Monday, June 01, 2009

More agility writing by Wishy's Kiddo...

"I chose to write this poem because I like agility."

My Dog's Life written 3/9/09 by Wishy's Kiddo, age 8 at the time

I have a puppy named Pax
She has a friend named Max
We have to go to a class
And it's always on grass
Then we go to the mall
To buy her a new ball
And then we go to training
Where she ends up banging
If she jumps through a hoop
We go out for some soup
We met another dog
While we sat in the fog
And when Pax barks,
In my heart she makes marks.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Free Clean Run articles online

I just thought I'd share, in case you didn't know, that Clean Run now has several free articles online at this link

http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=451

The section entitled "Canine Health" is fantastic with wonderful articles on stretching and strengthening the canine that we've used here at home and before and after competition days for quite a while now.   I highly recommend those!  But there are many great free articles here covering a wide variety of subjects!

We might as well avail ourselves of some great free agility info!

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Happy Poem In Your Pocket Day!

Today is the end of National Poetry Month and Poem in Your Pocket Day when everyone is encouraged to walk around with a favorite poem in a pocket and share it with everyone they meet.  

If I ran across you today, I'd pluck Wendell Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things" from my pocket, read it to you and share my wish for you to feel the peace he describes.

Follow this link to read the poem and consider yourself virtually blessed!


Friday, April 24, 2009

GREAT dog training advice!


Check out Fanny Gott's blog post today with 5 pieces of advice to improve dog training!  It's a keeper!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

a podcast of dog tales!


In case you haven't noticed, I'm a podcast junkie.  When I'm at home, I hook up my ipod to my stereo and listen to podcasts anywhere in my house or back yard while I'm puttering.  I do the same in my car and I even listen to my ipod sometimes when I hike (though sometimes I just want me, my pooches and the trees when I hike).  

My husband and I listened to this podcast last weekend on our long drive to the 4-star competition in California.  It is well worth the listen!  And watching our pooches in our RV when the final segment of the cat taking a bath came on was a GREAT diversion from the long drive!  Enjoy these dog tales!  Especially the one about the blind frisbee-catching dog!

Monday, April 20, 2009

First 4-Star event of the year


For all you non-agility folks who read my blog (Hi Mom!), this post can be summarized:  Yay!  My pooch and I had a GREAT WEEKEND!

For you agility pals:  The first 4-star event was this weekend.  If you don't do USDAA, 4-Star events are point-accumulation tournament events to help determine what dog and handler teams will compete on the world team next year in IFCS (I think that stands for "International Federation of Cynological Sports" or dog sports).  After four 4-star events and the Cynosport World Games in Scottsdale in November, the 3 dog and handler teams with the most points will be eligible for world team.  MY news is that of the 6 events this past weekend at the 4-star event in California, my huge bc boy won 3 of them and earned points in others.  He racked up lotsa points, in other words!  It was SO FUN!

And most importantly, I felt like me running him.  So many times at events I've "cared about," I have cared WAY TOO MUCH and I've ended up performing so badly and we've not even resembled ourselves on course.  But in the case of this weekend, three of our runs were clean and smooth and ended up first place.  3 of our runs were okay and we made it through them, but with bobbles here and there a bit.  But in all cases, those runs were "US!"  I mean, normally we run some smooth runs AND we make bobbles here and there.  That's us (or ME, mainly...  my dog is amazingly consistent.  It's me who bobbles, really).  But even with the bobbles this weekend, I didn't make them because I was nervous or geeky or strange or goofy or weird because I was nervous or intimidated or trying too hard or "trying for the world team."  Honestly, I don't expect ANYTHING to come of my point accumulation...  but I HAVE learned that it's STINKING FUN to just run and be me and have my big boy be my big boy and have the points/placements/titles/etc. shake down however they might.  I've had so many dear friends experience so many heartaches, illnesses and deaths recently that it is TOTALLY APPARENT that scampering about trying to get a dog to lurch itself over a hurdle or to touch some yellow paint is just not important in life.  But enjoying a sunny weekend with my family and with several good friends and with my best furry pal and running and feeling the pump of my heart and intake of my lungs and enjoying my health, my family's health and my pooch's health....  well,

IT WAS A GREAT WEEKEND!  

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Video & Audio Podcasts that have truly added joy to my life!



If you've never heard of the TED Conference or of the TEDTalks, well, I sorta envy you because you're now about to experience lectures from some of the world's truly great minds and these words will add so much immediate joy to your day and probably even to your life that I just want to revisit the moment not long ago when I learned I could watch and listen to and download these talks all FOR FREE!  I guess I can revisit them by going and viewing and listening right now.  And I will.  Time and time again!  All for FREE!  TED stands for "Technology" and "Entertainment" and "Design" and some of the world's great thinkers are asked to speak at the TED Conference and other big-wigs are either invited or pay big bucks to view these talks.  But we can view the talks, download the talks to our ipods, and listen or watch in our jammies with a hot cocoa and a PB & J dripping down our chest anytime we choose.  (Oh, and our pooches can be at our feet.  Can't forget our pooches).  Anyway, enjoy this talk by the great Coach Wooden about SUCCESS!  (I love, love, love that he's a poetry lover!)  And poke around all over the website here or search for TEDTalks on the search function on itunes and ENJOY!  Put comments in, if you care to, sharing with me your favorite TEDTalks and I'll go check them out, if I haven't already!  ENJOY!