Wednesday, January 26, 2011

loss

Bill's dad died this past sunday. Death is so hard to deal with, even when the person is older, has health issues and you were prepared that it could happen in the near future. It's an intense experience, that brings back past experiences when loved ones passed.

Bill seems to be hanging in there, handling things quite well. He had a conversation with his dad over Thanksgiving and apparently his dad told him he was "fine with dying, had no fear of it and had done everything he wanted to do" Everyone should feel so at peace late in life!

We truly have some of the best friends, our dogs were well cared for in a moments notice and we came home to great food prepared for us.

The whole thing really threw Indy for a loop, she's never spent a night away from me...heck she's barely spent more than a few hours at a time away from me, and she's been somewhat weird (hanging out with Rudy??, giving me pissed off dirty looks from a distance and pitching a fit and dashing out into the yard and refusing to come back in every time I try to leave the house.) Makes me wonder how dogs cope with being dropped off a kennel?! She'll rebound I'm sure. The pugs didn't care one bit, they love their aunt Danielle.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

new years trial 2011 Indy & Kittie

Finally got the video from New Years weekend uploaded.

X country Skiing

This past weekend Bill & I tried XC skiing for the first time. We've been talking about it for a while, but we weren't sure if we'd actually enjoy it.... too slow, too hard to stop with no edge, fear of getting hurt. We had a lot of fun, it's absurdly easy to get started, practically zero learning curve! Okay, I'm still figuring out just how to stop, but fun none the less! I think once we go a few more times it would be a lot of fun to bring along a dog or two, I think Kittie & Indy would LOVE it.

So much fun to try something new, I thought for sure we'd wake up sore, but not at all, go figure!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Better


Totally better than any trial, especially better than a trial in Edinboro




Edinboro trials?

Seriously, why do I enter trials held in Edinboro in the Winter? Oh, wait, because it's just about the only place trials are held within two hours of here over the winter. Edinboro has got to be the worst place ever, there's a lake effect snow warning for a solid 4 months of the year I think. Normally I just take off this time of the year, but I wanted to do a few trials over the winter with Indy.

So we got up bright and early and started our drive into the winter wonderland. We had a little dusting over night, but nothing to worry about. The drive was going fine until we got just out of the city and the roads were a bit snow covered, most cars were going pretty slow, but there's always a few that just don't seem to get it, it was getting worse and worse and I just had a bad feeling, and was really worried about driving back home at the end of the day, so we decided to just a call it a day and head home. Just not worth it, I'd rather play in the snow with the dogs here and be safe.

Not two minutes later I see a car sliding out of control on the other side of the highway, it flips right over the guard rail and is flipping across the grass between lanes....heading right for us. The guard rail on our side of the highway stopped it before coming into on coming traffic. That will get the heart racing!!

Glad to be home.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Focused Indy

I love this picture of Indy. It was taken of her by a friend at agility practice a few weeks ago.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Happy New Year

While I'm not big on typical new years celebrations. I do really love New years, it's a great time to reflect and think about new goals and how to go about reaching those goals.

Here are my goals for the New year, some are dog/agility related and others aren't

in no particular order:
-Get in a better habit of taking care of myself. I'm outside all the time, and being in harsh weather that much can really start to beat you up. I can be a such a tomboy at times, I need to get in touch with my girly side. I do have one, in fact I was a total priss when I was younger!

-Learn to run faster with my dogs. I'm a decent sprinter, but put a dog with me, and all my speed disappears, I need to learn how to cue a dog in agility and really RUN at the same time.

-Continue working on my mental game. I sometimes can be over excited at trials, and others I feel completely under aroused. I'm getting better.

- Qualify for 2012 nationals with Indy, continue to work towards trusting my dog(s) and really running like it's a big game of chase, let Kittie continue occasionally running in agility trials, let Abby just be Abby....maybe she'll do agility or maybe she won't and be okay with whatever happens.


We spent New years weekend at a trial Zanesville OH. It was really fun, the trial was run well and it's such a nice venue. Kittie who was supposed to be retired ran amazingly well. She loves agility. She's a tad high maintenance, so it really helped to have Bill's help. I can't bring myself to retire her, so I think for now she will continue to run, but only at trials on good surfaces/equipment and when I will have Bill around to help. Indy did really well too. She would have been clean in 3 out of 4 runs if weren't for the weaves. she needs exactly 2 tries to complete them. I have some ideas of what may be going on, and we're going to try to work on it, I think it's also just part of being a baby dog too. She's doing great though, and she's a blast to run!