Florida States and a Groovy recap

This past weekend was the Florida State Disc Dog Championships. Jack had been out of town all week in Kansas. He literally arrived at the airport at 11:40am, arrived at the house around 1pm and we were leaving by 1:20pm. We had to be in Jacksonville by 5 and literally showed up right at 5pm. Thanks to our friend Colleen for registering Jack and Tali for us so they could play.

It was a fun competition but felt very frantic due to us arriving so close to the start time for freestyle, etc. Tali and Jack made the cut to the top 10 for toss n fetch but Tali was “off” and did not play either TnF or Freestyle like she normally does. Oh well – it was still a good time.

I guess we are due to catch up on Groovy… well let’s see… She’s growing like a weed - up to 17.5 pounds at 14 weeks. She’s getting along SO well with the pack. This past week I’ve allowed Ruckus and her to interact some and while it’s clear he doesn’t care for her he is tolerating her nicely. She is doing an excellent job of steering clear of him too.

On the socialization front… over the past two weeks Groovy has been to DACOF, Florida States, Petco, Petsmart and to my mom’s – meeting my aunt Barbara and playing with mom’s kittens some more. She’s a busy little girl! She did OK at DACOF. The event was indoors and there are dogs and people everywhere. She was pretty scared about some loud noises when folks were moving stuff around and she was scared of men once they talked. She greeted most women very happily. She did well walking around the place with Jack, Tali and I visiting the vendors and meeting some new people and dogs. She also did well just hanging out with Jack in the stands watching the activity below. She did pretty good at Petsmart though she wouldn’t take treats from the manager or a boy that was there. She would at least take treats from me while standing near them. She did well at Petco too. At mom’s house she took a little while to warm up to my Aunt Barbara but once she did they were good friends and she was doing tricks for her. She’s becoming more and more comfortable with my dad too.

She did pretty well at Florida States. She didn’t really want to greet anyone except two teenage girls and our friend Kay. She also was totally freaked out by the speaker system when we were within 20 feet of it and a man’s voice was speaking. She was totally fine with the music though which I found interesting. She did get over the men’s voice on the speaker issue by the end of the competition though so that was good! More good news is that while she didn’t want to greet anyone or take treats from them (though I did get her to eat baby food from a woman or two) she also was not petrified when men standing near talked. She was comfortable greeting dogs “attached” to men and being in their general vicinity while they were speaking. This is progress! By the end of the competition we were hanging out with a group of friends and she was totally comfortable doing so. She wasn’t loving up on any of the people but was completely OK just hanging out with them and their dogs. She has excellent dog skills and definitely feeds off of the dogs around her which is a good thing since all the dogs we hang around are confident at competitions, etc. The best part of the day though was when I took her over to watch Jack practice his routine without Tali. She was very intrigued with him playing disc by himself. I let her run over to him and he started playing with her a little doing short rollers and running around with her. She loved it and had a blast. We were very impressed that she’d play with him in that environment (granted we were a good 100 feet away from the crowd, etc.) not to mention these were full sized discs!

We are still hit or miss with the motion sickness while in the car. She got sick on the way to Petsmart, on the way to Petco and on the way home from Petco. She did not however get sick on the way to or from DACOF or Florida States. An empty stomach seems to be the key to preventing puking – unfortunately that is not something I can always control – especially for evening outings as I don’t know when she’s eaten the treats in her frozen Kong during the day. In the mean time we travel with extra towels in the car! *sigh*

This week Groovy starts a puppy class on Tuesday night at a new place she’s never been and we’ll be at a NADAC night trial on Friday. Speaking of the night trial… little Jam will be running in tunnelers and touch n go. We’ll see how she does! Some folks may call it a debut but I just call it a test. Also speaking of Jam… she rocked at her Frisbee practice last night and we actually happened to be videoing their practice so hopefully I can put a link up to that video later on. If only she played like that every time! She’ll get there though!