Charlie Girl

This is Charlie! She came upon us pretty quickly. She’s a foster and we only probably will have her until Friday morning. In rescue, things happen super fast. Unlike buying a puppy! Which can take a long time!

Charlie was at the Draper shelter (a shelter I didn’t even know existed!).  I got an email a few days ago from a shelter person there, saying Charlie was a great collie, and could really needed to be rescued. Well, I do Lassie type collie rescue, not usually border collie. Unfortunately there are a zillion border collies in rescue, which is super sad. Mainly because people want a smart high energy dog… but, they don’t know exactly what that means. If a border collie doesn’t have a job, or something to do, she will give herself something to do and that’s usually chewing or digging or something destructive. So much of the time the border collie ends up in the shelter.

Pretty Charlie

Of course it’s hard to get pictures of a new foster dog, and Charlie is no exception. She is a bit wiggly and excited and doesn’t want to sit still. She was at the shelter for three months! That’s a long time. I guess she didn’t show well. She was shy and afraid and probably depressed. But it’s a shame she was shy and afraid.. because in our house she has already blossomed and we’ve only had her for four hours! She hasn’t barked yet, so she may not make a good burglar alarm. But the rest of our dogs take care of that.

I love her markings. She has a great pretty face. She is very happy and snugly. When I lay on the couch to watch TV, she is laying right next to me, pressing against me, her head on my leg as she relaxes. She loves the contact. She probably has a lot of energy, and is very smart.  She’s young, about a year old. Her teeth are a bit grimy but probably not bad enough to have cleaned. And the wonderful lady at the shelter even gave her a bath, so she’s soft and she smells great!

She’s going to go to another foster home on Friday.  And I hope that she will be placed, actually, through border collie rescue.  Not that I wouldn’t place her through Utah Collie Rescue, but she might have a better chance with BC rescue. Plus, okay I’ll admit it, the hardest part of placing a dog is talking to the people! And maybe the BC rescue folk are better at it than me.

We had a great weekend doing flyball in U-FLI. Long days… Saturday I got up at 5am and got to the tournament site at 6:30am. I wanted to be there to help get all the paperwork done since there is quite a bit to do to get ready for the day.

Racing started at 7:30 am and there were 104 races on Saturday. It was a busy day. We had three teams running and a number of dogs running in singles and pairs. We were hopping all day long. We may have had about a ten race break in there somewhere… which is maybe 30 to 45 minutes, but the rest of the day we were racing or supporting our other teams racing. It’s fun, and exhausting. We didn’t get done racing until 9:30 pm! Ugh and I thought flyball would be easier than agility. Boy was I wrong! It’s more work! But it’s also a ton of fun.

I am proud to say that Chase got his new fastest time on Saturday morning in singles. He ran a 4.4! His fastest time before then was 4.7, which is still pretty darn good.

After dinner Saturday I got to bed about 10:30… so after six measly hours of sleep, we woke up at 5am again to get to the tournament site by 6:30. We were only fifteen minutes from the tourney site but still, it takes a while to show and feed the dogs and get ready, and I didn’t want to be late.

Sunday went well.. there were only 91 races Sunday. We started at 7:30 am again and were done by about 5:30. Chase ran in singles, pairs, and he was start dog on his team, so he was running a lot. He is very tired now that we are home! He loves it though, he’s one of those dogs that would run himself into the ground and not know he’s too tired. And it was 103 degrees in St. George, much too hot. The building was air conditioned so we were okay indoors, but I was still concerned about the dogs overheating.

Anyway so the best thing happened on Sunday. Tinker, a long legged Jack Russell Terrier on our team, ran in singles. She took her brother Bandit’s place, since Bandit is young and was crossing lanes. And Tinker was going to run against a Cocker Spaniel, but she is very competitive and we know she can run faster if she has a fast dog to run against. So after much whoo ha we were able to switch her so she ran against Chase. She’s much faster than Chase… and he was getting slower it being Sunday at about 4:00 pm. But still he could push her more than the cocker could have.

So we set them up to see how fast Tinker could run. I told Chase he could beat that silly little dog and to run really fast and he was pretty fast! And I am proud to say he was an integrel part of:

Tinker breaking the record for Fastest Jack Russell Terrier in U-FLI!!!

We were so excited! The whole building erupted in cheers, and Touch N Go was there and was even helping Tinker’s Mom release Tinker in the right position for a perfect start. Her start was .003 and her time was.. I think, 4.13. I’ll have to double check the time. She is one fast girl our Tinker!

The hotel we stayed in was okay… basic but pretty good. They had soap and shampoo.. though I hope I won’t need any natural acne treatment after using the stuff. :p

We are very proud of Tinker and her Mom Cindy. And we had a great time at the tournament! We are excited for the next one!

I don’t think Muffit has been this tired since we went camping! He is fairly high energy, and he does need more exercise. I’m realizing I can train three dogs… two is better, though. But four is really taxing my time and Muffit is not getting as much training as he needs. Well, I guess he may not be one of my big competition dogs, I still want to train him up for flyball, though. He is starting to get it in the back yard… the box, and he likes it!

So this picture was from my new cell camera phone. It’s not that great quality, but it’s nice being able to take a really small camera with me everywhere, and a phone too!

And this is Keno, she’s the dachshund on the team. Though she may have something else mixed in there. She’s a doll and loves to play with her tennis balls!

And here is the back end of Apache. It’s hard to get the timing just right with these flyball pictures. So this is my slow timing. However, I thought it was a very cute picture anyway, with her back legs as they just pushed off the box. I adore Apache. She’s deaf, and she’s a cattledog, and she is so smart. And has the most gorgeous box turn! Our team, Thunder Paws, is an awesome team and I’m glad I found them!

So anyway we had fun at flyball practice today. I love taking pictures as much as I love running Chase. This is a picture of Whatsit… yup, that’s his name! I love his name, cute as a bug… both him and his name. Not sure what his mix is, but he’s loved by our flyball captain (okay he’s loved by everyone, but he lives with her). He tries his best to do flyball but doesn’t manage to bring the ball back. Goof!

Muffit did pretty well.. though most of the day he was wide awake and very over stimulated. Not until about 2pm did he start to settle down. He will stay home tomorrow, one day was definitely enough for him.

Tatum did great, she slept most of the day and come out to play and work occasionally. I walked her over to another building where they were doing obedience and conformation fun matches… and that made her nervous but she didn’t die, and later she was fine again.

Levi went through the obedience fun match and did great! I was impressed and we used minimal treats. So.. I’ll be entering him in ASCA obedience this summer to see how he does and get that CD. I took Chase though too, and he needed a treat on his target stick to pay attention to me. It is still hard for him but we are working on it.

The dogs are now very tired and sleeping. The Mum is also tired, and will be sleeping shortly!

She is reliably pawing my hands now. And, of course, she’s using that behavior to try to get anything else, too. So that is going to have to go on cue very soon, so it ALWAYS happens on cue, and ONLY happens on cue. You know dogs and their feet. Just like us monkeys sometimes!

She is also reliably touching a white piece of cardboard with her front feet. She’s getting both on, though slightly, as it’s small. I need to find a phone book. We just usually throws ours away now and use the internet to find phone numbers.

I really want her to have exceptional rear-end awareness. And so I have a special toy (it was all I could find last night) that I put up to her back hips and click/treat. So she knows that the toy (I need a good unique stick with a shape on it to do this, really) touching her hip gets a reaction. Eventually, though it might take a while, I want her to move her hip toward the target so she knows she is moving that back end for her reward.

I’m also clicking and treating her for when I touch her feet, all four of them. This, of course, will not only be useful for flyball, but also for obedience and trimming those darn toenails, which she hates so much. Last night she was starting to hold still for me as I touched a foot. Sometimes I would lift it off the ground, sometimes not. Before I would C/T for only when I touched them, didn’t matter if she moved away. Now I’m only C/T when she doesn’t move away. And she’s catching on. And she’s not dying when her feet are touched.

What I’ll do after she has that rear-end awareness is get her to touch a foot target with her back foot on the ground. And then I can put it up on the box, and maybe pair it with the front foot touch. Probably I’ll do this on the flat first… front foot touch, rear foot touch, click treat. When she is dong that, up on the flyball box it will go. And I want her high on that box. And pushing off with her rear.

I have confidence this is going to work. It might be slow, but she’s not built like a border collie and she’s really going to need that rear end push off on the box. She’s my smooth collie girl, and I’m really having fun shaping this with her. And she is too. Last night, she didn’t want training to stop!

I was looking through my old backed up pictures from my old server, and I found this picture of him. It was under the folder named Leopard. Which brings back more memories… he originally was named Leopard, and his family loved him enough to have this very nice picture taken of him. But they had to give him up, I don’t remember why, and he went to another home and was named Wheatie.

Then he came to us.. again I don’t remember why they couldn’t keep him. We fostered him, he went to the other home and they named him Shiloh… and they are the ones who dumped this sweet border collie boy at the Humane Society of Utah.

And back he is again with us. Don’t ask him how to lose weight because he is too good at it. He is still sick, and he doesn’t seem like he’s getting much better. Now we will keep him. His name will be Muffit. He has been moved around so much, the poor guy must be confused and miserable. He sleeps a lot, but he loved his walk this morning. He’ll learn flyball, and I’m sure he’ll love it.

As the poem says.. if you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you… then you should keep the darn pup!