Fall at the Evanston Dog Beach

I made it to Chicago. Just. I thought I showed great restraint in not strangling my plane seatmate who kept neurotically tapping his foot on the ground with such speed and force that he caused my seat to shake each time he did it. It was like Chinese Water Torture. I get that some people have neuroses about flying but do they have to spread the love? It's not like tormenting me was helping him any. And the can of Coke he had certainly didn't help matters. It also didn't help that the plane took off an hour late then circled O'hare for 20 minutes or so due to some light rain. At least American let me change my flight to Friday for free so I didn't have to drive to DIA in the snowstorm. Despite getting hit by nearly 2 feet of snow on Weds./Thurs. the roads to the airport were clear by Friday morning. I love Colorado.

I only brought my dropped too many times point and shoot camera and I threw that in at the last minute. Didn't think I'd be in the mood to take pictures then ended up down at the Evanston dog beach and wished I'd brought my nicer camera. Didn't realize there would still be some fall colors here either, the leaves are nearly done in Colorado.

When that wind got going on Lake Michigan I swear it felt a million times worse than it did during our snowstorm. But there were some nice sunny spells and given that this is Chicago at the end of October I suppose it could be a lot worse.

This is my friend's dog Annie.



I'm trying to figure out how to stuff her in my suitcase and sneak her home with me. I think she'd be an awesome agility dog. And even if she wasn't, she's such a sweet pea.


This is my friend's other dog Theo. Crazy mutt was swimming in that ice water. For like an hour at least.


Theo and Annie playing it up


Scrap. Need I say more? He was my favorite at the beach today, aside from Miss Annie Banannie of course.



They're both collies but so totally different in looks and behavior. Cody almost certainly has some smooth collie in him so I have a soft spot for them. This particular girl certainly had an attitude. She was obsessed with the Border Collie who was obsessed with his toy and wouldn't give her the time of day.


Tomorrow I'll probably make another trip to the dog beach with my friend then venture into the big bad city in the evening to visit another friend who hopefully will not try to drag me into the Chicago River in a kayak.

Day After

The fire tripled in size overnight and got to within 1 1/2 miles of my house which was unnerving but we had one come within 3/4 mile several years ago and that was way scarier. Still it was not so very much fun to be awakened by news helicopters flying over the house in the wee hours of the morning. Strummer had a few words for them when he went out into the yard this morning to do his business and Lola was fascinated by them and stood transfixed staring up at the sky. Cody usually goes batshit at stuff flying low in the sky but he was intent on getting back inside for his breakfast so spared the neighbors his opinion on the matter.

It was a noisy walk this morning with all the helicopters blaring but I wanted to see if the fire was still at threat so I headed along the Foothills Trail to see what I could see. I've been meaning to take my camera along the trail to take photos of my morning walks anyway so I thought I'd snap some photos. No dramatic fire pix with flames shooting into the sky, I didn't go chasing the fire last night. I probably could have got some good ones but I'm not really into chasing down natural disasters for a photo op. I'm more of the opinion of 'fire bad, run away'. Plus there were all sorts of circus freaks coming to see the show and driving like maniacs through my neighborhood which has very little in the way of sidewalks and streetlights. Plenty of nice photos here if you're interested.

Here are some that I took this morning.

Sunrise over Wonderland Lake. This has nothing to do with the fires but I thought the cloud formation was cool.


This is looking north towards the southernmost edge of the fire. The fire stopped at Lee Hill Rd. which you can't see in the photo and the shot is taken from the Foothills Trail south of Lee Hill. If you look to the right of the peak at the far left of the photo you can see the Hogback Trail arcing down the hill. I wrote about running on that trail here. You can also see bits of smoke here and there from various hotspots that had yet to burn out.


Token dog photo (don't they look thrilled?) taken at the top of the Kiln Trail looking north. Lee Hill Rd. is between the dogs and the burnt hill in the background. It's a popular cycling route and the Boulder Peak Triathlon goes up it.


Some deer jumping a fence and crossing Lee Hill Rd. Taken from the bottom of the Kiln Trail. Cody was pitching a fit but the deer came towards us anyway.


A closer shot of the burn area. Again you can see the Hogback Trail arcing down the hill at the left side of the photo. It's funny how well you can see the trails after a fire.


The people in the Dakota Ridge neighborhood which is just to the east of these hills (and I do mean 'just') were allowed back into their houses so I feel confident the fire is well on it's way to being controlled, at least the part that effects me so I'm not worried for myself anymore. Must have been horrifying for the people on the plains who have horses and livestock. Lots of people had to open their gates and let their horses go because the fire spread so quickly with the high winds that there was no time to get them in trailers to evacuate. There's a really cool llama ranch that burnt down but thankfully they got the llamas out in time. I'm glad I got out of it o.k. but I feel awful for the people who lost their animals. Thankfully there were no major injuries, a few fireman had minor injuries. Hopefully that will be us done with the fires for a while.

Lazy Holidaze

We all had a nice relaxing 4 day weekend.

Great Cody, now you've got Strummer yawning too.

Strum sez 'when exactly do you go back to work? I need my beauty sleep'.

Lola, of course, doesn't need beauty sleep but she'll steal a nap when she can nonetheless.


I was out at the training field in all kinds of crazy, freezing, windy, sofa king cold weather this past week. 16 degrees one day, -5 degrees wind chill and 20-30 mph winds another day. Stupid running contacts. Stupid trial coming up next weekend and old school dogs have had no practice for weeks and weeks. Stupid obsessive compulsive handler/trainer can't make herself sit still for 2 seconds. Stupid knee won't behave so I can't redirect excess energy to running, have to obsess about stupid running dogwalk instead. No it was a relaxing break, really.

I discovered that the trick to a successful dinner party is to fill your guests with wine right from the start. That way maybe they won't notice the horrible carpets or the smoke from the food that was burned 20 minutes prior to arrival (that was Jonny for once, not me. Well, I did burn a tray of potatoes but that was after Jonny caused the smoke detectors to go off) or that the placemats, plates and silverware don't match. For some reason the most we have of any one pattern of anything is 3. We lose plates and silverware like normal people lose socks in the dryer.

The only downside to this plan is if you've asked one of your guests to take stitches out of your head which is probably already an inappropriate thing to be asking your guests on Christmas night but I have the sort of friends who will argue over who gets to do it. No bathroom surgery went down though because the stitches were deemed too tight and I realized that too much pre-surgery wine had been consumed. I got them out myself with my Swiss Army knife the following morning. Jonny was duly impressed. I was happy that I didn't have to drive to Niwot and back (20-25 mins. ea. way) and sit around in the doctor's office on my day off and probably have to pay another $20 copay.

I've been enjoying my life of leisure, sleeping in, walking the dogs in daylight after the sun has warmed things up a bit, mid-day naps-what a luxury. Not looking forward to waking up early tomorrow and scuttling around in the dark with my headlamp and 9 million layers of clothes and dogs going crazy at the slightest thing because everything looks weird in the dark. It's supposed to be 58 degrees tomorrow too, I should steal just one more day but I know that I won't. Hope you all enjoyed your holidaze too.

DOCNA Championships, Day 3

Day 3 was Trigility (3 dog relay) and the Standard and Jumpers Finals. What can I say, another perfect day for little miss Lola. She had beautiful fast clean runs in the Standard and Jumpers Finals and in Trigility. She took first (once again, only dog) in Standard & Jumpers and her Trigility team took 3rd in the 24" height class, not too bad considering we were a draw team made up of a vet (Lola) and a grand vet. This was the first time I'd run Trigility and it was interesting. There are 3 courses-Jumpers, Standard and Gamblers-and each dog runs one of the courses. You can see the courses before you decide who runs what so you can strategize a bit. The Standard course was nice and looked like good practice for Finals so I lobbied to run that part with both my dogs and my teammates were all o.k. with it. There is no baton to pass which is nice, seems a lot safer. As soon as one dog finishes their course the next dog starts their course with only one dog running a course at a time. It’s a lot less chaotic than pairs/team relay in USDAA. I liked it more than I thought I would.

Cody had an off course in his Standard run but was running so well otherwise that I couldn’t feel bad about it. I’ll post course maps later and explain where it was but in short he took an off course tunnel trap. But he was so fast and happy and otherwise accurate and focused (got all his contacts and weave poles) that I couldn’t feel bad about it. He was so happy and jumping around at the end of his run, he seemed so sure he’d won the whole thing he just made me laugh. In DOCNA an off course in Standard is only 10 faults, not an E so he still got 2nd place. He ran clean in Trigility, sort of. He missed his weave entry and I fixed it right away, not a fault just wasted time. His teammates all ran clean but the team didn’t place which was no big deal to me. I had awesome teammates on all my teams and everyone had nice clean runs, can’t ask for any more than that.

Overall I had such a great time. The trial was really well run and everybody there was so nice. Judge Ann McQuillen was awesome. Her judging was fair and consistent and she had a big smile on her face the whole weekend. Courses were fun and challenging though a bit heavy on the serpentines and flips (even more of them in the finals rounds). Would have been good to see a wider range of challenges but still overall the courses were fun and more challenging than what I’ve seen on a normal weekend which is a good thing since it’s Champs and all. I will most certainly be back though probably not next year since Cody likely will be too old and Strummer likely will not be ready yet for something like that.

Couldn’t be more pleased with how well the dogs ran. Lola was nearly perfect for 4 straight days! Her only bad run was Traditional Gamblers and there was something up with a tunnel which I think caused most of our problems there. The only ribbon she didn’t get was for the Time Gamble and she’d had a gorgeous run, I simply didn’t send her out of the ring soon enough. So she was .37 seconds and one gamble away from being perfect at a Nationals! I’m still a bit shocked at that since consistency is not typically our strong point. Cody had some typical crazy moments but overall ran so nicely. Seriously at this point I’m happy enough that he’s able to go out there and run fast and happy. He had some good competition in his class and I was thrilled that he was able to pull off 2 clean Standard runs to make it into the Finals. He was so close in Jumpers too but for a stupid handling glitch on my part.

After 2 days of driving I’m tired, I get the rest of the week off right? Uh, I guess not. Took the dogs to the Rez this morning for some well needed and deserved off leash running and swimming. They all looked happy to be home and I am too.

WARNING: Gratuitous cliche braggy self-indulgent doggy ribbon photos posted below. But c'mon, it's Nationals.

Little Miss Perfect showing off her ribbons and medals


Cody Baloney, totally humoring me


I initially found him posing like this when I came out of the house with the camera. What a goof.

Pueblo Trial

I wish I would keep better notes during trials. Or at least notes period. By the end of the thing it's all a blur and I'm lucky if I can remember what we Q'ed in.

We've been having such a nice, unseasonably cool spring but of course as soon as it's an agility weekend the temps. climb freakishly high. Saturday was windy again, not as bad as the weekend before but it was hotter, into the 80's then 90's for Sunday. Poor dogs, they always seem to melt down during at least one standard run at this trial and true to form both of them did on Sunday. Both standard runs ended when they refused to lie down on the table, not even for a second or two so I could leave the ring with something to reward. They'd been doing so well with their tables up until last weekend. The heat and being outside makes such a difference. Cody had a nice standard run going on Saturday until the table, then got a refusal when he ran around it. I finally got him on and into a down, again fooling him into thinking I had treats then ran out of the ring to reward when he finally did it. Lola did manage a decent table on Saturday and picked up her very first masters standard Q. How we're going to get 4 more good tables with nothing else wrong is anyone's guess.

We managed to get a bunch of Q's we didn't need and none of the ones we did. Cody popped his weaves during Snooker so no Super Q for him. Lola did get a Snooker Q but already has her title. She was just got shut out of the Super Q's too and since I'd had the same plan for Cody he wouldn't have gotten it even if he'd done his weaves. Unfortunately the 7 was the weaves and there was no way I was going to ask him to do 4 sets of weaves in that heat on the very last run of the trial. I picked a fun flowing course and hoped for the best but it didn't pan out this time. Why are weaves so often the 7? We'll just have to hope for a better course next time, this one just wasn't strategic enough (only 3 reds).

Cody picked up 2 more gamblers legs that he doesn't need (both first places, go Cody man) and Lo who has only 1 got shut out. Both gambles were easy, the test was whether your dog could hit the A-frame contact at a distance. Lola missed both times plus she melted down so badly that she didn't even get enough opening points.

Cody again got a 5 fault Grand Prix Q and 4th place, Lola who still doesn't have her Q for Regionals got nothing. She was running nicely but had a refusal at the weaves due to a handling error on my part then missed her dogwalk down contact. After that I lost my concentration and I think we had an off course somewhere. She was running much better in general this weekend, heat aside, once I realized that I needed to keep moving and give her an excited 'let's go' every once in a while to keep her moving. We've been down this road before with me running her while not being able to move properly and it never goes well. At least she didn't get totally shut out this weekend, that standard run was really nice. She had a beautiful pairs run too, her partner went off course so no Q but so what, it felt good for her to have a nice run if only for half a course. I think once we get practicing and maybe some lessons with Joy things will be fine again.

Cody's dogwalks were terrible this weekend but I think he hit all his A-frames. Lola missed some dogwalks too, unusual for her I think. I think she got most of her A-frames except the ones in the gamble. I've got a month to sort out what to do about Cody and I've not got a plan. He's so old I don't want to do anything that requires a lot of reps. Maybe I'll sign up for one day of the ASCA trial since they allow training. Do the dogwalk over & over until he gets it right then run out of the ring to reward, that's all I can think of for now. Taking him out of the ring of a USDAA trial or otherwise marking it when he blows it is not an option with him.

My foot still hurts but I think I was moving better this weekend, at least by the end of the trial. The start of the trial is always worse for some reason. I don't have another trial for a month and I'm hoping by that time I'll be moving a bit better.

Stacy Peardot announced one of her rare workshops on Monday and I just happened to be checking the Colorado list at just the right time so I snagged a spot. It's just a half day masters handling workshop next month so hopefully that will be a nice tune-up before Regionals.

It was a fun trial despite the weather, a nice venue and well run. Was fun to meet fellow blogger 'Wishy' who had come up all the way from AZ for the trial. She gave me some good info. about Susan Garrett and I've decided to sign up for the dog training seminar as opposed to the agility handling. We'll see if I can pay attention for 2 whole days.

Now I get to spend the week playing catch up. Two weekends of no house or yard work, seriously, you don't even want to know what I found tonight but it involved bugs. Inside the house. There are some advantages to having a small house & yard though. I managed to mow the lawn and vacuum the house tonight in just under an hour or so. Let's hear it for compact living. Or maybe it's because my motto when it comes to cleaning is 'close enough'.