Good Try

This course was posted on Facebook by Greg Fontaine.  I thought I would set it up and try it. LOL  I taught the beginner class last night. It was the last 6 week session. So before class, I thought I would try this course.  I thought I would have trouble with the beginning but that was a  piece of cake.  I did a lead out to just before #2 toward the outside wing. I did a call to heel type thing and the just post turned her over the jump and then RC #3.  Try to guess where my problem was?   If you said the tunnel entrance , you are correct.  So this is my biggest problem. Figuring out what works best to run my dog thur a course. I just cant seem to do what my dog needs until it doesnt work and I have to figure out something else. But why cant I figure that out the first time I run her.  How long will it take for me to get it???
Anyway, I first FC after #5 then with her still to my right I put her over #6 and #7. But I really had to stay there at #7 to get her to take it. I did a FC as she took #7, so she was on my left. Then I had to run like heck up the line trying to get there to show her the correct tunnel entrance.  She dropped the bar at # 8 several times.  Then when I really tried to beat her up that same line, she crashed that same #8 jump.  A bad crash, head over heels.  Im sure I wasnt running that fast but she could tell I was really pushing and thats when Miley will start taking off early to try and catch up to me. Ugh!! Why did I do that.  She seemed ok. So of course I had to rethink what the heck I was doing there.   So I decided to post turn her over #7 which now put me on her left coming up that line and easily got the correct tunnel entrance. No dropped bars, no crashed jumps and it was much easier for me too!  BUT why couldnt I see that before crashing the jumps and almost killing my poor dog??? Well if you made it thur all that , congrats to you!! LOL  It was hot last night. I think 90 degrees. So after figuring that out I had to hose Miley down to cool her off. Then she laid down. Wow, Miley never lays down.  So I sat down and waited for the class to show up.  When they started coming in, every person said, "Wow, Miley is laying down".  LOL Yep, she was hot.

Sometime life is like this picture:

Vacation pictures

Arent you glad you dont have to come to dinner and watch  slides of my vacation. LOL

 Always trying to get the birds.

 Look how close they are to the shore.

Tides

                  High tide                                                                            Low tide

            High tide                                                                         Low tide


If you click on the picture it will be bigger.  You can see how much more land is available during low tide which is why Guiness could get lost at low tide. you are much more restricted at high tide.  That water way divides Seabrook Island from Kiawah.

I tried to get pictures of the four dogs again.  It didnt work out to well. It wasnt sunny and the dogs were a little wet because its been raining.

The naughty dog is in the back on leash. LOL

I also tried to get another picture of the two shelties but you can see the leash. Ugh! ( these were earlier in the week)

These are pictures I just liked.

First you come out of the water after chasing birds.

Then you shake to get all the water off.

Then you roll around in the sand to rub everything into your fur. Of course Miley would never to this. Yuk!

Nature

I love all the nature here at the beach.  Everyday this week Ive walked out to the north beach, dragging my family, to try and get pictures of the dolphins.  The first day , my camera battery was dead.  And since then, Ive seen no dolphins in the deep channel.
 Here, taken yesterday,  is my very nice husband humoring me.

 But today was my lucky day.  We saw lots of dolphins all day , especially when eating lunch at the beach restaurant.  So we went up this after noon as low tide approached and there they where. WhooHoo.  I dragged my sister, my niece and my daughter there too.  I really wanted them to see the dolphins in action.  I think they thought is was cool at first but then just boring.
 It took two hours but I finally got the shot I wanted. I think I was driving my sister crazy. LOL

 This is called Strand fishing. The dolphins herd the fish onto shore and  then eat them. Then they slide back into the  water.

How great where those??  LOL  I have lots more but none as great.

And why do the golfers insist on looking for their balls in the water hazards?  Here are two good reasons to just loose your $5.00 ball and get a new one.

And here is what Stephanie was doing while I was trying to get the dolphin shots.

 Its in Japanese and says Pray for Japan. (I think).

And of course , here is another great shot of Miley. LOL

Almost

a disaster.  Yesterday morning we took all the dogs out on the beach. I wanted to get a picture of all four dogs on the beach, hoping that one would be good enough to use as a blog header.  It is suppose to be 4 dog craziness but I never have 4 dogs in the picture.
We drove up the the north beach where dogs are allowed off leash.  I wanted to go back to this log I saw yesterday and get some pictures there. Guiness wasnt being crazy.  The waves and the birds take him over the top and make his brain explode.    We are walking and there are only a couple of people out. One man is throwing a ball to his dog into the water. It looked like a  golden retriever.  The dog spots us and comes running over. No big deal, he seems friendly.  He goes up to Roxy, probably thinking , "what the heck is that?"   Roxy starts screaming.  I told my husband to pick her up. She stopped.  I think she is still traumatized from last weeks run-in with the dog and cat in our neighborhood.  Poor Roxy.  She usually will take on any dog, I guess not anymore. Probably a good thing.
We get to the beach and I start taking pictures of the dogs.  Everyone has their leash on except Miley.

None of them were turning out how I wanted.  The shadows and Miley always closing her eyes were problems. 
Also the chihuahuas just walking away was another problem.

So I decided to try something else and I take the dogs off leash so it would be one less thing to deal with when trying to set up the shot.

 Trying to get all four dogs looking at me was a challenge.

But here you see Guiness's head turned.  Whats he looking at?

Crap, birds.  Two birds flew by, off he goes. The other dogs watch as he leaves.

Then chaos starts.  Guiness is running down the beach and then Roxy takes off after him.  I guess she decided it wasnt worth the chase and came back after 30 yards or so. Then Mickey takes off running. But he is just doing speed circles. I guess he figured it was a good time since Guiness wasnt around to try and get him.

Miley, she didnt leave at all.  She was  probably was wondering what the heck was going on.  My husband ran down the beach after Guiness. If you have been reading my blog long enough , we lost Guiness here about 3 years ago for 2 1/2 days.  He was chasing birds down the beach that time too.  The difference this time, it was high tide and we were already at the end of the beach, so there wasnt a lot of places  for him to go.  He did turn around and came back to my husband.  Thank god.  No off leash for him ever again, no matter what.  He cant be trusted!!   I havent been letting him off leash, but he seemed so calm at the time and we werent that close to the water, I thought I had control of him. I guess not.  Manic.
So all is calm again.

"Im sorry, I just cant help myself"

Happiness!!

Went back to the trial on Sunday.  When I walked the dogs at 4am it was still really windy but by 7am, the wind was gone.  Miley chased Guiness on the beach for about 30 minutes before we left.  She thinks Guiness is playing but he is just acting like a maniac about the waves  and the birds.

"Hey, Im not a manic!"

After that, I left for the trial.  It was a beautiful morning. I decided I wasnt going to work as hard as yesterday. I dont know how all these people do it.  I only worked two classes.   Anyway first up was Adv Jumpers.

The beginning was very tight and I was worried about sending her off course.

I added this picture so you could see how close everything was. I walked it several different ways

  and decide on a slight lead out between #1 and #2, with my dog on my left.  I then FC at #3- #4. I thought if I post turn and Im late, she will go off course to #2.  It worked great and then I RC #5.  Whoohoo, we made it through.  I RC #8,#10, and #15.  My RC at #10 was to tight and she pulled in  after taking the jump and went to the tunnel. So we missed  jump #11.  Crap. I should have RC on the flat after  #10.  Still a great run.  Someone came up to me and said it looked so good, he stopped talking to watch me run.  LOL , that was nice.

Next up was gamblers.  I figured out if I got this run, it would be our title.  They had some cool  title ribbons and I  wanted one. LOL

This was my plan. The only thing I changed was  after #10 weaves, I put her over the teeter again. And she fell off.  Crap!  Im not sure why.  Was it my entry, Im not sure.  But the buzzer rang just then. I decided not to panic like yesterday. Miley is fast and I knew I had more than enough time. So I sent her on over the jump and thur the tunnel and then out over the gamble jump. She went over the a-frame and held her 2o/2o until I released her. Whoohooo, we did it.  And she held her start line without scooting.
I dont know if I told you this but Ann B. told me she felt her startline and her table were related. Fix her startline and will have fix her table.   Its hard to get her to the excited level of when you put her at the start of a trial. But I had been practicing with her at the trial with her ball.  She gets pretty excited about that and had a couple of failures. So maybe thats why she was doing better or if running her on the beach helped.

Not a very good picture of Miley but you can see the title ribbon.

Last up was novice standard.  I told the judge I was going to leave if she got on the table.  It was a short course to the table.  Jump, DW, tunnel ,teeter jump table.  But what about that teeter she just fell off of. I dont know. I brushed it off with a broom before the class. Im not sure if that was the problem or not. Then in class before mine, a dog fell off the dogwalk.  Ugh!  I tried to handle very carefully . I really expected Miley to pass the teeter. But she didnt.  And she got right on the table. WhooHoo!!!  After the count, we ran out of the ring and she got her special treat. Canned dog food. She thinks thats the greatest. LOL

I was sooooo happy. It felt great. And she held her start line too!!!

"Im the happiest dog in the world!"