I hate snakes

Yesterday my husband and I took Miley and Guiness to the park to walk. The path is made of cement and is pretty wide and the woods are on each side. You can walk down some short paths to the river too. First we run into a dog off leash. He was huge , like a Great Pyrenees. I could here the lady calling him. He seemed friendly enough but I still don't think people should let their dogs off leash when other people are around. We weren't the only people walking either. I felt bad but my husband squirted the dog with water twice to get him to go away. I never saw the owner just heard her calling her dog. I love dogs but I still don't want other peoples dogs just coming up to us. You just never know what will happen. Then on the way back there was a snake next to and just on top of the cement path. (If you click on the picture, it will get bigger so you can see the snake). Miley went by it, I freaked out and said "snake" . That made Miley come back and almost step on the snake. It recoiled when she went over it and I thought she got bit. But she never acted like she was bit and I couldn't find anything. My husband took a picture of it with his camera phone. We looked it up when we got home. It was a copperhead. I hate snakes. At least it is not an aggressive snake and only bites if you step on it or try to pick it up. It usually will keep perfectly still until you leave. Which it did.
Mickey got his teeth cleaned yesterday and they had to pull 3 teeth in the front. They were all loose. He did fine. He was also micro chipped. I told them to make sure the micro chip was in because Mickey will not tolerated putting that back in again like Miley did. Guiness's blood work came back normal.

Last year: T4 .8
FT4d 12

This time T4 1.8
FT4d 44

But he is still not acting right. This morning again he refused to go for a walk. Hummmmmm!

Last day of vacation

Today is the last day of vacation. Tomorrow I go back to work. Boooooooo! Its been raining since last night and Miley is beside herself with boredom. I did walk them this morning before the rain started up again. Guiness wouldn't go for a walk. I got him to the street and he wouldn't move. He has never done that before. I have walked him every morning for the last 3 years. Sometimes he doesn't go for the first half of the walk, but usually when I come back with the chihuahuas, he is waiting. Today he wasn't waiting but he did come for treats. But like I said, when he got to the street , he wouldn't move. So I put him back in the house and just took Miley. I did give him some pain medication with his breakfast. Then about 1 hour later, I took Miley and Guiness to the park to walk. He did that with no problems. His blood work was all normal, but we are still waiting on the free T4. So, I'm not sure what is wrong with him. He just seem like he doesn't want to do anything but lie on the couch. No limping except his usual limp that no one can figure out what is wrong.

Below is the video from yesterday, I think. The box a-frame is looking pretty good. I'm made a new box that fits the dog walk and have started training that too.

Dropping bars

I set up a jumpers course that was used at our clubs spring trial. It was a novice course. I walked it and then ran Miley just like if we were at a trial. She dropped several bars. She is taking off to soon and I'm not sure why. She did this several runs in a row and then she seemed to fix it. Do I need to do some jump chutes with her? I don't have the room to practice at home like I do on this club practice field. Is that the reason she was taking off to soon. She has so much more room to run and is just to excited?? She missed a few jumps going wide but that was my fault. I also need to work on "go on" , she didn't seem to understand that command at all.

crazy things

Its been very hot lately. I think its been 100 degrees or above for the last week. So its hard to have fun with the dogs outside because they cant take it. Miley is going crazy. She has been licking the walls and trying to eat them. She has tried to chew through my cable cords on my computer. I bought some clear plastic tubing today and covered the cords. And then she peed in the house. Today is a little better , about 92 but it is still hard to go outside.
Then I found a pile of vomit in the living room . It was small pieces of the nylon leash Guiness had on when he was lost. Do you think it could have been in his stomach all this time? There is no where else he could have gotten that leash. I threw the other one that I had away because it made me feel sick to see it. He has been acting weird lately, but no stomach problems. He has been eating and going to the bathroom ok. The only thing is he hasn't had much energy. He wont chase or play with toys. He doesn't want to go for walks but once I get him going he seems fine. I took him to the vet on Tuesday for his yearly exam. I ask them to draw a T4 and free T4. Last year his T4 was .8 (nl was 1-4) and his free T4 was 12 (nl was 8-40). The vet called yesterday and said they didn't get enough blood and I needed to bring him back in. I figured I take him in Monday, that way the blood doesn't sit around all weekend. But maybe he just had a rope in his stomach. Hmmmmm.
I was suppose to go to a seminar with Karen Holik this weekend but some how my spot got messed up and I was changed from a working spot to auditor. I decided not to go. I would rather work my dog. I need practice on front crosses because I'm late, late, late..... So now on Saturday, I'm going to Lander University with my son for a campus tour.

Box a-frame

Here is Miley's box work for the a-frame. She is pretty consistent about missing the box 1 in 7 times. This was yesterdays video. Tonight , I worked on running all the way down the line and she hit the box every time. In a couple of days I will put the box on the a-frame. The video is pretty boring. But if you see something I'm doing wrong, let me know.

Its so hot lately, its miserable! Its 90 degrees by 10am and sill 90 degrees at 10pm. The only time to work the dog is in the early morning. But the problem is the grass is wet with dew. Miley doesn't like running on it. Its slippery , which is dangerous. That means there is no good time to work. I ran her a little through the weave poles yesterday afternoon . She was so hot, she almost laid down in the baby pool. She was standing there and then went into a bow. I was so excited. But then she changed her mind. Drats!!

class

So I finally made it to a class. I think its been about 2 months since I last was there. Class was suppose to be Thursday night. Its pretty far away but now about 45 min. closer since she opened a second class at a closer location. I was stuck in traffic for about 20 min. and only moved about 1 mile. I'm sitting there thinking I'm going to be late. Traffic finally clears and I come over the hill and what do I see? Black skys with lighting bolts. Great, no class. So I turned around. Two hours in the car for nothing. But the instructor decided to give privates and semi-privates on Saturday. So I signed up. It was a very good lesson. I need to keep a small notebook in my pocket so I can write things down. I tried to write everything down when I got to the car, but I'm sure there are things I forgot.

Things noted by the instructor I need to work on or fix:

Start line stays. When I set Miley up at the start line she is scooting backwards just a little. "M" ( the instructor) feels this could be a problem because at many trials the first jump is close to the fencing. She may scoot back into the fence and then develop other issues. Also it may change her line. I think its because I set her up at the start and just tell her to "wait" . She can choose to lie down or sit. I notice that when she lies down , is when she scoots backwards. "M" thinks I should line her up between my legs. I may do this , I'm not sure. Only because Miley likes her space and this may not go over well with her. I may need to have more specific criteria at the start instead of just wait. I will work on both and see which goes better.

Pinwheels: I'm crossing to late which is causing Miley to go wide. I'm watching her to see if she is going to do her job and then the info she needs to keep going is not there. She needs the cue before she takes the jump and even when she lands on the jump before. I really need to work on this. I think that is why she drops so many bars. I'm giving her late infor and she is trying to do what I want. Like turning while going over the jump. (This is not stuff I recognized myself, "M" told me) I need to learn to watch her feet and where she is landing.

We also worked on serpentines. Again, I was late giving her the information she needs. But I think I have a better understanding so now I can work on it. All in all it was a great lesson. I learned a lot. "M" said Miley was looking really good and much improved from the last time she saw us. So that makes me happy.

Miley now is in 6 straight up weave poles. The mistake I made with Guiness was not teaching entries at the same time as teaching the poles. I hope Ive done a better job with Miley.

We are still working on the a-frame. We are up to two jumps and then jump in the box. (Rachel Sanders method). As soon as I put to much movement when going to the box, she jumps over it. So we are working on that. I will try to post video of it and maybe someone can give me some suggestions.

Guiness is cone free!!! What a happy dog. Miley is happy too because now Guiness is playing with her. When he was wearing the cone, he wouldn't play. Miley resorted to chewing on the end of the plastic cone to try to entice him. But it didnt work. He is done with the antibiotics too. Now the hair just needs to grow back. Below is a picture of Guiness back. Do you see the light strip of hair across his shoulder blades? Ive shaved him 3 years in a row and have never seen this before. Do you think its just because he is getting older? He is 4 years old. Hummmmm, its defiantly weird.

Trying new photo program

This video was from the other day. Miley kept dropping both the bars so I decided to video tape it to see what I was doing wrong. Was I late etc... But as soon as I started taping she didn't drop the bars anymore. You can see she cuts right in front of me and doesn't take the dogwalk that one time. Ive watched it again and again and I don't know why she did that.

My husband bought me a new computer to use for just my blogging and saving all my pictures and videos. Ive been frustrated by how the pictures have been down loaded. Plus I wanted to be able to save all the videos and pictures at the same time and in the same place. Ive tried a couple of programs and haven't like any of them. I just bought "Easy Media creator 10" . So far I really like it. I can save all the pictures and videos off my camera at the same time and in the same file. I can also edit the video in slow motion without much difficulty. I can also edit pictures with special effects. I'm going to try to upload this video and see how it turns out. I had to change the file to save it in to be able to load it to blogger. Will see if I lose picture quality.