Jack hasn't been competing in Freestyle this Canis Major season because he's been judging. That's OK when it comes to Tali because that let's me do freestyle with her but the drawback we didn't consider that meant he wouldn't be able to play with Jam, or do his once a year routine with Mickie or debut with Groovy. Shoulda thought that out a little better! Well we talked with the club folks and they said it'd be cool for Jack to "compete" in the lower division. He'd earn a score but wouldn't be up against anyone in terms of placements or points. That worked for us!
So.... this past week we signed Groovy up. We hoped she'd get out of the car (sometimes she finds competitions too scary for that) - and she did! We hoped she'd be willing to play on the field (we'd been playing with her on the field after the competition) - and she did! We hoped she'd stay focused and not worry about the crowd or judges and she mostly did! Here is her video though I must - for Jack's sake - tell you that this isn't a real routine... they don't have a routine - just a few segments - thus this is in no way a finished product! We also felt the music was pretty appropriate for Groovy! LOL
As for Tali and I... we came in first again (I was only competing against 2 other people!)! :) I even wrote down a routine and remembered 3/4's of it! Woo hoo! Here it is...
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
New and exciting events coming up!
This weekend we took Flash with us to the disc dog competition. He LOVED everyone. Couldn't get him to acknowledge that a frisbee existed but he loved everyone and he played with a rabbit fur tug for a short time. So... Flash is definitely just a foster and is looking for a permanent home. Several of the folks who met him this weekend concurred... he'll possibly play disc one day but it'd take some work and there is no guarantee. Should be easy to find him a home though... he's just about perfect other than his continued lack of interest in the disc. We got him to pounce on it some and bring it back to us but he won't tug on it much and has zero interest in it outside of our garage training room. However hand him a green tiny stuffed bear and he'll entertain himself in the backyard for 10 minutes with it! :) He's so cute! Jack and I both agree though... if we are going to get a 6th dog it's got to have disc drive right off the bat and the mental stability to handle competing. Flash had one - not the other.
Well... enter the new and exciting thing. A friend of mine saw me with Flash this weekend and realized I might be open to adding a 6th dog to the family. She told me about one she knew was potentially going to be available because of not growing big enough for the breeder's needs. This breeder herds with her dogs over acres and acres of land. Said dog is only 16" at 6 months and isn't likely to make it to the needed height to cover the ground she'll need to. (This in an of itself is an interesting statement on aussie size but I don't have time enough to blog about that). Anyway... I didn't think much about it that night but decided to run the news past Jack the next day. He was quite interested. Additionally there was some chatter about this dog on Facebook later that day so I shared the chatter with Jack and he asked me to email the breeder for the story and I did.
Long story short... there will be a new dog in the house soon!
More info to come but the basics are:
- 6 months old
- 16" and 20#'s
- red merle
- already catching short tosses
- tugs like a demon on the disc
- awesome temperament (currently spends her days entertaining special needs kids at a school)
- related to a slew of dogs that rock at frisbee including our very own Ruckus AND Groovy!
We are very excited! She'll be arriving Thanksgiving weekend! Gobble Gobble!
Well... enter the new and exciting thing. A friend of mine saw me with Flash this weekend and realized I might be open to adding a 6th dog to the family. She told me about one she knew was potentially going to be available because of not growing big enough for the breeder's needs. This breeder herds with her dogs over acres and acres of land. Said dog is only 16" at 6 months and isn't likely to make it to the needed height to cover the ground she'll need to. (This in an of itself is an interesting statement on aussie size but I don't have time enough to blog about that). Anyway... I didn't think much about it that night but decided to run the news past Jack the next day. He was quite interested. Additionally there was some chatter about this dog on Facebook later that day so I shared the chatter with Jack and he asked me to email the breeder for the story and I did.
Long story short... there will be a new dog in the house soon!
More info to come but the basics are:
- 6 months old
- 16" and 20#'s
- red merle
- already catching short tosses
- tugs like a demon on the disc
- awesome temperament (currently spends her days entertaining special needs kids at a school)
- related to a slew of dogs that rock at frisbee including our very own Ruckus AND Groovy!
We are very excited! She'll be arriving Thanksgiving weekend! Gobble Gobble!
Tomorrow's blog post will be about Groovy's freestyle debut and mine and Tali's 1st place finish in novice freestyle on our 2nd time competing! :) It's been a good week so far!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Introducing...
Press play before scrolling to get the full effect of this post! :)
Flash - our foster dog!
The solid colored girls (including Mickie) LOVE him! The merled girl and the red boy... not so much!
He came with the name Flash... and since he arrived I can't get this song out of my head when I say his name!
More info to come as we continue to evaluate this little man.
Basic Flash Stats:
10 months old
28 pounds
18-18.5" tall
Great temperament
Likes to play fetch with soft toys but isn't crazy about the disc yet
Fahle Dog Training Center is now open
I'm sure we'll come up with a better name for it... but for now FDTC will have to do. Of course it's only open for us... well other folks can use it - but it's purpose is mainly for us to have a place to train our dogs when 1) it's too dark 2) it's too cold 3) it's too rainy and/or 4) when we want to work something in a contained non distracting area (and that something might be a someone - like Jam!).
What is the FDTC? It's our garage with foam matting covered by turf. I'll post some pics in case whoever it is that reads this blog didn't see them on Facebook. We've worked in the garage, I mean FDTC every night this week. Jam is a frizBEAST in there. It's awesome. Groovy is too but Groovy is a frizbeast in the yard too. All the dogs love it in there. Well... Tali isn't quite sure why we play in there... but she's getting the idea. It's been great. We are hoping we can build Jam's drive in that environment and have it transfer outside come spring! We shall see if the little princess plays along with that plan!
What is the FDTC? It's our garage with foam matting covered by turf. I'll post some pics in case whoever it is that reads this blog didn't see them on Facebook. We've worked in the garage, I mean FDTC every night this week. Jam is a frizBEAST in there. It's awesome. Groovy is too but Groovy is a frizbeast in the yard too. All the dogs love it in there. Well... Tali isn't quite sure why we play in there... but she's getting the idea. It's been great. We are hoping we can build Jam's drive in that environment and have it transfer outside come spring! We shall see if the little princess plays along with that plan!
Rolling out the carpet
The finished product
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tali rocks!
Maybe someday I'll write up a post about how awesome she did at USDDN (way better than we expected considering how she's been feeling lately) but for now this is a brag on Tali and how well she did doing freestyle with me! :) We still have a TON of work to do but for only practicing for 3 days it came out pretty OK and more importantly we had fun!
Tali and Kat's First Freestyle!
Tali and Kat's First Freestyle!
Two pics of Jam from her agility trial
Here are two pics of Jam from her agility trial. HUGE thanks to Betsy Walton for getting these for us!
Yes... we have an over-jumping problem!
Jam prefers kisses as her post run reward!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Jam competed in a real agility trial!
In two weeks Jam will be 4. A few days ago she debuted in agility! Nope - we don't work fast - well Jam's brain doesn't anyway!
I haven't been training Jam in agility for a while. She just never really seemed to enjoy it all that much and it was a battle getting her to focus. Over the past several months though Jam has been offering agility behaviors in lieu of doing disc. Like we'd be working on disc (we being her and Jack) and she'd go do a dogwalk and stop beautifully at the bottom and be all proud of herself. While up in Michigan at Pawsitive Vybe we'd have dismissed her to go do her own thing while we talked and after a few minutes of sniffing she'd go do the tunnel WAY out in the corner and then come to us all happy with herself. She did this with the teeter too. Very odd but cute - then again pretty much everything she does is cute! The trial this weekend was the last one being held at my friend Cindy's place and Cindy encouraged me to enter her since Jam was somewhat comfortable there because of herding. I warned Cindy she'd probably pee on course but she said it'd be fine.
So this past weekend I day of show entered Jam. Day 1 we ran colors. She stayed with me the whole time and didn't pee! She skipped some jumps and I didn't fix them so we didn't Q but she did GREAT! No peeing! On Sunday she was in Full House and Standard. In Full House she got to do contacts and loved it. She missed some jumps again and I only fixed two of them so we didn't Q since you need 3 jumps but again she had fun and stayed focused! I had zero hopes of her Q'ing in standard cause there were 18 obstacles and many of them were jumps. Since when does Level 2 standard in CPE have 18 obstacles?!? Obviously when I entered her I was expecting fewer but no big deal - this whole thing was an experiment just for fun anyway. Well rather than describe what happened I'm linking the video. The closing was 4 or 5 jump and had I not overly praised her for the next to last jump she would have ran that portion smoothly! Unbelievably she Q'd and even more unbelievably she placed 1st! Woo hoo! (and I like to clarify since it's CPE and Level 2 - there were actually other dogs running in her class in her height that Q'd! LOL)
Jam's First Agility Trial
She very obviously needs jump work. I knew this already but hadn't bothered since I always figured she'd NQ us by peeing on the course before we ever got to a jump. So I guess now we'll work on that a bit more (and did so last night in fact). She also is used to jumping 20-22" at home and I entered her at 16" thinking that'd be easier for her but I think it messed with her a little. I think I'm going to practice her at 16" at home some more and see how she does at the next CPE trial. Even if she measures over 18" for AKC I'll probably enter her in preferred should the day ever come that she does AKC agility. And same for USDAA... I'll just run her in performance I think. We'll see though - I may change my mind if she starts turning on for real!
As for Tali... she did very well this weekend. She's definitely not running 100%. I had to stretch her out a lot before her runs to get her to jump normal on the practice jump. She is going to the chiro today. Hopefully we'll get some sort of info about what might be going on. But none the less she ran well once stretched out and Q'd all but 1 of her runs and in that one she got the gamble but due to my bad planning we were 1.5 seconds over course time. :( A few more steps closer to her C-ATCH. Lots of standard legs to go but we are getting closer to finishing out some of the Level 5 games!
This weekend coming up is Canis Major #2. Jack is judging freestyle so can't compete in Freestyle but hopefully Tali and Ruckus will do well in D&A for him! I'll be throwing for Tali (provided she's feeling better) and most likely Java Bean! Should be fun as always!
I haven't been training Jam in agility for a while. She just never really seemed to enjoy it all that much and it was a battle getting her to focus. Over the past several months though Jam has been offering agility behaviors in lieu of doing disc. Like we'd be working on disc (we being her and Jack) and she'd go do a dogwalk and stop beautifully at the bottom and be all proud of herself. While up in Michigan at Pawsitive Vybe we'd have dismissed her to go do her own thing while we talked and after a few minutes of sniffing she'd go do the tunnel WAY out in the corner and then come to us all happy with herself. She did this with the teeter too. Very odd but cute - then again pretty much everything she does is cute! The trial this weekend was the last one being held at my friend Cindy's place and Cindy encouraged me to enter her since Jam was somewhat comfortable there because of herding. I warned Cindy she'd probably pee on course but she said it'd be fine.
So this past weekend I day of show entered Jam. Day 1 we ran colors. She stayed with me the whole time and didn't pee! She skipped some jumps and I didn't fix them so we didn't Q but she did GREAT! No peeing! On Sunday she was in Full House and Standard. In Full House she got to do contacts and loved it. She missed some jumps again and I only fixed two of them so we didn't Q since you need 3 jumps but again she had fun and stayed focused! I had zero hopes of her Q'ing in standard cause there were 18 obstacles and many of them were jumps. Since when does Level 2 standard in CPE have 18 obstacles?!? Obviously when I entered her I was expecting fewer but no big deal - this whole thing was an experiment just for fun anyway. Well rather than describe what happened I'm linking the video. The closing was 4 or 5 jump and had I not overly praised her for the next to last jump she would have ran that portion smoothly! Unbelievably she Q'd and even more unbelievably she placed 1st! Woo hoo! (and I like to clarify since it's CPE and Level 2 - there were actually other dogs running in her class in her height that Q'd! LOL)
Jam's First Agility Trial
She very obviously needs jump work. I knew this already but hadn't bothered since I always figured she'd NQ us by peeing on the course before we ever got to a jump. So I guess now we'll work on that a bit more (and did so last night in fact). She also is used to jumping 20-22" at home and I entered her at 16" thinking that'd be easier for her but I think it messed with her a little. I think I'm going to practice her at 16" at home some more and see how she does at the next CPE trial. Even if she measures over 18" for AKC I'll probably enter her in preferred should the day ever come that she does AKC agility. And same for USDAA... I'll just run her in performance I think. We'll see though - I may change my mind if she starts turning on for real!
As for Tali... she did very well this weekend. She's definitely not running 100%. I had to stretch her out a lot before her runs to get her to jump normal on the practice jump. She is going to the chiro today. Hopefully we'll get some sort of info about what might be going on. But none the less she ran well once stretched out and Q'd all but 1 of her runs and in that one she got the gamble but due to my bad planning we were 1.5 seconds over course time. :( A few more steps closer to her C-ATCH. Lots of standard legs to go but we are getting closer to finishing out some of the Level 5 games!
This weekend coming up is Canis Major #2. Jack is judging freestyle so can't compete in Freestyle but hopefully Tali and Ruckus will do well in D&A for him! I'll be throwing for Tali (provided she's feeling better) and most likely Java Bean! Should be fun as always!
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