a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Thursday Morning Class Photo Album

Friday, May 11, 2007

Thursday Morning Class Photo Album

SUMMARY: A bunch of photos to introduce Boost's Thursday morning classmates and show what the Power Paws Agility site is like.


Power Paws Agility is atop a hill a quarter of the way up towards Mount Hamilton and Lick Observatory. What you see in the background is just someone's driveway.
If you look west, you see--1000 feet below--Silicon Valley (San Jose and environs) spread out in the mist... (OK, it was foggy in the morning and it was hot and muggy the day before so maybe it was smog. But the view from here is usually spectacular, especially at night.)
Power Paws keeps sheep rather than spending all their time mowing acres and acres of hillsides. And they keep two llamas to protect the sheep from mountain lions. Sometimes the llamas come over to the fence and evaluate our agility techniques, which sends some of the dogs into quite the tizzy.
Never let it be said that we don't have shade with style.
On warm days, you can cool your dog in the tub. Wendy and Renegade demonstrate.
Tracey and her Golden, Cal, are also in our class. We have four Goldens, all related to each other, I believe, and all about 2 years old like Boost.
Sue's Golden, Chase (not shown), not only qualified in Steeplechase the other weekend but did really well in the second round, too. And they're not even out of Novice yet! He's very fast. If only he didn't like eating teeters.
Pat always wanted a dog named Bob. So what if it's a girl. Like my dad always wanted a dog named Sam. So what if she was a girl. Pat has been breeding high-drive working Goldens (including our classmates) that are fairly well-known in agility circles.
Pat and Bob demonstrate these cool transparent weave guide wires. Made by another Power Paws student, they're very easy to attach/detach. On the downside, they're very fragile. In class, our instructors make sure that each dog has what s/he needs for his/her own training situation. Like, Bob gets guides at the beginning of the weaves, the little sheltie gets stride-regulators on the Aframe, and so on.
Nancy, Mary, and Glenda evaluate the weave entries.
Nancy applauds another nice run.
Pat again, and Amy, who has a sheltie, and I didn't get any good pictures of her. We also have 2 shelties in our class. Amy always says "Oooh, I forgot!" when running the course, or "He's being naughty!" about her dog, but I think she gets more Qs than the rest of us put together. Plus she brings ice-cold watermelon slices for us every week during warm weather (blue cooler next to Pat).
Glenda has the other sheltie in our class.

Wendy enjoys one of the treats that people often bring to various classes when we share brags at the beginning of each session. Renegade hangs out.
Boost loves watching other dogs do agility.
Boost's sister, Bette, is in our class, along with Mary, a convenient human with whom to play tug and to get meals and a place to sleep from.
Here's one of Boost's half-brothers from her mother's (Tala) latest litter.
Pay the Flying Pig. If you dog soils the agility lawn, you must stuff a dollar in the slot on his back.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, that's a nice place to take agility lessons! Is that their HOUSE in the background in the picture of Wendy and Renegade tugging???

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  2. No, that's one of the brand-new minimansions that are going in all over the hills in the area. This one is particularly galling because it sticks out of the hillside like a tick on a mexican hairless (how's THAT for a simile?). Sure, I'd like to own a house like that, but maybe with a more muted color and maybe some vegetation to screen it and I dunno...

    Anyway, their house is a nice quiet ranch back behind some trees that you can't even see from this field.

    -ellen

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