Indoor/outdoor, no worries

Last night I took Fin to indoor agility at my friend Ann's place in woodside. Laura teaches there and she has volunteered to let me practice there on Mondays when I can get away from my bi-weekly staff meeting.

I wasn't sure how it would all go (with the noise and all), but I shouldn't have worried. Laura had taken her when I was on the cruise and she settled in like she'd been doing it all her life.

So the teeter. The teeter was so loud it scared me! Not Fin. I did a few bang games with her to start off the day and in no time she was running to the end and letting it bang. I think the people in palo alto heard that darn teeter.

Table, beautiful!

Dog walk: She definitely has a good dogwalk. Somehow, she knows what to do. It is amazing when you take clear criteria and practice practice practice.

Start line stay: Hmmmm. again, I can see this is gonna be a challenge. Lots of start line stays in our future.

Herding while jumping: Hmmm....tooo exciting ...weeeeee...Mom needs to be in the right place so that little Finnie doesn't go around jumps :)

A frame: Still working on transferring to a 2o2o and so didn't even attempt. Just did some targeting on the end.

Loads of fun.

There is a Little More Gold in America Today

The US did very well in individual runs at the FCI World Agility Championships.

More pictures and some video can be seen at Erics site: http://fciagility2008.cleanrun.com/

Marcy and Wave won individual Gold!

Marcus and Juice won individual Gold!

Ashley and Luka had some great runs, but an off course put them out of the running.

All of the results can be seen: http://voittaja.kennelliitto.fi/EN/agilitywc2008/results/Agility+World+Championships+2008.htm

Exciting times!

Tazzie Herding

A small little look at what herding is like. This is the last couple of minutes of a long session.

"Move it" Recommendation

Ok, it is expensive.
Yes, it would be classified as a luxury by many
You only need it if you have an A frame

I'm thrilled to now be an owner of a "Move it"

http://www.nosetouch.com/move_it.htm

I have put off ordering this item I have felt was not necessary for me. I am strong and sturdy and can move my A frame all by myself.

Well, I learned a lesson this summer: I should not move the A frame by myself. The consequence of me not learning the lesson until it was too late was many sleepless nights, missed agility, pain, and finally vicoden.

So I had Kel help me. Even with his help, my back was bothering me again. I had my gardener move it for me (a big hassle as he doesn't always move it where I want it nor in the method I would like it moved).

I broke down and bought one. Of course I got the stainless steel as I'm learning quickly that things do not last long in my garden unless I protect them. I didn't want ONE more thing I needed to perform maintenance on.

Today is the day the gardener comes. I unpacked my move it and used it exactly as described in the video and wolaaa! Easy as anything. I might even start taking my A frame for a walk with me (it is that easy!). Love it, Love it, Love it.

Ask your spouses for one for christmas. You will not regret your decision.

Final T Shirt Design

Team Brazen Benja Warriors is off to the Agility National Championships the end of October. They will be sporting an official Whiz design on red T Shirts.



The front of the shirt will have the asian writing design sorta centered under the collar and the large image of the dogs and team name will be on the back. I hope they'll be proud to wear their team shirts. I can't wait to be there and take pictures of this great group of women together.

Sheep Poo

It's been about 2.5 years since I worked Tazz on sheep. I quit sheep herding because:

• It is time consuming
• It involves driving long distances for a very short time in the ring
• Many sheep instructors yell and hit their dogs
• I felt like an idiot more times than not
  

I did sheep herding because Tazz really enjoyed it and it was fun to do while I was waiting for Tazz to mature so we could do agility.

My friend Laura said, why don't you go with me next week. I said, sure, why not.

Today we went and did some herding. I had zero expectations. One of the last times we herded, Tazz got yelled at and shut down completly, and Tazz has an incredible memory. The last time he was ever on sheep was two years ago and he was totally not into it at all.
But I figured, what the heck. Let's go for it.

I can not express the joy it is to watch your dog doing something they love. From the moment we arrived Tazz sniffed the air and his step had more bounce in it. When he watched another dog in a pen 1/4 mile away herd he got his happy little chirpy bark he sometimes gets, tail high and wagging and just alot of happy wiggle.

We had to wait for our turn and I was thinking that perhaps he might get hot and not want to work. That was not the case. He worked his little heart out. He was truly enjoying himself more than he has enjoyed himself in a LONG while. Heat, no problem. He ran a full steam when needed and never once gave any indication of "slo moe."

Tazz got two times in the pen with the sheep and we are definately going back. Tazz does agility for me. Herding, thats for him.

Surprize!

Well, I'm going to admit. I've been feeling down about Tazzies runs. I know I'm usually a pretty positive person, but this last weekend was somewhat disappointing. Even I need to take a sanity break and ask myself, "why?"

So I go to the USDAA website to see whether results have been posted and what do I find? I find that Tazz actually Super Q'd in July! That's TWO super Q's ...only one more to go. For those of you who don't know what a super q is, keep reading...for those of you that do, skip a paragraph.

A super Q is something you get for a fun game called Snooker. If Tazz is in the top percent of the scores he gets a super q. I can qualify in Snooker with only 38 points, but I need alot more than that usually to be in the top percent. To get a Snooker championship I need three super q's.

So lesson learned. No matter how bad I think we are doing, I should go look at those darn score sheets. I might find surprisingly good news!