I try and try...

As hard as I try, no matter what I do, no matter what I say, Whimzy continues to grow… and I dread the evil height of 14 ¼ . Of course like any sheltie owner who is sweating height, I checked the height charts and graphs. Based on her last measurement of 14” at 26 weeks she is gonna come in around 15-15 ½. Whimzy is defiantly not going to be the small 12” dog like we thought! She was such a tiny puppy and now she is this monster ball of fluff. Of course at this point bigger is better… like I said I really don’t want the 14 ¼ “  dog :P not that it’s a horrible size but it does put the pup on the smaller side of the 16” or looking at ISC at nationals or possibly in an international competition the smaller side of the 18” class.

We will find out tomorrow where she is really at. I used the wicket we have at home to measure her last time, and it could be a little off. Tomorrow at the show I’ll get Whimzy up on the measuring table and get some solid measurements. And in other news… Tomorrow is also my first show with Oz, the Norfolk terrier, at 4”. We are going to be in novice!!! I love novice, it’s just so much fun :) of course with Oz it will also be a lot of work… I would really like if he kept the bars up. I also have Jenna entered… which is kind of a no brainer considering she is my main dog at the moment and I love showing with her!!! Jenna was a good girl last week against some of the top East Coast dogs and I am hoping we have another good showing this weekend. I would really, really like a double Q. I also am looking for her contacts to hold up, I haven’t been able to practice them much this week because of the rain but I’m hoping the progress we have made is still there.

"That" person...

Something I never want to be is ‘that’ person. We all know at least one person who thinks they are total “hot-shit” that they know everything and that everyone should look up to them. Whether this person has actually succeeded with one dog, or two, or three, or with every dog they or their students have trained is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what they do no matter how mean or how wrong it may seem, at the end of the day they are perfect and everyone else is just average. These are the people that never have fun unless they win everything, the people who can’t be happy for anyone else, and the people who I cannot stand.

I think that to be that great wonderful trainer/competitor/person one has to be kind and friendly, understanding and helpful. To talk to everyone even if they don’t know as much or don’t seem to grasp anything you say. Those people who are always smiling even if they aren’t having the best day… I think those are the kind of people who really improve the agility world. The people who don’t intimidate or seem arrogant or just plain mean. The people who are good trainers good competitors and in general are really good people.

Yet another Binder...

Whimzy officially has her own binder now. It’s yellow :) Jenna has had one for about 8 months but I haven't updated anything in it since the end of March :( Bad mommy!!! And now I have a binder for me too, and this time it’s not filled with quadratic equations or grammar rules... not any more anyway because school is OVER. Oh and a shocker I passed all my finals :) not with flying colors, but when you only study for 4/8 what do you expect?
Staying on topic... I dug through the Bible (it’s what we all call Diane's drill binder, it contains every foundation drill we use) and picked out stuff that Whimzy is A) old enough to do and B) that we really need work on. So basically advanced ground work, target drills, simple sequencing, and I stored some baby jumping drills in the back for later in the year. I think we will get to the simple sequencing this summer...I will just leave the bars at 4" or on the ground. Whimzy really is so smart though, I'm sure we are going to blast through this material and then I'll just go through the Bible again and pick out more stuff to work!!!!

Whimzy is also a working dog so; she is now on the work dog schedule. Which means I’m going to start strength training drills this summer, and she will be getting stretched. I stretched her for the first time on her side tonight… omg it was world war 3. Every time I moved to a different stretch she tried to get up :/ Ugh hopefully she will understand that she has to sit still soon.


So I know have 3 binders to keep updated… I’m not the most organized so this should be interesting ;)

Running into more...

Time is slowly ticking down, to the last day of finals…which I have yet to study for :/ Also time is slowly dwindling down into summer, where I will run into all the time in the world.  Or at least it will seem that way. I love having all the time in the world; it always makes me feel like I can do anything. It also seems to encourage me to slow down and just work my way through the day, instead of planning my days and weeks out. We have all had those neurotic moments where you plan out every second of an average day that you are just determined to have everything go perfectly. I am a frequent over planner, even though in the end my plans are almost never followed. Seems silly to plan when you don’t even bother to adhere to any of it the next day, but I guess you could say I find it amusing, or maybe I am really just nuts. Defiantly the second one ;)  After all life is only fun when you add some crazy off the wall insanely awesome days in, I add them frequently :)

                So with summer giving me “endless” (not really) time, what will I do? Sadly my summer will revolve, like it almost always does, around the dogs. Of course this year I have an adorable smart puppy to work with, and then there is miss Jenna who could really use work on her contacts :P So perhaps it won’t be so bad. Speaking of those two-  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdOVrwxXYXk – just a quick training session from today. It kinda explains everything about whimzy on youtube. So Jenna will be the only one mentioned :-) She and I are a little out of sync, which sucks but it has to happen sometimes, perfect doesn’t exist in agility. As much as we all strive for that perfect run, or the perfect dog, or the perfect training system…to bad. It’s a myth, none of it exists. But that’s why agility is fun right the challenges of training to get what each of us want. Obeviously we aren’t training for perfect because no one can define what the perfect agility dog is. I guess training for our kinda perfect is pretty great though. And so much fun! To me Jenna is very close to perfect… we need speed and CONTACTS to complete the package. In the past few weeks her contacts have been improving. Her speed is lacking but I have been lazy and not working on it. Now I have two new goals for the summer better contacts and speed on the ground in the air through the weaves… everywhere!

Just Pictures Today

I see you

 What ever you do DON'T pop out!!!

Weave weave weave!!!

WooHoo!!!

And the Final results are back...

We ended up 3rd on that standard course. Then Sunday was a less successful standard run :/ Contacts were very suckish :P But in jumpers we ended up 2nd, we were a little slow... I kinda wanted to Q!!  Unfortunately Diane only filmed 1/4 of my runs. And it was and NQ run :( So needless to say that Diane is FIRED from filming.  A few good things did come out of this weekend... Oz and I are officially entered in novice, 1 day just to see how wired he gets. Oh and we are gonna be running 4"!!! Also school is finally wrapping up, finals week and I have yet to study ;) Not the best choice but I'll get too it eventually :)

We did train today :) I just messed around really with Kenzie, Jenna, and Whimzy. Kenzie and Jenna did a few tight sequences and Whimzy did some more puppy training on 8" jumps.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPn7iBCsNGQ

I don't really have anything else to report from this weekend it was quite uneventful. But its nice to have those kinds of days every now and then. It lets your mind take a break, and you just get to chill. With this summer starting to look like a lot of work, a few days of just relaxation would be nice before the chaos begins :)

Bruises and NQses

Ouch, ouch, ouch! Bruised calf muscle, and on the other leg my knee and ankle are starting to compensate: P   swimming in the pool with my friend, Jessie, one minute the next…charley horse. It really, really hurt : /  I could barely get out of the pool; my friend was like “Does it hurt?” I wanted to bop her on the head but she wasn’t close enough.  And it was really sore this morning, but we went to a show… and well run through the pain :)-needless to say I’m icing as I type- That’s when Jenna decided to add a random off course to my bad day. I had my shoulder back and was saying “Jen, here here here, JEN!” shaking my hand at her, but nope! The double 10 feet away seemed like the right obstacle to her :P But ahh well, at least I didn’t have to worry about what our time was :) I didn’t even know how she could have picked up that jump… so random, but it’s not so bad because we had MACH cake and went shopping in the EMB vendor :D Standard was much better though, I don’t know where we ended up, probably 2^nd or 3^rd.  But who cares, Jenna had the most fantastic dogwalk!!!! It was so so so so fast :) and she hit the yellow like whatever I know what I’m doing. Her a-frame was slow, but not as bad as last week! I love seeing work pay off and improvements in the ring :)

Another day of trialing tomorrow, hopfully a DQ, it would be nice to finish up MACH 2 soon (I think we have like 16/20) And hopfully my leg will heal up or I will be the one getting PT not, the dog ;)