Adventures of Max, Starlet and Vic

Boys day out!
Butter Lovin the cool moutain wind in his hair:-)
Let er rip
Come on dad- it's only 40 degree snow run off
smile for the camera- what a goober Butters:-)
Boing!
 Mine, no mine...
 One happy little BC

Not sure if this is appropriate to be posting on LJ, but while I use this blog to share pictures/brags/training insights, I also find it is therapeutic in its own sense... maybe because it is just a way to put thoughts into words... and helps put things in perspective.

Last Sunday my grandfather went into the hospital (on his birthday none the less). Long story short, his liver & kidneys are now 100% NOT functioning, his heart runs at less than 30%and his respiration is around 17 breaths / minute. The doctors have said that no matter what, he is not going to recover and the decision now is how to make his last days more comfortable. What is keeping him alive is this medicine that raises his blood pressure, which it has been decided that tomorrow he will move to hospice care at the same hospital, and they will discontinue his blood pressure medicine tomorrow. I spent the entire weekend out on Long Island, and I basically had to say my good bye today. He is so frail, and can barely speak... It's honestly a count down, an estimated few days left of someone's life.

I am dealing with this in my own way... keeping busy with anxious energy. I have never had to deal with someone sick, or a death in the immediate family. I don't know how I will be. I damn near lost it today...! Odd that in 23 years I've never dealt with this. I mean, my grandma (his wife) died when I was less than 2, but as an adult, never had to deal...

This is going to be one rocky week... so many things in the air... and so many emotions I know are going to be all over the place.

I am home now. I sure missed training my dogs. But we got back into the swing of things today. Roo is really beginning to move out and work away, yet keep me in her line of sight. It is fun to watch her watch me :)

Rylie has been on a hiatus. He really has no self preservation, he literally throws himself at the A-frame-such a dork. Last year a pulled a muscle in his groin and the year prior he had a rotator cuff injury. He is physically back now and I will show him in AKC only. He jumps 20" there and it will be easier on his shoulders. He is really a hoot to run, fast, fast, fast.

Today was an open the windows day, perfect.

Big news of the weekend:  Chase got his ADCH!!!!  (ADCH CHOO is what my parents have been calling it, they've been waiting for him to get the sneeze lol)

We had a phenominal weekend.  Friday was the DAM Tournament, and our team (DAM Right!) won!  The team consisted of Mindy Lytle and Switch, Amy Kundinger and Flash, and me and Chase.  It was a blast =D

Saturday Chase got his Standard Champion title, a Gamble Q, and a fun run in Pairs!  And Sunday Rocky got a Snooker Q + 3rd place, Chase got another Standard Q and a Jumpers Q, which gave him his ADCH.  It was so exciting to be able to celebrate that accomplishment with my baby boy.  He really pulled through during Jumpers as I was freaking out on the inside lol.  This was my first ever agility championship so I definitely had some nerves going!! haha

Video to come. =]

Vic ate all of his dinner (and his breakfast leftovers) last night.  All it took was a ridiculous amount of swimming and 3 prior hunger strike days for it to happen.  Oh, and I cooked a steak and put juices/some pieces in his dinner (I've done this before and he's left steak pieces behind).  The scary thing is Starlet is the skinniest of the crew.  I didn't know a dog could be skinnier than Vic, but Skinny Star definitely is.  I know if I up her food too much, she'll turn into Ftar (her fat alter-ego) very quickly, so I'm upping it slowly, trying to find what will maintain a weight.  Max is not having any troubles putting weight back on.  ;-)

Thanks to the swim and a quick post swim brushing, Vic looks like he's freshly groomed.  I'm so impressed with his coat. 

Off to some concert today.  I'm not sure who all is playing, I know Everlast and Pennywise are on the ticket.  I love Pennywise and at least know who Everlast is.  It's so hot outside, I think we'll miss the first band.  I think they're called Revolution...  Ohhhh and Offspring is playing, we're off soon...

I'm still kinda taking a break from most training with Vic. That late growth spurt is what's inspired it.  Besides, it's good for the doggy soul to not train all the time.  :)

Rosie sent me these photos and I love them. The best snorkeling I have ever done was off the coast of the Gili Islands (a trio of Islands north of Lombak, which is east of Bali. I stayed in a hut on the beach for three weeks just being a complete bum;) No cars or motorized vehicles are allowed on the islands so it is pretty quiet and remote. I either had to use horse-drawn carts or a bicycle to get around the actual Island. I rented a bike for most of the time I was there. The best part was the snorkeling. I want to go back;) I had a dream last night about colorful fish, not sure if it was because of the photos or because I long to be in the Java Sea....another hot day today, sigh.

Meg and I took Zipper, Max and Beep down for a swim today.  Zach was doing some yard work for a neighbor, so we just took three.  We went early today so we could have the "good" spot, but it was kind of slippery and muddy.  The dudes had fun though!

It was HOT at Barb White's. Many people crated outside, and we had a prime location thanks to Cheri who got on the road earlier than I did. I was glad not to be inside and the dogs were quite ok in the kennels with fans. I got both Emma and Speck in the wading pool before and after their runs and even Emma enjoyed that.

Both dogs ran really well. Of course, I am struggling with getting consistency with Speck. But it's coming. Emma, of course, is such a fun dog to run. It's so easy.

Gamblers:

Gamble: 1 jump in the middle and 5 jumps around it. You had to take the single jump then a bonus jump for 2, same single jump and different bonus jump for 4, etc. Need to cross the finish jump before time ran out.

Wanted to put Speck on the contact equipment a few times, and he did well, stopped at the end. Had a good plan but he pulled out of the weave poles at 10 (I started to pull away), so that's understandable. He did well in his Gambler, went for 2 bonus jumps for a total of 6 points there.

For Emma's run, I changed the plan slightly to get her on both the DW and Frame, and she had stellar running contacts. (We have been working on running contacts and not jumping off with the Manners Minder all week---that was totally worth the 100 price!) We were in excellent position when the buzzer sounded, and started the gamble well, but she dropped the pre bonus jump on the 2nd pass. I was going to go for 3 bonus jumps. Oh well.

Standard:
Despite a wide turn to get to the tunnel under the dog walk, Emma was right on here. Damn, she's fun to run, and read the turns and deceleration cues well. We won Standard. Woot!

Speck was not so good. He missed the weave pole entrance (bad handler, no beer) when I pushed it to fast and then he skipped a pole in the middle. I started to clap while he was in it, and just about the time I stopped clapping, he skipped out. Not sure if that was related. But he got it the 3rd time, but had another R at the Frame as I was behind him. Rest was "fly by the seat of my pants" as he pulled it out without another R but came close a few times.

Jumpers:
Speck was good, the course was tough. He incurred a R at a jump but finished with a good time (5 seconds off the winner).

Emma had another killer run, would have been in 3rd had I not performed a LATE FC to cause Em to drop a bar as she changed leads. (Again, bad handler, no beer!)

Over all, it's a great place to do team stuff, 1 ring and lots of fun people. I love my teams, and hope they are having as much fun as I am.

SUFTOUAP is near the top, perhaps in the top 5, and Splutor is just under the Q line in 18th. Hopefully we can run clean in relay tomorrow and have some decent Snooker points to get a Q.

Fenwick was just dying in the heat today.  Even in the shade of our set-up long after he had run his last he was panting like he couldn't breathe, I'd never seen the heat affect him so much.  I think it had a lot to do with going from 50 degree temps to the mid-90s!  London seemed to handle it well, Fenwick was really worrying me.  Thank god our a/c finally kicked in today at home, yesterday it just couldn't combat the record breaking temperatures.  I really do hate being hot!

Fenwick actually started off well when it was cooler, he won team gamblers with a pretty conservative plan.  I love his 'running' contacts, I think running a dog with 'true' running contacts would be even more fun.  I had the same plan with London, but I was a total dork and forgot a jump in the closing.  He still came in fourth though, which surprised me.  I didn't watch too much of the action today, it was pretty clausterphobic in the barn and I preferred to stay outside with dogs.  I can only assume people were really reaching for too much in the closing and ending up losing the points.

Standard was a fun course, I do enjoy threadles.  Fenwick had some weave issues on this course, which always freaks me out that there is a physical issue, but I guess the weaves were a huge issue in this course with most dogs, so that made me feel a little better.  You can bet I really worked them with London though!  London had a nice run except where I did a front cross at the serpentine that I didn't intend with EITHER dog and ended up doing it with both dogs ... badly.  London came in 2nd for this one, I really do feel relaxed running him these days.

The Supertastic Uber Fun Team of Ultimate Agility Power (Emma, Nova, London) was in 2nd after this run!  Go SUFTUAP!  And Fiztastic was holding their own (Zorro, Izzy, Fenwick) in 11th, which I thought was pretty cool.  I love being on totally no pressure teams!  Really fun trial in general, nice and relaxed.  The surface was good too, because Barb White's place has that real hard clay sometimes it can be overly hard and slick, and then also sometimes it's like running on the beach because of the sand needed to soften that.  But right now it's JUST right - perfect mix.

Finally, we had jumpers, which was a fairly straightforward course and Fenwick was just way too hot by this point.  He dropped TWO bars and just wasn't himself, poor little guy.  London had a lovely run - and no dropped bars all day!  Kinda funny I had some role reversal - Fenwick was my bar knocker today.  I do hope that between the weird weave issue and the dropped bars that he is feeling okay.  Tomorrow SHOULD be cooler, so I'm really hoping it won't get so stunningly hot like it did today and yesterday.  Have I mentioned that I hate the heat?  Because I really, really do.

So I didn't wait around for the results after jumpers, I wanted to get Fenwick into the a/c of the car ASAP, he was really struggling.  We'll see how we do tomorrow, but it's nice to feel totally relaxed about the whole thing having such fun teams.

Bruce is hard at work on my computer, so hopefully I'll get to download some video this weekend!

Oh yes, and the naughty part - that would be London.  Guess who ripped through ANOTHER crate today?  I mean, he was OUTSIDE of the arena!  And the funny part is he just totally rips this huge hole in his crate ... but he doesn't try to go through the hole (which he easily could have).  I think part of it is he doesn't really want OUT of his crate, he just gets frenzied and wants to have someplace to vent his excitement.  Of course, I'm pretty sure he did it when Tammy was running Nova ... just like last year!  So I'll bring some duct tape to the trial and see what I can do.  I don't want to put him in a metal crate as he will chew the metal ... and I don't need any more root canals.  So I think I'll just keep patching, as it's not like he's ripping out to run the course.  Naughty London!

Happy birthday to my blue boys Chase & PRE. Yes, they share the same birthday, momma had a very similar heat cycle even 5 years later! While it feels like Pre is really 1 year, it doesn't feel like Chase just turned five!

We celebrated by doing some A-frame training and frisbee playing. This was a day of many first(s) for puppy Pre. I clicked/treated him for walking over a much taller A-frame today. Then I rev'd him up, stuck the training hoop on the bottom, and let him rip. Well, lo and behold, he reached the apex of the frame and a 40lb puppy went flying over my head, didn't touch one side of the entire down a-frame and landed on all 4 feet like a cat! Crazy dog!

As a very special, I took them down to the bay at the end of the road from where I was training. Pre was the first one in and the last one out. Chase loves the water, but he loves to retrieve things from the water, Pre I swear, just likes to wade in the water and follow Chase. He refused to get out, I had to hike up my pants and get him out of the water. We will be working some recalls with high value activities... since I didn't feel like smelling like fish today.

I forgot my camera and vid camera back in Queens, so I didn't get any pictures of my birthday boys today... boo..

Note: My internet connection isn't all that great, so while I can post to my LJ, I can't upload pictures. That will have to wait until I get home.

Friday:
We have success! Swift is now a swimming fiend. The river was higher in Brownsville and the current was faster, so I was careful to keep him on leash and out of the current as much as possible. At first he wasn't impressed, and I had to coax him in, but then he figured out it was FUN and started swimming. I threw the toy, but not very far because I didn't want him to get caught up in the faster current. He did really well, and gained loads of confidence.

Saturday:
We started this morning with Team Gamblers. It was a time gamble and Quake got a lot of points in the opening. It was a good thing because he knocked a bar in the closing, so I had to go to the finish jump. On to Team Standard. Not a particularly difficult course and I wasn't too worried about it. There was one spot where we had to do a threadle into an angled on-side weave entrance that I was figuring I'd have to shape, but that was it. Then Quake did something I totally wasn't expecting. The course started out with 2 jumps and a 90 degree turn to the dog walk. I sent him to the second jump and took off running towards the dogwalk. He kept going and took the a-frame on the other side of the dogwalk. I didn't watch him, I just took off, made the assumption that my motion would bring him with me. It didn't and he launched into an outrun instead. Bad Julie. The rest of the run was ok, and Quake nailed the on-side weave entrance after the threadle, which for him was probably the most difficult part of the course. Fortunately neither of my team members E'd, and in fact Flint did a really nice threadle to the weaves. After that was jumpers. My confidence was shaken a bit from suprise off-course standard, which probably caused me to be a bit late on my commands in jumpers. But it turned out ok. He had a knocked bar, but one of the fastest times, so the knocked bar didn't hurt us that bad, just added 5 seconds to our time.

Its hot, but I think I'd rather be hot than cold. Tomorrow is Team Snooker, Relay and Grand Prix. Its supposed to be cooler tomorrow.

I graduated last Tuesday. Weird to be completely done with high school.
I thought I was going to LSU, but now I might be going to a school in Florida called Full Sail ( www.fullsail.com ) for web design. Im still undecided. I never really had a choice to go anywheres but LSU which I was ok with cause Id be close to my boyfriend and the majority of my friends go there, plus I go there all the time anyways. Now I want to go somewheres about 12 hours away and its classes everyday of the week and you have a week off for summer. You pretty much have no free time at all. It would be a huge change that I wasnt really expecting right now. I think it would be a great opportunity though. I am hoping to be able to fly to orlando soon and take a tour to see if thats what I want to do.
I started a new job 3 days ago and am already quiting Lol. I hate it so much.

I forgot to enter Hemi in the usdaa regionals and it closes on like Tuesday. Yikes. I also forgot to enter a 4 day show that fills up like the day it opens so no shows for us. I havnt been doing too much agility with Hemi but we did do some today.

I'm having such a hard time right now making a decision. I SO want to take the dogs hiking to our favorite river spot- but Kate is not supposed to leave the house- I can't stand the idea of leaving her home alone, I can't stand the thought of leaving anyone else home with her... I am so tempted to risk it and take her swimming, stupid I know but I hate us all being cooped up like this.  

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I LOVED this book. It's one of those books you feel like you've been thru an epic just having read it. It's a book that both makes you laugh & cry and think a lot. It's about a evangelical Babtist father who takes his 4 daughters & wife into the African Congo in 1959 and spans the next 3 decades- tragedy, a nations unraveling.... I love the complexity of the novel and LOVE the characters.  

On a side note: Last night I discovered I have a readers callous:-) on my right index finger where the books rest in my hands. Michael about choked on his water last night as I showed it to him- he said I am the ultimate nerd:-)

Ok all you lovers of warm weather...  This is to dang HOT!  Good grief!  Me, I'm ready for 60's and overcast again:)  Since it was so hot ,and the dogs not used to it, we headed down to the Yamhill River for a swim.  We had to climb along the bank because of a family down at the best spot, so no video or camera.  We did get everyone in the water.  Beep must be part fish!  Good grief that dog likes to swim.  There is a pretty good current in the middle and he found it and swam into the current for minutes at a time, then he'd swim into the slow water, then back into the current.  Sometimes he had a toy, but most of the time he did it just for fun.  I swam across too and he followed wondering what in the heck I was doing.  Boy that water felt good!  We were down there for about an hour and Beep was in the water the whole time.  Max, Nessa, Nub and even  Zipper, swam across and back .  Even Raleigh swam across once!!  Woo Hoo!  Zach carried Rosie both times.  She isn't spoiled or anything:)  Nub and Nessa have a couple of foot owies, but other than that there are a bunch of tired doggies tonight!

I have my 1st herding lesson planned for tomorrow at 12:30. Of course it's going to be hot but I don't think as hot as today. I'll try and post video...if I can figure it out. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Went shopping today at Fred Meyer during lunch and bought two pairs of capris, one pair of shorts, and two shirts all ONE SIZE SMALLER!!! Yahoo!!!! Everything fit (I didn't try them on until I got home but I had faith) with the exception of one of the shirts but 10 more pounds and it'll fit. So, it'll stay.

Just got a little more inspiration buying the new clothes.

I would like to go on record that I enjoy Labs and their sense of humor.  Someone said something about "stupid Labradors" while filming Vic a couple months ago.  I'd heard about this comment from our super duper/lab owning webmaster.  A couple weeks or so later, she was kind enough to video Vic's dogwalks for me...  Seriously people, don't mess with Lab owners.  We have quite a few here in town and they make the sheltie mafia look like small potatos...

My computer is very ill, it's rejecting it's new harddrive and I miss it dearly.  I mean, no offense to the laptop, but it's just not the same.

But everyone is doing well, set up some of the world team courses up at classes which was fun.  I would have to say overall the courses do seem easier this year then last year.  Getting ready for the hot weather this weekend by not having A/C at home ... which is not really my preference.  But I think the trial will be fun this weekend, hot weather or no.  I'm sure my teams will be the most exciting to watch ... even if we don't qualify.  Style points!

Was talking about London's extreme dislike of being put on his back the other day, which made me realize there is one trick I never taught to him, "Play Dead".  So, what do you know, as long as it's his idea London is more then happy to flop right over!  He learned that one in just a couple reps with absolutely no reluctance.

Brisbee's 'nose' trick contiues to baffle him.  What we have right now is an adorable 'curtsey' move where he stands up the instead of picking up the paw to the nose, he tucks his entire head under his arm still firmly on the floor.  It's very cute, but obviously not what I'm looking for.  But right now I'm getting that or a wave ... hoping to put them together soon.

My neighbor's cat, Claudia, is always present. She even stays over some nights;) She is FABULOUS with the dogs and they all love her, even Blaze. Blaze will do her all over wiggle body when she sees Claudia in the courtyard, very cute. So I thought I would post a photo of her. The one of her and Freddie is very blurry, but I have to post it, too cute to pass up. Imagine that it is crystal clear;) I'm still learning on my camera and I am having a blast. I haven't had time to really play around with it, but I hope this weekend gives me some opportunities.


Claudia, we all love her.


Classic Blaze.



Blurry Fred and Claudia, but I had to post it;)