agility Limbo

We're in agility limbo mode around here. I have one dog who's inching closer to the end of her agility career, another who seems to be really coming together and showing maturity and yet another who is at that age where you think they're for the real thing, their very first trial, but at the same time, there's still so much to learn.

Kittie loves agility, nothing in life comes close to her love of doing agility, a distant second is walking almost anywhere with me. She's a weee bit of train wreck lately....she's always been a bit of a mess. I didn't know any better, so a lot of skills are pretty poorly trained, but she's really falling apart lately, she's arguing (barking) a lot lately on course. It's not from a lack of direction from me, it's things like running past the last weave poles and telling me off. Crashing even more jumps, bailing pretty much all the contacts. She's not slowing down one bit, I can say that! she's not ready for retirement just yet, but we're at the point where I can see it somewhere in the distance. she's only 8, I know that's not young, but to seems too young for this.

Abby just keeps getting better and better in training. We've been working a lot with a toy for her, she tends to get way over the top to the point that she can't think and starts to stress at trials, but she doesn't seem to notice much if she's tugging on her special toy. I'm hoping this will help her cope with the whole trial commotion. She really does have a lot of potential and does love to play.

And then there's little Indy, she's at the point now where she loves the game, has a nice understanding of handling and obstacle skills (much better than the pugs), but she's still such a baby dog. I want to do things right with her, keep things fun. Her time is coming!!

Things are starting to get really fun!!

After several months of training in small buildings on slippery floors with no traction, classes started back up yesterday at the barn. All my dogs love it there. Indy was so excited to be back.

She was having a great time, and to think I thought I needed to work on speed with her......she's really quick when she can stay on her feet!! Couldn't even keep up with her on the dogwalk to get a front cross in at the end, I can live with a problem like that. Luckily I can leave her on the dog walk, and go wherever I need to. She really hasn't had all that much training, she's such a good, FUN girl!

Abby did great too, even finished all the weave poles, a big accomplishment for her, she lacks the patience to stay in them to the end!

Poor Kittie, didn't get a turn last night. Since this is short session and we still have some weekend seminars, I didn't want to have too many runs and risk over working them and Kittie got skipped. she will be running a lot this weekend though. Sorry Kittie, I'll make it up to you.

More training

Yesterday the girls and I went to splash and dash agility to work with Donna. Everyone had so much fun, and did pretty well, other than the usual issues...Kittie dropping bars and Abby's inability to complete a set of weave poles (unless I'm behind her).

Indy's really getting into the game lately. Poor girl could barely stay on her feet on the slick floor, but stayed in the weave poles, good job Indy!! She also did her first full height A frames.

I'm having trouble imbedding the video in this post, but here's a link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfcrMrYR0rU

Snow day

Click here to view these pictures larger

This may be just a little too much snow!! Tried taking the dogs to Boyce park, only to find snow almost waist deep, with no tracks of any kind. Frick park did have a small path packed down from previous crazy people trying to hike in the snow.

I love my car

I don't want to sound like some cheesy commercial, but I really, really love my car.

I have two Subaru Foresters, one has seen better days. It's been my dog-mobile for work ever since I bought it several years back. It's now 12 yrs old, with around 160, 000 miles on it. It's beat up and pretty stinky from hauling dogs all over town, but it keeps going. I have a newer one, that looks better and smells a whole lot better.

We're still dealing with the snow from last weekend (officially 21") and it's coming down again. Pittsburgh public works has been particularly terrible dealing with this storm. Our streets (just outside of the official city limits) are cleared & salted, really better than I would expect them to be, you drive into the city and it's like a bizarre end of the world movie, the national guard is driving around, the majority of streets haven't been touched, streets are blocked by abandoned vehicles, every corner you turn, someone's car is stuck. People are commuting by cross country skis!

Luckily, I've had a fairly light work week. Anyone with sense has cancelled, but there's always a few who still have to work, and just can't bear their dogs being alone even one day, so out I go (I don't have much sense). It takes forever to get anywhere, you have to drive blocks in the wrong direction sometimes just to get around all the cars stuck in the snow, but I'm getting there!! My car is just amazing, it's like having my own personal snow cat!

Was planning to get a newer car soon and was thinking of a Honda Odyssey this time, but I'm not so sure if this is what our winters may be like.

Do we really need this much snow?

It started snowing Friday afternoon, but wasn't really even covering the ground until the evening. We woke up to about 17" inches! I don't know where all of it is going to go, the city is still a complete mess. All we did yesterday was dig out the driveway and the cars, and run around the yard making little paths for the dogs.

Throw the snowball!!

The pugs are not impressed, they're fine with small amounts of snow, but this is just crazy. Indy on the other hand loves it. As soon as she dries off, she wants to go right back outside. She's become a tad o.c.d. about throwing snowballs.

It's going to be a very muddy spring........

Training

Here's a quick video of Indy this past Saturday. Overall she's looking pretty good, but she seems to be going through a bit of timid stage. Some dogs were barking at her every time she went over the A frame a few weeks ago, and she's lost some spunk ever since. Not too worried though, they all go through various phases. She's a lot of fun and really coming together nicely.