Last night I was playing with the camera (instead of cleaning in preparation of my mom's visit) and Coulee was having lots of fun helping. Lacey on the other hand, just wanted to explore the backyard and eat stuff.
I put the Hurley in front of me and the asked Coulee to "bring it". She decided I was a moron (as it was right in front of my face) so instead of picking it up bringing it to me, she decided to stomp on it.
So agility class with Coulee was as predicted...she put me back in my place. Her start lines are BRUTAL. You should have seen her at the start of the weave poles. Sarah was standing at the other end and Coulee only had eyes for her. I stood directly in front of her and that just made her peer around my legs at Sarah. I'm not sure who she thinks feeds her every night!
And speaking of weave poles...she is doing great! She still has some gates to help guide her but I think she is starting to get it.
Photography class last night was fun. This week we got an assignment and more stuff to practice:
Coulee has definitely come a long way with her "toy issues". She used to not let any dog near her toys. At the dog park, she would even bully dogs away from their own toys! We got to the point where we don't play fetch at the dog park at all. The daycare has really helped her with this issue. She has gotten much better. Look...
Amanda took this picture today and I was amazed at how close Zoey was, with no signs of "annoyance" from Coulee. But Amanda kept throwing, and kept taking pictures...
I guess we have a ways to go.
Lacey had agility class last night. I finally had the "good kid" in class! I could sit back and watch everyone else with their wild crazy dogs and think, "I'm sure glad that isn't me!!!". Tonight, when I take Coulee to class, the shoe will be on the other foot though and my ego will crash right back to the ground. :)
We did have our embarrassing moment though. Lacey and I were supposed to show off her playing style and her wild and crazy side. And what did she do? She sat down and scratched! I guess that pretty much sums her up!
I left this weekend for a much needed Girls' Weekend in the Cypress Hills. There was 4 of us from Lethbridge, 1 from Medicine Hat, and 1 from Saskatchewan. We had a blast. We walked, we talked and we drank. And that was about it. We mainly talked. It is amazing how fast the time went even though we weren't doing anything. We never even left the townsite of Elkwater!
On our way to the park, we stopped in Medicine Hat to pick up Robyn and went down to Police Outpost Park. There was a snake hibernaculum (sp?) right off one of the trails. It was very cool. The bull snakes were huge (maybe 5-6 ft) and they absolutely dwarfed the garter snakes. I probably took around 70 pictures of just the snakes!
We did some geocaching near the townsite, checked out their new visitor centre (which was a little dissapointing because their new displays haven't been installed yet but the building is pretty neat) and just ambled around. We didn't see any big wildlife but there were lots of birds to keep me occupied with the camera.
The daylight helps but I have to admit, I adjusted the lighting on the computer on the picture below!
So last night was my first photography class. I'm pretty excited about this class. I've been looking for one ever since I got my digital SLR 2-3 years ago and I finally found one. I'm worried that I'm so excited that there is no way the class can't be a dissapointment. But so far so good.
Last night we learned about shutter speed, aperature, depth of field and light balance. It was the perfect amount of information...not too much, not too little. I have read this in numerous books but it never seems to stick in my head. But I think I've finally got it. This week we don't have any official homework other than to keep the camera on manual and to play around with the different combinations of shutter speed and aperature settings.
Last night I came home very excited to try out what I learned but the basement isn't very bright at 10:00 at night and it doesn't leave you with many options...at least that what I'm hoping is wrong with my photos. :) I had to have a very long shutter speed and a very big aperature opening. I think Coulee did a fabulous job of holding still for more than a second, don't you? But then she left, and I was stuck photographing "Little Buddy" who was great at sitting still for me. (Please ignore the chewed couch bottom...that is Coulee's handywork as a pup)
