Julie

Noisy, but usually not a big deal at our house.  We are sitting between 2 large shows, one to the N of us and one to the SW of us.  We can see the N one from our living room, but over the years as neighbor's trees have grown up, the view is not as good as it used to be.  We also live across the street from an elementary school, which is a popular gathing point to set off fireworks.  So lots of noise.  Lissa doesn't like them, but she just lies in her corner and chills, so its not any different than any other night with her.   Swift got a little uncomfortable, but really takes his cues from us and the other dogs.  None of the other dogs care.  We watched comedies so there was a lot of laughing in the room.  When we took them out for the final potty of the night (I went with them, just in case), one went off just as Swift was going out the door, and he said, "no, thank you!".  I did encourage him to come out, but he wouldn't leave the deck.   He'd been out about an hour before that, so no biggie.  Quake likes watching fireworks, he will look up into the sky and watch them go off.   

My younger daughter is a professional photographer, she does mostly portrait work in a studio, but would prefer to do nature shots.  Here are some candid pictures she took of the dogs (taken from her myspace website):

Quake
 

Tucker


Swift


Lissa

I stole these from my older daughter's myspace website, Brandi (older) on the left and Kristin (younger) on the right.  They took this at a Mariners game recently:



Quake really likes Brandi:

Well its really rock'in and roll'in here right now.  Lots of thunder and lightening and driving rain.   I feel so bad, I left the window open where the dog crates are.  I hope I dont have to clean out Swift and Lissa's crates when I go home to let the dogs out at lunch!

My husband's office is supposed to have their picnic today.  LOL!   I called and asked him if they were planning to play that all time favorite picnic game, "Dodge The Lightening Bolt".   Hahahaha!  He's not amused. 

 Ooooh that smell.......Cant you smell that smell.

We got home Sunday night about 8pm, walked through the door.....and about got knocked out.   It had been warm here as well and most the windows were closed.  My younger daughter was staying here when she wasn't working, but shut the house up when she was gone.   It was so digusting, we were pretty sure something died in the walls and was rotting away.  Major digusting, but we were way to tired to do anything about it  Sunday night.  We opened up some windows, turned on fans for a couple of hours, then went to bed.

Last night we started investigating and discovered some Emu blood had leaked to the bottom of our dog food fridge, under the drawers where I couldn't see it.  When I was home a couple off weeks ago, I tiled the area the fridge sits on and needed to move it.  When I moved it, I disturbed all that blood and it leaked into the carpet under where I had moved the fridge to.  Then the weather warmed up......

It was really gross.

Bruce and I cleaned it all up last night, scrubbed out the fridge and pulled out the carpet cleaner.  Its much better, but we need to run the cleaner over it again tonight.  But at least you can breathe in here now.

The weather gave us a break today. It was overcast and not as warm. There was some thunder during the GP finals and when the STP finals were running, we had rain and lightening bolts. Didn't seem to affect the runs I watched, in fact I think most handlers and dogs were appreciating the lower temps!

Quake and I had a better day on Sunday, going 3 for 3 in Standard, Snooker, and the GP finals. I'm sure the lower temps played a part, but by Sunday I was also much less worried that he was going to reinjure himself , so I was a little more relaxed about that. In Snooker I didn't get much of a chance to walk the course so

cflyrungave me an opening from the sideline and I mentally walked it while I was waiting to run. It went well, we got through #6 in the closing but got on the wrong side for the #7 weave entrance and Quake entered at pole 2 so we were whistled. It was good enough for a Q and I was happy with that considering I hadn't walked it....hehe. The GP finals course was fun and not overly technical, I was really surprised how many dogs E'd on the course. It called for sending the dog to the teeter while laterally moving away to the left, which is not a strong point for Quake. Ever since he fell off the dogwalk last November, his teeter has become "a work in progress". When I move laterally away, he freezes in place and doesn't drive forward. I can get the forward drive back in practice, and I typically work that right before a trial, but with him being out for almost 5 weeks and me not being sure he was not going to lame up again, I didn't want to drill him on the teeter right before the trial. So I let it go. I knew it would be a problem when I walked the course, I just figured I would do what I could. Sure enough, he froze and then crept into the contact zone. It ate up a few seconds. The rest of the run went fine and we ended up in 8th place with a semi-finalist bye so I can't complain. :-)

Swift ran in Starters Snooker yesterday, that was a lot of fun. He knocked a red in the opening so we were whistled off. I saw him knock the bar, but stuck to my course. Its way to early in his agility career to make him stop and look for another red. I wasn't there to Q, I was there to give Swift some ring experience. So we took the #6 tunnel as planned after the knocked red bar, then a couple of jumps on the way out. Then we celebrated. He gets a little stressed out AFTER the run (kinda like a deer in the headlights thing), which is not something I've experienced in a dog before, so it will be interesting to work on that. My husband took some pictures and caught the exact moment before Swift knocked the red, check it out:

Starting out:



Knocking the bar on the red jump:

 

Overall I was very happy with both Quake and Swift this weekend.   Quake got top 10 points in Team Gamblers, Team Standard, Master Jumpers, Masters Standard (Sunday), he Q'd in Masters Snooker, and he got a GP Semi-Finalist Bye with a placement.   He got 16th place with his DAM team and a Q.  But most important, he stayed sound all weekend.  Swift ran well in both his classes, and clearly ring stress is not an issue for him.  So I think we had a respectable showing this weekend. 

 

 

Wow, I AM tired.  I think I just mixed up some PNS and GP results.  This is corrected:

26" Body - dont know owner
22" Wally - Stacy Peardot 

I think these 2 are PNS.........
12" Bucky - Gail McMonagle
08" Lucy - Jim Massey

LJ semi-finalists include:

Jester -  cflyrun2nd place, 26"
Quake - me, 8th place, 22"
Roo - csagility, 22"
Mick the incredible aussie - 3bluentru, 22"
Fenwick the awsome - brisbeethewhite, 16"

I also scored PNS, but I dont remember and I didn't write it down. Way too tired. I left before STP/PSJ ended. 

Today we ran Masters Standard, Gamblers, Jumpers, and rd 1 of GP and STP. It was hot, over 100 today and muggy. A better day to eat mexican food and take long naps. We had a fun BBQ last night, but I tweeked my back when trying to pick up our cooler, it was much heavier than I thought. So this morning running gamblers I was pretty sore and we did not have a good run. Standard went well, except for one area were we were weaving into the fence and I put too much pressure on Quake, causing him to pop out on the other side. Duh. I debated on running GP because it was so hot and we already have a bye, but Quake was running good and I took a cold shower, so we figured we'd give it a go. I lost him to an off course A-frame, oh well. I was trying different things since I didn't need the Q. We had a nice jumpers run and we took 10th place overall. I think that should be more top 10 points for Quake and now he only needs 1 jumper leg for his ADCH. Looks like it will be Brownsville in August. He popped out of the weaves in STP and I elected to leave. So not the best day, but I got the leg I really wanted so that was good. Here is a picture from GP. Note how serious Pat looks:

Swift had his debut today and as predicted, it was pretty comical. But he stayed in the ring and finished the course, which was all I was looking for. I was pretty happy with him! He was a little confused at first and about 1/2 way through the course he figured out this was the same stuff we do at home! Then he took off. We had 2 knocked bars, he ran by one jump (I didn't bother stopping to fix it), and took the wrong end of a tunnel. Oh, and he ran around the last jump. We had the whole alphabet on our scribe sheet....haha! But I consider the run to be a huge success, he held his start line and did the whole course. I was worried he might run out of the ring, but no, he was Mr. Business in there. So it was a huge success in my eyes.

Here is a pic:

 

Grand Prix RD 1

26  

1 Voucher
2 Focus
3 Jester

22

1 Nyx
1 Rakie
3 Wynn

They are still tabulating all the results for steeplechase and for GP small dogs. 

Here we are on Thursday night. Its 8:30pm and things are starting to quiet down for the night. We have an early start tomorrow, first walk through starts at 7:15am. I think everyone will be hitting the sack early tonight. Its been great to see all my out of town friends again, really looking forward to the BBQ tomorrow night!

Some pictures from today:

Jim, AKA: Campground Police - you could really tell he was enjoying driving around in his golf cart. I dont know who's with him.



"Camp LJ" at the site:


Camping - I'm in the Salem, cflyrunis next to me (in her really cute trailer!) and csagilityis in front of me (cant see them very well).  barjorand 3bluentruare just on the other side (cant see them at all, but they are there....really!):


Quake and Swift:

Quake just saw his chiro vet today and she gave him a clean bill of health. Said she didn't see any problems with his elbow at all. While she is a chiro, she also does ortho stuff, mostly for horses.

He has been on normal house activity for about 2 weeks. This includes running up and down our stairs to go outside (daylight basement), jumping off the deck (about 2ft to the ground) and ripping around the yard with Swift. On Sunday my daughter's boyfriend threw a ball for him and Swift in the backyard for about 10 minutes, with no signs of lameness at all. I put him over the teeter in my basement a few times with no issues. However, I stayed away from jumping and other agility until last night. Last night I took him to the arena and worked him pretty hard in about 1 minute increments, for about 5 minutes total. This included jumping at full height, weave poles, tunnels, and the dogwalk. He seemed to come out of it just fine, no lameness. He was his typical 'extenda-dog' self. :-) I'm going to run him in class Wednesday night and see how it goes (and hopefully get some collection!). I've been thinking it over and I'm not going to stop him at the bottom of the a-frame this weekend or in class tomorrow night. The stop could put a lot of pressure and shock on that elbow and I dont want to invite trouble. I'm excited and happy, but cautious........

I'm also going to run Swift this weekend, in starters jumpers and snooker. I'm kinda excited about that. He is sequencing well, but I have no idea what will happen. The good news for that is that I dont have any expectations, so he certainly wont "fail" in my eyes! (Like he ever could fail in my eyes). He runs (bounces) like a big goofy puppy who hasn't figured out his body yet. Its pretty comical to watch.

Its been a while since I posted.

I've been keeping busy doing things around the house. With all these weekends I've spent at home since Quake was injured has motivated me to do a lot of spring cleaning that normally gets neglected because I work during the week and I'm gone on the weekend. My boss is in WA DC this week so I elected to take the week off and just stay home. I worked on Monday, but thats it. Its been great!!!!! I normally only take time off for trials or other dog events, so this is a real treat. I've been cleaning out cupboards, closets, etc. I've been experimenting with new recipes and made this really great low fat/low cal scallops dish last night. I've been going to the club in the morning to work out. I could really get into the housewife thing. I've been working with Swift's teeters, weaves, and contacts and keeping Quake occupied with teeters and contacts. Quake has been on normal activity around the house now for about a week with no signs of lameness. This includes ripping around the backyard with Swift and Lissa and racing down the stairs to go outside (he has to be first). I went to class last night, but I left Quake at home. I'm playing it very conservative with him. One of the people in the class is a German exchange student who is getting ready to return home and we threw a party for her. Even though I didn't have a dog to run, I wanted to go to the party for her. It was weird being there without a dog, but Daisy was kind enough to let me run Jester. What a treat that was! It was really nice to be able to execute certain handling moves with a dog that really understands them. Helps me to understand as well. I really enjoyed his enthusiasm and running him. I hope Daisy lets me run him again sometime.

Speaking of Daisy, I took her up on her recommendation and bought "The Beginning Runner's Handbook". Its a 13 week running program that at the end of the 13 weeks should have you running longer distances. I'm planning on doing a 5k in August, but was having trouble running more than 2.5 miles. Its a good program and has the added benefit of burning more calories and taking another inch or so off my waistline. I'm wrapping up week 3 today.

Tomorrow I have another dental appointment. I go in at 7:00am so I'll start drugging up tonight. I'm looking forward to regionals and to our BBQ on Friday night! Later today I will post a list of items people are bringing.

So now that I'm not going to Prineville, my options have really opened up for the weekend.

What to do, what to do....on Saturday I'll probably go to pilates in the morning. Then about mid-day I'm going to go hang out with Daisy, but plan to be back home in time for the Belmont Stakes. I believe we are going to see a triple crown winner this year. I've been watching this horse since January and he keeps getting better and better. I finally figured out who he reminds me of....Count Fleet. He's also very Slew-like, but with a different running style. I'm very interested in seeing what he does at Belmont tomorrow.

Not sure what I'm going to do Sunday. I'll probably go lift weights in the morning and run a couple of miles. Then in the afternoon if it clears up, get some more yard work done. More teeters and weaves with Swift. Teaching Quake to back up while standing on 2 feet (we were working on a handstand, but with his elbow situation, that one is on hold). I need to do some grocery shopping as well. Oh my do I live an exciting life!

Thank you to everyone for offering to help at the BAAD trial! I emailed the trial chair and secretary to let them know. I wish I could send one of these to each of you, but I'm afraid this will have to suffice:



You guys really are the best! I'm feeling much better about this now than I was earlier this morning.

I'm not going to Prineville. It was a very, VERY hard decision to make, but Quake is not ready and I need to do the right thing for him. And I can't justify the cost to travel there just for scorekeeping. Swift's debut will have to wait (it was only one jumpers run anyway...). In class last night Quake ran well in the beginning but at the end of the night it was clear his elbow was sore. He started carrying himself very low in the front end (like he was herding) and then limped for a few strides on his way back to this crate right after his very last run. He seemed fine for most of class and I was really hopeful, but then on the last run we had a couple of teeters and he seemed to get sore after that. I'm wondering if the jarring of the teeter tweeked it again. It does definitely act like a soft tissue injury. When we got home I iced him and he looks ok this morning, but I dont want to take any chances. The only run I cared about was jumpers because he needs the leg for his ADCH. But there will be other jumpers classes. I dont want to run him on a partially healed injury, make it worse and then be out for regionals where he is on a team with 2 other dogs who would have to find another dog if Quake was injured. Its not fair to them and more importantly, its not fair to Quake. He needs time to heal. I'd rather take the time to make sure he is fully healed for regionals. It pisses me off that I have to miss this trial because he injured himself at some stupid AKC trial I didn't even care about, but thats the way the cards fell.

What makes it really difficult for me is that I committed to be the Chief Scorekeeper at this trial and now at the last second I'm pulling out. I really hate to do that to them, but its about a 12 hour drive round trip, not to mention the cost of gas and a hotel. I just cant justify the time and expense if I'm not running a dog. Here is where I'm hoping you, my USDAA friends can help.....I know many of you are experienced scorekeepers. The club's main concern is that their scorekeeping volunteers dont have enough experience scoring USDAA and wanted them to have a "go to" person to ask questions, etc. That was going to be my role. Can I ask you guys to pitch in and help the newbie scorekeepers at this trial? It would go a long ways towards my peace of mind to know that they had experienced people helping them!

Just made my hotel reservations (no way I'm dragging the trailer there and back from Seattle)! Where is everyone staying? We are at the Stafford Inn.

After looking at the most recent pictures of brother Freddie, I got this song stuck in my head. I think its Freddie's theme song:

I don't have many vices any more. Quit drugs in 1988, smoking in 1993 and this October I'll have been sober for 10 years. I try to eat healthy, but I do drink coffee. I suppose that could be considered a vice! I used to bite my nails, but I dont do that anymore. However, I'm terribly addicted to day spas. About once a month or so, I indulge myself with a spa day. European facials, pedicures, manicures, body wraps, too many spa treatments, so little time! The place I go to is both a salon and a day spa. I'm on a first name basis with everyone there, having been going to this place for about 15 years. I have a regular hair stylist, nail technician, and esthetician.

Today was a spa day. After pilates and a cardio workout at the club, I went to the salon for a facial, manicure, pedicure and a haircut. Now I have housework to do and dogs to bathe. They wont be getting their nails painted tho....

Today was a home day. Not very often I stay at home on a day off. Of course my house and my yard were really starting to show the lack of effort! Yesterday since I didn't go the dock dogs practice event, was a spring cleaning day. The house got a good scrubbing inside. Today was outside day. Because I was gone most of last summer and last fall, the yard got pretty neglected. Bruce mows, but thats it. I had giant weeds and bermuda grass taking over my flower beds. So today I tackled the 2 flower beds in front of the house. Cleaned out all the weeds and grass, planted some flowers and some more ground cover (Bruce weed-wacked some of it early last year - I told him to never go near my flower beds again, which is why he just mows). I still need to go get some bark to spread, but it sure looks much better!

I let Quake outside with me this afternoon in the front yard while I was planting. He doesn't leave the yard and we don't live on a busy street, so no big deal with him being out there. I think he really enjoyed the change from being in his crate for 2 days! No limping, he just walked around and sniffed and enjoyed the sunshine. He looks much better. I've been icing him every few hours and the swelling seems to have gone down. We are going to get x-rays tomorrow, I'm almost positive nothing is broken, but I want to be 100% sure. Then we are going to see the chiro later in the week. The Prineville trial is still iffy, but less iffy than yesterday. We'll see. I'm feeling much better about it than I was yesterday.

I also spent some time with Swift's weaves and he is very good at 4 weaves now. I'm going to add another set of 2 tonight for 6 weaves. He is entered in JWW at the Monroe AKC trial in June. It would be nice to have him weaving by then. He's a real thinker, that boy. He really thinks about how to enter correctly and will correct himself when he does it wrong. I can hardly wait to start competing with him!

Today was not as hot as Friday or Saturday, which was nice, but it was more humid. We started out this morning with Team Snooker. You had the option of doing 3 or 4 reds and there was an interesting twist to #6: It was a tunnel going diagonally, under an A-frame, and you could take one or the other for your 6 in the opening, but not both. The catch was whatever one you took (either tunnel or a-frame) in the opening, you had to take the other in the closing. If you didn't take 6 in the opening, then it didn't matter which one you took in the closing. The #7 was a 3 jump combo, where the middle jump was also a red. It was a fun snooker, one of the funner ones I've run in a while. I walked 4 7s, but got turned around a bit on the 7 combo after the third red. I wasn't sure where we left off, so I just went to the closing for 51 points. Since it was a team snooker, I didn't want to risk losing closing points, so played it safe by just going to the closing. Both my team members also had good snooker runs, which moved us up over the qualifying line after being in the basement yesterday.

Next was Grand Prix. It was a very fun course with some off-course opportunities, so it kept you on your toes. Quake and I had a good run and won the 22" class. So we now have a bye into regionals...hooray!

Last was Team Relay. Again a fun course, with a few challenging areas. Our team ran clean, which moved us up into the #8 spot overall. Not bad considering we were in the basement at the end of yesterday! So we got a DAM Q, which was really good for my teammates Flint and Dillon, who didn't have a qualifier yet. All in all, a very fun, well run trial. We were packed up and on the road by 3:30pm, and got home by 6:45pm.