Our Very Own BFR

I’ll let you go ahead and figure the BFR out.

Although, as a hint, B is for big and R is for ribbon. Use whatever F you are comfortable with. If you spend Sunday mornings in a building with a pointy roof, maybe you want to go with Big FUN Ribbon.

Not my choice, but I try not to judge.

This thing is ridiculous

I don’t know what to do with it.

A festive hat?

Shawl?

Bella prefers Frisbee

That’s good, clean fun

Or even just chew toy. She really enjoyed the mouth feel of the rosette part

Apart from the ribbon storage issue, we have the naming issue. I already have a Kate. Having a CATE Bella is just weird. I think we are going to go with 5K Bella.

This is not a pic of Kate and CATE Bella. It’s Kate and 5K Bella.

And I am not pointing a gun at them, swear

Although, the chances of it actually happening are slim, a CATE Kate would be awesome.

Bella had 2 weekend highlights and neither of them was our CATE run.

First, since Auntie Marie drove all the way up to cheer us on, they both got rewarded with a FullHouse run. I love watching other people run Bella. She will run for anyone, but tends to get a bit giddy with the novelty of it all. More like Rocking Horse then collie. So funny. They Q’d, too!

Second, she thought her gift from Wendy was Da Bomb! Bella is a little obsessed with skin care products. Lotion, sun screen, makeup, whatev’. If it goes on, she’ll lick it off. So, what did she get for being the good point gathering girl she is?

A selection of lip balms, of course!

We tried to share with Kate

But, being that she is not a connoisseur of All Things Skin Care, she only had this to say…

Bella spent some time coveting

She decided the vanilla was her fav

No, really, FAV

Seriously, she likes it and she ain’t sharing.

I had several people ask me what I was going to do now. Like, this is some sort of end of something. I guess since it wasn’t really a goal to begin with, I am just going to do what we have been doing…go to trials, do our best, have some fun and hope no one breaks anything.

Good girl, 5K, good girl.

Great Dogs, Great Weekend

We had such a good time this weekend despite the fact that we did not sleep well. Our usual Elk Grove hotel is such a pain in the ass. Always something wrong at that place. No towels, remote doesn’t work, no dishes, etc. I have actually had rooms with someone else’s underwear hanging over the shower rod and, one time, a third of a Pringle left on the bathroom floor. One of my agility pals joked that the Pringle was Extended Stays version of a mint on your pillow. “They just want you to feel welcome.” HAHA!

This time – no functioning heat/AC unit. Like a sweat box in there. Until about 3am, then a freezer. Dogs rolled into tiny little balls of chilly. Makes them look so small on that king bed.

Bella was a frickin’ champ this weekend. Even when she wasn’t, she was. 11 out of 12 Q’s. Some of those runs were not pretty. Barely held together with lots of “Ah, no, over here!” I think that’s why I enjoy the games so much. We can do our own thing. Have our own fun. No worries. Just RUN! And run we did. She is just so full of Try. My favorite part of all our runs is the end. Bella is not a barker, but at the end of a run she always runs back to me and gives me one bark. I think she’s giving me shit for beating me to the end. It’s very cute. Yes, Bella, you win.

And Kate? Bestest Auxiliary Dog ever. She is just so easy-peesy to have along. Gets to play ball, go for walks, have people feed her. Perfect weekend for her, too. She is gracious in her support role.

I guess it’s part of not being a competitive person, but I do get more satisfaction – feel more pride – not when someone compliments us on a run, but when people compliment my dogs out of the ring. I love to hear people say that they like being set up next to us because the girls are so good. Much more satisfying then “nice weaves.” :-)

And on our C-ATE journey… oi… I’m so tired of thinking about this. It’s dumb that I’m feeling any sort of stress or pressure because, personally, I don’t think titles mean anything, at least not anything beyond your personal journey with that particular dog.

What does have meaning to me are LISTS.

Love them.

The smart people at work have figured this out. Need something done in a ridiculously short period of time? Make me a list. Even better if you put little boxes on there I can check off as I go. I hate unchecked boxes hanging over my head!

In CPE, the C-ATCH is sort of the sprint and the C-ATE is the marathon. Once we got the C-ATCH out of the way I had no list to worry about. No boxes to fill in. 5000 points is a lot of points and you end up with a ton of time to not even think about that shit. Now? Back to counting and filling in and checking off. I also have a small staff of agility accountants that are counting and checking, too.

  You know, in case we get audited.

Hopefully it’ll be over next weekend. Then back to our regular running without counting. No more folks asking, “So, what are we down to?”

Yes, “we,” it takes a village, and all.

Where Does The Time Go?

Nine!  Can't believe she's nine.  Seems like not that long ago that she was too small to tackle stairs on her own.

Bella has never been big on playing with other dogs.  Would much rather do something with a person.  Unless she is at home and no one else is around.  Home is for wrestling.  Outside?  Not so much.  You need to be ready for anything.  Someone my need you to do something important like bring a ball back.

When we lived in AZ, she had a wrestling buddy.  This is Oscar.

He was about 10 or 11 months old here.  And although non-dog people were generally afraid of him, he was the biggest wimp ever.  He is an American Bulldog.  People were constantly asking if he was a pitbull.  People would actually cross the street when they saw him.  So funny.  Yeah, he was so tough that he let people break into his house and steal a bunch of his mom's shit while he hid in the bedroom.

So much for protection.

At the dogpark they would ignore each other.  At home?  Game on!

My downstairs neighbors must have hated me.

When Oscar would need to take a breather, he would pin Bella to the back of the couch so he could catch his breath.

That was the only time he ever used his bulk to his advantage.

Bella's sorry attempt as escape.  Note that the foot on his chest is her back one!

Bella has never really been silly and as much as I love old, settled dogs, I do sometimes miss the exuberance of youth.  Not the actually puppy-puppy time, 'cause who misses chewing and house-breaking, but that teen time when they are eager to absorb and things are still new and their bodies look all oddly put together.

Eh, we will just enjoy wisdom we have.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it, yes?

So, a Happy Birthday to the bestest dog ever.

She gets to do agility tonight. 

Would probably rather have cake.

ETA:  Is is sad or funny that Bella gets more birthdays emails than I do?

:-)

West Coast Photo Peeps...Anyone Need A Cam Bag?

UPDATE:  BAG HAS FOUND A HOME.  SORRY, SLOW-POKES!  :-)

Free to good home.

Lowepro Slingshot 300.  Amazon info linky-link below.

Lowepro Bag

Here is where I show why I am not in sales and generally not allowed to speak to customers at work...

I hate this bag!

First, not a fan of the whole slingshot thing because you can't switch shoulders.
Second, this bag is large.  I am 5'-6" and even with all the slack taken up, it still sits a few inches above my tailbone.  Too low.  The waist strap helps, but still not super comfy to carry for any period of time.

The up side of the large bit, though, is it holds a ton of stuff.  Will hold a 80-200mm 2.8 attached to the body with room for 6 additional lenses in the main compartment and lots of extra space.

If you are an average sized man, a woman who is taller than me or you could just use a bag of this size for equipment storage shoot me an email at pgronvaldt AT gmail DOT com.

The bag is in great shape as it has primarily been used for storage.  I cannot, however, guarantee that there won't be any dog hair on it.

I will ship to CA, OR or WA.  The bag will ship via UPS, so no PO boxes.  No need to worry, though.  A) I am not a weirdo.  B) Even if I were, I'm way too lazy to actually stalk someone.

Getting Better With Age?

Bella has a birthday coming up. A reminder that none of us are getting any younger. I decided to look at her agility stats to see if she is slowing down at all. Since I am not much concerned with things like her time or points, I don’t really think about them much.

Did we Q?  Yes?  Good.

That’s about my general level of concern with those things.

My usual plan for games is to have enough points to qualify with 10 obstacles and then just add some shit that makes sense from a flow point of view.

A World Team Member I will never be.

Since data never lies, I would say Bella is in a good place.  Prime, even.

Bella has decent speed.  Decent.  Not pokey, not crazy fast.  What she doesn’t have is collection.  Wide turner, that one.  If a course is wheeled at 150 yards, we probably run 200.  Ha!

I was surprised to see that her Standard times are actually in a downward trend.  We hate Standard.  Those boring numbered courses. Who needs someone else telling them what to do? 

Her FullHouse points are on the rise.  Good.  That’s probably me getting better at planning a course.

Jackpot (Gamblers for you real agility folk) has always been our favorite.  It’s very steady.  Makes sense.  Those spikes are non-traditional ones where we could probably get points for multiple gambles.  (Soooo not fast enough to get 80 points in a traditional one). I love this game.  I wish we could have a trial with nothing but Jackpots. In CPE, they have Excellent titles – 30 Q’s.  We refer to them as PhD’s.  Bella first PhD was in Jackpot.  She only had 9 level C Jumpers Q’s at that time.  Barring any catastrophes, she is a few trials away from her C-ATE. With the 7 classes that CPE has, 22% of her Level C points are in Jackpot!  The next closest is Snooker at 16%.

Did I mention we love this game?

And the one that makes no sense to me… Our Jumpers suckage.  That shit is all over the place.  No weaves in Jumpers for us either?  Wahtup wit dat? 

And... just because it's funny...

She doesn't like her pools to be moving.  More of a hot tub girl, than a whirlpool girl.

Well, At Least He's Honest

As seen on craigslist...

needs good home (vallejo / benicia)

Date: 2012-02-10, 1:03PM PST
Reply to: XXXX@comm.craigslist.org

I have a 5 year old bored collie who needs a good home.

Yes.  Bored collie.  Those are the worst.

I see them at my house, too, sometimes.

That one won't end up on craigslist, though.

Even if I do threaten her with it occasionally.

The Treat Fairy

Human children have the Tooth Fairy, Santa, the Easter Bunny, yes? 

They get all kinds of good stuff for free from secret beings they never get to meet. Maybe Santa at the mall, but everyone knows that's just a drunk fill-in, right? Human children should not have all the fun.  Oh sure, they don't crap in your living room or get hair all over your nice black pants, but are you really getting a lifetime of unconditional love?  Tell me your 15 year old jumps up and down with excitement because you came back in the from the garage?

I didn't think so.

Here we have the Treat Fairy.  Mysterious being that comes when you are sleeping and leaves things for you to eat. 

Bella sleeping with a goldfish on her foot.

You have to try this.  You need to use a treat that doesn't have too strong of a smell.  If your dogs wake at the slightest crinkly noise you need to be sneaky about it.   Plan ahead.  Let them wake up on their own time.  Resist the urge to poke them.  Their little faces are hysterical when they wake up.  Little stretch, blinky-blinky, then the nose wakes up and pupils get all big and they cannot believe their luck! 

This is very hard to photograph.  Hence the crappy cell pic.  Impossible to photograph Kate because she is wide awake at my slightest move.  I can't ever move to place something near her.  I have to toss and hope it doesn't hit her.  Bella, OTOH, sleeps like a rock.  I could probably put a steak on her head.

Try it!

The Calm Before The Storm

This past weekend was one of the last “off” weekends before our spring trialing ridiculousness starts. Do other venues do this? Just a CPE thing? Northern CA CPE thing?

We can go 6-8 weeks with nothing, then… BAM … 87 trials in a row. OK. Maybe 4 or 5 in row. Still, that’s a lot of back to back shiz.

Kate was oddly relaxed this weekend.

She is the kind of dog that has perpetual ants in the pants. You recall Tyrone Biggums? Dave Chappelle’s crack head character? That’s what Kate is like.

She has that sort of Malinois-ish….JRT-y…kind of energy. Jittery. She would be that person at your office who is constantly tapping their desk with a pen.

Not this weekend, though. It was really nice, but at the same time, makes me worry.

Hi, you, with nice, soft, round eyes.

You’re not dying are you?

Nope. Just chillin!

The Belly Bean was pretty relaxed, too.

Too relaxed. Too many pictures of dogs looking bored or judge-y

We livened things up

Kicking at ball at their heads usually works

I don’t know who makes the best faces…

Bella looks like she’s being held at gun point

But Kate, with the tongue

She has no control over that thing

Tippy-toes!

I am hoping our upcoming trial is as good as our last one. Our first trial of the year was fantastic. We actually got the room we reserved. We all slept well. Ate well. It didn’t rain. Not a single weave issue. Not a single anything issue, actually. It was one of those rare weekends where every run just seemed to work. No off courses, no missed entries or contacts. We actually ran like we had our shit together. Totally fun!

It looks like we have the “no rain” part so far. Hopefully the rest will fall into place, too!

Quiet, Please

When I was a kid I had a Kermit doll. Doll? Stuff animal? Whatev’, it was about 18” or so and he had Velcro on his wrists and ankles so you could stick him places. Grow up in the 70’s, much?

He went everywhere. When I got worried about him going in the washing machine my mom would tell me it was OK because frogs liked water. :)

I used to think about what it would be like if he could talk the way Kermit on TV did. Then, after thinking about it further, it freaked me out a little. I specifically requested that even if he could talk, please don’t. I don’t need that kind of stress. I don’t need to be that kid, right?

I have those same conversations with Bella.

You know when you open your mouth slightly to say something and then forget what you were going to say? You usually have an index finger pointed at the ceiling? Inhale slightly and then the thought just goes?

Bella does something that looks like this. Minus the finger pointing, of course.

And, I don’t mean she looks like she has something on her mind. Don’t mean, I wonder what she would say if she could talk.  I mean she looks like English is going to come out of her face.

I have to tell her…don’t do it…please.

If you have something to say, just write it down.

Not so oddly enough, I don’t have those convo’s with Kate :-)

Not-So-Slick Willie

This is Willie

He is one of our agility pals.

He also just recently got his C-ATCH.

Willie is a bit of an agility artist.

Picasso had his Blue Period, yes?

Willie had his Picking Up A Cone And Running Around The Ring Period. He moved from that to the I’m Not Coming Out Of The Tunnel Until I’ve Itched Every Square Inch Period.

Mom has put a TON of work into Willie and herself to collectively get their agility shit together.

Practice, practice.  Train, train.  Chill, chill.

It has been working.  Hense the C-ATCH Willie instead of the No Letters Willie.

Watching them develop into a team over the past year has been wonderful, inspiring.

However, she has spent so much time on agility that she has neglected to teach Willie any Mad Lady Killer Skillz.

Poor Willie. He’s got no game.

OMG! A girl!

*deep breath* Try to play hard to get

Hmm, not working, I’ll just ease my way in

Act casual. Try to blend

Dude! Did you seriously try to pee on me?!

Unfriend!!

Oh, Willie

Well, there’s always agility

Or calendar work

:-)

Saturday Hike

It looks like winter may finally be arriving later this week, so I decided to take advantage of our weirdly dry and warm weather to head up to Sunol yesterday.

Someone was wholly uncooperative in the posing department

Apparently had other things on her mind

Bella?

  In the mood for smiling

We were stopped on the trail while we waited for Kate to poop for the umpteenth time and a guy and his dog came up behind us. He had a terrier. I think it was a Kerry Blue. Good looking dog, very light, though. Silvery looking. I didn’t know they came in that color. Anywho, the guy sees Kate and Bella and yells up the hill, “Are they OK or are they going to jump on him?” My first reaction was to laugh, because I was thinking the same thing about his dog. I have hard time reading dogs that are built like that because even the friendly ones look like they are challenging just because they are so naturally upright.

The dogs all politely shook hands and we were off. The guy said hi to Kate and Bella. I can’t be the only person that judges people based on my dogs’ reactions to them, can I? Kate went right up to him and let him pet her. Kate is not an overly people-social dog. When she knows you, she loves you, but doesn’t feel the need to be everyone’s best friend like Bella does. Note to self: he must be an alright guy.

As we were walking, he was commenting on the girls. “They’re so people-friendly.” “They’re so polite with other dogs.” “They behave so well.” Of course, it’s nice to hear those things, but you don’t normally hear those things from people who also have well-behaved dogs. It usually comes from people with dogs that are a bit…um…independent? Then he got to the Border Collie thing. That’s why he yelled up the hill. Not because dogs were there…because (alleged) Border Collies were there. He was telling me that his experiences with them have not been good. Nasty with other dogs, not interested in people, fights among family members.

  I suppose I could say the same thing about terriers!

It’s funny how our limited experiences shape our opinions of entire groups of things. I know lots of Border Collies, mine included, who are not tolerant of rude dogs. Kate’s worst nightmare is the 80 lb, 10 month old floppy Lab with no boundaries! I wonder how much of his dog’s problems with Border Collies stems from his upright-ness? Border Collies are very visual and very sensitive to body language and movements. A half inch head nod from me is Kate’s queue to go through a door.

Have you noticed that your dogs react differently to differently shaped dogs?

Our last hurdle on our route back to the parking lot was…

Ever been stared at by an unmoving cow? It’s a little weird. They were also right on the trail. And, they had babies. And, even though Miss Kate is completely uninterested in sheep, she is very interested in cows and needs a bit more management when they are that close. She stared at us for a good 5 minutes before deciding we were OK and she could have her afternoon lie down.

Her concern was on the opposite side of the trail.

Could you not just hug it?

And speaking of shapes of dogs...

If you remove the obviously cow part…

It’s an Aussie! :-P

Bokeh Feets!

Loving the 50mm/1.4!

Lady CaCa

 

Wishing all of you a happy and prosperous new year.

May your dogs bring you lots of dried up cow shit.

Or...something like that.

:)