Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Company of Animals joined us at BarkWorld Expo!

We were so lucky to have The Company of Animals join us in all the fun we had at BarkWorld Expo. They were kind enough to send some of their pawsome products with us for free and allow us to show them off to all the attendees at the event, two and four-legged!

Here's a pick of all the loot we got to share with everyone! They sent with us the Clix Car Harness (you know how big I am on 'safety first'!), some Halties (which at the end of the event we donated to the nice folks at the Atlanta Pet Rescue, a no-kill shelter, to help with their foster pups) , a Clix Multi-Clicker (which we can't wait to try out in the next week or so) and they sent along a Nina Ottosson Dog Pyramid and Tornado, along with some other great gear.

Lucky me, I got to try out the Dog Pyramid first. It didn't take me long to tackle it. Here's my quick test vid in the green room at BarkWorld before we shared it with the other pups. Gracie got a go too and loved it!


Then some other pups got to try out the toys too! Here's Cosmo posing with the Pyramid and Tornado. He's my agility bud I met long ago on Twitter. They live just a couple of hours from us and we're planning to go to a trial down in Atlanta together soon. Cosmo loved the toys!

Then Preston got to try out the Pyramid, he was so on it, got the treats out on the first try!

Then Judy from DOGingham got to take a try at the Tornado. You can see that Judy is part herding breed. Mum was in love, BOL! Judy got the Tornado right away, and was 'hungry' for more!

It sure was super fun sharing all the cool stuff The Company of Animals sent along with us with all the pups and hoomans! Big thanks to them for sponsoring us at BarkWorld Expo!

Now this is the life!

Sorry Mum, there's just no more room on the king size!

Had to share! This is our bed in the hotel room at the Twelve Hotel in Atlanta when we were at BarkWorld Expo last weekend. Mum took a sheet, so we wouldn't get the pretty bedspread a mess, but you get the idea of the luxury we got to experience!

Ahhhh....Great place to lounge after a hard day getting our photos taken. All it needs are a few Ferrari parts and we'd be zoomin in style!

Guess what? No seed ticks on this bed, BOL!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

A little of everyday...

No fence, still...but the fun part is that we get out and about on the property at least twice a day. We're still doing about three miles a day, but it's getting cooler and we are eager for more!

With the cooler weather and less humidity, the deer are out running around all times of the day, instead of early in the morning and later in the evening. For the past two days we've seen them in or around the pastures during our longer morning hike, which of course make us crazy for a chase!

Gracie, look!!!!! Was that a deer? (BOL!)

All this walking and hiking makes for a happy boy, I must say (having fun with our new camera :).

The pasture has grown up and is now over my head, and almost over Gracie's head. The caretaker is still mowing us a path for walking which is pawsome, but sometimes you just gotta dig in, right? Didn't I just see a frog in there with apple bottom jeans? Wait, I think I smell squirrel!!! Yes, it was a squirrel!

And the nice thing is all this hiking makes for a tired puppy....Mum oooos and aahhhhs over these tongue pics :)

Sweet dreams, Gracie!

Seed ticks are the devils spawn!

Ok, I'm convinced that seed ticks are the devils spawn! And they are after me!!!

We went hiking a little up the ridge the other day, and found a new little trail which, of course, we had to explore, right? A little ways in we interrupted a deer bedding down for the night. That should have been Mum's clue (but I have to give her credit, she's learning as we go, as we all are). Wherever there are deer, there are ticks, that's for sure.

So we go on this little trail and get home and start relaxing in front of the TV, when I start getting the jitters. I scratch, I twitch, I jump off the couch and run into the bedroom and jump on the bed. Then I run back into the living room and sit on the rug and scratch. Then jump into Mum's lap and down to the floor. Then it's back up on the couch and I do it all over again. It's like I'm searching for some kind of signal or something, but....

I've been tick bombed!!!

Mum gets me up on the bed, turns on the overhead light, gets the flashlight and what does she find? Yep, tons of seed ticks all over my tummy. I swear these little buggers checked out antenna reviews to find out how to lock on to me!

And this time they are smaller than the last time (about one half the size of a pinhead). They were so small you need an HDTV amplifier to see 'em. So she can't even use the tweezers to get them off me! OMD! The devils spawn is all over me!

Mum tries getting as many off of me that she can, she used tweezers and she used packing tape, which actually kind of worked some if she could get to the bare skin. Finally after a few hours, they bite and they die (since I'm treated) and I'm feeling a little better.

But many of them are still on me even though they are dead. Mum is having to separate my fur a little at a time and then use the tape or her fingernail to scratch them off. And it's totally grossing both of us out, those little creepy crawlies with their little legs and antennas, yuck!

Mum is convinced this is happening to me and not her or Gracie because I'm low to the ground. If it happens again, Mum's going for the tape the minute I start squirming and see if that helps get them off so I'm not so miserable. Dang, these things are nasty!

A little about our agility practice!

We've been going to agility class on Wednesday nights, and Mum has also been taking us occasionally on Monday afternoons to work on our own.

Dang it's good to be back doing our thang!

Gracie got lots of compliments last night at class....several of the folks told her that she has really, really improved over the time we've been attending. Gracie hasn't run around with zoomies for almost three classes now. She's been totally focused on the task at hand all the time we are there, either for class or during our own time on Mondays.

The best part about that is that Mum can now finally start really teaching her some handling and communication. Gracie knows all of her obstacles, but now Mum can work on distance with her, tight jumping, going on (to the obstacle in front of her), help her refine her contacts and more. It's just so cool to see my sis really getting down to business, the business of running a fun, clean run. And because she knows more about what to do, she's getting faster, OMD! She can so already beat me around that course if she wants to.

Mum and I have been re-working my dogwalk, since I pretty much have lost my running contact with the move and everything. She's gone back to the beginning, kind of like lsat prep, but we are progressing through the steps very quickly. Pretty soon Mum thinks I'll be back to my nice running contact again. And we started working on distance with me again, since I'm pretty rusty on my gambling skills. But that's progressing very quickly, as well.

Our next trial is in September, a three dayer. We can hardly wait!

(BTW, this photo? It's from my very first agility trial when I was exactly 18 months and one day old. It's a standard run in USDAA in December 2005. I ran seven runs that weekend. Q'd in four of them with three firsts and one second. I'll never forget it. And some of you may recognize the judge, it's Rafael Quinones, who we've had the pleasure of running under several times throughout the years).

BarkWorld was so much fun!

We had a ton of fun at BarkWorld Expo! We got to meet lots of pet lovers, pet business folks, and pets!

Friday morning we got up early, and drove to Atlanta where the event was held. It was in this really big green, eco-friendly complex area near midtown called Atlantic Station, the former site of the Atlantic Steel Mill, which we got to read about in the park where we did our business near the hotel. Pretty interesting stuff! There were shops and lots of restaurants and hotels and apartments and homes all within 130+ acres.

We thought we would check into the hotel first but it was getting late so we went straight to the expo which was about two blocks from the hotel. We found Shari, Mom to Dusty and Hurley from Just Another Trend looking around for where to go, so she hopped in our car and we all went looking for the facility together. We finally found it and went underground to park, unloaded the car and off we went to the event with crates, boxes and bags in tow. Shari helped us with our gear, for which we were very grateful!

To get up to the event room we had to go up an elevator that had a glass back so you could see everything as we went up. It was kinda weird, but Mum was there, so we were OK.

We unloaded all our gear in the green room where we spent some time between our work and fun times. There were windows all around, so we got to see folks coming and going all day when we weren't doing our stuff.

Mum went and gave her presentation to a packed room of people. She talked about social media and how it can help folks market their pet businesses. (If you'd like to go and see Mum's presentation, she uploaded it to her YouTube channel.) Good thing I helped her with the presentation, 'cause she said the part she thought they loved the best were the photos of me, Gracie, Wolfie and Wiggy. Good call on my part, BOL!

After that we got to meet lots of the folks and anipals. We saw the Informed Ferrets, Preston of PrestonSpeaks, Lucy (a fellow herding breed) from DOGingham, and we got to finally meet Cosmo the Havanese in pawson, who we've been Twitter buds with for a long time. And we got to meet the scribes behind a couple of long time Twitter buds - FrugalDougal and RomeoTheCat, who do great work raising monies for the less fortunate four- leggers.

The next day, Saturday, we got to showcase all the cool products from both Cranimals and The Company of Animals. That was so much fun to share some products with all the pawrents and pups. They loved them!

All throughout the conference we were Twittering and Facebooking everything that was going on, as were all the attendees. They even had a Twitter stream going on a big flat screen in the lobby area where all the yummy break food was, so folks could keep up on what was going on in the rooms where the speakers were doing their thing.

We got to meet some of the great folks at the Atlanta Pet Rescue too and gave them some of the Cranimals Supplements and Haltis from The Company of Animals to help get their foster pups healthy and ready for their furever homes. They are a no-kill foster shelter that rescues and finds home for over 1,000 pups a year. Good work they do!

Later in the day on Saturday they had an outdoor expo, with lots of booths with free stuff! Everyone wanted to take pics of me, and luckily Mum had brought a few treats, BOL! I obliged of course :) I even did a quick little trick demo in the grass area. Mum thought I needed to work my brain a little.

Along with the incredible swag bag, we got some other great stuff like treats, shampoo bars, gear and I even got to try out some Bowser Beer! What a nice treat on a hot day!

Between breaks Mum and Gracie (since she's the quiet one of the family, BOL!) attended some of the sessions to hear some fun folks talk about pets, blogging, social media, tweeting, facebooking, social media etiquette and much more. Mum found it all very interesting, Gracie just wanted to play with the other pups in the room, silly girl!

We stayed at the Twelve Hotel. Super nice hotel with super nice people. We got to ride the elevator a lot up and down. Gracie loved getting in. Mum tried to teach me to push the button, BOL!

They gave us a cable line so we could hook up our netbooks with a firewall for safety. They brought pawsome food for Mum and were really nice to me and Gracie. Gracie was the biggest dog in the place since she just reached their limit of 25 lbs. We thought the room was fun! It had hallways to play some chase, a full kitchen, a nice comfy couch, and the best part was the king size bed! We loved lounging on it (with a sheet we brought on top of course :).

Sunday morning we had to head back. We loaded up the car and drove the couple of hours home. And later in the afternoon we took a nice nap all together with the kitties, and had a nice rest.

It was a great trip...tiring, but super great! We can't wait to do it again next year and really want to thank the great folks at BarkWorld Expo for having us and asking Mum to speak at the event. They were pawsome hosts!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

A little hike this afternoon!

We're back from BarkWorld Expo! Made it all safe and sound from the wooded jungle to the concrete jungle and back to the wooded jungle! We'll be blogging all about our trip in the next few days, so much to tell you!!!

Mum is catching up on work, but we took a little time this afternoon to take a little hike back by the ponds.

The weather has been really nice the past two days since we got back. Highs only in the 90s, which means that the mornings and later afternoons are more in the 80s with low humidity. Super nice relief from the 95's we've had for months. But we still needed some custom water bottles with us to keep hydrated!

Guess there has been a lot going on around the property since we got back. We went back to the ponds and found two big logs that were placed on the path. Nice place to take a little break and look out on the pond. Mum just had to get a pic :)

Then we made our way through the pasture and up the lane on the other side of the property and guess what I spied up the tree? Can you guess? BOL!!!

Our trip was a lot of fun, tiring, but oh so much fun! I worked my buns off and so did Mum and Gracie :) Will tell ya more later!

Hope you are all having a great week, Hey, tomorrow is hump day and you know what that means for us dogs, BOL!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Some fun pics!

I don't think I told all of you that we got a new little pocket digital camera. Mum was having troubles with our other one, which she purchased when I was only 12 weeks old. It did us well for almost six years, but the little door that makes the lens come out was not latching tight when open, so the lens would go in and out, in and out. And it would too expensive to get fixed.

Mum did her research, as she always does, to find the right camera for our needs. The reason she settled on this one - the Casio High-Speed Exilim EX-FC100 - was because it was under $220 and it takes photos at 9.1MP with a 5x zoom, and takes HD movies. It has a couple of cool features that are great for action shots. One is a 30 shot-per-second high-speed burst shooting feature, and a slo mo function - that we can't wait to use more and get the hang of it. All we need are some jewelry making supplies to make a nice neck thing to carry it with us when Mum doesn't have pockets.

For part of Mum's presentation at BarkWorld Expo she wanted a couple of photos of us waving. So here are the results using the new camera. Thought they turned out better than our old camera :) Here's Gracie doing her favorite trick, wave!

And this is me doing my big wave - which is a beg with a two footed!

She wanted a handy little camera that would she could put in her pocket and take pretty good action shots and a little video too. So far we are very pleased!

Calgon take me away!!!

Torture....I say! Torture!

With everything to get done before our trip to BarkWorld Expo, Mum didn't have time to hook up our sprayer to give us our baths at home. And since Gracie isn't getting as much exercise as she used to at our old house, Mum is having trouble keeping her still enough to trim up her ears and feet. So Mum took us for our first professional grooming, ever!

I know, it's weird. I'm six and Gracie is five years old, and we've never been to a professional groomer our entire lives. Mum has always groomed us. She likes to do it. And even though both of us have a little pet peeve about parts of it (me the toes and ears, Gracie the back feet), we still don't mind it too much.

But dang this professional groomer thing was really different. I think every dog should have their pawrent look into Universal Orlando tickets for a doggie getaway after a professional grooming. It can be kinda stressful!

There was so much noise from the dryer that neither one of us wanted anything to do with it. Gracie got a little freaked out in the bathtub because the groomer used a sprayer and Mum had always used a hose. I'm sure that all of our little town of 7000 thought Gracie was being tortured from a little of her famous screaming action.

But overall, we didn't think it was too bad, we've been through worse stuff. But the nice thing is we are so clean, shiny, trimmed up and smelling good!!!! Just for our publics that we're gonna meet at BarkWorld. Can't wait to live in the morning!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Look what Mum got me!

Mum, Gracie and I went to River Ridge Farms the other day and picked up some yummy meats for all of us.

She got some chicken necks, feet and backs for me and Gracie and some ground beef for her. All organic, so we won't have to look into HCG shots Austin, BOL, 'cause we know they are healthy! Look you can even see some organs in theres.

We also got to meet Two, their cat who helps around the farm. Gracie was in love....me? I just wanted to herd her.

Here's one of the chicken backs. Oh my, can't wait to get my jaws on that, OMD!!!!

We're getting ready for BarkWorld Expo!

Mum and I have been getting ready for our trip to BarkWorld Expo, August 20-22 in Atlanta. It's going to be a pawsome event for anyone interested in learning more about social media for your pet or your pet business. We are so looking forward to our trip and a little R&R with some buds!

We're booked into the hotel, which we hear is super dog friendly. I'm just hoping they have a pawsome mattress for me, Mum and Gracie! And we've got someone watching the cabin and taking care of Wolfie and Wiggy while we're gone.

I helped Mum get her powerpoint presentation together for her session on Friday afternoon, which will make it even better, BOL! And I got some new business cards to paw out at the event, I like 'em! They have JohannTheDog on one side and RaiseAGreenDog on the other. Mum even got some new cards for her company - Pawsible Marketing.

The super cool part is that we've teamed up with the great folks at Cranimals - makers of the healthy, green, whole food supplements and functional biscuits for our upcoming trip!

While I'm at BarkWorld, I'll be handing out some yummy treats and some pawsome supplements. You may remember I got a chance to review their Cranimals Supplements and ZenDog Treats a couple of months ago.

Over at Raise A Green Dog, we're giving away some pawsome gift packs, in honor of our trip. The packs include a package of your choice of Cranimals organic, healthy and tasty supplements, and a full size package of organic ZenDog Biscuits (which I have to say from experience are very tasty). Their ZenDog Biscuits were recently awarded the Editors Choice Award from Pet Product News International.

Their Cranimals supplements are created from antioxidant super foods like cranberries, red raspberries, and blueberries, and with vegan DHA Omega 3 extracted from algae. Very healthy! All of their products are made with wholesome, healthy ingredients, organic and have no artificial yucky stuff.

So be sure and head on over to pawticipate in the giveaway, it's easy to enter!

Now I'm off to help Mum with the laundry before we can pack. My job is to fold the socks, BOL!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Tugging fun!

Oh, I am a lucky dog!

The other day the nice folks at Spot Pet Toys were kind enough to send me, Gracie, Wolfie and Wiggy (the kitties) some of their Skinneeez toys for free to test out!

Mum held them back from me and Gracie until we went to agility practice the other night. I ran my little sequence and what was my reward? The Skinneeez Duck, that goes quack, quack. Dog did I go nuts over that! Didn't even want to jump into Mum's arms after, I wouldn't let go of the thing, BOL!

Mum used the Skinneeez Squirrel to get Gracie focused for her agility run. Well, she got so excited she was a bit on the uncontrollable side during her sequence run. Good to know...don't rev up Gracie too much, she gets over the top, BOL!

The kitties got a little catnip filled pink bird and they love playing with it, which makes me nuts of course!

The neat thing about these toys is they don't have any stuffing, but they still have squeakers, or in the case of my duck, a squawker, and in the case of the kitties toy - nip! They have lots of styles from ducks to squirrels to skunks, birds and more! They took a pretty good beating with Gracie and me tugging with them, although I wouldn't recommend them for 'severe' tuggers, but only for controlled tuggers. We loved them and they were great as rewards for our agility runs! And they are lightweight so you can shake the devil out of 'em.

Thank you Spot Pet Products for sending these toys for us to try out!

Surprise!

The other day we came across one of Pam's great instructional vids. This one really resonated with me.

OK, I admit it, I get wacky when I see people, other dogs, birds, squirrels and more. Pretty much anything that moves makes me wanna go check 'em out, chase 'em, play with 'em, say hi, and more. Hopefully I don't scare them so much they want to run for their Kohler toilets, BOL!

Sometimes my wacky side is completely misunderstood by folks. We were happy the other day at practice when one of the instructors said right away that I was a loud greeter, she totally got me! But nonetheless, this behavior could use some work.

So we loved this trick in helping me have a little more self control when out and about. Wanted to share with it you too! It's the surprise party game...


We're gonna give it a try and see if it works fur me. Not a whole lot of ops to try it out here in the wilderness, except for some squirrels. But, we'll keep you posted.

Sheepies and goats!

Found this video making the rounds on the Internets and just had to share! Now that's what I call weaving :)


Good thing they aren't goats, fainting goats! Am sure that my wild, barky, herding would have these guys on the ground all the time and wanna be back in their metal buildings, BOL!


Of course if you're not a fainting goat, there's always room for sheep surfing!


Hope everyone is having a good week, stay cool!

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

H2O4K9 - perfect for our active life!

So we've been getting in as much hiking as we can in this heat. It's been an average of 95 over several straight weeks. We're pretty used to it, and not minding it too much, but it presented a little problem. How to take water with us to keep hydrated.

So Mum got our Nalgene bottle and used my martingale leash and fashioned this wacky thing she threw over her shoulder, but it was cumbersome. So when we saw this cool product searching around the Internets last week, we got really excited!

The nice folks at H2O4K9 sent us for free their new dog water bottle and Neosling to try out and let them know what we thought. Well, we think they rock!!!!

Mum has been taking it with us on our hikes the past few days and she says the sling that holds the bottle to keep her hands free for us is really comfortable and flexible, for when we climb up and down the steep ridge.

The bottle holds 25 oz. and is stainless steel, the safest and healthiest way to store water. The lid turns into this really cool drinking cup and the best part is it's BPA free. The bottle even has a carabiner attached, so we can carry our poo bag holder too. The sling and the bottles come in some super cool colors. Mum got the pure stainless color with the purple sling to go with our training bag :)

We also took it to agility training the other night and used it!

Have to say that we totally recommend this new product, great for active pups that want to get out and about. And special thanks to H2O4K9 for sending us their great bottle and Neosling to test out, we are very glad they did! We love it!!!!

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