Friday, July 30, 2010
Velvet Ants?
Thankfully our friend instantly knew it wasn't good for her. It was a Mutillidae, which some folks call a velvet ant, or cow killer ant. Pic to the left is the one we saw, blurry 'cause Mum was trying to keep us all away and get a BB pic too, BOL!
It isn't actually an ant, but a wasp. The males have wings and the females don't. The females are red and black and furry, crawl around on the ground, and they look like they have Elvis velvet painting like baby clothes on, BOL!
They say the name "Cow Killer Ant" was given to the velvet ant because of the reputation of the female's sting. It is said that the sting is so painful that it could kill a cow. They say the sting won't actually kill, but just hurt real bad. Although if you'd have an allergy to them, I suspect there could be repercussions, like when I got a bee sting and my snout blew up to the size of a golf ball.
So it's great that our neighbor knew it could have been very bad for Gracie, and pulled her away real quick! So many new critters to learn about...
Whoa baby!
So we're driving to agility practice the other night. It's about a 30 minute drive down the interstate, not too far.
We got notice that this class session is an hour earlier than last session, so we ran into some commuter traffic that wasn't there our last sessions.
Mum got kinda nervous on our trip down. These folks drive really fast trying to get home from work down here! I don't know if it was the full moon, or they use those radar detector things, or if it's always like that, but dang...there are dangerous drivers!
Mum gets really protective when we are in the car and didn't like the speeding stuff at all! Anyways, we made it there safely, had a great time at practice, working some tunnel/dogwalk discrimination stuff, which I aced of course, BOL! Gracie did pretty well, she did have one moment of weakness and got her zoomies on, but after that she was pawsome!
Mum's looking at signing me up for an AKC trial in September that's about 40 minutes away. Oh, Mum, please????? Can we go?????? I only need 80 pts!
Gracie and the butterflies!
We all three kind of stood there and watched them leap by with their white tails, then after the quick shock wore off Gracie and I started barking and wanting to run after them. Too fun!
After that we walked down in the pasture. The hay and weeds aren't growing very fast cause it's been so dry, but spotted around are the orange flowers - Butterfly Weed - with butterflies all over them. Gracie loves teasing them!
This time she was really calm with them, usually she jumps at 'em and tries to nip 'em a bit.
Mum's lost a total of 18 lbs since we moved down here (even without apidexin, BOL!). She's loving that! I noticed the other night at agility practice that she's running faster - guess that means I'm gonna have to run faster, BOL!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Speaking of hiking!
It has lots of great info on precautions, care, trail etiquette, first aid, packing, water safety and more. And look! In the article she recommends our Raise A Green Dog blog too, cool!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Around the dog agility blog-o-sphere!
EO 2010
EO 2010 gets underway this weekend in Liberec, Czech Republic. Practice will be held on Friday, with the event on Saturday and Sunday. Here are some important links:
List of registered participants sorted by country.
USA team members listed at the bottom of this page.
Meet the judges
Full competition program
Regulations/Rules
Agility Vision will be at EO video taping the finals of the event. The finals won't be live streamed this year, but you will be able to view the Video on Demand once it's uploaded (targeted for 8 PM ET, July 25th). You can pre-order the VOD by Friday, July 23rd to save $5 off the regular price of $19.99.
Agility Individuals Large
Agility Individuals Medium
Agility Individuals Small
Jumping Individuals Large
Jumping Individuals Medium
Jumping Individuals Small
Final Individuals Large
Final Individuals Medium
Final Individuals Small
Teams Large
Teams MS
The 2010 NADAC Championships will be held September 23-26, 2010 at the Cam-Plex Multi-Event Facilities in Gillette, Wyoming. Entries close on August 3rd.
Agility Vision will be at the event video taping all runs. Special packages are available. Visit their website for more info.
USDAA
Some news via USDAA...
View the new rule changes including allowing 24" weave pole spacing, displaceable tire, new Veterans Program and more. Some new rules effective July 1, 2010, others effective for the 2011 and subsequent tournament and/or calendar year.
Results from the Rocky Mountain and SouthWest regionals have been posted. EDIT: You can now view some of the results from the NorthWest regionals.
More info for Cynosport, October 12-17, 2010 in Louisville have been posted, including info on agility.
AKC
New rules coming into effect for AKC agility from the May Board Meeting and include positionless table, 24" weave pole spacing, no more multipliers, no more up contact judging and more. Here is the link to the Board Meeting minutes, the link to the full new regulations, and a nice overview of all the changes courtesy of Magica Goldens blog.
2010 FCI Agility World Championships
The final US team for 2010 FCI Agility World Championship, October 1, 2 & 3, 2010, Reiden, Germany has been announced, including those who qualified at the tryouts and those named to the team. Other country participants are starting to be added to the main site. You can also follow the FCI Agility World Championships on Twitter, (hashtag #agiwm).
Agility Vision has a special preorder price of $24.99 now through September 17th or the first 1,000 orders (whichever comes first) for their Live Stream and Video on Demand of the entire 2010 FCI event. Click here to order the special package.
If you purchase this video package you will receive a coupon code that you can use in the Clean Run store for $5off the 2010 FCI DVD. The full 2-DVD set of the "Best of the 2010 FCI Agility World Championships" will be available via Clean Run bringing you hundreds of runs from the event, including all of the runs by Team USA and Team Canada. The DVD will not be available until late November. However, Clean Run is currently accepting pre-orders. Place your order by October 3rd to receive the early bird DVD discount: $5 off the regular price of $29.95, plus free shipping.
Silvia Trkman is planning an online video tutorial teaching her famous Cik/Cap turns that can shave seconds off your course time. Here's a teaser video (below), first video of the tutorial is live as of today. Here is info for purchasing (about $57 USD). Looks like she may be planning more tutorials for heeling and tricks, coming soon.
And don't miss this new vid of Silvia's new pup Le.
Silvia will also be in the US next year doing seminars in Florida, Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia, the end of January, beginning of February. Here is the info (click on upcoming seminars) for the Florida seminar, Jan 24-28 in Tampa. Watch her website for more info on other upcoming seminars.
The first Dog Olympic Games will be held October 14-17 in Lignano Sabbiadoro in Northern Italy and is planned to be an event held every two years, featuring Agility, Disc Dog, Dog Dance, Flyball, Obedience, Rally, Nature Testing and more.
Happy to see Linda Mecklenburg has been uploading some new YouTube videos in the past few weeks. If you haven't subscribed yet, do it! Always great to watch great teams.
Better late than never :) Here are some great runs (and interesting courses) from the AKC World Team Tryouts, thanks to Agility Vision.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Gracie may just be an agility dog afterall!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Holy ticks Batman!
Having fun keeping track of our walking and hiking!
We've been testing out Roadrunner GPS and it's been pretty fun. Not only does it track distance, calories (human ones, you know) burned, time, pace and speed; but it also tracks elevation, which is one of the reasons we really like this one.
We found some free ones, but they sure didn't measure up. We've been trying out the 15 day trial, and Mum's gonna buy it, only $4.99 after the trial is up.
Here's kind of how it works. You start the app, and then it finds a satellite signal to keep track of you. You can pause for potty breaks if you want during your walk/hike.
So if you're looking for a good walk/run/hike tracking app for your mobile, this is the one we recommend. Works on lots of types of phones too.
Dog escape artists!
This vid got me thinking about the other dog 'escape artists' I've seen on YouTube over the years. Who can forget this beagle and his antics...leaving his bros and sisters and going on the lamb? Hope he didn't need any North Carolina health insurance because of his great escape!
And of course one of my absolute favorites, this guy really knows how to help out a pal, BOL!
One time when I was at an agility fun run, I escaped from my soft crate.
OK, fellow pups, here's how I did it!
Where did I escape too? Mum of course, she was out there getting ready to run Gracie, and I just couldn't stand that!!!
So have you ever escaped anything? Tell, tell!
I'd sure like to go canoeing again!
Intro to Watercraft from Walker Parks on Vimeo.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Having fun at practice!
Fun ways to do agility!
This one is from the IHDAA (Idaho Horse and Dog Agility Association), which we don't believe is active as a new venue, but thought it was kinda interesting, nonetheless!
And here's more SuperDogs action at the Royal Fair/Royal Horse show in Canada...check out those wacky tunnels, they look like fun!