Happy Halloween

Since Halloween is this week, I thought I would post a picture of my poodle pumpkin that I carved a couple of years ago. It's one of those fake pumpkins, which I love because I only have to carve it once. I freehanded the design, but I based it off of a poodle on a t-shirt that I have. And here is Teddy's costume this year:

Who needs Dalmatians? :) We entered a costume contest at the conformation/obedience show that we went to this weekend. It was a tough show- an open air horse arena on dirt and the weather was very cool. The distractions were too many to count. We were going for Rally Advanced Excellent legs number 7 and 8. I knew it would not be easy, but I thought it was doable, and I wanted to practice some control in situations like this.

On Saturday the courses were difficult with the signs I hate the most: the offset figure 8, the back up 3 steps, and the call front 3 steps back. And to top it all off the start sign was all the way on the opposite side of the ring, so we were disconnected from the beginning. I don't think I have tell you that we did not qualify in the Excellent class. We had a judge who was heavy with her pen, who took 10 points off where I would normally only use 3 points. I'm not going to say that we should have qualified, but I did feel that we were not exactly judged fairly. But I'm not one to argue with a judge. We went on to qualify with a 92 in Advanced, but the goal of getting my RAE in 10 straight trials went out the window. Easy come, easy go. They can't all be good days.

Back to the costume contest- you know you are having a bad day when you can't even win a costume contest and you get beat out by a man in a Scooby Do costume. Yes, you read that right.

Sunday went a little better. We did pretty well in Excellent, but Teddy was very tired from the long day before so he was distracted in the Advanced class. Thankfully, though, we qualified in both classes for our 7th RAE leg, so the weekend wasn't a total wash. We also stuck around late Saturday for the match, which was really good for us. That about sums up the weekend- just so-so. We're hoping for a better next couple of weeks.

Freestyle Brag

I was excited yesterday to get an e-mail from the Musical Dog Sport Association (MDSA) telling me that Teddy and I qualified for our first leg towards our Novice title. Woohoo! We entered MDSA's very first video competition back in June, and I have been waiting anxiously ever since to find out the results. I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas to come. But we finally received our score sheets via e-mail. I doubt our new routine will be ready by the November deadline for their next video competition, so we will hopefully earn our next leg next June.

Now for a Training Update:
Teddy and I are having a busy fall. There is so much to train right now, and lots of trials and opportunities to work. Here's a summary of what we are up to.
Obedience- I think we finally had a breakthrough with our leather utility articles. We have been able to do 5 metal articles for a while now, but we have been having issues with the leather. The other day, Teddy picked up the wrong article and then spit it out on his own and went back for the correct one. I think (and hope) that it finally clicked for him. We are having good luck so far, but I am going to stick with only two articles for a little while longer. Teddy is also retrieving gloves really well, and we are working on our go outs. One of the main things that I want to work on is our heeling. We'll never make it in the utility ring unless we can tighten up our heeling. We'll be doing rally again at the end of October.
Agility- After doing zoomies in the trial ring, we are back in class working hard on motivation and short sequences. Teddy's been doing great in class, and I've been so proud that he is coming back to me for more without giving up on me when I make a handling error. He's really trying. We are entered in a USDAA trial in a couple of weeks, so we'll see how we are really progressing. I'm hoping that it will help us to get in the ring more than twice per day. We are entered in an AKC trial in November, and I'm considering another in December, but I'm going to wait to decide about that.
Freestyle- Today is a deadline to enter a video competition. Since we just did not have time to film our routine, I'll have to wait until December to enter the next one. I want to get our filming out of the way early this time. We are also beginning a new routine, but we have a lot of choreographing left to go. I can't wait to finish this routine though and already have the costume and music. I'm excited that we will be doing freestyle demos in a couple of weeks at a big regional dog show. Last night I ran down to our training club to practice one of our old routines because I had forgotten some of the choreography.

I think that about covers it. So much to do and so little time when you have a versatile fun-loving poodle boy!

Rally-O Weekend

This past weekend, Teddy and I entered Rally at an obedience trial about an hour away from home. The great part about rally is that it gives us ring exposure and gives us something to do at trials since we are in between finishing our open obedience title and beginning to show in utility. I'm also hoping that it will help us improve our heeling, but that hasn't really happened yet.

We entered both Rally Advanced and Excellent on both days and got legs #5 and 6 towards our RAE title, so it was a great weekend. On Saturday, we got an 86 in Excellent. It was my fault that our score was so low: I should have retried a sign, but I chose to go on. It's one of those bad judgements you make on the fly. We did better in Advanced with a score of 98. Sunday, we got a 97 in Excellent and a 98 in Advanced with a 4th place.

While I'm thrilled with the outcome, I'm still not really happy with our performance. The judge was kind and light with her pen, but I feel like our scores really should have been lower. Our heeling has just not gotten much better, with Teddy not feeling compelled to be glued in heel position. He wanders too far to my left. We need to improve on this before we can even consider entering the utility ring. There is always something to train, but in the meanwhile, I'll bask in our 2 leg weekend. :)

Yorkie Time

For all of you who have not reached your cute quota for the week, or if you feel the need to gratuitously go "awww", here are a few new pictures of the yorkie girls, AKA the Twin Terrors.

After a recent bath:
Heidi

Gracie

And together:

In their new hoodies (why a dog with perky ears needs a hood is beyond me):

From the front And from the back
And to top off the adorableness, here's some video. This is what you get when you sit on the floor with the camera. Heidi is the smaller one that is very toy crazy. Gracie is our plus sized model.

These girls crack me up. I love it when they carry the same toy at the same time.

A Horse of a Different Leg

Normally, in my family's line of business we are fortunate enough to be able to help people and improve the quality of their lives. Once in a great while, we get the opportunity to do the same thing for an animal. This story began over a year ago.

Lovey is a paint mare horse, who was dangerously malnourished with a life-threatening injury. While living with her previous owners, her right front leg got tangled in a wire fence, cutting off the blood supply to her hoof, ending with an amputation. Her wound became badly infected, and she would have died within days had her owners not surrendered her to the Humane Society of Pulaski County. The story made the nightly news, where my mom heard the horrible story. She then convinced my dad to call and offer our services to see if we could help Lovey.

Over the next year, under the care of the Humane Society Lovey gained around 300 pounds and had revision surgery to repair the amputation site, and got her strength back. It was because of her sweet nature and good attitude that she earned the name, "Lovey".

Fortunately, we have a prosthetist on our staff that owns horses, so he and my dad worked together on the fitting. We had to wait about a year, though, for Lovey to heal enough to be fitted for her new leg. Here's a picture of the casting:

About 2 weeks ago, we went out to deliver the finished product. We were met with a crowd of around 5 different media outlets. Lovey had quite a fan club to witness her first steps on 4 legs. She took to her new limb amazingly well; she will need a lot of therapy, and like humans, she will have to build up her endurance of wearing the leg. Her shoulder and leg will have to gain strength again and she will have to learn to hold her leg straight instead of crossing it over the other front leg. Here is a video of Lovey in her stall before she put on her new leg:

This is when we put the leg on for the media to see. The lady in the orange t-shirt talking is Kay Simpson from the Humane Society of Pulaski County.

And finally, here is Lovey walking on her new prosthetic leg:

We have heard that Lovey is doing great with her new leg, and has adjusted well. I hope to get some follow up video in the future and check in with her progress. Lovey's caregivers told me that they are getting a special trailer for her so that Lovey can travel around and make therapy visits. She will make a great therapy animal. I have to include a picture of the bottom of her new hoof. Now wherever Lovey goes, she will leave a smiling face on more than just the people she meets.

The day after Lovey's fitting, my family and I left town for a week of vacation, but we found out that the Fox News channel as well as CNN picked up the story and replayed it over and over. We've been amazed at how far this story has reached so far. We even got a thank you card from someone in New York. As a family and as a company, we were honored to be able to help this sweet horse. We are thrilled to be able to make a difference in the life of an animal. If you would like to learn more about Lovey and see a more complete version of the story, you can check out some of the media coverage here:

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/wfaa/index.html?nvid=267166

and here:

http://www.fox16.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=4B166215-3C3A-41D5-939D-98EBCAB3E9D8&gsa=true

Teddy the TV Star

At the end of last week, Teddy and I had the chance to go on a local morning news show and help promote our training club. Even though it was a very early morning, we still had fun. It's interesting to take Teddy to new places and to see how he reacts. He was actually a lot calmer than I thought he would be and pretty much took everything in stride. I guess that's the difference in a 5 year old versus a 2 year old- he's settled down a lot. The only thing that bothered him was when one of the cameras moved on its own in front of us, but he got over it. We sat on the interview couch and answered questions. My favorite part was at the end when the anchor told Teddy to sit and give him five. I was asked later if that was planned and practiced beforehand, but it wasn't. We only had time to exchange names and a handshake before going on air. Below is the link to the video of the interview:

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/thismorning/story.aspx?storyid=69297&catid=143

And, as mentioned from before, I took some birthday video after Teddy got his birthday haircut. It's all pretty silly, but if the shoe fits...

Teddy is 5!

Well, last week Teddy had his 5th birthday! I can't believe how quickly these last 5 years have flown by. Not only has this curly headed boy taught me a lot about training, he has taught me patience, diligence, and how not to give up. I still have a lot left to learn, and I hope that he will be around for many more years of lessons.

So, for once his birthday fell on the night of our favorite class-agility. Teddy was recovering from a bad case of pancreatitis from the week before. If it had not been his birthday, we would have stayed home to continue resting. I decided that we would just go and play because I knew that he had missed going to class and he would enjoy just being there. I had no expectations, Teddy could do whatever he wanted, and I couldn't complain. That's pretty much what happened, too. If you didn't know any better, you would think that the dog in the videos below was just slacking off or did not know how to do the obstacles. But, I know my dog, and these are definitely videos of a dog not feeling well. We have been making small progress here and there, and Teddy was not himself that night. That being said, we are having some contact issues, as you can see when I reached under the A frame and pulled out a target, Teddy remembered his job. But that's a story for another day.

Teddy is getting a little better as time is going by, but I have to be very careful what he eats, and I'm letting him take a break for a while and rest so that he really heals. Anyway, watch the videos if you dare, but please don't judge. They are not meant to be shining examples of how an agility dog is supposed to look, it's just a recovering dog on his birthday having fun and doing what he wants. But the second video does have music! I have one more video taken in my backyard, but that will have to wait until I have time to do the editing.