Goopy Eye Continued
The first day of Coneheadness was a hard day, but I tried to take the cone off so Auggie could sleep without it on and he immediately started to paw his eye again, so it unfortunately had to go back on. I took it off at about 4PM the second day and he left his eye alone, so we were able to keep it off after that, much to Auggie’s relief. It’s hard to be a conehead.
At first his eye seemed to be getting much better right away. The green mucus discharge went away within a couple days and the redness got much much better, but he still kept putting out a lot of clear mucus, far more than usual. We went to Louisville for agility the following week, and his breeder told me she thought it might be a clogged tearduct and I should take him back to the vet. The vet said yup… clogged tearduct. The bad news was, he wanted to put him under to unclog it… and figured while Auggie was under we should do a dental too.
Well, I called around and found a vet that would fix it without putting him under, but it was going to cost over $200. Auggie’s teeth really aren’t in need of a dental and I don’t want to put him under, but I didn’t want to pay over $200 either. I decided I would think about it for a while and figure out what I wanted to do. A clogged tearduct isn’t harmful and it can’t turn into anything worse, and was probably caused by the eye infection, so all it was going to mean was a lot more discharge than normal. Not exactly fun for Auggie or for me, so I DID want to fix it… I just wasn’t sure which the best course of action was.
That weekend, I went to the yuppie grocery store in town. I actually went looking for some stuff for my face that I’d read about on the internet, but couldn’t find it. However, they have a tiny little pet section, and in that pet section I found Halo Cloud Nine herbal eye wash. I had read about it online while reading about clogged tearducts and was sort of delighted to see it there. It was $20, all natural, and it claimed to open clogged tearducts and was mentioned a few places online. I figured, well, $20 was a lot cheaper than $200, and if it didn’t work, at least I’d tried a cheaper, natural solution first, right?
The wash comes with two different solution concentrates that you mix up in an eye dropper. You do three days of drop one, three days of drop two, then repeat drops one and drops two for a full cycle. The notes that came with the drops said “You may notice a swallowing motion right after putting the drops in. This means the tear ducts are clear. This may not happen right away.” When I first began putting the eye drops in, I didn’t really see him swallowing. The third day of the first round of drop one, I THOUGHT I saw him swallow after I put the drops in the eye with the clogged tear duct. The first morning of the first round of drop two, I definitely saw him swallow after I put the drops in his clogged eye. He also already had a lot less mucus coming from that eye than he had since he first got the eye infection. The second drops are to clear out the bacteria that clogs the tearducts to sort of “finish the job,” and I suppose you repeat the round to just make sure you’ve gotten everything.
Well, I am REALLY thrilled to say that these drops worked for Auggie. I didn’t have to fork over tons of money for the vet to put him under and unclog it, nor did I have to fork over tons of money for the specialist to unclog it without putting him under! All I did was pay $20 and it was ALL NATURAL to boot. Whoo-hoo!
I’m a mean mommy
So I picked up a few things at the store tonight and came home, sat on the floor, and was taking stuff out of packaging. While doing this Auggie came in to see what I was doing, we played a bit, gave kisses, then he was just hanging out watching me.
I was taking the sticker off a bottle and asked him if he wanted a sticker. Then I reached over and stuck it on his forehead and snickered and he wagged his tail and it was funny.
Then I checked my e-mail, put some stuff away, la la la, decided to take my shower… when I got out of the shower and I hear my mom outside the door going “DID YOU PUT A STICKER ON YOUR POOR DOG’S HEAD?!”
OMG! I totally forgot about the sticker and left it there. And he was running around with it on his forehead for AN HOUR.
And then I took a picture of it.
(He’s not really as sad as he looks, he was just looking at the floor because I had the flash on. But it’s funny that he looks so sad because it totally goes with the story.)
Auggie’s goopy eye, and first experience as a conehead
When I got home from work Friday, Auggie’s left eye had a slightly green, very goopy eye booger in the corner. That’s not at all normal for him… his eye was slightly red and he was squinting it just a little bit. Luckily, we were already going to the vet Saturday morning for his annual. All evening long I kept going “Oh my poor puppy! You have a GOOPY!” and he just stared at me and squinted his eye a little…
I left him to go see Daughtry in concert, and when I came back, it was crazy goopy. Wiped it, but it was completely gooped over in the morning and he was starting to paw at it a bit. I wiped it again before we went to the vet but it was already goopy again by the time we got there.
The vet pronounced him “really good” except for his goopy eye, and sent me home with antibiotics to put in his eye three times a day. Then we stopped at PetSmart and got him an e-collar, where he proved his mad cuteness skills by getting a cookie not only from the cashier in our aisle, but the cashier in the OTHER aisle too. *facepalm*
Then I came home and put the e-collar on him. Poor guy looked pathetic. I said to him, “I’m sorry baby. I feel so bad for you. But not so bad I won’t take pictures.”
Saaaad puppy.
I asked him if he’d smile for me. Oooookay. Here you can see how he’s squinting that eye just a little bit.
Auggie wants you all to know exactly what he thinks of having to be a cone-head.
He’s done really well with it actually, except when he’s walking somewhere and tries to squeeze through near the wall and ends up konking his cone on something… then he just stands there looking terribly confused. He tried to get it off right when I put it on, but he’s pretty much left it alone otherwise. Though the first time we went outside he whacked his cone on the door frame and backed up looking startled and wasn’t sure if he wanted to go outside after all. Poor baby.
I wish I were Auggie
He told me he had to go potty, but it’s 5PM and it’s dinner time. So I asked him, “Well, do you want to go potty, then eat, or eat and then go potty?”
He stood there for a moment looking totally conflicted. Then he decided to go eat first.
And it occurs to me: this is the most difficult decision he has to make.
Eat, then potty, or potty, then eat.
Oh to be an Auggie. It would be awesome.
Auggie loves his food
A few weeks ago I needed to get food for Auggie and decided I’d go to the Pet Supplies Plus, since it was slightly closer than the feed store we usually go to. Well, their prices aren’t as good as the feed store, so I decided to buy the big BIG bag to save some cash. I won’t have to buy food for like six months now. (Though I came up with an excellent solution to the issue of too much dog food… get a puppy! So far this one isn’t going over well with my family. Oh well.)
Anyway, I have no idea why I decided to give Auggie the bag after I emptied the bag into his normal food container, a vittles vault, and then a huge plastic bag… but I did.
This is the result.
I had to remove him from the bag. I think he would have stayed there for hours licking the bag if I didn’t take it away.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 10
Week 10 is the beginning of the Problem Solving stage of the jumping program. This stage introduces one stride lengths, bounce distances, long and short strides, and higher verticals and bigger oxers throughout the different weeks. This is where a dog really starts to learn to look ahead and THINK about what is ahead of him rather than just rely on muscle memory to jump the same way every time. During the problem solving weeks, the setup changes each lesson whereas previously all three lessons in a week were the same. However, Clothier doesn’t want you to move on until a dog has basically mastered each lesson. Some dogs might need additional practice rather than just one day/series of six jumps to master a lesson. Auggie needed more practice on lesson 3 in this series… unfortunately, I forgot and moved on to week 11 without really allowing him to master that lesson.
This video shows lesson one, lesson two, and lesson three of week 10. The patterns are different every day and can be found in the book. Week 10 is about teaching one stride lengths, which for Auggie is 45 inches. You’ll see there are still oxers and verticals mixed in, and that jump distances change between two stride lengths and one stride lengths.
As you can see, day three (I should have changed my terminology to lesson three – sorry) is a hot mess more than once. The good news is that Auggie seems to be getting a real kick out of the jumping program anyway, even though the distances between jumps keep changing! And having fun is what it’s all about.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 9
So week 9 is five oxers. No more single bar jumps… every jump in the chute is an oxer.
He does really well navigating smoothly over all five oxers, getting a nice arc over them. Unfortunately he also keeps up with that pattern of stutter-stepping the last jump a majority of the time. Still not sure why he does that. I experimented some with putting a target after the last jump, hoping it might drive him over the jump and remove that stutter-step… didn’t work. So I’m still not sure on the “why” of how he reacts with that final jump.
YEAH SNOW
It’s probably over 3 inches and it’s still snowing last I checked.
SNOWFAEC
I don’t know if you can really see it when this is zoomed out like this, but his hocks were CAKED with snow.
Ayy mateys, my name be Auggie McSnowbeard!
More snowy-beard.
He plunged his head back into the snow and when he came up again, no more snowbeard! How does that work?!
JOLLY BALL TIME
He’d roll it around with his paws a while before deciding to pick it up… weird dog.
Oh hai, I has a this.
WAAAAH SNOW
This is how he ends up with all that snow on his face. PLOOMPF
Oh hai jolly ball
I’m gonna pick you up…
but first…
I’m gonna munch allllll the snow off this handle thing here!
LOOK MOM
I like jolly ball
Stop-animation photography, haha:
AHHHHHHHH
fffffff snow in eyes
I can’t stop laughing at this for some reason.
licklicklicklicklicklick… slightly more sophisticated than the face-plunge.
My little guy <3
More stop-animation photography… this is how Auggie plays in the snow besides plunging in his whole face…
sproing!
sproing!!
Repeat sproinging.
Sproing EVERYWHERE
ALL OVER THE YARD
THE END
Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning
The “winning” shot in front of the tree this year… usually I shoot a bunch and only one turns out well. This is the one. Unfortunately even this one is slightly blurry.
A LOT of these are crappy because the lighting in this house is so horrible, especially after dark when these were taken, and some of them were easier to correct in Photoshop than others… some just came out awful colour-wise. So sorry in advance.
My mom wanted to put this necklace that lights up on him… he is a very good, tolerant little boy.
SANTA AUGGIE
He should just be glad I didn’t grab the hat with the beard attached to it this year.
No photos of him getting his snazzy presents on Christmas night… I forgot to grab the camera. He got a jolly ball, a brand new bed, and a new fleece blanket (he likes to play underneath it, or I’ll cover myself with it and he dances around outside the blanket wookie-noising at me.)
However, we opened stockings on Christmas morning and I remembered to grab the camera:
What? Dis mine, you say?
Oh yes, IS mine!!
HEAD IN STOCKING SHOT
Digging out the new loofa dog toy.
A brand new little basketball!
Pause to demonstrate to my dad one of the gifts I put in his stocking.
Auggie is tailgate tested, tailgate APPROVED!
Return to the stocking…
This brand new red ball is REALLY great. It was an awesome buy.
Playing with it right away.
All the goodies from the stocking. Considerably less than last year, but hey, there’s a recession going on… and also, he destroys fewer toys now that he’s older so I really, REALLY don’t need to buy him more. =P He has plenty.
Posing with his goodies!
Then we just hung out and played all day. It was nice to spend a day just hanging out with my little guy.
This is his new bed! At first he wasn’t sure if he liked it, so I told him I had the receipt and we could take it back, but then he changed his mind… he likes it a lot.
Staring some more at the Christmas tree… he really loves Christmas trees. Me too.
OH HAI MOMMY WITH CAMERA
HAAAAAAAAI (oh God this picture cracks me up)
I eats camera?
Layin’ on the floor near Momma!
This was after we played with that ball for about an hour. He was tired, so he went back to his bed.
Tired… so tired… so…
snznzzzkzzz
THEN WE HAD SOME SNOWS SO WE PUT ON OUR COATS AND WENT TO PLAY IN IT
I didn’t get a good shot of the back of his coat, but it has skulls and crossbones on it and says “ROCK STAR.”
Obviously we didn’t really get MUCH snow, and the wind was seriously awful. The temperature wasn’t too cold on it’s own, but the wind was super brutal, biting and strong. So we didn’t stay out long at all… we went back inside to play some more instead!
(I trimmed Auggie’s feet up today so they look much better now than they do in these pics. I honestly DO groom my dog, I promise.)
Secret Santa has visited Auggie!
The dog forum I belong to has done a Secret Santa for a couple years now, and Auggie’s Secret Santa package arrived today!
“For meeeee?”
I told him he has to always read the card first before he opens presents. So he did.
Sitting pretty with all the presents! This was hard because he already knew what was in the red packages, LOL.
PUPPY CHOCOLATE OM NOM NOM NOM (the smaller red package had people chocolate in it so it was put away immediately, LOL.)
I noms cuz this for me.
Sitting for a few pieces… he likes it a lot!
It was hard to make him want to open his other presents, LOL. I think he was like “YAY CHOCOLATE OKAY THAT’S IT BUHBYE”
“Whas in dis?”
A squeaky toy! Whoohoo!
Next, a lovely red lead! He tried it on. Sorta.
Sitting with his goodies! Thanks Secret Santa!!
“I can nom more chocolate now plz?”
Four year old birthday boy!
I keep telling myself I need to stop calling him “puppy” and “baby dog” all the time now. ;P
Birthday dinner – chicken, a “peanut butter cup” from a local dog bakery here, and some other cookies. His present is three Kong squeaker tennis balls from PetSmart (I kid you not, I saw those on the website and was like OMGOMG I KNOW WHAT AUGGIE’S GETTING FOR HIS BIRTHDAY.) And… a hat.
That I put on his head. And he did not enjoy.
NOM CHICKENS
NOM COOKIES
Yes, I am terrible to make him eat his dinner with that hat on, LOL.
Checking out one of his toys.
Playing fetch. With the hat on. Yes.
LOL the hat kept falling to one side, I’d fix it, it would fall to the other side, I’d fix it, it would fall again..
Okay, okay, we took the hat off finally.
Yaaaay birthday puppy!
Little guy – not so little
My baby dog hasn’t been a baby dog for quite some time, really. I just forget. Friday I took him to a Lia Sophia party and everybody asked me how old he was. I said “He’ll be four on – oh my God. On Sunday.”
Auggie is four years old today.
I’m pretty sure Auggie is in the top right corner…
That’s Auggie down in front there! You can tell by the obvious zig-zag mane, and the lightning bolt on his forehead.
That’s my chunky puppy, haha – ruining the shot of his cute bro!
I of course had no idea at the time. I had to go pick my pup out first.
This was the one I liked.
Bringing him home several weeks later…
He was tiny.
And I loved him.
He got bigger.
But his personality was the same from day one.
He got more hair…
…and more!
We’ve done a lot together…
…and we’ve learned a lot together.
But at the end of every day, it doesn’t matter what letters are on the end of his name. It doesn’t matter how many Qs we have in what events.
At the end of the day, he’s my little guy.
And I wouldn’t have him any other way.
I don’t know what made me pick Auggie over his brother that day, but I am so, so glad I did. My life was not the same before he came into my life and it has never been the same since.
Happy fourth birthday, little guy.
In the leaves
It seems the new Midwest fall tradition is cold and rainy all the time. It was a struggle finding a day where it was dry, the ground/leaves were dry, and that my dad didn’t go out and mulch up all the leaves so I had none to play with for the photos. So here we go!
Auggie Halloween 2009
Last year after I knit his dinosaur costume, I figured I would knit up a bumblebee for 2009. Well, I never really got around to feeling like I wanted to knit… so I didn’t. I have one of those ridiculous hot dog costumes I got at Target last year for 75% off and figured I would just put that on him. And then I couldn’t find it! So I dug around trying to find some other goodies, and located… well…
This little vampire cloak that I also got at Target (YES I LOVE TARGET) last year for $1. I also attempted a pumpkin costume that I got for $1, but he was having none of that… none. of. that. This, however, he was quite happy to wear, so he got to be a vampire this year.
While taking Halloween photos in the living room, I somehow failed to notice until editing the photos that night the record sitting in the front of the record box in the background is… Thriller.
Which is funny considering when I carved my pumpkin, I decided to go with a theme of… Thriller.
Distracted by squirrels behind me. My mom’s pumpkin of ghosts and monsters is on the left; mine is of course the Thriller pumpkin on the right.
Regal vampire puppy is regal. The other pumpkin and gourd are decorated with these little stick-in things my mom bought. I think her plan with the gourd was to carve it into a dragon… it turned out way cooler this way, I think!
Pondering sucking someone’s blood!
Plan for 2010 is a shark. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll get around to the bumblebee.
Auggie and pumpkins photo shoot
I took this one afternoon when I came home for lunch to sit outside with Auggie because the weather was GORGEOUS. He wasn’t very interested in the camera so this is the only one I took.
Then I attempted a photoshoot with uncarved pumpkins… and he still wasn’t very interested in the camera. So I grabbed a leaf and started twirling it at him to get his attention. He looks very untrusting here, LOL. Like “I want that leaf… but what must I do to get it?? Hmmm…”
Unfortunately a little poorly focused.
Sadly, this one is poorly focused too…
His face cracks me up in this one. He kept trying to sneak little chews on the pumpkin stems… this is his “I’m not doing anything… la la la… chew chew… la la la…” face.
Argh! More not-properly-focused!
I guess for some reason I thought I had two more dogs, and that’s why the pumpkins are spaced so far apart… either that or I was hallucinating that my dog is much bigger than he is.
Not sure what was going on here, he sort of looks like he hates the pumpkin and can’t stand to be in the photo with it, LOL.
And finally…
I don’t know what it is about this one, but I very much love it.
Caramel Apples
A while back I started a new tradition with Auggie. It started one night when I climbed onto my bed to watch TV and eat a caramel apple, and Auggie wanted to come up on the bed with me. So I ate the apple and he lay next to me watching.
Now, when I eat caramel apples, I don’t eat the entire apple. I eat the outer portion of the apple – I try to get a good balance of caramel, peanuts, and apples in each bite, so usually there’s maybe a quarter of the apple left around the core that I didn’t eat. Or maybe more like half of the apple… depending on what I think a “good balance” is that day.
So I’m sitting there, having finished my caramel apple, and Auggie is sitting next to me. And I realize – hey, there are all kinds of treats that have apples in them. Why not save the waste of the remainder of this apple?
So I held it out to Auggie and he happily bit pieces of it off the stick.
From that point on it was a tradition. I would eat the good stuff and then Auggie got the remainder of the apple when I was done.
So… this is how I share with the Auggie Doggie.
These are the best caramel apples IMO… outside of getting the gourmet expensive ones at the apple orchard.
Mmmmmmm!
Then the Auggie starts to chomp away on it.
I told him “Okay, that’s enough.” He said “Really?”
“REALLY really?”
No, not really really. I gave him the rest.
September 19th & 20th Trial
Somebody needs to tell Auggie he’s doing it wrong.
This past weekend, I was glad to be back at our local club for the trial. It’s a site we’ve been to many many times, a place I’m comfortable at, and a place I feel like Auggie is comfortable at. I was hoping he would be more relaxed as far as some of his recent issues with the a-frame were concerned, hoping he would have fun, and hoping we might go home with a couple ribbons.
Saturday was a bit of a hairy mess. We didn’t even get started running Novice until after 4PM in the afternoon… and Auggie and I had rolled in around 10AM to set up and hang out with everybody. It was also a sunny day and a bit warm due to the sun; more than once I found Auggie huddled up in the back of his crate trying to catch air from his crate fan.
So when we got out there for our JWW run, he wasn’t totally feeling it. He slowed to a walk through the tunnel about halfway through, and as we entered the weave poles, he stopped entirely and stuck his nose to the ground. Augh! Something smelled quite good and he was no longer interested in me. Attention Auggie: this is not earthdog. This is agility. After several attempts and trying to get his attention back, I waved at the judge and carried my bad little puppy off the course. Snotbucket!
I sat outside the ring and mulled things over in my head. He was still so pokey. What’s his deal? His breeder offered that his confidence might still be shaken from everything he’s had to deal with as far as his jump height going up and down all over the place. Would I ever be able to restore his confidence? I wasn’t sure. And if I can’t restore that confidence, I might just resign to playing with Auggie in the backyard instead of competing.
And then we had to run Standard.
The course was set up in a pretty straight line. Jump, jump, a-frame, jump, tunnel.
Auggie would see that a-frame, and, God willing, that would be the end of the story. If I could just get him to run straight up the a-frame, everything else after that was secondary.
I decided not to even bother putting him in a sit. I was just going to drop him and take off running. I’ve seen people do that before, so why not? Maybe having him in a sit was screwing with his momentum.
So I put him down. And I took off and he came with me. And I yelled and screamed and drove that dog like crazy.
And he went up the a-frame.
I was roaring and screaming and yelling the whole time. Angels sang a chorus of Hallelujah.
And then I pushed him off the entrance to the tunnel.
Hahahahaha! Oh well. Other than that, he ran great, even did his weaves flawlessly (presumably to make up for his total disaster over on JWW.) Even with the one refusal, we got a Q! Awesome!
Sunday was not a very good day as far as the weather went. I decided I would go out early on and watch the excellent runs, and then leave during Open, pick up Auggie, and bring him back with me so he wouldn’t be out there for so long during the day. Shortly after I arrived, we got caught in a good downpour of rain. Lovely. The ground got nice and wet, then the sun came out and looked like it might at least dry up the obstacles.
Then I left to get Auggie and it rained some more. And then I sat there and it rained and rained and rained. Eventually, the rain was just there to stay. I was glad that I invested in my ASICS for the sole purpose (haha, get it?) of running in wet, muddy conditions. Auggie, however, does not have shoes that are specially made for running in wet, muddy conditions. He just has little feetsies that sometimes slip.
Oh well. If he knocked bars or anything, I wouldn’t blame him. I figured we would just go out and see what happened, and if it looked bad, I would pull him.
Well, he didn’t slip and he didn’t knock any bars, but he off-coursed twice. Once was my fault, the second time, he was too busy going “LALALALA THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVER LALALALALA!” At least I can’t say he wasn’t enjoying the game anymore at that point, because the look of joy had obviously returned to his face, and surprisingly, despite the weather, his speed was back as well.
So on we went to standard. He went straight up the a-frame again – bliss! He came out of the tunnel and I pushed him off the broad jump… then oops, I let him back jump it, getting us a wrong course as well as a refusal. Then we came to the weave poles and… Auggie disappeared on me at pole four. Doot doot de doo, he went to go check out the sandbags they had holding the dog walk down. I stood there calling him back… he started to come back, and then went “Oh hey, a-frame!” I distinctly remember going “AUGGIE DON’T YOU DARE.” LOL. He came back to me again.
I was THIS CLOSE to blowing off the run. I thought we’d had too many refusals, wrong courses, and now we were way over time. There was no way it would be a Q.
But in my head I heard his breeder’s voice, and what she always tells me. “Fix it. Whatever happens, just fix it.”
So I fixed it. It took me a while because I had to back him up a few times to help him get the entry correct, but we fixed it. And then on we went, up the teeter, through the tunnel, over the dog walk (where I practically had a heart attack because he looked for a moment like he was going to slip off it), and then through the last tire jump.
“That should be a Q,” his breeder told me after the run.
“Oh, there’s no way. That took forever. We had to be way over time.”
“No,” she says, “I think that’s a Q.”
So I packed up the car, then waited around some more… and what do you know.
That was a Q.
In fact, we were really good as far as time went. We would have Q’d even if we were playing regular agility!
And that means that in four days of trialing Auggie got his NAP.
The same dog that took me TEN TRIES to get a single Q towards his NA.
You have to be kidding me.
So there you have it. We’ve gotten a jumpers title now, and a standard title. Just, sadly, not all at the same time, LOL. We’re still in Novice Jumpers until we get those 2 more Qs towards his NJP. I have to decide if I want to move him up into Open Standard or not.
Just some photographs
I was thinking I wanted to take some photos of Auggie.
The problem is that I’ve had this dog for nearly four years now, and that’s four years worth of photos I’ve taken. And photos of Auggie playing in the backyard start to look the same after four years…
But nevertheless, here’s a few I took that were a bit different.
Thinking carefully about the sausages my mom is pulling off the grill in the background…
Another attempt at replicating a photo I took of Kota years and years ago. I decided after taking this one that I should quit trying to replicate the photo. It’s not going to happen. Auggie’s not Kota and he never will be. This photo is pretty cute, but it doesn’t really touch me the way Kota’s photograph does.
Look! My dog DOES actually have whites to his eyes! Amazing!!
Auggie’s Return to Agility
I make it sound so overly dramatic… we really only took about a month and a half off, LOL.
First, I packed up my bag and an overnight bag for Auggie…
…and off we went. A little late, actually, which resulted in a frantic call from his breeder going “hey are you here because… you need to be here!!” I pulled in, loaded out Auggie’s crate, ran off to walk the course and listen to the briefing, ran off again to get my armband, ran Auggie to the warm-up jump and got him limbered up, then in to run JWW.
I was panicking. I felt awful. I had it in my head that we would get out there and he would go “Mmmmmeh… I don’t really want to do this.” I was all prepared to burst into tears on the course that my dog didn’t want to do agility anymore and I had to retire him and and and
I honestly thought I might pass out. I was trying to do some deep breathing to relax (and to stop the OH GOD GONNA PASS OUT feeling) but nothing was helping.
I put Auggie at the start line and decided against a lead out – while thinking I would black out at any moment and konk my head on the standard and I would get a concussion and it would be horrible – so I just ran with him. He came with me and sailed over the first jump.
Whew. Suddenly I can breathe again.
Then the next jump, and then the next. Another jump and another and another – front cross, jump jump jump… into the tunnel, over some jumps, and smoothly into the weaves, smoothly THROUGH the weaves, jump, jump, jump… oh my God, it’s honestly been so long since we’ve had a clean run.
We had a clean run. And… oh my God. We just Q’d. Oh my God.
There was a pretty long gap between our JWW and standard run so we just hung out and relaxed for a while. Standard has been our enemy from the first time we started trialing. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Resolve the issue of missing contacts, then it’s the fact that he doesn’t want to hit the brakes to get up on the table WITHOUT flying off, THEN try to resolve the off-coursing to a contact (*headdesk repeatedly*)
Now the issue is that he has developed a judge issue with the a-frame. And the name of the judge who caused this issue is a name firmly on my List (and the List of several other competitors from this and the other trial, might I add, but I digress.) So he gave me a refusal there. But PRAISE GOD, I backed him up and he took it the second time. Hurray!! So that’s an improvement.
Some darn weave buggies that are largely my fault (the weaves were after a jump, but on either side before the weave entry was a tunnel off-course and the a-frame, Auggie’s favourite off-course, and even though he refused it before it would be just my luck that he’d off-course onto it. =P so I was SO GLAD he got past the off-courses I don’t think I was handling him right through the weaves, LOL. I’m a dork.)
The hilarity of the day: Auggie came over the double jump and went wide. Very wide. So wide he decided to slid under the folding chair that the bar setter was seated in. Then he came scooting back to me and jumped over the last jump. Everybody outside the ring was dying with laughter, going “He wanted extra points! Extra points for the chair obstacle!” He just saw that chair there and thought it was part of the course I guess, LOL. No real “visiting” because he didn’t actually care about the spotter. I have no idea. My dog is hilarious.
I had no idea what our time was. Did we make it? I just didn’t know. I kept telling everybody, “I don’t know if we Q’d. I have no idea. The time might have been too much.” The full-stop before the a-frame and all the time I wasted fixing the weaves might have put us too far over.
The placements/ribbons weren’t out yet but this club was giving people a copy of their scribe sheet, so I went to go peek at the scribe sheet. And then I walked back to our little tent and acted all casual about it.
“Well?? Well??”
“Ask Auggie what a Double Q feels like,” I said.
High fives all around, lots of celebrating, and Auggie got some more cookies for no good reason, LOL. This is our first ever Double Q, and even though it counts for absolutely nothing, it’s a big deal for me. Way to make your return to agility, Auggie.
Off we went to the hotel after that where we ordered some Chinese and crashed out on the bed and just hung out all night.
Couldn’t figure out for sure where to put his crate. I settled on the little corner AWAY from the door, but not totally crammed into the corner under the sink. This is before I brought in his pillow from the car (I had to make a few trips.)
Auggie in his crate.
Snuffling and pouting in his crate. It stormed so I put him in the crate to mellow out while it thundered. He was Not Happy.
Snoozing out on the floor later; after it quit storming I let him back out.
And hanging out on the bed with me. Yes, he did use that pillow. This is why you should always bring your own pillowcases to hotels, people… LOL.
Later, he thought that the spot underneath the bedside table would make an awesome place to crash.
He was unhappy when I told him he couldn’t sleep there all night. Sniffle sniffle.
On the second day, I blew our JWW run with us. He hadn’t even taken off for the triple jump yet, but I already knew he wasn’t going to make it. He’ll try to beat me over jumps and 99% of the time, that means he isn’t going to clear the bar. Well, I pushed it and he tried to beat me over the jump, so he crashed the last bar. The crowd all went “OHHH” because, well, of course they didn’t have my foresight so they hadn’t known before he even took off that he wasn’t going to clear the jump. =P I walked out of the ring and somebody said to me, “He still ran beautifully, though!” and I was like “Yeah, that was ALLLL my fault!” Bad mommy. Bad handler. Bad.
Standard we encountered the a-frame issue again, but this time when I backed him up he really TORE over the a-frame like he was back in his element, loving his favourite obstacle again. I screwed up again and he didn’t clear the broad jump, so when we had issues at the weave poles (which I anticipated in my walkthrough and figured I’d just have to try our best to make it through), I tried to fix it a few times and then decided, eh, who cares, we already NQd. Forget it, just let him sail over the last jump and end it on a good note.
So no Qs on Monday, but overall, an awesome weekend.
My job always seems so very mundane after a weekend at an agility trial.
I wanted to take some pics of Auggie with his ribbons and decided I was for sure taking them by…
Giant Lincoln. Anybody who’s ever been to the Illinois State Fairgrounds has probably seen this in person and they know I’m not kidding when I say it’s a GIANT Lincoln.
SERIOUSLY giant. LOL teeny tiny Auggie.
I wanted to get Auggie in the foreground, then tilt the camera and get Giant Lincoln in the background… I couldn’t get the shot. Giant Lincoln was too darn giant.
My pretty boy. =>
And yes, the ribbons are red, that means they are 2nd place ribbon. Wanna know who took first?
As expected, MACH4 Granny smoked us. ;> REALLY smoked us. She doesn’t want to slow down, apparently, LOL. It’s all a-okay though, red is Auggie’s colour so I’m fine with that! Looks like we’re both gonna be chasing the PAX together. I’m looking forward to it.
So there you have it. On the 19th & 20th we’re back at it in our local club, which I think will be a really good weekend… but we’ll see. The moral of this story is that Auggie kicked butt and he CLEARLY is digging agility again, even in a trial environment. And that he’s a big rock star. That is all.
Oh, I forgot to mention: This was the first time that we have ever been at a trial where they had two rings going at the same time. Auggie really doesn’t give a crap about what’s going on outside the ring, but he’s never competed in a place where there are people issuing commands in the other ring. It didn’t throw him off at all, though. Good boy Auggie!
Return to Natural Jumping
Well, I’m cheating it. I know, I know – I have the book, I have read it, I KNOW it says not to cheat and move any faster than she recommends. And I’m cheating it anyway.
As part of our effort to start over in Preferred, I have made a return to the Clothier Natural Jumping Method. Now that I know Auggie’s height (in preferred, for now, anyway) is 12, and I know that we really need to stick with that, I made a plan of how to continue.
And that is to just move the bars up to 12 for the rest of the method.
I DID back up some. I went to the final week of the rhythm lessons, where you have five regular jumps, evenly spaced, and did that for two days.
So here are your videos!
Jumps 4 and 5 are call throughs rather than run bys. On Jump 6, I cut out the less than spectacular shot of my butt running away from the camera, but I ran him through the chute going away from the camera, then turned him around at the end and ran him back up. He was nice and smooth, both ways!
So far, so good!
Lake of the Woods
Took Auggie out to this state park to do some walking and take some photos. Unfortunately it turned out to be way too hot, even though we went early in the morning, so we didn’t stay too long.
Auggie considers ending it all by throwing himself over the waterfall…
Okay, okay, so it’s not really much of a waterfall. It’s entirely man-made, the top part is maybe an 8 foot drop, and the bottom part (shown in the first pic) is probably only a foot drop.
“Hmm, but a drink might be nice…”
He got a nice drink from his Gulpy before taking this one, so now he looks ridiculous. =P
On a lovely little bridge over the small pool below.
“Hmm, maybe I could throw myself into the pool and end it all that way…”
Actually, he was just looking at all the koi fish swimming around below. Several of them were surfacing and making their little popping noises as they fed. Well, he may have really wanted to throw himself into the pool, but it would have been to try and grab those fish. You better believe I had a death grip on his collar at this point…
WHEEEEE HIKING
What is that over there?
Oh? Is there some kind of joke we might be able to make here?
“Hellooooo? Timmy?”
“Tiiiiimmyyyyy… are you in there?”
It wasn’t a real well – it was only as deep as the wall is tall from the outside. Actually, it might have been cute to place Auggie INSIDE the well, but the ground inside the well looked a little less than attractive to place his fluffy butt on, so I didn’t.
Bark For Life – American Cancer Society Event
Auggie and I participated in Bark for Life, a canine version of Relay for Life, an event held annually by the American Cancer Society to raise funds to benefit cancer research.
We were there both to walk, but also as a vendor!
My booth for Dogged Illustration, where I sell prints of generic breed imagery as well as custom silhouettes of individual dogs. You can see my examples on the left there… the big red one is Auggie!
All doggie participants got a purple bandanna. Auggie HATES to wear bandannas… but he happily wore this one all afternoon long.
We walked a whopping mile – not long, but it was pretty warm out; too hot for several of the bigger dogs, in fact. Auggie was a champ and didn’t mind the heat, or the walk, one bit. In fact, he thought it was pretty darn awesome.
Fun times were had by all! After the walk there were contests, like biggest dog, littlest dog, and Musical Sits. I hope Bark For Life becomes an annual event, it was great fun, and of course, it’s for a great cause.
I Picked A Booger
This morning I loaded Auggie into the car to take him to doggie daycare. I’ve been taking him every Wednesday, and this morning I had a meeting at my bank to talk about getting pre-approved for a mortgage.
The bank branch I had my appointment at is on the same street as the daycare facility, so I figured I’d just take Auggie to daycare a bit earlier than usual, drop him off, then turn around and drive back down to the bank for my meeting.
As I’m putting Auggie into his soft-sided crate in my back seat, I notice that the top panel is still unzipped a little. I remember I unzipped it so there was a small hole that more air could circulate in through, since it was rather hot this weekend. Somewhere in the back of my mind I considered zipping that shut.
I didn’t.
Halfway to daycare, I hear Auggie rustling around in his crate. “What are you doing back there?” I ask him (because I always talk to my dog as though one day he will open his mouth and answer. And honestly, if he did one day, I’m not sure I’d be surprised.) “What, are you throwing a party in your crate or something? Stop it. Settle down.”
He does for a little bit. Then I hear more rustling. Again, somewhere in the back of my mind, I have this niggling thought about that unzipped top panel and wonder if he’s trying to open the panel more so he can stick his head out the top of the crate… but I quickly cast that thought aside.
Until I glance in my rear-view mirror.
And see AUGGIE’S HEAD.
I can only assume all the rustling around I heard was him wiggling and maneuvering around to get the panel open further than the small hole I had left open. Because he had it open about halfway, perched his front legs on the top of the crate, smiling like a smug little booger all proud of himself, looking around and watching the cars go by.
I dropped him off at daycare and informed him I was not coming back for him.
Then I went back out to the car and very firmly zipped the top panel closed.
What a complete and total booger.
It’s real now…
I just filled out some entry forms putting Auggie into Novice Preferred.
I’m not really sure how I feel, but I just don’t feel very good right now. I know this is the right thing to do but I have a serious case of the bummers all of a sudden. I guess part of it is the feeling of starting over back in Novice… the other part is still the tiny niggling in the back of my head, no matter how silly it might have been to hope for with my first ever agility dog, is the giving up on the MACH dream.
I’ll get over it. I’m also feeling excited to get back out there and hopefully have Auggie enjoying agility again. I’m sure once we have a nice run things will feel differently.
It just doesn’t feel so great right now.
