Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween

Ok, I've been accused of being a Halloween Grinch. Is that really possible? I just don't enjoy having the dogs react to the doorbell. I have not trained them to "ignore" the doorbell. Oh, well. Perhaps I am a Halloween Grinch. :)

I have finished yet another hat for Alix. :) It's a cookie monster hat. I delivered her newest hat to her this morning. Gosh, she's about the cutest baby EVER! I know, I'm totally biased, but seriously look at her. :)


Hope you have a Happy Halloween, but don't ring my doorbell and expect anything except to be barked at by 4 scary dogs :0
Does Bah Humbug apply to Halloween?

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Remembering Jay

Happy Birthday Jay!!


I would have loved to throw you a 50th Birthday party today! Everyone would have had a great time!



I miss you and love you forever,
Kristie

Thursday, October 23, 2008

monkey love

Thought this was too cute!

dog
see more puppies

Monday, October 20, 2008

What a weekend!


I had a really great weekend! Brindi did too! We entered a UKC agility trial this weekend out at our trainer's. It was a lot of FUN! This is the first UKC trial we have entered in. Each day there were 2 trials, made up of 3 categories. I entered Brindi in AG1, which has most of the standard agility equipment and a couple of unique pieces of equipment, and AG2, which has more unique equipment. The categories are a bit confusing for me. :)

I can see improvements in every run me and Brindi have. Small successes like getting 3 obstacles in a row are HUGE in my book. She ran well Saturday, and then Sunday morning she ran with drive like I've never seen. She won second place in the 2 AG1 trials that morning. And those were Qualifying scores too! So she won 4 ribbons! Plus she earned 2 legs towards her AG1 title. I think she has to have 3 legs before she earns a title in UKC. I'm still trying to learn all about titling in these venues too. Lots to learn! Brindi did pretty good on her remaining 2 runs on Sunday. No "Q's" or placements but she ran well and we learned a lot. I really enjoy playing this game with her, and I think she likes it too!


On the knitting front. I have finished an Elmo hat for Alix. I dropped in on her Sunday to give her the hat. I think she likes it. I know it's a big hit with her mom and dad. I think Alix likes the hat better when it's not on her head though. She likes to look at it and smile. !!!! She's so CUTE!!!



Hope you all had a good weekend. I'm actually looking forward to next weekend. I actually get to sleep in! No agility trials. I do hope we have practice on Saturday though!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Brindi's first "Q"

We had a GREAT weekend at the trial in Princeton. I can honestly say that I think Brindi and I are becoming a better team. The weekend started off too early for me though. The walk thru for Touch and Go started at 7 am and all classes (Novice, Open, and Elite) walked at the same time. I am NOT a morning person. I am even less of a morning person on the weekends, even when the weekend is full of dogs and fun. :) So, I got to the trial a little late and by the time I had my stuff set up (crate, chairs, mat) the time for walk thru's was over. So, I had to watch the Elite, Open, and other Novice handlers to learn the course. I don't recommend that. Brindi did well considering I wasn't prepared. I think she finished 7th of about 10 dogs. Then we had a lot of time to watch other runs and hang out with some really cool people and their dogs. I am new to the ACE club and still meeting members. They are a great group of people. :)

Brindi and I were entered in 3 events for the day, and the last 2 were the very last 2 of the day. Regular agility 1 and 2. I was more prepared for those runs. Brindi did great in both runs. She finished 5th in round 1 and 4th in round 2. We gained a lot more experience and had a great time too. (oh, and she got a ribbon for placing 4th :)

After those runs, we headed home. It was about 5 pm when we got home. Brindi and I were both dog tired. :) The girls at home were just raring to go though. So we played a while and then calmed down for the evening.

Bright and way too early Sunday morning we headed back to Princeton. This time I brought Cosmo along to help cheerlead Brindi. Walk thru's began at 7 am again. Luckily for us the first events of the day were Regular agility 1 and 2. Regular agility has different obstacles for different levels, so the Elite group walked and ran their courses (both round 1 and 2), then the Open group walked and ran both their courses, and then it was time for the Novice group to walk and run their courses. We're in the Novice group. Brindi was ready to go and have a good time playing this game we call agility. We had 2 great rounds of regular agility. I was very impressed with the way she ran. I am starting to see some real improvements in how we work together and ways to help me be a better handler. And Brindi is doing much better taking sequences of obstacles. It's really cool to see improvement. Brindi placed 4th in round 1 and 3rd in round 2. It was great. Our next run would be just about the last run of the day. I had her entered in Tunnelers. So we got to spend the afternoon cheering on the others running. I'd say Tunnelers is Brindi's most favorite class. She LOVES tunnels. She is a true Tunnel sucker! She has a hard time passing up tunnels. So Tunnelers is AWESOME! Brindi didn't let me down. She even put wheels on. She had speed like I'd not seen. Our friends watching had never seen it either. It was AWESOME!! Brindi did great. I even baubled and almost sent her to a wrong tunnel, but she listened to me when I called her back. She did GREAT!! That was her best run ever. Some of the people we have trained with came up and told us how well we had done. I even heard the judge cheering for us. It was very COOL. And I swear Brindi was smiling while she ran.

And when the results were posted Brindi had gotten her first Qualifying score!!! I am still very new to agility and haven't really learned all the ins and outs yet, but a "Q" (to me) means that she met the course time. So she now has 10 points toward her NADAC Novice tunnelers title. :) She earned a purple "Q" ribbon and she also placed in 2nd, so she got a red ribbon for that. I cried and my agility friends were there with hugs and congratulations for me and Brindi!



It was a GREAT weekend.

Friday, October 10, 2008

50th post - Fitz the dog whisperer

First of all I want to say that the following blog is TRUE!

From the name of my blog you can probably guess that I have dogs and cats. I have 4 dogs, 3 cats, and a turtle. They are my family, they are who I take care of, and I enjoy my life. The dogs are usually more entertainment than the cats. However, I have a cat, Fitz, who must think he's a dog. He comes running to me when I call his name. He is sociable and cuddly. Alley and Evie would never stoop so low.

Here is a picture of Fitz and Gracie,one of our buds from Indy.


Ok. So I have been doing the dogs dinner times different lately. 3 out of 4 of my dogs are overweight, and the 4th dog is on different food than the others. I feed them twice a day and they are very eager to eat when its time. I have also been making them sit by their stands and wait for me to fill their bowls. I gather the bowls and measure out their kibble and they are to sit and stay. I try to mix it up so that sometimes Cosmo (special food dog) gets fed first and sometimes Darby gets fed first. I am trying to teach Darby to have an energetic response when I say "ok" (for her agility training). So I put her kibble in her stand and tell her to "wait". For some reason this causes Sadie and Cosmo (on the other side of the kitchen) to scramble (on linoleum) over to see what she's "waiting" for. This causes me to yell at them to get back, sit and stay! After that I return to Darby who is waiting (with drool falling out of her mouth) and tell her "OK". This causes Sadie and Cosmo to lose their minds once again. I tell them to get back, sit down, and stay. All the while Brindi is being good and staying at her station. I feed her, then move to Cosmo, and then Sadie. Well the other night Sadie was having some problems understanding me and she kept breaking her stay. So I kept sending her back, telling her to stay, etc. I even walked her back to her spot and reminded her what I was asking her to do, when all of a sudden Fitz jumps up on Sadie's back and bites the back of her neck. He's like "Would you listen to her so she will shut up!". I have never seen anything like this before. Sadie is my lab and is so submissive she bows to puppies. She just laid down when Fitz did this. It was weird.

Anyhow, we are still working on keeping Cosmo and Sadie in their spots at dinner time. Maybe with Fitz's help they'll learn soon.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Busy weekend ahead

Brindi and I have an agility trial this weekend. It's a NADAC trial and will be held in Princeton. I really like the NADAC trials, they are a lot of fun. They offer a wider variety of classes, they have standard agility, tunnelers (nothing but tunnels), Touch and Go, weavers, jumpers, and a new class called hoopers. I think Brindi likes running NADAC too. The last NADAC trial we went to had hoops instead of jumps in the Touch and Go class. She really liked that. Brindi is not a big fan of jumping yet. This weekend she's entered in 2 rounds of standard agility each day, touch and go on Saturday, and tunnelers on Sunday. It's bound to be a fun weekend!

Knitting helper


One day about 5 years ago I came home to find my sweet Sadie in a similar situation. My house looked like a spider web of yarn. It was too funny!
Of course I learned a valuable lesson. I now keep my projects under lock and key :)