SUMMARY: Birthdays, superheroes, agility practice...
New Year's Day--a perfect California day for a trip to the beach with twenty or thirty of your closest dog friends.
We were very happy about it.
We got a lot of good exercise.
Strategized about our plans--keep going or turn back? (The beach goes on for miles.)
Made a giant peace sign in the sand and lined it with dogs. It was a little challenging, even with our highly trained, super obedient (cough cough) agility dogs, but we did it.
Some of us LOVE LOVE LOVE going in the water.
Some of us think that moving water is an Evil Thing but LOVE LOVE LOVE all the action going on with all the dogs, in particular all those other fascinating border collies, or anyone running after a ball, even if they are chasing it into the Evil Thing.
From our agility club's holiday gift exchange, Spiderman, The Hulk, and Captain America came home with us.
Boost loves Spidey.
But apparently is not so keen on The Incredible Hulk. Maybe it's the hair.
Most recently, it's birthday season in our family. Boost's and my birthday one day; four days later, my niece's birthday; ten days later my sister's and Tika's birthday.
Even at work, there shall be cake.
And a family dinner out.
Oh, am I supposed to be talking about agility? Class Thursday night felt great in some ways and not in others. I felt like Boost and I were both doing some awesome things on the courses. The only ones we got through without a bar down, however, were two short 10-obstacle courses (this demonstrating why we have so many Pairs Qs and not so much other things). Plus Boost still is having trouble making that bear-left entry into the weaves.
Our instructor asked us all what the biggest reason is for us to not Q in Standard and to not Q in Jumpers. I had actually just recently counted--as if I needed to. For Boost, it's about evenly split between bars and refusals/runouts (if I count only the first fault in each run). For both classes. Very rarely an off course, only occasionally a weave fault, never a contact fault.
Tika is still more or less officially retired. We have our first trial since November coming up this weekend. We'll see how she and I manage it. Still feels very weird, anticipating running only one dog all weekend.
Last night I dreamed that I sent out an email to the club asking whether anyone knew of a dog who was available for re-homing who already had some agility training. You can see where my subconscious sits on the subject of getting a new dog and training it.
Generally, things are just flowing along swimmingly.
Happy Birthday!
ReplyDeleteI like running one dog. Or running 2 dogs in different levels at a one ring trial. But when I was running 2 dogs in the same level it became a bit stressful, never enough time to cool one dog off and warm up the other. Even worse was 2 dogs in different levels at a 2 ring trial.
Good luck this weekend.
Hmmm, what is this "one ring trial" of which you speak?
DeleteIt's definitely harder at a small trial (say, only 2 rings and only a hundred dogs) because the 2 dogs are about the same height and so indeed it's tough to have enough time between them when they're in the same ring. But normally, especially at USDAA trials, there'll be 20 or 30 dogs between them in the same ring. Sometimes not, but normally.
And I agree that dogs in different rings is a real PITA.
Love the dog peace sign!
ReplyDeleteHere's what was funny about the peace sign. This beach is over the coast range from us, a bit more than an hour's drive. I posted the photo on facebook without saying where it was. A friend who also lives on this side of the hill saw it and said, "did that happen to be in Aptos yesterday afternoon?" And it was. Turns out he'd gone for a walk on the beach with a friend and had seen a peace sign there and they'd commented on it. No dogs on it at the time, but he must have just missed us because the time he said he was there was about the time I think we'd have been peace signing. Too funny.
DeleteOh, and when we *first* arrived and were standing on the beach trying to decide what to do, ANOTHER friend who lives just a mile from me saw me and came over to say hi--she had no idea that i'd be there, either, and she had come over the hill with her roommate and roommate's dog.
Guess it's a popular place, who knew??