Aloha!

We've been in Hawaii since Friday afternoon and obviously too busy to blog! We've had a few rain showers (our Luau got rained out) but by and large the weather has been perfect! We spent our first several days in Kona which is super convenient for walking to restaurants and shopping and the pier. We've also been to volcano national park, the beach, Hilo, on a cruise and to many scenic places and on a few great hikes.

I'll have lots more details and photos to post when I get home but here are just a few from my phone.

Video and pics

Here is Lyric's best jumpers run from the weekend and some pics of Legend playing at the lake-her favorite thing!

All things considered

Jumpers could have turned out much worse.  At some point during the lapse between standard and jumpers the sky clouded up.  Distant thunder was heard.  By the time the walk through for jumpers rolled around there was a raging thunderstorm going on outside.  And then I heard a noise in the event center I had not heard all weekend.  Surely that's not the tornado sirens?  Right?  Well, you guessed it-it was.  The next thing I knew everyone was grabbing their dogs and heading to the hallway.  That's a lot of dogs (half of whom are afraid of thunder) in one hallway.  I must say though, the girls remained very calm during the whole thing, which was over in about 10-15 minutes with no tornado. 

A few minutes later though we had to be in the ring.  Lyric had a great run, only missing the last few weave poles.  I was pretty proud of her considering the booming thunder, rain slamming into the metal building, it being the end of a very long weekend and me trying to remember the course after all the excitement! 

As the storm slowly petered out I waited on Legend's run.  She managed to get a Q going 4/6 on the weekend.  Not a lot of points to show for it, but we still got some and we don't need that many more anyway.

Here a few pics from the trial.  I will post video and some swimming pics later.

In-between

We've had better weekends. We've had worse weekends. Given the last two trials I should be pretty happy with what we have so far.

Lyric has earned two jumpers Qs, one with a second place. 0/3 in standard for various reasons-weave poles and teeter mostly but one day she refused the table and missed a discrimination. She seems to really be stressing over the teeter lately which translates to stress at the dogwalk too I think as she is not bolting over it like she used to. So we will be working lots of teeter and I think the dogwalk will come back. Also she needs to work on flips and rear crosses into tunnels. Although we've had a few weave pole failures this weekend I do feel she has made great progress on them but it's on the list to keep practicing.

Legend is 3/5 so far with a QQ yesterday. She is taking some issue with the teeter this weekend so we will work on that at home. I'd also like to speed up her dogwalk. It's not very consistent and this weekend was particularly slow. She has actually been slow in general this weekend. Not sure what's up with that. I was getting pretty used to running my moderately fast, confident dog. Maybe it's the stress of 3 days plus obedience, the surface or the contact equipment. Although the equipment seems very solid here she is Legend after all.

Open obedience went fairly well. She failed the drop on recall both days. We need to work on that. Her retrieve on the flat was nice but yesterday she didn't quite come in all the way. Her retrieve over the jump was lovely both days-but she didn't wait for my command either day. And she actually jumped the broad jump both days! Her heeling was quite nice today-far from perfect but really improved from the past. And she only missed one sit today and got all her finishes. I was most pleased with her attitude today. She was more relaxed and attentive and had a little more sharpness to her. So, making progress. I might even try to get to another obedience trial this year.

We took her to the park last night to play in the lake. She had so much fun. Too bad there is not some kind of water obstacle in agility!

Still have to run jumpers with both of them. We will see what the can pull off at the end of a long weekend. Video and pictures to follow!

Good

Barney seems to be getting better.  I wouldn't say he's fully recovered from whatever he had but seems to be getting there.  I know he's not fully better because he doesn't gobble all his food right away, but he is finishing everything I give him eventually.  And he acts pretty good.

My friend came through a major surgery with flying colors and was in good spirits at the hospital when I visited last night.  She's already looking forward to running agility again.

We spend yesterday out on the lake.  Some friends invited us on their boat.  Same friends that invited us kayaking.  I must say, boat with motor, much better than kayak! I look a little like a tomato today but not as bad as I thought I might.

We are spending a long weekend (all of us-Me, Jerry and all our dogs) in St. Louis for the 4th of July weekend and an agility/obedience trial and the following week are leaving for Hawaii!

Don't scare me like that

This morning, Barney didn't eat well. He picked at his food, them just let his buddy Lefty eat it all and followed me back out into the yard. Great. His kidneys are probably fried after that antifreeze episode over the winter. So I packed him up and took him to work to find out.

And actually, all the bloodwork looked great! So, what's wrong with my cat? I don't really know. He had no fever and was a bit dehydrated and lethargic. Otherwise unremarkable. So I gave him some fluids and nausea meds and some antibiotics. The antibiotic might not have been warranted but I just wanted to cover all my bases while he was there. I also dewormed him-which really didn't go that well and I have a few claw wounds to show for it. We really need to stock that topical dewormer. It's all I would have if I owned my own clinic! Anyway, something worked because he seems a bit better tonight and ate a good meal this afternoon. Darn cat. Probably would have been fine by morning anyway, but that's what I thought last time too!

And for your enjoyment, my little pool princess!



I'm not sure she actually enjoyed this but she sure looked cute!

Better. I guess.

The day started off so much better than yesterday.  We were in the ring early, it was still cool, and Legend came out of her crate like she wanted to run.  Good signs.  Legend and Lyric both had really nice jumpers runs and Q's.  This means that Lyric has finished her MXJ just 11 months from her first trial! 

That was the day's highlight.  Standard was a repeat of our previous issues.  Legend refused the a-frame and of course went right up it on her second attempt.  So there went our QQ.  That made for 3 runs with this weekend with only one fault-both standard runs falling victim to the a-frame ghost.  Lyric refused the table.  Again.  Back to lots of table work I guess.  For Legend I raised our a-frame (it took me this long to realize ours was not quite set to full height) and work at approaching it from different angles after jumps intead of just always doing it straight or first in a sequence.  Might help, won't hurt.

Another bright spot in the weekend-they were both 4/4 on perfect weave poles!  I know that Trip got a Q yesterday in novice standard (looked great) but have not yet heard how he did today.

And, an update on Stormy...

She can, and will, jump the fence if you leave the yard or stay in the house while she is out.  She wants to be with you.  She's pretty good in the house but is still learning how to not jump on people, keep her feet on the floor and not the countertops and how to be led by her collar without having a fit and pawing your arm off.  She also has some weird social skills with the other dogs.  She's very concerned about them getting her stuff or too much of my attention but she is not really aggressive or assertive, she just always seems worried or anxious.  She really likes squeaky toys and is relaxing enough to play with them more and is starting to learn about treats.  I'm not sure if she will have any interest in agility yet (despite her obvious athletic ability) but she will make someone a very devoted pet!

The lull

We had an awesome start to the agility year. Legend was running faster and more consistently than she ever has. We were racking up points faster than I expected. Lyric was overcoming a lot of training issues and and getting faster.

Then the last few weeks happened. It's been hot, trial days have been long and warm, not much training has been getting done at home. And it shows.

We had another long trial day today. Still running jumpers at 6PM. Legend had so-so times in both her runs and refused the a-frame (then did it fine) in standard and then had a bar down in jumpers. Lyric had a bar down, a jump refusal and a refusal at the table (ugh, not the table again!) but had beautiful weave poles and a great rear cross in her bad direction. We are just waiting on her jumpers run now.

Legend still needs about 100 points to qualify for AKC nationals. And realistically there are still a lot trials to enter and she should have no trouble getting that, but a few fair to bad weekends in a row is always a blow to our confidence (not to mention the checkbook), especially when I know what she is capable of. But tomorrow is another day and we run early when it will still be cool in the building. Hopefully.



Hmmm. Does she look ready for jumpers?

The Heartbreaker (aka new foster dog)

Through the avenues of Facebook some of the local MOKAN volunteers were make aware of a possible border collie at the Nixa City Pound. She was to be euthanized Monday (today!) if she wasn't pulled by another rescue.  So I drug myself out to the Nixa pound Saturday after the 5K to evaluate said dog.  Which I had to do through the chain link fence because they said no one would be there, but it's not like we had a lot of time!

At the pound was an adorable blue merle Border Collie x ? looking puppy.  She looked about 8 months old and was wiggling all over with happiness that someone was there to see her.  There was no way I couldn't take her.  So although we weren't planning on another foster dog right now, letting this puppy get put to sleep was not an option.   It just broke my heart to think of her in the pound, probably close to the same age Legend was when her owner left her at the pound.  So, I picked her up today.

She's about 30 pounds, loves everyone, likes other dogs but has been very submissive around them, plays with toys and loves to run.  She does not like going in the kennel but so far has done well in it and has pottied outside.  She rode pretty good in the car and tolerated a bath reasonable well.  She seems very people oriented and I think will be the kind of dog to follow her person everywhere.  I've only had her a few hours but I think she is going to be moderately active and not over the top intense. She is available through MOKAN border collie rescue.  If you notice her tail is long and fluffy-I think she has been shaved and will have a longer coat eventually.

"Stormy"



Ouch

I think maybe I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. Saturday morning was the much anticipated 5k run. It actually didn't go too bad considering the general lack of training we put in. And better yet I was inspired enough to put in a little more training effort and do another one in the fall.

Sunday we were invited to go kayaking. I was a little skeptical but Jerry thought it sounded fun so we agreed to go. It took approximately 5 hours of travel time to get there, get all the vehicles dropped off in the appropriate locations, rent the extra kayaks (since we don't have our own) and then get back to the put-in site. This seemed like a lot of effort for something I wasn't sure I would enjoy. I'm not that comfortable around water anyway and that's a really little boat to be stuck in all by yourself! So I was pretty worried when we started out, especially crossing the "rapids" but I did get more comfortable as we went along. The good and bad part of it was in most places the water was barely moving so it was a LOT of paddling! The good news it at least it felt pretty safe. However eight miles (4 hours) of paddling is a bit much. Ok. A lot much. At the end I wasn't sure I would ever be able to move my arms again.

I would say I would try kayaking again but would prefer a shorter trip or moving water. But not moving too much! I don't think I see a kayak purchase in my future. Today I'm sore, tired, and sunburnt and then got to work only to find out the schedule is blocked out until 10 because the other doctor is out in a large animal call. Sure would have liked to sleep longer had I known that.