Our main team, Thunder Paws, only has one team going. And one of the dogs, Dylan, needs only a certain amount of points for his next title. So he’s going to run on in every race… or we hope, until he picks up the rest of those points. So in order to get Chase enough of his own flyball fix, lol, he is going to be on an Open team on Sunday. Which is, basically, a pickup team where the dogs don’t have to be all in the same club.

He’ll love it! He loves flyball. I’m also bringing Tatum and Muffit. It will be Muffit’s first trip. I get to see how he does in the hotel room. I think he’s ready for a trip. He’s a good boy, and the more he gets out, the better. As he gets a job and gets to expend his energy, he’ll have a better recall and be able to focus on me more.

I’ll have to post a picture of my car.. I have a car top carrier (borrowed) and two boxes on the back end. We are loaded. My flyball captain and her JRT, Chase Me, are also coming in my car. So we’ll have a great time!

Lucy is a smart girl.. if her bowl goes under the edge of the counter when she is eating, she reaches in and pulls it out.

Well, she did when she ate real food.  Now she has to sit up to eat. But she still loves to eat!

Wordless Wednesday

I hope to get Muffit’s and Tatum’s box turns better than Chase’s is. Actually, I think flickr might be having problems, as I can’t see many of my photos right now. Hopefully they’ll come up soon.

I’m dead tired, did obedience training this morning, built some portable jumps I can bring with me anywhere, and drove Tony back and forth to Petsmart. On a good note, Tony might have another, better foster home to go to this week. Though I feel awfully guilty about it, I do know that he’ll get more attention from the people, and less grief from Levi and Chase, if he goes to another foster home. Ugh.

Anyway, I’m tired, I’m going to try to go read a real live book I got from the library… but I may end up falling asleep before I get very far.

Any time we can practice obedience with Chase, especially in such a noisy and energetic environment, is a good thing. Working focus with him helps not only obedience, but also agility. Flyball… well, the flyball dogs don’t need to pay too much attention to their handlers. Okay, they do a bit, they have to know their jobs, but not like agility… and obedience is an entirely different game.

Chase did really well!  He loves to go after and bring back his dumbbell. And I had Levi’s front box with, and he hopped right in!  And he held the dumbbell too until I took it out of his mouth.  I’m really excited about this.  Hopefully we can do Rally-O in August since he’s entered.  A year and a half ago when I tried Rally-O with him he was awful, wouldn’t pay attention to me at all, and tried to jump the ring gates! He wanted to do agility lol.  So now hopefully he will be better. And I might enter him in novice UKC obedience in September too, he’s doing so well. 

Anyway, Chase went swimming today too, and loved his flyball, so we had fun. I wasn’t crazy about going and spending the whole day, since I have so few days at home. But since I was there, I wanted to get some training done, and I felt like I did. I walked around with Muffit a lot and we tried to work on focus. And Tatum got some walking around too.  Which she liked.

I was, once again, on my feet most of the day. Which is just like taking weight loss pills, all the exercise I get! Ugh.

Soo… Introducing…

Spicey Love Muffit

I think it’s a very cute name!  LOL.  He is a good boy, and he’s a lover boy too. He’s a great snuggler and he follows me all over. So he’s my love Muffin.  I thought his name would be a cute play on the words.

I need to get some better pictures of the boy, too. He’s a sweetie and he’s really cute beyond belief.  For some reason when I snap pictures of him I’m not getting his intense cuteness. And I really need to, for my own memories, and to post up! Here he’s wearing his harness (I finally have a dog small enough for a puppia harneess lol) which is the blue of our flyball team colors.

I just registered him for NAFA and U-FLI flyball. Hopeing that will inspire me to work with him more on the box. He’s getting it, he just doesn’t like to touch the box. Goof.  And I need to get him over the jumps, too. And, the biggest goal, is to just get him to think in situations that stimulate him a lot. He’s a good boy, he gets so frantic. But he’s coming along!

I was thrilled at the last agility trial I brought him to. He was quiet by the third day, and I even had him uncovered! He walked around well, and is starting to understand the concept of paying attention to me. He is so distracted, he doesn’t understand that we work together. He’s never done that before. Once he gets it, he’ll pick it up quick, I’m sure!

Our collie girl Lucy is doing okay.. and I think my husband is doing a better job with her than I am when it comes to feeding. She actually struggles more for him when he holds her up for 15 or 20 minutes after we feed her the liquid diet. And maybe that helps move it down better? Rather than for me where she sits pretty still. I’m more of a boss than Dad is. But it seems for me she regurges more than when Dad feeds her.

If we have our water buckets out and she drinks, she will regurgitate it about an hour after unless we catch her and hold her up. If her food doesn’t go all the way down, it seems two hours will go by before she regurgitates it. And watching and hearing her regurgitate is breaking my heart. Yesterday she lost most of her breakfast. But she kept the rest of the meals down.

Last night about 3am she was regurging water. And it splashed on the wood floors in the bedroom. I ended up just getting up and putting a towel down under her and letting it happen. We are cleaning up after her a lot. Or having a towel under her when she throws up. We don’t really care about the house… that’s why we have tile floors and wood floors. But we care about her. Okay we care about the house too, LOL, but we care about our dogs a zillion times more.

It’ll be this way the rest of her life. I figure the stress of it will lessen for me as time goes by. Her weight is holding steady, but we want her to gain. This is like best diet pill, except it’s the worst way to diet! She’s only nine and a half. The girl is too young for this. But we do what it takes to keep her healthy and happy. Hopefully we’ll be able to do this for some years to come, we don’t want to lose her.

This is Laia, she’s a Rhodesian Ridgeback that does agility around us. She’s a great girl!

Wordless Wednesday

Jessie passed away on Monday. She went to the vet and her liver tests were very, very bad. She was no longer eating, or drinking, and she was no longer her spunky self. Her Mom, Marie, made the decision it was time to let Jessie go, so she would not have to suffer. I admire her for the decision, it’s a hard one to make.

Jessie is no longer in pain. She had a good life in one of the most amazing dog and human families I have ever known. If you have some time, please visit Resq Tails and wish Jessie and Marie some love and support. It’s much too difficult to lose one of our pack, our family. Even though we know their lives are short. Much too short. We love them all.

Anyway, Chase did pretty good at agility. Okay, he did really good. Me… I’m still learning. I was able to learn some things this weekend. I have a very logical mind, and I really need something to work on that I can logically relate too. I want to be more creative, and in some ways I have to absorb things emotionally so that I feel them, and forget them, to do them. And hopefully I can get that into my head as well.

I want to learn and to get better. Chase is such an amazing dog. In agility and flyball and he’ll be great in obedience, too, once he’ll watch me without treats! I have him entered in Rally-O in August, so we’ll see how that goes! We haven’t done it in a couple of years now, hopefully he’ll be better now that he was then!

I took this picture on Sunday. I had Chase, Muffit and Tatum with and let them run around a bit. They loved it! And Muffit is doing so well at the trials! On Sunday I even had him uncovered, he wasn’t yapping the whole day. I think he’s getting used to the environments. And I love to let Tatum and Muffit off leash in a safe area to practice recalls. Neither of them have good recalls. And Muffit will bolt if he knows he’ll be chased. Not good… so I want him to get used to being off leash and coming back for yummy treats. The Mum has treats and coming has got to be fun!

All my dogs eventually end up with at least decent recalls. Even if I can’t get them off a squirrel or a bird or something… I do wish they would! Guess I’d have to seriously train that.

Chase is doing better. I think I will be learning how to run him the rest of our lives together. This first video is of Chase in Excellent A FAST. We qualified with a great run and a first place. FAST is where you make up your own course, and then you have to do the distance challenge. Well, tunnel sucking comes in handy on courses like this. He got the A Frame perfect, then turned away from me to get the tunnel. I was very proud of my boy and the crowd cheered, as you will hear.

This next video is of Chase in Open Jumpers with Weaves today. He did a good job. I messed him up in the beginning. I should have pulled him harder off that tunnel. As we know, he’s a tunnel suck! He would have come to me had I pulled him harder. The rest of the course was extremely fun, too. I ran him mosly silently, and we had a good time. No Q, but that’s okay, I kinda like having him in Open as opposed to Excellent. And thanks to Junior’s Mom for taping this for me!!!

So I’m happy with Chase. Qualifying isn’t everything… having fun and having a good run is. However, I would like to increase our Q rate as I feel more successful when we do so. Gonna be working on that in the next months!

Now I am watching my videos using my HDMI cables on my HDTV… I still need a darn HD Camcorder, though!