August 2008Monthly Archives

Which Crates for the Minivan?

Okay, and now the big search for the perfect crates begins. I don’t know why… is it a dog people thing? But I love to buy crates. They are nothing exciting, really, so why are they so fun to buy and collect? I dunno. Oh well, a mystery, but it’s fun anyway.

The Minivan is about 48? wide at the bottom of the back, and 40? wide towards the top. As I measured, and believe me, I’m not too good at measuring so these are estimates.

A couple of good website resource out there are:
CargoDogs.com
and
DogCars.com

Which I have been reading over. And I think I’m narrowing down my choices.

First, I need a fairly largish crate for Levi. Currently he lives in, I think, a 36?L x 24?W x 27?H. And it’s a bit too short for him. And with the Minivan only being 48? or so wide, I think I want to stick to a 21? wide crate for him… which I hope he’d be okay in, and I think he will, I have a friend who I think has one so I can try him out in there. I like the side by side SUV/Minivan crates, they are 42?L x 21?W x 30?H which would be good, made by Midwest.

Then there are the rest of the dogs… usually I just travel with three dogs. Either Tatum, Chase and Levi, or Tatum, Chase and Muffit. Muffit is a lot smaller and can get by with a smaller crate, but Tatum and Chase are both about the same size, bigger than Muffit, so I’m not sure if I’m going to get a small crate for Muffit that I take out when I don’t need it, or get a bigger one that Chase/Tatum can fit in and just leave it there all the time. I’m leaning toward the latter.

I would love to have crates with doors on both ends. The narrow one above has this, which is great. I have not found other crates (yet) with doors just on both ends, but there are the tri-door crates by midwest. I am concerned that the single door on the side might catch with another crate (it did in my Dad’s blazer a bit), so that might be something to think about. But I could get two of these, the 30?L x 21?W x 24?H size.. I have two this size already (one single door and one two door), so I guess maybe what I should do is get the big one for Levi, and then put my two other ones in there and see how they all fit. Then I can decide on the smaller ones.

Hrm that’s a good idea. I just thought of that myself. I was kinda hoping I could stack the two smaller crates on top of each other, but the van is only 40.5? high, so two won’t fit stacked unless I get Muffit a fairly small one, but then if I don’t take Muffit I’ll need the bigger crates anyway.

Decisions decisions, they are hard to make! But fun too! I really want to just buy a crate… but I have to have patience, grasshopper! LOL

Cynthia

August 26, 2008

Daily Posts

0 comments

Car, Chatter, Pack, Travel

MiniVan for Me and the Dogs!

Well, I did it. I know I know! I’m bad bad bad! But I couldn’t help myself. I get into buying modes and I just have to get it out of my system, usually with buying. LOL. So here it is, the new (well used) 2007 Hyundai Entourage I just bought. I am happy with it. It looks gray, but sometimes looking at it it kinda looks blue, and the paperwork says light blue. Either way it’s a nice color, and it kinda matches Levi, who is checking it out!

I posted some more pictures on Luna Tail. I’ll get more, of course, I’m sure, soon. I don’t know if this guy will fit in my garage… which means the Husband might get the one car garage we have, which will make him happy. So it will keep us all safe, too, I sure hope. No getting mesothelioma while riding in it! Though I don’t think that’s possible!

So this is the new dog vehicle! I need some narrow crates for it.. six, if they will all fit! I hope so! I’ll set it up and pull the seats out this Friday, probably. Or maybe wait until I get new crates ordered. I’m excited! And nervous.. dangit, new car nerves. Bleh. And I’ll have to sell my Outback, when it comes back from the shop, to pay this loan off!

Chatter, Levi, Travel

Animal Witness

I just finished watching Animal Witness, the Michael Vick story, on Animal planet. I had it recorded and when I got back from flyball practice with Tatum, Muffit and Chase, I couldn’t help but fire it up and see what it was all about.

It was awesome. A bit too short, I would have liked to have more in depth and detail information, but I guess they could only put so much in an hour!

It was hard to watch the dog fighting scenes they put in. Gads.. how horrible, those poor dogs having to go through that, and being so abused by the humans to get them to be mean. Pit Bulls are such great dogs. I really hope that one day I can rescue a pit bull and teach him or her flyball, and have a good representation of the breed. People can come up to be (or avoid me) thinking the dog is aggressive or mean by nature, and I can just spit in their face as the dog licks me and is loving.

There was a pit bull on the street a few months ago, when we were going to lunch. I asked the man if I could say hi, because I just love them, and the dog was so friendly and sweet. I like to let people know that not everyone is afraid of the breed!

Did you watch the show? What did you think?

Buying Dog Stuff

I love to buy things for my dogs. LOL Yeah I can’t help myself sometimes. Actually, sometimes I think I have a bit of a shopping addiction as I go through phases where I have a need to buy, and online shopping tends to satisfy this need.

One thing I always need for my dog sports is DVDs. Recording and burning movies of myself and my friends. I love to do it, though I usually run behind. And so I bought some Lightscribe discs from Tiger Direct so I can burn some movies to DVD. And I used a new payment method called eBillMe which was kinda fun.

It makes it easy to set up a billpay in my bank account and pay eBillMe. Which I did. However, my bank doesn’t pay over weekends or holidays, so payment can’t be sent out until next Tuesday (not sure why it won’t send next Monday). So I’ll have to wait for payment until then, and they won’t ship the discs until they receive payment. So thought it’s convenient, it can be kinda slow. And I do tend to be the instant gratification type!

Training with Levi

So in order to qualify in Open Obedience with Levi, we need to practice! Actually, not practice, I need to teach him what I want him to do. Since he doesn’t really know! He is a good boy and is always trying to do what I want. Unlike Tatum.. who wants to know what is in it for her.. and learning how to teach her is going to be a challenge for me.

I worked with Levi with the dumbbell a little bit. He does so well now! Now that he understands what it is he is supposed to do. The first dumbbell I threw on the flat, and he ran out.. then he went to sniff some of the other jumps I had set out, but he then thought about it, and looked for the dumbbell, and brought it right back! I was so proud and gave him happy yells and yummy treats!

Then I threw the dumbbell over the jump. He doesn’t know the retreive over the jump quite as well as on the flat. Because he is supposed to bring the dumbbell back over the jump to me. And sometimes he goes around. But he brought it back just perfect, right over the jump! I would love to have some pictures of him airbrushed… I love pictures of Levi!

Levi loves his treat bag and will always go looking for it if I leave it out. I had it stuffed in the back of my shorts, so he doesn’t see it too much. But he usually knows where it is anyway. He is a very smart boy.

We also trained the broad jump. The broad he doesn’t quite understand that he jumps over, goes around, and comes to front in front of me as I turn. So this is one of the big important things we’ve been working on.

And as you’ll see here, I have a weave poll post stuck out from the end of the broad jump. Dogs tend to clip the end of the jump.. or come around too soon. So I have to let him know that he has to complete the jump entirely, before he comes around to me to front. It works really well. And he’s getting the hang of this, too.

Tomorrow I have him entered in ASCA obedience (Australian Shepherd Club of America) in Novice. I haven’t done any ASCA obedience with him yet, so if he qualifies this would be his first leg. We have a lot of ASCA obedience here, and I almost like it better than AKC. Lucy has her ASCA-CD and she did great doing it. I’d love to go into Open for Levi in ASCA, too. I’m not sure he’s going to do Utility. I would love if he did, it depends on how long he wants to work. He’ll be 9 in November, but he’s doing really well so we’ll see!

Levi, Obedience, Training

Me and Tatum

Another picture of Tatum! I actually think I haven’t posted about Tatum in a while. She is doing so well. People who saw her last September or October, are amazed at how far she has come. And it’s almost been a year since she came to live with us. She flew in on the plane on September 1, 2007. Wow, I can’t believe it’s been almost a year.

She is the little princess brat girl now. Very confident and she loves to go new places. She’s learning the basics of obedience and agility. And some flyball too. She’s got a lot of spunk and does like to bite people on the but for attention and play!

Last night she did shut down a little bit. Not too much… a dog barked and lunged at her (my fault of course) and she almost shut down and she slipped her collar and skittered off. But not far, and it was a fairly safe place. She wanted her crate, so I went there and she followed. It was okay, and after we got home she recovered very well. Actually, she hasn’t done that in months, which is great!

She’s a good girl, and she has amazing energy! I still adore her!

Hosting Dogs

I’m Lovin’ my dogs. And I’m really having a great time blogging about them! In fact, of all my six blogs (yeah I think it’s up to six now) this one is my favorite one to update and keep on top of. And in order to blog when I want and have a good set of blogs, I needed to find a host that has an excellent web host rating“>web host rating.

I looked around a lot, and utilized articles and tutorials, too, especially ones about cheap web hosting. Cheap is all well and good, but reliability is even more important. So a combo of both is the best!

So if you are looking for a host, you’ll want to check host ratings to find a good one!

Obedience was Fun

The obedience trial in Idaho Falls was fun. Mainly it told me that Levi is not ready for Open! He was in Open A, and while he did some good work with his dumbbell, his broad jump and his drop on recall are not quite up to par yet. But that’s okay, because I know where we are much better now!

Levi is doing really well though. He heels so nicely. I entered him in Novice B obedience in ASCA this Sunday. I was going to do both days, but I need some down time this weekend. And since I’m doing flyball practice on Sunday and will be out anyway, I figured Saturday would be my down day.

The first picture up there is of Chase and Levi on the Snake River… and the second is Tatum. Isn’t she cute? LOL of course. My friend Marie took them with my camera. I need to get her copies of her dogs! I’d post them but she really should post them on her own blog, I was thinking.

The third picture is of our camp again. It was so nice staying in the trailer. $27.00 a night so beats $120 a night for a hotel! It was more work, but that’s okay, it was worth it. And the dogs seemed to relax and have a good time too. And Levi and Chase are both comfortable in the trailer, and Tatum was also, and the shelties seem to like it okay too! The dogs didn’t even bark too much. They seemed to get used to the strange sounds pretty quickly.

So no Qs for Levi this weekend, and I pulled him the third day because it would have been a waste of time. And I didn’t want him to learn bad things in the ring. And on the second day he laid down on his sit stay (the first day he sat though I was so proud!), and then on the long down (5 minutes out of sight) he rolled around on his back (I am told, lol) and did his goofy woofing thing, then got up and went looking for me. LOL what a goof. But he had fun and I’m glad he did!

Chase was in rally and, once again, he was pretty awful. He just doesn’t have any focus on me when the treats go away. I only ran him through the first day. I pulled him the second and third days. I don’t want Qs like that, I want some attention from that boy! We are going to work on it and we have some ideas.

Fortunately the trailer sheets didn’t make me break out in hives,which some sheets have been doing lately. Bleh. I was very comfortable and it was nice being cool again! I should have brought a jacket, though, and didn’t need any Proactiv acne cream, fortunately!

I liked pulling the trailer.. yes, I actually liked it! It was great to stay at the RV park instead of in a hotel!

camping, Chase, Levi, Obedience, Tatum, Travel