From Spring back to Winter

On Friday it was Spring.  We did a bit of pruning of the fruit trees, trying to stop before we overworked our crappy shoulders.  I was down to a t-shirt (I always get warmer than Larry when we are working).  I washed all those loads of laundry.  No, our washing machine is nothing special.  An ordinary top loader I bought second hand off Craigslist.

The dogs were chewing on some bones, well Luna and Jake at least.  I gave Calli the best bone.  She didn't care.  We had come back from our walk and she just wanted to go back into her dark hole in the basement.  I didn't want her to.  I wanted her to lay outside in the warm of the sun and chew on her bone.  She didn't want to.  She kept going to the basement door and barking to go in.  We were all outside, and I wanted her to stay out and get some vitamin D.  I have no idea if dogs absorb vitamin D like we do, but I wanted her out there anyway.  Larry suggested we put her in the x-pen.  Great idea!  She never really did chew on the bone, but she did relax and didn't bark about her situation.  After a while Luna realized that Calli had the best bone.  She circled the x-pen and nudged it with her nose a few times, but wouldn't really dare do any more than that  while we were there.

Lunchtime rolled around.  We are always happy to have the excuse to stop for lunch.  The dogs were still outside.  I glanced out of the window and saw this.

Luna had pushed the side of the x-pen in.  She was digging at the outside.  It's hard to see, but the bone is just on the other side of the wire in her shadow.  Then she laid down to see if her pointy nose would fit under.  Not yet.

I managed to sneak out of the back door without her noticing. .

Did I mention what a glorious day it was?:)  It truly was, the birds were chirping, it was warm, we thought Spring had arrived.  Nope.

 The next day, March 1st, came in like a lion.  It was cold, it was windy, my dog club was holding an agility trial in an unheated barn.  A little bit of snow was blowing in the wind.  Snow would flutter down through the venting strip at the ridge of the barn roof.  People were huddled under a patio heater.  The ring crew were huddled in their blankets.  Sunday morning was the worst.  The snow had started in earnest.  The roads were not the best.  People told of seeing cars in the ditch on the drive there.  There was a white strip of snow all the way down the middle of the ring that had blown thrown the vent strip on the roof overnight. Us dog people are a hardy bunch though, and eventually almost all the entries straggled in.  We started the trial late to allow some leeway on travelling times, and then we seemed to get farther behind as the day went on.  I had spent the first hour and a half as the parking attendant, as the parking area is small and we were trying to cram in as many cars as we could.  I figured on Sunday that a lot of people would cancel and I wouldn't really have to worry, but no, that parking lot filled up again.  It was a 12 hour day.

Oh the joys of using outdoor portapotties in the cold.  Umpteen layers seem to make you twice the size, with barely room to manoeuvre in there.  When you're done you pull the first bottom layer up, pull the first top layer down over it, pull the next bottom layer up over that, pull then next top layer down over that, and so on...., so every thing is all nicely tucked in so there are no cold drafts blowing round your back.  Three layers on the bottom, 5 layers on the top.

I was able to run my dogs at the trial.  Jake, well he was just amazing:)  Like someone said, you can bring him out of the closet, dust him off, throw him in the ring, and he just performs.  Neither dog had seen any agility equipment since early January, and hadn't had any serious work since last Fall.  Not that I take agility seriously any more, it's just something fun I do with my dogs occasionally.  We lose our practice barn to the BMXers over much of the winter.

 Jake went 5 for 5.  Five Qualifying runs, with a first, three seconds, and a third place.  Love my little red dog:)  He has now earned enough Q's to get his Silver award.  Two nice rosettes for that, which I borrowed for a photo, and were handed back.   I don't display them, and no point in just stuffing them in a drawer to become more junk.

Luna, well she is a riot to run.  She is kind of crazy, okay a lot crazy on Saturday.  Let's just say we had a lot of fun.  She was the only dog I ran on Sunday, and got 2 out of 3 Qualifying runs, and just one bar down to prevent the third.  A first place in one class for sure, and I think a first in the other.  I don't take any ribbons, and don't care too much about the placements, it is really the 'Q' (as we agility people call the Qualifying runs) that counts.  It is the 'Q's accumulated that allow you to move up in divisions, or receive titles.

Luna was good, was quite social, and only had a couple of small snarks with dogs that 'stared' at her.  An awesome weekend spent with my dogs.

We got a got about 3 inches of snow on Sunday, and then we got freezing rain, just barely freezing.  Thankfully not a lot, about a 1/4 inch coating on everything.  The roads were good for driving home.  The power went off last night, just as Amazing Race was starting:(  A few branches off a large fir tree near the front of the house broke off with almighty cracks.  The power is on this morning.  Unfortunately this snow melt will not be as kind as last week's, with it's sunshine, mild temperatures and NO rain.  It is wet, slushy and raining out there this morning, with rain forecast all week.  The birds are singing though, so Spring surely must be on it's way.

Wellies, Brollies and Border Collies

I'm glad the weekend is over.  Our dog club put on it's annual agility trial this weekend.  It is one of the major fundraisers for the year, and helps to pay for the rental of our building, equipment purchases and maintenance, etc.  It's a lot of work.
We didn't attend the Saturday farmers market, but Larry did go to today's, with Meredith along to help.
So after getting home from being at the trial eight hours yesterday, I spent 3-4 hours getting things picked and ready for the market this morning.  Then up early this morning to do some last minute things, and off to the trial for me and Jake and Luna, and off to the market for Larry and Calli.

It was nice to get home late afternoon, and step into the shower and rinse the dust from my legs.  The trial was held indoors, on a packed dirt floor.  The floor has been watered, and held up well in the rings, but the walkways got dried out and everything had a light coating of dust.  The hot water from the shower felt great, and it felt wonderful to sit in a comfortable chair and relax.  The two collies were tired out, more mentally than physically, but we figured we could get away with just a leisurely stroll this evening. And shockers!...it was raining.  It's been weeks since we've had a real good soaking rain.  So we put on our rubber boots (wellies) with our umbrellas (brollies) and took the three dogs around the back hay field.  It was nice to walk in the rain.  I'm just hoping that it's another month or three before the rain really kicks in.  After all, summer didn't arrive here until nearly August, so we are not ready to give it up yet.

Regionals

So the BC/Yukon Agility Regionals weekend arrived, and we went.....and we volunteered.
 Got there Thursday afternoon, got the trailer parked and set up, familiarized ourselves with the site, took the dogs for a walk, and stopped at the off-leash area in the park and let them play fetch.
The next morning I took the dogs out first thing for their morning constitutional, and went back to the trailer for breakfast.  A bit later,  Larry was sat in the trailer on the steps leading up to the bed.  He was sat sort of funny, his head in his hands, and I asked him what was wrong.  He told me that Luna had just limped. What?!!  She had just walked from the other end of the trailer towards him and was obviously favouring her right front leg.  It seemed to be the foot/ankle area that was bothering her. Probably did something while she was chasing the ball the night before.  She seemed to walk most of it off, after she got moving.  I did run her in a Steeplechase class that afternoon, which was nothing brilliant but went okay.  A friend gave me a herbal anti-inflammatory to give her.  I was hoping in Luna fashion that she would sleep it off, but no, when she got up on Saturday morning, she was obviously still sore on that leg.  With movement, she worked much of it off, but once she laid down for a while, she was sore on it again.  I wavered back and forth and finally decided to err on the side of caution and pull her from the competition.  No point in making things worse.  The concussion and twisting put on that leg running Luna style could easily make a bad thing much worse.  Off course it was a decision that I rehashed many times that weekend.  Times when she was leaning into the leash like a damn sled dog, trying to get me going faster to where ever it was she thought we were going.  I'd look at her then and think that she sure didn't look like she was hurting.  Trying to keep her quiet was next to impossible.  I think it's mostly sorted itself out now, it's just bad luck that it happened when it did.
That's just the way it goes sometimes.

Lists

Monday morning we sat down and started writing lists.  Lists of things to be done, things to be packed, things to be bought.  This morning we are heading out for a week.  First to Nanaimo (ever heard of Nanaimo bars?) for the BC/Yukon Agility Regionals.  Since my 'best' dog was injured at the time the entries were due, it's only Luna that's running this year.   To get on the podium is one lofty goal, and I'm not reaching that high.  There are some pretty amazing dogs in her division, and judging by her last practice at the Field of Dreams, she's suddenly forgotten most of what she knew about agility.  I'm just hoping for some decent runs.  I'm not a defeatist, I'm just realistic.  So I'm going in with no expectations, but sometimes amazing things happen, and then sometimes they don't:)

Back to the lists.  I had some pretty lofty goals when I made my list.  For some reason it was about five times longer than Larry's.  Larry didn't even have anything written down for Tuesday and Wednesday.  On Wednesday I was still working on things I had written down to be done on Monday.  Things to be done for the market that will only be a couple of days after we get back.  Gardening done that should have been done a few weeks ago.  Seeds sown, bedding plants bedded, weeds weeded.  Anyway, what's done is done, and what isn't, isn't, and unless I can get it done between about 6am and 9am this morning, it ain't happening.
Then we'll be on our way, and a few miles down the road, I'll go 'oh sh#t, I forgot to ......' or 'oh sh#t, I didn't bring the....'.  Well you know how it goes.  And then we'll be far enough from home that I just shut it out of my mind, and get on with enjoying the break from all that stuff that is still on the list, and that will be that much weedier when we get back home.

Home is being left in some capable hands, and sometimes we come back and are scared to look to see what has been moved, chopped down, mowed off, cleaned up and put somewhere that we can't find it.

Inspiring

Came across this inspiring video as I was looking for something else on the internet (Don't we all know how that goes!)  Don't you love how Zip still jumps some of the invisible bars.

Calli has this same cart, although we never actually had to use it.  We've hung onto it just in case she needed it as she got older.

Field of Dreams

It's so nice that a friend has a nice grass field full of agility equipment only six minutes away.

Luna and I went over there last night.

She worked hard, and a bit insanely, and she was one tired dog at the end.

It's our BC/Yukon agility regionals coming up in less than four weeks. 

It will just be me and Luna this year, Jake isn't entered because of the issue with his knee.

And this was my view on the way home, just down the road from here.

Look What We Got!

 Luna and I went to an agility trial last night and today.  I think it's been six months since our last one.  Not really sure why we didn't enter in any, well in the Fall it was because we were still doing the farmers markets, but no real excuse for not entering in January and February.  Even this one, which I had planned on attending, well I didn't get my entry done in time.  They even have online entries.  But then it just happened that the lady running the trial had to phone me about something, and in the end she told me to just email her with my entry, so I did.  And we were in.  We had two classes last evening (the trial started at 6pm) and then 6 classes today, which started at 8am.  This meant I needed to be up at 6, but that just seemed too early (I haven't been doing early mornings much lately, well really not at all).  So I set the alarm for 6:15, and then hit the snooze button twice, and then turned the alarm off, and then had to leap out of bed at 6:45.  A bit of a rush, but we were on the road at 7:13, and it is a 25 minute drive.  Just enough time for Luna to do her morning business before she went into her crate which was still there from the night before. I walked two courses, and then we were the fifth team in.

Between last night and today we had 8 runs.  Luna 'qualified' in 5 of those runs.  That means the run was clean with no faults, and was under the allowable time.  In one of the other runs, she didn't qualify, but still came in first place in her group.   To qualify is more important than a placement ribbon.  It is the qualifying runs that allow you to advance into the more difficult divisions.  The red and white rosettes are the qualifying ribbons.  The plain red one is her first place ribbon.  The turquoise ribbon is because she received enough qualifying runs of a certain type, to move her up to the next division. Clear as mud I know.

 But for the Lunatic, this was probably the best trial she has ever had.  Some of the runs were a bit wild and a lot 'not pretty', but what counts in the end was that she got around the course clear and under time.  I don't have any video, just these sad looking pictures.  Because I don't bother to keep the ribbons, I just 'borrowed' them to take this photo, which was on a relatively clean looking table under the grandstand next to where her crate was.  Then the ribbons were put back and we went home without them.

 I tried hard to make her look alert and intelligent, but no matter how many exciting things I talked about...

She found it all verrrrry  boring

And figured she'd just take a nap until I was done

How Things Can Go Wrong

Things don't always go as planned at an agility trial.

Listen carefully to the audio.

There was only one snap closing the x-pen, and Luna pushed until she was able to squeeze out at the bottom.

If the panels were overlapped a bit, one snap would have worked just fine.  Calli was in the x-pen with her, but she heard Jake bark, and she was determined that he wasn't going to have all the fun.

And here's when things go right.
The last two runs of the day.
They were Jumpers runs, so only jumps and tunnels.
In her first ever Advanced Jumpers run, Luna had a qualifying run.
Larry had just arrived from the White Rock farmers market.  I asked him if he wanted to run Luna, but since I was already walking the course, he told me to go ahead.
You see me look back as she is going through the last tunnel.  She had rattled the bars on two jumps near the end, and I was checking to see if they were still standing



And here's Jake's Masters Jumpers run.  After he barks, you can hear Luna start to shriek in the background.
There was another dog there at the trial that sounds just like Jake when it barks.  Jake was in the x-pen with Luna when that dog was running, (and barking), and Luna still got upset.  And they say border collies are smart......:)
(Not sure if there was a lot of dust floating in the air, or dust on the camera lens)

So Little Time, So Much to Do

Here's a picture taken at the agility trial on Saturday, the only one of a bunch that was anywhere close to decent.

Jake : You keep saying 'ball', over and over, and I keep looking at you, and I want to know where that d*mn ball is!

Calli : Lalalalalaaaa.....rabbits, squirrels, I don't care what you say, I refuse to look at that camera....

But would you hurry it up, my back legs are slowly sinking

Luna : I hear you, I hear you....but something way more interesting is happening over there....do they need my help?

It was a good trial. 

Some videos were taken.

You may get to see some someday.

45 buckets of blackberries picked as of this evening.

It's a late but great year for blackberries.

One Damn Bar

Today we went to an agility trial.  Luna and Jake were each entered in 6 runs.  I ended up running both dogs, as Larry has been having back issues for the last while.   Generally his back has been improving, but we went to help set up for our club's flyball tournament yesterday, and things didn't go well for Larry and his back.  The first thing was that he tripped over the handle of a wooden dolly that I had left down on the ground instead of flipping back upright.  Then he thought that it would be okay to unroll the big rolls of rubber matting by pushing them with his foot, but I guess that wasn't the right thing to do either.  So he decided that it didn't make any sense to try run on a dirt floor, in case he ended up jarring his back some more. 

 It did make it rather interesting for me.  For the most part Luna and Jake ran in different rings.  Sometimes it meant that I would have to go and walk the course for one of Luna's runs, but I had already walked Jake's course, but hadn't run him yet.  In other words I had to keep two courses in my head, and might not run the older course until after the one I had just walked.  Running dogs in agility is a bit similar to riding a horse over a jumping course, but I think it is harder.  You and the horse are basically one entity, you go where the horse takes you. Well actually you are supposed to go where you direct the horse.  Sometimes though the horse makes a sudden unexpected move, and the two of you part company.  Been there, done that, not fun.  At that point though, generally you don't have to worry much anymore which direction the course headed. 

 In agility, you have to remember the course that the dog has to take, and then you also have to remember your own 'course', which gets the dog to take it's course correctly.  The path your course takes can be drastically different to the course the dog takes.  Sometimes I had to remember Jake's course, and Luna's course, and also be studying the map for Jake's next course.  Jake was just about the last dog in the ring in all of his classes.  So I might run Jake, and then go to the other ring and run Luna.  By the time I had come back in from the 'after the run, go outside and play fetch with the dog reward', the walk through for Jake's next course might be happening.  If it was a class where I had to make up my own course ( Gamblers or Snooker), well I better have something figured out, so that knew what course to walk when I got out there.

What I'm trying to say with all this rambling is that my brain got a workout as well as my body.  And I'm happy to say that both brain and body came through pretty well.

Out of the 12 runs, Jake ended up with two Q's (qualifying runs), and Luna with one.  Not a very good percentage, but a few of the runs were pretty close.  Jake had a nice Standard run, and a really nice Snooker run.  Luna had an absolutely brilliant Gamblers run, her only clean run.  She finished first in her group with the highest amount of points, and it went pretty well exactly as planned.  Unfortunately Larry had left at that point to go to pick Meredith up from the airport, so it didn't get filmed.  Too bad, I would have like to have seen that on video.  

That run has moved Luna up into the Master's Gamblers class.  

Meanwhile, Luna is still stuck in Starter's Jumpers.  That is a pretty simple class, just jumps and tunnels.  Being Starters, the course is relatively easy.

There is just the problem of that one bar.

One of these days.....

Oh, and the best part of the day really, was that Luna initiated quite a few on leash greetings with other dogs that were successful and didn't end with raised lips and a showing of teeth.  Unfortunately because I was constantly in and out of the ring, I never had any treats on me to reward her, but the praise was lavish.
It just made me smile:) When I think of how snarky she used to be the beginning of last year when we were at a trial....wow, huge difference!

Success!

Take the photo on the left and add it to the photo on the right, and what do you get....
A qualifying run by the Luna(tic)!

Take the photo on the left and add it three times to the red dog in the header photo, and you get triple qualifier Jake!!

Okay, my photo attempts totally sucked this morning, it is gloomy inside and out, and this just seemed easier.

Oh yeah, sugar was on sale the other week, and what with different stores doing price matches, I managed to get a bit of a stock for the jam making.


We went to an agility trial yesterday.  It ends up being an all day affair.  Up at 6am, and it takes us about an hour to get ourselves and all the animals organized before we leave.  Calli stayed at home, and Meredith took her for a walk midmorning before heading to work.  It took us half an hour to drive to the trial site, which basically just leaves us enough time to get our dogs settled in their crates before we have to walk our first course.  Jake was the 4th dog to run in his ring, and Luna was the 8th in her ring, so the first hour is a bit hectic. Once we have that first run under our belts, it is a bit more relaxing. The level that Jake runs at is a very large group, so after that it probably averages close to two hours between runs.

Remember how we have been practicing the weave poles every morning.  I had said to Larry that his aim at this trial was to complete the weave poles successfully with Luna.  At the last trial I don't think he had one successful weave, and he just gave up and moved on without her ever completing a set.

Yesterday, that first run just after we got there, she got those weave poles first attempt!! In fact all four times she did the weave poles during the day, she got it right first try.

Amazing what some practicing can do.

That made me so happy, because I know how frustrating Larry was finding it. 

He was pretty happy too.

And, Luna did not knock a bar down all day!  And, most of her jumps through the tire were good too.

  We've realized there's another thing that Luna needs to practice.  When she goes into a tunnel or the chute, where she loses sight of the handler, when she blasts out she quite often moves towards the direction she expects the handler to be.  Doesn't always matter if there is a jump 15' ahead, and you have told her to jump while she is still in the tunnel.  The pressure you put on her (movement and body position) when she comes out also makes a difference, and until the dog and handler know how to work together as a team, there are going to be problems.

We do have an old tunnel at home, so we will set that up and do some practicing on that too.

And I need to do some serious practice with Jake on the dogwalk and a-frame.  He is very slow, and I've totally messed him up on getting his contacts.  The dogs have to touch the yellow zone on the way down, and one of the most popular ways to teach that is for the dog to race to a stop at the bottom, with two feet on the ground, and two feet on the equipment.  Jake never raced to the bottom (he is very movement sensitive and really is not thrilled about being on that equipment), but somewhere along the way I've totally messed him up and he creeps down and doesn't seem to know what he is actually supposed to be doing.  And then I get tired of waiting and just tell him 'okay' when he's got into the yellow zone because time is ticking on and we need to get moving to the next obstacle.  This of course makes things worse, because with each slow step I'm sure he's thinking  'is this the one that will get me the 'okay'?'

Back to Luna.  I ran her in one class, which was Steeplechase, which is open to all levels.  Larry also had another class at the same time, which is okay, they realize you can't be in two rings at once and just move you around in the running order, but it does mean that you have to remember two different courses, and Larry has a hard enough time remembering one course.  Since I had already run Jake in that class (clean run for him!), we decided I would run Luna in that one, and Larry would run her in the Advanced Standard.  Good decision, as Larry got a clean run in his class!  Didn't go so well for me.  I forget that I have to handle her different than Jake, so there were a few little glitches, but overall pretty good.

Here's Larry and Luna's clean run

And not to neglect my sweet little Jake. 

Out of five runs yesterday he had three clean ones, and the other two were very close. Unfortunately Larry wasn't able to film any of the clean runs.

Oh Jake, see what I won yesterday........

Give that to me you little b**ch, didn't you hear I won THREE of those ribbons.

And Mum only brought this one home for a photo op anyway...

.....but...it makes a good toy...

Wanna play tug?

Oh yeah, there's a bit of a chicken story over here.