River Song by JakeJake LOVES the river. You never accidentally say "river" in Jake's hearing. You use such euphemisms as "the R word" and "that place that is very wet". He goes absolutely bonkers when we pull out his lifejacket and his water dummy, the Ruffwear Lunker (NFI, by now we should have taken out stock in that company). He bounces around in the car and sings a really high shrieky song the whole way. [Click on the picture once to play video]



We took Jake down to the river. The river and the riverwalk were very crowded with people enjoying kayaking down the whitewater or families taking a nice stroll. Jake's normal fan club of just a handful of people expanded to ten to twenty clapping, impressed bystanders.

The river sounds really loud where I was standing because we're under the bridge and it amplifies the noise. (You should hear Jake bark under there -- he scares himself!) Listen to the people clapping on the riverwalk behind us. Jake always cheats by finding every rock he can on the way to get the dummy and on the way back. Even if you can't see Jake, you can see his big ears! [Click on picture once to start video]

Jake the Bucking Bronco

Some of you know how I secretly (well, not so secretly) dread Jake dissolving into the zoomies in our agility classes. We've gone several weeks without an incident and I was starting to breathe again. But for some reason, when I packed up all of our training stuff in the car on Tuesday night, I accidentally packed up Jake the Bucking Bronco aka Crazy Dog instead of Jake the Amazing Agility Dog.

Jake is always a little unsure of the teeter totter but managed to shake out a little confidence on the last two runs and didn't even seem to notice the motion of the teeter. Then we headed to one of Jake's favorites, the A-frame. I'm still learning to incorporate the clicker into this obstacle with some pretty wierd results on my part. Jake's daddy was bribed into attending the class and taking photos for me. His one complaint was how fast Jake was moving. The teeter pictures were so blurry that I won't bother posting them here. The A-frame was just slightly better:



My husband was eating cheese and drinking a glass of wine while we forged ahead on the new tall dogwalk. Jake did really well as long as I was confidently running next to him. And where you ask was the Bucking Bronco? Why, in the chute, of course, with Zoomie #1 and #2:



The chute was just the beginning of the obstacle set (we always backstep with Jake through multiple obstacles). Theoretically, Jake was to go over a jump, into the curved tunnel, over a jump and through the chute. For whatever reason, the tunnel just sends him over the top and into Zoomie #3 and #4:



I left the red-eye in because it just so matched his state of mind. One teacher said, "Wow, is he buckwild tonight or what?", followed shortly by a "Are you breathing?" directed at me. Probably not. Jake got put in a time out in a kennel while the other dogs completed their turn on this set. We took Jake back out and used several treat targets along the route to end on a positive note. Jake was good to his mommy on those last two tries:



Strangely enough, Jake was completely pooped and unconscious on the ride home.

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"You can't catch me, evil red dog, I'm the BLUR!"

Curry & Jake playing in the creek

CACDC May Fun Day 2007

This Saturday our Carolina ACD Club had its annual May Fun Day (minus a match) on a lovely farm in North Carolina. A friend of ours rode up with us with her red boy Curry and her blue boy Diesel. Amazingly, the two-hour ride up was not as chaotic as you would imagine. Jake has been showing more and more maturity these days so besides the initial bonk-and-greet when the other two ACDs got in the car, the ride was fairly quiet. Every once in a while Curry would stick his head into the front seats and plant a really wet kiss right up my nose. I will always accept extra kisses!

Upon arriving we headed to the river across some hay pastures and past a few cows with Jake's new Belgian Malinois friend Eno. Jake was loping around in lazy circles trying to get his leggy friend to give him chase. Every once in a while Jake would get a little too lazy and Eno would make his squeak. We finally made it to the river and Jake gave us just enough focus for a few tosses of his water dummy. Eno's mommy didn't want to have to deal with 90 pounds of wet dog so Eno got a lesson in self-denial instead. It wasn't long before we were back on our way to the picnic area with Eno and his prize stick and Jake playing some more chase games with Mommy and Daddy. Have I mentioned that Jake has been off lead the whole time? Jake stayed close by and came whenever we called so we gave him that limited responsibility.

Jake, of course, was not worn out by any means at this point. Jake began a great game of chase with Curry, scrambling over logs and diving into the creek at the last minute. Curry, who wasn't so sure about the purpose of getting in the water, left the splashing to Jake. And when Curry got tired, Jake switched to playing soccer with the human children at the event.

And last but not least was the Hot Dog Bobbing Contest! Peachy started the game off with a splash...



but was no match for Dally, who gobbled down an amazing 30 hot dog pieces in one minute!



All of the furry kids had a go at the water dish loaded with hot dog pieces. Some decided the state of their fur was far more important than getting wet. Some gave it a valiant effort. The most surprising contestant was Jake himself! Jake spit out the last hot dog he tried so I wasn't expecting anything but a random lick at the hot dog water. No, sir, my speckled boy dove in and ate 14 pieces. Not too shabby for the first time he's ever eaten a hot dog.



My favorite picture is of dear Posey, of course. Nothing could convince her to stick her head in that nasty water and her face was priceless:



Tanna, the Hot Dog Queen, was made to go last to defend her title that she won at the Holiday Match. Tanna tied Dally for the 30 pieces and a tie-breaker round ensued. Tanna beat Dally by a whole two seconds and the coveted squeaky hedgehog was hers!



We had to dunk Jake into the creek again in hopes of making Jake's Bentley mark even vaguely white again. Instead we took home an orange and blue dog! That red clay will take several washes to get out of his fur. The rain began to fall a little as we headed home and it was hard to stay awake in the car with all those snoozing cattle dogs. Curry still found the energy to give me a few backseat kisses on the way home!

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From Cracker Boxes to Real Jumps

Who would have guessed that our chubby little spotted piglet would have turned into a lean agility machine? We should have known when he scaled those Cheese-It(NFI) and cereal boxes we got from Sam's Club(NFI) when he was only ten weeks old. We had already read every cattle dog book we could get our hands on so we had a pretty good idea that we wanted to do something with Jake to keep him exercised because "A Good Cattle Dog is a Tired Cattle Dog". Through many an agility class I have held my breath (literally) and prayed that Jake would find it deep inside himself to help me out a little so we could make a honest go of this dog sport. Tonight he gave it to me. I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of him. He may not have nailed every obstacle with 100% accuracy but he was brave on the banging teeter totter and shaking dog walk, he slithered through the weave poles, and he raced for that tunnel and left it without zooming (we did have one incident of the most incredible zooming INSIDE the tunnel). We instituted throwing the bait bag for Jake to head off any thoughts of zooming and only had him steal it once. He headed straight for the tunnel with that bright red bag and hunkered down with his new treasure. We humans had to think a little smarter for next time so we attached a leash to the bait bag just in case we needed to stomp on to prevent future hoarding. Jake was not alone in this wonderful display of canine enthusiasm tonight. His classmates -- Gracie the Golden Retriever and Buttons the Boxer -- were also doing their parents proud. It's so amazing to see these dogs who wouldn't even go near the obstacles during our first classes now whimpering and pulling to get on those same obstacles. Their body language shows just how much they enjoy being there. I can't help but be proud for Gracie and Buttons, too, knowing what I've gone through with Jake to get to tonight's class. Jake rode home in my lap tonight with his whole body pressed against me as hard as he could. I know he sensed how proud I was. I even stopped and got him some TCBY frozen vanilla yogurt to celebrate. He only got a big spoonful since he had so many treats in class and the rest went in the freezer. I feel like I can breath a little easier. Next week we have a little break while our instructors attend an agility seminar and then it's back to practicing!

I Need Air, Dad!

Jake presses his nose against the air-conditioning vent as hard as he can when he's hot or we're passing a stinky something. He uses your knee like a person dogrest. His eyes narrow to mere slits and he seems to really enjoy just smelling. Here he is on my husband's knee, inhaling deeply. He likes the air best when we drive by a cow pasture or a pungent chicken factory.

May Fancy Dress Photo Contest

So the AuCaDo forum is having a cross-dressing fancy dress photo contest. I tell my husband I'm going to enter the contest but have to figure out a costumer for Jake. My husband responds that Jake is a MAN'S dog and I can't do that to him. To which I responded, "Jake is totally my dog and the least time I checked I'm not a man." A quick trip to the Dollar Tree (NFI) got me a few little girl's dress up items. Jake didn't fuss over the boa or the high-heeled shoes but did want those sunglasses off so I had to bribe him off-camera with a big porkskin bone. It worked well and I only asked him to sit still for four pictures. Now let's see if we win!

Camping with Dad

Jake went on his first camping trip in the mountains of NC. We weren't sure how Jake would react being somewhere strange without his mommy nearby for a whole weekend. I was going to be staying at my mother's, which wasn't far from the campsite. Once their campsite was set up, Jake made friends with an Australian Shepherd named Porter at a neighboring campsite. Apparently Porter likes to play rough like Jake so they had a blast. They were getting so tangled up in the leads that both of their daddies decided to take them off.....so a few minutes later both of their daddies were chasing after their dogs! My husband reported that Jake responded to a DOWN and he caught him easily. Jake was a little uneasy being in the tent when they went to bed and kept circling the whole tent. He eventually laid down in his little sleeping bag.



The rain began around 4 AM and didn't stop all day Saturday. My husband, stepdad and stepbrother took Jake with them on a 6 mile hike. Jake was able to be offlead so he ran ahead and then circled back behind all three of them and back to the front. In other words, Jake's 6-mile hike was actually a 12-mile hike. Because it was still raining, only one quick picture of Jake was taken to mark the special occasion. A brief swim in Looking Glass Falls wrapped up their outdoor adventures for the day. My husband brought Jake back to my mother's house for me to dogsit while they went out for BBQ at a dry restaurant. Jake was exhausted!



Jake went back out to the campsite after dinner and made a new friend, a three-legged black lab named Jake. Our Jake was practically in an exercise-induced coma by the time he crawled into the tent. Our ride home on Sunday was very quiet because Jake was still sleeping!

The Further Agility Adventures of the Blur

We have so many pictures of Jake with the background totally in focus and Jake's speckled body completely out of focus that we've nicknamed him The Blur. He's just so fast! We truly appreciate when we're able to capture him in focus. Here we are racing by my husband on the A-frame (yup, I'm blurry, too, desperately trying to keep up with Jake).

Recently Jake has been impressing us with a new found calmness and maturity. That doesn't mean he has stopped zooming or shrieking entirely -- it just means that Jake can be stopped in his zooming tracks and shrieking is normally reserved for yodeling sessions with his daddy. This last Tuesday at agility made me proud. The curved tunnel still sends Jake over the edge of excitement BUT after one full zoom around the yard I was able to get Jake back into the tunnel and over the jump. And, of course, putting my own body were it should be always helps clear up confusion for Jake. Being able to return him to working is a HUGE step in the right direction. My husband had to bring me my purse during class and Jake took a flying leap off the A-frame to get to him. Jake kept leaving the A-frame to go see my husband. Practicing with a distraction was a little difficult but not only did he stop racing to see his daddy and came back to me but he laid down at my feet. He got treats for that huge recall. We were introduced to the pinwheel jumps which Jake found to be totally boring and I obviously wasn't getting him jacked up enough. Maybe next time!

How Fetching!

Jake got his first Fetching Tag (NFI) today! We noticed Jake's name tag had been rubbed totally blank. Obviously going cheap on the tag didn't pay off. So we decided to fork over the dough for a Fetching Tag. Little did we know how hard it was to pick Jake's by-line that would appear on the second side. There were so many to choose from and we knew we'd be stuck with it for a while. And then we saw a picture of a Dalmation wearing a "See Spots Run" tag and we knew that was perfect for our little spotted blur. It came in the mail last week and he's been clanking around the house with it on his collar.