Painful Days

Well this week hasn't been much fun. I managed to do something to my back just while sitting on the floor at work. After 2 days of no improvement I went for a massage (my first ever). Wow! What a difference. I could actually move again. I then took a day off and spent it flat on my back with a book. After that excruciatingly boring day, I'm finally back at work. I'm trying not to lift heavy objects like mop buckets or let dogs jump on me but it isn't as easy as it sounds. I'm really happy to be feeling almost normal again though! I hope by next week, things will be all normal again. Keep your fingers crossed.

PSA about Dog Fighting

Very well done video.

Weekend Fun

It was a very busy, yet fun, weekend. Saturday I went up to Calgary for a seminar on fearful dogs. I learned a lot. It was geared more towards dog trainers but there was lots of information on how to make fearful dogs more comfortable. It would have been great information when I was still dog walking and pet sitting as occasionally there would be a dog that really didn't know what to make of me on my first visit.

Then Marlin and I went out to Cranbrook to visit with my dad and his wife. They just moved there on Friday. They already had tonnes unpacked and while we went ready to work, they wanted to take the day off. That was OK by us! So we just puttered and toured around. Lacey came with us, but Coulee had a sleep over at Tundra's.

Toy Envy

Harley has the toy Coulee wants.

You can see it in her ears she is annoyed. Once she fixates on a toy, no other toy will do.

Not recommended

And here is another cute picture of Ruby... I'd put it on my work blog but there seem to be a lot of her lately on there lately. She is super fun to photograph!

New Neighbor

This is our new neighbor! Coulee greeted him/her with lots of barks and growls from inside the house. Lacey didn't know what the fuss was about...she couldn't find what Coulee was barking and grumbling about.

Got it!

At least I think she caught it.

Look at those nails! I think she needs a trim.

Open Wide

Apparently opening your mouth wide does not guarantee success, much to Coulee's disappointment.

Rare Event

So Coulee and Lacey get along and will occasionally play (if you consider Coulee grabbing Lacey by the neck and dragging her around while making scary noises, play...) but they never snuggle up together. Coulee is not really a snuggly kind of dog. If I lay down next to her, she'll stay and tolerate me but she doesn't ever come lay down next to me. This is about as close as they've ever gotten.

Side by Side

Another new trick....

Trying something out

So I've noticed some people using blogger seem to have bigger pictures and I'm trying to figure out how to do that. It looks like if I upload them to Photobucket, make them the size that I want and then just paste the link it should work...

Cool!

Who knew?

So who knew a staff meeting could be so much fun. Marlin said it sounded more like a party than work. We had some great ideas for some changes - some big, some little. I still need to wrap my head around some of them to figure out how to make them work but I think most of them are doable.

I wore the shirt so they'd know who was boss... it didn't work. They ran right over me as usual. Good thing they know what they are doing. ;)

So who knew agility in the rain could be so much fun. Go! Dog! Go! had their fun match on Saturday and it was just our luck that it would be raining. I noticed it stopped about 10 minutes after we had everything packed up. Coulee did pretty good. Her first run was awesome and the only boo boos were mine - I forgot where I was supposed to go. Her second run wasn't quite as good (she took the bridge instead of the tunnel) but she still did great. Our gamblers run... well that wasn't so good. We did get one mini-gamble twice which was great but we weren't working very well as a team. We packed it in before we did the jumpers courses, which are my favorite, but everyone was soaking wet and cold.

The Takedown

The stalk

The tackle

The leg grab

And finally the takedown

Follow the Leader

Lacey is about to bite Suka on the leg and Ruby is going to do the same to her. Serves her right!

Karma, it will bite you on the ass every time!

The Glamour

Now that takes skill... poop on top of your shoe.

I'm too horrified to show you what my pants look like today.

The Innocent One

I'm finally in a good enough mood to blog about yesterday's disastrous agility practice. Coulee had no brain and she frustrated me. A lot. To the point of wondering if I should continue. The point is to have fun. I did not have fun.

Where should I start?

How about her start lines. She must have broken her stay 4-5 times at the start of every exercise and every time I thought to myself, "That is it, one more and you are going in your crate," she stayed. Typical.

Weave Poles. Huh? I'm supposed to weave in and out? Aren't I supposed to push those pesky gates aside and run up the side? It was like we had never practiced weaving before. The practice before she was acting like she could almost do it without gates! Yesterday she couldn't even weave with all the gates up.

Lead out pivots. Not only could she not comprehend it from where I was supposed to stand, she couldn't even get it when it was made simpler and there was someone at the end of the first jump with a goodie container.

This is supposed to be fun right?

What a Wonderful Day

So Marlin and I dropped the kids off at the daycare and went off to Calgary. I haven't been to Calgary for probably close to 2 years! I never had days off in order to go. We went to shop and visit with friends and family. I bought a pair of much needed sandles and a new skort at MEC and a new camera lens at The Camera Store. Oh happy day.

Then we went and met Marlin's sister Natasha and family for lunch. We went to a great vegetarian resteraunt called The Coup. The food was great.

Then our day started to fall apart. We were going to watch our nephew play ball but we couldn't find the ball diamond to save our life. After driving around for 30 minutes and asking a few different people for help, we gave up. We then headed off to a friend's place in Mossleigh. They had a baby boy 2 weeks ago and I'm totally smitten!

Elijah was very sweet. He was awake for most of the visit and not at all cranky. He had a full belly and an empty bladder (I can attest to this as he peed all over me - good thing I'd purchased a new skort earlier and had something to change into!)

I think this is when he peed all over me...maybe he is mimicking the look on my face!

This is my favorite photo with his little outstretched arm

And of course I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of their pup Rommel who seems to be adjusting well to his new little brother.

Even though we were constantly on our way from one visit to another, it was a really relaxing day.