I made it

Well I made it to Allentown , Pa. I'm exhausted and Miley is ready for action. She's not tired at all. I hope everything goes ok tomorrow. She hasn't been running off leash in a while and may go crazy when I go to this seminar. And then they will all think I have no control of my dog. The instructor is Alicia Calhoun.

Last night I went to visit my friend Maribeth. She was the one I met down at the Sheltie Nationals and won the herding trial. She has 3 shelties and Miley wouldn't play with any of them. She was off leash in Maribeth's backyard but Miley just stood there. Hmmmm. Anyway, we had a very nice dinner and excellent conversation. To bad it was such a short visit.

Im homesick

How pathetic is that. I haven't even been gone a week and I'm home sick. I just want to go home and see my husband and my dogs. I want to sleep in my own bed. I don't want to worry about Miley.

I drove up to Norther Virginia yesterday. We are staying at a friends house. She has kids the same age as my kids, so that works out well. Stephanie and Amanda went to help out with Habitat for Humanity today. Lou is still sleeping. (Teenagers!) I do have some exciting news. Miley is actually playing with my friends dog. I cant believe it. Usually she just growls at other dogs. Ive posted a video clip of them playing. The video isn't good quality, maybe not enough light.







My friend lives in a nice area with a great walking path that goes all these different ways through the woods. You probably could walk forever. And people have their dogs on leashes. Yesterday when I was walking Miley. I ran into a lady that was walking two shelties. So we walked about 2 miles together. It was nice. She loved Miley and thought she was beautiful.

Last but not least. Miley limped yesterday. Two huge limps. I ran her on the beach before leaving yesterday to burn off some energy. She seemed fine. But when I walked her in the neighborhood right before we left. That's when she limped. Crap! This morning, two small limps right when we first started walking. Then nothing else. So now I'm contemplating not going to the seminar. I haven't even made my hotel reservations and I need it for tomorrow night. What if I get all the way up there and she cant run. Crap. But then bringing my dog all this way and having to walk her constantly and play most of the time will have been for nothing. Crap.

The beach

Today is our last day at the beach. Funny, my kids haven't been in the ocean once since we have been here. I made my son go walk the dog with me on the beach one night. And then we went to an Chalk Art Festival on the board walk, so that was Stephanie's time at the beach.

Here is a small complaint. People here do not believe in leashes, on or off the beach. It drives me crazy. They don't care that their dogs just go up to you or your dog. One big dog jumped on me and he was all wet and sandy. The lady was so rude. Did she think I wanted this big wet dog jumping on me. They have no control of their dogs, just let them do what ever they want. A few have been mean and tried to bite Miley. Ugh! I bet Ive pass over a 100 dogs so far and only 2 have been on leashes. And the only dogs that didnt try to approach us and were under their owners control where pit bulls.

I only took Miely's leash off to take this picture and no one was around.
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Here are some pictures of the Chalk Art on the board walk.

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Road Trip

I'm making my way up the east coast. Right now I'm in Virginia Beach visiting my sister. The only dog I brought was Miley. And I only brought her because I'm going to a seminar at Outlaw agility on Friday. So we are stopping at different places to visit family and friends on the way up.

Here is Miley playing in my sisters backyard.


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Is that Miley running toward the pool??

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Is she thinking of jumping in?

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No , she just wanted to drop her toy in that big water bowl.
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Killer Kourse

I went to the contact and weaves class last night. Meagan set up a couple of courses for me to run with Miley. I don't think I ran them right one time.

I was suppose to front cross between #4 and #5 and then rear cross after she went into #6. I kept messing up the front cross. Then when Miley would get into the weaves, she popped one pole early and took the off course into the tunnel entrance #12. It was at first my fault because I was to far forward of the end of the weaves which was cuing the wrong tunnel entrance. You needed to hang back a little but she still kept taking the off course tunnel entrance. We finally had to move the tunnel entrance so she couldn't see the opening . Then she finally came to me and got into tunnel #7.

Here was the next course. I messed this one up too. I kept cuing extension over jump #6, so she was way wide going to the teeter. And I did it again going over #11. That time was really bad because she needed to turn tight to get back into the weaves. I don't know where my brain was.

Guiness had his Control Unleash class. He just cracks me up. When in class you would never know this dog has any issues. He seems perfect. I need to take video while walking at the park. Silly dog. We worked on "incoming". Its what you tell your dog when another dog is coming to get into his face. We took our dogs, one by one, into a gated area. Meagan would bring her dog by the gated area. When she did this, you would tell your dog, "incoming" and start giving him treats. The dogs were kept different distances from the gate and she would either walk or run her dog past the gate, depending on the dogs comfort level. We also work on sending the dogs to the mat. The dog first had to go around a stanchion and then you added your mat. You want to practice more and more distance and multiple mats to send your dog to. This can help when at a class. If you dog is stressed or maybe going to become reactive you send them off to their mat. Guiness just cant get the hang of the mat. So I'm just using his soft crate and that worked much better.

The ride home last night was a white knuckle ride. Once I got to the highway it started raining. It poured down rain and lightning all the way home. The kind of rain where you cant hear the radio because its pounding so hard on your car. It was hard to see and you had to drive pretty slow. I just followed the people in front of me. I was so happy to get home last night. An hour and 15 minutes of that was stressful.

Great Practice

I took Miley out to the field this morning and she was on fire. She did so many thing well. I couldn't be happier.

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Here is the pinwheel. Running it felt great. But when I watched it on video, I'm not sure she realizes we are turning at the jump closest to you on the screen. What do you think? I still think it looks good but could it be better?

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The weather is great

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Miley resting at the training field.



For the last two morning it has been so nice outside. No humidity at all. By the afternoon its still in the 90's but the mornings feel wonderful. Yesterday I decided to work on my dogwalk. It has been out of commission for at least a month. About a month ago I fix the center cross piece. But the two ramps were looking really bad and I was afraid Miley was going to get hurt. So I have had it put up so she couldn't get on it. This weekend , with no humidity, it was a great time to start painting. Yesterday I put three coats of primer on both sides of the boards. And while I was at it, I refinished the table. I had to sand that and repaint it. It should be ready tomorrow. Today I put the yellow and blue paint, three coats, on the ramp boards. My husband took the old boards off the old dogwalk and I primed the frame. Hopefully I will finish it tomorrow.

Also since it was so nice I took Miley up the the training field. I set up the jumpers course that we did so badly on at the last trial. No problems there. Funny. One problem Im having is pinwheels. Sometimes she reads them well( like today) and is tight going thur. She will be next to or close to the side stanchion. But other times she goes very wide. I have watched video after video and cant see what I'm doing that is causing either. I look the same to me so I don't know why sometimes she is wide and sometimes she is tight.

We also worked the chute while we were up there. I realized if I'm going to rear cross I need to do it with lots of room. If I'm to close behind her, she will pull off. The other thing is if I give a right or left command, I need to do it after she is in the barrel. If I say "chute, right". She will turn right , before she gets in the chute. More work to do there but we are making progress.

I did a little contact work making sure she stays until I release her. She did self release one time on a front cross. We also worked the weaves alittle. She did well except for a tight rear cross right at the weaves and that pulled her out. So we worked that , I think it took 3 times, until she got it. Didn't do any table work just because I didn't want to over work her. Plus I have a table at home I can work her on.


This evening we did extension grids. She did really well. Ive been setting her back at least 10 feet for the grids and when starting a sequence and so far she hasn't dropped the first bar. I hope that keeps up.

That was today, painting and agility.

Here is video with the wide angle lens

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You can see I can get all my jumps in. ( oooh she running wide).

Wide angle lens

Camera with wide angle lens on.



Camera without wide angle lens.


I saw this wide angle lens on the Internet and wondered if it would work with my camera. So often when Im video taping by myself, I cant get in everything that I need to see. Well today I was at BestBuy and they had it there. So I thought I would try it out. It fits on the end of my little casio exslim camera. It does add a couple of feet the the view. If you compare the pictures below you can see the first picture, with the wide angle lens on, adds the other end of the tunnel and two jumps ( left side of the picture). That's a lot for me. I was able to work tonight and see everything I was doing. Now the lens isn't a tight fit, so you couldn't walk around with it but it stays on when on the tripod. ( just a note: when I uploaded to my blog I lost some of the picture. The first picture with the wide angle lens also showed the two jumps to the right. Im not sure what happened to it during the upload)

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With wide angle lens on.

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Without wide angle lens.

Collection exercises

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We worked some collection exercises this afternoon. I think I have her set to close to the first jump. Otherwise I think it looked pretty good. I have the space between the jumps at 4 feet 6 inches. Its hot as heck outside today. 97 degrees.


Tried to walk the dogs this morning. Guiness refused to go. He has been acting weird the last 2 weeks. On our walks, he has refused to go any further earlier and earlier in the walk. Now today, he refused to go at all. I guess I need to take him to the vet and see if anything is wrong. His gait is a little different at times. He has always walked with his back feet crossing but it looks a little worse at times. And sometimes going down hill, his stride is short. The hard part is, they will probably say, "we cant find anything wrong". Maybe its just him. I don't know.

I took just Miley to the park. Its easier with just her. She doesn't act crazy when a bike goes by like she does when Guiness is with us. Plus she isn't scared of people like Guiness . Its funny , Guiness has always been fine in all the dog classes I have taken him to. Never nervous or anything. We have been to a bunch of dog agility camps, never a problem. Yesterday I came home from walking the dogs in the neighborhood. A man neighbor came out and wanted to pet the dogs. He was walking toward us. Miley is happy and excited. You can tell she wants to greet him. Guiness, not so much. Guiness growled a couple of times. His ears are down , tail is down and he is stepping backwards. All this is screaming dont touch me. But people don't care. Why do we ignore dogs body language. The man did pet Guiness and I gave Guiness treats while he was doing it. Why didn't I say , "Don't pet Guiness". I guess I didn't want to hurt the mans feelings. When the man stepped back, Guiness lunged and growled at him. Great. So next time , I'm just going to say, "Please don't pet Guiness, he may bite."

My daughter doesnt listen to dogs body language either. She always wants to snuggle with Miley. Miley doesn't like it. Miley is usually laying on my bed or on the ottoman next to my bed. When Stephaine comes over Miley starts turning her head away from her and not looking at her. I asked her why she keeps on even though the dogs body language is telling her, "I don't like this". She said because Miley is so cute and she just wants to hug her. So I guess what we want over rides what the dog wants. I did take to her about this.

Sorry, here are more pictures from our walk.

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I was standing on a rock in the water to take some of the pictures. When I looked down, there was this frog. I was just glad it wasnt a snake.

Chihuahua time

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Cake for breakfast

Yep, that's what I had today. Actually I had cake and ice cream. We usually go out to dinner for birthdays but I was going to class so we went out for lunch. Then I left for class at 3pm to get to class by 5pm. So no time for cake. I didn't get home until 10:30. Cant eat chocolate cake then or I wouldn't be able to sleep. So I had it for breakfast and it was great!

I took a private lesson before class last night. We worked on Miley's jumping. We set up jump grids. You could really see were Miley got comfortable coming down the line. Her jumping and strides got better the further down she went. Also she was jumping head down. Miley is still young and her jumping will improve as she gets older and starts to get it. She did drop the first bar though. Sometimes she does this at trials too. Meagan told me to set her up different distances to the first bar ( at home) and see what works best for her. I have been setting her up to close to the first bar. She doesn't have enough time to get up to speed and then think about were to take off by the time she gets the to bar. After dropping the first bar, the next time Meagan told me to point the first bar out to Miley. So I did that and Miley had the funnest look on her face. Like, "What the heck is she doing now". Then I walked to the end. She didn't drop the bar but she was also set back 10 feet from the first bar.

Next was the contact and weaves class. I love this class. Its a drop in class. I think there were 4 people there. She sets everyone up in there own area of the field. Then everyone gets different things to work on depending on what your dog needs. So you are working and other dogs are working right around you at the same time. Its a great concept to me. Helps your dog keep focus on you while other things are going on. Miley did really well. Only missed one weave pole entrance out of probably 10. She did have some problems. Ran around the table and didn't want to get on. Ugh!! So I need to back chain the table. We worked on 3 jumps to the table. And back chained this and it worked really well. So what do you think happened when we did a different sequence with the table. She ran around it. SO I need to work on back chaining to the table. And take the table to different places. Make the table rewarding.

Below is one of the sequences I was to run with Miley. Our problem was front crossing after the weaves to the jump (# 3 to #4). She kept running in front of me to jump #5. I had to get a treat out and after the front cross give her a treat next to me and then send to jump #4.

Todays my Birthday!

Yep, I'm 45 years old today. You know what is great about being 45 ? Its twenty years younger than 65. Lol.

I took the dogs to the park this morning. We walked the hilly park. We stopped because Guiness had to use the bathroom. Just then 2 foxes crossed are path. One was really big. When I first saw it , I thought "OMG its a coyote". But its face looked like a fox and the smaller one differently was a fox. They only stood there a couple of seconds and then took off. Thank goodness. There are lots of rabid foxes in South Carolina. The rest of the walk was non-eventful.

I watched the second DVD of Susan Salo. And I learned something. When we learn about dogs jumping, you learn that the perfect jump is the dog taking off 12 inches before the jump and landing 12 inches after the jump ( for a dog that jumps 12 inch bars). Susan said not in the real world. For a dog on course to be able to do that he would have to add extra strides and slow down. The dog will adjust its stride depending on what information he has and take off where needed. I never knew that. I thought your dog was suppose to have that perfect jump all the time. Hmmmm. I'm looking forward to viewing the rest of the DVD's. Also Shelties, and other breeds, tend to jump with there head up because they are so straight in the front. But jumping with the head up brings the butt down and greater chance for dropping a bar. Lots more to learn.

Jumping

I watched the first DVD of Susan Salos jumping DVD. It very interesting and I learned things I didn't know about what it takes a dog to jump. I set up the set point jump to view Mileys jumping. The dog should jump with a curved back and the head should be down. I think she looks good taking off. I'm not sure about as she comes over the jump. Is her head ok, or is it to high and is she taking the force of the jump in her head and shoulders?

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Seabrook Island

Yesterday we had to go to Seabrook Island to take care of some business. We couldn't take the dogs. (AWWWWWWww) Here are some pictures.

This is the road before the beach. It looks cool the way the tress hang over the road.
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Here is the golf course for all you golfers.
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We ate lunch here, very nice.
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Walked on the beach. Beautiful day, 83 degrees and breezy.
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What have I been doing.

I haven't really blogged much this week. Ive posted pictures but not much else. The first half of the week , I gave Miley a break. All the trial work, she deserved a break. I have been walking the dogs at the park. Guiness has been acting weird. Earlier and earlier in the walk he is refusing to walk on. I'm not sure what is with that. He doesn't look like anything is wrong with him. Ive been walking the flat park. I made him keep walking anyways.

On Wednesday I went up to North Carolina for a some classes. It was pouring down rain in Columbia when I left and let up right before getting off the exit for the class. Didn't rain at class at all. I was shocked. I took both dogs out of the car when I got there. They seemed fine. Then I put Guiness up because it was time for Miley's class. ( contacts and weaves) This is a small class and we work in separate parts of the field. Meagan sets up what you need for your dog. First we worked on Mily's weaves. She did really well. There were a few missed entries but it gives me something to work on. We had trouble with #10 to #11 weave pole entry.

The course was renumbered and it started over a jump and then a call to heel into the weaves. Miley had a lot of trouble with that. Something else to work on. We also worked on contacts. Miley stopped on the contacts. But when Meagan had me back up with Miley still in the 20/20 position , then I would run by. She self released. Something else to work on.

Next it was Guiness CU class. When I got him out of the car and walked him he was limping and stopped to bite his foot. I looked at it , couldn't find anything. He still couldn't walk. Looked at it again, brushed the bottom of it. He still couldn't walk on it. I took him into this fenced yard so I could lay him down. I moved his foot around and it was weird. It had a cracking feeling to it and something was moving that shouldn't have been. I moved it around some more and all of a sudden all that weirdness went away. I felt normal. He got up and began to get the zoomies. He was so happy and excited. He was so crazy, running , dashing barking, that Miley was scared. She hid under my legs while Guiness went crazy. After that everything was fine. The CU class was good. I need to work on Guiness going to his mat and making him work longer before getting treats.

In a few days it will be my birthday. My husband wanted to get me a new camera. A HD camera. So Ive spent the last two days playing with cameras. One, my computer isn't fast enough for HD stuff. I'm trying one right now, its a Samsung HMX-H100. So far all of the cameras that Ive tried I cant use Quicktime. My computer isnt fast enough so the video is jerky. ( I have the upgraded QT for HD) I really like QT when viewing my videos because of the slow motion stuff. Anyway, the samsung is good and cheap ( relatively) All the software is on the camera. You just plug it in and start. You can edit the video on the camera, which I like. O'course I'm really slow at it. My casio, I can edit fast, like those kids you see texting on their phones. I'm not sure the vidoe is as clear and sharp as I thought it would be. I did upload one video on youtube. ( it directly loads from the camera software to youtube, nice feature)

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This is in regular HD and I can go one level higher in the HD. Maybe I will try that tomorrow.

The River

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Sorry, More Pictures

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Pictures from the trial

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Here we are waiting before our first open standard run. ( the one I got whistled out of)


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An example of jumping to soon?


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More on early jumping

I been spending hours watching video. Video from the trial and video from practice. I'm trying to see any patterns with early jumping. What I'm noticing is that the farther she is from me, the more likely she will take off early. Many times going into a pinwheel she takes off early. And this I already knew, if I'm down the line a little and she is behind trying to catch up, she will take off early. If she knows we are turning, she never takes off early. Im not sure if I should buy Susan Salo's jumping DVD or just use Linda Mecklenburgs book on jumping ( which I already have).

Taking off to early

Do you think she is taking off to early? And what do you do about it.


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Here are Fridays videos

This is the wild jumpers course where she just ran her own course. I had a couple of late cues and it went down hill from there.

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Here is our novice standard run. I released her before I was in position to cue the correct tunnel entrance so she took the wrong one. I put her in the correct entrance and finished running. This was our "Q" run , you are allowed one off course.

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Someone asked me about running on the fake truf. It seemed ok to me. I saw just a few dogs slip. Several times I saw dobermans having trouble and I saw one sheltie slip coming out of the chute. Other than that it seemed ok. One problem was a dog peed on a spot and that spot then continued to be a problem for other dogs. They kept cleaning it but it was still a problem.

Today wasnt our day

I woke up this morning feeling great. I thought today was going to be our day. I was so happy that we were getting to run in Open standard. Finally out of novice, which I was beginning to wonder it that would ever happen. Well apparently I wasn't nervous at all today. So relaxed that I was whistled out of the ring for "training in the ring". Miley jumped the a-frame contact and I brought her back to me to sit and the judge whistled me out.

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So I was embarrassed and mad. I know , stupid, but sometimes you cant help how you feel. I just wanted to go home. She didn't get the weaves so that is a big problem area. I even packed up all my stuff and put it in the car. Then I decided this was stupid. I didn't want to end the weekend like that and I didn't want that to be in Miley memory. So I decided to stay and do the jumpers course. I think I did well at keeping her active but not to active and my legs didn't hurt. Here's are jumpers run, so close. One dropped bar or we would have taken first. How many times has that been said. LOL

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Mr. Toads wild ride.

Isn't that the name of a ride at Disney World? Lol. Since yesterday Miley was so wipe out and so was I, I decided to have a new plan . I haven't told you this but I have fibromyalgia. It makes you feel like you are getting the flu. Most of the time you ache all over. Ive had it over 4 years now. Going to a trial sometimes really makes it flare up. Yesterday I was trying to keep Miley active, walking her and playing ball with her. So by the end of the trail day she refused to walk up the steps. They were steep steps. I guess I made her go up and down them to much. As for me, when I was doing my jumpers walk thur yesterday , Meagan asked me "How's it going?". I quite sure she was talking about my walking the course and my plan. My legs were hurting so bad at this time I wanted to burst out crying and say, "My legs hurt so bad and I feel terrible. I just want to go home". But of course I didn't say that. I just said, " Fine, I'm just trying to decide if I should front cross or rear cross". I didn't think I could run in the walk thur but I decided mind over matter. I forced myself to run one time with my walk thru. Anyway that was yesterday and we had a great jumpers run. My legs were killing me until about 9pm last night. Miley slept until 7pm last night and then was full of herself and wanted to play. At 10pm I just turned out the lights and she settled down, but was ready to go at 5am.



So today's plan was not to walk as much to keep my leg pain down and not to do stairs with Miley. I would carry her down the stairs or walk all the way around to the other side and come in on the ground floor. Our first run was Novice standard. She did great. We "Q"ed and took 2nd place. So now we can move up to open standard. Now Ive accomplished my goals for the weekend. After Miley's run I had her get a message and she was sore in her right hip area. After that I put her in her crate to rest. It was a long rest because I worked the excellent standard 20 inch dogs. I think there were 76 dogs in this class. It was a long class. No to long after that was my jumpers run. We walked the course and it seemed nice. We started out nice but missed the second jump in the pinwheel. Not sure why. Then came around thru the tunnel over a jump , with 180 degree turn into the weaves. She got the entry and popped out after pole 9 or 10. Went into the next pinwheel and took the off course jump straight ahead and that when the wild ride started. She was just so excited, taking jump after jump and not coming back on course. I couldn't get her back on any type of course. I ran to the end of the line and she came to me. WhooHoo. Put her leash on, no problem. I felt like she was running around the ring saying ,"I'm free, I'm free, Look at me!!".

So Miley has too much energy and wasn't tired. My legs don't hurt at all. Maybe tomorrow I will find a happy medium. The Internet here at the hotel is terrible so I'm not posting any video. I cant even check my email.

Open Jumpers video

Here is the video from Thursday's jumpers round. It took forever for me to post just this one little video.

I forgot to tell you that my first run was at 10am and my second run was at 1:45. Less than four hours apart. WhooHoo!

Miley gets her jumpers Q

Today went really well. I felt much better on the start line. I could remember all three of my words and even some lines to a song. We ran standard first and had some trouble at the chute. But it felt like a great run. Sometimes I hate watching the video because it doesn't look as great as it felt running it. In jumpers she ran great and took first place. People I didn't know were coming up to me saying what a great run it was. Special thanks to Meagan for helping me out.

Sorry, Ive tried for hours to upload the video and its a no go. Maybe tomorrow I can get some where that has a better connection. The picture above is Miley when we got back to the hotel.

B Match

We ran in the "B" match. We had some problems but over all we did ok. The flooring on the ground was like fake grass, but thick fake grass. Ive never seen anything like it. I ran Miley first in standard. It started out great. Fantastic teeter then a turn into the a-frame. OMG she jumped the contact. I brought her back to me and made her sit at the bottom of the contact and then released her. Then tunnel , broad jump and into the weaves. She jumped right on the table. On the table I made her down. While waiting for the count, she was shaking all over. I guess from excitement. I released her, over a jump and back over the a-frame. She jumped off the a-frame even higher up. Holy crap, she is going to break her leg. I brought her back again and placed her a couple of feet above the contact and told her "touch". She still jumped it. Finally I just put her in the "touch" position. When we ran out of the ring, she seemed pretty happy. I started feeling down about the contacts. What am I going to do? Then I remember my new positive attitude. I decided not to worry about the contacts and run her again. I couldn't remember my three words, Fun, Confident, happy, when I walked into the ring. Ok regroup. Be calmer, think happiness. Our second run went much better. I ran my own course, she popped out of the weaves, ran around the table but as soon as she hit the table I released her. I'm not sure what the trouble with the tunnel was. But all her contacts were great and she came to me after the run. WhooHoo

Then we had a little bit of a wait for the jumpers run. That run I finally felt normal when I went to the line. We had a good run, a couple of wide turns and she missed the weaves. I know I didn't cue it right but I couldn't figure out how to let her know about the turn into the weaves. After missing the weaves, she took a jump and then around into the weaves. WhooHoo all the way down. I threw her toy/bait bag and ran out of the ring. She got treats right outside the ring. I really hope that made an impression on her to tomorrow.

I forgot to bring socks. I have an extra set of clothes I keep in the car so I have at least on pair. I guess I have to go buy some.

The last part of the video wont upload, where she goes over the jump and then does the weaves. O well.

Getting ready to go

Well, I'm getting ready to go to my trial. Its about 2 1/2 hours from here. I decided to stay in a hotel this time. Maybe it will easier on Miley if she has less crate time. Today there is a "B" match. I signed up for 3 runs, two standard and one jumpers. Its an indoor trial on matting. (Its where they held the AKC nationals this year). Since Miley has never run on this type of flooring I wanted to give her a chance to run on it. My goals for this trial is to get one JWW "Q" and one Standard "Q". I have six chances soooo.... My other goals are to come to the ring looking confident. I don't look confident when I watch my tapes at trials. When I watch Sarah ( Misty and Oreo's mom) she looks so confident at the start line. I don't know if she really is but it doesn't matter because its what she is showing. My words to bring into the ring with me are "Fun, Confident and Happiness".

Its been cool the last 2 mornings and Ive had some good walks with the dogs. Yesterday when we got back from the hiking trail, we all had ticks on us. Yuk!! So today I took them to the other park. Since it was so cool I could walk at a brisk pace and kept everyone trotting almost the whole walk. And the good news was Miley came to me to put her leash on before the walk. Even thought she new we were going in the car. There is hope yet.

The only bad thing that happened today was I was going to throw the ball for Miley. As my arm was coming through the swing, she did a spin before she was going to take off and the front of her snout hit my hand. Ouch! She ran away from me and didn't want to play ball anymore. But after the walk, apparently she wasn't tired, and brought me the ball. So we played for a few minutes.

And what do Chihuahua's like to do?