Pole Weaving

Bosley really loves the weave poles so I thought it would be fun to try to take a few pictures of him weaving.

Here is Bosley getting ready to weave.  Doesn't he look happy?

"Yipee!!  Look how fast I can go!!!"

Apparently, weaving needs be done with one eye closed.  Kind of like threading a needle, I guess.

Keep that eye shut :)

Look at the bend in the poles, and those crazy looking legs (and the shut eye).

I like this picture with Bosley's eye peaking out of one side of the pole and a big smile showing on the other side of the pole.

I am not sure how weaving with both eyes shut works?

"Here I come!"

Titer Test

Last week I took Maggie for her yearly check-up.  This was the first big check-up she has had since her Mast Cell Cancer treatment last year.  I asked the vet to do a full blood panel work-up as well as titers.

I am very conservative when it comes to vaccinations in my dogs.  Both Maggie and Bosley have had their puppy series and a one year booster  and nothing since (following the Jean Dodds vaccination protocol). Maggie has not had any vaccinations for over 4 years.  Her titer levels came back great!

The rest of her blood work came back good as well.  The vet was worried about her kidney values (creatine specifically) as last year it was on the high side.  The vet was pleased to see that the creatine value had dropped a bit and stabilized although it is still a bit high but within the normal range.  She figures the higher value has a lot to do with Maggie's water drinking habits - she drinks very little.  If she was drinking a ton of water and peeing a lot, she would be more concerned.  I worry about Maggie's kidneys because when she was a puppy she knocked a bottle of Ibuprofen off the counter, the lid popped off and she ate a bunch of it. Ibuprofen can cause kidney damage in dogs and although there were no signs of damage when she was released from the hospital at the time, I still worry.

Maggie's glucose was a bit low, but both the vet and the pathologist think it was because the blood was shipped to Calgary for testing and the blood will use up it's own glucose (or something like that).  She has to go back for a quick glucose test later this week, as a precaution.

I am always nervous waiting for test results to come back - even if it is just routine blood work.  I am very glad that the vet gave Maggie a clean bill of health.

Flood

For the past few days we have been getting a lot of heavy rain.  Today it is finally sunny again.  We went for a long walk this morning with the intention of getting this weeks photo for Bosley's 52 Weeks For Dogs project.  The river is flooding from all the rain, so I wanted a picture of Bosley posing at the flooding river.

I like this picture of Bosley as we are about to go though the tunnel that runs under Whoop-Up Drive.  I like how his wet footprints show up.

I am very nervous around water, so I didn't want to go right down to the river.  The river is moving very fast and it is very high, so we took the pedestrian overpass that crosses the river.

Walking over the pedestrian overpass is very safe, but I still feel nervous when I see and hear all that water rushing underneath the bridge.  Bosley posed for a few pictures on the bench before we crossed (quickly) over the bridge.

Weekend Details

I couldn't have been more pleased with how Bosley worked during the entire draft test on Friday.  His off-leash heeling was very good - especially considering we were outside.  He got a couple nice comments from the judges on his heeling as well as his "halts" and his back-up from the basic cart control section of the test.  

For the freight haul, the judges have the option of judging each dog individually or doing a group freight haul.  Due to the large number of entries, they opted for the group haul.  This means that 3 dogs go at a time and each take a turn at being the dog in the front, in the middle and in the back.  You are not allowed to pass the dog in front of you, which means you must adjust your pace to the lead team. I was a bit worried about this, as the first section was all downhill and Bosley loves to try to run down the hills and we were in the middle position to start.  I made sure I left a lot of room between us and the lead dog and made Bosley go SLOW down the hill.  He listened very well and we had no problems.  The dog behind us however would not slow down and the handler had to grab him to keep him from running into us (an automatic fail).  At first I felt bad that they failed because we were going so slow, but draft work is really all about control and control is essentially what determines a pass or fail.

There was one section of the test that got many dogs, especially the non-traditional drafting breeds entered (a Standard Poodle, a Portuguese Water Dog and a Rough Collie).  The dogs had to pull their loaded cart (40 pounds) straight up a hill, stop, make a sharp left turn a go straight down the side of the hill.  Many dogs refused to do the hill or could not get enough momentum going up the hill and the loaded cart would just pull them back down.  It was too bad, as many of these dogs tried so hard but they just couldn't make it.

Overall, I thought it was a very good test.  Lots of challenges but not impossible.  The judges were great and everyone was very encouraging.  I met some great Berner people too!!

Bosley was #7 in the test.  They had very cute placards to put on the back of our cart for the test.

I think I will leave my license plate on.

Maggie and Bosley were also entered in agility over the weekend.  Bosley got the last "Q" needed to finish his AgXS title.  He had a couple other really nice runs.  We had some miscommunication on a couple other runs.  Overall, I was happy.  He was very slow in the weaves - trying to be careful and adjust to the 24" spacing.  By the end of the weekend he was figuring it out.

Maggie made it very clear to me that she was not happy that I was making her jump 20".  She cannot jump 16" in CKC until she is 7 years old.  I pulled her from her runs on Sunday and I pulled her entry from a CKC trial in July.  If she is not happy, I am not going to force her to play.

BMDCC Draft Dog Test

Yesterday we drove to Edmonton for some agility and a draft test.  Today was the draft test.  Out of 12 entrants 2 dogs passed.  Bosley was one of them!!!!!!!  He was a good boy all day and worked very hard.

Sunny Days

The rain is gone away . . . could spring actually here to stay?