Marley and NOT Me

The Whole Family

Good Thing There's Work So I Can Recover From the Holidays

Exercise and preparation
SUMMARY: How the dogs and I are preparing for our long agility weekend.Seems to me that Tika tires out faster than she used to. OK, sure, she's 8 and a half now, but it also occurs to me that, since I'm now combining 2 dogs into one class and mostly focusing on Boost, she hardly ever gets a lot of long agility sequences to do. In the yard, we tend to focus on maybe 3 or 4 or 5 obstacles for some particular thing we're focusing on.I've been getting better again about getting out for a mile-or-more brisk walk with the dogs nearly every day, but that's not the same as running.It was just wayyy too hot over the weekend to want to do anything--here's my i

Dog Agility Goes Mainstream
SUMMARY: We're in the funny papers!Hard to believe my eyes: A mainstream syndicated comic strip (Rhymes with Orange) today featured agility dogs!View the page I found this on; vi

Ooooh Noooo!
SUMMARY: Agility trial angst.Wait--how is it possible that I'm already almost at this weekend's 3-day USDAA trial in Prunedale? Starting FRIDAY morning! Ack! Have we practiced ANYTHING that we need to practice? No! None! Nothing!And I just realized that of COURSE we're not having class Thursday night this week because half the class will already be down there camping out and the rest of us will be going to bed very early.Need to practice Tika jumping at 26"! Need to work on Boost's bar-knocking exercises! Ack! No time! Too hot! Boring! [wait--subtract that last one--one is supposed to MAKE the things that you have to do FUN so that you do them. .

Sister's Family and their Really Big Jumping Dogs
SUMMARY: In which my nieces and sister do some fun stuff with their animals in the heat, and I watch. Saturday morning, I tossed my borrowed SLR camera into MUTT MVR and swooped up to Portola Valley to finally (after meaning to do it for years) watch my nieces and sister ride their horses. It was wayyyy too hot to consider taking my own beasties along, so they stayed home.It amused me to see how very similar to agility class their jumping classes are, talking about the line that you use to get from one jump to the next, what lead the animals are on, how your body affects the critter's actions, how many strides the dog--er--whatever--should take between obstacles

We're Havin' A Heat Wave
SUMMARY: In which we attempt to get the TMH dogs to go swimming in an actual swimming pool.106 F (41 C) today on my back deck. Yeesh. (Although the official temp, at the airport, closer to the bay, was a mere 94, the Los Gatos temperature, which is farther up the valley, more or less parallel to where I am, came in at 105. What a difference 10 miles makes!)So we invited ourselves over to my sister's yard, in which they have a swimming pool. I know for a fact that Tika likes to get into water where she can swim a bit; likes getting into the ponds here in my yard (one ankle deep, one chest-deep when full). Figured that she, at least, would like the pool, especiall