Adventures in lure coursing

This weekend I took Epic to Oklahoma for Fast CAT lure coursing.  It's basically a 100 yard dash where they chase a lure (a plastic bag on a fully) down the track.  The nice thing is that there is no training for this.  Dogs either have the chase/prey drive to run or they don't.  Technically you could teach your dog to want to run after the bag but that didn't really seem like a worthwhile way to spend training time to me.  But Epic had no issue chasing!  He took one look at the lure moving and it was game on.  And he got progressively more excited as the weekend went on.  We had 4 runs and he's well on his way to a title with his fastest run being 8.61 seconds and the neighborhood of 23-24 mph.

Anxiously waiting his turn

 Beautiful morning

 Fall photo set up!

Friday night some friends and I went to the Miranda Lambert concert her in Springfield.  I had actually forgotten about this when I entered the trial so ended up getting up at 5 AM to drive to Oklahoma Saturday morning.  But it was worth it!

 The usual suspects

 Other girls from work who were also at the concert

And finally here are some photos from last week at nose work!

Visitors and on the road again!

Tuesday night until Thursday morning I friend came and stayed with us and brought her baby. We had a lot of fun visiting, eating, drinking, shopping and going to Silver dollar city. 

Friday the dogs and i hit the road for an AKC scentwork rrial. We stopped at my parents new home site to see the construction progress and the dogs enjoyed the chance to run and explore. Then on to Columbia!

Legend has been doing great and feeling awesome and she was very excited to get to play this weekend. She was as hyped up as ever, just not as accurate. She did pick up an excellent container Q and an excellent interior Q with a second place. Today she’s not feeling so good but since she’s been so good for so long I’m hoping it’s just a little GI bug. 

Epic was a little rockstar going 7/8 and creeping quite close to his novice elected titles. He picked up two firsts and one fourth place. As a side note he’s also been making a lot of agility progress! 

Last night we had a storm and a dead tree fell on the gate. But everyone is ok. 

Hopefully everyone feels better tomorrow and gets a good nights sleep!

Last day!

Our last day we went to this park area near our resort.  It had a swimming area and also a long walking/bike path along the ocean.  We walked it for awhile and it was all so beautiful and quiet.  Also there cats and chickens.  Always chickens.  Chickens everywhere. 

More Kauai

Probably the best waterfall we saw, there is a trail to the bottom which would have been a better view but it was currently closed.  So we just got the top view and it was hard to get a good photo of the falls and the pool at the bottom. 

 Sleeping giant hike-this was probably my least favorite of the hikes but we did get to go through this cool Hawaiian pine forest.  Maybe the hike is better if you keep going past where we went but after a mile up muddy uphill we turned around at the first viewpoint we got to.

 As far as we went...

 Morning coffee spot

 Thursday we went to the Kilohana plantation where we took a train tour and then enjoyed the restaurant and shopping.

 Random photo spot

 Wild chicken

 Another waterfall, this on also has a trail to the bottom but we skipped it for time sake since you can see the falls from the road.

 More chickens

 Photo op at a store

 Coffee plantation-pretty place, great coffee.

 Swinging bridge in quaint Hanapepe.

 Pool area at resort