Fatigued Friday

I'm really stressed right now.

That word isn't even in Moss's vocabulary.



He's such a happy dog with a palpable zest for life that brightens even the darkest of my days. I'm so thankful for him. :)



An old pic, but a good one:



Yeah, I know it's cheap to recycle photos on a blog. Unfortunately I don't have any new ones to post right now. But...I'm hoping to drag my camera out of its premature retirement and get some new photos tomorrow.

Aaaandddd... not to leave Cedar out, here's a photo of her at the trial a few weekends ago, taken by Randy Gaines:

Agility trial results!

I think this picture says it all :D



This past weekend was my local kennel club's spring agility trial. I entered Cedar in all eight runs available, 3 Standard, 3 Jumpers, and 2 FAST classes, in Novice A, of course :)

Coming into the trial, Cedar needed one leg to finish her NA and NF titles, and two legs to finish her NAJ. On Friday, Cedar qualified in all three runs, finishing both her NA and NF titles with Q/1st places, and also got her second NAJ leg with a Q/1st place. I moved up to Open Standard and FAST for the rest of the weekend, and waited to see what would happen in jumpers. I had my fingers crossed that we could finish that title this weekend, too... but didn't know if we could do it.

On Saturday, jumpers was first. Cedar had two knocked bars, so we didn't get that last qualifying leg for our NAJ. I was pretty disappointed, but still had two runs to go. FAST was next, and it was our Open debut! Cedar rocked the send bonus (one that most teams had a really hard time with), and even though we were over time because I wasted a long time on the weaves, we still qualified, having almost 20 more points than the minimum needed. Open Standard was last. We NQ'd, but had some great moments.

Sunday was the last day of the trial. Standard was first. We NQ'd because she couldn't quite get the 12 weave poles, but everything else was damned near perfect. I was so proud of her. Jumpers, of course, was last! After Saturday's disappointment, the pressure was a little bit higher. I really wanted that Q to finish our Novice Jumpers title. I led out, and Cedar held her start line stay like a rock. On my release, she took off like a rocket, and we zoomed around the course. She listened so well it was like she was reading my mind, seriously. With the exception of one little bobble at the weaves, it was a perfect run. We qualified and got first place to finish our NAJ title!!!! What a great way to end an already fantastic weekend.

At this trial (our third trial ever, and only our second AKC trial), Cedar and I qualified in 5 out of 8 runs and finished three titles. Every Q we earned was also a clean run. She ran the best she ever has, and I am so proud of her.

Here are a few videos, I hope y'all can see them...

Our Novice Standard title run-- the best run we've had so far in competition:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=574263589524

Our Novice FAST title run:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=574276897854

Our Novice Jumpers title run:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=574271109454

Aaaannnd.... a "greatest hits" compilation of some of my favorite moments from the trial:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=574281822984

I <3 my girl dog :)

Mid-week Slump

I'm tired.

Like, literally almost unable to function. I've never felt so brain dead and profoundly exhausted in my entire life. This thesis thing is a lot tougher than I thought it would be! Unfortunately, it looks like I won't make the defense deadline for spring graduation. I've made peace with that fact... primarily because my defense date will only really be delayed a month. I'm aiming to defend in April sometime. So, even though my diploma will technically say "Summer 2011," I will still be done with my degree this spring. Not ideal, but it's the best option for me right now.

Did I mention that I also managed to mess my back up somehow? It's starting to feel better, but jeez. When it rains, it pours I guess.



Unfortunately, because of my busy writing schedule, the dogs have been a bit neglected lately. I don't have much time or energy for them right now. I do agility on the weekends, and take them for walks/to the park to play fetch. That's about it for now. It's been a real bummer, since I really enjoy being more active with them. I guess that'll have to wait until May.



This weekend, I have another agility trial with Cedar. It will be our second AKC trial, third trial ever. I am really excited; I think we're pretty prepared and I am crossing my fingers that we can finish at least one title this weekend. Right now, Cedar has 2/3 legs on her NA and NF, and 1/3 legs on her NAJ title. Exciting stuff! Cedar's such a blast to run, too... I can't wait to see what new "challenges" we encounter this weekend :-P



All I want to do lately, all I think and dream about, is getting out into nature. I need to clear my head. I want to do lots of hiking, camping, and gallivanting in the woods after I graduate. I want to sit and stare at the ocean for awhile. Find myself again from within the cluttered office that is my brainspace right now. Just pack up, grab the pups and get the hell outta dodge.



Yesterday, I took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. We ended up being out for over an hour, and walked a few miles. It was so fun and relaxing. The dogs and I both felt great afterwards.

Logger Creek, which winds through my neighborhood:



The three of us could have walked and explored all day.



I don't really have any great wisdom to impart (hahaha) to end this post, so... uhm... go hug your dogs. It's been proven that petting an animal releases endorphins and helps to relieve stress. Have a great day :)

Quote of the Day

I ran across this quote on a random blog I was reading today. Definitely some food for thought:

“You might think, for instance, that the life you have is not at all the life you had in mind and so it doesn’t constitute your real life at all. Your real life is the life you pine for, the life you’re planning or the life you’ve already lost, the life fulfilled by the person, place, [etc], of your dreams. This is the life we are most devoted to: the life we don’t have.”

That's the cool thing about dogs. They're pretty good at living in the now.



Summer/graduation cannot come soon enough.

I'm so exhausted.

Updates and a little bit of Agility!

This past weekend, I took some time out of my extremely-packed schedule to run Cedar in the Lizard Butte Kennel Club's spring AKC agility trial. This was our first AKC trial, and second agility trial ever. We competed in Standard, Jumpers With Weaves, and FAST.



Overall, Cedar did GREAT. We earned legs towards all three Novice titles, with mostly first places and one second place. She is 2/3 of the way to her NA and NF titles, and 1/3 of the way to her NAJ title. We have another AKC trial next month, so hopefully we can pick up our last Novice legs there. That would be ideal, anyways :-P

Cedar with her weekend bounty of agility ribbons:



We definitely have some things to work on before our next trial. In particular, I need to work on start line stays, practicing contacts that look directly into tunnel entrances, and driving to the table. I'd also like to clean up her weave entrances and get her more confident with finding entries regardless of how fast she's going or how excited she is. Haha. Overall, she was a most excellent girly this weekend, and behaved herself very well in the amp'd up trial environment. She even did the teeter just fine! I was worried about that, but she sure showed me :-P We were much more "together" than we were at the November NADAC trial, that's for sure.

Our very first AKC "Q"... in Novice Standard :)



Here is a video of our trial highlights:



And a video of our best run of the weekend, Novice Jumpers. We completed this run with a clear round in 17.01 seconds!!! This is the most connected I've felt to her in competition so far.



I love my dog!

Checking In

Nope, I'm not dead! After a few weeks of intense work and writing, I now have just a little bit of time to relax. I thought y'all might enjoy some pictures of the collies, so... here ya go!

Here are a few pix from a game of frisbee yesterday :)

Cedar and Moss LOVE frisbee. Like, a lot.



First, a pretty headshot of Cedar <3


And a...very manly head study of Moss


What Moss is really like ;)

The Grid

So... I apologize for the extreme lack of posts lately. I've been really busy with school, dogs, and family stuff. The new (and hopefully my last, LOL) semester started with a bang last week. I really like my new batch of students, and the class I'm taking (18th Century Lit) promises to be a lot of fun.

I do, however, need to get serious about writing my thesis. Because of all the crap that happened last fall, I didn't get as much done then as I'd hoped. So, for the next month or so, I'm going to need to fall off the grid a bit and focus on completing that project as much as I can. I am not sure how much blogging I'll be able to do, but will try and check in periodically. I'm sorry that I haven't been keeping this up very much so far this year... I know y'all must be getting bored!

This past weekend, Moss and I competed in The Big Freeze sheepdog trial. It was a mixed bag of successes and failures and I'm not through processing the experience yet. We did pretty well in Novice, finishing the course and placing both days. Overall, I think my handling in Novice was good, in spite of my nerves. Nursery was a complete disaster. We didn't get past the outrun, either day. Oh well... guess I know what we need to work on for the next trial.

Here are a few pictures from yesterday's very foggy Novice run!