Quiet Week and Weekend

It was a quiet week and weekend.  It was much needed after all the stress of preparing for the CPE trial and the Access test.  Tuesday I did not go to Schutzhund as I was wiped out.  Wednesday we did not have Super Puppy class at Total Recall was having their banquet at the school that night.  I watched American Idol and then went to sleep.  Thursday we did not have agility class at most of the instructors were attending the AKC Nationals so they cancel classes for the week.  Friday we went to see Last Chance Harvey.  It was a good movie.  Very touching.  It made me laugh and it made me cry.

Saturday I got going to training late but I got to sleep in a bit.  I thought Chris was coming out to work with our dogs again but I got there and Chris was not there and alot of club members were not there.  Made for a short day.  But I did not go to my Grandma’s 88th birthday party because I thought Chris was going to be at training.  If I had know he was not, I would have went to the party.  So that was a bummer.  I have conflicts with what I’m told to do in obedience too which frustrates me.  It also reminds me that I need to train at home alot more so the bulk of my training is not done at training.  I should be testing there and using it as a different environment.  Not only training there.  Especially now that we will only be able to train with the club on Saturdays.  We have tomorrow night in the barn and then everything is outside.  It’ll be nice to have my Tuesday nights back for a bit – til Vada’s next agility session starts.  Since we got done so early on Saturday I was able to go home and drop dogs off and Karl and I made it to the 4pm service at Eagle Brook.  Then we went grocery shopping on the way home.  We ran into Jenny’s sister at Cub.  What are the chances?  We also got a Redbox movie – Beverly Hills Chihuahua.  It was pretty cute.

Sunday we were able to stay home all day.  We ran errands for a bit since we had to return the movie.  We had a leisurely morning and slept in.  I got my homework assignments done for tonight’s Access class.  Karl made pork tenderloin and juliane potatoes for dinner.  It was nice to not have to be anywhere.  I trained Vada and Seven on the 2 x 2 weaves.  They both had awesome sessions.  We are expecting more cold and a bunch of snow now so I’ll have to take another break from training them.  But we are making SLOW progress.

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Van Batteries and Wonderful Hubbies

Monday I took the day off to recover from the weekend as I was beat.  I slept in a bit and then worked on studying for my big Access exam that night.  It’s the biggest exam of the class – 100 points.  I left early to get to Eden Prairie before rush hour.  I went to Fuddrucker’s for lunch and to study for a few hours.  I left about 30 minutes before class started.  My van would not start!  I called Karl and he left work to come and jump start my van.  Then followed me to class.  I was about 40 minutes late.  While I was taking my test he ran to the mall to get some dinner and also a new battery (Sears Die Hard – love them!).  Unfortunately it took me about 2.5 hours to do my test so he had alot of waiting at the school time.  The test just took that much time to do all the tedious steps.  I did have a small problem with one spot but the instructor helped me out a bit (for points off).  I still don’t understand why what I was doing did  not work though.  So once the test was done we went back out and had to jump start my van again to get me home.  After we got home he replaced the battery and it’s worked fine ever since.  I have such a wonderful hubby!

So now I wait to see how a truly did on the test.  It felt good but that doesn’t mean much in this class.

MMBC CPE Trial

Well, it has come and gone.  I’ve been working on this trial for the past year.  First to get approval from MMBC to become a club then approval from CPE to becomea  club.  Then we had to research and order equipment since we only have NADAC equipment and all our contacts are covered in rubber.  Gina and Jim helped alot with researching the best equipment.  Then I ordered it all and Karl helped accept delivers since he can work at home some days.  Or he’d stay home a bit longer to get the deliver before he left for work.  Then we stored all the equipment in our garage.  And we had to go down to the locker and get the teeter out of the trailer so we could pull the rubber off and repaint it.  Then we had to paint one of the sides of the aframe since the contact zone was 1″ too short and the paint we had did not match the paint on the aframe exactly and we didn’t want anyone complaining.  It was alot of work.  But it all came together over the weekend and everything went very smooth.  Friday morning was a bit stressful but once we got everything up to the trial site and started setting up I felt better.  We had a nice turn out for the fun match Friday night.  Saturday went without a hitch.  Well, we did have some exhibitors complain about there being no foam around the chute barrel so we had to pull that and substitute it with a tunnel.  We fixed that Saturday night so we were still able to use the chute on Sunday.  Not too bad for a first trial!  Sunday we had a power outage for about 20 minutes.  But with some of the exhibitors help, Karl was able to find the circuit breaker and get power restored.  The best part was that the exhibitors just rolled with it.  They were all willing to keep running even though the only light we had was the daylight coming through the windows.  We were really tight on time to get Carolyn on her flight too.  But she made it barely.  Next year I will have Sunday start a bit earlier.  We were able to fit all the new equipment into the trailer too so Karl and I don’t have to store it and haul it down to Prior Lake.  We will make a trip down there before May to move the CPE stuff out of the trailer and into the storage locker so it doesn’t get banged up when stuff is moved for the NADAC trials.  I was very happy with how things went.

All 4 of my guys ran well.  Vada’s start line is always an issue!  Contacts got greyer as the weekend went on too.  But we had some nice runs and she tried really hard to keep her bars up.  We had one off course that alot of dogs were taking.  I’m not sure what I did wrong but if I was in class then I’m quite sure that Toni would have yelled at me for doing something wrong.  I’m sure I sent her off course.  On another course I know that I sent her off course.  I was lost and I saw my arm flick up and of course Vada went and took the jump.  Copper ran well.  He was not walking well by the end of Saturday and could not sit.  So I had Kristin give him a massage.  She said he had alot of pain in his hips.  Also his back needs some attention.  And she did some tiki points on his spleen meridian line.  He needs to go see Dr. Heather again.  After Krisin worked on him  he was feeling MUCH better.  Sunday was a rough day for him.  On his first run I did not line him up on the dog walk and he crashed into it and fell off.  I felt bad.  Also later in the day I wasn’t watching and I stepped on his back foot and he screamed and fell to the floor and curled up in a ball.  I massaged it and gave him cookies and let him watch a BC run to take his mind off his foot.  I thought he was being dramatic but he’s been licking that foot alot since then.  He Q’d in all 8 runs.  Vada Q’d in 6.  She was SO close in Jackpot.  She was 1 stride from the table when the buzzer went off.  The other was the Standard run where she went off course and knocked that jumps bar and we got tagged twice on it from what I was told.  Seven ran awesome!  He needs more work on the chute and teeter.  And lots of work on contacts but I knew that.  He earned 4 Qs for the weekend.  He would have gotten Jackpot as he got the closing but I turned the opening into a training session for the teeter and chute so we did not get enough points.  The others were chutes and contacts.  Prozac had an awesome weekend.  She was miss confidence.  She still was running off but more like she was ditzy and looking around at everything.  “Oh, what’s that over there.  Oh yeah, we were doing agility.”  She even tugged with me at the end of the run with her leash on the last 2 runs.  She Q’d in all runs but the one with the chute.  It’s a training issue.  She hasn’t seen one in years.  We have one at home but have not finished making it yet. 

Karl and Fringe did well.  They have lots of work ahead of them but they have made progress.  They had 3 Qs.  And there were some really nice parts of runs.  She just has lots of enthusiasm and finds this all so very exciting.  Karl did a good job of handling her and staying calm.

Wish I had pics from the trial.  Pug Kelly took a bunch and said she is going to post them on facebook.

Now we can start planning next years trial.  🙂

February and half of March

At the beginning of February we rented out my house in Blaine.  Finally!  We had been working on that thing for over a year!  We’ve got 2 guys renting it out with 2 dogs.  We are very happy with them.  And now we can spend our time and energy on projects in the house we are living in.  🙂

I did 1 day of an ACTS CPE trial with Copper, Vada, Seven and Pro.  They all did well.  Vada now can move up to Level 4 in Wildcard.  She Q’d 3 out of 4 runs.  We had an oops in Jumpers.  Copper also Q’d 3 out of 4 runs.   In Snooker he jumped funny and landed on the jump and I wasn’t sure if he was ok or not and I was wondering why he misjumped and then I sent him off course (he crashed a red and I sent him to the next color).  He was fine and ran fine the rest of the day.  Little things are bigger deals as they get older.  His other runs were much better then the previous trial so I took that to mean he was feeling better.  He is now in Level 4 Jumpers.  Seven went 1 for 2.  I entered him in Jumpers and Snooker.  It was a really hard course for a green dog in Snooker.  He tried but he ran behind me and took a red that we had already taken.  Pro was 2 for 2 in Wildcard and Jumpers.  She ran like a maddog in Wildcard.  I thought maybe someone slipped me someone else’s dog.  It was nice to see.  She did well in Jumpers too.

For Valentine’s Day we stayed home and made dinner.  It was a nice night.  The next day we took a trip to Prior Lake to get the MMBC teeter out of the trailer to start resurfacing it for the CPE trial.

I had dinner with the girls and we went to Eddington’s for soup.  Yum!  We’ve been meeting about once a month and it’s been going well.

We went to the MAC USDAA trial on Sunday.  It is a long drive but there was no snow storm this year!  The dogs did pretty well.  Vada, Seven and Pro were entered.  I got Pro’s second CMJ measurement.  I was not happy with the judge’s measuring and her comments about me standing my dog but we got the right measurement.  She only needs one more measurement by a regular judge to have her height card.  Thank goodness.  I hate measuring so much.  Seven and Vada are both in Advanced Jumpers.  Vada went first and we did ok but did not Q.  I screwed up in a few spots and she went off course and we had a few knocked bars.  I thought maybe it would be too hard for Seven.  I handled him a bit different then I did Vada and he Q’d!  He ran beautifully!  Vada Q’d in Advanced Gamblers (2nd behind Feature by 1 point!) which completes her title and moves her up to Masters Gamblers.  Not sure we’re ready but we’ll do our best.  We did not Q in Snooker.  I back jumped her again.  I am terrible about that.  I don’t remember our Standard run but I’m certain we didn’t Q there either.  Prozac ran half of her P1 Jumpers run well and then shut down on me halfway through.  She was clean but over time from going to visit.  Vada also ran Pairs and did great on her half.  Jan P even cheered from the crowd.  But we ended up being over time.

The Monday and Tuesday after the USDAA trial Susan Garrett stayed and did a seminar.  I was able to take off work.  I worked Vada in the double box session on Monday.  Audited the weaves session on Monday night (everyone audited).  Then I audited Tuesday for beginning handling.  It was a wonderful seminar!  I learned so much and had a great time.  She went from MN to WI and I was so tempted to take the rest of the week off and head to WI to attend that seminar too.  But I had a flare up on Monday was not feeling well so a trip was not in the cards for me.  I will have to wait til next time.

In February Seven started a Super Puppy class at Total Recall.  We are really enjoying it!  He’s brilliant!  And I’m learning different ways of teaching things.  It’s only 6 weeks and after tonight we only have 1 more session left but we will definately continue on with it.

We had Chris out to SchH training the last weekend in February and the first weekend in March.  The first weekend I was very frustrated by our sessions with both dogs.  But the second weekend I was very happy with both sessions with both dogs.  Schutzhund is a very frustration sport for many reasons.

We had lunch with Dad and Dianna at Ruby Tuesdays to celebrate our March birthdays.  It was a great time.  We had dropped off my van to get the rear brakes done so we had to leave by a certain time.  We were there for hours but it still didn’t seem like enough time.  And the food was wonderful!

I had dinner with the girls on Monday.  This time we went to Godfather’s.  Cortney was not able to make it this time.  We have not heard from Chris since October or November last year.  She does not return calls or e-mails.  She is due with her baby next month too.  Anyways, we ate lots of good pizza and we were allowed to take home the leftovers!

Whew, I am caught up.  We have MMBC’s first CPE trial this weekend.  Karl and I have been doing alot of work to make this trial happen.  I’m excited about it and nervous.  I hope that it all goes smoothly and everyone has a great time.  I’ve got my 4 entered in all the classes.  Seven’s weaves and contacts are coming along.  Not really ready for trialing yet but we’ll see where we are at.  Pro is not weaving yet so she’s still in Level 1 for Standard.  Karl and Fringe will be trialing this weekend.  Kind of their debut for “real” trialing (not just me entering her since she’ll be there).  They’ve been in classes for the past few months and he’s been working on contacts and weaves and tables at home alot.  I have a feeling they will do a great job!

Updates

I got far behind this time.  After reading Susan Garrett’s blog I’ve not been motivated much to write in mine as it pales in comparison.  Oh well.  I like my blog as kind of a diary of what I’m up to with the dogs.  I enjoy reading old posts.  And I doubt anyone else even reads this.  🙂  I would like to get better about adding pics.  I love seeing pics in other people’s blogs.

Alot has happened over the last 3 months but nothing really much different.

In December we had alot going on.  Not all dog stuff either.  We went and saw the play Shadowlands at the Guthrie.  I had gotten us tickets (paper) for our 1st anniversary back in October.

We had the MMBC NADAC trial in December also.  It’s a long drive and long days but we enjoy the trial.  I was trial chair this year.  MUCH different then trial secretary which I did the year before.  Much less stress although I do enjoy the secretarial duties.  The dogs ran well.  Narc ran in Tunnelers for his second time ever.  He reared up like a horse at the start line.  We did not Q but I over called him and didn’t anticipate his snappy response to my calls.  Pro started stressing again.  Karl ran her and she did a little better for him.  I’m going to jump her lower at the May trial.  If she continues to stress then agility may just not be her thing and we may have to try obedience.  Copper finished his Elite Regular title.  He was entered in Elite Regular for the first time ever and in only 3 of the 4 runs and he Q’d in every single one!  That is very unusual for him!  Sonic and Seven and Rally finished their TN-N titles.

We spent NYE at Joe and Julie’s doing fondu again.  It was alot of fun as usual.  We do not get to see them often enough.

We had the MMBC banquet at the Park Tavern again this year.  It was alot of fun. Gina did a great job organizing it and came up with fun games.  And our gift was a nice big gym bag with the club logo on it.  Some of us bowled afterwards and had more fun.

ACTS held their first USDAA trial in January at Leatherdale.  We entered Sunday.  Seven finished his P1 Jumpers title and got his last height card measurement as there was a CMJ there.  Very nice judge!  Prozac got her 1st measurement.  I entered her in P1 so she could jump 12″ and if she measured up she would go to 16″ as she will not jump 22″.  I decided that I am going to leave her in Performance though.  She’ll be 8 years old in June and she enjoys it much more.  She also Q’d in P1 Jumpers.  Vada Q’d in Advanced Jumpers and Advanced Snooker.  Her first for both.

I started an Access 2007 class at Hennepin Technical College in Eden Prairie.  Makes for LATE night but I’m really enjoying it.  Karl’s band had a gig.  We had an open house for renting out the Blaine house and no one showed up.

We went to the Animal Inn Banquet for the first time this year.  Wow, what a big event!  We were most impressed.

I audited 2 1/2 day seminars by Dana Pike.  One on contacts and one on weaves.  I also audited a 3 day Greg Doud Schutzhund obedience and mostly protection seminar.

Well, that wraps up December and January.  I’ll have to write about February and March another time.