The obedience trial in Idaho Falls was fun. Mainly it told me that Levi is not ready for Open! 
He was in Open A, and while he did some good work with his dumbbell, his broad jump and his drop on recall are not quite up to par yet. But that’s okay, because I know where we are much better now!
Levi is doing really well though. He heels so nicely. I entered him in Novice B obedience in ASCA this Sunday. I was going to do both days, but I need some down time this weekend. And since I’m doing flyball practice on Sunday and will be out anyway, I figured Saturday would be my down day.
The first picture up there is of Chase and Levi on the Snake River… and the second is Tatum. Isn’t she cute? LOL of course. My friend Marie took them with my camera. I need to get her copies of her dogs! I’d post them but she really should post them on her own blog, I was thinking. 
The third picture is of our camp again. It was so nice staying in the trailer. $27.00 a night so beats $120 a night for a hotel! It was more work, but that’s okay, it was worth it. And the dogs seemed to relax and have a good time too. And Levi and Chase are both comfortable in the trailer, and Tatum was also, and the shelties seem to like it okay too! The dogs didn’t even bark too much. They seemed to get used to the strange sounds pretty quickly.
So no Qs for Levi this weekend, and I pulled him the third day because it would have been a waste of time. And I didn’t want him to learn bad things in the ring. And on the second day he laid down on his sit stay (the first day he sat though I was so proud!), and then on the long down (5 minutes out of sight) he rolled around on his back (I am told, lol) and did his goofy woofing thing, then got up and went looking for me. LOL what a goof. But he had fun and I’m glad he did!
Chase was in rally and, once again, he was pretty awful. He just doesn’t have any focus on me when the treats go away. I only ran him through the first day. I pulled him the second and third days. I don’t want Qs like that, I want some attention from that boy! We are going to work on it and we have some ideas.
Fortunately the trailer sheets didn’t make me break out in hives,which some sheets have been doing lately. Bleh. I was very comfortable and it was nice being cool again! I should have brought a jacket, though, and didn’t need any Proactiv acne cream, fortunately!
I liked pulling the trailer.. yes, I actually liked it! It was great to stay at the RV park instead of in a hotel!
I have a lot to post about! First.. here is our camp! We had a great time at the RV Park. Snake River RV Park inm Idaho Falls, Idaho… the people were amazingly wonderful! And it’s a very dog friendly RV park. As you can see, too, we camped on grass which was very nice. And the dogs enjoyed the trailer, and even Chase was nice to the shelties we camped with (Rogue and Twist!)
My cell phone was being weird from there, though, sending blank text I guess! But maybe if I had some unlocked cell phones it would have worked better. No worries, we had my new GPS unit so we were able to find our way to the show site and back quite easily. As well as to food places and ice cream stores!
The show site was very nice, too, and I’ll post about it later, as well as how Levi did. Briefly, no Qs, but he was a sweet boy and had a lot of fun! And that’s the best part!
I am back.. and pretty tired. The RV Park did have wireless internet. However, I forgot my laptop power cable and so could only turn the laptop on occasionally. I have a small battery, and it lasts only about an hour.
And so this is short, I’ll write more tomorrow about how everything went. Nutshell… Levi hasn’t been trained enough in Open Obedience to really know what’s going on. But he was happy and that was good. I have some videos too that I’ll have to post up.
Pulling the popup trailer up was fun, we had everything we needed but the vessel sinks and that we didn’t really need!
I’m tired, it’s only 8:30 on this Monday evening and I’m going to bed!
The happiest thing I can see in life is when a dog gets an amazing, wonderful, great home. And this girl has found it. Her name was Penny when she was at the Spanish Fork shelter two days ago. Today.. well, we are not sure what her new name is yet (Kia or Cami?) but regardless, she is one happy girl and she has no idea, as of yet, the great life she has fallen into.
I spotted her on Petfinder as I knew some friends of mine were interested in adopting a young border collie girl. They have two older dogs, Dylan and Hope, which are also wonderful dogs. And they were ready to bring another young girl into their home to have as a companion, best friend, and a flyball dog.
They discovered this cute girl on Petfinder, went down (about an hour drive) to the Spanish Fork Shelter to meet her. Instantly they fell in love with her, snatched her up, and brought her home. She’s about eight or nine months old, very spunky and friendly with dogs and people, and she’s going to be a great flyball dog! She was too wiggly to get a really good picture of her, but I plan on trying a lot in the future!
Tatum was saying on her blog, the other day, that it’s hard for dogs to get in trouble at our house. And my husband said it once, too, when Muffit came back to live with us. And it’s true. Dogs just don’t get in trouble at our house.
I love this picture because it’s a perfect example. The dog who is looking at the camera is Bianca, one of the rescue collies we got from Houston Texas last year. And Tatum is the monster who still has her head buried in the roll of paper towels.
But as for a disclaimer… I have to say that our house is pretty dog proof. And if we leave a roll of paper towels out where the dogs can get them, well it’s our own fault, not the dogs.
Also, punishing a dog for something after the fact only makes the dog afraid of you. It doesn’t teach the dog anything. So if one of our dogs poops or pees in the house, oh well, we clean it up and go on with life. And Lucy and Angel are both getting old so this is happening more often than we would like. We just try to take them outside to potty more often than we used to.
Tatum ‘read’ a magazine the other day. It ended up all over the bedroom floor. But you know, I can’t bear to punish her. She has such a spirit and I don’t want to make her afraid of me. And oh yeah.. well, I gave her the magazine. Because I didn’t want her to ‘read’ my library book that she was starting to chew on! So really we trade our dogs something they can have, for something we don’t want them to have. Maybe they can chew up some futures broker someday… ooo that might be good!
Dogs are dogs, and toys are toys, and in our house, if it’s left out, it’s pretty much fair game to be used as a toy. We love our dogs more than our things. And we do have rules. Like Tatum said in her post, sometimes they are just hard to find. But the rules are there, we just enforce them in ways that do not entail punishment. Rather we redirect, we exercise, we do other things so the dogs are successful. And if they do something they really shouldn’t (like Chase going after another of our dogs) he might get a scruff shake or a hard ‘no’, but that’s about it anymore.
I used to do the correction thing, and you still might see me roll a dog and hold him/her down occasionally to make sure they know I am boss. But other than that, we have a happy dog house. And we want a happy dog house!
My silly smooth sable collie girl, Tatum, has decided to start a new blogrolling list called Entredog. I haven’t even gotten myself on it yet! Mainly it’s for dogs who write their own blogs… so that’s not really me. But she probably won’t say no if you are a human writing a blog about your dogs.
So if you have Entrecard, and are a dog who writes a blog… or if you want to get Entrecard, or if you want to be a dog writing a blog…. (lol) then feel free to go sign up with her! She is a goof and silly and has a heart like gold and a soul like fire. And I adore her!
She got the idea from the Entrecat blogrolls she’s been seeing around… and we hope it’s okay to copy the idea!
Just finished feeding Lucy in her chair. Thanks everyone for the comments about her chair! She does well in it, still struggling a bit but she’ll get better. And she does get yummy food in her chair!
This is a picture of Cue, my friend in Colorado just brought her home a couple weeks ago. Isn’t she a doll!? What a cutie. So confident, well bred, and pretty too! Oh.. and a quick note, I had a car accident last Friday, and that’s why my posting has been a bit spotty as of late. I hope to get some more posting in in the next few days. Didn’t need to use term life for the accident. I think I’m okay, but sometimes it can take a few days for the injuries to come out. So we’ll see.
I may be off the computer today, I hope to go see The Mummy, and then flyball practice after. Should be a fun day.
|
 |
 |
| Pet Medications - Find discounted pet medications at PetCareRX |
