Woe is Me...

Tucker can't or won't climb the stairs any more so at night I carry him up to bed. This is what happens nearly every morning when I go back upstairs to get dressed for work.  If I didn't bring him up to bed at night it would happen at about 2 am as well; it's not so funny at that time of night.

Snow Day - Part 2

Well, I wasn't sure I was going to get to my dental appointment; at 3:15 pm my street still hadn't been plowed.  Good thing, it's just a little crescent and once I was on the main streets things were fine.

Took a couple pictures out the back window. Most of the snow, well at least half, came down in the storm we had today. It's still snowing but it's only flurries now.  Before going to my dental appointment, I snowblowed the driveway, shovelled the deck and made trails in the backyard for the dogs. I just finished shovelling the driveway and front walk again. Tomorrow, I'll shovel the deck again.  

The view from my family room window.



Yes, I still have my Christmas lights on this little tree.



Can we come in, it's cold out here?



Snow Day

Well, today is Ground Hog Day and we are having our first real storm of the winter. Hopefully, it will be the only storm of the winter.  I had taken today off work as I had medical and dental appointments booked so we got to sleep in. Later, I'll go out and do the driveway. My street is not plowed but the main street that I can see from the back bedroom windows seems to be alright. Good thing my dentist and doctor's offices aren't that far from home.

Last weekend, I took some pictures in the little park where I go to walk the dogs.  I'm not much of a photographer.  I took a few pictures of Beckett and Tucker and some of the snow on the trees and plants.



Tucker



Beckett



It's nice to have a park right at the end of my street. It's not an off-leash park but most people with smaller dogs do let them off leash. There is an off-leash park within walking distance of my house but for the most part the people who go there have larger dogs. Beckett has never been there yet as I don't think Tucker would have walked that far any more; it's about a 15 minute walk.

The next pictures are of Tucker and Beckett on the new playground structure the city installed.  It made for a colourful contrast to the white snow and grey sky.

I also took a few pictures of the snow on the plants and trees while my little camera does have a macro focus, I'm not much into composition, shutter and aperture speed but in any case I do like the way some of the pictures turned out.

This is the tree in my front yard. I just liked the way the red of the whirligigs stood out against the white and grey.

The rest of the pictures are taken in the park. I just liked the structure of the tree or plant with the capping of snow.

I'm not much of a winter person but it is a very beautiful season when it's not too cold.  Not looking forward to going out today but at least the wind is not howling so doing the driveway won't be too bad with the snowblower.

Here's wishing for an early spring.

Happy Ground Hog Day!!!

Agility Boy

Well, Beckett is now an agility boy with his first trial under his belt. He did wonderfully although there definitely is room for much improvement for both of us.

Our first run was a Starters Jumpers.  The first obstacle was a chute. I've only just started practicing lead-outs with a tunnel and so far we haven't had much success so I didn't want to try leading out at the trial. Otherwise I would have led out to jump 2 and run with Beckett on my left, instead I had him on my right and had to try a rear cross at the first tunnel.  Beckett doesn't like rear crosses to tunnels and so got a little spinny before the tunnel. That incurred us 5 faults; something that's changed since I began with Ceilidh and Tucker is that now there are refusals in Starters on jumps and tunnels. The rest of the run was beautiful and we finished in 35.5 seconds on a course that had a standard course time of 54 seconds. 

Starter Jumpers

Our next run was a Gamblers class.  I wanted to put Beckett through the weaves as they were going to be in the same place for the Standard and they were also the four point obstacle.  We messed around far too long on the weaves and I didn't get him to do them off-side, but we did get them done twice.  The main Gamble was two jumps and a chute. There looked like there was a nice line from the tunnel into the Gamble and that's the way I walked the course too. But after having seen a few dogs curl back into their handler after the tunnel I decided to try and just send Beckett out to the jump. He did that part just fine but didn't stay out between jump 2 and the chute. He did finally get out to the chute. I'll have to remember to take a bit of time to get into the right position before sending him back. Without electronic timing, we didn't know if we got the Gamble in time. 

Starter Gamblers

Beckett's First Starters Gamblers

Our next and last run was a Starter Standard. Beckett had nice contacts but he was slow on the frame and he was slow going down on the table. He also didn't collect enough to get the weave entry but once in them he did them beautifully.  The scary part was a spin he did between the tire and the next jump. I was sure it would be called as a refusal but friends who were watching said the judge didn't call it. After watching the video, she may have given him the benefit of the doubt as the spin was early and he seemed to be moving forward in the last third of the distance between the obstacles. 

Starter Standard

Beckett's First Starter Standard

Turns out we did get the Gamble with the minimum number of opening points and only 2 seconds to spare on the Main Gamble so we finished the trial with two Q's (qualifying scores); a great start to Beckett's agility career.  I was very glad to be back in the ring competing. Beckett's runs had flashes of Ceilidh so I'm sure she was with us in spirit. Tucker was there too as Beckett's big brother, cheerleader and coach. The weather, while very cold, was sunny so the drive to the trial arena and the drive home were nice. Next up is another fun trial in February then two official trials in March. You never know I might have a Advanced Agility boy by the spring.

Go Beckett Go!!!

Memories

Tomorrow, 21 January 2011 marks Ceilidh's 8th birthday. There are some days when I still find not having her in my life extremely difficult. This has been especially true when I've had a particularly good day with Beckett. At the end of the day I usually find, as the song "Just a Dream" says; "I was thinkin about her, thinkin about me. Thinkin about us, what we gonna be? Open my eyes, yeah; it was only just a dream." And it's hard waking from the dream as I had expected Ceilidh to be with me for many more years.

As hard as it may be sometimes, I do find it helps to look at old photos and video so I decided to do a video collage of photos of my three Angels at the Bridge: Duffy, Gryffon and Ceilidh. The rainbow clip in the video is due to the thoughtfulness of Lyne L and was taken at the first fun trial that Beckett was entered in after the loss of my dear little Ceilidh.

Remembering Duffy, Gryffon and Ceilidh

I hear people say that they have a "heart dog" and I find it difficult to understand how one dog could be a "heart dog" while another is not. My Angels were such wonderful souls, each different but each held a special place in my heart. Maybe I've been lucky and they were all my "heart dogs". 

I don't want this post to be maudlin but rather a celebration of the time I had with them, just wish that time could have been longer. So I'll end this post with some lyrics from Just a Dream and Halo:

"And now they're gone and you wish you could give them everything."

But at least "Standing in the light of your halos, I got my angels now".

Never far from my thoughts and forever in my heart!!