March 2008Monthly Archives

We Three are Tired

Oh boy.. the tournement is over. We had an awesome time. Chase did great, as usual. He ran fast and clean and got more points. His team broke out twice.. which is really cool and I’ll explain it later. Okay maybe it’s not that cool because we don’t get points for that run, but it was nice to run so fast. And after we had to slow our passes down and determine what speed we needed to run to still win but not break out a third time.

Tatum also did good today, she played with a few dogs and pooped and peed. Just one poop a day but that is better than none. Two pees a day and that is better than one! She is going to be a great collie doing flyball! She is still shy but when she gets used to being at tournaments she’ll be fine. This was her first flyball tournament she came to socialize in, and he had her tail up a lot of the time and was exploring. Though she did get spooked some too.

I’m tired… had a margarita to drink and now I’ve toast. But it was yummy. Going to go to bed and sleep in tomorrow, then drive home whenever after I wake up. Zzzzzz Chase and Tatum are already asleep.

Cynthia

March 30, 2008

Flyball

10 comments

Chase, Collie, Flyball, Tatum, Travel

Good, Tiring Day

Oh boy.. just got back to the motel. What a day. It was a ton of fun. Chase ran in singles and doubles, in addition to his regular teams. He ran a lot. He needs to be in better shape, as do I, as I say way too often. I wish my back felt better, we need to seriously jog on a regular basis.

Chase has about 1650 points now.. he got over 600 today. He needs 2500 to get his Top Flight Executive I title. He will probably get that in June when we come back down. He ran his heart out and he loves it. It was a lot of fun getting the timing right for being the start dog. I know pretty good now… 46 feet, let him go when the first yellow light turns on. We got some .003 and .142 starts. Not bad. Got a -.004 too, which was too soon!

Tatum is doing well. She peed twice today and just had a big poop before we left the tournament site. Yay! She goes through times when she’s confident and her tail is up, then something might spook her and her tail sucks between her legs. I stepped on some sage brush and that spooked her pretty good. But she is hanging in there. I know it’s a lot to ask of her, taking her to all these strange places when all she knew for the first year, or more, of her life, was one yard with familiar dogs in it. She is being so good. I wish I could turn back time and socialize her as a puppy. She would be unstoppable, then.

I’m going to get the pictures off my camera, not sure if I’ll get them uploaded. I’m pretty tired and it’s pretty late. We had a good dinner at the trailers of our teammates that are parked at the tournament site. It was a lot of fun. Now, it’s time for bed!

Edit… I added a couple of pictures! I hope my back survives tonight and tomorrow, it was hurting me pretty good today when I was running Chase. Ugh!

Cynthia

March 29, 2008

Chase, Flyball, Tatum

13 comments

Chase, Flyball, Tatum

In St. George

Well… Chase, Tatum and me are in St. George. The internet connection here at the Red Cliffs Inn is not too good… but it looks like my two pictures are going to Flickr now. Hopefully they went… and then I’ll include them here in this post.

I’m blogging from my desktop, using BlogDesk. Hopefully it will upload okay. I need to test this out for when I go on my cruise and I don’t want to spend a lot of money being online.

Anyway… the drive was uneventful. I didn’t get out of Salt Lake until 1:30. Got here at 5:30. Not bad… 4 hours isn’t too long a drive anymore. I even drove through rain! And maybe some snow. Since my latest rollover (I’ve been in 2) I’ve been very afraid of driving in weather. But with all the driving I’ve been doing the last couple of years, I’ve gotten better. I still won’t drive in the snow.

Tatum is pretty nervous. She hasn’t peed or pooped since we left. Which is no surprise. She is sleeping now. She’ll loosen up in a day or two. Chase is just fine, as usual. He loves to travel.

I’ll try to blog tomorrow after the first day of the flyball tournament! Our team, the Thunder Paws, is gonna kick butt!

Cynthia

March 28, 2008

Chase, Daily Posts, Flyball, Tatum

13 comments

Chase, Flyball, Tatum, Travel

Wish Us Luck

Tomorrow I’m leaving for a flyball tournament in St. George, Utah. I’m excited… and really, a part of me wishes I could just lie in bed all weekend and let my back get better. Alas… the dogs and the dog sports shall not wait for the measly pain a human, an old human… a busy old and feeble human… might have to endure. Just ask Chase, my border collie, whether or not he would rather stay home while the Mum rests up. He will say ‘Suck it Up Mum!’ LOL.

Chase already has his Top Flight III title with U-FLI… hopefully we’ll get a bunch of points for his next level. Though I’m not quite sure what that level is yet. I should really look it up. I do love titles on my dogs. I figure I’m never going to get any more letters after my name. My school days are over. And the dogs are just more fun anyway.

And I know, I know, these are agility pictures, not flyball… you’ll have to wait until this weekend for flyball pictures. Though I think I’ll be taking more videos than stills. It’s an indoor tournament so it won’t be bright enough for some good stills. But I’ll give it a try.

I need to find all my gear tonight, and pack tomorrow. I need my little fridge that fits in my car and plugs into the cigarette lighter. My tankless water heater so I can keep warm water with me… well, hopefully I won’t need it. It better not be too cold or snow down there! It snowed here today, but I hope the weather 4 hours south is warmer.

So, wish us luck!

Happily Chewing

Just another cute cute picture of Whatsit playing flyball. He is such a doll.

The dogs are having some nice supervised chew time with their rawhides. I’m not a big fan of rawhides, but we do give them to the dogs occasionally. I’m out of bully sticks, need to get more. Bully sticks don’t last quite as long. And the dogs are not very good at Kongs yet but I am working on getting them to be more persistent with the Kongs.

Finding chew toys that will occupy large dogs.. or medium, I guess maybe they are called… 30 to 65 pounds are our dogs… anyway, finding chewies that will last an hour is nearly impossible. Especially ones that are clean and can be in the house.

Making Dog Things Easy

Well, I do try to run some collie rescue still, though other rescues are really finding homes for the collies that are appearing in rescue lately. But when I was full bore into rescue, I often needed ways to organize the various components of rescue, including microchips, collars, treats, food… etc. And also mailers, and buying online stamps is such a huge help.

Not only for collie rescue, though… see, I’m a mess. An unorganized mess. My husband is very organized and I encourage him to manage our house. Dymo has a great number of tools that can help with organization! From printing postage at home, to printing home labels.. and boy, would I love to have things labeled in my house.

Home label printing would be great! Dymo also has printers for label writing, mailing, embossing, industrial solutions… and more. I’m going to go and see what they have that might help me. Their home solutions are smaller and easy to keep around the house. While their office solutions are larger, durable, and can be used over and over again to minimize the cost of running an office. They can also speed things up and we all know that time is an issue when running a business!

Chase’s Coat

I think I’m going to take a few pictures of Chases coat over time. Every winter, it seems, he blows his coat to the point where it very thin and ratty. We’ve taken him to the vet and they say it’s allergies. It’s not just in the winter, it’s more like it’s in the fall and the spring. However, this winter his coat has been awful for the whole winter, and now it seems to be growing back in.

When looking at his tail, it’s easy to see the new growth. So I’m going to attempt to get some shots of his tail as his coat grows back in.

He’s also on coconut oil, but that hasn’t seemed to help him. He’s also on (mostly) a raw diet. With some very high quality kibble thrown in (in separate meals). But that hasn’t helped either.

Too Busy to Rest

I was just looking at my calendar and realized that yes, I am going to be much too busy this spring. As usual, I guess. Lots of dog sports going on. And my Husband wants to squeeze a camping trip in there too… we didn’t go camping at all last year, and we both missed it. So this year we have to squeeze a couple in between my dog events. I’m going to need some vehicle tracking to even figure out where I am.

This weekend is Flyball Tournament in St. George. Then the following weekend is a weekend off. After that, April 12th, I’ll be in Colorado doing agility. April 19th we are going camping. April 26 is a USDAA trial I’ve entered Chase in. May 3 is a 3 day AKC agility trial. May 10 I’m going back to Colorado just with Chase for USDAA trial, and then finally on May 17th I’ll be able to stay home that weekend.

Ugh! The worst part will be missing flyball practice. I wonder if someone would take Chase for me, on those rare weekends when he’s not coming with me.

Cynthia

March 25, 2008

Agility, Daily Posts, Flyball

13 comments

Agility, Collie, Flyball, Travel