Back from the Beach
I am notoriously bad with dates and numbers, it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized I'm probably mildly dyslexic. I use this information as an excuse to not do many things, one of which is to remember people's birthdays. Which is really quite annoying, as everyone remembers MINE (being on a holiday), then I feel doubly bad when I have no idea when their birthday is at all. I do think that a birthday is a personal thing, if you want to have a party and celebrate - have a party and let the world know! If you'd rather not, that's cool too. Still, I always remember my mother's birthday and Tammy's birthday as they are not only super close to mine, but combined they make up my birthday date. My mom was born the 1st, Tammy the 7th, and, hence, they are the only birthdays I remember all year. So, yes, hint-hint, if you have a birthday coming up, give Heather plenty of warning, as I LIKE celebrating birthdays - I'm just terrible at remembering them.
Went down to the beach over the weekend to have a birthday hurrah with my mom. As usual, I ended up with some LOVELY weather at the beach. At least on Saturday. Friday was still dry, but WINDY. Which was still pretty fun watching the birds flying in place against the wind, then turning around and getting whisked away. Dogs don't mind a little wind! Then Saturday was ridiculously perfectly nice, party cloudy, perfect temp, just a lovely day. I do very much enjoy the beach, and it's nice being a bit closer to my folks than I used to be. Dogs had SO much fun, Navarre especially was so upset when we were driving home today he whined for like an hour, sure we were going to the beach again. They were good doggies, except for Haku eating his food so fast without his 'slow feed' bowl he threw it all back up again on their carpet. Sigh.
Had kind of a weird week of agility. After feeling not so smooth with the dogs recently, and espcially at the last trial, the goal was to have some nice, successful, smooth coursework in practice. Ha! The trend continued of us just not seeming to be on the same page. At one point I spent two days retraining Navarre how to go over a broad jump. He was SURE he was supposed to go around the end posts like you enter for weavepoles. So we would fix it, reward the heck out of it, put an obstacle in front of it - looked good. Then I would put it back into sequence and he would do it AGAIN. Arrrgh! Just GOOFY stuff, but it was like we could not get through anything - crazy.
I did decide that I thought it would be a good idea to go do some CPE with Navarre, there is a trial coming up in April that we could enter. He just needs ring experience, and paying for AKC while doing that is insane. I'm not a fan of CPE games, but we could get in a lot of runs at an inexpensive price and maybe get some of his sightseeing out of his system. Besides, I haven't been to a CPE trial in years, it would be helpful for me to see what it's like these days. But in order to enter you need to have a number for your dogs, which you can only do by sending in a form - and the trial closes next week. Sometimes I wonder how we can live in this computer world and there is still all this SENDING THINGS THROUGH THE MAIL crap. Hmph.
Watched just a little of the AKC national finals when I got home today - two of Bright's siblings were in the finals! Go Jack and Vette! Fun to see them run, as well as other NW folks too. It's coming back to the West coast next year, but it's just not an event I'm interested in going to. And walking courses at 6am - that's crazy! I think they do a good job of making it feel like a special event, much more than USDAA. If the UKI Open ever comes back to the west coast, I would travel to that. Of course, to do anything you have to actually be able to get through a course, which I swear we could not do this week.
Haku was the herding champion of obedience though. Every week for this session a different student taught a trick to the rest of the class. This week a lady brought these big stuffed sheeps and the trick was teaching your dog 'away' and 'go-bye' around the stuff sheep. Oh, Haku was ALL about this! The funny part is we started with one stuffed sheep which Haku wanted to chomp and play with, but then we moved to another sheep, that, admittedly, looked more 'sheep-like', and that one he would only 'herd'. And he eventually did inside flanks and was going on verbals and walking up and everything. We accidentally did our herding homework! Such a happy Haku, we need to get a stuffed sheep to practice this at home.
Haku is entered in THREE days of the obedience trial up in Canby, which is so close to our place it seems like it would be wrong NOT to enter all the days. So Open and Utility, we'll see how it goes, and whether he implodes as the weekend goes on. We did work on our dumbbell grabs, which improved GREATLY at home, but did not transfer to class. He can, technically, do all the things for Open and Utility, but not always super pretty. I hope we have fun, I'm looking forward to it.
Navarre continues to improve with his heeling and stays, worked a little on his dumbbell as well - OMG, so serious! So we're going to go play with throwing his dumbbell in one direction and then throwing a frisbee in the other direction when he returns to see if he can get into a more 'play' retrieve.
Bright and Navarre are entered in the Spring Cup next weekend, which after this week I'm not feeling very optimistic about it. I know we'll have fun, but adjusting expectations DOWNWARD. Hm, now that I look at it, that CPE trial is the same weekend we've already signed up 'run a lot of international courses' at Daisy's. Well, that sounds fun too!
