December 2010--Another year coming to a close!

As you may tell from the not-so-many diary entries this year, we've been busy!

We attended a few more local flyball tournaments and I had a lot of fun. I almost have my next flyball title but I've managed to come up with some lameness in my left front leg. Vet thinks it's arthritis, so we haven't been doing anything for the past several weeks. I came up sore just before the last tournament at the end of October and still get a bit gimpy now and again. Not too bad but enough so I'm not doing any agility, disc dog, or flyball for a little while.

In September, I did have fun going to a Rally tournament. I did great, mom said, and earned two legs toward my AKC Rally Novice title. One more leg to go on that. I can definately still do Rally, Mom just has to figure out a convenient time to go to the next trial.

As you may have noticed, we have a new fur brother at my house! Pepper is another Sheltie, like me. He's bigger than me by a couple of inches but we love to play and tussle with each other. It's nice having another Sheltie in the house.

Well, more to follow next month, I'm sure. For now, I hope all of our pup pals and other friends have a happy, safe, and warm holiday season! Cheers!

We did it again!

Well things have been going great. Mom just took me and my brother, Kenny, to Clean Break's March Madness Tournament in Gettysburg, Pa.

This tournament was huge! It had over 400 dogs entered in more than 70 teams. We raced over 360 races during the weekend. It was amazing and a record-breaking tournament for the region where we play.

Our team did fantastic, considering our start dog, Ruby and me are still very much green dogs. I ran clean all weekend until the very last race of the day, when I couldn't help myself any longer and chased the dog in the other lane. Other than that, though, I did my job and really had fun.

Our team ran clean and earned enough points for me to get my next flyball title, Flyball Dog Champion-Silver level (1,000 points).

There's no practice this weekend but we'll be back at it the following weekend. Our next local tournaments are not until the end of May, so we'll see if we go to that when the time comes. Meanwhile, Mom and I are still taking agility lessons and really having fun with that.

That's about it for now. Hope everyone is enjoying some nice spring weather!

Another flyball tournament under my belt.

This weekend, Mom packed Kenny and me up in the mini-van, loaded the two human children and headed for reported-blizzard conditions in Philly! Why, you might wonder? For flyball, what else? BOL.

The weather wound up a lot better than Mom feared. The location in Pa was in pretty good shape Friday night , despite getting several inches of new snow. The parking lot was a sheet of ice that first night but that didn't stop us from getting all settled in for the weekend. We even had some time for single dog racing (SDR) which is always fun.

Mom is very proud of me...I hung in there for pretty much the whole weekend. The team I was on was fairly speedy and able to go fast enough to get 25 point-runs. Not sure what "points" mean but Mom gets excited about it because she picks up something else called "titles" after we get enough "points". Sounds complicated to me...I just wanna get my ball and maybe chase a border collie, or two!

The local news crew, Channel 6, showed up. I heard one of our Doxie friends was so surprised to see the camera guy, she popped up on the flyball box and just stared at him! That was pretty funny to watch. The nice judge asked the camera guy to step away just a bit and then they re-ran that race. The Doxie did awesome without having to stop to check out a camera guy and her team won that race!

Well, at the end of the weekend, my team had over 700 points, came in 3rd in our division, and were pretty much tired. Tired dogs are always good dogs, you know. I earned enough for my next "title", so now there's new letters at the end of my name. Mom's just glad we're out here together, playing, and having fun. You know, I am too.

Till next time...chase your tails-you might catch it one day!

Another Flyball Title

It's been awhile to post this but we've been busy! Last month, we went to PA for a quick, 1-day flyball tournament. Our teams ran pretty well and I got my 2nd flyball title, YAY!

We're still hanging in there with flyball. I still get a little spooked at that last jump when a dog is coming at me and sometimes I just don't do that jump. We're working on that, so I don't wind up blowing points for our whole team too often.

We haven't done any disc dog, sigh. The Arctic Air Games was the same weekend as the flyball tournment, so we didn't get a chance to go this year. I hear there was a ton of teams that played, though, and everyone had a great time.

I got to have some fun last weekend, performing in the Classic K9 show at the Pet Expo in Timonium, MD. That was an interesting weekend and mom was happy with the way I hung in there, even though all those noises in the Expo center really had me nervous. Our friend Sky, did disc dog and had a great time entertaining the crowds.

Back home, we're dealing with a crazy amount of snow. We got about 34" at my house and because the snow froze up a bit over night, I can actually walk right on top! Kinda made mom worried, though, since it was just a little hop for me now to be over our 4-foot-tall fence! BOL. We're expecting another 12" or so tonight into tomorrow. Bye bye fence, hee hee.

Hope all of our pup pals are warm, safe, and ready to have a great Valentine's Day.

December 2009

Well, it was a slow November with mom recovering from some minor surgery and now it seems it's my turn to lay low for a little while, too.

While mom was off for a couple of weeks, we weren't able to really do too much stuff, dog activity wise. Now, just as we were getting back into the swing of things and gearing up for a flyball tournament, I wind up on the injured reserve :)

While out playing 2 weekends ago, I must have twisted something in my front foot because I came back in limping. Crate rest and leash walks for me sinc then but I'm pretty much back to normal already.

Mom was worried it was the same problem that had me at the vets back in May. We got checked out yesterday and things look unchanged in my x-rays. Yay. There may be some arthritis in the wrist joint, perhaps a small bone chip, but it's really hard to tell.

More Rimadyl for a little while to keep swelling down. No flyball practice for another week. Then Mom's going to take me for an orthopedic consult at the end of the month just to be sure. If all goes well, I'm going to run in a 1-day tournament in January and then the next big tournament in our area will be in March.

More to follow!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. I know I'm looking forward to it!!

October Update

Another month has come and is almost gone! Mom and the humans all went off to Europe for a few weeks so not much happening dog-sport wise.

There was a frisbee event yesterday but with so much still left to do after being away for over 3 weeks, mom says she's still trying to play catch up. Sounds like a fun game to me but she doesn't seem to think so. Maybe it's not the game I'm thinking of, BOL.

Mom did take me out to play frisbee a bit yesterday, so that was nice. I hope all my friends at the MADDogs disc dog event had fun and did well! I heard there were over 60 teams there (after 20 some odd teams had to drop because the weather postponed the games by a day). Sounds like it would have been pawsome to be there but I guess I understand why we stayed home (well, not really but mom already feels a little guilty, so I guess I'll let her off the hook)

We're still practicing flyball, too. We went Saturday night and had a grand time. I think our next tournament is the first weekend in December. That is definately not that far away now. I can't wait.

Well that's about it for now. I know November will be a quiet month probably but hopefully we'll have news to share from that flyball tournament in December.

Good luck to all of my paw pals in all of your adventures, trials, and events this autumn season!

Finally, it's OFFICIAL!!

Well, Mom still can't quite believe it but it's official. I'm a title carrying, points accumulating NAFA Flyball Dog (FD)!

I know it may not sound like much (my sister, Macy, earned her first 3 titles at her very first flyball tournament) but for me, this was huge. Our flyball team put together an almost all green dog (newbies) team together and just went for it at the Flash Point Flyball Tournament this past weekend. Together our team wasn't very fast, thus the low point totals. But after a few blips here and there, we really did get our act together and did our jobs! All of the humans were very proud.

Mom had alot of fun playing with me. I got to be start dog, which is the first time Mom had to run in that slot. (Macy used to run 3rd, usually). We got one double false start, which wasn't good, but over the course of the weekend, Mom averaged .400 starts. Lots of room for improvement but we came close to a pefect start (.000) on one attempt with a .003. Whoohoo!

My house mate, Kenny, also ran on my same team and did an awesome job as our bac k up height dog. We flew over those 10 inch jumps and when our old friend, JB the beagle, was height dog, we only had to jump 6 inches. No matter what the jump height was, we kept on playing and didn't miss a beat.

Well, I'm resting up a bit (but not too much) today and am just basking in the glow of this long-awaited accomplishment. Unfortunately, we can't make it to a tournament again before the end of the year but that's okay. Hopefully, next year should really start rolling for us so far as attending more tournaments and earning a few more titles.

I sure hope so but, no matter what, I don't think we'll ever be able to top this particular moment.

August Update (And it's still August!)

Well, we've stayed busy this month with going to flyball practice every weekend and trying to stay cool at the same time :) It's finally decided to become summer here on the East coast and my Sheltie fur coat is definately not digging the high humidity and heat, BOL.

I have been enjoying our Saturday night flyball practices in the air conditioning, though. Looks like I'll get to a chance to play in my first flyball tournament next month because I've been doing so well. Can you believe it? I sure can't!

We went to a wonderful scrimmage practice with a nearby flyball team just last weekend. One of their wonderful humans, Dave, took some awesome pics of me doing my thing and Mom has posted them to my page here on Dogster :) My mom is so happy to have some pictures of me, finally, doing flyball. It's only been, what 3 years, afterall, BOL!

Seriously, though, see what time and patience in training can do for you? :) That's right it will make you go bald and crazy (JUST KIDDING!!) Mom's so pleased she stuck with this with me and that I am finally more than okay with playing the game. I'm really enjoying it now that I know the box won't eat me AND I get to race other dogs, too. Whoohoo!

Well gotta go back to my mid-day snooze so I'll have some energy to play when it cools off later today. Bark atcha later!

July Update

Okay, okay, it's August 2nd but wow, I can't believe Mom hasn't posted any updates since the beginning of June!!! How time flies when your human works all day and when you have human brothers playing Little League baseball, BOL!

There hasn't been a lot of disc dog for me, unfortunately. Our last outing was to our Skyhoundz regionals in Pennsylvania back in the middle of June. The weather was AWESOME and we had a great time. We didn't place well (I seemed to forget how to catch all of a sudden, sigh) but we got to see some great friends and watch some excellent disc dog freestyle routines. Congrats go out to all of our MADDog members who qualified for Worlds in Tennesse this September!! YOU GUYS ROCK!

Flyball, on the other paw, is coming along really well. Mom thinks I'm offically over being afraid of the box. I've done a couple of Friday night racing sessions now and haven't had any problems. Mom thinks we'll be playing on a green-dog team (meaning all of the dogs on the team are new to the game) in September. She can't believe it :)

I've been having a lot of fun with learning to pass my team mates and run in different positions. I was enjoying the racing so much last weekend I even decided to start chasing a dog on the other lane. Mom wasn't happy about that. Said reminded me I have to stay in my lane only and just do my job--which includes ignoring the other fast dog racing in the lane just a few feet away from me! Well, I guess if I've learned the flyball box isn't going to eat me, I can learn to ignore that annoying dog in the other lane, too.

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully Mom will get a chance to post again before another 3 months fly by.

Remember have fun, run fast, & run clean until next time!

Disc Dog and Flyball updates

Wow,

May has been a busy month around here. I've been to another disc dog competion back on Mother's Day (check out my new cover picture!) What a lot of fun that event was! It was really windy but somehow Mom managed to throw the discs just right for me to get a really great distance/accuracy round. We actually placed 4th in our division which is really great!

Freestyle got interesting that day because right in the middle of the routine, one of our new frisbee friends, a very nice German Shepherd dog, got soooo excited, she slipped her lead and came out right on the field with me. She wanted those discs too! She bowled me over to get one, which was a bit of a surprise to me because I didn't see her coming, BOL. I looked kind of shaken up there for a moment but after her mom came and got the GSD, I picked up where I left off and finished the routine with Mom. With the wind and all, we didn't really do super on that routine and didn't place but Mom was so happy I finished and didn't seem upset about my friend rolling me over.

Flyball's been going pretty well, too! My team had 2 tournaments this month and I've attended both to watch. While some of the teams were running, I got to go on the lanes with Mom and just do simple ball retrieves. All the noise and action didn't bother me. I was able to bring those balls right back to her.

This past weekend, they had single dog racing (a special time for green dogs to come out and try their flyball skills on the actual lanes). I got warmed up, did a couple of recalls, retreived the balls up close for Mom, and then she took me all the way down to the end of the lanes. These lanes were waaaay longer than the place we normally practice in, too. Anyway, one of my favorite teammates, Ruby (a red-tri Aussie) lined up in the other lane and all of a sudden Mom was telling me to get rrrreadddy! "get your ball!" and she let me go. Well, what can I tell you? I took off after Ruby flew by me to go get my ball. I did the whole thing a couple of times and Mom was sooo excited. She said something about me staying in my lane, doing nice box turns, and actually getting kinda speedy for a short dog.

The nice people at the judges table gave Mom certificates with my best times on them. Mom thinks she's going to have them framed, BOL. Guess we'll be getting to go to more tournaments soon.

Well, that's about it for now. More disc dog later this month and more flyball too. Everyone take care, stay well, run fast, and run clean!!