4 Dog Craziness

Sun Shinny day

2012-01-29T06:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a warm sunny day. I was suppose to take Miley to NC for and ultrasound treatment but canceled it because I didnt want to miss the day. It was nice Tuesday but I had to go to NC. And it was nice Wednesday but I had to teach an beginner agility class ( which went great and everyone had good things to say at the end). Thursday- rain. Ugh. We have had so many rainy days, I didnt want to miss out on today.
It started out pretty chilly. Here is some frost on a weed that I thought looked cool.

Then the steam coming off the ground looked cool too. Im not sure I really captured its beauty.

Java had a great time running. I got the feeling she was saying, "finally!"

This isnt a very good shot because it was shot into the sun. But it was beautiful if you were there. Sun glistening off the weeds and the steam, dog running.

Here was another missed shot. Just beautiful with the steam rising behind her, but the sun wasnt right for getting the shot.

After a short rest,she was off again

So it was rest , run, then rest and run again.

Then we were done. ("Done? Im not done, what is she talking about?")

Then after going home and resting we went to that little beach that you cant park your car it. My nice husband dropped me off and then went and did some work on his computer until I called him to come get me.

Java had a great time here too!

Look how clear the water is.

One last run, then time to go.

Nervous breakdown

2012-01-24T06:05:00.001-05:00

This is what it looked like yesterday when I got out of work. It was suppose to be 68 and partly sunny. NOT! It was in the 40's and no sun. Great.
Yesterday was a horrible day. It started at 3am with Java vomiting. It looks like she ate some sticks. So after cleaning that up I couldnt go back to sleep. Then Stephanie called crying at 5am saying she was really sick and hadnt slept all night. And why didnt I answer my phone last night? I guess Im not getting mother of the year. I told her next time call me back a few times so I know I need to answer it. If Im sleeping, I wont answer the first time. So I told her what to do while trying to figure out what was going on with her. Then I get to work and its 60 degrees in my office, the heats broken again. Its a new system put in this summer. What the heck?? Tons of kids coming to me at work. Lots of them just to get out of class. A parent being mean on the phone. Stephanie calling again, says she feels better and doenst need to go to the doctor.She calls back 2 hours later, crying again, she isnt feeling good. Ugh! Feeling helpless because Im 3 hours away. Trying to answer emails for my agility class. Im not sure Ill be teaching again. I like it because it was fun for me. But now, the fun is falling out of it and things are becoming to serious. Im only teaching because there isnt anyone else stepping up to do it, I know I dont have enough experience to do this and now Im feeling stressed. One complaint Ive had is I dont give hand outs. Well I just dont have time or the money to do hand outs. Im sorry. I was up front about it. In the first class I said I dont give hand outs and they need to take notes. I guess that didnt go over well. I dont think people realize how much effort I put in these classes. Reading information , planning and reviewing. Ugh.
Now up again at 4am because thats what time my husband gets up and so all the dogs get up. They want me to get up even though he is awake and could do what they need. I need more sleep. So now Im irritable. And then this irritated me too. Im on a list and they were talking about ETS. I put up a couple of links for Linda M. stuff that she has done. I guess the list thinks its a training problem. But all of us who follow anyone who has been trying to work through this issue, know how hard they worked on the dogs jumping issues. Its not a training issue IMO. Its heart breaking to watch a beautiful talented dog struggle with this issue. But then again I didnt believe in fibromyalgia until I got it. The first two doctors who told me I had that I wrote off as "stupid". By the 4th doctor, I had to believe it. But Im sure lots of people dont believe in that either and I dont blame them. Sometimes until something happens to you, its easy to write off. (Sorry if Ive offended anyone, these are just my opinions and I feel Im allowed to write what I want here as long as Im not saying offensive things about other people. )

Getting to me

2012-01-22T16:25:00.000-05:00

I think this weather is getting to me. We've had no sun for at least 4 days maybe more. Its been raining alot. Yesterday it poured. We got up early to vote. What a waste of time that was. I still cant believe South Carolina picked Gingrich. What the heck?? The man has no morals and they want him as president. I still cant believe it. Then I drove up to North Carolina to take Miley to her rehab appt. I took Java too because I was suppose to have a lesson but it was canceled due to rain. When we got to the vet, I took Java in to because I didnt want to leave her in the car. In the waiting room, first one 4 month old lab comes in, then a 2 month old lab comes in. Miley wasnt happy. She is never happy when we are there but she is ok. Java was calm and sniffed the puppies. The puppies were wild and the staff was all oooing and aaaaing over them. The man with the 4 month old puppy asked me how old Java was. I told him 7 months. He said "I cant wait until he is 7 months and acts like that". I didnt want to bust his bubble. I think Java is just laid back kinda dog. Then we got called back. Miley was freaked out. I have no idea why. She laid there for the treatment but her back leg kept shaking. Im not sure what was wrong with her. Java just sat there watching everything. Then we were done and it was time to go. She jumped up and that was that. Im not sure what was wrong with her. They lady moved the probe around and the settings were correct. Maybe all the commotion in the waiting area took her over the edge. The tech was new, maybe that was it. Then we drove home in the rain. The dogs were beside themselves all day with nothing to do.

This picture was taken last week. Then this happened.

Crazy dog.

The next day I went back and retook some pictures to get this shot. But made sure she didnt jump off the ledge.

Still having bad weather today. It chilly and 44 degrees. Its damp from all the rain and my backyard is a big mud pit. So we went the the park and worked on our running dogwalk stuff.

And you know what? Im jealous of all the people in class who just stand there and throw the ball and their dog runs like heck. LOL I think Im the furthest behind in class but its not from lack of trying to practicing.

I did get Java to learn this trick.

More running

2012-01-19T05:01:00.000-05:00

She is still not running full out and is to airy. All this running is a lot of work. Ive been really trying to get her to want to run and chase me.

Yesterday I tried to kill my dog, well maybe not kill but Im surprised she didnt break her legs. I had put all the dogs in crates to eat dinner. Than I took Java out to work on the elephant trick. I use the top of a cake carrier cover with a none-slip runner on it to use for her to purch on and rotate around. The cover is probably 10 inches high. When I was done, I put it on top of her crate just for now and then I was going to put it away. I went to let the other dogs out of their crates. Java jumped on top of her wire crate, her legs were falling through. My husband started yelling and went to get her. When I turned around , she was sitting on top of the cake pan cover with all four feet. Im sure she was thinking, "where's my treat?". Crazy dog.

Pick your head up.

2012-01-18T06:01:00.001-05:00

I was trying to get a picture of all three dogs.

Java likes to keep her head down. It drives me crazy ( just for picture taking, otherwise I dont care).

But she is staying and looking at the camera. Thats huge!

Until she decides this is boring and she has had enough. LOL

So then I got out a ball to throw up in the air to try to get Java's head up. Oops.

Yea, her head is up. Miley is tracking the ball.

Look pretty good but you can see Guiness's leash. Cant take him off leash. To risky.

Success!!

Tendons to running contacts

2012-01-14T15:33:00.000-05:00

(This isnt a great picture but they are both looking at the camera. Score!!!)
Its been a busy week. Sorry I havent posted much. Ive been so tired and I dont know why. Earlier in the week it was really warm but rainy. Then yesterday the sun came out but freezing cold and windy! Ugh, I hate winter. My hands are now cracked open , boooooo. Ok, enough complaining.
Last week or maybe it was the week before, my husband took Miley for her ultrasound of her left shoulder. She still has tendinitis and two small tears in the tendon. No surprise there. Miley probably thinks her whole life is "rest". August and September she rested because of the glass in her foot that took forever to find. Then in November the tendinitis started. She rested for 6 weeks and the had a week of normal activity. The limping started again and now more res,t probably for 3 months. Poor Miley. I decided to do therapeutic ultrasound for this go around. Its suppose to help the tendons heal faster and in the right direction ( or something like that). So she had her first treatment on Thursday. Now she hasnt had US treatment since summer of 2010. The vet was doing her treatment and as soon as this beeper went off, stating treatment was over, Miley popped right up. The vet hadnt even had time to pull to probe off of her yet. It surprised the vet. Im sure the vet didnt want her getting up like that. So a year and a half and the dog still knew what the beep meant. No wonder she wont get on the table at a trial. LOL She never forgets!! So going back and forth to NC for the next few weeks will probably kill me. But hey its for my dog right?
Then there is Java. Who wants to run and play with Miley and cant. Poor Java. Ive started the on-line running contacts class. Im not sure Java is running as fast as she can so thats all Ive really been working on. Trying different toys to see if she will drive faster for one than another. Not really. My throwing the ball needs work. So many things to think about. Ive been working everyday or every other day on the running contacts stuff. You have 3 weeks to complete the homework. I didnt know if I should wait until the end of the three weeks to post my video or do it at the beginning. I needed help so I went ahead and posted it. Ill see what she says to help me. Also, you need to open the classroom stuff everyday and read what people post and what she says so you can learn from them. And if you dont, I can really see getting behind on information.
This isnt the video I posted to the class. But I can see how much different her stride is inside than outside. I probably wont do any inside again. The one for the class was outside , where there is more room. I like how she is playing with me though. You are probably thinking , "big deal".LOL, it is for me. Ive been working hard to get this.

The "I shot it" contest is almost over. I think there is 2 more weeks to enter your dog photos. I pot is around 1200.00. I could sure use that. But there are professional photographers pictures in there so Im sure I dont have a chance, its sure nice to dream.....

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-11T05:56:00.000-05:00

Back from Florida!!

2012-01-09T11:36:00.000-05:00

On Friday my husband and I drove to Florida for the Ann Braue puppy seminar. Thank goodness my husband came with me because I dont think I could have done all that driving by myself. The only negative thing was there really werent any parks that let you walk your dogs in them. Well, I found one but there was no parking so that didnt help. Many of the parks were acres and acres but you had to stay in the "dog park" fenced area with you dog. Thats not really something I do with my dogs. Very disappointing.
We did find this tiny park on the water which allowed dogs but I think it was more for fishing. It was less than a 1/4 of a mile walk, not really what I was looking for. But I did get some nice pictures. And we saw two manatees swimming but I wasnt ready, so my picture is horrible.

There were some cool birds too

I havent been able to get an unique dog pictures in 3 weeks but this next one is cool.

I did stop at this park with a small beach but they didnt allow dogs. It was early in the morning and no one was there so I put the dogs on the beach and took a couple of shots.

Then off to the seminar.
The weather was beautiful. Sunny and 74. I learned a lot. Somethings I was already doing with Java like crate games and its your choice. But we played this clicker game. You were paired up with another person. One person was the dog and one was the trainer. Then the trainer picked a "trick" from a hat that you had to clicker train. I was the trainer first. I had to teach the person to put the back of their hand on the top of their head. I couldnt get her to do it. LOL She got her hand on her head part but I couldnt get her to flip her hand over. It was funny to listen to what the "dog" thought the trick was and what it actually was. Sometimes they knew it was "put hand on elbow" but it was suppose to be "put right hand on left elbow". It made you really think if your dog understands the behavior your are teaching. Then we switched roles. The lady I work with was very good and I got it. "take left hand and pinch right ear lobe". Placement of the reward after the click was very helpful and something I havent been doing.
One thing I did learn was I have a lot more playing to do with Java. It was such hard work to get her to play when she really didnt want to. She would rather work for food. Ive never worked so hard or long trying to play with my dog before. Every muscle in my body is sore from just playing with my dog. LOL What an eye opener. But she can do it and I have to be more persistent. I felt like she had pretty good play drive before going to the seminar but I now know I have a lot more work to do. We did lots of restrained recalls with our dog. I have more work to do on that too. Ive been having her drive to me for food but I need her to do it for a toy. One time after driving to me she really didnt want to play. I was trying hard to get her to play and running with a toy. My ankle twisted and I fell hard. I wasnt hurt but it sure was embarrassing. The next day my left arm, that I fell on, was so sore. And still is. LOL
It was funny , there were no border collies and I was the only sheltie. There were poodles, labs, goldens, Doberman, schnauzers, and pappion.
At the end of the first day I was tired and tired of playing with my dog. I never thought I would say that. Im sure she was tired of playing with me too. LOL

The next day we went back to the two parks. Didnt see any manatees. The went to the "no dogs" park. There were cops parked there so I didnt take the dogs out.

I thought this was a manatee. But then I realized , at least I think, its was an alligator. Ugh!

Then there were some dolphins.

Sorry, none of the pictures are great.

I could have stayed for hours taking pictures but time for Day 2 of the seminar. When leaving the park, I was backing up. I have back up cameras and the sensors that were beeping , telling me there was something behind me. I saw the big tree but I didnt see a big rock on the ground. I thought it was beeping because of the tree and of course hit the rock. Ugh. So I messed up my bumper. That was a bummer.
The second day we did a bunch of stations. Some of the things were repeats from the day before and some new things. The stations were different things like fit disc, plank work, cone work, tables ect. Work with food for 3 minutes, then break and play with your dog. Again, lots of work to get my dog to play after working with food. Also there were now lots of treats on the ground as you worked your way around the stations and you had to really work hard to get your dog to forget about all those dropped treats. Another thing for me to work on.
We drove home after the seminar. What a long day. Im very thankful that my very nice husband came with me. What a guy!!

Wordless Wednesday (late)

2012-01-05T05:14:00.000-05:00

Java's running contact

2012-01-01T20:30:00.001-05:00

I went to the field today to teach my last foundation class. They were such a great class. They really wanted to learn and soak up all the information. I love that! It was beautiful out, 74 degrees!!

I took Java with me. This is her first time running. I just wanted to see what her rear legs looked like. I wanted to make sure they were separated. I have more ball work to do. You really want your dog driving to the ball. (its in slow motion and you have to wait a minute after she jumps in the air, I didnt want to cut that out. sorry, it was to cute)

She was even ok with that Yorkie there. LOL

The other awesome thing was lots of big dogs and no barking or growling from Java. Whoohoo, Im so happy!!! She was off leash and my friends two big dogs were off leash. Java went up to them, they ignored her. She followed them. It was fantastic. It made my whole day!!!

Limping again

2011-12-31T13:10:00.000-05:00

Yes Miley was limping again this week. Im not sure what happened. We had been hiking, no limping. Went to my mom's house for Christmas and they have a good size backyard. I let her and Java run but not to much, no limping. I took her to the club to finish those last two jumps that needed the jump cup strips attached. I let her run some small sequences, no limping.

Then the next day she was out in the backyard. Its was around 6am. She wasnt limping when she got up but when she came in from being outside, she was really limping. Crap. I dont know if she fell or what happened. Ugh! She even went in my room and laid down. So unlike her. I gave her a Rimadyl. And hour later she was fine. I havent given her any more Rimadyl but Ive restricted her again. No off leash running. The backyard is gated again, so she cant run free. She is confined to the den and kitchen. I still take her for walks except the day she was limping, I didnt let her do anything. And our walks arent that far and back to the flat surfaces. I made an appt. with the Vet who does ultrasounds and is good at being about to see muscle tears or tendon tears. She couldnt do it this week so Miley goes Monday. Im assuming that maybe she has a tiny tear somewhere in her shoulder. Although when I talked to the rehab vet about her possibly having a tear ( before she released her from rehab), she didnt think Miley would get better so quickly if she had a tear and as soon as I let her run, the limp would show back up. Im not sure why it took a week , maybe I let her do to much to fast. Ugh.

Java is doing well. Still working on recalls. Sometimes they are great and sometimes not. One day we only took Java to the hiking park. When we got to the back of the park, I let her off leash. She did well for about an hour. Then I went to take a picture of something and my husband was watching her. He didnt see anything, but she took off running. Lucky we were in a valley and could see for a good distance. I called her and she didnt come. Uh, scary. I had to use , "Pup, Pup, puppy" and then she came. Today I worked her again. She stopped to sniff an orange peel and wouldnt recall off of it. I had to go get her. We worked more recalls. Then a dog barked, she took off running. I called her. She stopped on a dime and came running back. That made me feel a little better.
She is having a hard not being reactive to other dogs. Even at the class I teach where she really hasnt had a problem. This week someone, who wasnt in class, was working their dog in the other room and had their other dog locked in a crate. It wouldnt stop barking. And Java kept barking and growling. So everytime she did that, I put her in her crate. She stopped barking. The a lady in class came with a big border collie , Java went crazy. I had to lock her up in her crate again. She finally got better. It seems to be big dogs that she is having a problem with. We walked at the park this morning. There were several people walking dogs. I put her in a sit and clicked and treated every time looked at the dogs but didnt react. She did much better by the end of the walk. So I guess thats what Im going to be working on. She had no problems at the agility field this week but no big dogs came to class. One funny thing that happened . I was putting the chute away and its kinda hard to carry. While I was walking, Java jumped up and into the plastic barrel. It was to funny.

I feel like this is a depressing post so on a good note........
For Christmas my husband bought me an online class. Its the Silvia Trkman Running Contacts. Im going to try and teach Java running contacts. I still need to paint my board. You have to have a flat 12 foot board so the dog runs on it just like running on the ground. Will see how it goes. I can always change to a 2o/2o but keep the a-frame running.

(I know this one isnt in focus but its still cute to me)

Wordless Wednesday

2011-12-28T06:44:00.000-05:00

Life goes on.

2011-12-26T12:08:00.001-05:00

Well Christmas is over. Thank god. I really dont like Christmas anymore. I dont really want to get into why, Im just glad its over.

I went to the club on Friday to work on some of the jumps we made. The jump bars needed to be cut down and they needed to be taped. Some of the jumps needed to be glued. So I took Java with us, my husband came with me, so we could work the chute a couple of times.

She looks much happier huh?

Thursday I took Miley to her follow -up rehab appt. She was good. No signs of pain with any movement. So I can start increasing her activity. The day before taking her to the appt. I played ball with her in the house and the day of we hiked at the park. I figured if that aggravated her that she wasnt ready to be released. But nope, all was good.

Saturday we hiked 4 miles at the park. Not anything to hilly but lots of roots so you have to pick your feet up more. While in the back of the park, about a mile and a half we run into a lady walking two dogs. I was trying to work on Java not barking at people and dogs we pass at the park. So my husband was walking Miley and Guiness. Java had done really well everyone we had passed so far. I told the lady my dog may bark. The lady got off the path, which should have clued me in. She was walking both her dogs, a Great Pyrenees and a mixed dog( looked like lab-pit bull) on flexi-leads. The mixed breed was a rescue. All of a sudden all hell breaks looks. Her dogs start barking and pull the leads out of her hands. The dogs go charging at Lou. He trys to block, and successfully blocks the GP. But the mixed breed goes behind him. First jumps Miley, who doesnt really fight back and backs out under the dog.Then he goes after Guiness. The lady just stands there. Didnt even leave her spot. Lou kicks the dog in the head. The dog takes off to his owner. She grabs him. Lou has the GP by the leash. Finally she responds and gets the GP. I have Lou take Miley and Java away from the area. Guiness is bleeding from his face. I did have my first aid kit with me and Im trying to clean Guiness's face and see how bad he is bitten. The lady tells me that the mixed breed had bitten another dog at home twice this morning. The said, "I guess this tells me what I need to know about this dog". Ugh, to bad my dog had to pay the price. I was mad but I was more concerned about my dog. The lady did apologize several times and felt really bad. I didnt need to make her feel worse. And she stayed there until I was the one who finally left. I think she was more traumatized then me. I was just glad things werent worse. Im glad Guiness didnt get bitten in the eye. The vet was closed. But I had doxycline at home and started him on that. It looked swollen after about an hour or two at home but the next day was much better.

He had a small shallow puncture wound to the face. I guess because there isnt much tissue there and mostly bone, the dog didnt get a good grip. The worse part is my husband kicked the dog with his leg he had knee surgery on Nov 2. Its now been hurting for the past 2 days. Ugh. I hope its not wrecked. Plus Java probably wont be calm passing other dogs for a while, that was a big set back. It probably just reinforced her thinking. I never asked the lady if her dog was ok.

I did manage a few pictures after that.

( here is Miley trying to figure out how to cross this little creek without getting wet. Java cant understand what the problem is. Just walk thur it.)

Miley finally just says "screw it, Im jumping".

Here was Guiness's face again a little later. I was concerned about the inner corner of the eye. But the next day it was back to normal.

Game!

2011-12-24T08:46:00.001-05:00

Lian at Knight shelites http://theknightsmixedbunch.blogspot.com/, gave us this award. Its a fun little game to help bring blog readers to your blog. Thanks Lian! Dont forget to go to Lians blog either. She runs some awesome shelties and made the WAO 2012 team for England. WhooHoo!!

Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve. As with any award, there is a bit of ceremony involved. In order to accept the award, we must do the following:

1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.

2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award

3. Pick our five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.

4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs

Here are my 5 blogs Im picking to send the award to.

1. Bently and Lexi's blog. She has two shelties her and her husband run in agility.

http://corbinwooten.blogspot.com/

2.Thur Labs eyes. Great blog about running agility with her lab. She is kinda just getting started in agility. The blog also talk about her other dog and kids. http://thrulabseyes.blogspot.com/

3.Kerales Kate. Awesome blog! She runs a border collie in agility and frisbee. Very talented, I love to watch her run agility. http://keraleskate.blogspot.com/

4. Another Awesome agility person who I would love to be able to run my dog like her. The Adventures of two Urban Border Collies and a sheltie , http://urbanborders.blogspot.com/

5. http://daysofspeed.blogspot.com/ Another great blog. Not only does she run agility but does triathlons. I dont know how she has all that energy. She also post beautiful pictures of the Colorado country side.

( anyone who I picked and you dont want to play , I wont be offended. And some of the blogs I picked I couldnt find how many followers they had. )

Drive update

2011-12-21T19:07:00.000-05:00

We had our co-op class last night instead of tonight. It was suppose to rain today so I emailed everyone to see if they wanted change to Tuesday night. Good decision because its rained all day today. So last night someone asked me if I was feeling ok. I said "yes , Why?". She said because the course was to easy and usually I set up hard courses. LOL, I told when I renumber it , it will be more challenging. It was a course that was already set up, so I didnt have to do much work. The first course was a starters jumpers course that I added weave poles too. Then when I renumbered it, I added wrap and back sides of jumps. I think everyone felt challenged.
But before everyone got their I worked Java. I let the video speak for itself.(it was dark but lights on the field, so some of the video isnt good)

Wordless Wednesday

2011-12-21T05:37:00.000-05:00

Drive

2011-12-20T07:48:00.000-05:00

Before I talk about drive, Ill talk about the beach. We drove down to the beach on Sunday. We had to clean up a water leak at the condo. The hot water heater has a pipe going to it that brings the water into the heater. That was leaking. My husband just happened to be there last weekend for a Marathon that was at Kiawah. He was a volunteer and some of his friends were running in the race. So they used the condo. He walked into the closet and didnt have shoes on and felt the wet carpet. So he pulled the wall out that hides the water heater. Had a maintenance person come over to fix the pipe. Then ran a fan to dry the carpet. Then we had to go back to put the wall back up to hide the water heater. Not a good design but I didnt fell like changing it at this point. We got there at 9:30am and took the dogs for a walk on the beach.

This picture would have been cool but it was into the sun. I wish I could figure out how to take pictures into the sun. Anyone know any tricks? Most of the time the dogs seem to be into the sun when I wanted to get a shot.

Here is a little canal of water that forms when the tide goes out.

Here is Miley trying to figure out how to cross that little canal of water without getting wet. Its only about up to her wrists deep. LOL

These people were riding horses on the beach. Lucky we could see them coming and leashed the dogs up.

I wanted to get some cool pictures of the horses running through the water but it didnt happen. I wasnt in the right place for the shots and I didnt think they would want me taking pictures of them. So this was the best I did.

They must have gotten some new alligators for the ponds. Now there are three out there.

This is taken from our deck.

It was a nice day. Beautiful sunshine but a little chilly. But nothing that some extra clothes didnt take care of. It only felt chilly on the beach because of the wind.

Now onto drive. I took Java to the club last night. A friend asked me to meet her there to work on young dog things. I got there first. Java did well when I first got there. She isnt really fast about doing things. She may just be thinking, Im not sure. I can put her in a tunnel and beat her across the room. But the room isnt that big so maybe she doesnt feel she needs to run full out. Going around the cone, shes got that but never does it fast. I taught it with shaping and maybe thats why she doesnt do it fast. Im not sure. Ive been working on the chute. Because I was by myself, I did it different then I usually do. I lifted the end of the chute and threw the cookie into the chute (backwards). Then called her and let the chute fall as she came out.   This technique seemed to work better then holding the chute open and calling her threw. (which I tried when my friend got there). So here she is going through the chute for the first time, all by herself without help.

So how do I increase her drive for agility? I dont know. Im trying to make it fun. But she doesnt look like she is having fun does she?   She seemed nervous when the other ladies dogs were out. She worked, each of us took a corner. But then when I decided to stop and we sat down, when a yorkie would come over to see her, she would hide under my legs. Weird. She hasnt acted like this at all in the classes. She got better during the night but never seemed comfortable around the yorkies. One even kept trying to get her to play. Java thought about it but never did.
Im signed up for a puppy camp in January called, "Drive,Drive and more Drive". Its taught by Ann Braue.   Im hoping that will help me.   She likes to run and chase stuff like Miley and squirrels. I just need that to transfer to me and agility.

Whats up???

2011-12-18T05:54:00.001-05:00

I have no holiday spirit. Ive only bought one gift and that was for my grandfather. He likes that movie "The Christmas Story" and I saw this and thought he would get a good laugh.

Java is getting big. She no longer looks like a puppy. I kept hoping she is going to stay under 16 inches but I dont know. Last week she was 14 3/4.

Its been a busy week and Ive been to tired to blog. Then Friday and Saturday morning I woke up with a migraine. Not a nice way to start the day.
Wednesday I taught the agility Co-Op class for the club. Its been warm out but as soon as the sun goes down it feels freezing. I was so cold while out there teaching. Brrrr. I hate to tell you it was only 50 degrees out. LOL, Im a wimp. I took Java with me. She did well. No barking or going after other dogs. But no big dogs were in class. At the end of class we were cleaning up the equipment and the little dogs were all loose. They all got a long. They just hung out and no one really cared about the others. While there I worked on Java's tunnels and teeters. She doing much better with the teeter. She seemed kinda afraid of it a couple times when Ive taken her to the field. But this time, no problem. The teeter is set between two tables. I even lowered one of the tables and she was ok with it.
Thursday I taught 2 foundation agility classes. She does really well in those class. I had her in Miley's crate while working the other dogs in the class thur the chute. Java busted out the zipper on the crate, ran thur the chute and came to me. It was so cute. I think she was thinking, "I can do it, I can do it". So I guess I cant use Miley's crate anymore. I have a bigger soft crate that I used for Guiness. I guess Ill try that one. Its heavier and thats why I dont like it but the zipper is more substantial. Java's recall is getting better. In class two bigger dogs started barking at each other, Java started running over there. I called her and she turned right around and came to me. WhooHoo!! Now if I could just get her to do that with squirrels. At the end of the class, two different people came up to me and told me how much they are enjoying class and that they are learning a lot. That was so nice. I really worry about people not being bored in class. Foundation stuff can sometimes seem boring especially if you dont understand why you are learning something. But you will need that foundation later on.
Miley is doing ok. I think I might have seen her limp in the house twice. But it was just once so Im not sure. I havent seen anything on walks , and thats where Im really watching her. So Im not sure if I really saw it or not. Of course when Im watching her, I never see anything.

I forgot to add this. So I had to edit the post. There is a web site called "I shot it". You can enter your pictures for a small fee. If you win, you get the pot. They are having a contest for dog pictures. Right now the pot is worth about 400.00, but there is still 6 weeks to go. So Im sure as more people add pictures it will grow. I added some pictures and will probably add a few more. It sure would be nice to get that money. Here is the website http://i-shot-it.com/

They lady who does Scruffy dog photography ( who is on my blog reading list side bar) is judging the contest. I love her photos. She takes awesome dog pictures!

Great Idea

2011-12-11T06:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had this great idea. I had bought some tall rubber boots. I would walk through the river and take the dogs out on the rocks. Then using my tripod, I would great a group of of me and the dogs. LOL this is what I got.

Yea, not a great idea. LOL The rubber boots worked well until the end. The last time I crossed the river I must have walked a little bit deeper and the water went over the top and into my boots. But I was done and I had dry shoes on the shore. I carried all the dogs back and forth across the river so they wouldnt get wet. But Java decieded she was going in anyways, after I carried her across.

Java thinks she is a border collie. Its a lot of work to get her to put her head up.

They must have recently let the dam out. All that green stuff is caught on everything. Its pretty the first couple of days. Then it just dies and is ugly.

Java likes to hide in the stuff.

There's that border collie again.

This is on the island thats in the river. Mostly I take pictures out on the rocks. I dont like the inside of the island. It reminds me of snakes. Then on the path, in the middle of the island, there was a dead snake and bird. Together. I recognized the snake because of the spine but the bird skull took me a while to figure out. Then Jave picked up the snake in her mouth. Ugh, I thought I would throw up. I hate snakes, dead or alive.

Im sure I looked like a homeless person walking out of the park. Boots over my shoulder, pants wet from the knees down, and my jacket dirty from holding the dogs while crossing the river. But for a short time, out on the rocks, the sun was out. And life was perfect.

Miley update

2011-12-08T18:45:00.000-05:00

Miley had her 2 week follow-up appt. yesterday. It went well. She was no longer tender when the vet touched the tendon. When she was lying down and she fully extended her leg froward, she kept her head on the floor relaxed. Last time she kept picking her head up when the vet extended her leg all the way forward. But the vet said she could feel her muscle tense when she extended it. So she is much better but still has a ways to go. Two more weeks of rest and then she will get checked again.

I put this picture in the blog because it had Miley in it but also that chest. I found that chest at Goodwill over 20 years ago. It was painted the ugliest orange color I had ever seen. I thought I would take it home, strip it and then repaint it. But when I started stripping it, it was beautiful underneath. It took several stripping to get all the paint off and then I just left it natural. I think I might have used some oil on it since stripping it dries out the wood. I really like this chest. It been with us moving to 6 houses. Never any problems. Over Thanksgiving Stephanie came home and said she needed a tacky Christmas sweater to wear for a Christmas party she was going to at school. So can she look through my sweaters. LOL, yea way to build me up there and make me feel good about myself. So she goes through my chest. And yes she found one that works. LOL, I like that sweater too. I guess that shows my taste. She went through the whole chest and found some other outdated stuff she thought was cool and wanted. Also in that chest is my electric blanket. Stephanie put everything she didnt want back in the chest and closed it. The other day I wanted to put my electric blanket on the bed and went to open the chest. Its locked. WTF? Locked?? I dont have a key. Its never been locked. Thats how things sometimes go with Stephanie. She touches it and it breaks. Im not sure how it happens but it happens alot. I know she didnt mean to lock the chest but its locked. Weve tried several times to get it open and no luck. Ugh!!!!!

Ive been thinking a lot about not being able to Q with Miley on course. And since getting Java, Im noticing Miley's quriks a lot more. One of them is her space issuses. She doenst like to come in close to you unless its her own decision. So if you call her while she is going thur the den. Oops, her signals tell her, "go wide, go wide". She will start making wide circles thru the den, kitchen area. Or she turns around and goes the other way. She dodges your hand as it comes out to pet her. If she lays down next to you and you pet her, she gets up and leaves. LOL So since she is on rest and cant or isnt suppose to run around, I thought I would work on her coming close to me. I had to wait her out a pretty long time, but Im finally making some progress. I used the clicker. I called her just saying "come". And then waited until she did something that meant forward motion. Not backward, circling or going wide. No luring. If she leaned foreward or to one step or even attempted to step forward. I clicked and said yes. And then I would throw the treat to her but so that she would have step forward again. Its going pretty well and she she will always step toward me when I call her and lots of times come all they way in and let me pet her. My thought is that we cant work as a team on course because her space bubble is to wide. Lots of times your dog needs to come in close , well if your dog doesnt like close, your in trouble. I ve also been working heeling exercises with her. Just little short ones and not that often.So heeling passed obstcales. I dont know if any of this will make a difference but it cant hurt either. (once again I cant get spell checker to work so read at your own risk.)

Wordless Wednesday

2011-12-07T05:23:00.000-05:00

Java 25 weeks

2011-12-04T16:59:00.001-05:00

Java turned 25 weeks today. I think she weighs 16 lbs and is 14 .5 inches tall.

I have the back yard gated off so I guess she decieded the flower pots were the next best thing.

Long week

2011-12-02T20:20:00.000-05:00

I havent taken any pictures all week. Shocking, I know. LOL I think it was raining Monday. Tuesday I didnt feel like it because it was already getting dark at the park. Of course there was a beautiful picture of a blue herring standing right in the water cove. Would have been a beautiful shot. But I didnt bring my camera because I figured there wouldnt be anything to take a picture of. LOL And then I taught classes for the club on Wed and Thurs and I didnt get home unitl after 9pm. Today? Well, I was just wiped out.
Tuesday when we went to the park. Java chased a squirrel into the woods. I recalled her and she came. She shook her head and blood flew all over Miley's face. I looked at Java and she had blood all over one side of her face. I didnt have my first aid kit with me because its in my camera bag and I didnt bring that. My husband had a paper towel in his pocket so I cleaned Java up but couldnt find the where the blood came from. So we started to walk again and now more blood , thick gobs of it were on Java's face again. Now I could see it was coming from her ear but there wasnt really a cut or hole. The was a slight abrasion on the inside of her ear that was causing all this. So I held her while we walked back to the car with pressure on her ear. It stopped bleeding. I put her down and walked the rest of the way to the car. I wonder what people thought that passed us. Im sure it looked like my dogs had hunted down something and killed it. Killer dogs.
Wednesday I taught the agility co-op class. I put up several of the Stuart Mah course we did at the seminar. They ran them without a problem. Which of course starts making me think I suck again because I struggled with the courses. And then I start debating all the way home why Im trying to run Miley. LOL. I dont know if you listened to Daisy Peels podcast, its on her website and its free. But its about consistency. Yea Im consistently going off course and consistently "NQ"ing. So I am consistent. But it sounds like its hard to change what you have always done. So unless I change what Im doing , Im not going to be able to run my dog. ( thats not what she said in the podcast, thats my take on myself after listening to it) But how do you change. Its easy to change little things, but how do you change the whole thing? I dont know.
I set the course up and had Java with me. I was numbering the course when someone in the class came. He asked if he could let his 10 month old puppy ,a great Pyrenees, run around the field. He wanted to know if it would bother Java. I told him I didnt think Java would care but I put her on leash. He brought the dog in and they sniffed each other and seem ok. He went to one side of the field and I went to the other to finish number the course. I dropped the leash because it was to hard to number, hold the course map and do the leash. Well then his dog came running over and started chasing Java. Poor Java ran and looked scared. Which I would think is normal because that dog is huge!!!! I called Java, she came running to me. As soon as she got to me, she turned around and with the meanest growling bark went after the great Pyrenees. The Pyrenees took off running. Of course I got Java, but it worried me because I dont want her to be a mean dog. Then during class I was at the edge of the field with Java on leash next to me and another big flat coated retriever was running. He left the course and came running at us. Again Java's mean growling bark came and she tried to go after him. He went back to his owner. Oh good, now Ive given her two bad experiences. This made me feel terrible. I put my dog in a place were she felt like she had to protect herself. Ugh. ( just so you know, this guys dogs are really nice dogs and they just wanted to play. They werent being aggressive, Java, I think, took it as a threat.)
So the next night I teach 2 foundation classes at the club and took Java with me. There she was fine. She didnt bark or growl at anyone or the dogs. She even went up to a few big dogs. I think it has to do with me. If she feels the dog is threatening me, thats when the growling barking stuff comes in. I dont know if I should be worried about this behavior or not.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-30T05:17:00.001-05:00

Saturday

2011-11-27T06:40:00.000-05:00

It was suppose to be partly sunny. Uh, I dont think they were correct (again). Ugh!

I was trying to get a picture of both dogs and the clouds reflecting off the water. But Java's stay isnt very good yet. She is always distracted by things.

And then I call her name to get her to look my way and this happens.

So then you stick the leash under a rock so she cant pull forward. LOL But then the leash is in the picture.

This would be a good picture if she didnt have ear weight on her ears.

I like the reflection of her in the water.

Java kept retrieving this pine cone out of the water. Miley is thinking, "What so great about that , that you would go into the water for it?"

Miley update

2011-11-25T18:56:00.000-05:00

While Java gets to run and play. Miley gets to stay on leash. Poor Miley but it could be worse. Someone canceled their appt with the rehab vet so I got an appt for Wednesday morning. Oh but first when I called the vet , I told the receptionist that I needed an appt because my dog was injured . Well as soon as it came out of my mouth I realized that was the wrong way to phrase it. I tried to rephrase it with the girl but to late. She told me she didnt have any appt with my vet but felt it was important for the dog to be seen since she was injured and she was really pushing for me to see another vet. Ugh! So we left it with the vet calling me back. LOL and when she did someone had canceled their appt so I got it, instead of having to wait until next week. So I drove up Wednesday morning. No real traffic but lots of cops everywhere. When I got their the vet watched her walk/trot. Then she examined her. She did a full extension of her left leg forward with Miley standing and Miley didnt respond. But when lying down, she can extend the front leg much further. That time she got a reaction when fully extended. No reaction when the leg is pulled back.Its amazing all the different ways the dogs legs can go. So long story short, She has tendinitis in her left front shoulder. She didnt think it was bad and wants her to rest for 2 weeks and rimadyl then come back in for a recheck. If she isnt improving then go for an ultrasound to see whats going on. So I figure she is out for at least 6 weeks. She can go for leash walks just no running or jumping.
I drove back home. That was 4 hours in the car. Then we drove to my mom's house in Savannah. So another 3 hours. Ugh. I was over the whole car thing by the time we got there. Thanksgiving was at my mom's house. We only stayed less than 24 hours. Mostly because of all my dogs. Its just to much to bring 5 dogs to someones house. I worry they are annoying people or might wreck something. Plus the only was to get outside is to go down 20 steps. So Miley was going up and down the steps. That was causing me stress because she shouldnt be doing that. Although she didnt one step the stairs at all at my mom's house. Anyway, it was time to go and we drove home. Lots of people on the road on Thanksgiving. I was kinda surprised. But we made it home and I was so happy to sleep in my own bed with no barking dogs. ( the barking dogs were mine).

Oh yea, I bought this harness for Java. She hates it. LOL. The thing I dont like about it is where the leash attaches.

See the metal ring. The metal leash clip with the metal ring on the harness makes a bunch of clanging noise. So the dogs always turn around to see if someone is coming. That doesnt happen when there is tension on the leash but if is loose. "clang, clang, clang" ugh, annoying. So I bought some plasti-dip and dipped the ring. It wouldnt stick at first so I had to sand the ring down and then dipped it.

Turned out great. No more annoying clanging. My dogs no long turning around to see who is following us. LOL

"I still dont like it."

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T14:47:00.001-05:00

All I got for Thanksgiving:

I hope you did better than me.

Sigh

2011-11-19T19:15:00.000-05:00

So last Sunday at the beach I noticed Miley limping. But then it went away. I didnt see anything Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday I did a little agility with her and she seemed ok. Then I decided to run her over the a-frame a couple of times. Well the limp was back. Then again the next couple of days she was fine. I was signed up for a trial and decided to take her just for the jumpers run. I got there and she seemed fine. I didnt see anything. In hind sight I should have gotten there sooner so my dogs had time to adjust. But Ill have to remember that for next time. We ran the course. She dropped the first bar. That threw me. Weaves were great. Then the wrong tunnel entrance. Then the end they had to wrap tight and not take the tunnel that was a straight shot. I told her tight but she turned and took the next jump that was at 90 degrees. Very weird even for Miley. We did lots of tight wraps last weekend and she got of them. Then went we walked down the steps at this place, she went one step, one step, one step. Ugh, she is hurt and Im a DA. So I guess Ill see if I can get an appt with the rehab vet next week but I doubt it since its Thanksgiving.

I took Java with us and she did well there. She was a little nervous when we got in the building but recovered quickly. They had Agility and Confirmation going on at the same time. So it was very busy. We walked around the confirmation area because that is where all the vendors were. She did well, she was scared of two dogs and didnt want to walk pass them But they were big dogs. One was a mastiff. He was huge! But we did pass. At least no barking. LOL

On Thursday I taught 2 foundation agility classes at the club. I took Java to the class. She was the demo dog and did awesome. We just did things like the wobble board, tunnel, wrapping cones, rear end awareness games, its your choice games, and "go on". She didnt bark at any dogs. Whoohoo!! And recalled off of dogs she was going to see. Yea!!!

Oh yea, I keep forgetting to tell you this. Those pictures I took of the yorkies doing obedience and rally. They used the 2 pictures in the calendar. The one of the 8 yorkies in a sit-stay on grass with ring gating behind them is the cover. To tell you the truth I didnt like that picture very much. Shows what I know. Then the other picture was a yorkie doing a figure 8 thur the cones for rally. That one was cute. Then dogs expression was very nice. I havent seen the calendar but its a "working yorkie" calendar. I get credit for the pictures too. How exciting.

I keep trying to get a good picture of my three shelites and it just isnt happening. Plus all their leashes are on so I can grab them all if I need too.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-16T06:37:00.000-05:00

Day 2 of trial

2011-11-14T21:08:00.000-05:00

Man I was beat after Saturday. Sunday I woke up at 3:30am and felt terrible. I hurt all over. Ugh! I didnt think I was going to make it to the trial feeling so bad. But I took all my medication and by 7am I was feeling better. So at 8:30 I decided to go to the trial. First up was Jumpers. I remembered my C.A.D. LOL

I struggled to figure out what to do in the opening. If I stayed to the dogs right and post turned that would put me behind coming out of the tunnel. I wanted to be ahead of my dog. A running front cross in front of #2, I felt would pull the dog to the wrong tunnel entrance if you werent just right because of the angle of jump #3. The only thing that would work for me was a lead out push. So that Im to the left of my dog and then I will be in front with her coming out of the tunnel. But when I tried that yesterday in snooker, she turned to soon and disaster. But the C. is for confidence. She knows how to do this, I need to get it right. So no time like the present. LOL Well it worked great. We were having an awesome run until I got lost. It was around the turn in 13 -16. I was completely lost. I didnt know what number I was on, where my dog was, which way I needed to go. All I saw was a sea of white jumps that didnt show any direction to me. Then I heard the "Aww " of the crowd and then I knew we were off course. I knew the tunnel was in the end so I just ran for that. I dont know how much my dog knew what was going on. And when I watched the video, I really cant tell Im lost. Its amazing how fast thoughts go thur your head. It felt like forever and that I was just standing there trying to find my way. But it doenst look like that on tape at all. LOL Man, that was not a good feeling. I ve been lost before but only for a split second andI got it together. But this time it was like I was in a maze. Yuck!

Next up was Pairs. I usually dont ask for a side to run but when my partner asked me I said if she minded I didnt do the side with the a-frame because of how many times Miley missed it yesterday. She was ok with that. So I walked my side (the circled numbers) and someone I knew on the side lines said I would never make the front cross before the weaves and I should force a front cross before the teeter. I thought I would never make it there to force a front because I would be so far behind. So I walked it fronting before the weaves and the other way the lady suggested.

But I figured I could send her to the back side of that #3 jump and move out to be ahead. Well it worked. WhooHoo!! I made that front cross. It doesnt look hard on the video but it was. LOL Then it was the other person turn. I cut her out of the video but when she got back to jump #4 (its before the a-frame) , it was set for 22 inches. The girl was head of her dog and tried to reach down and set the bar at 12 inches before her dog got there but that wasnt allowed. All jumps were suppose to be set at 12" for both dogs. The judge had said in the briefing that we were responsible for making sure the jumps were set correctly for our dogs. But I guess he felt sorry for us because changed his mind. And maybe it was because only that one jump in the back was set incorrectly that he let us rerun. So could I make that front cross again?

Yes I did!! And I finally got a Q. LOL I didnt stay for gamblers. We still had to clean the condo and I wanted to walk on the beach one more time.

Trial Update

2011-11-13T06:54:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture I took last night. It turned out so cool. I didnt do anything to it except crop the bottom off a little. Java is in the picture too, she is to the right hiding.

I went to the trial with a new attitude. I wrote on my hand C.A.D. It stands for Confidence. To remind me to walk out to the line with confidence and trust my dog to stay. Dont babysit her. A is for Acceptance. Except Miley for who she is. She is sometimes going to stress and start circling. Its just in her and I have to not get stressed about it. The D is for Drive. Drive my dog through the course. If she goes off course because I drove her there, thats ok. But its not ok when I just let her go off course.
For those three things I feel I was successful. She had great stays all 5 times. She stressed a couple of times but we got it back together. I felt like I was driving except once when I over rotated a front cross and she flew off course. LOL.

First up was PIII Gamblers.

We did well except the first time over the A-frame she jumped the contact. This will be the theme for the day. So I changed my plan and did the chute and the jumps and back over the a-frame. That time she go it. We didnt get the gamble. I did the jump and tunnel and then just stood there when she came out of the tunnel instead of driving forward to get the weaves. So she came right to me. LOL

Next up was standard. Great run. She jumped the a-frame contact and then jump on and off the table, circled around and then came and got on the table. She went into a down, then the rest was perfect.

Then Grand Prix.

Awesome run but again she jumped the a-frame contact. Ugh!!!!!!

At this time I was getting tired. I went at 1:30 to get lunch. Lunch is free here as part of working. Well they had already packed it up because they ran out of food. Ugh!! I debated going home but I really wanted to try the snooker course. I felt I could do it. LOL

My plan was to do the red jump to the left and then the a-frame. I lead out to the a-frame but I must have not given her enough room and she turned right before the a-frame. I tried to bring her around but she stressed. She ran huge circles around the ring 5 times. I couldnt get her to come to me. I was just about to give up, and I just ran. If she took the wrong thing so be it. But she got on the a-frame and got the contact. Then we did the red jump to the left of the a-frame to the #7 (3 of them) then the last red jump to the number 3. Then started the close. I couldnt believe the buzzer hadnt rung. So she did 2 then 3, then the a-frame. And she jumped the freaking contact. Ugh!! Tweet-thanks for playing. LOL

Last up was Speedjumping.

I did a running front cross in front of #3. Im not sure why I did that. I debated just post turning. Anyway, I over rotated and she took the broad jump right into the tunnel. I go her back on course and she jumped the a-frame contact. I marked it. If she stress, she stressed. I just say "hey" and a stern voice but kept running. The next time over the a-frame she stopped completely and waited. I told her good girl twice and then released her. The ending was great!

Boy was I beat. Java was good but spent a lot of time crated and I felt bad about that. So when I got back I took her and Miley to the beach to run. It was getting dark but I think they had a good time. Java didnt bark or react to any dogs. But then walking to the beach we passed a couple of dogs and she barked but so did Miley. Hmmm, weird.

Frustration

2011-11-10T06:06:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my day to teach the Co-Op class out at the field. It starts at 5pm and is 40 minutes from my house. I get off work at 3:30 , go home get the dogs. Jump in the car. Get there at 4:40 and start building the course. Im done by 5pm. But man that killed me. I just dont think I can keep building the courses by myself. Lugging out tunnels and sand bags. Pulling the a-frame and teeter around. Ugh! Then class starts. We hardly have any time to work because its getting dark. So you feel so rushed. We are having lights put out there but they havent gone up yet. I got to run Miley a couple of times but she was over the top. Jumped all her contacts repeatedly. The more I marked that it was wrong with a verbal. The worse she got. It was weird. She would jump the contact, I marked it. Made her run the whole contact again. She got it right. I gave her a reward. Then the next run, she jumped the contact even higher. So defeating. Then it was dark. I turned the head lights of my car on the field so I could clean up. One student stayed to help me clean up so that was nice. It was her birthday and she had made cup cakes. I let Java out of the car since she didnt get any work time. I forgot about the cup cakes on the table. So she helped herself to one of them. I got her quickly so she just got some frosting. I felt bad. I apologized but still.... So driving home Im going thur the contemplation of quitting agility. Im mean I would still work my dogs but just not go to trials anymore. Lets face it, Im just not good at it. I mean really , would you continue to trial if you had been in Exc. A jumpers for 2 years with no Q's. Open standard 2 years with one Q because your dog stresses at the table. I read peoples blogs and they are upset because they have gone to a couple of trials with no Q's and I think, "Ha, thats nothing". But I keep having hope that Im going to get it and figure it out. LOL. And now I dont even want to go to the trial Im signed up for this weekend.
Then while driving home I run into a huge traffic jam. A tractor trailer is stuck on the ramp that joins the two highways. OMG, I thought I was going over the edge. I finally get home. Feed the dogs and Im fit to be tied. Then Java does that cute thing with the bones in her mouth, pictured above, and everything feels better again.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-09T04:41:00.002-05:00

Training

2011-11-08T05:09:00.001-05:00

Training with Java is going pretty well. Here is a video of the wobble board and the tunnel from yesterday.

She is very different from Miley. Not over the top on the outside but still maybe on the inside. LOL We have still having lots of problems getting any extended time on a down or a wait. Im thinking maybe she just doesnt understand what I want. She is a sweet and lovable dog. My only concern is sometimes she reacts by barking like crazy at people or dogs. This weekend at the seminar there was a dog crated under the tent area. There were also these big propane heaters, the tall silver ones , under there too. When we walked but Java just started going crazy barking. I think it was at the dog but I guess it could have been the heaters. So I worked on clicking and treating until we could walk by calmly. Then yesterday I took her to the park and worked on getting her to walk by the dogs in the dog park with out reacting. She did pretty good. Only barking at one dog who came running to the fence. ( we didnt go in the dog park, we stayed on the outside of the fence). Then we walked in the regular part of the park. She did ok. Some people we passed without problems. Some people, mostly with dogs, she barked at. The worse reaction was to a little boy riding a push scooter. She sounds mean, barking and growling. The little boy stopped and I asked if she could smell his scooter. She calmed down but I dont like the reaction. Yesterday I worked on her reaction to the scooter. We have one from when Stephanie was little. She was a little nervous around it but once I started riding it,she wanted to chase me and come with me. But when I called the boy over from across the street to ride the scooter, she went crazy barking at him. I want to post the video but Im to scared to. It would be public and I dont want to get a bunch of crazy comment from people I dont know. Sometimes people can be over the top with there reaction to things.

Ok, I decided to post a small clip of her reaction to the boy running over to us. (its just the first time he came over) I didnt handle it very well. The video is longer and we worked over and over on him coming over and her not barking. Maybe it was him running over that was the trigger. I dont know. It took until the 3rd or 4th time for her not to react to him coming over.

The other thing I just realized is that the dogs have been fence fighting with the dogs next door. Those dogs have been there so Im not sure why thats happening either. Ugh. I can call Java off the fence line but I dont want her doing it at all. Ive been working on click and treat for good behavior but the next time the dogs are out there, it starts up again. So Sunday I was over the whole thing and I happened to be outside raking leaves when they all went crazy. I kept bringing the rake down and hitting it on the ground and saying "no" in the meanest voice I have. ( Im sure the neighbor thought I was a manic) But it worked and on there dogs too. LOL So when Java backed off, I would praise her, if she came toward the fence she got a stern "no". It seem to work but I cant always be there when it starts. Im thinking about temporally fencing off that area so Java and Guiness cant get over there otherwise she will always have to be on leash when she goes out there.

This all sounds so bad and most things are really good. I just have this one problem with her and its just going to take time for me to fix it.

To Passive

2011-11-06T14:50:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to a Stuart Mah seminar. I drove down in the morning and figured I would get there at 7am. That would give me an hour to play with the dogs and let Java run around a little. But I forgot its dark until almost 8am. I dont know why daylight savings times is in Nov now. They need to move it up about 2 weeks. So we just sat in the car unitl maybe 7:40 when you could see. It was freezing cold. They had those tall propane heaters under these tents , that was nice. It was also suppose to be really windy, 25 mph winds. I figured I would be miserable. But the sun came out, the winds werent bad and it turned out to be a really nice day.
If you have ever been to a SM seminar then you know its starts out with you running a full course so he can see what your handling is like and what your problems are. The course had 25 obstacles and your were to act like you were at a trial. It started out the tire, 90 degrees to two jumps that serpentined. Well Miley took the tire and cut behind me. We got back on course, made some more mistakes and she self released all her contacts. After wards he came up to me and said that I really wasnt giving Miley any information at all about running the course. That Miley is guessing and sometimes she guesses right and sometimes she guesses wrong. Oh boy was that hard to hear. It made me feel terrible. So two years have gone by since I went to the LM camp and found out I wasnt cuing jumps and I guess I havent improved at all. Ugh! Then I thought, what am I doing with a new puppy if Im not doing it correctly with Miley?
Next was working on turning our dogs tight. I need to tell Miley that we are turning tight before it happens. My body motion alone is not enough. Once I did this she was turning so tight I was shocked. Someone even came up to me and said, "I want my dog to turn like Miley". So we started with two jumps going back and forth and then added more and more jumps. Miley was awesome. Then we ran a course. And it all fell apart. Im to passive on course. I need to run it aggressively. Run it like I mean it. Miley did much better when I did this. But as soon as she would go wide, I would back off and then things really fell apart. So when I see her go wide, thats my cue that Im being to passive and start giving her more information. Dont just stand there thinking thats going to force collection. Its doesnt.
To bad it always took me a second run to run it aggressively. I would run and things would fall apart and S would tell me you are being to passive. So then I would run it again, and she was much better. I hope I can remember this when I step to the line.
We also did some of the drills that have been in "Clean Run". There were 8 jumps and tunnel combination. You had to do the 8 obstacles and then one other obstacle of your choice , then run the sequence again, add another obstacle at the end ( a different one) and then run the sequence again. So you ran the sequence 3 times in a row. Wow that really got your head thinking. Most people can run an 8 obstacle sequence correctly but add that little twist to it and run it three times back to back. You will really see where your problems are. So that was 27 obstacles run several times in a row. What a lot of running.
Then we did another drill that was in "Clean Run". You have jumps and a tunnel.

I dont know if the distances and stuff are correct but you get the idea. You had to do 5 jumps. Every time you took a wing jump , you had to take the tunnel entrance furthest away from that jump. Every time you took a wingless jump , you had to take the tunnel entrance closet to the jump. And you had to do a total of 5 jumps. This was to help you with your snooker skills. Of course Miley and I had trouble. She kept flinging off at taking that side jumps that were in the middle of the tunnel section. You were to use the jumps at either end of the tunnel. So he had me put Miley at a wing jump, then go stand halfway between the tunnel, turn and face Miley. Then call her to come front. She did that with no problem. So he had me do it again, once she came front, turn and put her into the correct tunnel entrance. Well when I turned it flung her out over the middle dummy jump. He said she is using my motion at a cue to fling out and take an obstacle. So I had to work on treating her to come front, turn and keep her with me while moving and send her into the correct tunnel entrance while giving her treats. We had a very hard time with that. LOL
So I have lots of things to work on and now I feel bad about going to the trial that is at that same field next weekend. I feel like Im no where near ready. I have to many problems. But Im going to try and go and just run it like I mean it. Be aggressive.
Poor Java came with us and spent a lot of time in the crate. There were no breaks during the day and lunch was very short. So you got a lot of bang for your buck. I did take her out at lunch but it was over quickly. I felt bad that I brought her. To much crate time. I thought about going straight home but since she was crated so much I didnt think that was fair to her. My plan was to spend the night at the beach. So I drove out to the beach. Now it was very dark and cloudy. Im not sure why. I thought it was suppose to be sunny all weekend.

There were lots of deer out on the island. This one was unusual, so I took a picture.

I cant believe Miley can still run after all that work. It was a lot of running courses. There were only 6 people in the seminar and two jumps heights. So you had lots of time on course.

Sorry the pictures are do dark. It was just so cloudy.

I cant believe this guy was swimming. I didnt see anyone with him. Crazy. The water looked rough to me.

If there had been more light my pictures would be awesome. Darn.

Not much

2011-11-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

Wow, I havent bogged since Saturday. Sorry about that. I did it in my head. Does that count? LOL Sunday we walked the dogs at the State Park. I havent been there in several months because its just been to hot. Its not hot anymore. Now Im complaining its to cool. In the morning it been in the 30's. What's up with that?? We suffer through 100 degree heat all summer just so we dont freeze in the winter. I guess not this year. Anyway, I tried to get some good pictures. Every time I try to get all the dogs in a picture, its a disaster.

There were lots of people and bikes at the park, so that always irrigating to me. LOL because you know Im the only one who should be at the park. All the bikes made it hard to take pictures of the dogs. Plus Java just cant "wait'. She is doing well at home but any place else , forget it.

Work has been horrible. So many kids lie and fake all the time. It irritating. Some kid told her mom I refused to let her call her mom or let her go home. Which wasnt true. The mom came in and had some words with me. I pulled up my note and told mom what the student's complaint was. After resting, I sent her to lunch and told her to come back if that didnt help. She never came back. It wasnt a pleasant conversation. I just told her "Im sorry, your student didnt tell you the truth". So then that student came back again that day that mom came in. Well guess what. None of the phone numbers or email addresses worked for mom. And the student didnt know her phone numbers. So how was I suppose to call her. Ugh!! Then some other little boy acting like was having stroke symptoms. Im trying to figure out if I should call an ambulance. I trying to reach a parent. Guess what, there was nothing wrong with him. OMG, What the heck??? Crap like that takes me over the edge.

Then the toilet in Stephanies bathroom leaked and we didnt know it. We never use that bathroom. It wasnt until the ceiling down stairs bubbled, that my husband saw it. The bathroom baseboards are a mess. I think we may have to pull up the floor.

At least it didnt leak onto my china cabinet. The water hit right in front if it on the carpet. Yes, the new carpet from a couple of years ago. That area is gated off so no dogs go it there. So much for keeping things nice.

I taught the co-op agility class for the club yesterday. The field is nice and the fence and gates are up. But no locks on the gates yet so I used bungee cords to keep the gates closed. That worked well. I set up a course but it was pretty hard. It took me several tries to get it right. Miley self released herself off the a-frame once and when I gave her an negative marker work, "nope". She big stess circled the field. It was said harsh or anything. Silly dog. After that, she got it then next two times. I dont know what to do at a trial. I may not mark it, if its going to stress circle and go crazy. Java came too. I worked just playing with her on the field. I worked on using food and changing to a toy. Very hard for her. She likes food alot. But I want her to be able to use both.
I also downloaded Sylvia Trkmans video on Cik and Cap. I really just want to teach my dogs to turn tight. Miley doesnt turn tight at all. So Im hoping this will help. Im not sure if Im going to use the verbal with it because when I watch the video of her running, it really seems like her dogs are reading her body motion cues. But I like how it teaches them to drive out of a turn.

New Plan

2011-10-29T19:34:00.000-04:00

So after last weekend and my dog totally loosing her mind in standard, I have a new plan. I think that I looked confident at the b-match when walking to the line and leading out. But when at the trial, I dont think I look as confident. I dont trust my dog to do her job which is maybe why Im having trouble.
So here is a video of lead outs from last weekend. I ended with our T2B video. I felt like I was confident in that one and we did well except for the dropped bar.

After this trial I wasnt going to do AKC anymore. Whats the point if she wont get on the table. But I have a new plan. Im going to use my AKC standard runs to work on me. Im going to work on looking confident when leading out. If she breaks, then we leave. I will mark a missed contact. I will take chances that I normally wouldnt take. AKC standard will be training runs. The other new thing Im doing is not carry treats with me when I train. Now if Im training a specific skill , then I will . Or if she struggles with something, I will go get treats to help her learn what I want. But for just running something I think she can do, no treats. Reward with a "good girl" if she holds her contacts ect. We'll see what happens. Miley is a dog who likes everything the same all the time. So I need to make things from training and trialing more the same.

Today we spent the day out at the clubs new agility field working to get it ready. We moved the contacts onto the field. We had to take the shed apart because it was missing pieces, moved it inside the fence area and put it back together. The fence is still being build but the post are in. Then we moved all the equipment inside the fence too. Made new jumps, wobble boards and planks. And painted the pump house for the field. There is a huge pond, river or lake behind the field but there is an alligator in there. So we had a pump put in to pump water up to the field so we can cool dogs off.

This is Britany, she paint the pump house and put the dog paws on it. It turned out cute.

Here is the new field. Nice and big.
I was the first one to use the field. Here is our run. Miley self released the first time over the dogwalk, so I made her come back. I have no treats and the next time I said "good girl" when she got it.

The beach

2011-10-26T20:24:00.000-04:00

Dont worry no birds where hurt in the making of these pictures. I guess the alligator wasnt hungry.

This was at sunrise and the lighting was making things pink. Very cool.

Then the dogs kept running through this stuff. Its only there during low tide so its not hard, hard but I wouldnt think it would be nice to run through.

I could sit on the beach and take pictures all day. LOL

This is my favorite picture.

I of course have a ton of pictures but I wont post all of them. LOL It took me 3 days to figure out why I couldnt post any pictures. Its was weird but when I saved the pictures I thought it was in Jpeg. So when I looked under properties of the pictures, it said jpeg . But then I noticed today that when I was looking at the pictures, windows live photo program has this little information bar at the bottom and it said Tiff. So that was the whole problem. I resaved the pictures and now I could load them. I thought I was loosing my mind trying to figure out what the problem was. I transferred all the photos on the another hard drive. My husband reformatted my computer and updated a bunch of stuff. Ugh, what a waste. I so glad its fixed.

Hey Lucy!

2011-10-24T06:45:00.000-04:00

Well if you are on facebook you already know how my standard run went on Sunday.   It was our first run. I wasnt nervous. Im not sure why Miley did what she did. It started with tire to the dogwalk.   She jumped the dogwalk contact and took the wrong tunnel entrance. OMG , I was so defeated when that happened. I wasnt expecting her to get on the table but she just acted like I hadnt trained her at all. What the heck??? Then she jumped the a-frame contact, popped out of the weave poles and jumped on and off the table. Did a big circle around the ring and then got on the table. After that, she was perfect. LOL, the only contact she didnt jump was the teeter. That one was perfect. So as we were driving home that day I started thinking, running Miley sometimes is like being Charlie Brown and playing football with Lucy. Sometimes she just pulls the ball out from under you.   And thats exactly what it felt like. I take what Miley does way to personally. And I just need to remember that sometimes she is just going to act crazy and just remember that is Miley.
Both my walk thurs were at the same time. So I decided to just concentrate on Standard. I only walked jumpers a few times. There were only 6 dogs in open standard so there wasnt much time to worry about jumpers. It was only a few minutes from standard to jumpers. I just wasnt sure my head was in the game after that crappy standard run.   So here is our run.

I thought maybe I left the poles to early in standard so I made sure I didnt do that here but she still pulled out. Ugh. We were so close but yet so far. LOL I didnt stay for T2B or FAST. I was just over the whole thing.   Plus my son was with us at the beach and needed to get back to college and I still had to clean the condo. So leaving wasnt a bad thing.
So what do I think happened. With the weave poles, Ive only been practicing 6 poles at home to work entrances. The last two or three classes we've had its been raining or wet and I didnt want to run weave poles. So we have done no 12 since our trial 3 weeks ago. Really I havnt had a full run anywhere except at trials since August. Most of Sept. she didnt do anything because of the glass in her foot. Then here its been raining a lot so its been hard to fine dry time to practice expect in my yard. The new field for the club is suppose to be ready this weekend. Weve had no place to practice since April. So maybe she just isnt getting enough practice. Some other things which Im not sure make a difference or not. Saturday Miley and Java ran on the beach for a long time. Im mean a really long time. I remember thinking that maybe it was to much. I guess not. Then Sunday, I had to be at the trial earlier. The dogs didnt run as much. Java seemed tired and didnt want to run as much. She walked weired up the steps. The night before I checked all her pads because she also walked weird up the steps. Now it was worse.   When we go to the condo I checked her again. OMG, there was a huge sand spur stuck under her arm. I dont know how this dog was walking at all. I felt terrible. I had to hold her down and my husband had to cut it out. (I was thinking  this would have taken Miley over the edge. Good thing it wasnt her) She had two more sand spurs . One in her neck and the other over her groin area. Poor dog. Ive never seen sand spurs this big. I dont know how she got them.
Anyway maybe Miley needed more "burning off energy" time. I didnt throw the ball before going in the ring either. Saturday I also worked Java before going in the ring with Miley. The last thing that was different, and I cant imagine this was anything at all. I went next to the ring , before the b-match, the table was right next to the ring gating. I touched the table, said table and when she looked at the table I would say "yes" and give her a cookie.

I took lots of pictures but Im running out of time. So Ill have to post them later.

Success

2011-10-22T20:35:00.000-04:00

Went to a trial this weekend. We had a great day. I would love to load some of the pictures I took of the dogs on the beach but the Internet is acting weird and I cant. Sad. Anyway, I only entered Exc JWW and T2B. I also wanted to do the b-match to work on Miley's table. We didnt Q in JWW or T2B. In T2B we were the fastest but she dropped a bar. Ugh. In JWW I again worried about sending her off course and over handled it. I caused a refusal. She was coming out of the tunnel and there was a discrimination between the weaves and a jump. I called her to me after the tunnel and then got a refusal into the weaves because she was unsure and came back to me. But otherwise great run. So here is the exciting news. We did the b-match and she got on the table all 4 times without a single problem. I wanted to reward her , so I petted her. You can see in the video how much she enjoyed the touching. LOL silly dog.

Anyway, how exciting is that. So she gets on the first time, and I almost fainted. So I thought, put her thur the tunnel and try it again. See what happens. She got on again. Whoohoo!! The second run we made mistakes going to the table and she still got on. WOW!!! Im so excited to see if it continues tomorrow. So why do I think she got on? I have not idea. I have been running Java to the table at home and making Miley sit in a crate an watch. But Ive tried doing that with Guiness and it made no effect. But Guiness didnt come to trials.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-19T05:13:00.000-04:00

Wonderful day!

2011-10-16T19:26:00.000-04:00

Today I woke up and felt soooo much better. The pain is almost completely gone. Just some left in my ankles,feet and toes. I can deal with that. So because I felt so much better I didnt want to waste 4 hours in the car driving to a trial. So I didnt. LOL I just want to say that Im not mad at the club who's trial I was suppose to go to. I realize what happened, the dirt being sand and to thick to run in, wasnt their fault. And having to move the rings and set up all over again must have been over whelming. I probably would have had a nervous breakdown if that was my club. My only complaint, and Im sure they got tons, was communication. For anyone not at the trial on Friday, we had no idea what was going on. I do think they should have sent out an email of apology and reasons for why they did what they did. It would have only taken a few minutes. And I still dont understand why they moved FAST from the beginning of the day , to the end of the day. I even sent an email on Friday asking why the change in the running order. I got no reply. But it is what it is. Live and learn.
Instead we went on the boat. Good thing to. The tarp on the boat had fallen in and a lot of water was pulling on the boat cover. All the carpet was wet and now green from not getting any sun to dry it out. Its now drying out.
We went to the beach that you cant park your car at but you call pull your boat up to. We had a nice quiet spot all to ourselves. Well at first. Then a bunch of people came and started setting up easy-ups and playing loud music. So we left. But I got some great pictures.

My teeth hurt so I have to chew on all wood I find.

"La la la la la, I cant hear you calling my name."

I love this pictures. She isnt high up like the picture makes it look.

Guiness is running by and that why Java is looking that way. Guiness isnt in may pictures because he was to distracted chasing waves.

Moody!

2011-10-15T15:05:00.000-04:00

"What, Is this still not right?" LOL

I was so looking forward to this weekend. We were suppose to go to an AKC trial that was just over 2 hours from my house. I thought I would go because my runs would be in the afternoon and I didnt have to stay in a hotel. I could just drive back and forth. I also wouldnt have to get up at the crack of dawn to get there in time. I was feeling so good about going to the trial yesterday when I was at work. I usually dont feel that way right before a trial. Usually I start worrying about everything we may not be ready for. Like that she hasnt done weave poles since the last trial. But I wasnt worried at all. It was such a great feeling. Then everything went south. I see posted on a list that Im on that they changed the running order. I just couldnt understand how they could do that once it was printed in the premium. The AKC has huge rules about once the premium is printed, you have to follow it. Once when our club had a judge change 4 days before the trial started , we had to offer refunds if people wanted it. I just didnt believe it. So I texted my friend who is in the club and had picked up one of the judges from the airport. She said she hadnt heard anything but would get back to me. So around 6 or 7 pm last night I get an email. It says they moved the trial from undercover on dirt, to no cover on grass. It was now one ring and not two. And they changed the running order. Instead of FAST being first, they made it last. Ugh!!! So now I need to be their much earlier. And you know what really burned me up? They didnt even explain what happened in the email. They didnt say sorry or why they made the decisions they made. Now people at the trial felt like everything was handled nicely. But I think thats because they were already there and were asked their opinion about things. But those of us who hadnt gotten to the trial yet, knew nothing. If you are making huge changes to your trial, you (the trial chair) need to let your customers know what is going on. And yes Ive been the trial chair for the last 6 trials our club has held so I know whats involved and how much work all this is. Now I will tell you Im really feeling bad today. I dont know if its fibromyalgia pain or if I have a virus. Im pretty misierable. Ive had a tough week trying to keep the pain undercontrol. If I take Lyrica twice a day, it makes me so sleepy I cant function but the pain is so much less. But I have to be able to function. Then today the pain is so bad, I cant function. It really sucks!! Its a beautiful , sunny day and Im suck here. So that may be adding to my attitude problems about the trial.

Miley and Java played 1 1/2 hours this morning. Running around and around the yard. Java was tried after all that but not Miley. When Java layed down, Miley brought me the ball to throw for her. I think Java has given Miley more energy. How is that possible???

All these pictures were taking early in the morning and I was inside the house. So they are kinda dark.

This picture was cool. I tried not getting that crate in the picture but it changed the lighting in the picture to much.
( also I cant get spell checker to work. So Im sure there are misspelled words. Sorry)

Over Tunnels

2011-10-14T05:50:00.000-04:00

Under Dogwalks

Oh My!

Catching up

2011-10-13T05:55:00.000-04:00

Last night I went to teach an agility class. We worked the "J" exercise in the Alphabet drills book. Miley struggled. The novice dogs in the class did so much better than Miley. Hmmm. There are 4 jumps that are close together in a pinwheel fashion. She kept missing the fourth jump by going wide. Ugh. Then she kept dropping bars like crazy. What the heck?? I dont think she is hurt, at least I havent seen any signs. Then last night she took a flying leap in our room. I bet she jumped 5 feet high. She cleared the dog bed, the hope chest and was flying 2 feet above the bed as she came up. And our bed is high off the ground. The only thing I can think of is the "J" drill you are suppose to start the bars low and work them up to competition height. But I didnt do that because you know, I know better. I dont need to listen to the instructor in the book because I know better. LOL. So I had the bars at full height. Well, I hope thats all it was.
I took Java with me to class. We worked crate games and she did well. We also worked on retrained recalls. She was awesome. Really trying to get to me. whoohoo!!

Here are some cute videos of Java that I already posted on facebook.

I cant believe she stay on this tunnel. Its been raining so its wet.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-12T05:52:00.000-04:00

A new beach

2011-10-09T17:32:00.000-04:00

Someone at work told me about this beach that you can take your dogs to. She said you can get there by boat or you can walk in. We wanted to go out on the boat today and we were going to clean up that beach with the trash on it. But there was a "lake wind advisory" so we didnt go out on the boat. I decided to try this new beach. We we drove over their, I guess it took at 20-25 minutes. When you get there, there are signs everywhere stating "No Parking" and you will be towed. I knew we could walk in, I just didnt think they wouldnt have parking outside the beach. First my husband walked in to see if it was worth it. Then he came back and told me to take the dogs and he would stay with the car. What a drag. First I wouldnt be able to take my time and also I wanted to do stuff together, not by myself.

The beach was beautiful. None of my pictures captured how pretty it was. I thought I had changed the settings for different shots but when I got home and brought the pictures up. I had messed a lot of them up.

It was very cloudy so I dont know if that was it. But see how the beach and water are washed out. Ugh!
Guiness isnt in any of the pictures because he just kept acting like a maniac trying to get the waves. So I didnt let him off leash.

Then my husband called and said the police came and told him he cant even wait out on the road for me. ( its a dead end road). Ugh. So I was talking to him on the hone and trying to take this picture. First I cut Miley off.

Then I cut Java off. So frustrating. I finally had them both looking at the camera. Looking happy and Miley has her eyes open. I blew it. Ugh!! I walked back to the car after this.

The colors were beautiful and everything. Darn it!

Here is the video of Java running into the crate. From some reason she ran into Guiness's crate and I couldn't get her out. Guiness was in there too. Good thing he is a good sport especially since he doesn't like the puppy yet. (The video isnt as cute as it seems to me. LOL)

Update

2011-10-08T18:11:00.000-04:00

Its been a rough week. I just been so tired. The puppy cant make it thur the night. She usually wakes up barking between 2-4am. And after taking her out to go the bathroom, and she always goes, I cant go back to sleep. So then Im up for the day. 4am isnt bad but 2am, I cant make it thur the work day. Im just dragging.
Ive been working on Java on going thur the tunnels. She likes to go over the tunnels.

Ive been trying to increase drive in her. She is kinda laid back. So Ive been letting her be a little bad in the house and I think her true personally is coming out. Like today, she acts like she doesnt know what "sit" means. LOL "I dont have to listen to you and you cant make me". Ive been struggling to get her to understand "wait". That one she doesnt have at all. Like in this picture, she is tied to the chair.

I was trying to lure a down. Thats how Ive always taught it to my dogs but she just wasnt getting it. So I clickered it. That worked. Im going to try to get in on video. She always has this little back talk when she lies down. I guess she is telling me, "I really dont want to do this but I REALLY want the cookie". LOL It cute.

Back to the tunnels. I really dont want her doing agility unless she is really running. Breakfast and dinner time she is very excited. She runs across the room an slams into her crate. (also cute) So I used her food bowl and dinner time to do tunnels. Most of the time outside she chases Miley and she runs beside the tunnels. But the last time they played she was running thur the tunnels. Whoohooo, now to tap into the drive with me.

I have a ton of pictures. If you are on facebook youve been suffering thur all my pictures. Ill try to post different ones here.

Keep your friends close,

and your enemies closer. LOL

I took Miley and Java to the park and river today. It was packed. Ive never seen that many people there. Tons of people, bikes , dogs and strollers. Im glad I didnt take Guiness, he would have been crazy with all the bikes. Guiness really is crazy sometimes. It was such a pleasent walk with just Miley and Java. When down at the river, I have to step back into the water to get shots. And something bit me. I ran out of the water. I thought I got bit by a snake. LOL I dont know what it was but not a snake.

The Lake , again

2011-10-05T04:25:00.000-04:00

We took the dogs to the lake yesterday. Its was warm and I wanted to get some shots before it gets to cold outside. The disappointing thing was the island we usually go to, people left trash all over the beach. Ugh! More trash then Ive ever seen there. What is wrong with people. Im sure there wasnt trash there when they got there. So I couldnt let the dogs run free because I was worried about them eating trash. We walked thur the island and went to the other side and I took some shots there. It was hard because of the way the sun was. So I had lots of shadows. And of course I dont realize it until I get home and put the pictures up on the computer.

Then we moved the boat to another beach area. It didnt have trash on it.

( she was growling at a big rock)

And of course you have to chew on wood when ever it presents itself.

Miley doesnt even care about that toy but as soon as Java started chewing on it, Miley took it and the game was on.

Trial update

2011-10-03T04:53:00.000-04:00

Lets see. Saturday didnt go very well run wise. Our jumpers run I really messed up. I got lost twice and finally had to stop, I think at jump 7, and regroup. After that it was beautiful. Then Standard, it was tunnel jump jump tunnel. Easy right? Well Im not sure what happened but Miley was unsure if she should take that second tunnel. Then tried to take the wrong entrance, I finally got her in the right entrance and she came shooting out and off course thur the tire. She did get right on the table. I seem to have a better chance at getting her on the table if its in the corner. If its out in the open, forget it. Then next was T2B. We had a very nice run. We came in second. I think we lost first by 1.3 seconds.
It doesnt look fast on the video but I know the other dogs are fast dogs so it had to be fast. I think my time was 29.39. I didnt run FAST which was the last class of the day.

Lots of my friends have puppies right now. So a bunch of us got together at one of there RVs to let them all play. My husband took Java up there and he said it was crazy. I was trying to take some pictures for a friend of mine. She has yorkies and needed to send some pictures in of her dogs. But her camera didnt take high enough resolution pictures so she asked if I would take them. She had to show 8 yorkies working. She put up ring gating and did an obedience sit stay. Im not sure the pictures are what she wanted. I felt like they werent good enough. But she looked at them and said they were. Then they picked one dog to show working rally. That was a close up and that one I really liked.
So when I got to the puppy play time, Java seemed kinda done with the whole thing. Unless it was just me showing up which changed her attitude to playing. We didnt stay long because I was beat.

Sunday I had to walk jumpers and standard at the same time. Thats always difficult for me. I feel like I cant concentrate on the walk thur that I want very well. First we ran Standard. It was a beautiful run but she wouldnt get on the table. Everything else awesome. So disappointing about the table. I had someone filming but we just got the end of the run of me running out of the ring. Im not sure what the problem is with filming. Open the door, press the red button. Thats it. I hope Im not messing up filming peoples runs too. It seems so easy but I guess not. My jumpers run didnt get tape either because of the same type of problem. But the lady knew it and told me she messed it up. My jumpers run, I messed up. I was so worried about her going off course into the tunnel that I called her name. But she was with me and didnt even look at the tunnel. So when I called her name , it pulled her off the jump. Ugh, trust your dog. She knows her job. LOL
Thank goodness that is done. I have paperwork to tie up but basically its finish.

Day one

2011-10-01T05:03:00.000-04:00

The first trial day went well. I was very worried about covering the first rings of the day because no one had signed up. But it worked out. Lots of club members came and covered. So everything went well.
Miley had some nice runs. I didnt run her in standard. Really she hasnt done much in the last month and I didnt want her to over do it. She ran Exc. FAST first. She ran great, although she self released on the dogwalk. Only two dogs in the class Qed and Miley was one of them. WhooHoo.

Next up was JWW. Im glad I scratched Standard because I was suppose to be in both rings at the same time. We had a beautiful jumpers run but she dropped the first bar. Ugh! Dont you just hate when that happens.

After the trial we held a B-match. We were trying to raise money to pay for the new tunnels and chutes that the AKC is requiring. Our tunnels are 6 inch pitch and they are requiring 4 inch pitch. The b-match took a long time. I think about 4 hours. But its nice to practice in the ring. I ran Miley twice but only did like two obstacles then the table. This first time was terrible. As soon as she got to the table she stressed, big circles around the ring but she finally got on. My plan was if she got right on, run out and reward with this can dog food she loves. So I tried again, did a jump to table. Stress again, big circles around the ring but then got on. Ugh! I felt like I needed to keep trying. I didnt want to reward big circles before the table. So I tried one more time and she got on the first time. We ran out and rewarded. I ran back in, chute to the table. She got right on. Whoohoo. They we did another run about 1 hour or so later. That time she got right on both times. I only did like two obstacles to the table. I'll probably try to run her in standard today. Will see. It depends on how she is acting.
Then after all that, Java's litter mate Elise was at the trial. They had a great time playing chase. I got tons of pictures. I wont post to many of them. Most of them I posted on FB. Elise is much smaller then Java. Like two inches shorter and her legs are very thin and petite. Thanks for all your comments on her size. The breeder felt that she would be 15-15 1/2 inches. So as long as she stays under 16 inches, Im good with that. But if she goes over, that is just life.

Ready to go

2011-09-30T04:57:00.000-04:00

Every thing is ready to go for the trial. Even Miley is ready. Well, she thinks she is ready. I finally work her last night in the back yard, just over some contacts. She was wild and crazy. I told my husband I wasnt sure I should run her since she really hasnt done agility in a month. He said, just run her easy. LOL, yea right. Have you met Miley?? She doesnt do agility easy. Her foot looks great too!!
I took Java with me to the trial site yesterday. She had a good time. And when everyone was paying so much attention to her, Miley decided that she wanted to be petted too. Shocking. Java will be much bigger than Miley. And I know this. But everyone kept saying how "huge" Java was. It was scaring me. She is about 12 1/2 inches and she will be 16 weeks on Sunday. So she is only an inch shorter than Miley right now. I hope thats why everyone thinks she looks big.
Well, I dont have time to write anything else. (I like the water flinging circle off her tail in the picture below)

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-28T04:40:00.000-04:00

More rain

2011-09-26T21:02:00.000-04:00

We have not had a sunny day in over a week. Everyday its been raining and you dont know when its going to happen. One minute everything seems fine , than its storming. Ugh! I hope it stops soon because I really need some sunshine. Our agility trial starts on Friday. And do you know what I did? I scheduled my schools screening day on Friday. Ugh!! Its the day that the nurses come into the school and screen all the kids for vision and hearing. Well, lucky at my school we dont screen all the kids. Only new kids in the district and parent or teacher request. But what the heck was I thinking. I call my boss several weeks ago and told her what I did. She felt it was best to leave it the way it is. I feel terrible about it. So after Im done helping set up the trial, I have to go back to my school and set up the library for screening day. I hope everything goes ok.

Poor Miley isnt allowed to do anything. I do let her go in the yard. Her foot looks much better. That area is kinda hard on her pad. Maybe scar tissue? But it looks so much better after being on the antibiotics. Im not sure she will run at the trial. It depends on what her pad looks like. Maybe only run once a day if it looks ok or not at all. Will see. Poor dog is losing her mind. Every time I take the puppy out to pee, Miley comes. First she gets on the dogwalk contact, then she runs to the bottom of the teeter, then the tunnel. She keeps hoping I will run her. Silly dog. ( all the equipment had big orange traffic cones blocking being able to run across them).
Miley went through the tunnel and Java ran across the top of the tunnel and then met her at the end. It was to funny. And she didnt even fall off.

I took the puppy to the river. (two other times I went, a thunder storm came or it just poured down rain).

Im to tired to write anymore.

Stessfull

2011-09-24T20:15:00.000-04:00

Life has been stressful lately. Mileys foot has been driving me crazy. She just wont leave it alone when its wrapped. Once the wrap it off, she doesnt care about her foot. But today I felt like it was still more swollen then is should be. I called the vet and she called in Abx for her foot. I think Miley is on it to much but its hard to keep your dog off their foot. I rewrapped it tonight and she has already torn off the boot and the pad. I rewrapped it again. I made it thicker to hopefully kept the boot on tighter so she cant get to the dressing. Ugh!!

Then yesterday the puppy ate a mushroom in the backyard. I didnt even know there were mushrooms back there. We havent had any rain until Thursday and of course its been pouring since. I saw her get something and you know if you try to get something from you dog, they just swallow it faster. So I only got about 1/2 the mushroom out of her mouth. That was at 6am. My husband watched her all day and texted me several times saying she was fine. When I got home I took everyone outside. I saw more mushroom by the dogwalk and pulled them all out. The puppy came over but I dont think there was anything there. About 5 minutes later she started vomiting. Within 30 minutes she has vomited yellow bile 10 times. I called the vet and they said bring her in. She vomited 2 more times while I was on the phone and then again in the car. OMG, what if me dog has parvo? She is the same age as Miley when Miley got parvo. Maybe its in my yard. I get to the vet. I told them about the mushroom. They did blood work and it was all normal. Thank goodness. So they gave her something for the vomiting and they gave her SQ fluids. I really didnt think she needed the fluids be the vet felt it was safer to do fluids in puppies that have been vomiting. He didnt charge me for them. It might have been because I told him about Miley have the glass in her foot and having surgery. He did apologized for missing Mileys foot problem. So that was nice. I understand people make mistakes.
So after all those fluids they gave the puppy, she was up at 2:30am having to pee. I took her out every hour and then every 1/2 hour. She was having accidents in the house even with me taking her out every 1/2 hour. What the heck?? She hasnt had an accident at all in the house until this. At least she was peeing on throw rugs. But every time I turned around I had to wash another rug. I finally crated her for a couple of hours and now everything is back to normal. Thank goodness. What a lot of work.

Puppy, parks and pads

2011-09-23T07:24:00.000-04:00

I bought this really cool looking collar for the puppy. See isnt it cool?

But look what happens when your dog gets wet?

What the heck? What company makes a collar that bleeds when it gets wet??? Ugh. I cant find another Martingale collar that fits her except this brand.   I didnt want to have to order on line but I might have to.

Miley has been doing well. She has been miserable with the foot wrap thing on. She was being mean and nasty to the other dogs. She would go hide in my room. It hasnt been draining so I took it off. But if she goes outside we put a boot on her foot. Well she doesnt like that either. So now she has decided not to come to me. Ugh! Im the evil boot lady. She is such a sensitive soul. When you see her run agility you probably dont think that but she really is and I think that is some of our problem. And that she doesnt like to come in close.   Anyway her foot thing was really shallow. It looks more like if your dog has torn their pad when running on new turf.   It was really swollen Wednesday but Thursday it looked much better.

The puppy is doing well and Miley actually played with her yesterday. Yea!! Guiness still hasnt wanted anything to do with her and will lift his lip if she comes up to him when he is lying down. She the to lie down and sleep with him and he got up and left. Poor puppy.
Ive been walking the puppy at the park and she was growling and barking at people. People walking,running, riding bikes, groups of people, and single people. What the heck??? I know what socialization this dog has gotten and I dont know why she was doing that. So I woke up the other morning and it his me, the head halter collar. I put that on when walking her, which she hated, but she didnt bark or growl at anyone. Then the next day I took her to our club. I got there 45 minutes before the class got there. It took her a while to warm up but then she seemed fine. It was weird , the more dogs and people that came in, the more comfortable she seemed.   She didnt bark or growl at anyone. On the way home I stopped at another park. There was a running club there and she had no problems. (No head halter used either). Lots of people where there and she has no problems.

This picture was taken at the park. It looks like blue skys but we had been having thunderstorms. There was a break in the storms and we stopped at the park.

I thought I would load the last few pictures at work but thats not happening. So I post dog pictures later.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-21T06:02:00.000-04:00

(This was taken last week and Miley has a boot on her foot)

Surgery

2011-09-19T21:08:00.000-04:00

Miley surgery went well. She had glass in her foot. The doctor xrayed it again after she was done to make sure she got it all. She said she removed 6 pieces which she thinks was one piece that fell apart. She said she didnt have to really make an incision. That once Miley was asleep the area just opened and she just followed the tract. No sutures but her pad will have to heal on its own. Trying to keep miley from chewing the bandage off has been hard. I finally put the cone on her head. Now she is really unhappy.

The puppy pulled one of her ear tapes off, so I removed the other one. Today her ears started standing up , so I put ear weight on them. They may need a little more on them.

Oh yea. The new puppy name is Java. Im pretty sure will keep that one.

Surprise!!!

2011-09-17T07:15:00.000-04:00

Yup, I got a new puppy. I was planning on getting a puppy from this breeder next year. But the person who was suppose to get this puppy wanted one that was going to be about 13 inches. This puppy is going to be 14.5 or 15 inches. Thats ok with me. A 13 inch dog jump heights are irritating to me. Miley jumps 12 in AKC, 14 in ISC and 16 in USDAA. I dont jump her at 16 so she is in preferred in USDAA. But its sooo irritating. This puppy will just be at 16 in everything. She is 13 weeks old. I havent picked a name yet. Some of my top names have been Quiz, Rev and Snap. But I still dont know.
I took her to the river and she loves water!! WhooHoo, I have a sheltie that loves water!

None of my dogs will play with her yet. I think Miley is getting close to playing.

Miley is still limping. Still only on uneven surfaces. So on Wednesday I took her back to my local vet. He completely disagreed with me about the splinter in her foot. He felt like it was her elbow. I let him take xrays of her elbows and feet. It was normal. I really feel like it was her foot that was bothering her. How can you take flying leaps off furniture without any problems. Then walk down the street and starts hobbling. Ugh!! So I made another appointment at the rehab vet. I went last night. She checked Miley well. I had no idea how far a dog's leg can be pulled back. It looked like that would be painful but Miley didnt seem to care. She didnt care about anything she did to her. So I told her I really feel like there is something in her foot. It still drains if you press on it. That is just not normal. So she said she would like to do a dental xray of her pad to see if it showed anything. Well here you go.

sorry about my flash. This is a upside down picture of her pad. You can see the bone of her toe on the left and then you see that white stuff on the right. That white stuff shouldnt be there. The picture quality from my phone wasnt good but the white stuff looks like the same density as her bone. The vet feels confident that something is in there. She doesnt feel that its a calcification on her pad. Sometimes dogs get hard calcification's on their pads but she doesnt feel that on Mileys. She is sure that this is something in the pad and not to deep. Miley has to be sedated to have her pad looked at. She was hoping she could do it Saturday , today, but she was booked. So she squeezed Miley in for Monday morning. I sure hope they find whats in there. And I hope this doesnt effect Miley going to their office. She is freaked out at my local vets office and I think it is because of having Prvo as a puppy and then later being spayed. She associates bad things with that office.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-14T04:57:00.002-04:00

Photography

2011-09-11T07:11:00.000-04:00

I keep forgeting to post this. There is a dog photographer who is posting tips on getting better pictures . She also talks about the different camera setting ect. Here is her link.Carol Beuchat You will have to look back at her post to go to the first post on photography. The series is called "Shoot the Dog" . Some stuff isnt knew to me, but I did learn a few things.

Here are some pictures from yesterday.

When I went to the park yesterday I wanted to take pictures with this green spigot. I think its cool looking. But I wasnt very happy with the pictures when I got home. I wanted to get the top of the spigot in the picture. To do this the dog had to stand on a cinder block to give them height. The dog doesnt look happy and the lighting wasnt good. It was morning and probably not enough light. So I went back around 11 am to retake some shots. I just took Miley the second time because I was going to the club afterwards to work on some agility stuff. Guiness would be more comfortable at home. Anyway, when I went back to the park I took Miley's bed.

Yes that green ottoman is Miley's bed. I got it at Good Will. There was no chair. It really was to be used to help the dogs on and off the bed.It sits right next to the bed , near my side of the bed. Miley decided it was to be her bed.

I like these pictures so much better than the other ones. Lucky there was only one other family there so see this crazy lady carry an ottoman to take a picture of her dog. LOL

Miley's foot still isnt better. I really do think something is in her foot or there is a deep bruise. I probably shouldn't have taken her to this park. To may uneven surfaces. I had to carry her sometimes because of the rocks. I wanted to go to the flat park with the cement walkway but they were have a "Dam Race" that ended at the park. So I didnt want to deal with all those people. Im not sure what do about her foot.

Oh, yea here are a few tree pictures. I think trees look so cool. Esp. the dead ones. Sometimes the way the light hits the trees is just beautiful.

Busy Week

2011-09-10T07:02:00.000-04:00

Sorry I havent been posting much. Ive been to tired by the end of the day, I just cant do it. Plus nothing great has been happening. I cant remember what day this happened but I was walking the dogs at the park. These two ladies were walking toward me with a lab. So I stepped off the path so the dogs wouldnt get close to each other. Well all of a sudden I see a snake right in front of me. Guieness had already passed it but Miley and I hadnt. I kinda screamed but with my mouth closed. Pulled Miley back while trying to get Guiness to swing wide and come back to me. And I was stepping backwards back onto the path. I almost fell into the ladies with a dog. They looked at me like I was crazy. I was finally able to say, Im sorry but there is a snake. They didnt seem to impressed. They just said, "really where?". I showed it to them and they didnt even know what kind it was. They still werent impressed. For me, my heart is racing and its all I can think about. "Oh my god, I almost stepped on a snake". My husband was with me and at that point we turned around and started walking back. He starts talking to me and then says, "are you listening to me?". I told him "NO, Im still thinking about almost stepping on the snake". I have a picture , but it wont load right.

Mileys foot is slowly getting better. I took her back to the vet on Tuesday because she was limping so bad that morning in the street. But he couldnt find anything in her foot. He looked at it and saw something shinning but it was just drainage. Funny thing was he didnt even think she had a splinter in her foot. So why was that drainage there? So anyway that was a waste of money. But later that night we walked at the park and no limping on any surface. So that was good. In the morning on our street she limps sometimes when we get all the way to the back of the neighborhood. But otherwise I havent seen anything. She still has that spot on her foot. Its a little darker but still there.

These pictures are from the park this week.

These pictures didnt come out the way I wanted them to. I couldnt get Miley to stay right there while taking the picture.

And sorry but spell check isnt working.

Lake Day

2011-09-04T20:38:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning at 4am and felt terrible. I hurt all over. Ugh!! And Miley was not interested in just hanging out. She has been hanging out for days and is not impressed. So I asked my husband if we could go out on the boat and he swim Miley. He said ok. We didnt go very far from the marina.

Miley swam.

I figured swimming was ok ,since it didnt put pressure on her foot.

Guiness chased waves.

Then of course you have to dry off.

The limp

2011-09-03T17:15:00.000-04:00

Here is a friend of mine agility blog. Check it out. She has two great shelties. http://corbinwooten.blogspot.com/

Remember last week when I told you Miley crashed that jump. She was fine Friday and Saturday we hiked for 3 hours. I never saw anything. Sunday morning we went to the park and I saw nothing. Sunday evening at the end of the walk, about 2 mile, she stepped off the sidewalk and onto the mulch area and had a huge limp. I thought maybe she just stepped on something. Then Monday evening, a few more limps. Tuesday, nothing. Wednesday, limps again. First when going to the pavement to the wooden bridge and that got me thinking. It seems to be when she changes surfaces. So I put her on the grass and then made her walk on the pavement. Here is what happened.

I made an appt with the rehab vet to check her. I had pressed and stretched on everything trying to see what was wrong. The only think I saw was this tiny bruise on one pad. But it didnt seem like that tiny thing could cause this problem.

This morning I drove up to the rehab vet in Charlotte. I took her around back to let her use the bathroom. I video taped her walking from the grass to the pea gravel. I saw no limping in the grass. Then look what happens.

Well at least I wont have to show her video of the limping we can just walk out back. So I told the vet about the crash and when the limping started. She felt that if Miley hurt herself with the crash, it would have shown up before 3 days later. First she had Miley walk the halls in the building. Nothing. Then we went in the back on the mulch, slight limp. Then we went on the pea gravel, Huge limp.
She pressed, flexed, extended every joint in both front legs. No reaction. I feel really confident that she did a through exam. The only reaction was when she pressed on the tiny bruise on her pad. Miley flinched. Then she put on these magnifying glasses/hood thing. She said that bruise on her pad has a cut in it. She tried to see if there was a splinter in there. Her tweezers did get caught once but she couldnt see the splinter. She really didnt want to open the pad. She wants me to soak it for a few days and see if it gets better. If it doesnt or it gets worse, she'll have to open it and see if anything is in there. I guess that is good news, I just hope she is right. LOL
You see that tiny spot on the second pad. Thats it. Hmmmmm

I tortured the dogs and took them to that little park on the lake to take pictures. No real walking there. Its really just for picnicking , fishing and putting your boat in.

I guess this bird isnt scared of people.

This was funny. I dont know what she was doing.

Fly by. LOL, actually I think a squirrel was in the trees.

Im glad I dont see these in the lake when I swim. Or swim the dogs. Scary teeth.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-31T05:59:00.000-04:00

And if you are on FB, you already saw this . It just cracks me up, so Im posting it here.

agility and Photograpy

2011-08-28T15:40:00.000-04:00

Thursday I drove up to NC for an agility class. Well, I rode up. A friend of mine drove, so that was nice. I went to the novice class and masters. Here was part of the course for the novice class.

I was up first. Miley crashed the jump #5. It was horrible. She flipped several times and slid across the grass on her back. Ugh. But she seems ok. She took the jump again and she crashed again but not like the first time. She landed on the bars. So Meagan came over and bent down so she was seeing like the dog. Well, the field was shaded except for this tiny sun spot which was hitting Miley right in the face so she couldnt see. We moved the jump over, did the course again. No problem. Such a tiny thing, a sun spot, could have taken my dog out for good. Im soooo glad she is ok.
For the masters class there was a slight change of the course.

As you can see, your dog has to take the back side of that jump after coming out of the tunnel. For the pass few weeks Ive been practicing getting my dog to come into me when coming out of a tunnel. I would set this up;

I would change it up by sometimes having her take the jump that she sees coming out of the tunnel or running this backwards. It has taken a lot of work to get her to come between the jump. Ive had lots of failures and successes. Then went I went to "T" 's house, I set it up again and it was like she hadnt seen it before. But eventually she got it. So how would she do with Meagan's course when I needed her to come into me between the jump and the weaves and then take the backside of the jump. Well, SUCCESS!! She did it. I was so excited. She got a big jackpot after that.
Yesterday I took the dogs for a long hike at the state park. Lots of hills. I had certain shots I wanted to set up.

She is to far away in this picture but otherwise I like it.

I wish the leash wasnt on Guiness in these pictures. I was to scared to take his leash off in this area. He cant be trusted. Its not like I take the leash off and he bolts. Its just that if something caught his fancy, like a bike, deer or squirrel, he would bolt. And not listen.

What I dont understand about photography is why sometimes the dog looks so crisp and other times not. Now I realize the amount of light has something to do with it but the first pictures of miley on this post, she is just so crisp , but this picture she isnt. It might be hard to tell on the blog. Its more noticeable on my computer. I looked at the camera setting but that didnt tell me much. Then I read about the "sweet spot" in your camera lens. So Ive been trying to look at all my pictures and the apertures, that didnt help me figure it out either.

Then there was this big bone. It doesnt look big , I should have put something next to it for reference. Its some type of femur bone. Hopefully animal.

We havent had any rain so the creeks to the river are dry. I hiked a different way and usually water is here for the dogs. But not this time. So we needed to keep going to the river. I knew the dogs were hot and I felt we were closer to the river than the car. So I kept going.

When we got to the river it felt wonderful. The wind was blowing and we all needed that. The water is so low that I could cross to the big rocks in the middle of the river. This bird was fishing so I got some nice shots.

These arent what I wanted either. I think the wind blowing and then none of the shots where both dogs looking at the camera. It would have been great if they had both been looking. Plus the rock looks great and the picture loses something as you look up at the dogs to the sky.

Sometimes it was really windy!!

This picture is very cute. Usually these rocks are covered with water.

Now crossing back to the land you need to pay attention. This picture isnt from us crossing but it gives you an idea of how big some of the rocks are. When crossing back, Miley stays right behind me. But not Guiness. I guess he thinks he knows better. Any way, I was trying to get him to come my way,instead he tried to jump down and either couldnt support himself or slipped. He fell and jammed his neck on a rock. That was pretty horrible too. But he got right up and seemed fine. He almost hit his face. Thank god that didtn happen or his throat. I would have really had a problem then. Im not sure I will take him out on the rocks again. If something had happened I was 2 miles from the road. ( they are on a flexi lead so he does have to come with me but it gives them room in case I or they fall we dont pull each other down)
This morning it was beautiful outside. I stopped at this little park on the lake. Its not really a good park, just a small one that people can put their boats in the water. It was 7am and the guy who collects the money wasnt there yet so it was free to park.

The color on the lake was beautiful but I didnt have enough light for the dogs. So their color isnt good. I tried to use the flash ( not noted on this picture) but I couldnt figure out how to tone the flash down. It was driving me crazy, how hard could that be. If I used a flash, the dog had good color but it washed out the back ground. When I got home I looked it up. The camera automatically adjust the flash for the lighting but because of the contrast of light and dark it wasnt right. Now I know I have to click this one setting and then change it to manual and then adjust the flash. LOL, my other camera I just clicked the button to adjust the flash. This one has so many steps I hope I remember them.
Then a small sun spot came thur the trees. I set Miley up and I really like how it turned out. This was to close to all the squirrels and stuff for me to set Guiness up and be trusted.

Again same lighting problem. Soo disappointing. I wish I could have figured out that flash. Ugh!!

My son went to college today. We are empty nesters. Now we just need to get them off the payroll. LOL

Love my dog

2011-08-24T22:05:00.000-04:00

I went to a friends house to work Miley. He has a great yard. I wish I had his yard. I wish I had brought my camera, there were multiple humming birds. So cool. One was just sitting on this green fencing. Man I missed out.

First I set this course up. I made it up. Mostly just to run the outside loop. That way I have speed to the table and practice weave poles coming out of a tunnel.

Sometimes I would do the a-frame and sometimes the tunnel going around the loop. We had lots of table failures. Im not sure why. "T" said my commands were late. She was already taking a jump and turning toward the tunnel before I said table. Ugh!! Sometimes she jump on and off the table and kept on running. I would tell her 'No" when she did this. I dont think she cared. Im not sure how to correct her not getting on the very first time and staying there. I ran without treats. If she got on the first time and stayed there, we ran to the cooler to get treats. Im trying to make things like a trial to see what maybe causing the table problems.

Next I ran these sequences from the Clean Run files. Aug, Kathy Keats courses.

This one we didnt have to much trouble with except me remembering the course.

This next one, Ugh.

I didnt have any trouble getting from #4-#5. But I kept getting caught on the left side of 5, and then she didnt know where to go after 5. So finally , when talking with "T", I realized I meant to stay on the right side of 5, run that line and then FC to 7. But then going from 7, 8. 9, she was going wide around 9 ( so missing 9) and taking the tunnel. I just couldnt figure it out. But "T" pointed out that I was pushing in as she took 8, to run to the left side of 4. This was pushing her wide. Once I stayed on the right side of 4 when running that line to the tunnel. She took the correct #9 jump. ( did you get all that??? LOL) Anyway, I really wish I could figure these things out on my own. Why cant I do that? As I drove home thinking about how great my dog is and how crappy I am. That if I could do a better job we would be great. LOL. If finally struck me, she doesnt care. She doesnt know what went right or wrong. She doesnt care if we are great or not. She just likes to run agility. I keep worrying she is going to be to old to run before I figure this out. But now I know it doesnt matter. She just wants to run. Here , there, anywere. I need to let all the stupid crap go and just enjoy learning and realize I might never get to wear Im going and if I cant enjoy where we are now, Im going to miss out on this wonderful time I have with her. She is filled with excitement, you feel it when she is at the line. The enthusiasm she has when running agility is like nothing else she does.
Now she is sleeping. It was so hot outside , it took it out of her. She even just jumped back into the car without protest when we were done.

A much needed Day

2011-08-21T20:16:00.001-04:00

We took the dogs out to the lake today. Im not sure if they took down the birds nest or if it fell down. But here is what it looks like now.

Poor bird. They dont seem to happy.

Guiness hates water unless he is chasing waves. If there are waves, he goes crazy.

Miley just stands there while Guiness runs down and back barking at the waves.

Oh, wait, I think she dropped a treat

Then back to chasing waves.

And look, someone left a table for us to practice on.

Thats all folks!!

Even longer week

2011-08-20T20:21:00.000-04:00

I cant believe I havent blogged all week. Im really behind on reading blogs too. And then some blogs arent letting me leave comments, very irritating. So I just wrote a whole paragraph about whats been going on at work and how much stress its causing me. But I delete it. I dont want to get in any trouble so I guess I need to leave it at ,"Im stressed out". I worked Miley (at agility) a little on Wednesday at a friends house. We did easy stuff so I didnt have to think to much.
Then Thursday I went to the club. We are trying to clean up our practice agility equipment , so when the new field is ready , the equipment will be ready. We pulled out all our jumps. They are about 12 years old and made of wood. We went thur them to see what we needed to do to fix them. Pull the lattice off the wings. Most of the lattice is broken. The jumps were really wobbly.
Friday, we took Stephanie to college. She was very, very nervous. I told her after we unloaded her stuff and got her books we would take her out to lunch. She said, "Am I allowed to leave?". LOL, I told her "yea it isnt jail". This was to funny. I think she is so use to going to camps and stuff where you arent allowed to leave. And they werent allowed to leave when they were in orientation. But it was still funny. Then at lunch I said, let take bets on how long it will take for Stephanie to lock her keys in her room. I bet within 24 hours. (The doors are self closing) So then we take her back to her room to drop of her and the last of her stuff. We say goodbye. We leave and some girls come and knock on the door. We hear Stephanie open the door and step out of her room. We are walking down the stairs and we hear Stephanie say, "Oh crap. I locked my keys in my room". We just kept going, laughing all the way down the steps.

On the way home we stopped a the hardware store and bought a bunch of lattice. Then my husband and son cut it all. Its to replace the lattice we removed from the old agility jumps at the club.

Then today we fixed and painted all the jumps. Tomorrow we will put all the lattice back on and hopefully be done. At least we wont have those wobbly jumps anymore.

I worked on Mileys table some more today. A friend of mine is at a trial and sent me a text. Her dog is having table issues. This is the third trial that the table has caused her not to "Q". I feel bad. But we havent been training together, so I dont think is anything I have done. Its is weird though.

Here is some video of Miley's table work. I usually put Guiness away because he will deter Miley from taking a jump or tunnel. She worries he is going to nail her. Well he did. The reason I left him out was to use him as a distraction for getting on the table. Hopefully I didnt make things worse.

Then this is Miley cooling off. Do you think she got wet enough?

Hey, Look, Agility

2011-08-14T18:26:00.001-04:00

I was thinking today about something someone said to me at a trial in July. We were talking about contacts. Her dog was going kinda slow over the contacts.. She said someone told her to put a tunnel at each end of the dogwalk and run her dog about 10 times. And not to do a 2o/2o during those 10 times. It teaches your dog to race across the contacts. Anyway, that got me thinking about the table today. I dont know why, when I had the conversation over a month ago. I thought if I put a tunnel at each end with a table in the middle maybe it would create a lot of speed an she wont stop on the table. ( she stops on the table aways at home and I was just trying to get the excitement I have at a trial). So here is what happened. Multiple times she would touch and go off the table, but only in that one direction.

She definitely was very excited. So I worked until she finally hit that one she had been missing and then jackpot. The other thing I was thinking was, I dont always practice tables. When we practice, I always do jumps and tunnels. Add contacts several times a week and weave poles. But tables , only once in a while. Hmmmm, not sure why Im doing that. So Ive decided to train it just like I do jumping skills, contacts and weaves. I dont know why this is just occurring to me. LOL

Long week

2011-08-13T08:15:00.000-04:00

As you know I went back to work this week. I dont know why going to work takes so much out of me. I feel like I do more physically at home then at work. LOL So Tuesday and Wednesday I had to help with registration. I sit at a table by myself ( the nurse station) for 8 hours. This allows parents to come talk to me about medical problems and get forms from me. To get ready for registration I have papers that I bring with me. Well this summer they renovated the building that my office is in. I packed up all my stuff and they moved it to another room. Apparently during the summer they made the custodians move the front office stuff 4 times. So now everyone stuff was all mixed together. Here is what I walked into.

I went to work an hour early both days to find stuff I needed. How was I going to work like this on Thursday when the offical first day for staff started? But I got lucky. They didnt do anything to my office but paint and and change some cabinets in a back room. No new floors or cabinets. So they moved me back in on Thurday. Yea!! Im still very behind on my work, but at least Im in my office. I was stuck in my office for a couple of hours as they stripped and waxed the floors outside my office. But that was ok because I was just working on the computer anyway.
Last night I took the dogs to the park. It wasnt as hot because a storm was trying to come thur. It never did where I was but it still dropped the tempertures. Hardly anyone was there. It was wonderful. Peaceful!

Can you see the tiny lizard in the middle of the photo. Cute huh?

This was just beautiful. The bird was right in a sun spot. Im not sure the picture really captures what it truely looked like. Again , peaceful.

Then Guiness got the zoomies but Miley isnt going to play in the water. LOL

Its raining this morning so Im not what we will do today. Im just glad its Saturday!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-10T06:28:00.000-04:00

Summer is over!

2011-08-09T07:05:00.000-04:00

Well, just my summer vacation is over. I start work today. Booooo, hissssss! LOL, just kidding. So yesterday I spent at least 2 1/2 hours at the park. It was great. It wasnt as hot because there was no mist coming off the river. It makes taking pictures better.

Watch the ears as the wind come in over the next three pictures.

Thats all folks!!

Another Lake Day

2011-08-07T15:29:00.000-04:00

We went out on the lake this morning. I didnt get very good pictures. Or maybe Im just getting more picky. I had my camera on the wrong setting multiple times. I wonder how many more times Im going to make that mistakes. Im sure at least a few more times.
Guiness had a great time chasing waves. He only did it for a few minutes and then it just took all the energy out of him. Poor Guiness. I did get some good pictures of him which doesnt usually happen.

I know this one isnt in great focus but I still like it.

I walked thur the island and someone had built this. It even had a Zip line.

Then I saw this. I guess these people had a bad day. Its a pontoon boat. Even the motor is still on it. I think I would have pulled the motor off before leaving my boat.

No much else is going on. Its hot as all heck here, but thats nothing new. We pretty much dont go outside during the day. We do things in the morning or evening. Miley is bored. Ive started doing some simple training. Like walking around jumps and clicking and treating for her staying at my side and not circling. Or if I stop, to come to my side and not go into circling mode.
I got my hair cut this week. The lady who cuts my hair has been out all summer because she broke her ankle. She is back now. Its the worst hair cut ever. I cant get it to do anything. Ugh! I keep telling myself it will grow but its not growing fast enough.

Are you sick of me yet?

2011-08-04T16:54:00.000-04:00

Well here are some more pictures. Are you sick of them yet???? LOL

I really like this picture. My husband told me it would be better if Miley was facing me. But the sun was behind me and then she closes her eyes. The next picture is an example.

How cool is this dragon fly?

Sorry if you are on facebook and have seen a lot of these photos.
Some questions and comments that people have made, I will comment on. Dawn asked about alarms on the river to let you know the dam is opening and the water will rise. Yes, there are very loud alarms up and down the river that sound. They are very loud.
Ricky, yea if photography wasnt digital I dont think I could afford it. Ive taken so may pictures, there is now way I could pay to have all the pictures printed. And then all the bad ones.LOL
Several people have commented on retraining the table using a different word. I tried that already. I used a mat and retrained her to lie down on the mat. I used the word "mat". I took it every where. Then added it to agility in different places. Then put it on the table still using the word "mat". Then cut the mat down smaller and smaller. It didtn hold up once we went to a trial. I got the same response.

I start work next week so the picture taking will really cut down.

I was trying to get a picture of these birds. They were just to fast. I was just interested in knowing what type of bird they are.

Wordless Wedneday

2011-08-03T07:42:00.000-04:00

Video taken with Canon 60d

Whats up???

2011-08-02T12:51:00.000-04:00

Well Ive been taking tons of pictures. Ive taken over 2000 pictures since I got my new camera. LOL
On Sunday we went out on the boat. Of course the Osprey were out and I had to take some pictures.

Then when we looked for our anchor it was gone. Ugh! Someone had been on our boat and gone thur our stuff. I guess they needed an anchor so they took it. The boat is at the marina and there is a locked gate. But you can still get to the boats if you have a boat. Just drive right up. So in the pass few years they have stolen our fire extinguisher, poles that hold the boat cover up and the wake board. We need to figure out how to lock some stuff up. We think we can add a lock to where the battery is stored. People drive me crazy.

This stump in the water was very cool. But the lighting wasnt right. This was the best shot I got.

Here is another picture of the stump.

Someone built this. I guess the slept on the island.

Guiness rolled around in the sand and I got some cute shots of that. I'll post those pictures tomorrow on wordless Wednesday.

Yesterday Stephanie and I drove up to Chimney Rock NC. Its about 2 1/2 hours up to that park. It a very nice area. There is a lake there with a huge beach and its surrounded by mountains. Its beautiful. I was to tried to stop and try to get a picture. There is a cute little town too.

This picture was taken from the park which is above the lake and town area.

We walked up to the waterfalls. There were lots of people and the dogs did great.

The dogs didnt like being near the waterfall even though there wasnt much water falling.

This was a very small area with the falls and a little pond. Then all the rocks and trying to climb, keep the dogs safe and not damage my camera. It was kinda stressful. Lots of people, who were very nice about me setting up my dogs for pictures. And the dogs were good about staying right where I put them. But I just didnt have the time to really look at the shots as I took them and fix things. Plus I couldnt use the whole small area just for myself. So I didnt really get the shots I wanted.

Guiness didnt like being on the rocks or near the water.

Then I took these this morning at the park at home.

Taking a break

2011-07-31T09:08:00.000-04:00

So we are taking a break from agility. Im thinking 3-4 weeks.   To bad my mine isnt in agreement. This morning was the second morning Ive woken up dreaming about agility. This morning I was dreaming that I was at a trial. They had this weird course that after you did a tunnel, you turned tight behind the tunnel and the dog had to go up 2 steps then jump the tire and then come back down the steps. I started thinking, my dog will never be able to do this, we've never seen this before. Then I watched Meagan run a Great Dane. (Great Dane??? I dont know where that came from). They ran perfect. Then the battery in my camera started alarming and I woke up. This was funny. Also in the dream ,during the walk-thur, they didnt put out the a-frame or the teeter so there would be more room for people to walk. What??? Dreams are funny.

On Friday I drove up and went to a conformation show. They were also doing Rally and Obedience. I wanted to see the shelties in the ring. I was hoping to see a few breeders that are in NC and SC but they werent there.   The funny thing about conformation is you are in the ring, the dog is leashed, you have food and dogs even peed in the ring, all this is allowed. This cracks me up. Since all other AKC events, none of this is allowed.   While I was sitting there watching, two people in the ring picked up food and flung it out of the ring. The first one hit me and the guy didnt say anything. The lady who threw the food out, didnt hit my but was close. She did say she was sorry. It was all very weird and I felt stress for some of the people in the ring. You could definitely see which handlers were having fun and which ones were feeling stressed. This one lady who was showing tons of dogs, not just shelties, seemed stressed. She had a beautiful sheltie who was so happy in the ring. She kept yanking on his lead. I thought "geez lady, you have food. Just show it do him. He is a sheltie. That will keep him from pulling ahead". LOL
My friend was there with her yorkies. What a lot of work a yorkie is to get ready for the ring. Because the hair is so long, they braid it to keep it from matting. But then its wrinkly when you take the braids out. So then she has to flat iron it.   She did well in rally. She took first place in excellent. And you didnt just get a toy. You also got a prize. I think she got a digital photo frame.
I bought some dog food while I was there.   Ive tried raw dog food several times but my dogs wont eat it. The last time I tried it , Guiness picked his up and flung it out of the bowl and then finished eating the regular kibble in the bowl. I think Miley just looked at it, looked at me, looked at the bowl and looked at me. She wouldnt eat. It was like she was saying, "Something is in my bowl and I cant eat it. Please remove it so I can eat".   LOL   I bought Blue Ridge Beef the Natural Mix.   And my dogs ate it!! They ate it first too, then ate their kibble.   Im only going to add it every other day. They will still eat their regular dog food too. Because I dont really know how to balance their diet when on raw.

Ive been taking lots of pictures and reading a book on my camera. Then going out and trying again. I have a long way to go in understanding photography.

Monster land.

2011-07-28T21:20:00.000-04:00

The river was so high that all the green stuff is now all up in the trees. Scary looking.

Miley is probably tired of all the picture taking. Guiness didnt come because he just couldnt handle the walking today. He had already walked once. So its just Miley.

Someone I use to work with was there with her son's border collie. I asked her if I could take pictures of him in the water and she said yes. I wont post any pictures of his face because I didnt ask her permission.

The good news was I walked down the path with them and Miley wasnt nervous or anything around this big black dog. Of course the dog could care less about her, so that probably helped.

The Dam

2011-07-27T12:27:00.001-04:00

Every so often they release water from the dam. Usually water spills out at 400cubic squares per second. When this happens, the park looks like this.

Last night the needed to release the water from the dam to bring down water levels from the upstate. So they released 16,000 cubic square per second. And then this happens.

Its the same shot. You can just barely see the top of that bench at the end of the walk. Sorry the water is so cold and the air is so hot , it makes it misty looking.

So from this, where you can barely see the water at the bottom there.

To this

I walked the dogs this morning and the river was back down to normal.

Because of all the flooding this greens stuff is now on everything.

I got some great shots of Miley running but its was so misty they dont look clear or bright.