A Breath of Fresh Air

I apologize for being reticent lately in regards to blogging. Part of the problem is a lack of access at work and the inability to type on my laptop at home. You see, a certain young dog who shall remain nameless here, decided to drool on my keyboard, thus rendering a number of the keys non-functional. For instance, when I attempt to use the “o” key, the cursor will either jump back to the beginning of the paragraph, or insert an “8”. At least if it chooses to insert an “8”, I can manually delete that. In cases where it jumps around, I have to type, cut, and paste the portion of the sentence that I can manage until I need to use an “o” again. One never realizes just how many “o’s” one uses until one can no longer easily use this key. This previous sentence, for example, would have been very challenging. Additionally, when I try to type an “l” the backslash is inserted as well. There are a number of other quirks involving the number pad and other keys, but needless to say, I find using my keyboard to be more frustrating than useful. However, since they have finally upgraded our Microsoft Office suite from the 2003 version to the 2010 version here at work, I am more willing to type here and copy and paste into Blogger when I get home. At least THOSE features still work on my laptop.

At any rate, it has been a busy month. Buster and I traveled to North Carolina for our vacation the week of the 14^th and stayed at a place called Four Paws Kingdom Campground (4pawskingdom.com, check it out!). It was the first week I have had off since our honeymoon in May of 2012, so it goes without saying that I was looking forward to it. It was also fall foliage season up north, which can be breathtaking if you catch it at the right time. The campground is somewhere I had always wanted to stay after visiting for one day back in 2008. It is a place owned by a very nice, corgi-loving couple and it caters exclusively to dog owners. Children are actually NOT ALLOWED. There are several dog parks, hiking trails, a Rally-O course, and two agility fields. There is a human/dog swimming pond, a doggy bath house, and a gift shop stocked with dog goodies. It is also conveniently located within 1-2 hrs from Grandfather Mountain, Linville Falls, Asheville, Boone, and Chimney Rock, among other places. Since we don’t have an RV, we stayed in one of their three rental cabins. It was aptly named the “Bonnie” cabin and had a small, fenced yard, a bed, futon, microwave, fridge, toilet and sink, and grill on the porch. We LOVED it. I was able to balance playing with dogs and going sight-seeing, and Buster was even able to enjoy a round of disc golf at a beautiful nearby course. Sadly, Xander managed to hurt his toe in the weeks before, so he was benched for many things (including several agility trials he was entered in, but I will get to that later). We were able to bring Trudy with us on many of our expeditions, though, as North Carolina is VERY dog friendly. It was so nice to see dogs everywhere! We brought everyone but Kirby to the cabin (since he does not play well with others, he stayed home with Aunt Lara and Aunt Jane taking care of him), and we left Kaylee and Xander in the cabin each day while we took Trudy hiking and shopping. Our expeditions included the Mile-High Bridge at Grandfather Mountain, a 1,000 ft hiking trail/stair climb at Chimney Rock, and a hike up to Linville Falls. Trudy was a hiking superstar in terms of climbing ability and stamina; however, she lost some points barking at children brandishing large branches, dogs wearing sweaters that have bells, and old couples with dual walking sticks. She approved of getting treats at the 3 Dog Bakery in Asheville, but did not approve of the life-sized, stuffed Labradors modeling accessories.

Trudy the Mountain Goat

The highest point of Grandfather Mountain

The view from the Mile High Bridge on GF Mountain

Before our big hike up to the bridge

On the high, scary rock after the bridge

A view of Linville Falls

We ate lots of S'mores. Buster approved.

Before hiking over a 1000ft of trails and stairs at Chimney Rock

Blue Ridge Parkway

We finished off the week at my Aunt Michelle and Uncle Danny’s house near Charlotte where we stayed our last two nights. Here, the dogs made friends with everyone except for the poor cat, Jasper, who wisely hid most of the time. Also, Trudy revealed a terrible flaw in my socialization duties when she decided that my little 5 and 10 year old cousins were terrorists. Finn wisely pointed out that she was not trained. Sorry kids. Xander, on the other hand, really surprised me by how easy-going he was with strangers in a strange house and a strange dog and children, etc. He took it all in stride when he is normally the one to make a scene or baulk at anything different. I think he was distracted by Trudy’s reaction….

We came home in the evening on Sunday and both returned to work Monday morning, which should never be the case. It was well worth it though, as I would not have missed out on a moment of hanging out in downtown Davis drinking coffee and chatting with my cousin Kara about her future farm, or shopping for a tooth box with Finn and Jana. Of course, we were also treated to a trip on the boat, lots of DELICIOUS Aunt Michelle (aka Gimmie) food, and many laughs.

Since we’ve been back, I have been looking at jobs in the North Carolina area. We really would like to live there someday. Seeing the leaves on the Blue Ridge Parkway was breathtaking, but it was also the cleanliness of the air, the friendliness of the people, and the plethora of parks and hiking opportunities that make Florida look hot, flat, and dirty in comparison. It was so hard to come back, especially since a ship HIT one of our main bridges, which rendered it impassable for roughly a month. This caused the morning commute to increase from about 15 mins to about 45 minutes of frustration. Thankfully, it finally reopened yesterday, but only because the city paid extra to have it fixed before the FL/GA game this weekend. At least football is good for something. Also, I had a terrible sinus headache for the entire first week straight that we were back. Seriously, I am allergic to Jacksonville.

Until such time as we relocate, I had planned on running Xander in trials again. In fact, we were entered for our local trial last weekend and another three in November. Sadly, we missed out on a day in Ocala back on the first weekend of October because of a sore toe. He was playing Frisbee that Friday night, and suddenly did not want to run. It took me squeezing all of his toes for two days before I finally got a reaction from his left front. I rested him for a couple of weeks in addition to a trip to the vet. The vet did not think it was broken due to his manipulation and Xander’s willingness to put weight on it. You really can’t tell something is wrong unless you are really looking closely at his gait, or you squeeze his toes. I went ahead and pulled him from our two local fall trials, sadly, and a couple out of town. Even though he is WILLING to run, I don’t want him to hurt himself worse or hurt something else because he is protecting his foot. This is disappointing considering we were JUST getting back into the swing of things, and had only been to two trials in September. In the grand scheme though, it is not a big deal, and his health and safety are FAR more important to me, especially in the long run. So, Trudy is enjoying being the center of the agility attention. It also seems that virtually overnight, she went from a year of foundation work, to a couple of sessions on real equipment, to suddenly being a real agility dog! She is weaving twelve poles with speed, jumping nicely, performing all her contacts nicely (with the occasional less-than-confident teeter, so we’ll keep working on that), and sequencing! It is so cool to see how easy agility can be when you do your foundation homework, as Sylvia always says. She is also having fun, which was always my biggest concern. It turns out that she enjoys it more now that all the “boring” pieces have come together. (You can only do so many multi-wraps on the ground before you get tired of it). Her jumping had also looked terrible at lower heights, as she just didn't seem to even acknowledge the bar. Now that I have worked her up to always jumping 20in, she looks great! I was worried about her needing to jump 22in for USDAA, but since she is now almost as tall as Xander and about 8lbs lighter, I am not really concerned. We may try some at that height this weekend. Then I need to decide when to make her debut. I am not spaying her until she is 2, and if she follows the 6 month rule of thumb, she will likely go into season sometime in December. But since I don’t know for sure, I will probably wait until early next year. We are really in no hurry, but it would be fun to get her some ring experience in one of the game classes or something.

Overall, things are going well and I am thankful. Apparently it is almost the season for that, considering Thanksgiving is less than a month away. Hard to believe we have zipped right through another year. I reread one of my blogs from mid-2012 that talked about my pattern of exciting years and building years. The even numbered years tend to be exciting, and the odds tend to be building. Since this has been another building year, and next year is even numbered, I am looking forward to some excitement. A move to North Carolina maybe? Who knows!