Well, we survived NADAC!
Tigs was the Trial Secretary for this trial. All the paperwork for this trial has been living in our ugly orange living room for the past three months.
Lucy was feeling off all weekend, we think it was from allergies, but she still ran in 10 of the 11 runs we had her signed up for. Saturday I did all the running, while Tigs focused on making sure all the record keeping was going well, and that there weren't any screw-ups with the program. The first run was novice tunnelers, which consisted of… you guessed it, tunnels. Lucy ran it very quickly (shock) and very accurately. She listened to all of my directions, and we finished in Elite time.

The second run was weavers, which was the first run of the day to include weave poles. There were 2 sets of 6 poles, and you had to do one set twice. We had a very good run, and attempted the weave poles a couple of times each. Weave pole boot camp definitely paid off as she valiantly attempted them, but never succeeded in completing them. Lucy did do the practice area weave poles right, though.

After that came chances and two regular runs. Again Lucy was great, and listened really well, but there was still trouble with the weave poles, so no qualifying scores.

The day finished with a jumpers course, which started great, but then I screwed it up. Around a curve I ended up on the wrong side of a jump, got in Lucy's way, and she knocked a bar. Two more bars ended up on the ground by the end of the run, but it was still a pretty good run, and not a horrible way to end the day.

Sunday Tigs ran Lucy and the first run was jumpers. It went pretty well and Lucy seemed to be enjoying herself. The second run was touch n' go, which again went pretty well, except that Lucy decided that she thought the A Frame looked weird and didn't take it. We aren't sure, but we think it may be the fact that unlike every other organization, NADAC's contacts don't have slats, so it looks and feels different.

The third and forth runs were both regular runs, and the weave poles continued to be an issue, as did the A Frame. Also, Lucy's frustration level kept going up and she was paying increasingly less attention to Tigs as the day progressed. By the second regular run Lucy wasn't listening at all and was just doing her own thing. So we scratched her from the last run.

In all the excitement of buying a house I neglected to write about the agility trial the weekend of 3/22.

The trial was held at CISC in Westminster MD and it was a Canine Performance Events (CPE) trial. It’s a group kind of like the American Kennel Club, but a bit more relaxed, and with some different agility games and rules.

Saturday dawned mostly gray and proceeded throughout the day with occasional snow showers, sleet, rain, and sun. We arrived at CISC a little before 7 am so that Lucy could be measured officially. The judge called everyone who needed to be measured over to the side and had us put the smaller dogs up on a table, at which point he would put a measuring wicket over their backs. It took a couple of seconds. It wasn’t long after that the games started.

The first game of the day was Jackpot which requires you to do a number of different types of equipment, and for each successful completion you gain points. There isn’t a set course in the beginning but when the whistle sounds you have to do the “gamble” which is a series of obstacles in order with the handler standing behind a line. You need to complete the gamble and earn a set number of points in order to qualify (Q). From the start line there was a tunnel and the dog walk. My plan was to get Lucy into the tunnel twice before I sent her to the walk. She had other ideas, and took the dog walk twice. I went with it, and kept running. When the whistle blew I sent Lucy for the gamble, making sure to keep behind the line. Because I was trying to work from a distance, she hesitated a little bit before the first obstacle (a tunnel) but once into it, the rest of the gamble went like a breeze, and Lucy finished perfectly by hitting the table.

After jackpot was Standard, which is the basic form of agility including just about everything in a set order. It wasn’t a particularly difficult course, but I screwed up how I handled her, and we ended up not qualifying (NQ).

Next was Wildcard. This is like standard, except there are a couple of spots where you have a choice on which obstacles you want to take, and once you commit to a certain set of choices you have to stick with it. Since Lucy loves the A Frame, I knew we would have to do that, rather then try to run past it. This run went pretty much as planned, and Lucy took the A Frame like a champ! Q!!

Snooker followed Wildcard. This game requires you to take a jump prior to taking any other obstacle, and then taking another jump (not the same one) and then another obstacle, and then a third jump, and another obstacle(it can be the same obstacle each time), and then doing a series in order, ending with a table. You accumulate points for each obstacle, but if you take a wrong obstacle or take an obstacle without taking a jump first you’re done. Things went pretty well on this one, until Lucy took a wrong obstacle and we got whistled off. NQ.

Jumpers was the last game of the day, and with the issues that Lucy has been having in class with knocking down bars I wasn’t expecting anything great. Now, maybe I should have been more encouraged, as by this point in the day she had only knocked down a single bar, but seeing as the entire course was jumps (with a couple of tunnels) and no contacts (Lucy’s favorite type) I just wanted to go out and have fun. And so we did, and amazingly ended the day with a Q!!

You’ll notice that I ran all the runs on Saturday. This is because the unique architecture of CISC lends itself to very poor lighting. The entire ceiling is covered with nets to protect the lights above, but this causes the light to be very diffused and greenish. There are only a couple of spots where any natural light can come in, and seeing as the weather was rather crappy there wasn’t much light to be had. This all resulted in Tigs getting a headache.

The other fun event of the day was the fact that in total Lucy peed 32 times on Saturday. Now we know that Lucy can pee with sometimes annoying frequency, but I don’t think she’s ever peed that much before. We were a little concerned, but thought that maybe it was the stress of the day, and we’d keep an eye on it.

Sunday was a little brighter then Saturday, and a little warmer too. Since Tigs didn’t get to do any of the runs on Saturday, she opted to run all of Sunday. I must admit, part of me wanted to do it, but fair is fair. Plus my knee was bothering me a little, and a day of watching agility sounded great.

The first run of the day was Jumpers, and Lucy was a little bit of a snot. NQ

Then came another Standard run. Lucy decided that she'd done enough jumps in Jumpers and decided to skip a bunch. Needless to say it was a NQ

Next up was colors, which is like standard, except there are 2 courses (with overlap) and you have to pick 1 and stick to it. Now this was a tough course, as it was laid out jump, jump, turn away from the A Frame toward something that didn’t interest Lucy as much. As you can guess, Lucy went toward the A Frame not once, but twice. The first time she even got a couple of paws on it. However Tigs got Lucy to come back to her both times, and completed the course and got a Q!!

Following Colors was Full House. This is a game similar to Jackpot, but without the gamble. In it you have a set amount of time in which to accumulate points until a buzzer sounds, at which point you have 5 seconds to get your dog to put at least 1 paw on the table to stop the clock. Any time over the 5 seconds is subtracted from your score. There are also requirements that you have to do at least x number of jumps, y number of circles, etc. At the beginning of the course was the dog walk, which Lucy flew across, and Tigs kept pace and then over a jump, and back to the walk, then through a couple of tunnels, over the A Frame, another jump, and then to the table. It was fun to watch! Q!!

All that running was putting a similar strain on Tigs’ knees as it had on mine, so she offered the final run of the day to me. The game was again snooker but this time the layout of the run was significantly more difficult. I spent some time planning my strategy for this one, knowing that it would be the most difficult simply because Lucy would want to go and do stuff as she came to it. The plan worked out, practically perfectly! Lucy listened, and I kept her in tight with me right up till the end so she wouldn’t go flying over any jumps that she wasn’t supposed to. The only thing that she didn’t do was a final tire jump at the very end, however we had already accumulated more then enough points for a Q so we kept right on past it and finished at the table. Q!!

All totaled we got 6 Q’s, and earned 3 level 1 titles in Strategy Games, Handler Games, and Fun Games!!

T'was the night before Halloween, and all through the house, all the creatures were stirring, though we don't have a mouse. The dog is crying under the guinea pig cage, while cackles of glee from the hamster tank ring.

I must admit, it's only just beginning to feel like fall. Halloween should still be a month away, not that it matters too much. I have both work and school, so won't be participating in any real way. I feel kinda bad about that. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, and aside from a bunch of candy that has suddenly appeared in the house, nothing else worth noting.

Agility tonight was a mixed bag. At the beginning Lucy just wasn't interested in anything I said to her, and we had to repeat her start line stays a couple of time. By the end of it though she started to really pay attention, and I got my timing mostly right, so it was actually pretty good.

I'm going to leave off with this link to a radio broadcast from 69 years ago.

Tuesday night was rough. Lucy was very much not in the mood to listen to me, and was very much in the mood to herd me. At home this isn’t such a big deal. Out on a hike, likewise, not a big deal. During agility class, as we are running side by side, and she decides to leap up and grab at my shorts and I’m in significant danger of falling on her or stepping on her, then it becomes a bigger deal. On top of the danger to her, there is also the embarrassment of having your dog not listen to you. At all. In front of the entire class. The worst part of the embarrassment is that I feel like I should know how to correct it, and I don’t. So I get frustrated, and when I get frustrated I also tend to get mad. I don’t like getting that way, because while the emotions are mine, I take it out on Lucy, and on Tigs. I get snippy, and short, and I hate it when I take it out on them.

Aside from that it’s been a decent week. I’ve gotten my grades back on all the assignments and tests for both classes, and so far I’m getting an A in both. I’m not entirely thrilled with the A in accounting though, because it’s a curved A. I’m going to have to work harder between now and the next test (2-3 weeks). I really wish that school ran on 7 week quarters, rather then the 15 week semesters. I felt so much more motivated during the summer sessions to get stuff done because I only had so much time to do it in. With 15 weeks, it feels like forever. That’s plenty of time to get everything done! Until you realize that it’s 3 weeks till the end of the term, and you now have that time to do 12 weeks worth of back homework. Personally I don’t want to spend December freaked out about school. I’d like to be comfortable with my grades and my work by that point.

I started painting up another warlock. I decided on an orange robe, something a little different, and also in the theme of the month. At first I was unsure about the color choice, but I kept at it, and wanted to see if I could make it work. At this point the robe needs maybe one more highlight, just on the very edges, and then on to the his face and hands. I really like the figure too, as there are a lot of neat little details like the frog on his shoulder, and the claw coming out of his backpack. Pictures eventually. I’d say soon, but really I can’t promise that.

( Stolen from silentrequiem )

( Friday Five! )

Damn. I was going to make pumpkin bread tonight, but the pumpkin went bad. *sigh*

( Doing things with the help of a monster! )

Things I should be doing right now:
Sleeping

We visited a new park this weekend, Oregon Ridge State Park . I’m not entirely clear on how we missed this one in the book, considering how often we’ve referenced it, but it is a beautiful hike. At a little over 4 miles, mostly in shade, and of moderate difficulty (aka not really flat, but the inclines aren’t too bad) it was a good workout. Plus at the end is a beach! Now the neat thing about that is the beach has an entry fee, but if you hike your way into the park along the trails, you can get to the it without having to go through the gate. Maybe they figure that if you are willing to hike a couple of miles you deserve to swim free? The only downside to the beach is that they don’t allow puppy swimming.

After our hike we headed over to Gaer's for the Craft and Movie Night. None of us were in the mood for anything too angsty, so we watched I.Q., 9 to 5, and a couple of episodes of Dougie Howser MD. Tigs and I sewed up some dog toys that Lucy had unstuffed to various degrees. Tigs also worked on her latest cross stitch project. Gaer knitted, and changed outfits a couple of times, and I painted the elementals. Pictures to be taken tonight (maybe). Commentary on them when I post the pictures.

Sunday we headed out to Ikea for breakfast, and to look for a new TV stand. The one we bought last year just isn’t holding up to the weight of our hefty TV. It was (we discovered after we bought it) designed for a flat panel TV, rather then our big ol’ CRT, and now it is bowing. Plus the open bottom allowed the Monster to chew on the AV cords and a controller for the N64. We were successful both in obtaining breakfast and the TV stand.

While we were in White Marsh we also decided to swing across the street and hit Games Workshop. I wanted to take a look at the new terrain pieces they’ve come up with. The one I was most interested in was a new forest piece, but I was disappointed by. In person I felt it looked too plastic, and that it was something I could do myself to far better effect.

Next we popped over to AC Moors and I got some new t-shirts for work. I love it when they go on sale. Plain colored t-shirts for $2 each! Can’t beat that. Then we went home, and I got to work on my take home test for accounting.

The test itself wasn’t that bad. It had only 25 multiple choice questions, so it went quickly. There was only one problem that gave me any real pause. it was written in such a way that it required you to make a whole bunch of assumptions in order to be able to solve it. After getting it wrong, then thinking that there wasn’t a right answer, then getting an idea of how to solve it, I finally figured out the correct answer, and the correct way to solve for it. Once I finished with the test I moved onto the homework, and did about 3 hours more work.

Monday was work, then class. After the class had been dismissed, I stayed after to talk with the professor both about the test and about the homework. It seems in spite of the stress I’ve been feeling that I’m actually getting this. It’s always nice to have someone tell you that you are on the right track!

Yesterday was a long day. After work we had puppy classes. That’s right, plural. It was the last night of our agility class, and then immediately after it was the first class of her advanced basic obedience class. For those of you not keeping track at home, that’s 2 and a half hours of class, for a 1 year old puppy. We decided to split the duties:I would handle her for the agility class, and Tigs would take her for obedience.

In agility we started off by reviewing all the basic skills we learned in the first couple of weeks, and then moved on to a new skill, teaching her to go out ahead of us. Lucy did pretty well at that, though when I yelled at her (as we were running) to “GO!!” she did look back at me questioning what it was I was saying. We did that a couple of times, which Lucy absolutely loved. After that we set up a course of 8 obstacles (tire, A frame, jump, tunnel, 3 more jumps, and shoot) and we were timed and scored while going through. I admit the addition of the time certainly made it a little more exciting, but mostly I just wanted to make sure would Lucy actually run the course and not just run around like a crazy puppy. So before we ran I made sure to put her target at the base of the A frame (to make sure she paused at the bottom of it) and adjusted the tire height down to her jump level. Then we ran. It was a great run, in spite of her knocking a bar off the first jump. She hit the target perfectly, listened to my commands, and was fast!! This is the first time we’ve ever done that many obstacles in a row! At the end, because of the placement of the 3 jumps and the shoot, and her running ahead I wasn’t at the end of the shoot to catch her, and being all excited as she was I could see the “WHATS NEXT?!?!” look in her eye. Knowing that if I didn’t give her something to do THAT INSTANT she would probably take off, I told her to run with me to go get the target back at the base of the A frame. We got there at the same time, I praised her, caught her, and gave her treats.

After that we headed next door to where the obedience class was going to be held. The teacher for obedience is the same one we had for the puppy obedience class we took, and Lucy absolutely LOVES her! There was some serious full body wiggling going on. I think that Lucy will really enjoy working obedience again. As much as she has fun doing agility, she seems to like obedience a little bit more. Probably because she gets to be more active, as she doesn’t have to wait for the other dogs to use the equipment.

Once class was finished we headed home, and made ourselves dinner. Lucy was really tired and got very annoyed with us for switching rooms. We kept going back and forth from the living room to the kitchen, and she would always come with us.

Today I actually don’t have class. The professor has an event tonight that she has to go to, and she didn’t think she’d be back in time for class. So I’ll take an hour or two tonight to do some more work on my project and do some more reading. We’ll probably also head to one of the pet stores, as it’s time for another water test for the fish tank. This week we lost Oscar the algae eater, 1 of only 2 fish that we’ve actually named. The neons are more of a hive group then individuals, and I’ve been thinking of the guppies as a matched pair, kind of like the Bynars. We think he may have been trying to clean the intake of the filter and gotten stuck, but we’re not sure. On top of that I also changed some of the water in the tank, so it’s time to test again. The snail we got (labeled “mysterious black snail”) is a whole lot of fun to watch. In addition to hitting Petco we’ll probably also hit the Target that’s in the same plaza, as there are a number of little things we need from there.

Lastly, tigergladys made me this icon a while back, and I wanted to share it with you!

Lucy had some suggestions about what I should put on Ebay.



Unfortunately for her, I didn't take her suggestions and I only listed more miniatures.

Tonight is Obedience Class for Lucymonster, which is always exciting. It is even more so this week because it was cancelled last week due to the snow and ice. Now, if only I was a little more awake.

I'm afraid it was one of those nights that I had lots of dreams (don't remember them) and was very restless, which kept everyone up, even me. Some nights keeping a rubber mallet next to the bed would be a kindness to my family. That or some muscle relaxers. (I kicked Lucy off the bed a few times...)

In other news 5 of the townhouse units in our "neighbourhood" have burnt down. There was a fire a while ago that took out 3, and then the other day I was walking by it and the damage was worse, and had spread to 2 other units. I called the leasing office today, and was told it's still "under investigation" and they can't release any info until its complete. I'm very curious to know if I'm living in a fire trap that could just go at any time! Tigs current theory is that it's the heating system that did it, due to the large volume of flammable debris that was shoved into our heat vents when they cleaned the apartment before we moved in - it smells like a toxic waste dump when the heat is on. If so it's a good thing that the temperature is warming up again!

"Ok, this has to be straight."
( Lucy the architect! )
We're submitting her application to WETA tomorrow! ;-)