Jet Flyball

I’m not a big seminar person. I don’t like them much… sitting around listening to different types of training that I may never actually do. But when Jet was having a bad weekend last June, I kinda panicked, and signed up for this seminar. After that trial, he started doing really well and now I’m not sure I’ll really get much out of it. And it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, and be cold, and it’s a 45 minute drive. UGH. I hope Jet’s not too cold, I’ll bring his coats and warm bed for his crate, but still I’ll worry. I don’t think I’ll be wearing yellow box sandals this weekend, I’m going to have 20 layers of clothes on!

So, if I have time, I’ll post about the seminar this weekend. Or next week, or whenever I can.

I’m thrilled that I have received a couple of comments from families who have Tatum’s sisters! How cool is that? I am excited to be emailing with them too. Tatum has two sisters… though one of them passed away recently. Her name was Foxy. If you want to see her you’ll have to head on over to Tatum’s Blog to see her.

Hopefully we’ll get some pictures of Tara, Tatum’s other sister. It’s amazing how much Foxy and Tatum look alike!

I’m not training much, trying to get my neck back in order. Going to go to some physical therapy hopefully this week. So until then, we can check out our futures trading to see what that is doing, and then get back to dog training.

Maybe they will sell cheap t-shirts for CU this weekend… lol I might buy one so I can wear it around! But I am really looking forward to the hands on experience. Even though I’m going to audit. Still I hope to learn a lot, especially about what to do with Muffit. Oh I took Muffit to my friend Christy’s last night and I will blog more about that later! I have to get Lucy fed, go see a new park for flyball practice we may practice in, see a little or Border Collie puppies (sooo excited!) get some work in, and then clean up the house a little.

Busy day, as usual.

We learned so much, and over the next few days I hope to post more about it. I am dead tired and have to get some work done. And I have to let the information seep into my brain too so I can digest it. Maybe I’ll need medicare part d to get through all the information in my brain!

This is a picture of our camp setup. JRTs in the high crates. I had the little one up top taken down toward the end of the day, he was making me nervous up there!

The picture to the right is of Tinker, a Jack Russel Terrier on our team that does such a great job! And, of course, I’ve been having a really fun time with my new digital SLR camera. I could just sit there and take pictures all day long of these dogs, and I’m learning how and when to focus the camera.

And to the left is Apache. She is an Australian Cattle Dog girl that loves her flyball. She is also part of the Dazzle Dogs show that her Mom puts on. And, cool of cool… Apache is deaf! She does such a great job and has a beautiful box turn.

If you click on these pictures you can see bigger versions of them.

Anyway, so today we went over the basics of training the box turn from scratch. We got some great ideas and I am going to start training Chase, Muffit and Tatum to, literally, bounce off the wall in the back yard. That will be fun to do. And now that I have seen the progress the dogs follows, including just getting their front on the wall to begin with, I am really excited to start trying it.

Anyway, I’ve had too much wine to drink and it’s almost time for bed anyway. And Monday we will have a long ride home, fortunately we are not driving home Sunday night. And our car insurance is all good so we should be set for our trip home!

Tatum didn’t do very much because she is being pretty nervous. I pulled out her mat (as you can see from the picture) because I knew that having her do some things she already knew how to do would make her feel better. So we did mat work and some sits and downs and shakes and she was taking livers. She took some treats from people she didn’t now, but when she was out on the running lanes she really didn’t want to take any treats. But it is a great first trip for her. The townhouse I am staying in with my teammates is very nice and Tatum gets to sit on the couch and mingle with the other dogs.

Chase is being a bit grumpy so he is in his crate. He is actually putting himself in his crate when he gets too overwhelmed by the other dogs so he is being a very good boy. And we have our own room so Chase and Tatum get to be with me a little bit on our own.

Tomorrow we will have Chase’s seminar and we will see how that goes too!

Me and some of the members of my flyball team, Thunder Paws… we are renting a townhouse and so we will have fun evenings with wine and beer and song… okay well maybe not song, but videos for sure. I’m packing up dog videos that we can watch for entertainment.

The driving situation is all worked out, so we hope. I do hope that all my junk and a team mate’s junk fits in my Outback. And three dogs. We might have to send some of the junk down with another teammate in her car instead.

Anyway.. I don’t know if I’ll have internet access from Vegas or not. I’ll have my laptop with, but if I don’t have internet I’ll have to save the pictures and info for when I get back.

Three days. Well, Friday will be for Tatum, and Saturday and Sunday will be for Chase. Looks like our team, Thunder Paws here in Utah, will have to bring our own box. And I have crates and food and clothes to bring, too. Man, there is always a ton to bring when bringing the dogs. It was so weird going to the Clicker Exp and only bringing stuff for me. I felt so light and empty.

We still haven’t decided who is driving down with whom.. or if we are taking one van or two cars. Or when we are leaving from Salt Lake City and when we are leaving from Las Vegas to come home. But it will all work out in the end.

I will have to pack this weekend, get all my stuff together. Monday will be busy, and Sunday a little bit with a private lesson and puppy class, but I should have some time. And Saturday will be my self-imposed down day. I’m going to need a zero gravity recliner when I get back, in order to rest! I’m sure it will be an information packed weekend and my brain will be loosing it by Sunday. But it’ll be fun!