Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

Search Results for: Freya "rally obedience"

Hitting a rough stretch of road

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The last couple of months of our adventures in rally obedience have been like riding a motorcycle on a loose gravel road: rough, bumpy, and not very enjoyable. Although we did manage to get a few qualifying scores, Freya’s overall performance has been well below what she’s capable of. Obvious physical problems have been ruled out by her vet, and she usually enjoys her training classes.

Despite some good suggestions from trainers and friends, it still seems like we’re not making much progress. She doesn’t have specific exercises that she’s having trouble with; sometimes it’s an exercise she usually does well that has NQ’d us.

I’m debating whether to take a break and just let Freya be a plain old dog for a few weeks, or suck it up and work through it. I could really use one of those translator collars like in “Up” — it would make it a lot easier for Freya to tell me what’s really going on with her.

(NaBloPoMo | June ’10: 1 of 30)

Rottweilers

The Rottweilers didn’t really eat my laptop. Not completely, anyway. Freya did do some teething on the old laptop shown in the header.

Freya

URO2 Sciroco’s Freya vom Viersen RL1 (AOE), CGC, TT
Freya’s pedigree and stats at PawVillage
Freya’s OFA records

Freya is 10 years old. Depending on whether you prefer German lines or American lines, you might want to know that she is a Mambo granddaughter and a Rueger daughter. If you don’t care about lines, then just know that she is our princess and the sweet girl that helped to heal our hearts upon the losses of our original two Rottweilers, Heidi and Oscar.

We may be retired or possibly just on hiatus from working on Rally Obedience titles in three different venues (UKC, APDT, and AKC). Our road to those titles, sometimes smooth and sometimes not so much, is a frequent topic of this blog.

Axe

Multi V-rated CH Precious Gems Axel vom Viersen RN, CGC, TT
Axel’s pedigree and stats at PawVillage
Axel’s OFA records

Axe is 7 years old. He is the first AKC Champion that we’ve owned. He has V-rated in German-style conformation from the youth classes (18 months old) and the adult classes (Champion Class) at national events.

Axe also competed in Rally Obedience when he was out for his conformation championship. He was able to earn his Rally Novice title, and one day we may attempt to finish the rest of his Rally titles as well.

Freya photo: Karen Hollis, Sirius Pet Images. Axe photo: Bill Meyer Dog Show Photography

Saturday Pet Blogger Blog Hop

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No, it’s not Saturday. In fact, it’s Monday. Sorry about that! I’m just behind the curve as usual, and I was happy to see that the inaugural edition of the Saturday Pet Blogger Blog Hop is remaining open for a few days for us stragglers to join in!

Life With Dogs, Two Little Cavaliers, and Nip and Bones just started hosting this new Blog Hop on Saturday.

I’m looking forward to “meeting” more pet bloggers and pet blogs! This is not a 100% purely pet blog, but I hope that most of you enjoy visiting here anyway! You can use our “Topics” dropdown in the right sidebar to go straight to our pet-related posts under “Rottweilers” and “Non-Rottweiler Pets and Animals.”

Today, let me introduce you to one of the resident Rottweilers, Freya.

She is 6½ years old and came to us as a 7-week-old puppy. She was a gift from her breeders, sent to help us heal the broken hearts left by the unexpected passing of our first Rottweiler, Heidi, on Christmas Eve 2003. As you can see from our header, Freya has been honing her computer skills since the age of 9 weeks. Lately, she has been more involved in Rally Obedience competition than blogging (EDIT FROM FREYA: If I had my way, I’d be blogging and not following Mom around some stupid obstacle course!), but perhaps she’ll choose to be involved in some of the Saturday postings from here on out!

Weekend wrapup: things didn’t improve

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Our less-than-impressive trial weekend didn’t finish up any better than it began. Freya had two Level 1 runs and one Level 2 run, and managed to qualify in only one Level 1 run with another mediocre score of 185 points. Again, no ARCH points, but at least we are one small step closer to our RL1X, with 4 of 10 legs now complete.

It was disappointing to NQ on courses that should have been good for us, and frustrating because I’m not 100% sure why Freya was so out of tune with me. She seemed slightly depressed in the morning on both days, but she also seemed to adjust to the new surroundings more quickly than usual. She’s not particularly good with other dogs, but this weekend she didn’t go off on any other dogs, and she pretty much ignored dogs barking from vehicles and crates. That part I am definitely happy about, especially at a new venue with some areas that were very much close quarters. She was able to relax everywhere on the grounds—except in the ring where I needed her to be relaxed and attentive. I don’t feel like I ever had Freya’s full attention in the ring, even during our qualifying runs. So we definitely have things to work on before our next trial weekend, May 15-16.
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There IS a conspiracy!

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I finally made it over to Sports Authority this evening to pick up some cheap soccer cones to add to our rally obedience practice items. So instead of stopping at the Pet Supplies Plus in my neighborhood, I stopped at the one across the street from Sports Authority.

Apparently there really is a conspiracy to keep Freya’s and Axe’s favorite WellBites flavor out of Norwood Park! There were plenty of Chicken & Venison flavor, and in fact all five flavors, of WellBites at this store.

Hmmm. What is going on?

(NaBloPoMo | April ’10: 28 of 30)