July 2008Monthly Archives

Jessie You Will Be Missed

Jessie was rescued by Marie when she was five years old. And Aussie girl, I met her first when she was doing NADAC agility probably around 2004 or 2005. Marie would remember more!

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.

Cynthia

July 15, 2008

Daily Posts

14 comments

Rescue

Agility And Fun

Well today was a down day, but not really! I got up at 6:30am to do some agility training. I wanted to head out when the courses were fresh on my mind. I didn’t bring Levi… Levi stayed home on Sunday, too. He has never avoided that many obstacles before. My friend thinks he might be so off because of Tony being here. Usually Levi doesn’t like the fosters, but it could be that Levi is getting older, and really is being thrown for a loop with Tony here. We are working on a different foster home for him where he’ll fit better.

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.

Cynthia

July 14, 2008

Agility

4 comments

Agility, Chase, Levi, Muffit, Play, Tatum

Chase’s Weekend So Far

Well, we’ve been at the AKC agility trial this weekend in Farmington, Utah. Unfortunately Levi isn’t feeling well. He not only isn’t doing the weaves, he also isn’t doing contacts or even the chute. So I think he’s not feeling well and I’m going to leave him home tomorrow so he can rest up.

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.

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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!!!

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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!

Levi’s New Dumbbell!

Levi’s new dumbbell came in the mail today! We LOVE it! Levi carried it around right when we got it. Of course.. he was probably thinking it’s something new to guard from Tony, but that’s okay. As long as he likes it, that’s good!

The one I was using for him.. the ends were too short. So when he’d go to try to get the middle bar in his mouth, his nose would hit the ground. And he tried, he really did, but it was uncomfortable for him to pick up. He was better about picking it up in the grass, where there’s a little bit of cushioning, but on hard surfaces he would usually go out, look at it, and come back to me.

This dumbbell has four inch ends. And one side has a heart, isn’t that the cutest thing! It was hand made by a man back east, and if you want his name you can email me. He does a great job, just for your individual job, and they are durable and great dumbbells.

So hopefully Levi will now be ready for Open Obedience in August! We get to practice with his new cool dumbbell! I’m going to run outside now and see how he works with it. Looks good on him!

Now the pups want dinner… and I don’t need any, I do need some diet pills because I ate way too much popcorn at the movie we saw tonight!

Weave Levi Weave!

This weekend we have an AKC agility trial. Three days… Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Levi is only entered in Standard each day. We’ve been thinking that maybe two runs, or three runs, a day, is too much for him to weave. Gah, that sounds silly. He is in good shape and would probably be fine. But.. I’m trying it out anyway.

So he’s only in Excellent B Standard each day. He needs three legs to get his MXP. Three lousy legs! Maybe we can pick one or two of them up this weekend. If only he’ll weave. I know he can weave. We got our set of nice professional trial quality weaves at home, and he’s been doing great!

I took this picture on my cell, it’s a picture of him weaving, doesn’t he look good! He can do it, he’s so good at it! Hopefully he’ll get at least one leg this weekend!

Chase is in Open Jumpers, he only needs one more leg in that for his open jumpers title, and then he’s in Excellent A FAST. I love doing FAST with him, it’s a riot, and it’s so nice to be able to make mistakes and still qualify!

Should be a fun weekend! I hope it’s not too darn hot. And maybe there’ll be some vendors up there with some goodies on sale for the dogs, though it’s not like I need to buy anything else for them!

WW – Angel

Such a goonie Girl. This is from May of 2003.

Levi All Grown Up

Been going through more pictures I’m restoring to my laptop and found this one of when I went up and visited Levi and his litter mates once. He is the smooth… the blue merle pup behind him was a rough.

I love baby collies. Like sighthounds, their noses are not as long when they are puppies. And with the collies, when they are born and for a few days after, it’s near impossible to tell if the puppy is rough or smooth. It takes a while for the rough coats to grow out.

Levi is such a handsome boy. He’ll be nine in November… I can’t believe it’s been so many years since that little smooth collie boy hid under the table at the breeders because he was too shy to come out and say hi to this strange woman and her man. But now Levi is a big strong brave boy. He’s my soul mate dog.

Feeding Lucy Upright

When we feed Lucy now, we are feeding her a blended mix of a can of canned food and a can of water. It’s working really well. And she loves it, of course! We have to keep her head elevated for about fifteen minutes so gravity will help the food move her food down into her stomach, so she won’t regurgitate it because of her megaesophagus.

Well, so far, so good. We have had minimal, if any, regurgitation in the last couple of days! Yay! We are feeding her half the mixture at a time, which seems like a lot to me, but her body is able to handle it. The fewer feedings for us humans, the easier it is. Especially when my husband goes back to work and we won’t have someone home all day to feed her.

My husband and I deserve some diamond rings, and Lucy does too, for all the work we are putting in! But we love Lucy and will do everything we can for our collie girl. We haven’t heard back about the antibodies test yet for that autoimmune disease, hopefully they’ll come back this week.

If Lucy does have Myasthenia gravis, it could explain why she has been low energy all of her life. And she’s also seeming to lose more bladder control. She always had spay incontenence, but lately she lays down and the pee just runs out of her. And when she goes out to pee it’s pretty clear, so we are getting a lot of liquid down her. We might have to consider putting diapers on our smooth collie girl.

Health, Lucy, Megaesophagus