More House Pics

I worked on obedience with Vada in the yard last night.  She did the motion exercises perfectly.  And I did some where I backed up and had her walking towards me and I told her sit or down or stand while I continued walking backwards.  I was very pleased!  I think the issue we had on Saturday may have been due to the fact that I normally reward her after each position.  Or that I had my tug in my hand.  Saturday I was only rewarding her with food.  So, those are some things to work on.  I also worked on having her get into proper heel position.  I had her in front and asked her to heel.  If she was crooked then I said “no” and we started over.  When she got the position right on the first try then she got to tug.  We worked on fronts a bit too.  They still need alot of work.

Bones and House were very sad.  House had me bawling at the end of it.

Here are more pics of the house from Sunday.

This is the stairs leading into the basement.  We removed the carpet from the stairs and this is what was underneath.  We are pulling out staples and then will sand and paint and put traction down.  There is no longer any carpet in the house!

This is the new tile in the bathroom.  We also got the last coat of paint on the walls so we just need to install the tub surround and we can put the furniture back in.

This is the hallway into the kitchen.  The kitchen is just about done.  The floor tile is new.  The walls are painted white and the trim is painted white.  There are new blinds over the sliding door.

This is the kitchen with the new tile and the appliances back in place.  The vent cover is still missing.  Oops.

This is the back door.  It’s the same color that the front door was.  This gets hit by the hot afternoon sun and the paint has taken a beating and is chipping off.  It needs to be sanded and painted.

This is the railing around the porch.  I started painting a new coat of paint to test out the paint to see if it can stand up to the rain.Tonight we go to Schutzhund training.  It’s finally beautiful weather on a Tuesday!

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The Week in Review

Here is a picture of the front door that I just finished painting at the house we will be renting out.  I’m thrilled with out well it turned out.  We have some pics of other parts of the house that I’ll post later.

 It’s been another crazy busy week.  Monday night I watched Bones and House.  They were awesome!  And the season finales are tonight so who knows how things will be left hanging for the summer.  I think that both shows are slated to come back next season.  I sure hope so since this season was so short due to the writers strike.  It’ll be nice to not have to worry about TV shows til fall though.

Tuesday night I drove down to Cottage Grove for training.  There are only a few weeks left til the HOT Championship so I figured I should get down there as much as possible to get our bitework cleaned up.  Stefan will be here for 3 days this weekend so we’ll get alot of protection sessions in while he’s here.  Narc loves any chance to do bitework too.  I don’t get home til late but it’s the only weeknight activity I have going on now.

Wednesday I went home and pottied dogs and picked up dogs and went to the Blaine house to rake.  I got part of the backyard under the pine trees raked and bagged.  Karl stopped by to help.  We had a miscommunication and neither of us ordered dog food and it was due by 8pm.  So I took my laptop and drove around til I found some free Wifi to place the order.  Luckily, we got our order in on time.

Thursday I again went home and pottied dogs and brought some dogs with me to the Blaine house.  I got 2 parts of the backyard raked but it felt like it was going really slow and it seemed like there was alot left still.  So I started mowing the front yard and figured I could rake later.  I got a bit of mowing done til I had to leave.

Friday I again did the same thing.  Thursday night when Rusty came out in his yard the dogs got all wound up and Copper and Narc got into a fight.  Narc had Copper’s head in his mouth and Copper was screaming.  I grabbed Narc but he didn’t let go.  I had to hit him to get him to let go.  He had a slash of missing hair on his side but it had not broken the skin.  Copper’s mouth was bleeding.  Both seemed fine and no one held a grudge.  But the adreneline rush exhausted me – on top of raking.  So I only brought Copper, Vada and Seven on Friday.  I mowed the backyard and then let the dogs out and mowed the front yard.  Then I went inside and worked on pulling staples out of the stairs.

Saturday I took all 5 of “my” dogs to Schutzhund.  I started out the day tracking at the Washington County Fairgrounds.  I did’t have any bait so I had to stop at Cub and buy hot dogs and then cut them up.  I got to training very late but I got some good tracking in.  Vada’s track had 9 legs and 8 corners and 6 articles.  It was kind of like a deformed P.  I just stood on the scent pad and had no food and just light steps for the first 30 paces.  The grass was nice and thick.  Part of the track was by a treeline.  She was getting tired near the end.  She didn’t down on one article so I corrected her.  Then on the last one she didn’t down either.  Her tracking on the whole thing was slow and steady.  For Narc I just did 3 legs/2 corners with food in every step.  Each leg was 50 paces.  I put an article at the end and had him down on it.  I’d like to do longer legs but I’m too tired by then to do any more.  Copper got to do his first track of the season.  I did 50 paces to an article and then 50 paces to the end article.  He just got food for lying down on the article.  I can’t seem to get him to do articles.  He was very happy to track though!  Obedience went fairly well.  Vada did her down great while I was behind the blind.  Then I worked on retrieves.  She was chewy in her front position so I held her mouth and petted her to calm her down.  Fronts were a tiny bit crooked.  I threw the dumbell too far to the left and she didn’t return of the wall.  So I did another and she failed.  So I did a 3rd and gave her a second “hup” command and she took the jump.  Then I did it again without the second command and she thought a second but made the right choice!  I also realized that I need to say “bring” once she clears the jump but before she lands.  I’m saying it as she’s in the air over the jump and she’s ticking the wood.  Same as in agility.  Angeli suggested that in the trial I take 1 step back from my normal spot to give her an extra step to straighten out her butt.  The wall was great.  Then we did motion exercises.  She was a little bit slow to respond to my “sit” command but sat quickly.  Then we did the running down.  It was a mess.  She stood a bunch of times and then sat.  Then Angeli held the leash and popped her.  But then she gets buggy about who’s behind her.  We finally got her doing them.  She does this somtimes and then the next training session she is fine.  So, we’ll see.  Then we worked on the sendout and down.  It was a long session.  Narc worked on heeling more and halt-sits.  Then we did the groupa.  It’s very hard for him to keep looking at me with all the people around but he was making progress.  Then we worked on jumping.  I need to work with him more at home.  He jumps too flat and with his front.  He does ok when he focuses on jumping and the jump.  Protection went well.  Narc did online bites on Bruce and an escape bite.  Vada ran all the blinds a few times and we worked on having her be clean in the blind.  She did very well.  Angeli seems to think that we are not even close to being ready to trial at the HOT Championship.  I walked the dogs around the back of the field in the wooded area and works on sits with Prozac and Seven.  After everyone left I played frisbee with Prozac, Seven and Copper.  Then we went to the Blaine house and I put them out in the backyard.  I got the tile installed in the bathroom while I was there.  So Karl would be able to install the new toilet pipe valve on Saturday.  By the time I got home it was 10pm.  I had 5 exhausted dogs so that was nice.

Sunday morning I was on the road again by 8am.  This time we were heading to the Anoka High School.  I had Narc, Copper and Vada.  We were meeting others from the club for tracking.  Donna was meeting us there too in order to give us all feedback.  I laid Vada’s track in a tough area.  It was a long way to the other side of the library and across a walking bridge.  The grass was sparse and there was alot of dirt in there.  Alot of dips and rises too.  I had 6 articles.  She got almost all but she missed 1.  She didn’t have any problems with lying down on them that day.  She’s not turning as much either.  She didn’t track on the track all of the time.  Donna thought she did really well though since she kept working and didn’t give up.  Not a 100 point track but a very good effort.  She suggested I do an article about 40 paces out on the start leg to work on my line handling.  And she said that I need to work further back on the line so Vada gets comfortable with that.  Narc’s track was in tall grass also in an area that wasn’t as sparse but still had curves to it.  He had a hard time but settled into it towards the end.  It was 3 legs that were 50 paces each and with an article at the end.  Donna suggested that I go back to short grass with him.  She generally works dogs on short grass and goes to whatever the trial tracking is like a week or so before the trial.  Once we were done tracking, I took the dogs home and then Karl and I headed over to the Blaine house.  We ended up making 2 trips to Menards.  But we got the new hot water heater.  Unfortunately it’s dented.  So we may need to return it and exhange it for a new one.  Karl got the valve installed and working so we were able to turn the water back on!  I painted the second coat in the bathroom so the wall painting is done in there and only trim painting is left.  I got a few more staples pulled from the stairs too.  And the best is that I got paint for the front door, steps and railings around the porch and I was able to finish painting the front door (see pic above!).  I started painting the railing too.  We’ll see if this paint will actually stick since the other 2 kinds didn’t.  This is exterior so I hope it does the job.  We got new screen for the ripped screens in the porch too.  Karl is getting more comfortable with the hot water heater and replacement process.  It’s too bad the thing is dented.  I put down 10 bags of dirt in the backyard too.  I put this round by the front gate where the dogs mill and the water drains off the roof so it’s created a dip where alot of water pools in the rain.  We didn’t get home til 10pm.  Unfortunately I’m busy for the next many weekends.  I’m going to try to get over there on some week nights though.  Tonight I’m staying home and vegging and watching my shows.  Tomorrow night I have to go to Schutzhund training.  So maybe the other nights during the week I can get over there for a few hours to plug away at stuff.  We are getting there.  Ever so slowly but we are getting there.  It sure is looking nice!

Our Weekend

It was another busy weekend!  Saturday we met for tracking at the Anoka High School.  We actually ended up tracking at the Rum River city park next to the high school.  Total it was 337 acres or something similar.  I went across the footbridge and tracked next to the library.  I knew that the cover was kind of crappy and I wanted to challenge Vada.  It was alot of dirt.  It was sparse grass.  The dirt was soft.  Barb said that the field had been dug up last year.  There were lines in it like rows that farmers plant stuff in.  I laid 6 legs.  Each was 100 paces and each had an article at the end.  Vada did extremely well.  I was very proud of her.  Darrel walked along behind us when we did the track.  I laid a track for Narc in the soccerfield area.  It was grass but small thin grass.  I’m not sure if it was a new soccer field or what.  It wasn’t very thickly planted either.  I did 4 legs of 20 paces each and then ran out of bait.  He did pretty well.

Once we were all done tracking we met everyone else at the Anoka County Fairgrounds.  We were only a little bit late.  But they knew we were tracking.  We worked obedience pretty fast.  There were 5 or 6 dogs on the field at a time!  I found some intersting holes with Vada.  If I’m walking and heeling and I drop the leash then she goes into a stand in motion.  LOL  So I held the leash in both hands and dropped it in my left and kept walking but she was wise to that.  We did work through it.  Her down and stand are still slower then I’d like but she is doing them.  We did the wall and jump with her toy just to get her exposure to their equipment.  She’s been on it before but it’s good to mix things up.  Then I did a send out to a pole in the field.  She ran right past Donna working a dog.  It confused her for a bit but then she kept going straight to the pole.  Narc had a very hard time with heeling there.  So we went back to baby steps again.  It was a very hard location for green dogs.  There is constantly traffic going by.  Trains going by often.  Airplane going by.  Plus, they’ve never been there before and the footing was mostly sand and just a little grass.  Very different then out quiet grassy field.  He started getting the hang of it.  David was working Warden on the field at the same time and I think Angeli was working with him.  They also had a few club members gathered around that were listening.  Narc had trouble concentrating on me and heeling the closer we got to the group.  So I just rewarded him more often for attention as we got closer.  He worked through it and eventaully heeled beautifully past them.  We worked on halt sits too but facing away from the group.  And I was waiting for Angeli to do a recall with him but she was working with Barb so I practiced downs with him.  He was downing but he was sitting and then downing.  So I went back and gave him more help and then he was plopping into a nice full body down.  By then David had passed on his camera so he could hold Narc so I could do a recall.  I figured David could handle him as he had a Dutch himself.  Narc loves the recalls as it give him a chance to run.  I think he’s trained more places then Vada had at the same place in training.  Bitework was interesting.  I worked Vada on Troy.  We did a modified trial routine.  In the bark and hold I was not in the blind so I could not see but I was told that she was clean but that he verbally corrected her for her jumping up.  She always does that and there is nothing wrong with it.  But it confused her so she sat and was quiet.  He slapped the stick against the blind and got a few more barks out of her but then she got quiet again.  So we’ll need to work on that with Tom.  In a trial I think she’d be more jacked up so she won’t be thinking as much.  Then we did an escape.  She did a nice job and had a good grip.  Troy slipped the sleeve before doing a reattack so we did the exercise again.  The second time she took off too soon and had a crappy grip on the escape bite and the reattack.  So Donna told us to do it again.  The third time it was beautiful on both grips.  Then we did the back transport and the side transport.  I need to learn the rules and procedures so that I have no question on anything in the trial.  Bruce worked Narc.  Tom was not there so the green dog blue sleeve was not there.  Narc got to bite a big dog sleeve for his first time!  He did great.  He had some really nice grips!  We did some escape bites.  I thought he was targeting the end of the sleeve.  But we kept doing them and Angeli kept giving Bruce advice on presentation.  The last one was beautiful.  Right in the middle and full.  It was all about the presentation.  The first ones were not presented properly so Narc was having to turn his body in and that is the part of the sleeve that was available to him.  Bitework ended up being in the rain.  I don’t mind and the dogs don’t mind.  It did get pretty chilly though.  I went home, took a nap, watched a movie and went to bed.  I was exhausted.

Hopefully we have a helper at training on Tuesday so we can get some more practice in.  Right now I feel that protection is our weakest phase.  I know we have issues in tracking and obedience but I hate the way that most of our protection looks like right now.  For Vada.  I think that Narc is coming along very well.

Sunday I met Angeli, David and Mike for tracking at the VFW in Elk River by Rogers at 7am.  It was insanely early.  It was very windy.  The soccerfield was very short and not as thick as the Blaine soccer fields.  I guess I get spoiled there!  They were pretty sparse and short in the fields that I laid my tracks.  Vada’s track was a backward P shape.  5 legs with an article at the end of each.  I seem to have lost one of my articles.  She did ok.  She had trouble on the corners.  I’m still not liking her article indication position.  Angeli suggested that I accept them as long as she is not wrapping around to look at me as she lies down.  She said that I should not worry about the hip but keep working both sides and feed in front and it’ll resolve itself.  Angeli also told me to not say “ok” after each article.  It’s a bad habit that I’ve gotten into.  She thinks it might be why she bursts out of the down.  Plus, it’s not legal.  Narc’s track was only 3 legs but each leg was 50 paces.  He did well.  It was hard in the wind but he figured it out.  After we were done tracking I played Chuck It with all 3 dogs.  They were very happy.  Then I went home and Karl and I went to the rental house to work on it.

We got alot done at the house.  We got the first coat of paint on the walls in the bathroom, the carpet on the stairs ripped out, the trim put on the baseboard in the kitchen, the stove and fridge put back into the kitchen.  Karl also figure out what was leaking in the bathroom and took the old valve off and prepped it to install the new one.  I just need to get the new floor tile put down.  I put stuff away out of the living room too so it looks cleaner and like we got more done.  It felt like we made alot of progress finally.  We also burned the wood in the fire pit.  I’m hoping to make it over a night or two this week to get a few things done to help us make more progress this weekend.  The yard needs to be raked and mowed soon too.

Karl didn’t have a very good Saturday.  He was all set to start mowing but then the orange mower broke again.  And there weren’t any stores open where he could buy a new belt.  It’s on order but won’t be here for awhile.  The dealership he bought it from had gone out of business.  So that was too bad.

Tonight I was a bum.  I watched Bones and House.  Both were VERY good.  I can’t believe how Bones ended!  House too!  Next week is the season finale for both.  I hope they end.  If tonight was the season finale on both I would be going nuts all summer!  Hopefully I’ll have more energy tomorrow night since I took it easy tonight.  Karl made dinner when he got home.  He did a great job and it turned out really well!

Trial Prep

Wow, things are starting to get busy with upcoming shows.  I am doing hospitality/awards for a USDAA trial at the end of the month and trying to get a food person lined up to sell food all 3 days.  Then the following weekend we are hosting a UKC obedience, family obedience and weigh pull at the Washington County Fairgrounds.  I had to make flight arrangements for one of the judges.  The day I made the ticket purchase it had gone up over $100 from the day before.  It was very frustrating!  But it was a good learning experience for me to make the arrangements.  The hotels for the obedience judges have been reserved.  The other judge has her plane ticket.  I’ve received 3 entries.  It doesn’t close until the end of the month and people seem to wait til then to send in their entries.  We’re doing DOS entries too but they are $10 more so I’m hoping that no one does them.  We’re also doing a fun pull after the real pull on Saturday to give people a chance to practice or try it out.  I just printed out premiums and sent them out to local schools.  Hopefully we can get the word out to everyone about the trial.  Another club is doing conformation at the same location so we’re hoping we’ll get alot of out of towners too.  And they’re offering Total Dog.  So far things are going well.  My next task is to inventory forms and awards and see what needs to be ordered.  I’d like to get over to the trial site one day and do a dry run of setting up for the weekend so we don’t run into any problems that Saturday morning.

 So that’s been keeping me pretty busy the last few days.  I’ve done a bit of jumping work with Vada.  Susan Salo grids.  I really need to video tape them though as I can’t tell how she’s jumping or how many strides she’s putting in.  Last night Karl watched some of the 1st Susan Salo DVD with me.  I need to watch it again so I can write down the formulas for distance for the grids.  I’ve been slowly working on painting my jump bars too.  Tonight at Fleet Farm I picked up more masking tape since I ran out.  I got stuff that is almost 2″ wide.  It goes on SO much faster.  I think it’ll come off faster too!  They are looking pretty nice.  I just hope the paint doesn’t come off easily.

Tomorrow many in the club are tracking together before training.  I feel guilty for not tracking the last 2 nights so it will be good to go tracking tomorrow.  I’m almost wishing for crappy rainy days so the people will leave the parks and I can then track.  🙂  It’ s so nice that tracking and training are going to be in Anoka so I won’t have to drive all the way down to Saint Paul Park.

We got the first AMBOR Highlights newsletter sent out since we took over!  That’s kind of a milestone I think.  Kelly did an incredible job on it and it looks great!  Post cards should be out in the next week or two also.  Hopefully that’ll get more members to come back.

Tracking

Well, I meant to post sooner but time has gotten away from me again.  Monday night I ended up tracking in the yard.  This time I went around the pond in a big U.  Each leg was about 300 paces.  The first leg out I did a variety of things.  Light steps and big steps.  I did an article on each corner and at the end.  The 2nd leg was almost all a serpentine.  On the 3rd leg I did some steps of running.  And I did a step over.

Vada had trouble starting out and even went into the neighbors yard and started sniffing a tree.  So I gave her a pop on the leash and she promptly got back to work.  She tracked the first leg well after that.  I hate her article indication position.  She flops over on a hip.  I have no idea when or how this started.  I had her fix it.  So on the next article she was concerned.  She did the 2nd leg really well but ignored the article at the corner.  So I popped her.  She then laid down about a foot away from it.  I ignored her and then she did it properly.  Still a sloppy hip flop though.  I’ve been walking up on her left on the articles.  The 3rd leg was good til about the middle where she had some trouble.  Maybe where I ran.  But she worked it out and did good.  She found the step over with no problem at all.  She worked hard and worked thorugh a few issues and I was proud of her.

Narc did well.  His track was aged over an hour.  It was quite dark out when he finally ran it.  I was trying to lay tracks and run them on commercials since House and Bones were on.

Last night I didn’t get around to any dog training.  I spent time on computer/e-mail/upcoming trial stuff.  I was all set to make the long drive to Schutzhund but then I found out the helper was not able to make it so I turned my van around and went home.  Hopefully next week works out better.  June is going to be here VERY quickly!  We train in Anoka this Saturday.  I’m so excited for the shorter drive.  And to work on a strange field.

Tonight I ran out of time/daylight.  I got sidetracked with other things.  So I loaded up the 3 dogs and drove to Elk River to check out a big Recreation area.  There was a little school in the area where I was able to find a ball field not being used.  For Vada I laid a track that was a straight line with 6 articles on it, all 20 paces apart.  I didn’t fix the sloppy hip roll but she is enthusiastic about the articles again.  I’m not sure how to fix the hip.  But I’ll think about it and come up with something.  I can’t tell why it’s sloppy.  She seems stretched out.  She tracked very well.

I laid a track for Narc that had 4 corners and 5 legs.  Each leg was 20 paces but the last one was 40 paces.  I still have food in each step.  He loves tracking.  He was dragging me to the flag.  He did really well.  He could slow down a tiny bit more but otherwise he’s doing great.  I’ll need to teach him article indication soon.  I bet he won’t like that.  It’s probably alot of work for a tall dog to lie down.

Copper still needs to learn article indication if he’s ever going to trial.  Which he probably won’t as he’ll probably quit on the track if there is no food.  He did not get worked the last 2 times.

I’m hoping to get out tracking again over the next few days.  The weather was still very beautiful today!

Another late night!  I’m off to bed.

Beautiful Weekend Finally!

We finally had 2 (3 actually) beautiful days in a row.  I got majorly sun burned.  Saturday I went to Schutzhund tr taining.  They had predicted snow over night Friday night and it was pouring all day on Friday.  Saturday we woke up expecting snow but there was nothing and it was pretty nice out already.  I was hoping I wouldn’t have to decide to go to training or not and I did not.  I did get going a bit late and had to stop for gas and to put air in my slowly leaking tire.  I had been hoping to track Saturday morning but with prediction of snow I gave up that plan.  I’m a whimp in the cold.  We ended up blessed with a beautiful sunny day.  Where we train is kind of in a hole too so there is no wind.  It was perfect!  Training went late since we had alot of new people.  They were just wrapping up when I left at 5pm to meet Karl at the Blaine house to go to church.  Then we went grocery shopping on the way home.  The cupboards were bare so we did a pretty good trip.  Then we had burnt pizza for dinner. 

Sunday morning I had to be in Saint Cloud by 7:30am for check-in.  I hadn’t sent in a copy of Vada’s USDAA card either.  Check-in was 7-7:30am and they said they’d start running dogs at 8am.  So walk throughs should have started at 7:30am.  Well, I set the alarm for 5:20 to leave by 6:15am at the latest since it was a good hours drive.  I woke up to Vada’s barking at 6:20am!  I looked closer at the alarm clock and saw that I had set it for pm instead of am.  Dumb!  So I was instantly in panic mode.  I got the dogs loaded up in a short amount of time and hit the road.  I was almost there and it was 7:30am so I was probably ok on time.  Then I realized that I was lost.  I had followed the directions exactly but I was lost.  Luckily I have a cell phone thanks to my job and I called Karl who was home and awake and he guided me to the trial site.  It was 8am when I got there.  They had not walked the course yet!  Of course Vada was the 2nd dog in the ring so I had gotten very lucky!  I was also able to check-in and show them Vada’s card.

My one goal for the weekend was to keep connected with Vada on the start line.  Our first class was Gamblers.  She held her start line until I said “good girl”.  That was too much for her.  We did the opening really well.  But she was on the teeter when the whistle blew and I pulled her off.  That was really dumb of me!  That’s two trials in a row now since the last one I did the same in pairs.  I guess we need to get the teeter our and reinforce her “bottom” alot on the teeter before the next trial!  And I need to quit doing that!  The gamble was tough.  It was a serpentine at a distance.  It was not difficult but we have not practices serpentines enough and I did not keep moving forward enough and she took the dummy jump on the gamble line.  But we tried!

The second class was Pairs Relay.  My partner was nervous as it was only her second day ever of doing Pairs.  And she wasn’t sure how her dog would be with another dog and she was the smaller dog (22″) and the judge dictated who ran which part of the course.  I told her to be calm and be comfortable with the control she had over her dog before she passed me the baton.  I reminded her that it’s time plus faults and that we both had fast dogs so we’d be ok unless there was a major screw up.  I wanted to lead out with Vada too.  The other dog dropped the last bar and the handler downed the dog to pass me the baton.  The dog jumped up and took Vada’s first jump and knocked the bar.  She trains by downing him after a knocked bar and then going again so she thinks that is what he thought.  Vada broke her sit when I got the baton but then sat again and I was able to lead out.  It was an easy course but I couldn’t remember afterwards if we had knoced a bar in the corner or not.  I asked my partner later and she said no.  Vada did come off the aframe and then downed.  But I guess I deserved that after pulling her off the teeter.  The hardest part about Pairs is that you worry about screwing things up for your partner.  I would much rather they screw up then me.  But after I beat myself up for my screw up at the last trial I realized that anything can happen and I have control over very little so this time went much better.  And I was able to help my partner be calmer too I hope.  We Q’d!  I was surprised and very happy as it was Vada’s 3rd and her Starters Pairs Relay title!

The next class was Standard.  She started to get up on the start line but since I was connected I was able to tell her “no, sit” and she did.  She ran the course really well.  She got her shoulder jammed into a weave pole but recovered and didn’t miss a beat.  She kept all of her bars up.  She didn’t go into a down on the teeter so I had to remind her a few times to “bottom”.  She did and I released her.  The last jump was a triple but I was planning to run to the ring barrier and not worry.  It worked!  She kept all her bars up and she got her first ever Standard Q!  I was so happy with how things were going!  I was also thinking that if things got goofed up that I’d just make note of them as things to work on in training.  That kept me in a much better mindset and it allowed me to let things go.

Next was Snooker.  I agonized over a most beautiful opening.  I wanted it to be flowing.  I put the goofy part at the beginning and the rest was flowing and flowed right into the closing.  She held her stay beautifully.  She handled beautifully at the beginning.  We came out of the tunnel and I was behind.  We had to run past a jump to another jump.  I told myself a million times not to put my arm up at all.  Well, I put my arm up and she flicked away and we got whistled.  😦  Totally my fault.  I was bummed since I didn’t get to finish my great plan!  That’s the punishment of handling poorly in Snooker.

 The final class of the day was Jumpers.  It was almost 2pm at that point.  The run was more similar to past runs.  I think that we both were mentally fried.  I tried to do a lead out pivot.  I was going to lead out 2 jumps and quite a bit laterally.  Vada did not like that.  I remembered to stay connected but I did not feel connected and I didn’t feel like I knew where my spot to be was.  She broke her stay.  I think she took down the bar on the second jump since my timing was off.  Then she took down another bar when I rear crossed her into a tunnel.  So, it was a sucky old style run but I think we were both just tired and I probably pushed the lead out to more then she could do.

We were done by 2pm and home by 3pm.  I was either running my dog, walking a dog or setting bars/chutes the Advanced class.  So I got alot of sun on Sunday too!

After I got home Karl grilled steaks and baked potatoes and steamed string beans.  Then he went and started working on taking down the chicken coop.  I started working on painting agility bars.  All white jumps were getting pretty old.  I got 6 bars painted.  I learned after the first one that I would have to tape the entire area that I did not want painted.  It was windy out and the spray on the cans had quite a wide spray path.  I hope the paint is solid and doesn’t scratch easily.  They did at first but hopefully the paint just has to cure.  Then I went in to watch Desperate Housewive and Brother and Sisters.

I was very happy with how well the agility trial went.  I was proud of her and I was proud of me.  I learned alot at the Lynda Orton-Hill seminar and I was able to use alot of the knowledge at the trial.  But now we must concentrate on Schutzhund until the HOT tournament.  We have one more agility trial – the MAC spring USDAA trial the last weekend of this month.  I am doing hospitality/awards so I will be there all 3 days and trialing Vada for 2 of them.

 It was a great weekend!  I got to do Schutzund and an agility trial *and* spend some time at home!

Tonight we went tracking.  But it’s gotten too late so I’ll have to write about that tomorrow.  Again, I was very proud of Vada.  Narc too!