Videos from the Barn - January 28th, 2012

With the busy day yesterday it took me a bit to get videos processed and uploaded.
Here's Teller working on his obedience:


And Kipling working on Figure-8's and speed circles:

Tuesday at the Barn - January 24th, 2012

A light agility day for Teller at the barn today - it's been months since he's worked any formal heelwork (or any of the open/utility exercises for that matter). If my goal is to get that CDX this year I need to train a bit of obedience here and there. So here is a very rusty Teller-Woo pretending to be an obedience dog. He loves to play the game - any game...this dog is such a huge piece of my soul.



He did get to play a bit of agility after all that 'work':

Kipling got off easy tonight - no obedience for Kippie, but probably the hardest sequences he's seen to date. He was particularly amazing in the baby sends to the jump #1 while I moved away for crosses. Don't quite remember teaching him that trick :-)

And Kippie the video:

Then and Now...

Every so often I stumble upon a picture of Teller at exactly the same age Kipling is now, yesterday was one of those 'so oftens':

Murphy (3 years) and Teller (8.5 months)

Murphy (7.5 years), Kipling (8.5 months) and Teller (5 years)

Happy Birthday Teller!

His nobs at five years old.

My perfect Teller - my heart dog, my best boy turned five yesterday. Where does the time go? It seems like yesterday I was there as a newborn, trying to keep you from climbing out of an incubator while you screamed at me for my efforts :-)

 Happy Birthday Teller-Woo - MACH, Canadian Champion, CD, RN, NAP NJP NF, CCA, CGC, CGN...In honor of your birthday Mother Nature gave us sunshine and 57 degrees - how thoughtful of you to share it with us :-)

It's official!

Finishing an AKC MACh is like running a race, crossing the finish line in first place, drinking the gatorade and then heading back home to wait a month while the race results are certified...You keep compulsively checking the race results and find out that the officials are still tabulating the metrics. This week I sent in my first MACh Teller dog show entries, that was cool - even cooler was the trial secretary who updated her records (without notification) to send out show confirmations already addressed to MACh Teller :-)

All great things, but I still had to wait for the American Kennel Club to catch up (there are a lot of events, a lot of entries, a lot of results - all these things take time). Well now - three and a half weeks later, the results are finally in - AKC has officially recorded Teller's MACh. We're official!

AKC has even started our countdown to MACH2 (I'm not so sure about that). When AKC catches up we're at 1 Double Q and nearly 200 points to the MACH2 - that's a long way to go! I do need to go back for that last CDX leg though!

It's a bird...it's a plane...

From 12/3

It's a flying Kipling!  I wanted to recreate the shot from last weekend with Kipling galloping at the camera - all four feet off the ground. It wasn't the tightest focus on him and Teller wasn't at a particularly flattering position in his gallop. Kipling is mostly in focus - the expression is perfect goofy puppy excitement.

So - here's the hard part, go out and create the same conditions and get the same shot AGAIN. You talk to 5 photographers and they all have one of 'those' shots that they wish they could get again - a little more light, a little sharper focus, a different background, better exposure - you name it. One of my good friends has such a shot (for her it was sharpness) and has been back to the same place six times to try to catch that shot again - without any luck. Could I get another 'airs above the ground' with Kipling?

Well of course not - the expression plus the pose plus the light - It's so hard to duplicate every variable - though I certainly think it's easier with landscapes than with living subjects...

Here's the best one:

12/12 - kind of a grown-up expression, but there is still glee!

And then some others - what I did learn is that I have a nice wait and a good recall. Only Teller was out with us today - but Kippie totally ignored the soccer playing school children on the enjoying recess on the adjoining field.

 And some other shots:

Kipling Come! The Pre-launch.

Good wait.

Good wait.

Teller supervising from a sit-stay.

Saturday in the Park...

Certainly not the 4th of July....but nevertheless, still no snow here in Vermont and with temperatures in the upper 30's with brilliant sun we HAD to make good use of the day. So I packed up everyone headed to morning run-throughs with Teller and then stopped for a 'run' on the way home.

Three dogs are hard in the event that we run into kids, bikes, random unfriendly dogs, etc - especially if I also have a camera. So the boys played in groups of two - Kippie/Teller and Murphy/Teller - much easier for me to keep an eye on everyone. PLUS, it was really good for Kipling to have a good tantrum at being the one left-behind in the car for a little while (think toller-screams) - he will need to learn to be in a crate near an agility ring (and be quiet) while I run Teller - might as well work through this disappointment now. Advantage power doors, from 50' away I have the ability to open and close 'his' door. It's pretty simple when he screams the door closes...When he's quiet the door opens (and he can watch). I think he had three closures before he settled and watched quietly.

AND....They're OFF! Down the backstretch!

Pentax K-r

"Playful and Foolish"

Pentax K-r

Teller in full gallop.

Pentax K-r

And Kipling at full speed. He's looking like a 'yearling' now. A bit gawky.

Pentax K-r

Teller with the inflation

Pentax K-r

Portrait

Pentax K-r

Another Portrait

Pentax K-r

Levitating Puppy.

Pentax K-r

They have THREE acres to gallop on...and they choose to be 2" apart.

Pentax K-r

Somebody packed their 'crazy eyes'

Pentax K-r

And another portrait.

Pentax K-r

Murphy's turn!

Pentax K-r

Murphy practicing his hunter-pace trot on the forehand....

Pentax K-r

Look at this angle in this light you can't see the giant bald spot on his face!

Pentax K-r

Air Murphy

Pentax K-r

Murphy

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Murphy

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Murphy settles in to graze, all the udders have been retrieved. Must be time

to go home now....

Pentax K-r

The 2011 Cluster - Part Two

So here's the rest of the cluster report...

November in New England can mean any number of things: snow, sleet, sideways rain, constant drizzle, black ice, mittens, 40 mph winter winds, highs in the mid-30's....In fact on Wednesday (Thursday was my travel day) we had several inches of really heavy wet snow - it was a pretty drive through the mountains though!

But, for all four days of the agility portion of the cluster (Friday-Monday) the weather was absolutely perfect! Highs were in the mid to upper 50's, the sun was out, light breeze. Dogs were perfectly comfortable in the van with windows and doors open. Lows at night were in the mid to low 40's. The buildings stayed pretty cool during the entire weekend, most folks were comfortable in sweatshirts or polo shirts - perfect Woo agility temperatures! No one froze walking their dogs around grounds - it was a bit of a bummer arriving to the trial site in the dark and then leaving the trial site in the dark - but I couldn't have custom ordered better weather, even for an indoor trial. Imagine New England in November in a t-shirt!

And on Thanksgiving I give thanks for my dogs - who are 

probably the kindest souls I have ever had a chance to 

know. Above: Kipling and Murphy hunker down to enjoy 

chewies together. Note the matching 'froggie' chewing style.

Secondly, let me just say how much I love my agility friends - truly awesome human-beings to whom I am so so so grateful to count among my friends. Just awesome people. When non-dog friends (I have a few) want to know why I spend so much time on the road, training my dogs, in various barns and backyards, spend so much money on 'dogs' - it's clear that they don't understand the community that exists in our sport. That most competitors root for everyone else, sure there are exceptions - but we're out there to have fun with our dogs and fun with our friends on the weekend. Some folks tackle mountains - we tackle courses and spend a lot of that time working as a team.

From Margaret and Debbie a MACH bracelet
to match my QQ bracelet!

We got to celebrate a lot of successes this year - the cluster is the cut-off to qualify for the 2012 AKC Agility Championships held every year in March - so many of our friends qualified to go to Reno, NV this year! Teller and I qualified for Reno back in March - we still have a bit of time to decide whether or not to go - it's hard to make a 5,000 mile round-trip happen from a logistical and financial standpoint - but it's awesome to have qualified this year.

A few other friends have finished PACHs, MACHs and PAXs in the last few weeks and we haven't seen them yet to sign their bars, give them hugs and congratulate them properly in person. At the same time with four rings going from 7:15am through 7pm in the evening there's this sense of 'everyone is here this weekend but I didn't get to see anyone run'!

One week post-MACH, we're still coming off our MACH high (and suffering from a little P.M.S - Post MACH Syndrome). This weekend I was truly blown away by the number of well-wishers, the hugs, the 'I knew you guys could do it', etc. My 'peeps', I was truly BLOWN AWAY!  We received some lovely and thoughtful gifts this weekend and a MACH cake that - well, check out the pictures. It was a cake shaped like a QQ cheeseburger on top of another cake!

Ann and Sharon - I can't thank you enough for this cake - it was AMAZING,
a perfect gift - I am so so so grateful to both of you!

This cake creation by Mama Cakes in Westfield, MA
http://visitmamacakes.com/

Here's a close-up of the "Pièce de résistance" - ehe cheeseburger
was another (yellow) cake!
http://visitmamacakes.com/

Before the cake, we went out to take some pictures by the pond with Teller's ribbon. I was surprised the next day with an amazing plaque and framed photo from that afternoon's photo session. Both of these photos so captured who Teller is - Both were taken by Sharon Pica:

Photo Credit: Sharon Pica

Photo Credit: Sharon Pica

Thirdly, We love running on dirt! But holy cow, with all of the dust in the air, despite the efforts to keep the dust down, I'm firmly in the midst of the "cluster cough". My lymph nodes are swollen, my ears plugged, swollen and achy, a sore throat and congestion that really wants to become a hacking cough. I'm hopped up on Airborne, DayQuil and menthol cough-drops and hoping for the best (I promise that's the end of my whining).

I love the cluster, I love the chaos, the awesome shopping - it's the greatest show on dirt!