Paws and Paddles

POSING PUPS

2011-02-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, our dog-walking group was asked to bring all our dogs to the bandshell in Sidney as one of the local choirs wanted to promote an upcoming concert with dogs posing with their soloist. The day before the photo shoot: bright sunshine and relatively warm. The day after the photo shoot: ditto. The day OF the photo-shoot: freezing cold, windy and raining. But...the show must go on, so they we all were, with dogs that were feeling a bit miserably cold and not really in the mood to pose. I'm not sure that the photographer got exactly what it was he wanted, but attached is a cropped version of the photo they intend to use. Abby and Gemma got to be held by the Heather, the soloist. It will be interesting to see the final poster.

The weather today was quite brisk as well. Bright sunshine, but quite nippy. So where were we? In a cold barn, running agility courses. We took frequent treks outside to stand around in the sunshine, so I guess we can't complain too much. It was a "fun trial" put on by the Scallywaggs gang, so a very relaxed day with everyone just having fun with their dogs and enjoying the opportunity to be able to do some on-course training without having to worry about whether a run would qualify or not. All three of the Silkies did well, with each of them improving on something in their repertoire. I've decided to move Abby and Zack up to the "Open" level at the next Scallywaggs official trial. They've pretty much proven their proficiency in most of the different classes at the Novice level, with lots of titles earned at that level. So now it's time to take the big leap forward and see how they do with a few more challenges.

ABBY GETS AGILE

2011-02-08T12:51:00.000-08:00

Abby and I spent the weekend in the barn at AVID, taking a seminar with Stacy Goudy. The last time she was here giving a seminar, I audited the sessions. This time, we had a working spot. By the end of our two sessions with her, Abby had really picked up speed, and I was starting to get better at figuring out where it was best to be to give her the tightest lines on her runs. Lots to remember, but it was a great seminar, with just 6 dogs in the group—so if we had to run and re-run and re-run a section (until Stacy broke us of whatever bad habit we were employing at the time), there was plenty of time to do so. Loved her sense of humour, irony and excellent insights. Highly recommend taking part in her seminars the next time she's in town.

Stacy's the one in the Green Bay Packers parka; we kept giving her updated Super Bowl scores off of our IPhones all afternoon.

RETIREMENT, REDUX

2011-02-01T21:58:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought that I had successfully eased into retirement with as little fuss as possible, I got surprised at our regular "Dinner and a Movie" potluck with the movie gang at Peni and Jim's on Saturday night. Once we were all happily stuffed with the main courses of the meal, dessert brought an unexpected offering: an enormous chocolate cake! And I DO mean enormous. I'm still working my way through the half of the cake (see below) that was not consumed that night! It was brightly decorated, with a park theme, and with lots of wonderful little do-dads that made it a true delight. There was one decoration that baffled me; I finally decided that it represented my "bucket list"! Thanks to everyone for making Saturday's get-together extra-special, and also particular thanks to Peni and the Horels for starting me down the road to a new obsession.

EASING INTO RETIREMENT

2011-02-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I've now officially completed two weeks of retirement, but I don't think things have appreciably slowed down. It's true what they say. Once you've retired, you wonder how you ever got anything done while you were still in the ranks of those trotting off to work five days a week. Me, I have a few little side jobs that I'm in the process of finishing off, so those are keeping me busy at the computer at least part of each day. The rest of each day is spent doing something with dogs—be it walks, swims, classes, trials, whatever. And then there's just the on-going task of really starting to get to all those home-and-yard jobs that have been piling up over the years since I moved into this house. Yep...I'm gonna be busy!

On the first Saturday after I retired, my co-workers threw a very nice retirement party for me. It was hosted by my old friends Ron and Christine Hamilton, at their house up on Bear Mountain. Thank goodness the weather gods were on our side: no snow or other nasty bits of weather to hamper everyone's journeys up and down the mountain. My friends Frank, Gaileen and Carolyn did a wonderful job of organizing the event, and I think everyone had a pretty good time. Martha and Joe came along to help me celebrate. Below are some pix from the evening's festivities.

Frank presents me with a wonderful framed panel of pictures of all the parks I worked at.

Frank spills the beans about what it was like working with me.

Steve does the "official" stuff, presenting me with my public service certificate.

I cut into a huge retirement cake, at least half of which ended up making a trip to the office the following Monday to feed the huddled masses still slogging away working for the government.

BAD BLOGGER

2011-01-24T19:54:00.000-08:00

OK, OK. I've been a BAD BLOGGER. Haven't posted since early November.

Well, now that I'm retired, maybe things will pick up some. To hold the fort until I get something more scintillating to post (unless you want to know that today I made granola, went to Costco, and took Abby to an obedience class), I'm posting a little video, with apologies to those readers from down east who are shivering in the deep freeze. I thought you might like to see what a winter walk with the dogs looks like in January in greater Victoria. ;-)

My apologies also, for the small size of the video -- it was taken on my Iphone.

HAPPY HOWL-A-WEEN!

2010-11-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

Another great weekend with the ScallyWaggs crew at their 4th annual Halloween-themed NADAC agility trial (known, of course, as their "Howl-a-ween" trial). The Silkies rocked, with Abby scoring 11 Qs and Zack 8. Even little Miss Gemma got in on the act and pulled in her very first Q ever on Sunday morning. She almost had two of 'em, but was just 69/100ths of a second over the course time on one of her runs on Saturday. She finished off her Sunday runs with a spectacularly awful Tunnelers run, in which she decided after going through a few tunnels that she had had enough and went off galavanting around the ring, finally ending up in front of the in-coming dog, doing barrel-rolls in the dirt, much to the amusement of those watching from the stands. Gemma is certainly entertaining, to say the least. But all in all, a very good weekend for all of them.

Brianna worked her magic on a few pumpkins to really jazz up our crating area. They were the icing on the cake, topping off a bunch of our Halloween decorations from last year's crate-decorating competition. Brianna's artistic talents most certainly gave us the win this year. Our little crating area also boasted a small "bar" to "warm up" our coffees, which was freely shared with anyone else who needed a little extra "umphh" or a "relaxation aid" before venturing out on the agility course. A very pleasant and civilized approach to hanging out in a cold barn at the end of October, for hours on end.

The agility season is winding down for the year. One more AVID trial to go to in a couple of weeks, and then that's it for my little gang for the year. Then we'll see what 2011 holds for them!

The pet-cousins are about to arrive from next door, as Martha and Joe head off on their 10th wedding anniversary Caribbean cruise early tomorrow morning. Martha's pets undoubtedly think of my place as boot camp, but all in all, they seem to settle in quite well after the first day.

ROADSTERS, TAKE 2

2010-10-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

Remember I mentioned that I would post some pictures of the Silky gang from the Roadsters agility trial back on the Labour Day weekend, once I got some from the official photographer (Jim Hockley)? Well, they finally arrived today. The Silkies aren't doing anything too spectacular in the pix, but what I get a kick out of some of them is that they show how windy it was that weekend. It may not make a lot of difference to dogs with short hair/fur, but you can see that it creates some wild coiffures for the Silkies! Abby has the definite wind-blown look, while Gemma models the stream-lined wind-tunnel effect.

Meanwhile, Zack shows off some fine form over a jump:

And looks very attentive while he waits through the five-count on the table.

Abby, on the other hand, looks quite serene (even as the wind continues to "ruffle her feathers") as she waits out the count—like the princess she is!

GEMMA'S FIRST NADAC TRIAL

2010-10-04T19:42:00.000-07:00

A few pix from Don of the ScallyWaggs crew, from the August "Summer Meltathon". Apparently Gemma thinks you actually have to jump through the hoops!

OCTOBER ALREADY!

2010-10-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

Well, this year seems to be just winging by at breakneck speed. September just went zipping by so fast, it's amazing. You would think, since it was such a soggy month this year, that it would have felt like it dragged on for ages, but no -- I guess there was just a lot going on so there was hardly time to think about time slipping by.

Since I've been a bit remiss in updating the blog in September, I guess there's some catching up to do. First off: Abby got her AADC (Advanced Agility Dog of Canada title) at AVID's September trial. That means she now moves up into Masters for her Standard runs. She's still working away on her Advanced games, so it'll be a little while before she's running in Masters in everything. She's also running in the Veteran category now, which gives her a little more time to complete her runs, which is nice. She was consistently running clean but being just a fraction of a second or a second or two over the time allowed. Now she has that wee bit extra breathing room. Nonetheless, we're still working on speeding her up. The latest tactic in her training sessions is using sardines. She ran like a speeding bullet at her Thursday lesson when given this new incentive. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to translate into speed at the ScallyWaggs fun trial this past weekend. I think she was bogged down a bit by the deep sand that we were running in. Or maybe she was just having an off-day.

However, the footing didn't seem to bother Zack, who ran like a speed demon at the fun trial (but not at the AVID trial). If he carries that speed through to next Saturday's runs at the Capital Comets trial, then he just might pull in some Qs. Running him yesterday at the fun trial was like running him a year ago. He just went hell-bent for leather. I was so happy for him. In the intervening year, he's also gotten better at his obstacle performance, so put the two together, and hopefully he'll be back in the groove again.

Gemma is improving week to week. At the AVID trial, I entered her in three runs. In her first run, she finished about 5 obstacles (and visited a couple of ring crew) before exiting the ring. In her second run, she finished about half of the obstacles (and visited the judge). And in her third run, she completed the course -- her only fault being an off-course she incurred by running by the very last jump. She was only two seconds over time (most of that lost navigating the teeter). All very good. At the fun trial, she improved with each run, staying pretty well focused the entire time. She's getting better at ignoring the judge and ring crew and sticking to the business of running the course. She had a very good tunnelers run to finish the day. All in all, she made me very proud on Saturday.

I'm still waiting for some pix to share on the blog...of the August ScallyWaggs trial, and from the September Roadsters trial. Stay tuned!

On the human side of things, I handed in my notification of the date I've chosen as my retirement date. That would be January 18, 2011. Now it's getting real. Wow. Lots of adjustments coming up in my life. I'll be looking for part-time work, of course. I'd go start raving bananas not doing something. But part-time is a much better approach at this point. Plus, some extra cash beyond the pension is needed...to support my dog habit.

UP-ISLAND

2010-09-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

We're back from our trip up-island to Courtenay to take part in the Roadsters' agility trial that was held over the Labour Day weekend. Lorri, Peni and I headed out mid-afternoon on Friday, with the van packed to the roof with 6 dogs, 3 people and a whole lot of human and canine paraphenalia. We arrived at the local exhibition grounds and set up our tent so we wouldn't be in a panic to do it all in the morning when we were trying to get everything else done and getting our dogs ready to run.

We were all very proud of our dogs for accomplishing what they did over the weekend. We didn't have many Qs (Abby had 2, Betty and Switch (!) each had one; I don't think Mylo got a Q, but he did get a second place in one of his runs, and he's finally getting the hang of actually putting his butt down when he does the table obstacle. Switch's Jumpers run was a joy to watch. Peni just kept him moving, and at the end, I don't know which of the two was more surprised by their accomplishment!

Abby's Qs came in Advanced Standard (just one more to go before she's into the Masters level!), and in Starters Snooker -- which had been her one remaining Starters level class. With that Q, she got her Starters Snooker title and her Starters Game Dog of Canada (SGDC) title, the latter requiring a certain number of Qs in three games (Jumpers, Snooker, Gamblers) at the Starters level.

Zack got skunked in the Qs, but had some good runs nonetheless. Despite no Qs, he did finish first in three of his runs, so that was his big accomplishment for the weekend. Gemma's big accomplishment? She actually completed TWO runs, no mean feat considering that the rings had no fences around them -- something that pretty much guaranteed that a dog who is still lacking a lot of focus is going to exit the ring at some point in their runs. Gemma's first complete run was her last one on Saturday, an accomplishment made all the more amazing as there were high winds throughout her run, and a jump blew over just as she was about to take it. She kept her cool and her focus and kept on going. Nobody was more surprised than me! Except maybe the judge who had watched her scamper out of the ring on her previous two runs. He was grinning very broadly when we finished. In the two runs she completed, she chalked up two second places; you can bet that I picked up her second-place ribbons for her!

There was an event photographer on hand, so I hopefully will have some pix of the Silkies to post sometime later. But here are a few of Mylo, Betty and Switch in action (you can see more by clicking on the Flickr photostream on the right-hand side of the blog):

Switch heads for the chute.

Betty rounds the corner.

Mylo shows perfect form on the table.

And here are the Silkies, with their booty from the weekend:

Gemma looks amazed at her two second-place ribbons.

Zack rests on his laurels.

Abby is overwhelmed by her ribbon collection from the weekend.

MELT-A-THON POSTSCRIPTS

2010-08-25T22:38:00.000-07:00

As everyone gets their score summary from the weekend, I'm able to update the Q-COUNT for our little gang. Pia reports that Swift piled up a nice little purple-and-black stack of ribbons that reflected her 6 qualifying runs. Emma one-upped her sister by chasing down 7 Qs and, if I recall correctly, two titles! Pecos nailed 6 Qs!

JUMPING FOR JOY

2010-08-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

I didn't take many pictures or videos this past weekend...things were just too busy! But here are the jumpers runs on Friday evening for our little gang.

EVEN BETTER

2010-08-24T21:23:00.001-07:00

Abby is swaggering ever so slightly more since she read the results summary that just arrived from the ScallyWaggs crew. Apparently her Mom (me) forgot to count Abby's Hoopers run from Friday night when she was tallying up the Qs. Abby will have you know that she actually had NINE Qs at the Melt-a-thon.

ABBY THE AGILITY PRINCESS

2010-08-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I still don't think I have the definitive Abby-with-trophy picture, but this appears to be the best I can do at the moment. I tried some indoor shots; those didn't work. So I took her outside and set her and the trophy on top of the storage bin. Still not the best approach, and her fur is so light-coloured that it always throws the metering off in the camera. Not to mention that she needs a good grooming. Nonetheless, here she is in her very blonde, very messy glory, hanging out with her Novice High in Trial award from the ScallyWaggs NADAC Summer Melt-athon agililty trial this past weekend.

Things are a bit topsy-turvy in the back yard, with the new patio cover going up. This was an unexpected occurrence today; the installer phoned at about 7:30 this morning, saying "oh, I meant to call you on Friday, but forgot...but we'll be there in a few minutes to begin the installation." This commotion of course put the dogs into a big frenzy, with Zack eventually having to be taken next door to my sister's place as he got absolutely totally frantic at strangers being in his driveway and his backyard and making a ton of noise. The girls, surprisingly enough, didn't get too disturbed by it, and calmed down as soon as Zack went next door. Poor Zack. He got totally freaked out by the "flying tents" incident at the trial on Saturday, and then today, there's a major (and noisy) invasion of his home turf. What's a boy to do!

OUR P.A.L.

2010-08-22T22:36:00.000-07:00

We have a new acronym in our vocabulary: PAL. What does it mean? According to our NADAC agility judge this past weekend, it stands for Personal Assistant for Leashing. And we have a PAL extraordinaire in George, as can be evidenced from the picture above. Whenever we had to walk an agility course prior to running it, we would all hand our dogs' leashes to George to hold, George currently being the odd-man-out in not having a dog running in agility these days. From left to right, the crew is Emma, Betty, Swift, Switch, George, Pecos, Abby, Zack and Gemma.

There were some stellar performances put in by our gang...some pretty impressive Q totals as well as some "personal bests" for a number of the dogs. Zack got motivated (some of the time, anyway) by hot dogs. Who knew??? He chalked up 5 Qs. Pecos "broke out" and Q'ed in a bunch of classes where he hadn't had very much success in the past. Abby and Joe battled it out in the 4" division, with each of them tallying 8 Qs. Betty shone: she too made her mom proud by notching 8 Qs. Switch triumphed! He got 2 Qs, I think—an absolutely wonderful outcome for him and Peni. Swift didn't knock down any entry or exit jumps. Mylo did his best on Saturday, and we missed him and Lorri on Sunday. Emma reeled in a couple more titles (I'm not sure what her final Q tally was). Gemma gets the "social butterfly" award for never once finishing a run but rather making a grand tour of each course to visit the ring crew and judge. But then again, this was her very first NADAC trial, and her very first outdoor trial—so lots of distractions for a puppy brain to pursue (she's only 20 months old, so has lots of time to nail down her agility skills and to learn the fine art of focusing).

The icing on the cake from this weekend? Abby currently holds the household bragging rights by having brought home the Novice High in Trial award—the award that Zack won last October at the Howl-aween trial. I tried to rouse her up a little while ago to take a picture with her trophy but she was having none of it...she just wanted to snooze. So when she's feeling a little less exhausted, we'll snap a photo and post it here on the blog a little later. There may be some pictures taken by other folks at the trial which we'll have access to a little later as well, so stay tuned for perhaps a couple of action shots from this past weekend in the weeks to come.

DOG PADDLING in the DOG DAYS of SUMMER

2010-08-15T20:08:00.001-07:00

The Dog Paddlers have notched up another Victoria Dragon Boat Festival...their seventh year in a row at this event, held in their own back yard. The Dawgs put in another great effort, once again finishing in the Diamond division. Over all, they finished 19th, chalking up a fourth place finish in the Diamond consolation final (finishing just a whisker over one second behind the winners of the race).

It was a sweltering weekend. I went down late Sunday morning, fully expecting to have missed the Dog Paddlers' semi-final, but arrived just in time to wish them luck as they exited the Paddlers' Village...two hours behind schedule. There had been some mistakes made in the race grid the night before, and so there was some mass confusion on Sunday morning as a result—which put everything in disarray in regards to when the races were actually run. See the video below for a glimpse of the the Dawgs' semi-final. If you want to see it larger, just go directly to YouTube. It's in HD, so you can also click it on full-screen once you're at YouTube, so will be able to see things a bit more up-close. I shot this video with my still camera as opposed to my video camera, so my apologies for not being able to zoom in a little bit closer.

There were quite a few of us ex-Dawgs (me, Brianna, Pia, Lynne) and some Dawg-fans (Lorri, Randy and others) who came down to cheer on the team at various times throughout the day. I finally had to pack it in before the finals were run...it was just too darn hot for me. Then I had to wait in suspense for the results to be posted on the VDBF website...something that didn't happen until well into the evening. So this blog post had to wait for the news before "going to press". Mind you, that also gave me time to quickly cobble together the little video above.

The Dog Paddlers also made it onto the front page of the Times Colonist this morning, albeit in a fuzzy fashion. They were the team in the background of the photo showing Seattle-based Hot Sake in the water clinging to their dragon boat after it was swamped by the Victoria Fire Department's fire boat headed off to an emergency—apparently without much thought as to the effect that their wake would have on other boats. Some negative PR for the FD, I would guess, and a few questions to be asked bright and early Monday morning about that particular incident, I would imagine.

Hot Sake, by the way, went on to win that race, once everything got under way again.

SATURDAY IN CENTRAL SAANICH

2010-08-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

A small band of us spent a nice relaxing day at Centennial Park last Saturday, doing an agility demo for Central Saanich Days. We did two shows, one at 11 a.m. and one at 1 p.m. Most folks were there to either participate in or watch the ball tournament that was going on, so we didn't have a large audience for our shows. The Lions Club told us that their marketing guy had let them down in this regard, in that our presence I gather had not been publicized at all. Nonetheless, the small crowds that we did attract for the demos were very appreciative. If we do this next year, hopefully things will be better advertised; it's always much more fun to do these demos when there's a big audience to play to.

The other attraction that was there were the radio-controlled racing cars that were running on a miniature race track in the lacross box. Man, those things could move. It was like watching Formula 1 racing. I would be a total loss operating one of those cars...as you have to be able to translate in your mind where you car is on the track to the remote control in your hands. Way too much spatial concept conversion for my brain. But the guys were drawn to the whine of the tiny engines like moths to a flame. I found Kevin over there with his nose pressed against the chain link fence, and Lynn Watt told me that Brian was glued to the sidelines for quite a while as well.

Now, usually I take pictures at our demos, so I always end up posting some pictures here on the blog of everyone else's dogs, and rarely of my own (because it's impossible for me to run my dogs and take pictures of them at the same time). Kathy has finally solved this dilemma for me. Herewith a few pictures from her of my gang (thank you for sharing, Kathy!). Abby on the teeter. Zack exiting the tunnel. And Gemma on the table. Which is about all she did, as she apparently wasn't feeling well and I finally had to take her off the course (bottom photo). She was having a bit of an intestinal upset, it turned out, so I didn't run her in the second show.

At the end of it all, Peni, Barry, France and I repaired to the beer garden for a little liquid refreshment, before toddling off to relax for the rest of the day.

CHRISTMAS IN JULY

2010-07-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

OK. Not quite Christmas in July. But "Summer Santa" brought the Silkies a brand-new set of 24" spacing weave poles to play agility with in the back yard. It took them a few runs to figure out the new rhythm that the wider spacing between the poles requires, but once they got it, they were off to the races! Now if only they can transfer their at-home weave speed to competition, they'll be all set!

ZIPPING

2010-07-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

We were out to Adrenaline again today. The ziplining place. I had mentioned this place to my cousin Laurie when I saw her in Ottawa in June, and since she was out visiting us this week, we decided to take a run out there and have a go at it. Peni also thought it was time for another zip for her, so all of us headed out there on Sunday afternoon.

Lots of glorious sunshine, not too hot, a little breeze. Perfect day. Laurie had done some ziplining before, back east, but it was a bit different set-up out here, and the runs much higher and longer here. Laurie said she had jelly knees the entire time, but she looked cool as a cucumber to me. And she had a big smile on her face all the while...so I think she had a pretty great time, all told (although she confessed to uttering some four-letter words now and again as she zipped along; we'll just consider those entreaties and/or thanks to a higher power for the the day's adventure).

AGILITY TIMES THREE

2010-07-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I now have a trio of dogs competing in agility. It used to be a duo. Gemma finally made her official competitive debut at AVID's July trial. She didn't bring home any ribbons, but then again I didn't expect her to. She still has the attention span of a gnat, so a good run for her was to make it most of the way around the course before time ran out. On her first run, she completed a grand total of one piece of equipment—but she notched visits to just about every member of the ring crew on her way around the course. On her second run, she did much better, and on her third run, she almost managed to complete the course before the buzzer sounded. On her last run, late in the day, she ran by more obstacles than she completed, but at least we kept the forward momentum going for most of the time. All in all, I was pretty proud of Gemma at her first agility trail.

Zack is still stuck in first gear, but at least doesn't seem to be backsliding any additional amount. We just still haven't found the right motivator to bring the enjoyment back to agility for him. He's happy, happy, happy and raring to go before I get him in the ring, but once there, it's like he's running through molasses. Patience. We'll figure this out, all in good time.

Abby was our agility star of the household, bringing home two Q ribbons today. It would have been three, but in her enthusiasm to complete her second Standard course, she missed her down contact on the dogwalk...a fate that has befallen her before at the second-to-last obstacle and one that I thought I had in hand as she came down the ramp. Apparently not. She also just missed a Q in her Jumpers round, missing the course time by just 98/100ths of a second. A whisker. I think that after this summer, I may drop her in to the Veterans category, to give her that little bit more time. She's had a number of those squeaker kinds of course times. She puts her little heart into her runs, and it's a shame when she misses by just that little bit.

We got to meet Carolyn Kool and her two Silkies at the trial. She hails from up Nanaimo way, and she brought KC down to compete at the trial, as well as her new puppy Bailey, who got to watch from the sidelines. Bailey is Gemma's brother (same parents, but Bailey is from the litter after Gemma's) and their faces are quite strikingly similar. Bailey, however, looks like he's headed towards silver colouring as opposed to Gemma's more golden tones. If there had been a safe place to let the two youngsters off leash to play, they would have had a blast. As it was, they did their best to be absolutely silly about each other whenever they met on-leash or through the x-pen wire. We'll undoubtedly be seeing more of Carolyn and company at other trials.

REGIONALS

2010-07-02T15:04:00.001-07:00

The team from AVID who went to the 2010 AAC BC/Yukon Regionals in Abbotsford.

AGILITY DOGS!

2010-07-01T22:31:00.001-07:00

A few pix from the official photographer at the BC/Yukon AAC Regional Championships, Bob Everson of Wild Hare Photography. To see more of his photos from the event, go to: http://www.wildhare.ca/photos/2010-Regionals/2010regionals.php. Just click on the name of the dog, and it'll take you to all of the pix of that dog.

CRUISING

2010-06-30T23:51:00.000-07:00

Finally. You'll now find a selection of the pix I took while on my Alaska cruise with my friend Christine at the beginning of June. Trying to find time to get them sorted, tweaked and then loaded onto Flickr seemed to take forever. But they're there now. You know where to go: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26205675@N07/

The cruise left Vancouver on Sunday, May 30th and returned to Vancouver the following Sunday. A cruise that was just long enough to get an idea of what cruising was all about. Minus the tropical temperatures, of course. Our itinerary aboard the Celebrity cruise line's Mercury included Icy Strait Point, Hubbard Glacier, Juneau and Ketchikan. The latter two were pretty much your typical tourist towns; Chris and I tended, at those ports, to just get off the ship, walk around a bit and then repair to the local bar to raise a pint or two of the local brew. Then it was back on board, and off we would sail again. Once we were out of port, we'd generally hit the casino off and on throughout the day, playing the penny slots. It's amazing how far twenty bucks will go when you're playing the penny slots. Hours of entertainment, if you're so inclined. We took in a couple of the nightly entertainment shows; the singers and dancers in these productions are outstanding.

And, of course, the food was great. I THINK I managed not to pack on any pounds, but it was a struggle not to over-indulge! We also spent a fair bit of time at the martini bar, first working our way through a shared, nightly chocolate martini, and then finally a "flight" of martinis each one evening—a "flight" consisting of 6 different mini-martinis. A delightful way to get thoroughly soused.

Chris is a veteran cruiser on Celebrity, and as a result had obtained Elite status. Many perks come with that status, and we made great use of them. We learned how to properly taste wine, we got the behind-the-scenes tour of the galley, we had a private lounge pretty much all to ourselves every morning and evening (with 2 or 3 staff to look after just us two, for the most part). We also had dinner at the Captain's table the last night at sea—something that was really special.

Another of Chris' Elite perks was that we got to see the Hubbard Glacier from the ship's bridge—a great vantage point that saved one from shivering out on deck to view this amazing natural feature. This was the working bridge—i.e. they were steering the ship to within .8 of a mile to the front of the glacier (legal limit is half a mile, so we were in just about as close as ships were allowed)—so we had to be very, very quiet as the captain and the pilot steered the ship through the ice. Nonetheless, they plied us with mimosas as we watched the spectacular view.

We were doubly lucky regarding the Hubbard Glacier. We were there early in the morning and were able to get close to the glacier. A second cruise ship that followed us into the inlet had to turn back: the currents had changed and the ice pack/ice floes in the inlet was no longer navigable. Timing is everything, apparently.

A GOOD LIFE

2010-06-14T22:16:00.001-07:00

OK...I know I'm dreadfully behind in my posts, but as most of you know, my Mom passed away unexpectedly on May 31st.

My mom, Mary Elizabeth Reeve (née McCausland), was born October 14, 1918, meaning that she was well on her way to her 92nd birthday when she died of complications following a fall that she had on May 30th. She was born in Calgary, much to her chagrin, as she considered herself totally a Nova Scotian. But her mom happened to be in Alberta when the time came, so there you go....you don't get to choose your birthplace! She grew up in Oxford, Nova Scotia, and went to Acadia University before entering the work world in the Annapolis Valley, Halifax and then onto other opportunities in the province of Quebec. She met our father in Quebec City, at a YMCA dance during WWII. The prairie boy announced to the Maritimes girl that he intended to marry her (much to her skepticism)...and he eventually did (the power of positive thinking!). After the war, they lived briefly in Fredericton while Dad worked on a degree at UNB, and then it was one move after another for pretty much the rest of their marriage...until they made their way out to BC, following their daughters to the west coast. Dad passed away in 2004.

Mom fell in her suite and injured her pelvis. She initially seemed to be doing fine throughout the day on that Sunday (her last words to my sister were, when asked if there was anything that she wanted as my sister was leaving, "I wouldn't mind a chocolate bar"), but by the next morning, everything just began to shut down and she slipped away very quickly. Martha and I are encouraging everyone to eat a chocolate bar in her memory...and it's been quite delightful getting notes from folks saying that they've done just that. So please go ahead and indulge yourself with a wee bit of chocolate.

All this unfortunately happened just as I left on my Alaska cruise; I got the message about her death on our second day out. There wasn't much I could do, so I was encouraged to continue on the cruise. So it was a voyage tinged with sadness. However, my friend Christine and I did toast Mom with a flight of martinis one night. Mom wasn't much of a drinker, but she would have appreciated all the lovely sweet variations on the classic martini that we tried. Sweets were definitely her weakness. (I will post more about the cruise later.)

I got home from the cruise and then was running full-bore doing estate paperwork. Martha and Joe had been handling most of the rest of the details until I could get home. It's been a marathon of sorting, notifying, cancelling, giving away.....and we still have the inurnment to do later this month. Mom didn't want a funeral service, so we'll pick a day to go to First Memorial and see her safely tucked away with Dad in their columbarium niche.

Now I'm just back from 4 days in Abbotsford, running Abby and Zack in the AAC BC/Yukon Regional agility trial. Abby had a good outing (with the exception of her Gamblers runs), and pulled off a third place in the Standard run on Saturday and sixth place in the Jumpers run on Sunday. In the overall aggregrate placings for the regionals, she finished just off the podium in 7th place in her division (the podium is a crowded place with the top six finishers honoured). Zack did his best, but I hadn't really had great expectations for him at this trial as he still seems to be working through whatever issue he suddenly developed last winter. And he definitely did not like running in the heat. Still, he did quite well for where he's at these days. I was proud of both of them.

I'm home for a day or so, then off to Ottawa for four days. Then things should settle down and I'll be able to catch up on everything—including my blog posts! Stay tuned.

SPRINTING INTO SPRING

2010-05-23T21:55:00.001-07:00

It was time to shine up the PFDs for another dragon boat racing season this past Saturday. The Dog Paddlers kicked off their 2010 season with the Gorge SuperSprints at the Gorge Paddling and Rowing Centre, their home base in Victoria. The PFDs have been getting regularly soaked for the past couple of months as the team practised twice a week, come rain or come shine (but not come wind—some evenings were just way too windy to put boats out on the water).

The Dog Paddlers started off strongly in their first heat, leaving their competition in their wake with a very strong performance. There's nothing quite like the first adrenaline of the season pumping through a paddler's veins to catapult the boat into the top division of the day. The Dog Paddlers' great time punted them into the Blue B semi-final, with what was, I think, the fifth or sixth best time of the first round of heats.

Their semi-final presented a formidable task: beat the Navy team. Hmm. Probably not something that was likely to happen, but as usual, the Dog Paddlers just bore down and headed off in hot pursuit (as any good dog will!). It was a valiant effort, but the Dog Paddlers came up a bit short and found themselves in third place when all was said and done. Still, they remained in the top flight of boats, and headed into the Blue B final with very determined looks on their faces. The competition for this race: our favourite Nanaimo team, the Dragonslayers, and one of our fellow club teams, Xtreme Reach. A close race, with Xtreme Reach surging into the lead at the end, and the Dragonslayers and the Dog Paddlers battling it out for second place. With a final push, the Dragonslayers edged us out by just a couple of seats.

Overall, the Dawgs finished in sixth place out of 24 teams in the mixed division—exactly how we did last year! This is a particularly great result, as there has been some significant turnover in the boat this year, with a number of new paddlers making their competitive debut with this event. Congratulations, Dog Paddlers, on a great start to the 2010 season!

Watch the Dawgs in action:

To see some candid paddler portraits captured during the day, go to my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26205675@N07/

Click on the individual images to see larger versions.

WAGGING-GOOD TIME AT WITTY'S

2010-05-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

Our annual spring trek down to Witty's Lagoon at low tide on Saturday morning was a ton of fun for the dogs. The farther down the trail to the beach that we got, the faster the pace the dogs seemed to set. They knew where they were going for sure! And they know that this is the place that they get to run like maniacs up and down the tidal flats and go splashing into the ocean to fetch whatever has been thrown by their assembled human servants. Their minions are, of course, armed with their cameras, all the better to record this insanity for posterity. We couldn't have ordered up a better day, weather-wise. Sunshine. Blue sky. Not too hot; not too cold. In other words, absolutely perfect.

The Silkies are still not too fond of actually going into the water, but Zack continues to get more adventuresome and makes small forays into chest deep water, especially if you throw something for him. Not keen on swimming as yet. Gemma was kept busy chasing and being chased by Chloe, and Abby did her level-best to supervise the goings-on, when she wasn't occupied in exploring the finer points of rotting-things-on-the-beach. All three of them also discovered the joys of clam-digging. Zack figured this out first; he must have seen a little jet of water or something that attracted his attention, and once he determined that that meant that there was something of interest under the sand, he put his digging skills to work. Such energetic antics of course attracted the attention of Abby and Gemma, joined quickly by Chloe. The four of them probably deemed this activity safer than being trampled and splashed by the big-dog contingent in the surf.

All in all, a wonderful time was had by all. Below, some pictures from the morning's fun. To see more, go to my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26205675@N07/

A DIP IN THE LAKE

2010-05-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

Beautiful day today. A minor miracle, being that it was a Saturday, and it seems that most weekends the weather decides to be snotty and thereby thwarts your attempts to either (a) have fun or (b) get your yard work done. For the most part, it has been an absolutely glorious day. The kind of spring day that makes every second driveway blossom with heaps of junk -- otherwise known as a yard sale. They were all over the place today. There were probably five houses on my own street that had set up shop for the morning. Of course, it makes for interesting driving as you weave your vehicle around Sidney's streets, dodging eager garage sale aficionados who are zipping across the street at odd locations from between parked cars. You really have to be vigilant.

Today's trail walk with the dogs was at Jennings Lane (Elk Lake). I had four dogs in tow today: my three plus my sister's dog, Kennedy. Once out of the car at the lake, Kennedy decided he really wanted to head out on a trail other than the one we were actually going on, and I had to do some fancy running through the tall grass to head him off and point him in the right direction. On the leash. In case he decided that he wanted to go in the other direction again. He actually motored along pretty well for a dog who isn't used to trail walking, once he got going. But I think he was happy to get home and snooze the rest of the day away.

The regular Trailblazer canine gang enjoyed a brief diversion into the lake to do some serious swimming, stick retrieving and rock balancing. It was amazing the number of dogs who all thought that they needed to stand on this one rock, perhaps the better to get a boost when they leapt into the water in pursuit of the sticks that were being thrown for them to retrieve.

While Kennedy may have been ready to call it a day after his trail walk, the other three still had some energy left to go to agility practice. Abby is getting faster and faster, and much, much better at following direction. Of course, I'm probably also finally getting better at actually telling her what to do. You'd think that would be a simple thing to do, but they read body language with amazing acuity. If your foot is pointed just a smidgeon in one direction (usually the direction in which you don't want the dog to go), then they're off in that direction. They're right, you're wrong. Your foot told them to go that way...and your foot is closer to their line of sight than your arm that is energetically pointing in the other direction (which may or may not accurately aligned with the piece of agility equipment that you are calling out for them to take.) Go figure.

Zack is slowly regaining his speed and enthusiasm. He did very well today, eagerly running around the equipment that was set up. He's definitely gaining confidence on the teeter -- but you still have to really watch him on his contacts...he still likes to leap off before his paws hit that yellow zone. So lots more contact work to do with him. Gemma -- well success for Gemma is getting her to look at me and stay focused. We spent most of her practice time calling her back to me; very little obstacle performance. But that was fine. She's got lots of time to start stringing obstacles together. Right now, we just need to keep those little grey cells in her brain from wandering off quite as often as they do now.

BACK YARD BALL

2010-05-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

The weather can't seem to make up its mind whether it's winter, spring or summer. At least it hasn't snowed. However, it's been definitely a rather cool few weeks. Occasionally the sun makes an appearance, blue skies break out and the temperature creeps upward. But not for long. Then we're back to brrrrr.

Today at noon, it was quite nice. No wind. Sun high above. Blue skies dotted with just a few puffy white clouds. Temperature—quite nice, thank you. A perfect time to toss a few balls out in the back yard for the dogs. It doesn't seem to matter if you have three balls (i.e., one for each dog); they inevitably all want to play with ONE ball—the one that the other has possession of.

Zack is probably the best "ballplayer" of the bunch. He loves to chase them down, and he also does tremendous leaps in the air in attempts to capture the demon rubber bouncer. Not always successfully, mind you. More often than not, his mouth snap is just a shade off in timing and the ball goes karooming off his nose in some unexpected direction...and he's off in hot pursuit of it again. Below, his gaze is riveted on the ball hucker, waiting for the release. Then he's off...to chase his elusive quarry.

Abby occasionally scores a direct catch or a successful dash and grab. She usually relinquishes her prize, however, when Gemma comes barrelling in at full throttle to steal it. This generally leaves Abby looking very perplexed and mournful (see below).

MAY MEANDERINGS

2010-05-01T20:56:00.001-07:00

Here it is, May 1st. May Day in some countries. For us, just another day with the dogs! But let's go back a day, to Friday. A lovely evening at the Watts, celebrating Lynn's 60th birthday and the very first day of her long-anticipated retirement. There was laugher, tears, good food, good convsersation, some lively entertainment from Gary (and his suitcase companion) ... a wonderful evening all 'round. Lynn's daughter Heather read out a very moving and emotional tribute to her mother, revealing to us all how Lynn's return to school and change in her career had inspired her to do likewise. There were a lot of teary eyes as she shared how proud she was of Lynn. As I was leaving, Lynn passed on a pet bed to me—one that apparently neither Jake nor Carly had taken a shine to. It appears to have passed the Silky/DSH test over here, however, as per the evidence below.

Saturday started out with a long drive out to Sooke, to walk a portion of the Galloping Goose trail at the Sooke Potholes. I hadn't been there before, and we only scratched the surface of different walks we can do out there—but it was a great change of pace to go somewhere new. Our numbers were a bit fewer than normal, likely because of the distance and/or time involved to get there. Some of the dogs new to the group did very well. Thor the mastiff and Kimble the soft-coated Wheaton terrier seem to be settling in nicely with the pack. It was really quite funny to watch Gemma walk along with Thor—a true contrast in size!

Six of us then sauntered off to Colwood to have some breakfast at the Royal Roads Cafe, wolfing down a week's worth of cholesterol, I'm sure. Then off to pick up some pet supplies at Bosley's, home to drop off the girls, then out to agility practice with Zack. I decided to give him a little one-on-one work, to see if I can get his level of enthusiasm up again. He's doing nicely, and we worked on sticking his contacts with me at a distance. Not totally reliable with those yet, but he's improving and that's all you can ask for. Peni is making steady progress with all three of her troupe. Betty, Switch and Hana are all showing the benefits of Peni's lessons with France Jackson. I think that those sessions have given both the dogs and her a big infusion of confidence and direction, and it shows. And it seems to have had the same effect on Lori and Mylo.

Tomorrow, we'll likely drop in on the fun match at AVID, and put the dogs in a few runs, just to keep them on the ball. And there's still a stack of contract work to work on tomorrow as well. And the lawn should probably be mowed in between rain showers sometime in the next couple of days. I'll probably post a few pictures from today on my Flickr site before staggering off to bed. Where DOES the weekend go???

THE GOOD STUFF

2010-04-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

I present Clio...caught in the act of thoroughly enjoying herself in my catnip patch on a sunny April day. Nothing like a quiet garden-fresh nibble of the good stuff to make a cat feel sooooo good. Mmm, mmm, tasty! Clio and Kennedy were in-residence chez-moi for the past week while Martha and Joe spent a week up-island at a resort.

The spring weather has had its ups and downs all week—beautiful and sunny one day; cool, cloudy and wet the next. You have to plan carefully to keep the yard under control. You combine the sun with the rain...and you get grass. Lots of it. Growing like mad. I got the front and back lawns mowed today, and even managed a little edging and some hoeing out of the a few of the flowerbeds that have become overrun with weeds. All in moderation, of course. Can't do too much at a time or else my back tells me it isn't happy.

I installed Skype a week or so ago...now I have to look presentable when I sit in front of the computer. Darn. But you never know who might call, and you don't want to look like a total slob.

Agility is ramping up...we've moved our Island Dog Sports practices to private property, and to a new time—Saturday afternoon. No more shivering in the barn in the evenings. Now we get to run in the rain! Or sun. Preferably the latter. It was a bit soggy this past Saturday, but the rain actually decided to stop just as we finished putting the equipment out. We set up a lot of contact obstacles...which was a good idea. My guys are a bit loosey-goosey when it comes to sticking their contacts. They're getting better, but because contact equipment is what I don't have at home to practice on, it's the aspect of the dogs' skills that tends to suffer the most. Working at getting them to stick their contacts at a distance is even more challenging, but at least we got to practice doing some of that on Saturday. Every little bit helps.

Many of my Island Dog Sports friends have now taken a few lessons with AVID—and are definitely jazzed about discovering how well their dogs are doing. It's been great for them to get another set of expert eyes watching them, and offering suggestions. We've known that we've got some great dogs, but I think we were all getting a little stalled in going to the next level. And now that we're all shifting into competing at trials, it was definitely time for everyone to get a bit of a tune-up.

It's been quite busy the last few days—a Rotary fund-raiser for "Malawi Girls on the Move" up at the Edgells on Friday night, and then a girls get-together over at Michele's last night. I could sense the digital digits clicking higher on the scale without even stepping on it! Way too much great food at both events. (And yes, when I did step on the scale, the numbers had indeed crept upward.)

BETTY BOPS THE BARN!

2010-04-11T20:41:00.001-07:00

It was a long day at the Fairgrounds, but a great one for our very own Betty Boop! Peni dipped her toes (and Betty's paws) into the AAC agility pool on Sunday, putting into practice all their hard work over the past few years, bolstered by a couple of recent insightful lessons with France Jackson from AVID.

While their first run of the day, a Starters Standard course went well, Peni and Betty took a bit more time to navigate around the obstacles then the course allowed, and Betty ran into her nemesis—the teeter—which gave them a fault when Peni had to finally manually lower the teeter so that Betty could move on to the next obstacle.

Next on their dance card was the Starters Gamblers run. They rocked! Made it look like a walk in the park. See below for Betty's very first Q (qualifying score) in AAC agility, which also earned them a first place ribbon in Betty's jump height division. I shot this on my still camera, so it's not the best video...but you get the idea.

Finally, to end their day, Betty and Peni tackled the Starters Jumpers course and ran a similarly smooth course from start to finish, and again pulled out a Q and another first place in Betty's height division. Way to go, gals!

On the Silky Terrier side of things, Abby ran fast in her Advanced Standard run, but unfortunately decided to make up a couple of variations on the course that the judge hadn't intended, so she notched a few faults. Overall, though, she ran the course very nicely. She then nailed her Advanced Gamblers run, and brought home her first Q ribbon at the Advanced level. She ran a little too slowly (about two seconds worth too slow) on her Advanced Jumpers course, but ran it cleanly. Overall, she seems to be really hitting her stride in terms of confidence and speed. It's great to see her doing so well. Zack continues to struggle; lots of zip...until he hits the start line and then it seems like he's got glue on his paws slowing him down as he makes his way around each course. Will have to discover how to re-motivate him so that he gets back to his winning ways! These past six months have been a bit of a struggle for him, after he hit a peak at the ScallyWaggs "Howlaween" trial last October. He's such a good little dog; I just can't figure out what's going on in his head right now. So we'll just work this through with him.

SPRING FLING

2010-03-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

Whew. Another agility trial in the books. Not a bad way to spend a spring weekend; even the weather kind of cooperated, with a very nice day on Saturday, and an intermittently rainy day on Sunday. All in all, not bad days for walking your dog(s) between runs. And yourself to the washrooms in the OTHER building on a repeated basis throughout the day. There's nothing like an upcoming agility run to make you feel that you absolutely HAVE to go pee, now.

Zack, alas, still seems to be stuck in first gear, although he did manage to pull out four Qs from the weekend. His Sunday was a complete bust, and he seemed to slow down throughout the day on Saturday. Still haven't quite figured out what's going on in his mind, as he's bouncy going in, and bouncy coming off the course, but he's just stuck in slo-mo in between. I'm sure we'll work our way through this eventually.

Abby seemed to be able to find over-drive off and on throughout the weekend, and sauntered away with eight Qs, including a rip-snortingly fast Tunneler's run at the end of Sunday. Much, much faster than her Tunnelers run on Saturday. Maybe she knew it was the last run of the day, so she put her all into it. I think her speed was something like 4.5 yards per second on that final run.

Poor little Gemma continues to have to sit it out, waiting in the X-pen with Abby and Zack until she's old enough to compete. She was very patient, and got lots of pets and cuddles from everyone, so I'm sure she didn't feel totally left out. Just a few more months before she can hit those courses herself!

As always, the ScallyWaggs were consumate hosts for the event, and everyone had tons of fun. We missed having Lorri and Mylo there for the weekend (Lorri was doing some volunteer work on Saturday, and woke up with a migraine on Sunday, so we didn't get to see Mylo bounce around the course with his usual happy smile on his face). And Peni was there on Saturday, running both Betty and Switch. Switch keeps improving, through Peni's hard work. Switch spent more time headed forwards and less time looking backwards and giving Peni's legs the evil-eye; he's still a challenge, to be sure, but he's so, so much improved.

Pecos was much more adept at his weaves this weekend, making Ann quite happy. And Ann succeeded in not sending any rabbits to bunny heaven on the way to the trial, so no "bad bunny karma" to combat this weekend (although she did mention something about a dead otter from earlier in the week....but its demise didn't seem to have had any nasty after-effects on their runs).

Cindy and Joe joined us for Sunday, and Joe was his usual, happy little self, bounding around the courses. You wouldn't think that a dachshund could run that fast, but he's just a joy to watch as he whips his way up, over and around all the obstacles.

Swift and Emma had some good runs, and some not-so-good runs. Swift had a blisteringly fast run on Saturday (I can't remember which one it was—possibly a tunnelers run—in which she ran something like 6.7 yards per second. Ya gotta wonder if her feet even touch the ground on runs like that!). We also got into a discussion about the finer points of when is going fast through the weave poles NOT a good thing, and sought some clarification from Eric about this. Faults have been called on dogs who appear to be pushing the poles aside, rather than actually weaving. Eric explained that now what the judges are looking for when the dogs are weaving is that their body actually is going around the poles. It's a safety issue. They don't want dogs to get hurt running into the poles. So I video-ed Swift in the weaves, to see if we could see exactly what it is that she does:

We've all decided that Swift does indeed weave.

A TOUCH OF SPRING

2010-03-13T12:07:00.001-08:00

Well, it seems we went from summer-ish weather to winter-ish weather to spring-ish weather—all in the space of a week. Today, it definitely felt like Spring again. A good day for a walk around the Jennings Lane loops of the Elk Lake trail. I'm not quite sure how many dogs there were for this outing, but I wouldn't be surprised if we weren't closing in on 30. Someone else may have taken a count of them all; I was too busy making sure I knew where my three were at any given moment. Gemma, in particular, likes to go shooting off ahead of the pack, or off on an investigation of a side trail or beach access. She's definitely an adventurous little girl.

Gemma, on the run in the field at the end of the walk.

Zack exploring a puddle.

Today is Calypso's first birthday. This big lovable gal seems finally to realize where all her legs are, and instead of an awkward frenzy of legs flying in all directions when she runs, she is beginning to move, if not gazelle-like, at least much less like a Holstein cow. Happy Birthday Calypso!

Calypso on the move.

Calypso in her element.

A BEAUTY OF A DAY

2010-03-06T18:05:00.000-08:00

What a glorious day. Sunshine. Warm. And it's only the first week of March! And it's the second time in the past couple of weeks I've had to mow the lawn. (Sorry about that, those of you who are following the blog from the somewhat cooler East! Didn't mean to complain.).

This weekend is the first weekend in ages that I've had to really call my own. It seems like I've been going flat out since the New Year. So the wonderful weather was a bonus to a weekend that already was set to be a good one.

Got in to see Mom this afternoon; she seems to be doing fine—although we were told earlier this week that she had taken another fall in her suite. She refuses to use her walker in the suite—and that's where she's taken all of her falls. Once of these times, she's going to break a hip or something....but she's a stubborn old gal.

This morning, the Trailblazers headed out to the Ed Nixon trail, around Langford Lake. This is the first walk we've gotten to go on in ages, it seems. Abby, Zack and Gemma had a blast. As usual, the hike was followed up with an interlude at Tim Horton's which, considering I hadn't had breakfast as yet, was a welcome stop.

A few pix from the walk this morning:

Mylo looks a tad miffed about the muzzle, but it's made our walks a lot more stress-free for Lorri.

Fonty and Gemma play tag around Katie's feet.

Gemma and Zack on a collision course as Abby patiently waits for them to catch up.

SHE'S THE TOPS!

2010-03-01T22:22:00.000-08:00

Abby scored her own Olympics success, achieving her Agility Dog of Canada (ADC) title on Saturday at the AVID "Do You Believe" trial. It's taken Abby two years to reach this milestone, mostly because she will periodically 'stall out' while running a course — i.e. just stopping dead in her tracks. It's taken her as well as me realizing that there's no need to panic when she does this; I just need to either go back and make it clear where we're going, or run ahead and show her the next obstacle. Either way, she gets back in gear. And now usually that gear is overdrive — another reason not to fret about the stalls, because she now runs the courses a lot faster than she used to, making up for the time she loses in the stalls. As a result, she's managing to come in under the time allowed rather than over it, for the most part. Hence, her improved success. (I also thought that karma might have something to do with her success on Saturday, as I discovered that her picture was featured on the front of the trial catalogue. I figured that had to bode well for something. But I'll put Abby's success down to skill development over the past year instead. Nonetheless, that karma almost won me a teeter in the reverse draw: mine was the second-to-last ticket drawn, meaning that like Maxwell Smart, I missed it by that much. However, I got a lovely fleece blanket as a consolation prize, an acquisition that is being much enjoyed by the dogs when they're sleeping on my bed. It is quite cozy for all of us.)

Because we were at the trial, we of course didn't get to watch the gold medal hockey game between Canada and the US on the final day of the Vancouver Olympics. But competitors in the stands would sit there repeatedly refreshing their Iphones in order to give us the latest score. When Canada won in overtime and the news was relayed to everyone, a great cheer went up in the barn. Say what you will about the Olympics being held in Vancouver, it was indeed a major boost to Canadian patriotism. We all got soppy on Saturday morning when it was suggested that we sing O Canada to start off the day. Everyone was looking at the walls, the floor, the ceiling — anywhere but at each other — as we sang: no one dared look at anyone else as we were all getting teary-eyed. What a bunch of softies we are, eh?

BACKYARD NATURE NOTE

2009-12-14T19:42:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the Christmas season, when we all sit down to a tasty bit of bird, here's a denizen of my backyard getting a jump on the season with its own "hot off the grill" menu of sparrow-served-on-the-fence. It had flushed the sparrow from my side hedge moments earlier.

SUPER SILKIES!

2009-11-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit late getting this update out...where did last week go? For the matter, where did OCTOBER go?? Or 2009, for that matter. This year has just whizzed by, it seems.

So, what was the news from last weekend? Well, it's the absolutely stupendous job that Abby and Zack did at the last NADAC agility trial of the year. It was the ScallyWaggs' infamous annual "Howl-a-ween" agility trial, where half the fun revolves around taking advantage of this ghoulish time of year to create a very fun atmosphere for the weekend. Between costumed people and dogs, and a rip-snorting competitive crate decorating contest, it was sometimes difficult to get our minds back in the groove of actually running agility courses.

Island Dog Sports created a great crating area for our canine contingent, duded up to look like a graveyard. We thought we had the crate-decorating prize in the bag...until we saw the Washington State contingent busily carting in an amazing number of bits and pieces which, when finally cobbled together, created a wonderful pirate ship around their crates. We were sweating bullets as the judging took place...and were relieved when the decision was that it was a dead heat between the ship and the graveyard. We split the prize.

On Friday evening, Abby and Zack each posted a Q, in different events. Not a bad start, I thought. Saturday morning, things kind of sputtered...we did not have an auspicious start to the day. Zack, for some reason, took exception to the judge on the course, and stopped and stared at her whenever we passed close to her position. Not sure what that was all about. I thought we might still pull out a good time, until Zack spotted France Jackson sitting in the far corner as ring crew, and off he went, full speed, for a very enthusiastic visit—which France did her level best to ignore. He finally came back to finish the course, but my thoughts were that he just wasn't going to be on the ball this weekend.

Wrong. After that run, he was pretty much right on the money for the rest of the weekend. By the end of Sunday afternoon, he had racked up an amazing eight Qs! And Abby was right in there behind him, with seven. They both appeared to finally have found "overdrive" on their internal gear shifts. Abby would have had eight Qs too, if I hadn't had a brain fart and removed her leash too early at the start line on one of our runs and got us disqualified from that run as a result. We still ran that course, but it was a very relaxed run because I wasn't worried about whether or not she would Q. And she ran it beautifully. (Just to see how far they've come in the last year, I checked back in my files to see what their results were for the Howl-a-ween trial last year. Zack had 4 Qs last year and Abby had, well, none. So Zack did twice as well as last year and Abby went right off the scale of exponential improvement.)

The icing on the cake? At the end of the trial, much to my surprise, Zack was awarded the "Novice High in Trial" trophy. We were tickled pink. I hadn't even thought of that as a possibility. In fact, I had totally forgotten that there was such an award. So I'm sure I was beaming from ear to ear when I heard our names called. The trophy now has pride-of-place in the den, by the bulletin boards with all their Q ribbons.

NEW NEIGHBOUR IN THE KITTY CONDO

2009-10-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

Imagine! The nerve of her. There I was, innocently being mesmerized by watching a bug on the ceiling, and what happens? An interloper! Casing the joint.

Checking out my personal collection of play-ribbons. Harumphhh. How dare she?!?

Now what is she doing? Sniffing? Oh, really. What a doggie thing to do.

Now she's gone too far. She's pulling on my very special fleece ribbon. That's DEFINITELY out of bounds for the canines in this house. Not on MY kitty condo, that's for sure!

Can you see me? At the very top? Can you see how wide open my eyes are? I am well and truly stunned at this turn of events. Just what has led Gemma to this genetic confusion—someone really must straighten her out. She's a D-O-G! Not a C-A-T. This kitty condo is therefore OFF-LIMITS. Do ya hear me, Gemma?

THANKFUL THOUGHTS

2009-10-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite like a trail walk with friends (and with all our dogs) on Thanksgiving Day to remind us all how lucky we are to have those friends to see us through the ups, downs and curves in life's road. And, of course, our furry friends to comfort us, make us laugh, make us pull out our hair in frustration but rejoice in each of their accomplishments as they work their way through the lessons of running with an integrated human-canine pack.

A small contingent of us headed out on the Jennings Lane part of the Elk Lake trail system, with dogs gleefully running through the tall grass, checking the underbrush for the very best scents, and peeing on everything in sight. There was a notable absence of runners on the trail this morning, thanks, no doubt, to the aftereffects of running the Victoria Marathon the day before. Something else to be thankful for, as we were able to walk in uninterrupted bliss for the most part.

Gemma is getting better and better and staying beside me or, alternatively, coming back or waiting when told to do so. She's almost ready to graduate to no-leash status from dragging-the-leash status. The clicker has been key to this part of her training. She doesn't always come as quickly as one would like, but she comes. Which explains her muddy conclusion to the day's walk, when she veered off towards the lake and unexpectedly found herself belly-deep in mud. She looked mighty surprised as she almost went ass-over-teakettle in the thick gooey mess. But her non-stop puppy momentum won out and she came crashing back through the underbrush to the trail, quite delighted with herself. (I hope she was still feeling as pleased with herself when she was standing in the washtub having a bath when we got home!).

We tried for a group shot of the dogs when we got back to the parking lot, with mixed success. I think we'll need to give it another whirl in the next few weeks.

There's one in every crowd—who looks the other way when the shutter clicks!

The almost-attentive canine contingent.

Trio in the weeds.

FALL IS FULL OF FUN!

2009-10-05T18:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy few weeks! Work all week, then weekends seemingly chock-full of stuff to do to. On September 19th, there was the Brazilian Night at Stuart's—a fundraiser for our Rotary Foundation project in, where else, Brazil. An excellent evening! I had volunteered to bring a dessert as part of my contribution to the potluck part of the meal, and then got wondering what on earth to bring. I finally decided to bring two batches of cookies, one that seemed very Canadian—molasses crinkles—but then I got kind of stumped, as I wanted to bring something Brazilian to make the connection between the two countries. I finally Googled "Brazil" plus "dessert", and after much poking around here and there, I finally found a recipe for some "Brazilian Coffee Cookies". It met the criteria I had set for myself for this dessert—it had to be Brazilian, and it had to use ingredients I already had in the house. And voilà! A new recipe in my repertoire. They're really quite excellent. So much so that I took the leftover cookies on the next day's expedition, and to another event the following weekend. Yum. I tottered home at a respectable hour, in order to be up bright and early for the wine tour in the Cowichan Valley (see post below).

On to the next weekend. Saturday was a fun agility trial, hosted by our good pirate friends at ScallyWaggs. As always, lots of fun. And, as usual, Island Dog Sports set up our little "compound". We're way too organized, let me tell you. We're like a well-oiled machine. There's always everything anybody needs. AND we hatched a plot for what the IDS compound might be like for the ScallyWaggs Howlaween trial at the end of October. That should be tons of fun. The day's runs went pretty well for everyone. It's such a relaxing atmosphere to run your dogs in that they all seem to do especially well. Lorri was a bit late arriving; she needed to be sure that Randy—who has got to be the luckiest man on the planet for surviving that head-on collision between his motorcycle and that car with nary a broken bone—was alright to be left on his own. I entered Gemma in the last run of the day, Hoopers. After saying to Eric, "Be ready for plenty of off-courses...", Gemma suprised me by going exactly where I told her. She did great. I was very proud of her. An excellent introduction to a BIG agility course for her. I think she's pretty used to the sounds and atmosphere of agility trials by now; she's been hauled along to quite a few since she arrived, but this was the first one where she actually got to run. She can't enter "real" trials until she's 18 months old. Only eight and a half months to go! Let's see now, that would be around June 15th, 2010, give or take.

Last Thursday, I was madly baking for the bake sale part of our United Way fundraiser at work: a ball hockey tournament that was held on Friday. This is the second year we've put on the "Harbour Road Classic", trying to involve the other businesses on the street where our office is located in some good clean fun while raising money for United Way. It went very well, raising $1200 of our overall campaign goal of $5,000. I was on a vacation day on Friday, but I dropped by anyway, between errands, and took some pictures. They're posted on my Flickr site, but here are a couple to give you an idea of the action.

From ball hockey, it was on to the AVID agility trial at the Saanich Fairgrounds. I got set up that evening, but had decided not to enter any of the runs: they were essentially primarily speed classes, and my dogs are definitely not of the speedy variety. At least not yet. They're getting better at it, but there is definitely absolutely no greyhound in their genetics! Saturday and Sunday, we did our best out on the agility courses, with lovely walks in the autumn sunshine in between runs. Abby brought home one Q (qualifying score), and Zack brought home two. Peni dropped in on Sunday afternoon to watch us run, which was wonderful of her to do. She and some of the gals had already had a busy day themselves, walking in the CIBC Run for the Cure with the dogs earlier on in the day. Good on ya, ladies!

Zack had a good last run, but I had glanced at the whiteboard with the required course times that the dogs had to run under to qualify, and it said "46 seconds" — and when Zack and I finished the course, I looked at the timer and it said "46:12". Dang. Missed it by THAT much, as Maxwell Smart was prone to say. Still, it had been a great run. I was very pleased with how well he had motored around the course. Peni helped me pack up all our things and put them in the car, but then I went back in to see if they would post the final results before I left for the day. I glanced at the computer screen, which just happened to be on a part of the results table that had Zack's name on it, and there was a Q checked off. I was very confused. So I hung around for a little while longer, to see if that Q actually appeared on the printed results. It did. Along with the required course time—which was 52 seconds, not 46. So he was in well under the time allowed. I guess no one had changed the whiteboard from the previous class, so that was where the confusion stemmed from. Off to the ribbon bin I hustled, to pick up Zack's second Q ribbon of the day.

Back home to cram in the household chores for the week...and back to work on Monday. But hey, it's a long weekend coming up. Hope the weather holds up for that. It looks like it's going to be gorgeous all week...sunny and relatively warm for Autumn. Perfect.

VALLEY VINTAGES

2009-09-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful way to spend a beautiful autumn Sunday! Eighteen of us headed up-island to the Cowichan Valley Wine Festival, with Jim behind the wheel of a rented yellow bus to keep us on the straight and narrow. Ann was the instigator of the day's excursion, and a motley crew of friends from her various spheres of influence (work, neighbours, dog friends and dragon boaters--and then THEIR friends) all came together to taste our way around the hillsides of the Cowichan Valley.

It was very impressive to find such a variety of different vineyards tucked away on the sunny slopes of the valley. We started with the farthest north vineyard on the tour map, Averill Creek. Very impressive set-up, lovely setting, great wines, generous tastings. Five samples for five bucks. Well worth it. The first of many bottles of wine got tucked into the back of the bus. Next, on to Godfrey Brownell Winery, a little farther south. This one was a little more tucked away, and its access road and parking area were a bit of a challenge for our yellow bus. Another round of excellent tastings (seemingly unlimited, for a token $2); more bottles into the back of the bus. Some nice tapas-type dishes as well, for those who were feeling a bit peckish. Chris and I each had a Cowichan Valley version of ceviche -- good-sized servings for $4.

We also all raided our food cache in the back of the bus—everything from bread and cheese to 8-layer dip to cookies, veggies and fruit.

From there, we backtracked slightly to the Zanetta Winery. These folks mainly specialized in the bubbly stuff. Very nice champagne-type wines. They were fairly stingy on the tastings, however, with barely enough in your glass to fill a thimble. Unless you coughed up the $7 for a "flight" tasting of four of their wines, complete with, I understand, a fairly comprehensive monologue from the server about each of those wines. So perhaps worth it. I didn't opt for that (although several of our gang did), but instead wandered around the site a bit, enjoying the scenery and taking a few pictures.

Back on the bus, and a scenic journey along some of the Cowichan Valley's backroads until we hit the Island Highway again, and zipped across to the other side and headed towards the Cherry Point Winery. On the way, we passed Hilary's Cheese Company, where a very energetic fellow was waving signs and doing his level best to entice us in. We just grinned as we sailed past, saying "we'll be back" (and we were, once we finished up at Cherry Point). At Cherry Point, it was a much more comprehensive set-up than at any of the other wineries we visited. There was a whole field of artisans, some live music on a stage, and several different tasting stations . There was also lots of easy parking (which made life easier for Jim, who had had some challenges in this regard over the course of the day). We tumbled out of the bus, and headed for the tasting stations, like dogs following a scent. There we were met by jovial pourers doing the honours—a welcome change from what one of our group described as the "wine nazi" at the previous winery, who appeared to have no sense of humour whatsoever, and zilch flexibility if you happened to ask for one of the tastings out-of-pouring-order).

Backtracking again, to Hilary's Cheese Company, at which we arrived just as they were closing the gate for the day. They let us in anyway. The guy at the gate pumped his fist in the air when we arrived—as in "YES! They've returned!" We complimented him on his energetic advertising and reception as we deeked around the gate and headed up towards whatever goodies lay in store. Surprisingly enough, there wasn't a lot of ... cheese. Must have run out of anything other than feta cheese by the time we arrived. But there were lots of other artisan-type culinary concoctions which drew our attention (and money from our wallets). Of particular attractant power was the chocolate wine sauce which—once sampled—proved irresistible to us.

And that was the end of our day of wine touring. Everyone back in the bus, over the Malahat and back to the Tillicum parking lot from whence we had departed in the morning. Everybody cheerfully disembarked, sorted out whose wine was whose from the boxes in the back, and piled back into their respective conveyances for the trip home. Many thanks to Ann for organizing the excursion, to Jim for making it possible for us all to indulge without endangering anyone on Vancouver Island's roads, and to the whole gang for a very splendid day and good company.

More pix at my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26205675@N07/

TREETOPS 2

2009-09-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

It was pointed out to me that I hadn't posted any pix of myself zipping through the treetops. True. It's hard to take pictures of yourself from a distance while whizzing along the zip lines. To remedy the situation, the Horels sent along a few shots of me to pick from to post on the blog. So there I am — proof positive that I did indeed zip through the branches!

WOMEN ON THE WING

2009-09-07T21:34:00.000-07:00

It has indeed been a long, long weekend. Even though I had taken Thursday and Friday off in advance of the holiday weekend, it hardly seemed like enough extra time. To be sure, a little more housework got done, but there's still lots more to do. I still have the dining room and the other half of the hallway to finish carpet cleaning, but (thank goodness) other things pulled me away from the joys of household chores.

On Saturday, it was a shift at the Coke Bottle Ring Toss booth at the Saanich Fair, on behalf of Rotary. I'll say one thing about that particular booth -- you never really have a chance to get bored! You're pretty much on the go all the time. If you're not collecting money, then you're busy retrieving rings out of the Coke bottle matrix, or dodging the rings as they're being thrown at the Coke bottles. Joe volunteered to help for the day, so that was great. He was deeply appreciative that I managed to pick the shift with the very best weather of the entire weekend at the fair. It's been pretty dismal, weather-wise for a holiday weekend.

Given the weather, Sunday was a bit of a bust. I spent a bit more time at the fair, actually going and seeing the exhibits, which I didn't get a chance to do on the Saturday. But aside from that excursion, it was pretty much a lay-low kind of day.

Monday was the BIG EVENT of the weekend. This was the day we gals (me, Peni, Pia, Brianna, Ann and Lorri) were going ziplining. This was at the instigation of Lorri, who was looking for some moral support to help her overcome her fear of heights. What better way to challenge that fear then by ziplining, she thought. So she innocently emailed us a few weeks ago, thinking that we'd all say "no" to this particular adventure, but we all said "yes". And then Brianna put the reservation on her credit card, and we were all locked in...no getting out of it. We were committed.

The AdrenaLine zipline folks are out on the road to Sooke, right at the 17 Mile Pub. We were scheduled for a 10:30 a.m. tour, which all-told took about 2 and a half hours by the time we'd been geared up, learned the ropes on the 'bunny hill' (an excellent introduction to the course by Lee and Lloyd, our young Aussie & Kiwi guides), headed up the hill in ATVs and took that fateful first step off the platform at the aptly-named "Commitment" line, so-called because once you've stepped off the platform, you're committed to the rest of the course: there's no other way down. We all cheered on Lorri as she made her first run on the bunny hill line, and cheered even louder as she took off on the Commitment line at the top of the hill. All told, there are eight different lines to get you down the hill, the longest being 1,000 feet in length, and the highest I believe had you zipping along 150 feet above the ground. The second-to-last line, at a higher angle than the rest, is the speediest, whizzing you along at a velocity in the vicinity of 65kph, they told us. There were also a couple of suspension bridges thrown in for good measure, to test how steady our nerves were!

We were all very proud of ourselves, and had a great time. We would highly recommend it to everyone. We capped off the day's adventure with a BBQ lunch back at Randy & Lorri's place. Randy gets top marks for his culinary efforts; and those efforts were much appreciated indeed! George and Jim drove out to join us for lunch, so all in all a very pleasant afternoon. (See some high-flying pix of us gals on my Flickr site (see sidebar for link).

GARDEN GAMBOL

2009-08-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

Well, alright, we weren't exactly "gamboling", we were strolling. But "Garden Gambol" made for some good alliteration in the title of the post!

We hadn't been to Butchart Gardens in a while, so when this destination appeared as a special outing on Peni's list of walks for the week, I thought it was high time that Gemma got her first opportunity to sniff her way along the paths. I left Abby and Zack behind (much to their chagrin), but I figured having Gemma doing her first exploration of the gardens was enough canine handling for me for the evening.

It was a great time to go; the gardens weren't busy at all. The weather was pleasant, the flowers spectacular (especially the dahlias!), the company great, and Gemma only fell into one pool of water (she lost her footing on the stepping stones in the Japanese gardens, and got a bit dampish about the hind end, emerging looking like a drowned rat astern, and a Silky Terrier at the front). She air-dried fairly quickly and was looking her normal self by the time we headed back to the parking lot.

Gemma among the flowers.

Gemma and more flowers.

Barbara Jean & Benji

Benji

George & Calypso

MORE PAWS

2009-08-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

Lest you think it was only Abby, Zack, Gemma and me at the agility trial on the weekend, Cindy was also there with Joe, and Lorri joined us on Saturday with Mylo. Joe added some more Qs to his collection, and Mylo got himself at least one Q too. Maybe more. Lorri will have to fill you in on those.

DOGS WEEKEND

2009-08-17T09:24:00.001-07:00

So much happening this past weekend! The Dog Paddlers paddling their hearts out at the Victoria Dragon Boat Festival, and my four-footed dogs working away at the Scallywaggs agility trial. Where to start?

Let's start with the Dog Paddlers. Way to go, Dawgs!! They did us proud once again. I'll have to get more of the details from folks at the paddler wrap-up party next weekend. When I got home Saturday night, I hit the computer first thing. How had the Dog Paddlers done on Day 1 of the festival? Click on the results. Yippee! They're in Diamond again. Fingers crossed all day Sunday, but I'm incommunicado, so have no idea about what's happening. The runs at the agility trial are not going in the order anticipated, and I'm watching the clock trying to figure out whether I can make it down to the Inner Harbour or not (break down the tent, break down and stow all the gear, race home, drop off the dogs, dump all the gear out of the car, get changed, blast down the Pat Bay to Victoria, find parking, walk down to the Inner Harbour...). I finally had to admit that it wasn't going to happen. It was a very difficult decision to make.

When I got home...first thing, once again....head to the computer. I deliberately opened Round 3 results first instead of going immediately to the final standings. I wanted to experience it a bit the way the team would. Wow. First place in the semi-final. Alright! Close that file. Open the final results file. My gosh....how much tighter could that race have been??? Itsy-bitsy hundredths of a second between teams. The Dog Paddlers bring home the Bronze medal in the Diamond division. Sweet. A wonderful way to end the season.

Now, how about the pawed-dogs? How did they do? Well, I've discovered one thing. They DON'T like to do runs in the middle of the day. At least not when it's hot out. They just totally lose their drive and just dawdle around the course. Break-neck speed it ain't! But in the morning they're quite zippy, and in the late afternoon and evening, they're zippy. It may also have to do with conditioning. Some more walks and maybe a little treadmill time to up their stamina might be in their future.

That said, they did very respectably. Little Miss Abby showed up her big brother Zack by bringing home FIVE Qs. Imagine. Who'd have thought that would ever happen? But Zack was no slouch either. He finished strongly, by pulling out a Q in his very favourite event, Tunnelers, at the end of the day. That brought his total up to FOUR Qs for the weekend (and his second title in Novice Tunnelers). Oh...and you know that "hundredths of a second" thing that the Dog Paddlers contended with on the water? Well, Zack missed out on a Q on Saturday by TWO one-hundredths of a second. Argghhh.

And then there was little Miss Gemma. She, of course, got carted along for the duration of the weekend. Did a lot of snoozing. A lot of people-watching. A lot of flirting with new dogs. I wasn't anticipating that she would get to do the Tunnelers fun run at the end of the day on Sunday, as I wasn't expecting to still be there for that event, but...since we ended up being there later on Sunday, I signed her up. She runs like snot. I think I have a speed dog. She followed directions moving from tunnel to tunnel, and just got distracted once. After I went and picked her up and pointed her in the right direction for the second half of the course, she was off and running again. You could hear her banking off the inside of the tunnels as she went through them. I think she's been hanging around the border collies too much!!

COOL RUNNINGS

2009-08-09T07:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, it was a very cool day down at the Gorge on Saturday. Cool, as in chilly. And windy. It's hard to believe that just a week before, we were roasting in 30-degree sunshine. But it's rare that a little adverse weather will stop determined dragon boaters, so there they all were, some 1,000 paddlers, out to have a good time and to show their mettle as we head towards the end of the dragon boating season here on the island.

There were 36 teams in the Mixed division this year, including a dark-horse team made up of former elite paddlers—many from the Gorging Dragons. On the grid, they were known as "FEA", short for "Former Elite Athletes". Informally, they were known as "Blue Steel". Our old coach, Josh, was on this team—his first time in a dragon boat in probably 3 years. It was great to see Josh again, as well as Melissa and their two kids, Django and Pepper.

The Dog Paddlers went up against Paddlers of the Fifth Moon, Komodo Dragons and Spirit Point Dragons in our first heat, and delivered a first-place performance by about 3 seconds over our club-mates, Fifth Moon. Our finishing time put us into the semi-finals in the Blue division, the top division.

Happy Dog Paddlers return to the dock after a great win in their first race of the day.

We faced formidable competition in our semi-final: FEA, Dragonauts and Precision Impossible. It would be an uphill battle to get by any of these teams. The Dog Paddlers gave it their best shot but finished fourth, which moved us into the B final. MORE formidable competition. This time it would be Blu By U, Westshore Warriors and Precision Impossible. And we were down a paddler, as Jim had had to dash out to an appointment but should have been back in time for our last race. That would have worked out fine...except that for some inexplicable reason, the races moved along much more quickly than anticipated, and our final was moved up by 15-20 minutes. Alas, Jim and Peni got back just in time to watch their teammates come racing up the Gorge. The Dog Paddlers left it all out on the water, giving 'er all they had to give, and came in a very respectable fourth. Overall, out of the 36 Mixed teams, the Dog Paddlers finished eighth.

And remember FEA—the team made up of former Gorging Dragons and members of other elite teams? Without ever having done a practice (unless you count their first two races of the day), they squeaked out a win by just under one second over Navy in the Blue A final, and won the day. Amazing.

Watch the Dog Paddlers in action by clicking below; you can also see a few pictures from yesterday on my Flickr site.

MYLO

2009-08-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

Want to meet a great dog? Here’s Mylo!

It was about a year and a bit ago that Mylo first came on one of our Trailblazer walks at Beaver Lake. When Lorri arrived with Mylo, you could see the fear in her eyes. She was so afraid that Mylo was going to attack another dog—you could feel her anxiety a mile away. Peni went over to meet them, and after some preliminary words of wisdom, we were all off to hike the back trail. Lorri kept a firm grip on Mylo’s leash, a bit overwhelmed by the number and variety of dogs in the Trailblazer pack. Even more amazing was the fact that these dogs weren’t on leashes. I’m sure that when Peni first told Lorri to drop Mylo’s leash, she probably though “this woman is out of her mind!” But the power of the pack kicked in, and Mylo, while not behaving perfectly, did a great job on his first outing with the Trailblazers. But one of the best things that we saw that day was not just the start of a transformation in Mylo, but it was watching how Lorri began to relax, and to understand that there was hope for Mylo. She’s a great gal, and she has great love for her pets. We knew she would fit right in with the Trailblazers right from that moment. And sure enough, she went off to coffee with us that first day, and she’s never looked back.

She kept coming on the walks with Mylo (and occasionally bringing JJ, until JJ passed away), and hubby Randy joins us when he’s not at sea with the Coast Guard. Then, silly girl, she brought Mylo to agility. What a great thing that has been for Mylo. He’s a natural! And it's a great way to channel all his enthusiasm and energy. She and Mylo did an agility demo with us right after finishing his agility classes, and they’ve been doing demos with us ever since. Mylo was entered in a fun trial, and did great, and then entered his first real trial this past winter, and got a Q! Lorri was very nervous taking him out on the course for his first run, but they did great. Looked like seasoned pros.

Mylo has grown in confidence, and in maturity. He’s not quite as argumentative as he once was with dogs he doesn’t know, and Lorri and Randy know the signals to watch for that indicate that they need to remind him of his manners. Mylo’s learned to swim, to play nicely with other dogs, and to come out of play when called. Lorri and Randy have worked hard with Mylo to bring him this far, and it’s a great partnership to watch in action.

Why am I writing this today? Well, it’s because when I was watching Mylo play with the border collies yesterday, it struck me just how far he’s come in the last year. Congratulations Mylo, Lorri and Randy!

ELK LAKE IMMERSION

2009-08-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

Gemma learned to swim today. Not sure that she was entirely thrilled with the concept, but the water was reasonably warm at Elk Lake, and we took her and Cato the Rottie there to learn to swim. Mylo, Hana, Betty and Switch were along for the ride, and being expert swimmers already, they had a fine time playing fetch in the lake while Gemma and Cato worked on their swimming badges.

Gemma walked into the water without any trouble, and swam when she ran out of lake bottom, but she'd turn around and head to shore pretty quickly. She probably needs something like a frisbee to chase down to make her head out from shore. I took her in several times and released her to swim to shore, but I think it will be a while before she decides that this is actually a fun thing to do. She probably figures it was all worth it, however...since Randy gave her a butt-tickle afterwards!

IN THE SWIM OF THINGS

2009-08-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

Another hot day on southern Vancouver Island. All the more reason to enjoy a walk on the Ed Nixon Trail, out at Langford Lake. Nothing better for the dogs than a dip in the lake to cool off. The Silkies, of course, were more in spectator and wading modes—they didn't seem to want to give swimming a try today, although they did get wet...at least up to their tummies.

Several of the dogs tried dock-diving, which, once a few of them had discovered this new activity, seemed to be their preferred method of entry into the water—particularly if there was a stick being thrown. All the better to get a jump ahead of the dogs heading out from the shoreline.

SWEETPEA PUPS

2009-07-31T11:44:00.001-07:00

As you can tell from the pictures above, it's that time of year again. Time to take pictures of the Silkies sitting pretty in the sweetpeas on the Gowland Tod trail down to Saanich Inlet. It's the usual Friday morning walk for the Trailblazers, but it's one that we don't get to do very often because I work on Fridays. But, having taken today and Tuesday off as vacation days, we were all enjoying the beginning of an extra-long long weekend.

Abby, Gemma and Zack had a great time on the trail, with only one little minor hiccup when Zack led Gemma astray at the bottom of the trail, and the two of them went walkabout up another trail. They ran smack into Lynne, however, who was on the upper trail, and were shepherded back to the main pack in due course.

A relaxing coffee at the Keating Cafe with the ladies topped off the morning, and now it's time to start ticking off things on the to-do list.

POOL ANYONE?

2009-07-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

Well, Heather said that the Silkies really needed to have a pool, not a tub, to play in during this heat wave. They had one, but it finally bit the dust last year. So off I went to Home Hardware this afternoon to see if I could find one that would fit in my car. Fifteen bucks later, new pool stuffed in the back seat, and we're off back home to fill it up with water. Add two balls, and voilà! Happy Silkies cooling off with some pool sports.

Click below to see the newest installment of Silky Watersports.

HOT? TUB!

2009-07-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

What do Silky Terriers do on a hot and sunny summer afternoon? Take three Silkies, add four balls and a Rubbermaid tub filled with water...and watch what happens!

HAPPY TRAILS

2009-07-25T17:50:00.000-07:00

We tried out a new trail today, walking a portion of the Lochside Trail southwards into the Blenkinsop Valley. Lots of cyclists on the trail, but 99.9% of them were just great, giving us plenty of verbal or bell-ringing warning of their approach from behind. What a different attitude from that of the runners on the back trail at Beaver Lake. There was only one cyclist who insisted on barrelling at full speed through the group, muttering at us as he flew by. But he was the exception. Pretty much everyone else we met, mounted on bicycles or just walking, were all smiles when they met up with our impressive little pack.

This was an on-leash trail walk (good for practicing those leash skills that we sometimes let slide!). My mini-pack needs some more work in this regard, although they all seemed to get the idea of staying beside/behind me rather than in front of me by the end of the trail. Of course, that may just have been because they were exhausted by the long walk. ;-)

It was great to see Gerald and Marlee back with the group, with their new little Papillion puppy, Fonty, in tow. What a cutie! He was a little perturbed by all the new dogs, big and small, that came rushing over to greet him, and took refuge between Gerald's feet. But he soon got into a playful mood, once the pack's initial wave of canine enthusiasm at meeting a new dog was over.

The general consensus about this portion of the Lochside trail was that it was an excellent choice. We were basically casing it out as one of our winter options, when trail traffic of the 2-wheeled kind may be a bit less in volume. Thanks to Heather for the suggestion!

MATRIMONIAL MUSINGS

2009-07-25T00:26:00.001-07:00

There are weddings in the air.... Sort of. A friend of mine is getting married up on Haida Gwaii this week. I couldn't make it up there, but I'm sure that Anna and Terry will have a wonderful wedding out at Cape Ball, and a hooting good party afterwards. Wish I could have been there!

So that was the first 'matrimonial' thing on my mind. Then, when I went on Facebook earlier tonight, a friend had posted a great little YouTube video of a wedding party dancing down the aisle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0). So that made me think of some other wedding dancin'...a great little performance at Carina and Jared's wedding back in 2004. So I had to dig out my CD of pix from that wedding to take a stroll down memory lane. Herewith a couple of my faves:

Carina and Jared, outside the church right after the ceremony.

And this one...which I like to caption "Listen Up!". Carina, Jared and Brianna all look like they've been caught doing something at the head table that they shouldn't have and they're getting a big lecture from George.

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE BALL

2009-07-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

Still working on understanding what the ball hucker is. She's still focused as much on the hucker as she is on the ball.

WINDSWEPT IN NANAIMO

2009-07-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

Well, the Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival has come and gone, and it's the first time in six years that I haven't been there to take part in it. This is definitely the festival that I miss the most. It's always been the great team spirit/team building/team-a-whole-lot-of-fun event of our racing calendar. I thought I might at least make it up to cheer the Dog Paddlers on in their final on Sunday afternoon, but the prospect of sitting in a car for four hours over the course of the day was just too painful. This sciatica thing sucks big time. It's just as well that I didn't drive up there Sunday morning, as there was an accident on the Malahat, so things were backed up big time. I would have been stuck in the car even longer! And, as you'll see, it would all have been for naught.

Having not been there, I'm having to rely on someone else for a synopsis of the weekend's activities. Here's a slightly-edited version of what Pia emailed me (along with a few pix from Anne Nelson):

It was definitely an interesting weekend! The venue was fabulous as usual, the beer garden was bigger and better, more food vendors, and other activities. The race course was moved out and away from the sand bar (YAH!) so all lanes had an even depth all day. The first few races had a few stray boats, but we didn’t hear much of anything else.

Dogs Race 1 - The dogs were over-excited as usual and pulled too hard on the start which meant the first two strokes didn’t take us far. Lane 4 took a incorrect line of sight and moved into our lane nearly hitting us which caused Brianna to take a sharp correction which also slowed our time down (their steersperson apologized at the dock). The rate went waaaay up in the finish, and the dogs were a little spent! We pulled out a second place, and a slow time...the dogs were a little put out to say the least.

The Dog Paddlers' newest drummer!

Dogs Race 2 – The first race of the afternoon! A quick turn around and an early end to our day would mean an early start on the beer garden! The dogs were in lane 2 with the Dragonauts in lane 3. They spent all of the race half in our lane and finished on our side of the middle finish buoy. Brianna didn’t budge! The entire way down the course Brianna could hear the chase boats yelling at their steersperson (no apologies at the end of this race!) Again the dogs start had too much power (who would have thought?), however the rate and timing was much better and we pulled out a comfortable second in this race, leaving the dogs feeling much better about the race.

Happy Paddlers!

Dogs Dinner – Same restaurant as last year, the tables were in groups this year rather than one long table, which turned out to be better in the end. As last year, drinks came and went, orders were taken and the food came almost an hour and a half later. No one really minded as we were all having a good time, and most of us had a few drinks to make the time go faster. Once the food did come, it was good food and we scarfed it down in twenty minutes! The hotel crew went back to the hotel by way of the festival to check out the times for day 2. Tick tack tequila was played on the rooftop with at least one stray dog. As we weren’t there, you will need to get the full scoop from someone else who was!

Day 2, Dogs Race 3 – Jade semi B Lane 1, and the dogs are hungry for a good race and a good time. Lane one has done well all morning, so we are expecting to do well. It is a much closer race than Jacob expected, but as usual the Dogs put on the after burners in the finish and pull out first place with the fastest time in the Jade Semi! The whole race feels good, and we are going to Jade Final A to race the Nanaimo Save-On-Foods Dragon Slayers. We were pumped and so were they, some good ribbing to be had by all while we wait for the final heats....who will take the Gold???

Off to the carnation ceremony we go, the wind is starting to pick up, but nothing too bad. The first 2 divisions go out, the last race in the Mixed silver has experienced sterns and even they are having difficulty manoeuvring and are getting waves swamping the sides of the boats. First there is a 15 minute wind delay, then a 30 minute delay to see if the wind will die down...Then comes the 30 minute decision session... We are not going out...an outcry from the remaining teams...we want to race...the Dogs will go out if we can; they called a captains/or coach meeting to discuss the decision. Safety is paramount—so racing is cancelled, and they will determine, in an as fair as possible way, the results. The results are to be determined by using the cumulative times of all three races in the division heats. We wait in the beer gardens, we know we have a chance, but our Day 1 times were not great compared to the other teams in our Final heat....will there be bling??? And then the news...We are to have bronze...not quite what we were hoping to race for....but at least we were able to get this far! Dragonslayers receive the sliver, and the Comox Dragonflies the Gold (where they came from no one knows!).

I'm not sure I want to know the explanation for this picture!

PUPPY PIX

2009-07-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Gemma strikes a "noble puppy" pose.

Gemma hasn't quite grasped the concept of the ball hucker. You're supposed to chase the ball, not chew the hucker.

NICELY DONE AT NADEN

2009-06-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

Island Dog Sports headed out to the navy base at Esquimalt for our fourth year providing agility demos at the military families fun day. Once again, we were at Naden, but this time we were much closer to the action instead of down on the field, far away from the main attractions. Our neighbours were the folks from the base fire department, who had a number of popular activities for the kids going on—like getting to shoot the fire hose at a mock "house-on-fire", or taking a ride in a fire truck. We finally convinced Brianna and Ann to take Landon on the truck ride...so that Landon could have fun, and the gals could scope out the firemen. ;-)

This was Shirley and Maggie's very first agility demo, and they did just great. You'd think that they'd been doing this for years, instead of just 6 months. Shirley and Maggie have come a long way in a short time, and it's always wonderful to welcome new faces to the demonstration team.

Mylo came along with Lorri and Randy for the first of our two demos, and got to have the bandage removed from his tail in our own impromptu M*A*S*H tent as Peni and Lorri stuffed him with treats at his front end while Pia cut the bandage off at his hind end. He hardly noticed what was going on in his nether regions!

There were some strange characters walking around the site, and one dropped by to watch the dogs in action (I mean the character on the right, not the fireman!). We put on two shows for the folks to enjoy, one around 1 p.m. and the other at 2:45 p.m. We had a bit of musical competition during the first show, as there was a live band playing on the stage just below our location. Luckily, we managed to get our second show in before they started another set. Then we cooled our heels, sitting around in the tent, shooting the breeze for another hour, as we couldn't bring the truck and trailer back up to load until the fire trucks had finished their tours—at 4 p.m. Then we all headed home, exhausted. Both people AND dogs. You'd have thought we'd all run a marathon. But it was just a day of fresh air and sunshine—and very good company—working its magic.

SOLSTICE SUCCESS

2009-06-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

The stars aligned for Abby on the weekend, at AVID's AAC agility trial. It was perfect weather for the event—not too hot, a bit of a breeze, and equal helpings of sun and cloud. There was one downpour on Sunday afternoon to help cool things off and wet things down, but for the most part, any threatening weather seemed to nibble around the edges of the fairgrounds but not actually come directly overhead.

Both Abby and Zack did five runs this weekend, with Abby pulling off two Qs, one on Saturday in Starters Snooker, and one on Sunday, in Starters Jumpers. She almost had a third one on Saturday...she was just under time in her Standard run, but she missed her contact on the second to last obstacle. In general, though, she had an excellent weekend. She had none of those "stalls" that she normally throws in, where she just stops dead for no apparent reason. She stayed focused and on-course. Zack still seems to be struggling with finding his 'second gear'; he's motoring around the course, but not quickly. And I'm assuming that he's committed to obstacles when he hasn't, which gives us refusal faults. On the plus side, he's taking less time to get over the teeter, which is great. It's still not his favourite obstacle, but at least he's getting more confident about doing it.

Gemma was along for the ride, and had a great time meeting all the different dogs and their people as we walked around the grounds. We had set up the pop-up shelter for the weekend, and the dogs had both their wire crate and the x-pen to lounge around in. I kept the crate there as Zack will just pop out of the pen if he decides he has some motive for doing so. The girls seemed quite content to have the option of the crate, with the extra space of the pen to move around in, if the spirit moved them. It was nice and cool in the tent, with the shade-cloths hung up on two sides. We were set up in a great location with an excellent vantage point from which to relax in my chair and watch the goings-on in the ring. I'd occasionally pop up to take some pictures; you can find a selection of them at my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26205675@N07/ .

RANDOM BACKYARD BYTES

2009-06-15T18:14:00.001-07:00

You can never, ever, have too many balls!

Wanna play frisbee tug???

GEMMA'S EXCELLENT DRAGON BOAT ADVENTURE

2009-06-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

Another Navy Chicken Run dragon boat fun day is in the books. I don't know how we did (we'll have to wait, I guess, until someone forwards the results, and then I'll add that in here; editor's note—we finished 7th out of 18 teams). It was going to be too long a day to leave Gemma crated at home, so since this wasn't an official festival type of event, Gemma came along to see what dragon boating was all about. As usual, she was a hit with everyone who saw her, and she made friends with paddlers from many different teams.

For our first race, Gemma stayed curled up in her crate, as this race was a relatively short one. An A to B race, with several twists. The Navy folk sure put their devious minds to work to come up with this variation on a short sprint. Normal paddling to first buoy; all paddlers turn around and backpaddle to second buoy; all paddlers swap paddles with their seat partners and turn the paddles upside down and backpaddle to the third buoy (this was obviously the slowest part of the race); then all paddlers turn back around to face front, flip their paddles back to the normal, blades-down position and paddle like mad to the finish line. For bonus points, you could do a 360-degree turn between the last buoy and the finish line, but we opted not to do that.

The second race was the "stations" race, which puts you out on the water for an hour, paddling to eight different stations to perform a variety of bizarre tasks or mental challenges. This is the race that Gemma got to go out in the boat with us, as assistant drummer. I had been delegated the task of drummer for the day; I really need to develop a drummer's voice, however, as I really didn't have the pipes for everyone to hear me down the length of the boat. That would take much more practice! Gemma adapted well to the movement of the boat, and once she figured out how to brace herself, looked like she was having a fine time.

Assistant Drummer at work.

The third race was a manouvering race, and Gemma was once again relagated to her crate for this one. But Sheila put in an appearance and immediately went to retrieve the little girl, so Gemma got to watch the race from the dock with Sheila. Mind you, she was much more interested in the Purple martins that were whizzing around the birdhouses on the dock than what was going on out on the water.

After a day of much socializing and sun. she crashed happily when she got home, after telling all her canine buddies about her exciting day. You can see more photos of the day at my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26205675@N07/ .

BUSY, BUSY

2009-06-08T19:29:00.001-07:00

It was a bit of a busy weekend, kicked off with the installation dinner for the 2009 executive of my Rotary club. That kept me busy taking pictures of the evening's events...and then, of course, preparing it all for the club's website later on the weekend.

Then there was all the yardwork to do on Saturday...after the walk at Beaver Lake. There were only a few of us there—just me, George, Shirley and Brian (and Abby, Zack, Gemma, Maggie, Swift, Emma and Scherzo). We just did the short loop, and then let the dogs have a play in the lake.

Zack discovers that the water was colder than he thought.

Gemma contemplates whether to jump in or not.

Getting braver...

On second thought, no....

Border Collies don't care if the water is cold...as long as they get to chase a stick!

Sunday—well, Sunday was ScallyWaggs fun trial, out at the barn where we Island Dog Sports folk have our regular practices. Everyone was duly impressed with the facility, particularly the fact that it had an actual, real bathroom. And when the weather heated up later in the afternoon, it was still a nice cool temperature inside the barn...much appreciated by all. The trial went at a very leisurely pace. Lots of folks with mulitple dogs, so not as many cars to park as one might have thought. No mythical Qs for Abby or Zack on the day...but we learned a few things, so that's all that matters. I was on my own; no other Island Dog Sports folks at this fun trial. Peni was running a half marathon; the Horels were at a dance recital; Cindy is in Texas, I think; and I'm not sure what everyone else was doing.

Gemma came along for the day, and was appropriately fussed over by everyone. She didn't do any runs of course, but you'd have thought she did because at the end of the day, she was just as tired as the other two were. All three just laid around, zonked out for the evening. I think she was just tired from all the social interaction. Plus she really seemed to enjoy watching the dogs run the agility course. I would periodically take her out of the crate she was sharing with Abby and Zack, and walk over with her in my arms to watch other dogs do their runs. Her little head would swivel as she watched each dog on the course. Very attentive. Hopefully she's taking little mental notes for when she gets to compete!

WITTY WAGS

2009-06-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

Another Trailblazers excursion down to Witty's Lagoon last Saturday. The tide wasn't out quite as far as it was on our last hike earlier in May, but the dogs don't seem to mind. As long as there's a modicum of sandy expanse to get themselves running in overdrive and enough ocean to chase sticks in, they're happy.

All told, there were 22 dogs on the hike. Below is a picture of just some of them—taking a breather at the Sitting Lady Falls overlook on the way back up from the lagoon. (I don't know whose picture this is; Peni sent it along from one of our hiking companions...but I don't know from which one!)

On this trip, Gemma did the trail all the way down and all the way back up under her own steam (she had a little friend, Katie, to help carry her back up on our last hike here). She hasn't ventured into the ocean to swim yet, but she's becoming an old pro at beachcombing.

Gemma's Uncle Zack seems to be quite taken aback by whatever she's telling him!

For more pictures from our morning at the lagoon, go to my Flickr website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26205675@N07/page1/

BACKYARD BELLES

2009-05-29T19:30:00.001-07:00

Gemma
Abby

PADDLES UP!

2009-05-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

The Dog Paddlers are off to a great start, with a fine showing at the Gorge SuperSprints on Saturday. These races are half the regular distance that dragon boat races normally are—just 250 metres. Barely enough time to get up to speed, set your pace, and then boom, you're into your finish. All over in a blink of an eye. Well, actually closer to one minute, but it's pretty fast to those watching from shore, but never-ending to those who are paddling!

The SuperSprints marked the beginning of the Dog Paddlers' sixth year of competitive dragon boat racing. There are a number of new faces in the boat this year, but lots of returning veterans too. Seating plans were a lot more varied than in the past; Coach Jacob spent many hours juggling configurations to come up with the rosters that put various bums in various seats...with good results, it would appear.

Race 1 is the seeding race; it's not so much your placement but your time that determines which division you are going to fall into for your semi-finals and finals. The Dog Paddlers did well, finishing second in our first heat, with a very respectable time of 1:07:79, about a second and a quarter back of the first-place finishers, the Westshore Warriors. Our time put us into the top—or Blue—division for our semi-final. Watch this race at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn43D1RBJPU.

In our semi-final, we came up against some formidable competition: Xtreme Reach, Precision Impossible and the Westshore Warriors (again). Although our hopes were high, we knew it would be a real coup if we managed to knock off any of those teams. But you know, dogs always like to chase things, and that's what the Dog Paddlers did...nipped at the heels of the other teams throughout the race but ran out of race course before we could put our dragon's nose ahead of everyone else's. There wasn't much time separating first from fourth, and only 36/100ths of a second between us and the third place finishers, Precision Impossible.

The finish of our Blue semi-final race. Dog Paddlers are in lane 1.

With our fourth-place finish in our semi, we ended up in the Blue B final, guaranteeing ourselves a top-eight finish. Last year, we had finished seventh, so we were determined to do at least as well this year. The line-up for the final: Dog Paddlers, Blu By U, Precision Impossible and VCKC Green Machine. All day, the Dog Paddlers had been coming from behind, kicking it up a notch with our finishes. When other teams were starting to run out of steam, the Dog Paddlers were ratcheting things up and surging towards the finish line. In our final race of the day, we followed that same pattern, although it was neck and neck right across the race course for the entire run. That extra push...and we finished second! Wahoo!! Overall that put us in sixth place. But by time...we had the third best time of the day: 1:02:90. We were only beaten in time by Blu By U in our final, and the overall winners of the day, the Navy Dragon Anchors. Way to go, dawgs!! (Watch this race at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umi9o3tDBrA)

This was my first dragon boat event where I wasn't paddling. Issues with my back and sciatic nerve are keeping me out of the boat this year. Instead, I'm shore support and chronicler—taking pictures, videotaping the races, posting on the Dog Paddlers website (http://sites.google.com/site/dogpaddlers/Home), etc. It's not quite the same, for sure, but at least it keeps me involved with the team. (Apparently I'm also official fudge-and-meringues supplier to the team as well.)

FAMILY PORTRAIT

2009-05-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

You know...it always happens. Line everyone up for a family portrait. Then there's a little pushing and shoving, a little jostling for position, and before you know it, someone's grabbed someone else by the hair...

Zack tries to ignore the two girls as they start their

furry tug-of-war.

Gemma tugs harder.

Abby and Gemma give new meaning to French kiss.

(I'm still trying to figure out whose tongue that is!)

And finally, the girls get down and dirty with a big hear hug.

Throughout all this. Zack just laid there quietly while all the squirming and flailing of legs went on next to him. There was no snarling or growling from the girls—just a good ol' wrestling match.

JOURNEYING NORTH

2009-05-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

Well it wasn't very far north, just up to Mill Bay. I nipped up there on Saturday afternoon to connect with Heather, to pick up a few boxes of Maple Leaf Silky Terrier Club stuff. For some peculiar reason, I volunteered to take over the job of club secretary from her. What was I thinking? Oh well. She certainly deserves a break; she's been doing that job for over a decade, I think.

What's Gemma watching?

She's watching dogs on the agility course, up behind the main arena building at the Kerry Park Recreation Centre. Heather sets up a lovely little "compound" each year, off of her van, strategically parked with a ring-side view of the agility goings-on. The dogs can just hang out, lie in the sun or shade, and never miss a piece of the action.

Heather, Gemma and Harta lounge around in the shade.

Heather's thinking that maybe Harta wouldn't mind if a new Silky joined the family. Now she just needs to talk her husband into it.

Harta struts his stuff on the agility course,

making quick work of the weave poles.

Heather and Harta on the agility course.

Gemma finds a spot of shade, at Heather's feet.

LAP DOG

2009-05-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

The puppy stork has been busy again.

The Horels travelled to the Interior over the weekend to pick up little (!) Calypso. Calypso is a Newfoundland Landseer. Need I say more? On a guess, I would estimate that Gemma is about the size of Calypso's head. Strangely, both Gemma and Calypso come from the same neck of the woods: Lone Butte. What were the odds of that??

You've gotta wonder what the two resident border collies, Swift and Emma, are thinking about this new arrival...this is one puppy who is going to be able to throw her weight around in very short order. And George is going to have to get the jumbo-sized poop bags from now on.

One thing is for sure: this is one dog who's going to absolutely love our Trailblazers trips to Witty's Lagoon and to Beaver and Elk Lakes. She'll soon be swimming circles around all her new canine cronies.

MORE PIX FROM THE BEACH

2009-04-25T21:18:00.001-07:00

Zack thinks exploring the shore is serious business.

Trio on the rocks.

Waiting for something to happen...

I'm right behind you, George!

Ah, this is better. Sitting on George's feet is a safe place to be.

The gals set up the boys for some serious beach portraits.

The boys at their photogenic best!

ON THE BEACH

2009-04-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

It was our Spring excursion to Witty's Lagoon today. The tide was a mile out, and the dogs had a blast. They ran full-throttle out to the water's edge and had a great time dashing in and out of the waves. The Silkies stayed out of the water, but had a grand time digging out clam shells from the sand, communing with an inquisitive crab and exploring to their heart's content. This was Gemma's first trip to the ocean, so I tried to capture a few pix of her marine adventure.

Gemma explores the beach...

...gets her feet wet

...meets a new friend, Katie

...and gets up close and personal with a live crab.

FOURSOME

2009-04-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

Three damp Silkies and a dry cat: nap time after bath time after a morning at the beach. Bridget joins the canine crew for some together time.

GETTING THE HANG OF THINGS

2009-04-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

Gemma shakes a tug into submission.

(Dang, don't you just hate the stop motion effect of cameras? Makes you look really silly when you're trying to be fierce.)

Gemma, in a more subdued moment.

Gemma is becoming quite acclimatized to her new life on Vancouver Island. She has been on lots of car rides, visited a number of stores, been cuddled by a host of doggie folks and, of course, been sniffed by a host of new doggie friends. Tonight, she went to agility with the rest of the gang, and watched the other dogs out practising on the equipment with much interest. At the end of session, I took her over to the tire and she jumped through it several times, each time with a bit more alacrity. Easy-peasy, I think she is thinking. Then I walked her over a couple of regular jumps with the bar set on the ground. Hopped right over that with no problem. Caught on very quickly. I think there may just be some agility aptitude behind that cute little face!

THE BODYGUARD

2009-04-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

Who knew? Zack has shown a new talent: he's an excellent bodyguard—for his little niece Gemma.

The first inkling of this was on the trail walk on Saturday morning. Another puppy was being very bouncy—something that's very intimidating when you're only 5 1/2 pounds and something probably 5 times your size is running in circles around you and making big jumps at you. I was about to move in to move Gemma out of the way when Zack quietly, slowly and gently walked in between Gemma and the other puppy. No growling, no barking, no snarling. He just stepped in front of Gemma and stood there, very calmly. It was very interesting to watch, and very gratifying. Way to go, Uncle Zack!

Episode 2: tonight when I was mowing the lawn. Big, noisy mower that Gemma wanted nothing to do with, and she had hightailed it as far away from it as she could get. After a while, I wondered exactly where she had sought refuge, as I hadn't seen her for some time. I looked around the side of the house, and there she was—with Zack once again standing right with her. She was sitting down against the fence, peering around Zack's shoulder as he stood there with his muzzle gently on her head. Comforting her. I so wished I had had a camera! It was very sweet.

MEET GEMMA!

2009-04-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

Look what the Easter Bunny brought us! Please welcome Gemma.

Gemma is four months old, born December 15, 2008. She's from Lone Butte, BC. She comes to me courtesy of the two Vals....Valerie from here on the Peninsula, who was Sami's breeder, and Val, another Silky breeder who lives in the Interior. When this little girl needed a home, they thought of me, wondering if maybe I was ready for another puppy so soon after losing Sami. It took me a little while to make the decision, but I finally decided to give her a go. Gemma caught a ride with her Grandfather, Cappy, who was being brought down from Lone Butte by Cliff (Val's husband) to breed Sami's mom, Gypsy. Valerie and her husband Al met Cliff in Conquitlam and picked up both dogs. A big thanks to Valerie and Al for being Gemma's ferry chaperones, and to Cliff for the limousine service from the Interior!

So far, everyone seems to be getting along, although Abby is still a little bit stand-offish...but then she usually is! One of Zack's litter brothers is Gemma's dad, making Zack Gemma's uncle. Technically, Abby is Gemma's aunt, as she and Zack have the same parents although they're not from the same litters.

Gemma meets her Uncle Zack.

Q-LESS IN SAANICHTON

2009-04-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

Well, that was the case for Zack, anyway. Maybe he was just tired out from last weekend's agility trial. Or maybe he had one too many M&M's Italian meatballs before he ran his courses. Who knows. He just couldn't seem to find his second and third gears this weekend. Most of his course faults were time faults. But he seemed happy enough all weekend. Full of enthusiasm doing the practice jumps. It just didn't carry on into the ring. Ah well.

It seemed like we were going to go home totally Q-less when Abby, the little darling, DID find her second and third gears and smoked through the Jumpers course. Well 'smoked' it for her—in that she made her way around it a second and a half under the course time limit. This is the first AAC trial in which she is running in the "Specials" category, where she jumps lower than her height would normally require, which I think helped her out. Way to go, Abby!

Two full agility trials in two successive weekends is not something I think I'll be doing on a regular basis. It's just too exhausting. Not to mention that all the chores you normally would do on the weekend get left undone, and you're playing catch-up all week to compensate. Thank goodness I have tomorrow off as a stat holiday.

It's pet hotel time here as well, with Martha and Joe off on a week's vacation in Washington State. The Empress, Clio, has taken up residence in the guest room. She occasionally comes stomping out of her throne room and down the hallway (and I truly mean stomping—it's truly impressive to hear and see her come thumping along), meowing in a demanding way for a maidservant (presumably me) to do her bidding. Unfortunately, I'm only a one-star establishment and she's discovering that room service is not available. On the canine side of the guest list, poor Kennedy had to go to the agility trial with us on Saturday and Sunday. I'm not sure how impressed he was with this notion. However, he did curl up seemingly contentedly in the kennel with Abby and Zack for the duration, and seemed to enjoy his walks around the fairgrounds—although maybe not so much in the rain on Sunday.

PROUD PUPPIES

2009-04-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

Not to be outdone by Abby and Zack's be-ribbonned pix, Switch and Mylo want you to know that they're pretty darn proud of themselves too for finishing their weekend with some booty.

Switch poses with his very first Q ribbon...along with the jumps that Peni puts him over...and over...and over....

Mylo takes a well-deserved rest in the recliner after notching his very first Qualilfying run in his very first official trial.

Way to go, boys!

SCALLYWAGGING FOR REAL

2009-04-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a loooonnngg weekend for the Island Dog Sports canines and their handlers. We spent Friday evening through Sunday afternoon out at the Saanich Fairgrounds having a ball at ScallyWaggs' Spring Fling NADAC agility trial.

There were some big FIRSTs for IDS: this was Lorri and Mylo's first real trial...and on the last run of the weekend (Tunnelers), they got their very first Q. Way to go, Lorri and Mylo! And remember the Howl-a-ween NADAC trial, where we had Switch wishing wistfully for a Q while his sister Betty ran off with a bucket of them? Well...Peni and Switch hit the jackpot in that same Tunnelers run. A bright shiny Q for Switch. Peni has worked long and hard with Switch to get him to this point. It's a major accomplishment for both of them. What a difference we've seen in Switch over the past six months. And in each run this weekend, he got better and better.

Another first? Abby. She got her first NADAC Qs this weekend. In fact, she reeled in FOUR of them. We're very pleased for our little girl. She'd been skunked at NADAC trials for the past year, so this was definitely her break-out weekend. We've been working hard on her motivation and concentration over the past few months, so it's great to see her making progress. She's sneaking up on her little brother Zack, who also racked up four Qs over the course of the weekend. One of them landed him his second NADAC title, this one in Novice Touch-and-Go.

And well, then there's Ann and Pecos. They battled bad-bunny-karma all weekend, after Ann 'smoked' a rabbit on the road on the way to the trial Saturday morning. She said she could see bunny-fur wafting about in her car's slipstream when she looked in her rear-view mirror after she hit the unfortunate creature. She knew then that the gods might not smile upon her and Pecos at this trial. But the karma finally turned good on that last Tunnelers run, and a Q floated through the air and into Ann's hand in the form of a black-and-purple Q ribbon. We think she also got good karma points for bringing the world's best Parmesan popcorn on the planet to help us snack our way through the weekend. Good karma points also go to Lorri for the chocolate chip cookies. And to Cindy and to the Horels for the illicit Bailey's Irish Cream that wended its way into our mid-day coffees.

Cindy and Joe did their usual good work and racked up some more Qs for the most popular wonder-wiener in the trial. Joe's got so much personality that he absolutely "owns" the trial ring.

Pia and Meredith nursed their aches and pains through the weekend. Swift swiftly erased hopes of Qs with her enthusiastic approach to any and all obstacles on the course. However, she did save some enthusiasm for smoking through all the tunnels on the Tunnelers course at the end of the weekend. The judge had to re-position a bunch of 'em after Swift's artful rearrangement of them as she banked off their interiors enroute to her Q. Brianna and Emma had an on-again, off-again relationship with the Q-ribbon-bin, as did George and Betty. And while George may not have left the fairgrounds with as many Q ribbons as from our last ScallyWaggs outing, he did leave with a bottle of scotch tucked under his arm—a lucky break from the "Screw-the-Q, Pass the Flask" consolation draw.

The good thing? We all know what we need to work on. The bad thing? We all know what we need to work on.

Zack sacks out on Saturday night...a pooped puppy indeed!

Abby too hits the hay, barely making it onto the green fleece before tumbling into slumber.

The hard work was worth it...Zack shows off his Q ribbons.

Abby does her share of showing off too. The ribbons are almost bigger than she is!

SUNNY SUNDAY

2009-03-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

Yippee! Another sunny day. There's nothing that Abby and Zack like more than an opportunity to get out in the backyard and chase their squeaky toys—unless it's lying down in the cool green grass and gnawing happily away on their captured prize.

REMEMBERING MILOU

2009-03-27T11:53:00.001-07:00

We were so very sorry to hear that Milou has crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. Abby and Zack hadn't seen Milou in a while, but when they crossed paths, they sure had a heck of a lot of fun together.

Our hearts go out to Marlee and Gerald. We know that Milou brought much joy to their lives, and how keenly they must miss him.

ALMOST!

2009-03-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

Well, finally! It's beginning to feel more like Spring. The sun was actually shining today, and the temperature might have even hit the double digits for a little bit this afternoon. A perfect opportunity to go out in the back yard and huck the squeaky balls for the dogs. They had a great time tearing around the yard after them. Did some fine acrobatics too, trying to snatch them out of mid-air. They get pretty good hang-time on some of those attempts at fielding them on the fly. They're not always successful; they're not always graceful; but they sure do have a heck of a good time!

TOY BANDIT

2009-03-23T18:52:00.000-07:00

First...you get yourself a new toy.

Then you settle down with it to give a bit of breaking in (you know, chew the ear off, slobber all over it, etc.). Make sure you have an audience.

But LOOK OUT!!! There are cat burglers in the house. The audacity. The un-dogness of it. Who does she think she is???

Bridget makes a bold move and skitters the squirrel under and around the chair legs with her little cat claws. What's a boy to do but watch in utter disbelief!

Oh dear. I've lost it. There's no hope of getting it back from her now. It's got kitty cooties.

BEDTIME STORIES

2009-03-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

It's tough to catch forty winks without being caught...by the digital camera. Herewith a few pix of Abby and Zack, caught in the act of catching a few zzzzz around the house.

First, Zack discovers a new fleece on the bed and fluffs it up as a convenient pillow.

Here, Zack and Abby imitate a mirror as they have a nap in the den while Mom works on the computer.

Finally, brother and sister get up close and personal as they try to both fit into the small square of sunshine coming through the window in the dining room.

Missed it—by THAT much!

2009-02-28T19:30:00.000-08:00

Ah, Abby. My little blonde girlie dog.

All in all, she had a pretty good day at the AVID agility trial, running in Starters Gamblers, Starters Standard and Starters Snooker.

She ran a fine Gamblers run (actually beating her brother Zack in terms of the number of points she racked up before the final gamble), but alas she missed that final gamble. But a good run, nonetheless. In her Standard run, she had two of those "stop and stall" moments — i.e. she just stops dead in her tracks and looks at you like you're from another planet when you try to get her moving again. She did it the first time just after completing an excellent set of weave poles. I got her revved up and moving again (and when she's in gear, she can really fly!) and she did fine until she brought the teeter down to the ground. Then she just stood there on the end of the teeter and wouldn't budge...oh my. I backtracked to get her to follow me, she kicked it back in gear and flew through the remaining course elements. Her time: just 0.74 seconds over the time allowed. We've got to figure out why she stalls like that. (The judge later told me that that last manouver—Abby's just standing at the end of the teeter—made her laugh.)

And then there was Abby's last run of the day (and she was the last dog of the day, for that matter). This was her very first Snooker run. She took the first red jump, then her first obstacle of choice (the tunnel), then I sent her out over the second red jump...and that was that. She wouldn't come back around it to go to the next obstacle of choice. Just stared me down. Took a few stutter steps as if to go around the jump, then scooted back the other way, stood and considered her options for a while, and then came back over the same jump. Whistle blows...and we're done! Mind you, while she's making her mind up and just standing there, I say to her "having a blonde moment, are we?"— with the judge (a blonde) standing right there. Brilliant.

As for brother Zack...well, he had a pretty good Advanced Gamblers run but, like his sister, missed the final gamble. His Advanced Standard run...he was doing just great—and then he popped out of a tunnel for no apparent reason. He had a great run time-wise though. His final run of the day: his first go at Snooker. And he nailed it. Atta boy, Zack! Now we just have to get one more Q in Snooker, and Zack will have his AGDC title to go along with his ADC title. Of couse the bad news in all this is that it means that we have to keep moving up to the Advanced level of competition...which, of course, is harder. Be careful what you wish for, eh?

ScallyWagging 2009

2009-02-22T16:10:00.001-08:00

Thanks to all the good folks at ScallyWaggs for once again starting off our Pirate new year with a very enjoyable fun trial out at Shannick Farm. All the Island Dog Sports folks had a great day, with each run getting a little bit better than the last.

Lorri and Mylo made their competitive agility debut, and did it with style. We're very, very proud of them for doing so well in their first trial. Also a big thanks to Lorri for making the cookies—they sure hit the spot after the pizza at lunch. And thanks to Ann for making the pizza run (with Lorri riding shotgun). They navigated to the pizza place and back again without getting lost. George's directions must have been impeccable.

Abby, by virtue of her name beginning with "A" and my having dropped her down a height level, got to go first out on the course every time we did a Novice class. She did just fine, finishing all of the courses with only a few "I think I'll just stand here and stare at you and not move a muscle while you try and figure out how to motivate me..." kind of moments. On the last run of the day, I just waited HER out when she had a couple of those moments, and she finally came running. I guess it's just a matter of who is going to be more stubborn!

Zack went four for four: he got mythical Qs (mythical as in they're not real because this was a fun trial) in all of the events today. Way to go Zack!

Pia put in an appearance later in the afternoon, with her Mom and Dad chaperoning her to make sure she didn't go too far astray. Thanks, Pia, for coming out to cheer everyone on. We know you're going crazy at home, not being allowed to do too much after your surgery.

All in all, a great way to spend a Sunday in February. The ScallyWaggs gang were, as usual, consummate hosts. A special thanks to Eric for joining us around our 'campfire' and providing some insights into what makes our dogs tick out on the agility course. Thanks too, to Petra and Gillian for advice given to various members of our little IDS family.

On Losing Sami

2009-02-22T15:59:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, Sami (aka Gustus Play It Again Sam), spent only a brief time on this Earth. He was a little over 7 and a half months old when he made his journey over the Rainbow Bridge.

He’d had a tough life—for reasons unknown, his liver was severely scarred, and we knew early on that his time would be short. Nonetheless, after recovering from his diagnostic procedures in early December, he was able to enjoy a few months of just being a puppy. It was a rollercoaster ride for sure. There’s no sugar-coating that fact. Every few weeks he’d crash…have an episode when you knew he was feeling just awful. I’d nurse him through it, rack up another vet bill, and he’d bounce back.

His good days far outweighed his bad ones. He went on long trail walks with his Silky brother and sister and all the other dogs, big and small, in our merry band of friends (both two-footed and four-footed). He got to experience snow—an uncommon occurrence in Victoria to be sure, but he was in the right place at the right time to get familiar with the white stuff. Not his favourite weather by any stretch of the imagination, but an adventure nonetheless.

The week before he died, he even ventured out onto the agility equipment at the end of a club session that his siblings had been practicing at. He’d do anything for a Cheerio! He certainly never lacked for confidence. He was even learning some freestyle dance moves over the past few weeks.

But his very best trick of all was stealing hearts. He had one of those cute-as-a-button puppy faces. He had a laid-back personality. He wasn’t intimidated by anyone, and would just walk right up to them and demand a snuggle. His “ahhhh” quotient was huge (as in “ahhhh, what a cute puppy!!).

Last Tuesday, he started not wanting to eat—something that had never happened before. By the end of the day, other symptoms appeared. By the next morning, he was obviously so ill and in pain that we were off to the vet as soon as her office opened. I left him there for the morning, and came back at lunchtime to see how he was doing. The vet brought him in to me in the treatment room and I sat alone with him cradled in my lap for quite a while. He was still in pain, despite the painkillers he had been given. He snuggled in the crook of my arm but you could feel his distress.

There comes to all of us that make-or-break decision time…the heart-wrenching moment when you know that the best thing for your beloved pet is to let them go, to set them free from pain and suffering. You know it’s the right thing to do, but it cuts down so deep into your soul and your heart that you practically can’t breathe. It’s especially tough when your friend is still a puppy—there was still so much life to be lived.

The tears flow as you ask the vet to please put him down. There’s an understanding nod. There’s paperwork. There’s a sedative to ease your friend along on his journey. You watch him relax as the sedative kicks in. Pain loses its grip on him. He settles down in your arms, his breathing eases. He looks at you with his soft puppy eyes. The vet slowly administers that final shot. Everything is quiet. You whisper “Good-bye.” Tears are falling from everyone’s eyes. The stethoscope held to his chest is finally withdrawn and the words, “he’s gone” are spoken.

The autopsy verified that the decision was the right one. Even had we nursed him through this attack, it would have happened again every few weeks. There was nothing corrective we could have done for him. Knowing this dulls the pain of the decision a little bit, but the sorrow remains sharp.

Sami was a sweet little fellow. I wouldn’t have missed having him in my life for anything. The memory of him will remain deeply etched in my heart. In that respect, he will have a very long life indeed.

SAMI

2009-02-18T15:25:00.000-08:00

Sami

June 29, 2008 – February 18, 2009

LITTLE DOGS, BIG TRAIL

2009-02-01T10:31:00.000-08:00

Abby and Sami running to catch up.

We're back in the rhythm of the trail walks. It seemed like the cold and snow of December and early in the new year has kept us from the trails for far too long. But we're happily trail walking again on a regular basis.

Two of the last three weeks, our Saturday walk has been along the Beaver Lake trail, paralleling the western shore of Beaver and Elk Lakes. It's a very popular trail. We meet lots of joggers, people training for racing events, groups on horseback, people just out for a walk.... It's a very busy trail! There was even a rowing regatta going on at Elk Lake that we could glimpse through the trees. Then there was the unexpected: for the second time in a row, there were cormorants perched lakeside with their wings outstretched to dry.

This was Sami's fourth outing on our trail walks (his second to Beaver Lake), and he did just fine. He likes to be "leader of the pack" and spent a lot of time up at the front of the group with the big dogs. Quite funny to see him trotting along underfoot of all the big guys! He also has a bad habit of walking right behind people's feet...which I think he's finally realizing is a bad idea after getting clipped by their heels a few times. Below, he's moved alongside rather than behind Brian...a much safer position!

Sami walks alongside Brian.

TRAILBLAZING

2009-01-10T11:11:00.000-08:00

Well, finallly. Sami got to go out with the Trailblazers. Today was his very first outing with the gang. When I first got Sami, we had other Saturday commitments for about a month, then Sami still couldn't go because he hadn't had his last set of puppy shots, and then it was because he was ill. So today was a big milestone for him.

It was a bit chilly and windy at Island View, but I put two layers on each of the dogs, and hoped that would keep them all toasty warm, as long as they kept moving. It wasn't a long walk, so Sami was able to do the entire thing. He had a great time. Tail up, checking out all the great smells, checking out all the other dogs (and vice versa, of course). You'd think he'd been a Trailblazer for months rather than this being his first time out.

Zack shows Sami how it's done as they catch up to Pia and Lynn.

The three amigos check out a particularly interesting scent.

Sami blended in with the trail surface; he was sometimes very difficult to keep track of!

THREE AMIGOS SIESTA

2008-12-30T19:01:00.001-08:00

No trails to walk; all the indoor toys played with; nothing good on television. Guess we might as well just curl up on the sofa for a snooze.

SAMI'S GUIDE TO SLEEPING

2008-12-25T19:57:00.000-08:00

There's nothing quite so relaxed as a sleeping puppy. And nothing quite so flexible. Here Sami demonstrates how to gracefully move from the sleeping-on-your-side position to the sleeping-on-your-back position.

CHRISTMAS 2008

2008-12-25T19:47:00.000-08:00

A quiet affair, for the most part....very low key. As we did last year, we (Martha, Joe and I) went in to have Christmas dinner with our Mom at her seniors' home. They do a great job with decorating and with the meal, so it's all very nice...and relaxing for us all. No one has to cook; no one has to do the dishes afterwards!

Martha & Joe's dog Kennedy puts on a sulky face as he realizes that we're all about to head out for Christmas dinner—without him.

Mom happily unwraps her presents...in this case, a treasure-trove of word-seek books that help to keep her mind limber. This is her 90th Christmas.

The Reeve women.

BASKING, RE-VISITED

2008-12-25T19:44:00.000-08:00

Well, OK, sometimes you DO have to share the sunbeams.

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

2008-12-23T15:36:00.000-08:00

More snow on the way. Time to hunker down again.

Took some time out this morning and wandered around the back yard looking for some interesting things to take pictures of while the dogs were busy running around through their labyrinth of snow paths (soon to become even more canyon-like than they are already).

Finding joy and art in the small things is a great way to discover your world. Even if it shows that you never got around to completely putting the back yard to bed...as witnessed by the fact that there were still roses on stems sticking out from the snowdrifts. The brightest spot of all is, of course, the berries hanging from the various shrubs—a valuable source of food for birds at the moment.

FINE ART OF SUNBEAM-BASKING

2008-12-22T21:56:00.000-08:00

Sami, being the laid-back kind of puppy that he is, has been perfecting his technique for basking in the sunbeams that stream through the diningroom windows.

First, you find a sunbeam that is just your size, so that other dogs that you happen to share the house with don't hassle you for it...as it's just too narrow for them to bother with.
Then, you adopt an inscrutable, Zen-like pose that defies anyone to disturb your contemplation of the true meaning of solar radiation.
And finally, having solved the mysteries of the universe through your meditation in the sun, you strike an adorable pose for the paparazzi.

SIDNEY SNOW SCENES

2008-12-22T21:42:00.000-08:00

I went out for a walk a little after 9 pm last evening. There's nothing quite so nice as walking around in the fluffy white stuff when there's hardly anyone out and about. It's so quiet. Muffled. Peaceful. Hardly saw a soul while I was out. I decided to take my camera with me...to experiment a bit with it and see what kinds of scenes I could capture. Some efforts were more successful than others! Most of them ended up being banished by the 'delete' button, once they made their way onto my computer. But here are a few that turned out somewhat OK....

Traffic on the main road.

Looking downhill on our street.

Light display.

Home.

WINTER WONDERLAND

2008-12-21T17:56:00.000-08:00

The first day of winter brought even more snow to Vancouver Island. We've shovelled the not-so-fluffy stuff (it's not a 'dry snow') a couple of times already today. The temperatures between now and Christmas would make it seem that we will indeed have a white Christmas....

Here are a few shots of Day 1 of winter on Cleveland Road:

And to see how the dogs were enjoying the white stuff in the not-quite-as-scenic backyard, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja3u1pZMyu8

A SPECIAL DOG

2008-12-14T15:06:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, Sami has been having trouble health-wise for a couple of months. We knew we were nailing it down to something to do with his liver, and were hoping that it would be something that was "fixable".

To help us pinpoint the diagnosis, Sami was referred by his vet to the Canada West Veterinary Specialists clinic in Vancouver at the beginning of December. We went over to consult with the internal medicine specialist and to have an in-depth ultrasound completed by their radiologist. Enough wonky things showed up on his ultrasound that it was recommended that the only way to truly get a handle on what was going on was to have Sami have exploratory surgery. He had his surgery the next day. The surgeon could find nothing structural and fixable—such as a hepatic shunt—that would explain his liver dysfunction, but the liver definitely looked abnormal. Sami had biopsies taken from his liver and his small intestine, and some of his bile was taken to be cultured. The surgery also showed that he had several small shunts developing, as his body tried to re-route blood past his malfunctioning liver.

It took a week or so to get back all his results. First back were the bile cultures, which showed three different bacteria were present. None of the three were bacteria that were responsive to the antibiotic he was already on, so he was switched to two other antibiotics. He's also on another drug to help support his liver function. A few days after the bile culture results, his biopsy results came back. They basically showed that he had a very scarred liver—the equivalent of an elderly dog with long-term liver disease. What caused this? According to the specialist, we'll likely never know. It was likely a bacteria or virus that he was somehow exposed to and didn't have the wherewithal to combat it. It might be that he somehow just never had a strong immune system, as whatever he was exposed to, his housemates and littermates were also exposed to but none of them became ill. (In speaking with someone on Saturday, that possibility of a compromised immune system was also brought up, in regards to some recent research concerning purebred dogs—in which evidence of just such a situation was beginning to surface more and more often...so this may very well be what has happened to Sami...but as the vet said, we'll probably never really know.)

The bottom line is, sadly, that Sami won't be with us for the long haul. With supportive care and a special diet, he could live happily and comfortably for a few months, maybe a year. We just don't know. Or maybe he'll be a miracle puppy and just keep chugging along for several years. As long as he has a good quality of life, we'll travel this journey with him for as long as he has. He is a very special little dog.

Now that his stitches are out from his stem-to-stern incision from his exploratory operation, we'll start getting him out doing regular doggie things like the Saturday trail walks. We haven't been going on these since he arrived in the household, at first because he hadn't had all his shots and then because he was ill. So Abby and Zack have been cooling their heels for a couple of months as well, and are itching to get back with their trail buddies. Abby, in particular, would benefit from getting back to this activity...she's getting a tad on the chunky side! Sami won't be able to walk the whole distance that the other two can, so I've gotten him a sling pouch that he can retreat to and be carried whenever he needs a rest.

SNOW DAY

2008-12-14T12:54:00.000-08:00

It's a winter wonderland on southern Vancouver Island! The Victoria area is getting in the Christmas mood by frosting itself with about 8 inches of the fluffy stuff...and industriously and decoratively blowing it around in all directions now that it has stopped actually falling from the sky. A good day to hole up in the house and do some chores or a little Christmas baking or (of course) take pictures of the dogs out in the snow.

This is Sami's first experience with snow. He's not very impressed. It's quite chilly out, and given that he has absolutely no body fat, I can understand his reluctance to venture out, even with his coat on. I added his 'muscle shirt' under his red fleece, and that seemed to help...he at least stayed out long enough to pee. But he went out under protest (i.e. I had to hunt him down in the house and carry him out and put him some distance from the back door so that he actually had to spend some time out in the snow). He still wasn't much impressed with this change in the weather, and made a bee-line for the door as fast as he could find his way back there.

Zack, on the other hand, just loves being out in the snow. However, he also comes in chock-a-block full of snowballs in his fur, so I only let him out occasionally since I'm not all that fond of all the little puddles of melting snow he then deposits around the house once he's back in and melting. Abby enjoys the snow too, but it was a bit deep for her to go bounding around through it the way Zack does.

Zack enjoying the first snowfall of winter.

Abby checks out the trail system before venturing farther afield in the backyard.

Zack and Abby return from their reconnaissance mission to Martha and Joe's back gate.

Sami takes a reluctant trip around the backyard pathways.

Sami, having had enough of the winter wonderland, makes a hasty retreat to the back door.

RAISING KANE

2008-11-18T20:44:00.000-08:00

It's not been a good autumn for our dogs... Lynne bid farewell to her beloved Kane this past weekend. There's getting to be quite a crowd at the end of the Rainbow Bridge. More pals for them to play with at one end, some broken hearts at this end. But we know they're all feeling like puppies again over there — free from the infirmities of age, free to run like the wind, free to find the very best smells on each blade of the greenest grass.

I don't think I can do better than Lynne in telling the tale of a life well lived. Here is what she wrote:

After 13 years of being the joy of my life, Kane passed peacefully in my arms on Nov. 15. In early November 1995 Jenny and I travelled the dark roads of the Highlands to look at an 8 week old chocolate lab puppy. Only 2 puppies remained out of a large litter. One pup was into everything and the other pup sat quietly on the mat at the front door. Of course we chose the one that had to be hauled out of cupboards. That puppy never stopped.
Everything in his world was to be savoured. Wood bugs were his favourite because he could make them curl up just by sticking his nose on them. New leather shoes were the best for chewing. Although the cats were well ahead of him in the pecking order, he could terrorize them by his frantic dashes through the house and yard making his turns by banking off the couch. My vehicles always sported signs that clearly said "this car is used for transporting a dog that drools out the window". Many days I would drive down the road with Kane's face hanging out enjoying the breeze. Wolfie and/or Bailey were often seen sharing the window with him.
Kane had many favourite spots (his most favourite spot was almost always where ever he was at that moment in time) but Island View Beach was a place he loved all his life. We spent many hours there while I threw sticks for him to retrieve. He loved to swim but any amount of water was good whether it was the ocean, a lake, the bathtub, or a puddle. He took great joy in greeting other dogs and enjoyed the time he spent walking with the group.
On Saturday morning Kane went for his last walk on the sand at Island View. He took time to greet another dog and to gnaw on a stick and to go as far down the beach as he could. Although he could no longer swim at least he was able to wade a bit. He got to see some of his closest four legged friends before our last trip to Sidney and Austin and Maddy rode with him in the back of the "dog mobile". He had Lori and her staff well trained. The liver cookies are in the bottom drawer and he scored a couple on Saturday. He nobly dealt with arthritis but he was experiencing increasing nerve damage in his hind quarters. He was still a puppy but was trapped in an old dog's body. He is out of pain and is no doubt enjoying running again with Sadie, Monty, Poutine and Chinook (who was at his last walk with the group.) I feel truly blessed to have had the privilege of loving Kane, a loving, kind and loyal friend.