Bath Night for Peace

Peace had her pre-show bath tonight.  She is such a goober.  She insists on biting the air from the forced air dryer. Her whole face puffs out as she grabs mouthfuls of the wicked air.  I wish I could get a picture of that, but its a bit to hard to wield the hose and snap a picture. The doesnt mind being dried, loves the grooming, all except toes. She would rather we never trimmed those nails.  But she sure looks pretty tonight.

Then I look at the other 3- wow are they filthy! Oh well.  I might take all three out and use the grooming facilities at On the Run, Michelles new place.  She has a wonderful bathing set up. Much easier than bending over the bathtub!

Friday is the North Star Herding Group Clubs show.  I am stewarding before the cardi's show. It should be a fun day, at least its one away from work. I am really looking forward to it.  

Ladies Only

The other day I had come up from the basement after doing laundry, when I walked into the living room, the dogs were playing.  Ok, pretty normal, there is stuffing all around the livingroom.  What did you destuff guys?  No toy carcass, but some paper and oh.. cardboard, and cotton fluff.  OK, who was in my totebag?  Mom cleans up the mess.  A few hours later, here comes Grace, tossing her toy in the air and chasing it, what do you have Grace?  A white cardboard tube.  I thought she just had part of the prior "toy".  Nope- what do I find a few hours later when I happen into the dog room?  In Magics crate, a whole box of shredded tampons.  Cotton and cardboard tubes everywhere.  The new carditoy??
No photo evidence taken, to protect the innocent. 

thinking again darn it

So I am at the dentist this morning, trying to ignore what they are doing, and I start thinking about the dogs.  I am so glad I went to play agility yesterday, it really gave me a lot to think about.  It confirmed that I definately need to get Graciegirl into the foundations class.  I need to find a way to really get her to retain her focus on me.  She has really good attention, very sporadically.  But like a kidlet with ADD she often goes off into Gracieland.  And apparently there is a lot of things much more fun than listening to mom in Gracieland. 

And I think maybe more foundation work will help me with better body language. Poor Magic he has to run with me and usually I dont know what I am doing so how is he supposed to?   Agility puts me out of my comfort zone, I do enjoy it, but its really hard for me. So maybe I will just back off of agility, and focus on obedience again.  And hope that by starting over with Grace I will get better and then be a better partner for both of them. But, pushing the comfort zone is good too, so not really sure all my thoughts resolved anything....

Run N Done

This afternoon Magic, Grace, Darryl and I went out to Michelles new agility center and played a little agility.  What  a nice place she has. Grace was a bit wild and a little unsure, but darn did she have fun. She never stopped smiling or wagging, exxcept the first time on the dog walk, she pretty much shook her way across, but she did it.  Magic was a really good boy too.  We worked on wait, weaves and the teeter and had a pretty good time, well except for the waiting part. That is not Magics favorite. When we went to leave though, we had a totally flat tire.  So the dogs also got to spend a couple of hours sitting in tires plus waiting for the tire repair.  Nto sure they were to excited about that, but they were very well behaved.  And although we probably would have been a bit more comfortable watching football at home, it was OK to do in the store. Fortunately it was just a broken seal on the tire, so minimal problem really.  And it wasnt nearly as cold as yesterday, so that was OK too.

350th post Giveaway

Its really cold here in Minnesota.  I think the state average is about 20 below, so in light of that we are staying in!  Since I will soon be reaching my 350th post, I am having a giveaway.  I will randomly select 1 commenter to win a custom quilted picture frame, in the colors of the winners choice.  They look similar these.  The wallhanging design allows you to add pop in new pictures anytime you like.  

 Just comment to enter, being sure to tell me your color choice and how to contact you if you win  Drawing for winner will be Friday January 8th after I get home from the dog show.

Training Foundations

OK, I am being proactive for next year.  I have gotten Miss Grace on a waiting list for agility foundations. Grace and I have taken some beginning classes, but I think I need to really strengthen our foundations, so I asked to be on the waiting list for the next foundation class at Agile Canines.  I have loved training Magic with Michelle, and really hope to be able to get him back into her classes, but honestly, Ham Lake is a long ways from South Minneapolis, and the new Agile Canines location is only 35-40 blocks away.

Magic is already enrolled in the Acting Class starting in February. I have tried to get him into this class for a long time.  Nothing may ever come of it, other than we have fun, but hey, he would be awfully cute in some advertising, so who knows.  I am still really thinking about attempting flyball. I have the class paperwork sitting on my desk, I just don't know if I want to start another sport with him? I should just let that go, but I haven't yet. I should get us back to agility classes, but I am just so bad about wanting to go out in the cold to do stuff in the winter, its hard for me to commit to that. Ok, so I am procrastinating and that is not a good way to start the year either. The other option is to try another actual obedience class and see if we can fix the heeling issue? 

I am looking to find a beginning obedience class for Siren. Not sure yet where I want to take her. I need to look at the options I guess. Anyone have a beginning obedience trainier that they really really liked and can recommend? 

2009 recap and goals for 2010

My goals for this year were pretty modest, and overall we were successful. These are the goals I posted last December:
 Grace earn her RA, and her UKC Ch.  Both done, additionally Grace earned her URO1 too.
 Magic maybe pick up a couple of agility titles. Done, AKC-NA, NJP and NADAC jumpers too. We also    managed to earn these UKC non agility titles,  URO1, FO, UWP
 Peace enjoy her times in the show ring, and pick up a few wins along the way.  Done obtaining her AKC and  UKC Ch all from bred by.  And I cannot forget Peace's Best in Show which was incredible for me.
 Siren train in obedience and tracking. Well we did some training, but not as much as I would have liked


I was more successful with the dog goals that I posted than I was with the personal goals that I did not post.
I did learn to knit, I am very slow, but I have completed several small things.  I also crocheted which was not on ny goal list last year, but I have enjoyed that tremndously. I have NOT finished the socks I started, I got to the heel and stopped.  Need to get that figured out. 
 
For 2010 I am again going to have modest goals.  With 4 dogs and a limited dog budget, I cannot train or trial as I would like.
 
Magic-Magic will hopefully do some more weight pulling. I would like to have him work toward his ARCH and see if maybe we can earn his CDX. Not sure on that though, as he really does not enjoy obedience as much as agility. But again with the limited budget, I can work on the obedience and rally more on my own than I can agility.
Grace-I love Grace, but she is much more of a challenge to work with. I would like to get her back to agility classes, as she hasn't been training since before the pups and that was almost 2 years ago.  She did go to an agility trial this year, even though she doesn't weave yet, and she had a great time, so I hope to get her back out training and maybe trialing.
Peace-As Peace was my focus last year, she gets to take the year off. We will work at home on training.
Siren-Siren will begin formal training. As in a training class.  I am not disciplined enough to work my dogs as they should be, on my own, so I am going to commit to getting at least one title on Siren this year.
 
So Siren and Grace will be the lucky winners of the training lottery this year.  They will get the most classes and opportunities, I think.  Magic will still probably be my most often trialed dog though.  We have 2 APDT opportunities each year and I am going to commit myself to both.
 
On a personal level, I need to work toward getting healthy. That means exercise. No excuses, it has to become a larger part of my life. With my other medical issues, simply becoming more physical will help me feel better. Maybe not at the time I am sweating, but the rest of the time!
 
I also need to learn how to do those heels on the socks. Those will be done in 2010!