Disc Dog and Birthday weekend!

This weekend was the CFDDC Christmas Party and also my birthday!  Our friends Jason and Andrea came up from south Florida mid day Saturday and stayed overnight with us.  My friend Sally came over Saturday too and we had some disc dog fun!  It's cool that Sal is getting more into the sport and I see disc dogging in Tex's future!  Jolly of course already loves it and is a natural.

Anyway... Saturday we played with the dogs.  Groovy did great!  I wasn't sure if she'd be willing to play with strangers here but she did - she even played a little disc with Jason!  She and he were buddies by Saturday night!  Spice did awesome too - she was very happy to play with whoever would play with her both people and dogs alike!

Saturday night was the party and as always the Walkley's put out a huge spread of awesome food.  This time the theme was Southern food.  Couldn't have been more perfect for my bday!  The gift exchange was fun as always and the Fahle's did quite well at the awards ceremony too!  Jack and Tali won Supersport and Tali and I won Open!  Woo hoo!

This morning Jack had to fly out to Pittsburgh, KS.  His high tomorrow is 19 degrees.  Crazy!  Jason and Andrea hung around a bit and all the dogs (well not all) many of the dogs got to hang out and play together.  Spice and Kai love each other!  Tali loves Kai too!  It was a good experience for all of our dogs and a good "warmup" for our North Carolina vacation over New Years.

Some pics of our weekend...

Groovy checking Jason out to make sure he wasn't the boogey man!

Frisbee is a dangerous sport!  Actually she had no clue she was hurt!

One of every color!

Kai fits in perfectly with our red girls!

Identity Crisis 2010

I think that 2010 will be known as the year of my dog identity crisis.  We started the year as Hi-FiAussies - then tried out the name Jammin' Aussies for a while but for a variety of reasons didn't hang on to that (see older blog post on this topic for more detail).  Then I decided a few months ago to go with One Drop Aussies and for the most part I still like that name BUT... while searching for names for Spice I came across a word I hadn't seen before.  The word didn't work out for a name for Spice (though might name a boy dog a portion of the name in the future) but I shared it with Jack and we've been discussing switching from One Drop to it.  We haven't gotten any banners or discs or anything with One Drop except for the website - somewhat because I haven't been willing to pull the trigger so to speak.  So what is this new name we are seriously considering?  Zimzala!  Zimzala Dogs to be precise.  What the heck is that?  It's a surf term that means "a free spirited person who finds peace with the sand between their toes".  That pretty much sums up Jack and I both.  Of course it means ocean sand but maybe sand from the disc dog field counts too!  ;)  One Drop connected us to our love of the islands through it's reggae roots but I felt a bit constrained by the reggae theme.  This gets us more where I wanted to be originally.  I've run it past a couple of folks and it got the thumbs up - more enthusiastically than One Drop did.  So... very likely you'll see this blog name change again!  :)  A new website too of course!  Hopefully this one will stick!

Spice's 1st Disc Dog Training Video!

Spice Monster

Well Spice AKA Spicy/Spice Monster/Baby Spice/Spice Girl/Spicer/Short Stuff/Short Spice/Spices (and the list goes on) has been here for 1 week and 1 day so far.  Let me just say she's awesome!  She totally knows her new name, she's got "drop" down quite well.  She's a very very quick learner!  She is great in her crate and she did very well at the agility trial this weekend with the hubbub and people.  She had no issue at all playing disc with me off to the side.  Total focus on the game - it was awesome.  I have to keep reminding myself she is only 7 months old!

Now before you go thinking "Come on Kat - no dog is perfect" - you are right... no dog is.  If I had to fault in her it'd be her dog skills.  She's somewhat of a dog nerd and is too insistent on being a dog's friend - even if said dog is growling at her and telling her to go away (Mickie and Groovy) and the ones that don't do that to her (Jam and Tali) get pummeled by her in your face kind of play and then don't want to play with her for a while.  Hopefully she'll learn some more doggy social skills as we go.  Tali is a good teacher - she just needs to feel more confident around Spice to feel comfortable giving those lessons.  I just watched them play tonight and Tali got on to her for being too rough while stealing a toy.  Spice is now sitting near Tali wanting the toy but just glancing over occasionally to see if she still has it.  I think a little learning occurred!  :)

Jack is head over heels for her already - after every disc session he comes in singing her praises - even when I'm there to watch!  It's so cute!  Here are a couple of pics from this week...

Pooooor Groovy

This weekend in Texas Groovy got to do a lot of herding and unfortunately that has resulted in a torn pad.  Well really it has resulted in a torn off pad.  An area about the size of a nickel and couple millimeters thick is missing from the main pad of her front left paw.  Poor thing - she can't walk without limping and worse yet for her - she's on crate rest!  Hope it heals quickly.  :(  Here is a pic of her from herding this weekend.  It was fun for a while!

Groovy herding with Terri Carver of Maximum Aussies (Spice's breeder)

Groovy calmly watching another dog work

We have a name!!

Introducing Spice!  (Registered name still in the works)  And no that wasn't on the list of names and no it isn't a name I love but Jack likes it and we are going to have fun with it.  Sometimes she'll be Frisbee Spice and then other times Spicy and then other times Super Spice... it'll be a fun name so I'm cool with it.

She's beautiful, drivey and focused!  Can't wait to learn more about this girl.

Names...

It's fun to think of puppy/dog names but can get tiring too.  Of course if I wouldn't obsess about it before I meet her it'd probably be better but that's the problem - dog names is something I think about sometimes even when I'm not getting a dog!  LOL  Last night I wrote down all the ones I liked and then had Jack tell me which ones he definitely did not like.  That left us with 12 or so.  Here's the list in no particular order... and some pros/cons/extra info about each.

Cricket - I LOVE the name - Jack just likes it.  A con is that Groovy has a littermate named Cricket but that doesn't really bother me.  Another Con is that is sort of sounds like Mickie - I'd think she'd get used to it though since it isn't Crickie but Cricket.  Registered name would be something related to Jiminy Cricket I think.  "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" or something.

Penny - Jack and I both like this name - neither of us love it.  It's not unique or super cool or anything but we still like it.  Registered name would be something to do with "Lucky Penny", "Find a Penny", etc.

Chili - Jack really likes this name - I'm OK with this name.  Don't have any ideas on registered names and such.  The name was inspired by the fact that she's from Texas.

Gidget - we both like this name.  Registered name would be Little Surfer Girl or something like that and as such ties into our island thing Jack and I have going on.

Ting - we both like this one too and it's actually been on the list since Jam's list.  Ting is a pineapple soda we drink when we are in the islands.  Also folks down there say "thing" as "ting" so to say everything is great is everyting is great.

Jelly - goes with Jam!  :)

Bunny - is just darn cute.

Grits - "Girl Raised In The South" cause she was...

Love Bug or June Bug - cause they are cute to say

Dandy - from the movie Tombstone "You're a dandy if you do".  It means a fine or good thing.

As you can see by the length of explanation some of these have had more thought put into them than others... but they are all on the approved list.  I also LOVE the name Friday but Jack doesn't care for it.  I think my next dog that's mine alone will be Friday - even if she isn't born on a Friday (Fern was born on a Friday and we are meeting her on a Friday).

We'll see... we have to meet her to know for sure but we certainly have plenty to go on!  :o)

I leave you with a pic of "Fern" taken while at school with Terri the other day.  She comes with an off switch too!