Christmas with the herd

We took the traditional picture in front of the tree, and everyone stayed in place rather well, tho apparently Rick can't take a picture in focus - this was the best one.  ;-)

 

Of course, Kitty wasn't about to pose with those awful dogs...

On Christmas day, Kitty got tuna fish and the dogs all got bones.  Here Teaz and Rapid chew theirs in harmony...

While Princess Proxy must be alone!

Shaping

Because I have nothing better to do right now and a bunch of dogs to train, I decided to try shaping a retrieve with Rapid (Schipperke) and Brisa (Curly).  Rapid is just barely a year old, bright, biddable, food driven, likes to work and naturally carries toys around.  When he was very young, he would actually retrieve, but the deliver to hand part fell by the wayside fairly soon. 

Rap retrieving as a biddy pup

Brisa is five and a half, has been force fetched by me, is either not too smart and/or rather stubborn, food driven, would rather be a couch potato and has little natural carry. 

Brisa retrieving a duck last June

Rapid started a little more than a week before Brisa, but is miles ahead of her in progress.  After a little more than two weeks of almost daily work, he will pick up the dumbbell and put it in my hand.  He almost always gets right to work instead of wandering around the house checking other things out - as far as he is concerned, getting me to give him treats is Job One!  ;-)

Brisa on the other hand is coming along slowly, despite the fact she know how to retrieve - I'm not using any commands however, as I want this experiment to be as close to clicker training a retrieve as I'm willing to get.  However, even tho she has to know what to do with a dumbbell when it is presented to her, she spends a lot of time avoiding by sniffing my hands, wandering off, sniffing the treat box on the desk, etc.  She is up to more or less briefly picking the dumbbell off of the floor; I say more or less because we are still doing a lot of avoiding despite the heavy rewarding for any lifting of the dumbbell off of the floor.

I may have to do Brisa's training using her dinner as the rewards rather than doing it at night a couple of hours after dinner.  She willingly eats the treats and seems to really want to work for them, but it may be that she needs to be hungry to get to the point of knocking off the avoiding work thing.

Or not.  Brisa simply doesn't have much desire to work and will get out of it whenever she can.  Her mother was even worse, so she comes by this honestly.  I decided to experiment with shaping with her to see if that might make her more willing to work, so we'll see!  Unless she stops trying and/or progressing, I'll keep at it.

More destruction

Someday, hopefully soon, I'll be able to post pictures of a completely finished house, but until then here are photos of the work in progress.  In the living room over the fireplace the original owner had put up more of the wood cladding, and that came down today.

Before:

 and after!

Now Rick will "mud" the damage to the drywall and I'll sand it after it dries.

The original owner also put decorative beams in the dining room, which seems silly to me because they make a small room look even smaller.  So those came out today too.

Before 

and half way thru after!

Just because I like it!

CCRCA national specialty

Our national specialty was Sept 11 - 15, in Beachwood Ohio, at a very nice hotel (that I have already forgotten the name of!).  There was even a pond inside, with goldfish and turtles.

We could get free food from the front desk; one turtle thought we weren't throwing enough to him...

We got obedience out of the way right on the first morning, and Proxy was High in Trial and High Combined, winning both Open and Utility.  Lotsa loot!

That evening we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Unfortunately they don't let you take pictures of the exhibits - this was one of the oversized guitars that were ringing the fountain out front.

After a couple of days of drinking, er, conformation, we went out to watch the field dogs.  The grounds are owned by the Buckeye Retriever Club and they are really nice.  If Ohio didn't have weather, I'd consider moving there.  ;-)

A bumper being used as a bumper!

I found some great flowers!

Then the long trek home - our connecting flight in Dallas was three hours late!  Proxy and Lucky Kitty are both bored.

Catching up

We've been doing more traveling to obedience trials - Spokane, WA, Reno, NV (that one with Rick!) and Grass Valley, CA.  Proxy is up to 67 OTCh points now, winning 20 in Spokane with two Utility Firsts and a High Combined ...

... and in Reno she won another 20 points by winning Utility AND finally getting her Open First as well, which also gave her High in Trial and High Combined.  Plus she finished her UDX and OM3 there...

... and, in Grass Valley she crashed and burned, only managing to Q in 3 out of 8 classes!  Maybe too much tracking.  <G>

On the way to Spokane I took some pictures of flowers -

and a picture of the moon reflected in both Klamath Lake and my rear view mirror.

On the way home from Reno, Proxy got to fetch bumpers from Lake Topaz.

fish

I should stay out of pet stores - every time I go in there, usually to buy the joint health kitty treats for Psycho Kitty, I look at the fish and many times I end up buying one.  This is the latest one, an almost halfmoon blue butterfly Betta that I just couldn't resist!

 

On the way out of town to go to the Truckee trials, I just had to get this bitty feeder Goldfish.  He made it all the way to Reno and back just fine, but when I put him in the big tank he disappeared.

 

This is the big tank, with six adult Goldfish in it - they are hard to get a photo of since they never stop moving and begging for food.  ;-)  All except the calico one were feeders.

 

I want to set up another tank for Goldfish as this one is maxed out, but I don't have any place to put it!

 

Boredom

Proxy was spayed on Tuesday, spent most of Wednesday getting over it and today, she is BORED!  We've done a very little bit of heeling and some fronts/finishes but I'm sure she'd rather be running, jumping and fetching.

 

Because it's so hot and humid, I'm not getting much done with the other dogs (or anything really).  So I've been giving them things to destroy in the back yard - I'll have to go out and scoop up all the little bits later, but at least they are enjoying themselves.  Here, Rapid and Teaz work on a Cheerios box.

 

Weird weather

The whole herd and I went to Reno for three trials.  The good news is Proxy is still working well and managed to earn 4 more OTCh points in heavy competition.  The bad news was the weird weather!  It was HOT and HUMID in Reno, and the building the trial was in only had swamp coolers, which couldn't keep up.  So right away on Thursday I bought a big fan, which was a blessing, tho I wasn't able to cram it into the car to bring home so I donated it to the club.

The drive home was...interesting.  The temperature changed a lot -

 

We hit a hail storm so bad I had to pull to the shoulder twice - 

Those blurry white lines are hail buildup on the freeway.  Sometimes it came down so hard and fast I couldn't see at all.  Fun.  I was lucky in that I'd stopped not long before this and got a nice picture of Teaz with some of the native wildflowers.

More obedience

The trip to Oregon was fun and Proxy worked hard, passing five out of six classes, but we just couldn't quite get into the points.  Twice tied for Fourth was the best we could do due to heavy competition.

The next weekend we were off to Ventura for three trials.  I wasn't really keen on two trips in a row but I hadn't paid attention to the fact that Oregon was the end of June and Ventura the beginning of July!  Proxy did good work again, passing three out of four classes and winning five more OTCh points on Sunday.

It was a fun weekend and nice to be able to go out to dinner with good friends three nights in a row.  The only downside was the fact we were parked next to this thing, which made sleeping interesting.

At least it didn't rain on us, as it did in Oregon.  Next trip is in a couple of weeks, to Reno!

catch up time

We've been pretty busy lately, doing a variety of things, such as lure coursing -

Rapid's bunny butt!

Teaz closes in on the lure.

Brisa came back for a visit and has been fitting right in -

Been doing a little field training -

Brisa swims

Teaz and Rapid jump.

and Proxy won a High in Trial and High Combined at the Bahia Sur KC trial.

 

Wednesday morning after we train with the Heartwell group we (Proxy, Teaz and I) are leaving for Redmond, OR , for three trials.  Big entries so I am hoping that Proxy can hold it together at least once out of six for some points!

misc stuff

The work on the house continues.  Rick has painted most of the big room at the back of the house and taken down the "popcorn" on the ceiling.

 

 We've been going to obedience and Rally trials - Proxy keeps blowing wins, sigh, but Teaz finished her RN and has two legs on her RA, both with placements.

House plants continue to bloom, such as this spider plant

and the other day Kitty had a meeting on the bed with all of her minions <G>

Last couple of weeks

The third weekend of April the girls and I traveled up to Vallejo for conformation and obedience competition.  Proxy won two more OTCh points but the star of the weekend was Teaz.  She won two Ch points and two BN legs with Second and First, to finish that title.

 

The next weekend I ring stewarded in obedience for back to back Lab specialties, which is way too much work!  ;-)  No flowers so I took pictures of birds - two of a Western Bluebird

and one of an Acorn Woodpecker.  Next weekend I am ring stewarding on Saturday AND showing - ought to be fun, cough.