Kittens

We have a client who found a very pregnant stray cat a few weeks ago and we decided it would be best to let her have the kittens since she was so far along. A friend fostered the cat since the owner is blind and may not be able to manage watching over the pregnant cat. Yesterday the cat had one kitten and then just quit. Today we tried to induce labor and only got one more kitten so around noon we headed to surgery for a C-section and delivered the last kitten-sleepy but very much alive:) I know that pretty much the last thing the world needs is more kittens but when you go to the effort and expense of a C-section a live kitten makes the whole thing more worthwhile for everyone involved. Plus I spayed the cat while I was there which we were going to do eventually anyway. Momma and babies are all doing well tonight although momma is still kind of sleepy. I don't usually tell work stories here but this one was kind of different and fun.

We are busy here getting ready for vacation-only a few more days! Moses was limping pretty bad earlier in the week but after a few days on meds he is a lot better.

Rabbit updates, etc.

Here is a recent picture of Spring-still growing! Wiggles is eating rabbit pellets again. Which isn't live saving because rabbits can live without them-but he hasn't been eating them since he got sick so it's just one more step towards normal! I think after we get back from vacation I may start moving toward the original goal of them living in the same pen! I have done nothing with my free afternoon except read blogs and work on mine. I'm a blog junkie. Why did I ever start this anyway...Oh well. It's fun. I think people like reading it-a few people anyway.

Butterflies

We spent part of our weekend visiting the Butterfly Rainforest in Branson. Here are some of the pictures we took. Not all are of butterflies but are still pretty. I was a little disturbed by the number of dead butterflies that were there however. I realize this will happen but you would think someone would go around and pick them up. Also I know the fruit is to attract the butterflies so they congregate up close to where people can see them but brown banana chunks make for an unsightly photo!

Sedalia Rally Results

Zodiac and I headed to Sedalia today for the Rally trial. He competed in Excellent B and Advanced B and earned a 98/100 and First place in both classes. This was his first RAE leg!

5K Results

As promised I did run in a 5K this weekend despite a decrease in my training over the last 6 weeks. The weather was cool and cloudy and the course relatively flat. I managed to finish in 27:09 which I would describe as not impressive but not a total embarrassment either. And remarkably it was good enough for 3rd place in my age group. Jerry finished ahead of me despite running less than 10 miles in the last 6 months but did not place in his age group.

Legend's Story

It's been awhile but finally here is Legend's story. If you have not yet done so you might check out Oreo's Story and Zodiac's Story.

Legend is a product of too much free time (which seems odd, because I never have free time), the internet, and some luck. As it happened I was killing time one day browsing Border Collie rescue sites for fun because it was not a time when I was looking for or needing another dog-but then when is there ever a time? Anyway, as I hit the Nebraska Border Collie Rescue site an unusually marked red merle puppy with an eager expression and big ears was staring back at me. Just under a year old and listed as high drive I clicked on the picture to learn more. The bio went on to describe the puppy as very sweet, very driven, good with other animals and an agility prospect. She would be everything I was looking for if I was looking for another dog-which I was not. But over the next few days I could not get the picture of that little dog out of my head. I finally decided that even if the time wasn't ideal, the right dog does not come along every day. So I submitted the 10 page adoption application and waited. Apparently someone got their application in ahead of me and I was notified that "my" dog had been adopted. Now for the luck part of the story-it seems that the new family's current dog did not like Legend at all and she was returned to rescue. The following week I drove to Nebraska to pick up a dog I have never met in person.

It only took a few days for her and Zodiac to be best buddies and for her to learn to leave Oreo alone. She was very busy and loved to play with her toys. But she stayed out of trouble and was very well crate trained. We tried to let her sleep in the bedroom but she was too energetic and would wake us up at odd hours of the night to play. She now sleeps all night withought trouble but is still very busy-right now she is sprinting around the living room for no reason!

Since it was winter when we got her we spent several months working on obedience and agility handling skills on the flat and targeting, all in preparation of classes starting in the spring. She then progressed to doing a few simpler obstacles. In the spring she started more formal agility training and loved it! By June she was competing in her first Rally Trial and on her second day of competition she got a perfect score and first place!

In the fall I entered her in agility at the BC National Specialty and was pretty nervous. She did not have that much experience running courses and she had never been turned loose in a strange place. I shouln't have worried though-as soon as we stepped out on the course she thought of nothing else but agility and qualified on all four of her runs that week. She even had a clean run and first place her first time out. She has since gone on to finish her NA, NAJ, OA, OAJ and has a leg on her AXJ. All since October! She also has and NAC in NADAC and points toward several other NADAC titles.

She has also finished her RN and RA with several perfect scores and first place finishes to her credit. She knows a lot of the obedience exercises-even some of the more advanced ones and someday she may be controlled enough to compete in the obedience ring but for now she finds it too rigid and dull!

Legend loves to play and to snuggle and she doesn't do anything slowly or with subtlety. She is a fun dog to train, compete with, and live with. We have a lot of high hopes for her agility career. She has a lot of natural speed and energy and if I can continue to focus those things on agility then I think she will acheive a lot of great things. Hopefully this is just the beginning of her story...

Trial results and other things

The good news is Legend does not seem to be afflicted with whatever ring stress she was experiencing at the last few trials. I am hopeful that this continues to be the case because no one wants a dog with that kind of issue! The bad news is we didn't actually qualify in anything this weekend. Althought there we lots of nice parts and some very close runs. She was apparently obsessed with the wrong end of the tunnel this weekend and actually just tunnels in general, which is odd for her. Zodiac finished his NAP and NJP but seemed to have trouble jumping again so I think he will be focusing on obedience almost exclusively for now.

In other news...

There have been requests for pictures of my hair cut-we'll see, I'm not much for posting pics of myself unless I'm running a dog at the time!

And now I have to give my soapbox speech. I have found that there is a lot of discussion lately on whether or not to spay/neuter your agility dog. Those who are against argue that it allows the dog to be more muscular and alters the time of growth plate closure thus giving you a competitive edge. I don't know for sure but I really doubt there are any studies comparing the performance of intact versus altered dogs. I do know however that there many medical and behavioral benefits to having your dog spayed and neutered. I personally would not want to risk the health and well being of my dog so that he or she might have some advantage over another dog. And quite frankly I find it surprising that, given the stronger than average bond a person has with their agility dog that anyone would risk a shorter or less healthy lifespan for them if they didn't have too. On top of that most people are not prepared for the responsibility of owning an intact dog-although many agility owners probably do keep a close watch on their dogs. Not to mention that in this world of extreme pet overpopulation I find that there is just very little reason for most dogs to be walking around intact. Granted there are some really nice dogs with health clearances and performance records that if bred will continue to improve their respective breeds but too many people just breed their dogs "because" and don't have a really good reason. If more people are leaving their dogs intact for performance purposes then more people will be tempted to breed them-without doing proper research and health checks. I guess the bottom line is I just see too many nice dogs without homes and too many dogs with reproductive disease to think this is a good practice. For every litter of average dogs people breed, dogs like Legend and Zodiac sit in shelters-waiting. I know this started as why not to leave you agility dog intact and has morphed into the pet overpopulation and irresponsible breeding but I guess I feel that one potentially leads to another, or that I just can't ever leave that second issue alone....

Anyway, my final two cents-my 3 altered dogs have 30 agility titles and counting and the male that was neutered as an adult always gets mistaken for a female. So not all theories hold true in all cases.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and now you know mine on this subject!

Hair

For the first time in I don't know how long I actually splurged and paid someone to cut my hair. Usually I just do it at home. I cut the bangs and let Jerry shorten up the back. But I finally decided it needed some professional work and maybe something a bit less plain. Nothing drastic, just some layering. Looks nice but not really that much different depending on how I wear it. I guess that's what I was going for though. Jerry took these pictures of Icy the other day. Apparently she can make herself comfortable anywhere-she's on his night stand.

Contacts Revisited

I worked Legend again today and let her run the contacts. This may not work out. Now that she feels the freedom of not having to stop she is starting to miss the A-frame contact sometimes but is still doing well on the dogwalk. I guess I'll see how it plays out at the trial this weekend and then I'll have until fall to work on whatever method I choose. She should be easy to get back to 2-on/2-off since she targets well so I'm not concerned about it. And this has been great for her speed over the contacts. It just seems like it's so hard on their legs to fly over the A-frame and then slam to a stop, but then you don't want them to demotivate and slow down because they know the hard stop is coming...I guess that's a veterinarian vs. trainer debate I'll have to work on! Zodiac is gradually doing better at Utility but is still having a motivation problem. Actually he seems relatively unmotivated to do much of anything lately-he's so lazy. But he did some really wonderful go-outs tonight. We had a busy weekend. Saturday I worked and then we mowed grass and watched a movie (Fool's Gold) and went to Orscheln's late night sale to save 20% and then to Wal-mart for a few things. Sunday we went to Silver Dollar and Celebration City with some friends and had a good time. We all topped if off with some Cold Stone Creamery. Yummy!

Summer Flowers

I taught Legend two-on two-off contacts from the beginning and worked on then consistently to the point that she was really nailing them well (for the most part). But as we have been working on speed over the dogwalk I sometimes don't make her stop and just release her as she gets to the bottom so as to really reward the speed. When I did this I noticed she was doing a beautiful running contact. Today I let her do it several times and she never even thought about bailing off. She even did it nicely on the A-frame. So now I may experiment a little with that. I guess I can always go back to two-on two-off but why stop her if I don't need too??

I just like this picture of Zodiac so I am putting it in even though the post was about Legend. I know everyone loves Legend's colors and she is very photogenic but I think Zodiac is conformationally a more beautiful dog. They're all pretty cute though if you ask me!

Anyway here are some summer flower pictures. My mimosa tree did finally bloom. It didn't seem like it was this late in the year before but maybe it was. Perhaps I should pay more attention to my plants. And the lilies of course are lovely again....