thing she can find in the pee yard. She LOVES her toys and is doing great with her disc work and retrieve. I've posted some video of her taken on her 13 week old birthday (yesterday).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hl-AkxjcRI

This weekend we have DACOF (Dog Agility Competition of Florida). She'll be coming along one of the days so it'll be interesting to see how she does with that environment! Tali is on Pasco Paws team Achieve. It should be a fun time - I love the supportive team environment of DACOF and we have two really great teams this year. Hopefully I'll have some video links of Tali's runs to post come early next week.

Here are some photos taken over the past week or so... Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/Groovy12Weeks#

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/Groovy13Weeks#

Groovy 11 weeks - Pt 2

2009-06-24T23:52:00.002-04:00

Just a link to some pics of Groovy from this week. The first few are of her playing with her red sister's the other night. Tali LOVES to be the "momma" to Groovy. It's very cute. The rest are of Groovy's visit to meet Dawn and her family. We got to work on her "men issues" with Dawn's husband Mark. That went pretty well. Then Groovy got to play with Tucker and Dawn's daughter Lacey. She loved every minute of that!

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/Groovy11Weeks#

Tomorrow night my sister and her husband come over for a puppy socialization dinner! I figure we need to let her see that people other than Grandma and Grandpa do occasionally visit the house - even if rarely!

Groovy 11 weeks

2009-06-23T23:29:00.004-04:00

Well funny how one doesn't have time to blog with an 11 week old puppy around!

To catch up... Groovy did get to have a play date with Tex and Sally. She wasn't too sure about Tex at first but once she realized he was a nice dog she and he were best buds. They really had a fun time playing - Tali and Jam did too! Pics of the afternoon can be seen here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/SundayPlaydateWithTex#

Groovy weighed in at 13.6#'s for her 11 week weigh in. At first I thought this was huge since I really only have Jam to compare her to but after comparing with some other aussie friends of mine this actually isn't big at all. We'll see if that correlates to her size as an adult. I know I shouldn't obsess over what size she'll be but smaller is better around here to a certain extent. We are hoping for around 18-19" and no more than 40#'s. We shall see but we'll love her regardless!

As for Groovy's week... well she was struggling with "down" on strictly a verbal. Not sure why - sit on a verbal was a breeze! She's starting to get it now though. In the mean time she's learned the beginnings of shake, leave it and roll over with record speed!

Magic happened this week. Sal and I were observing Groovy's independent nature on Sunday a week ago - then Monday she magically started listening and coming to her name! Not sure why the switch flipped but we'll take it and reward it HIGHLY! :)

And finally... this past Friday and Saturday we had a CPE night trial. Groovy came along to socialize. Poor thing still gets car sick and threw up 3 times on the way over. She wasn't feeling all that cheery and playful when we got there. Not to mention it was SOOOO hot. She also was not at all happy with all the dogs barking. Kinda surprising from a dog that sleeps through the vacuum cleaner! She worked through it and by the end of the evening was hanging out ring side having a good 'ole time. She got to play with her brother Seven a little and her favorite "aunt" Kelli. She also got to meet her Aunt Liz - though since Groovy is Rory's Aunt maybe that's her niece Liz? ;) Saturday went even better as she didn't puke on the way there and came out of the car happy as a clam and ready to greet the world. She had a fun time playing with a Papillion pup and a Mudi pup. What a hoot they were to watch. I noticed some fearfulness of men while there so we are going to work on that but the good news is the 2nd night the dogs barking hardly phased her at all.

Oh... and not to leave Tali out of course - Tali Q'd 7 out of 9 runs this weekend and finished her Level 3 Standard title! Woo hoo!

To finish... here are some pics of her on Sunday at her Grandma's house.

Groovy 10 week old pics

2009-06-13T20:42:00.003-04:00

A few pics of Groovy at 10 weeks old...

The rest can be seen here....
http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/Groovy10Weeks#

Groovy is 10 weeks old!

2009-06-12T23:17:00.003-04:00

Groovy is 10 weeks old already! Has she really been here 2 weeks? In some ways it seems shorter and in others longer!

Over the past week one of her big adventures was a leash walk to grandma's. Almost earned her a new name of Bucking Bronco but she got the hang of it eventually. She enjoyed visiting with grandma, AJ and Lulu and showing off her tricks. Today was her first trip to our vet. She came away with a clean bill of health though they did find a very small umbilical hernia - nothing to worry about however. Jack took her and said she was really friendly with everyone and even played with Dr. Hooks (our awesome vet). She weighed in at approx. 11 1/2#'s. I measured her last night and she is 12.5". It'll be interesting to see how big she gets!

This week we worked on sit (has it really well on a verbal), drop (doing very good with this too), down (still needs a hand cue), name recognition (has bouts of selective hearing!), nose touch to my hand and a retrieve.

She and Tali are quite the duo and so hilarious to watch playing. Tali couldn't be a better big sister! Jam is enjoying her more too and new this week she's gotten to be in the yard with Mickie. Old girl Mickie has actually initiated play a few times but the awesome thing is that when Mickie doesn't want to interact Groovy is excellent at reading her signals. Big thanks to Tracey for allowing Ebony to teach the pups such great doggy skills!!

Groovy has a playdate with some of Team Treat and likely the Duke Dogs on Sunday - stay tuned for pics or video from that I'm sure!

Fun with Groovy

2009-06-07T15:13:00.002-04:00

A short video clip of Groovy playing with rollers and entertaining herself in various other ways... she is so funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r6mso1SOBA

Some pics of Groovy and the girls in the freshly mowed front field.

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/GroovinOnASundayAfternoon#

2009-06-06T19:43:00.004-04:00

This is some video of Groovy from last night and this afternoon. The first part is her and her temporary hiding place. I'm not sure what she's going to do in another week or so when she doesn't fit anymore! She loves to go under the buffet. She was taking toys under there with her but I think even she realizes it's a tighter fit than it was just last week. The 2nd part is her playing with her sheepy. It's probably her 2nd favorite toy right now. Her favorite is her fuzzy yellow chicken! She switches toys really well and retrieves probably 40-50% of the time now. The other times she takes them to a corner to chew on or does a victory lap around the dining room table! She's a fun kid to play with!

Groovy - 9 weeks

2009-06-05T22:44:00.004-04:00

Well we made it through the first week! Having an active puppy has it's challenges for sure but I've laughed outloud many times this week at her antics!

The challenges.... well she had to learn a lesson about toads tasting bad (I let her learn this on a toad I knew wasn't a Bufo toad), she found/tasted toad poop, deer poop and unknown poo in the yard (quite the nose on this girl), she discovered a mushroom obsession (an unintended consequence of the name Groovy?!?), 2 potty accidents in the house, 3 in her crate (still baffled by those as I was sitting right there and she didn't fuss much at all yet her crate is dry every morning and she sleeps through the night with no problem), obsessed with small spaces including going under the deck (not a safe venture), loves electrical wires, etc. We considered re-naming her Death Wish there for a few days. Things seem to be calming down in that regard (nevermind the Bitter Apple that was purchased and the "no front yard not on a leash" rule now in place in addition to me guarding the deck access when in the backyard - another week and she won't fit - hooray!).

The good stuff!
Learned sit, learning her name, learning down, LOVES to tug with all kinds of toys, got to visit friends, my work, her brother, family, already loves her big sis Tali, doesn't destroy her expen when we are at work (so far) and is great in her crate (thank you Tracey for pre-training her!).

The great stuff!
VERY entertaining to watch her entertain herself in her crate (see video), very entertaining to see her play with Tali and Jam, VERY excited to have her tugging with me in the front yard while Tali played toss n fetch with daddy, and SUPER excited to have her go after her first rollers tonight and return them (and tug on the disc). Not to mention how super adorable she is!

The girl is dead set on growing too! 8 weeks and 1 day old she was 9 #'s. 9 weeks old she is 10.2#'s! Jam didn't reach that weight until 11.5 weeks old. Haven't done any heights yet...

Plans for week 2? Walking on a leash, shaping the target, play, play, play, more name and recall work and more play!

The pics from week 1 can be found here (there are many - what do you expect for a new addition?!?):

Day 1 in the backyard jungle:
http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/GroovyDay1

Day 3 - a visit to Bev's to meet Bev, Sally, Sarah and Gary (pics compliments of Sarah Duke):
http://picasaweb.google.com/aussomedogs/GroovyGirl#

Day 4 playing with Tali and Jam:
http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/GroovyDay4#

Day 4 playing with her brother Seven owned by Kelli Hayes:
http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/GroovyAndSeven#

Enjoy the video of goofy Groovy! The interesting water behavior happens at the beginning and again around 1:40 or so.

Testing, testing 1, 2, 3

2009-06-04T13:48:00.000-04:00

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3 - I promised Sarah I'd start blogging once I got a puppy. Well the pup arrived 1 week ago today so here we go!

The new puppy.... Groovy (Registered name pending)

She is from Tracey McPherson at C-Me Aussies in Iowa. Her sire is Slash V Skipa Star and her dam is C-Me Ebony Not Ivory.