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"

Catch up time

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I’ve decided not to renew a couple of my older semi-dormant domains. So I need to move my public photo gallery sometime in the next five days.

EDITED TO ADD: I did move the gallery and the link has been updated.

Freya and I also need to get our acts together on a few Level 2 rally obedience exercises which are looking less like perfection and more like major point deductions before Sunday.

I also have a couple of web pages to set up for someone’s new canine family member before her arrival which is scheduled for tomorrow.

Yikes! Where did the time go?

(NaBloPoMo | April ’10: 27 of 30)

Counting down to our next trial day

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Just six more days and we will be back in the rally obedience ring. Freya and I didn’t trial at all in April, and I had hoped to get more serious training in during the month, but that just didn’t happen. We did get some practice time on full courses, mostly Level 2. I need to do some on-leash practice this week, since we are entered in four Level 1 runs.

We have made progress with the jump, but are not quite to the goal of full height plus me being able to do the run-by 6 feet to the right of the jump. Since we are entered in only one Level 2 run, I’m going to plan on taking the 3-point deduction for doing the run-by closer than 6 feet, and our jump practice this week will be focused on the interim goal of full height plus a run-by 2 feet to the right of the jump. As I’ve mentioned before, a 3-point deduction for being too close to the jump is still far better than the NQ we’d get for Freya running around the jump.

Other than that, this week’s training will be mainly about getting rid of any sloppiness.
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Two weeks till our next trial

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The second half of April kind of sneaked up on me. Freya and I were not entered in any rally obedience trials this month, but we did not get in as much good training time as I had hoped to. We didn’t totally waste the first half of the month, but we still have a lot to work on.

Yesterday’s rally class had its ups and downs. I’m still not able to get a full 6 feet to the right of the jump if I want to be sure that Freya will go over it, and not around it. The strategy remained the same as last week: lower jump height and handler closer to the jump on the run-by. I have ruled out injury or discomfort as Freya’s reason for sometimes refusing the jump. It’s more likely that she is being lazy or smart or both, and is taking the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, not acceptable for this particular sport!
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One lonely point

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Remember our one, count ’em, just one, lonely point earned towards our APDT ARCH last month? Well, here it is!

When we started doing rally obedience, my only goal for Freya was to earn a novice level title, and maybe, just maybe, an advanced title. I’m really not sure we’ll be able to get the consistently high scores needed, especially in the off-leash levels, to earn the ARCH, UROC or any combined-level titles other than RAE, which requires qualifying scores but not high scores.

I’ll give it a try, even if just to make sure that one lonely point isn’t so lonely after our next trial!

(NaBloPoMo | April ’10: 11 of 30)

Un-doggy Saturday

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Saturday is usually all about Freya, with either a class or a competition to attend. Today, I considered taking her to a fun match or a rally obedience drop-in class, both held at locations we will be trialing at in May. But today was my best chance to catch up on a number of different non-doggy errands that have been put off for too long.

I closed the last of my accounts at a bank I have been with since my first job downtown. I’m not a very sentimental person in general, and I’m thinking it would be really hard for even a gushy emotional type to be sentimental about a bank these days. I’m mostly just angry and annoyed that changes they’ve made over the years, particularly in the last two years, have finally gotten to the point where I felt forced to seek a bank that is more friendly to the very small investor.

I dropped off my pretty red VAIO laptop at the Sony Style store for a warranty fan replacement. It will take about a week from the time the laptop actually gets to the service department on Monday or Tuesday. Since I also have an iBook G4, I don’t have to go laptopless. But computer years are like dog years, so this five-year-old laptop is showing its age. You see where it is a G4 and thus still a PowerPC, so I can’t run the latest and greatest versions of a growing number of applications. It’s old enough that a built-in webcam still wasn’t standard (although the SuperDrive was, thankfully).

I shouldn’t complain, I know. It’s like whining about a rather unexciting meal when there are people starving in other parts of the world or for that matter, in other parts of this city. My most-needed documents are cross-platform and saved to my giant-ass 1.5TB network drive. I have Mac versions of my most-needed applications (some provided by and for work, and others purchased by me… yes, being cross-platform comes at a price). So I’m not exactly suffering.

I know today is iPad release day, and since the Sony Style store is in the same mall as an Apple Store, I suppose I should have gone to check it out. I did walk by, and it was very crowded. Apple fanbois and fangirlz make me want to kill on a good day, and this probably would not have been a good day. So I kept walking.

Really, I just can’t get that excited over the iPad. Yeah, it’s cool, but it just doesn’t seem like something I need. But if a nice new 15″ or 17″ MacBook Pro fell out of the sky to replace my trusty iBook… now that would be exciting!

(NaBloPoMo | April ’10: 3 of 30)