Search Results for: Freya "rally obedience"

Random thoughts

July 9, 2009 by kathi

I don’t have enough to say on any one topic, so you get to listen to… ermmm… read… this “brain dump.”

I’m awaiting the arrival of my WordPress 2.8.1 automatic update bar. It is sad that even the five-minute update is too much work for me now that I’ve gotten accustomed to the automatic updates, which work great for me. I know some have had issues with the automatic updates. I am not one of those users. If I were smart, I’d be backing up my database and files while I wait, instead of waiting for the update bar to remind me.
I really enjoy Thursday’s Monthly Mingle and the bloggers I’ve “met” there. Thanks, Indigo, for the fun that is the Mingle!
As part of my rally obedience education (remember, I’m the dumb half of the Freya and me team), I joined one Yahoo! Group devoted mainly to AKC rally, and one specifically for UKC rally. I am truly appreciative of the good information that is shared freely in messages and files, and I hope to be able to contribute in time as I do in other groups where I actually know something useful about the subject matter. However, the signal to noise ratio of forums and e-mail lists just amazes me. So many people just don’t seem to care about netiquette, or maybe they simply never learned it. There was a time when only “smart” people had computers, but there was never a time when only polite people had computers, so what gives? This isn’t about the two groups I just joined, by the way. It’s an observation about forums in general (these two actually have a very good signal to noise ratio).
Bird neighbor update: I haven’t seen the male cardinal in a while, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he hasn’t been around. I think we keep very different hours. The female cardinal has been sitting on her nest daily. According to several different sources online, cardinal eggs take from 11-13 days to hatch, and the babies leave the nest in about 10 days. I’m not sure when the eggs were laid, but based on when we first noticed the cardinal pair, I’m going to start being very careful with the dogs near the rosebush starting late next week.
I’m really amazed at how many hits have come here as a result of searches for “Mary Wild” or “show dog deaths.” That awful incident has been in my thoughts as well quite a bit ever since it happened on June 22.

(NaBloPoMo | July ’09: 9 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 166 of 274)

Disruption in the routine

July 4, 2009 by kathi

The July 2009 NaBloPoMo theme is “routine”

The new target date for Freya’s first Rally Obedience trial is now set in stone. Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I did mail in our entry last week for a UKC trial on July 25. So I definitely need to take a little time tomorrow to set up a training routine for the next three weeks. I’ll be trying to fit in any available run-throughs, fun matches, and drop-in classes. With the freakish weather that we’ve had lately, I also want to have both an outdoor plan and an indoor plan each day for home practice sessions. There’s not much space to practice in the house, but there are still a number of exercises that don’t need much space to practice: call front and finish, 270° and 360° left and right turns, spirals, sits, and downs.

I was going to start today, but the Fourth of July caused a huge disruption in our routine. I complained the other day about jagoffs who insisted on starting the holiday fireworks days ahead of time. I am not un-American, and I usually do not get overly bent out of shape about noisy celebrations until midnight or later. But my normally quiet neighborhood sounds like a war zone tonight. People are blowing off fireworks that are loud enough to set off car alarms, which they have, a half dozen times since nightfall. I’ve heard quarter-stick and maybe even half-stick sized “booms” tonight. Nothing that loud is legal in Chicago.

It’s almost midnight and there are still fireworks going off. The air is still thick with smoke. I am asthmatic, although it barely bothers me these days: except on New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July. I really don’t want to go out there and breathe that stuff, and I wouldn’t, except that the dogs have to go out before bedtime. I don’t really want them breathing that stuff either, but they definitely need a potty break. Neither of the dogs is actively fearful of fireworks, but Axel feels he needs to protect me from whoever is shooting at us. That gets a little stressful for both of us.

Needless to say, the early evening hours when we would normally train outside were not particularly conducive to learning or practicing today. I really hope the neighborhood jagoffs have used up all of their fireworks. Since it’s still the weekend, I’m concerned that their inconsiderate jagoff selves will choose to continue blowing off fireworks for one more day. None of them seems to have blown off a finger or set their own garages on fire, so karma hasn’t come around yet either.

I’m doing something I never do, and am hoping for rain and lots of it. I didn’t get my wish tonight, and it’s not looking good for tomorrow.

(NaBloPoMo | July ’09: 4 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 161 of 274)

Temperament test: one pass, one fail

May 9, 2009 by kathi

With 53 dogs entered in today’s ATTS temperament test held by the Northeastern Illinois Bouvier des Flandres Club, it was quite a long day. Eleven of the 12 dogs in our group (seven of the eight Rottweilers) passed. Unfortunately, it was my Axe who failed.

There are 10 subtests in the TT, and Axe passed nine of them easily. His downfall was the friendly stranger. Axe is not a particularly friendly dog. He’s very affectionate to his favorite people, but he just tolerates other people. He is also overly possessive of me, which is why I wasn’t handling him myself. He still wanted nothing to do with the friendly stranger and made it abundantly clear by growling at her, which failed him. Had he remained silent, he may have passed with a low score on that subtest.

I don’t like to anthropomorphize animal behavior, but since I don’t like strangers coming up to me in an overly friendly way either, and I have difficulty remaining silent under most circumstances, I think I understand what Axe was thinking.

Axe’s half-brother, half-sister and mother all passed, and Axe can try again at another test after five months have passed. Following the test, our group talked about the results and agreed that Axe would have probably fared better with the friendly stranger who did the subtest for the females. The friendly stranger who did the subtest for the males was more tentative with the Rottweilers, as compared to the other one. Hesitation or fear is something that Axe is obnoxiously quick to pick up and exploit, unfortunately even when it’s not in his best advantage. Like today.

Freya passed with good scores on all of the subtests. Freya is innately much friendlier than Axel, but there are a few people and dogs that she has taken a dislike to, for no apparent reason that I could see at the time. Fortunately, the neutral stranger and friendly stranger did not fall in this category. I knew she would be fine for the rest of the subtests, as there was nothing there that she had not been exposed to and dealt with. As soon as the certificate arrives in the mail, she will officially be Sciroco’s Freya vom Viersen CGC, TT. And yes, we’re still going to be working on that RN and beyond in rally obedience. Freya’s breeder Donna was there to see Aslan (who she co-owns) and Freya, and happily, both of them passed.

Very proud of all of the dogs in our little group! Eleven new TTs was a good day’s result. Thanks to Axel’s “grandpa” Gary for being a great handler as always.

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 9 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 105 of 274)

Sunshine and rally practice (18 of 30/84 of 274)

April 18, 2009 by kathi

Saturday is normally obedience class day for the lovely Freya, and on a nice sunny day like today, we would have been able to work outdoors as well. Unfortunately, we had to skip class because I had an appointment at the bank to review my IRA account. That account had a less than stellar performance year in 2008. I am sure that is a familiar story to many people. Now that I am on the far side of 50, I guess I should at least check in on my retirement accounts more frequently than I have been. Retirement is still far enough in the future that I’m not really stressing. Yet. My bank guy is nice and seems knowledgeable, but I would have preferred to be in dog class!

We did try to take advantage of the nice weather and do some homework. Armed with the AKC Rally Regulations and a separate list of Rally Obedience exercises, Freya and I spent time working on some of the Novice exercises. Since I had no idea how to lay out a practice course, we mostly worked on the fronts and finishes, and heeling with the different turns.

I know there are books and websites with samples of Rally courses, so I will have to look for some. We are supposed to get a few days of rain (rain has already started tonight) so we won’t be able to practice outside. We might go on Tuesday night to a make-up class for the class we missed today, and we’re definitely going to drop-in obedience on Wednesday night.

Random follow-ups (16 of 30/82 of 274)

April 16, 2009 by kathi

Tonight I’m not up to leading, so I’m just going to follow up on a few things I’ve posted about this month.

The Honolulu Heart Program at Kuakini Medical Center, which is home to the longevity study that my dad is part of, has received additional funding. My mom tells me that she and my dad both went in last week for follow-up interviews. Out of the more than 5,800 middle-aged men who started in the study in 1965, about 800 are still alive today. The youngest is 89 and the oldest is 106. No word yet as to whether my dad has that longevity gene, or whether I inherited it from him.
Tripawds, the wonderful support site for canine cancer patients and accident victims who have or need amputations, is one-third of the way to their server upgrade fundraising goal!
Is it just me who is irritated by the media sources who are reporting that First Dog Bo Obama is on his fourth home? They count the breeder as #1, first owner as #2, trainer as #3, and White House as #4. Sorry. WRONG. You don’t count the breeder, and you don’t count trainers or handlers as homes either. Bo is on his SECOND home.
I was very happy to get the news that K9 University has started drop-in Obedience/Rally Obedience classes on Wednesday evenings. That should help greatly with our quest to get Freya’s Rally Obedience titles.