Whoop Whoop

I've been doing Hoopers classes with Liam for about a year now. Canine Hoopers Canada (CHC) has been doing virtual trials since there aren't a lot of qualified judges yet and so they can build the organization by getting people to play who otherwise wouldn't be able to. For the first time, they included a smaller space option that could be done at the facility where we take our classes. There were six events, two of each of the games. I entered Liam in one of each, two other students also entered so we got together Friday evening to set up and run the courses. 

With CHC, you can run the courses with your dog like you do in agility and get a qualifying score. Each qualifying score is awarded points and titles are point based. Each course will have distance challenges using either a Challenge line (CL) or a Distance Handler Box (DHB). If you have a clean run and have successfully completed a distance challenge you are awarded extra points, so the titles will come faster if you can work at a distance. 

Our first run was a Hoopers course. It had two Challenge Lines, a 10 point line and an easier 5 point line. Not sure you can see the lines in the image, the 10 point line runs across from the number 2, the 5 point line is just above the number 1. I didn't think Liam would be able to get out to the barrel at obstacle 6 and 13 with me behind the 10 point line so I ran it from behind the 5 point line. You can click on the link below to see our run. I did try it from the 10 point line, twice, and while Liam did go out the the barrel for obstacle 6, he wouldn't go back out again for obstacle 13. 

Beginner Hoopers 1

Our next run was a Parkour, very similar to Hoopers but it uses all the equipment permitted by CHC so there was a gate and a bottomless tunnel as well as barrels and hoops. This course had a handlers box; the judge had allowed two options for extra points, run the whole course from the box or just get the first three obstacles while you were in the box. You can't send your dog from the box to the first obstacle to start the course so your dog does need a sit stay to let you lead out to the box. Let me tell you getting obstacle three while in the box was harder than it looked as Liam wanted to wrap the barrel or he took obstacle 4 turning in the wrong direction. 

Beginner Parkour 1

Our last run was one called TunGO, it uses just barrels, tunnels and gates, with a hoop as the starting obstacle. The other students, who were with me, were doing all six runs so it was getting rather late. As a result, I decided to not even try this one from the distance lines but just run it with Liam.  Again the distance lines are not really visible in the picture. The 5 point line runs from obstacle 3 to obstacle 6. The 10 point line is about half way back from that towards obstacles 2 and 7. Perhaps you'll see them in the video as we were using red and blue plastic tubing. 

Beginner TunGo 1 

You're allowed to practice the courses at a virtual trial, For our Hoopers and TunGO runs, it was the first time Liam did either course. I did try the Hoopers two more times afterwards to try and do it from the ten point Challenge Line. For the Parkour, Liam was a little high and we had to start this one three times before we got a good run. You only submit what you think are clean runs to be judged. I uploaded our runs to YouTube and put the link to each run on the virtual trial's FaceBook group and waited for them to be judged.

Whoop, whoop, Liam got a clean run on each of our courses! We also got a 5 point bonus in the Hoopers course and a 5 point bonus for the Parkour. I wasn't sure about that one, I had to move out of the box so quickly to keep him in line for the next barrel that I thought I might have stepped out too soon. 

So whoop whoop, now Liam is on his way for his Hoopers titles. For those who've seen him run agility, look how smooth and steady he runs the courses. Now we just have to work more on our distance skills. For those agility handlers out there, come give CHC a try, your agility dog will learn the obstacles quickly, they know the body language already and you can work on  distance over time. 

Snow Daze

 Well it's February and my FaceBook memories tell me that we often have lots of snow. And this year has been no different; between 13 Feb and 16 Feb, we received 69 cm of snow.  For those who aren't metric, that over 27 inches of snow. Officially, we got 32 cm on Thursday, 13 Feb and then 37 cm overnight on 15 Feb and into Sunday, 16 Feb.  It was the most snow over four days in 17 years. I shoveled the driveway three times on Sunday, did the side yard twice and the back deck once and I'm sure we had more than what the City reported on the 16th.  A 5 cm difference is only about 2 inches and given how deep the snow was when I went to shovel, it was a lot more than two inches extra.

The picture above was taken on 14 Feb, the day after the first storm, then the City had managed to keep the sidewalks and trails plowed. The City couldn't even keep up with the wind blowing the snow around and filling in the sidewalks during the last storm. The picture below shows the trail through the park on 17 Feb, the day after the storm, and the next picture was taken on 20 Feb with the trail through the park finally plowed.

I'm sure glad to have snow removal service. I still have to shovel for the dogs and clear the edges of the driveway but I don't have to figure out where to put all the snow from the driveway. My neighbours still shovel and the snow banks on their driveway are so high they can throw it up anymore.

During the storm

Back yard

Trail for the dogs

I have to admit that the snow does make things look pretty even though I'm not much of a winter activities kind of person.  Good thing is that the days are getting longer and the temperatures should start getting above freezing.  March can be bad for snow storms too, but at least in March you know that it will soon melt. 

I'm hoping we won't have too many more real big snow days this winter. Summer is coming though, we've booked two camping trips already.

Posthumous Wordless Wednesday

 

Footloose

Teddy had an interdigital cyst between two of his toes on his back left foot. At first I thought it was just a hot spot, it cleared up, or I thought it had, with just some Polysporsin and keeping it clean.  When it came back again, the first thing I thought of was a tumor. It looked like a large blood blister so I wrapped it with a bandage and vet wrap. It had burst by the next morning. As luck would have it, it was the weekend so I called the vet's office first thing Monday morning and they were able to get me in. After seeing the vet, I ordered Teddy some balloon boots, they're rubber reusable washable boots.  

Luckily it wasn't a tumor. Teddy went home with topical and oral antibiotics. Again the cyst seemed to heal up but the day after we finished the oral antibiotics the cyst had swollen up again. I called to get another appointment, it was a Thursday and they couldn't get me in until Monday. The cyst burst while Teddy was wearing his balloon boots and the blood was all over his foot. It looked like a lot more blood than it actually was. We kept on using the topical antibiotics and added Epsom salt foot baths. I also got Teddy a more comfortable cone.

By the time we got in to see the vet on Monday, it had started to heal up again. She said it was a good thing for it to be draining and to keep on using the antibiotic cream.  Teddy was still wearing balloon boots at this time. The vet said he should continue to wear boots to protect the feet from salt or other foreign particles. Balloon boots are hard to get on so I decided to get Teddy some other boots. 

Teddy is good with letting me put the boots on and he doesn't seem to mind walking in them. We may try him with all four feet in boots as he likes to walk on the sidewalks and the city uses a ton of salt.

So the cyst hasn't come back, his back two toes seem to be spaced wider, the vet did say there was scar tissue there. So for now anyway, Teddy is cone free but he's not footloose, he'll still wear boots at least until Spring arrives and there's no salt on the sidewalks.

Pre-history in Scotland - A Trip Back in Time

When I travel to Europe, I'm always amazed at how old some of the buildings are, but then am even more amazed by structures that have survived that are thousands of years old. In Inverness, we went to one such place called Clava Cairns. It's very near to the Culloden Battlefield. To get there, you have to travel a short way down a single track road, it's a good thing it's short as you can see the cars coming back out along the road and therefore know not to try to enter as the only pullout is at the car park for the cairns. 

It's pretty amazing that these people understood the movements of the sun and moon enough to build these ring cairns so that on the summer solstice the sun would shine into the cairn. 

To find and move all these stones would have taken quite a bit of effort and certainly a lot of time. I would have thought that simpler structures would have sufficed.

We spent about an hour walking around the four cairns and other stones that were there. On our way out, we saw this little resident. He didn't see to be afraid of all the large humans around him. 

On the Isle of Arran, we had thought to go the Machrie Moor Standing Stones but when you only have one full day to visit the island's attractions, walking an hour to see some Neolithic standing stones would really have taken up too much time. Instead we decided to go see a cairn that's just off the highway. It was only about a five minute walk up the hill.

By not walking for hours to the standing stones, we had enough time to visit Lochranza castle and to stop at the the Arran distillery before heading back to Brodick.

At the distillery, we all had a bite to eat and did a little shopping in the gift shop. I sampled some Arran Gold, a cream liqueur made with single malt whisky. It was really good, better than Bailey's but unfortunately I can't buy it here.

On getting back to Brodick, we went out to dinner, only to find that our ferry the next day had been cancelled due to an engine problem but that's a story for another day. 

I hope you enjoyed this trip back in time. My brother said, good thing you didn't touch the stones. Not being an Outlander fan, I didn't understand that's how they travel in time. But we had touched the stones so I guess we really had travelled in time when you think of the thousands of years they've been there.