Well, that is one thing Freddie is lacking these days. Actually it is more like lack of weaves. He has lost them. He has lost his entries, he has lost his ability to stay in them, he has lost his foundation behind them. I call him no weave Freddie. It is pretty funny in some ways because he is such a dork about it. He jumps through the first pole, he comes out at the 5th, he constantly checks in with me. I'm like "Hey, this is an independent obstacle Freddie".

I think it all comes down to movement, my movement. He doesn't quite understand that he needs to maintain everything he knows at speed as well. I figure he will get through this and find his weaves once again, but it is somewhat frustrating. I have a no weaving pooch right now. I wonder what else he will forget how to do.


I loaded another video from Redmond. It was a jumpers run from our last day. I fell, imagine. But if you watch Freddie he is slipping a bit too. That last day made for some dry, slick, surfaces to run on. When I slipped I had to change my plan to a rear instead of a front. It was badly timed and put me too far behind him to cue the up coming turn like I wanted to. Then of course we have no weave Freddie, such a laugh a minute I tell ya. I handled the end much differently than I walked it. I can see that Freddie was a bit confused by my actions too. One thing I can say for him is that he reads my body language well. If I decelerate, I know he will too. If I run forward or turn he will too. I am pretty certain that wide turns and off-courses are not going to be our issues unless I make them so. Refusals are where they are at. He is such a different dog to run than Nova, or even London. I do predict that someday he will move forward off of me because I have heard that if a dog pulls and tugs forward on his harness that he should move forward, ignoring all of my body cues and me on course. Freddie is very skilled at pulling on his harness, I suppose the transfer will happen soon?

A co-worker and I drove out to Lost Lake today for a hike. I decided to bring just Freddie because I cannot recall ever taking just him on a hike in the forest. I have always had the other dogs around. Freddie can focus on Nova more than I would like him to. He isn't obsessive about it, but when he becomes excited, it's all eyes on Nova. So to give Nova a break and to see how just Freddie would do, we headed out.

I wasn't sure what to expect. I guess I thought Freddie would be more focused on me, but he was his normal Freddie self. Not to say that he didn't check in with me, but his lapses are much longer than than either Blaze or Nova would ever take to check in. In fact, Blaze and Nova are always within eye sight. They make sure they can always see me, they wait at bends in the trail and only deviate if there is water to be had, like a stream or a creek. Freddie was all over the place. In the lake, up the mountain, he never stopped. The hike is about a 2 hour hike, plus LOTS of swimming in the lake. He never once slowed down, or stopped being a daredevil. He is reckless and crazy, jumping over logs, diving into the lake, never once at a walk, always running and moving with speed. He is very confident and can have just as much fun on a hike by himself than he can with other dogs (but with the other dogs around, he stays closer).

This is very different than Nova. When I hike with just Nova she never leaves my side, she is always within 2 feet of me. It is very interesting. Blaze can go have fun on her own, but she would never just run as fast as she could up the trail for as far as she could go. She would stop and look back without a word from me. I had to reel Freddie in every now and then. I did decided to let him go without me calling him back to see how long it would take for him to check in. It was a very long few minutes, but he did come running back to me. Still, I kept tabs on him after that, the Mt. Hood Wilderness is a very big place for a puppy.

There is a very large bald eagle population in the area and one of the highlights was watching an adult eagle swoop down not 15' from us and snatch a fish from the lake. One of those, "WOW, was that real" moments. Freddie of course never noticed. What he did notice was the bear scat, he thought rolling in it was incredible. Luckily the lake was there so he could rinse himself off.

Freddie was bounding through this tree, so I decided to make him pose. Posing is the only way I can get photos of him.


Freddie on one of our many swimming breaks.


Freddie with Sasquatch at a general store.

 
Freddie "posing" at Multnomah Falls. We stopped to get coffee at 8am. Very few people were there yet, it was very peaceful and beautiful.


Megan and Freddie at the higer bridge. They both notice a train down by the Columbia River.

Blaze just celebrated her 11th birthday a few days ago, so I decided to take her on an urban hike downtown today. She LOVED it. The nice thing about downtown, besides all of the fountains, is the lack of bad dogs. All of the dogs downtown are very well behaved and ignore other dogs. It is an ideal place to take Blaze,


We started our downtown trek on the Burnside bridge. The "Made in Oregon" sign once was the White Stag sign. There is a big controversy right now because there is a proposal to change the sign to read "University of Oregon", but that has made a lot of Portlander's a bit emotional. It was hard when it was changed from White Stag to Made in Oregon, but U of O? I can't see it happening. It is a piece of Portland. I think Blaze looks stunning below it.

 
Blaze and Elvis. Elvis has been around for YEARS. I remember when I was a teenager, he was outside the 24hr Church of Elvis playing songs. Although the 24hr Church of Elvis is gone, it's legend remains, as does this guy. I paid him a buck to allow Blaze to pose with him;)

 
Ahh, Blaze's favorite fountain. The kids, the women, the power of the fountain, they all create water droplets, Blaze's favorite thing in the whole universe.

 
Blaze is just so charming, she can get anyone to make water droplets for her. So nice of this lady to make Blaze happy.


Another water break. This is a fountain made famous by Gus Van Sant.


Blaze hanging in the shade of Umbrella Man at Pioneer Courthouse Square, "Portland's Living Room".

 
Diving for leaves in another fountain. She did not want to come out of this one.

 
Of course no trip to Saturday Market is complete without entering the food court. Blaze got some birthday ice cream.

I love Portland. I could not live any any other city. I am always reminded of Beverly Cleary's book "Fifteen" when I am downtown. The water fountains, the drinking fountains. Everyone is so friendly and it really is such a small city, or really, a big town. It is America's best kept secret. Blaze thinks Portland rocks too.

I used to take photos of church reader boards. I had a thought that I would put together a coffee table book with all of the "wise" sayings found on them. I never followed through with my plan, but none of them topped this reader board.

My neighbors and I have decided that it is just too damn hot to have the doors closed today. So everyone, all four of us,  are in the courtyard drinking wine spritzers and mint juleps (ick). This is heaven to Freddie. He has a few people besides myself to socialize with, and other housing units to inspect. He just makes himself at home, investigating everybody's pad. The girls would never dream of just walking into any place that was not their own and helping themselves to some water out of their toilet. Fred, he not only has no problem walking into stranger's homes, but has no problem saying hi in Freddie fashion.


Good thing Alona did not have any buttons on her tank top. Note Freddie's tail, it cracks me up. When he sits, he sits ON it and wags it between his legs. Must get some video of the comedy that is Freddie's tail.

Alona is about 5' tall, if that gives you any perspective on how tall Freddie is. I know he looks smaller than he is. The boy weighed in at 39# today at the clinic, but he has supermodel legs. I thought Freddie was a bit too thin, but the doctor thinks he is in good weight. She doesn't want him any thinner, but said he is great. I love our doctor, she is an athlete and understands ideal weights. He also has a resting heart rate of 62, pretty low. Nova's is low too. Last time they put her under anesthesia her heart rate dropped to 36. I am glad I wasn't there. The average heart rate in most healthy dogs is 80-120. Bigger dogs can have slower rates, and active, very active dogs also can have slower rates. I haven't taken Blaze's in awhile to see what hers is. Okay, hers is 72. Anyways, Freddie's annual went very well. He looks and sounds great. He is one big muscle machine, and quite the popular boy.


All sticks go to heaven.


Oh yeah, I kill sticks, it is no secret. They deserve to die and I have no problem helping them along.


I look just like I did in the last photo that was taken of me, only this time I am in the lavender.

I do like summer, I love how easy it is to live and have fun. I love the produce, berries, cherries, veggies that are available. But I do not like the heat. I am sure the dogs and I will make it through summer 2009 with lots of hiking and swimming under our belts. There really isn't any other place on earth that I would rather be, except maybe New Zealand;) Although we do not have the bugs that they have.

I received my "SECRETS OF RUSSIA" DVD today and plan on watching it this weekend. Hopefully I will feel up to giving it a review.

Some of you may remember the Atari game that was based on Fabulous Freddie. Well Nintendo was not going to be outdone so they came up with their own version of a Freddie game. I came home tonight to find this....... Thanks Johnny!



Now if I only had a Nintendo system and liked playing video games;)

I'm certain my big mouth can fit around this.


I'll just puncture it in a few spots so I can mash it into my mouth.


I do not care if the ball is no longer whole, it is still my God and I shall worship it with abandonment.


My evil plan has worked. I have successfully trapped the Space Monkeys from the forest inside of this soccer ball. Now,  just stare and wait.


Nova relaxes in the shade like a Southern Belle. This is where she spent the majority of her time while the rest of the dogs played in the sun.


Summer is here.

Okay, I was able to quickly download a video this morning, maybe more will follow. Another run that could have been much more smooth if Fred had more obstacle focus and I could move faster. I had already fallen twice by the time I ran this, in fact, I sprained my pinkie finger pretty badly, as Debi put it, "you really played a number on yourself". It was a bad fall. It wasn't in the ring, but I was out in the field running around and BAM, hard fall, into a roll, splat onto the pavement. I hit a deep hole in the ground and I could hear all of the bones in my finger crackle and scream. Needless to say it was and still is quite swollen and bruised. I already had a friend ask if it was Fred's doing, but nope, it was all mine.

The first refusal was such a dumb move on my part. Whatever happened to WORK EVERY OBSTACLE? Then the rest was very pretty until the line to the teeter killed us. Obstacle focus drills on Fred's part and sprint drills on my part and next year we will nail these courses;)
Std course maps

I was also able to meet another Fred relative while in Bend. She is Fred's cousin and she turned two this past weekend.

Happy Birthday Skeet.


Here is Debi and her pug, Mia. COOLEST pug that ever did live.

Fred and I decided to skip agility practice today (oh my) and go on an urban hike instead. We ventured downtown today. He really is pretty darn solid. Nothing rattles this boy. We went to the train station where people were lining up to board trains and buses, he was like, "oh, are we going somewhere, great, I hate boredom,  lets roll."

Instead of going by train, we went by foot.

We walked down to the waterfront where people were having picnics, jogging, some people were sleeping off last night and this mornings booze, but Fred treated them all equally. He is such a charmer. For the most part Fred ignores everyone unless they make eye contact, then that is an invitation to say hi. I steered him away from the drunks, but he was drawn to them. I think he was hoping for some Cristal. I explained to him that it would more than likely be Night Train that he would find in those paper bags.


Fred under the Burnside bridge with the old White Stag sign in the background.


Our tour of Bridges continues. The Steel Bridge is featured in the background.

Next week we will continue our tour of Downtown.

I love this trial. I have forgotten how wonderful it is in Eastern Oregon. I could not live there, but oh, the place is stunning. We were done with the competition each day at about 1pm, which left the rest of the day to hike, swim, play, and hang out. I will be returning next year as well.

Blaze of course found a "stick" at Cove Palisades. Such an amazing place.


Where in the lake is Freddie Mercury?


Blaze quickly destroyed the free soccer ball we got from Oil Can Henry's.


Nova poses in the pond on the show grounds, which are the nicest show grounds ever. A nationals should be held here.

Here is our first standard run of the weekend. It took all morning to upload, so I may be able to upload the other runs within the next month or so. We started out strong, but I did not hold criteria on the teeter, quick releasing him and then not cuing the table correctly. Then, Fred forgot how to weave. He is going through an odd stage with his weaves right now. You can't see it on the video, but when he popped out at the 5th pole, he was looking at the chute, what a dork. After that it was all down hill. There was no way I could beat him to the end of the chute, so the line to the tunnel was ugly. But, he was a good boy, no knocked bars and wonderful contacts. His turn to the teeter was stunning too. Many dogs looked or even went to the weaves, but not my Freddie, he sticks to me like glue;) Someday hopefully he will have more obstacle focus;)

The shopping at the trial this past weekend was less than stellar, but I did buy one item. I have been wanting a custom made name plate for Freddie's kennel ever since coveting Emma and Speck's, they look so professional. So in Freddie fashion, I had one made for him. I think it is perfect.

I was able to witness Sara and Tully's MACh runs this past weekend! Yahoo.



Tully really is the world's cutest SBT.


They looked wonderful out there. Congrats again!

Yes, it sure has felt like one the past two days. No work, no trials. It has been a whole month since I have had two days to do as I please and get things done. Of course I did mostly what I pleased and most errands, chores, and bills are still waiting for me. That's okay, I have enjoyed spending the weekend with the dogs.

I actually got two training sessions in this weekend, almost unheard of.  I also took a few walks with the pooches, groomed them up some, and basically just enjoyed my time with them. The training consisted of jumping drills, but today I decided to throw in some weaves for fun.


I worked the stations around the weave poles. Freddie and I have achieved 100% on the sending and recalling through all stations and from all sides. He actually is brilliant with the running both right and left and with the rear crosses, except for the tight 90 degree cross behinds starting with him on my left. He had about a 40% success rate with that one, so something to work on.  All in all though his weave poles are pretty amazing, I know they will transfer to the trial environment.

The most exciting part of our training sessions this weekend was watching him figure out the spacing between jumps. His understanding of what he needs to do to keep the bars up is increasing. We worked a lot of zig zag lines and some jump grids that Chris Parker had in the August 2005 CR. Those kicked our asses. The nice thing about the Chris Parker grids are that they can be easily set up and used as maintenance as well. Freddie really figured out where to increase and decrease his strides between the jumps. I started with a recall, then moved to running, then sending (with me supporting him and giving some motion from behind). I couldn't have asked for a better two training sessions. I do like the training much more than competition. It is just too much fun to watch the progress. It is amazing how much time there is to train when I'm not competing.

I also set up an a-frame tunnel discrimination that I have played around with in the past. We have been seeing quite a few tunnel/contact discrimination's lately and I want to know exactly what I need to do to give Freddie the information he needs. he is pretty in tune with me so none of the set-ups gave us any problems except for the one above with numbers. He just kept going straight to the a-frame after 3#, not even looking for me. That happened three times before I realized that what I was doing wasn't working. We figured it out though, and now if we ever see such a thing I will know how to handle it.

We have a seminar with Kate Moureaux on Tuesday and then a three day trial in Redmond, Oregon this weekend. I have entered one trial in July (two days only), and most likely will be entering Freddie in his first USDAA trial in August. I sorta have to debut Freddie under Mia, it only seems right. I think London, Freddie, and I are going to camp in Brownsville. It is such a pretty little place with a great river to swim in. Those will be my summer trials.


Freddie and I met up with Paul Bunyon today on our afternoon urban hike. He is quite the lumberjack.

Heather took this photo of Fred today, and it took my breath away when I saw it tonight. I truly gasped, he is unequivocally beautiful.



With all of the competitions lately I have not stopped to post about how wonderful of a dog Mr. Mercury truly is. There is not another dog out there like him, at least that I have met. When Karen planned his breeding, she mapped out an impending fate that has affected me in ways that I never would have expected. I am so grateful that he is in my life.

It is very difficult for me to remember a time when I did not consider Fred. It is like he has always been, it is a natural fit. We are so good together, a wonderful relationship that I will go to the grave remembering. We  are so lucky to have dogs in our lives, and we are even luckier when they feel the same way about having us. I would do anything for Fred to make sure he lives a happy life, I am in awe of him.

Yes, he is a fool sometimes, and yes, he is unaware of me sometimes, but that is why I adore him so. His itinerary in life is based on himself and the fun that he can have. Freddie enjoys just being alive. A true young soul, everything is new. He makes life very fun.

I heart Fred.

Coby is the coolest little Silky Terrier, I really do love this little dog. I had to share with you just how cute he is.





I do like the little fellow.

So I arrived at PAC day 2 just as tired if not more than day 1. I walked my jumpers course and was so upset at the creativity of the course, none. It was a big rounded M. Yes, this course is brought to you by the letter M. Not M for Moody, not M for Magnificent, not M for Marvelous, but M for Mundane, Mediocre. Of course we didn't run clean on it, but that made it even more Monotonous. Freddie knocked bar three and one other bar somewhere on course, I can't remember which one. Oh, I was not enjoying the day so far.
Sunday's Jumpers course map

I then got to run Standard which looked a bit more fun. I fell, slipped in the loose footing, but we still managed a Q on this run. One refusal due to my faulty lead out. I really wanted to stand closer to the double on my lead out, but something told me to not push on him over the double, so I let him land before proceeding to give late info for #3, which he ran past. Then he slipped before the dogwalk and his dogwalk footing was off, not as fast or as nice as it should be, but at least he stayed on it;) Then my Magnificent fall at the tunnel to a lovely teeter. The rest was beautiful. He came into me after the chute and pushed back out to the a-frame like a professional. His a-frame is like the a-frames he gives me in practice, so I was happy with the performance. I released him sooner than I would have liked to because I was pushing on him and that is his weakest point on contacts. I did not want him to break in competition so I released him knowing I would be behind once again. we did not earn a refusal at the last jump like I had thought we had so we earned a Q.

Notice I did not reach down to pet him like I usually do after our runs. In jumpers he decided that a big ole bite to the arm was a good end to a run. I still have a bruise, so no more pets for Freddie until he has calmed down a bit. I certainly do not want to go down that road. He is becoming more and more comfortable these days in a trial setting. We now have 8 trials under our belts, We are entered in one more in a few weeks then I have to decide what I want to do for the summer. There are a few options for a couple of trials, but they require travel. I am not too sure I want to travel with such an inexperienced dog, but maybe the miles would be beneficial. I have a few weeks to decide.


Photo by Joe Camp


Photo by Joe Camp

( Photos of Freddie's Dogwalk Fall )

Not a lot to say. I was very tired today and have already napped since being home.

Standard was an interesting run. I supported every obstacle except for the dogwalk. Be forewarned before watching the video that Fred has a tumble. He is way okay, it was just a flesh wound. He has a few small scratches in his groin area but he is not any the worse for wear. It can sometimes be a bit difficult when your dog has no care for his body. No amount of body awareness would give Fred a sense of self preservation, in fact I think he uses all his body awareness to perform amazing feats. Fred is like that nine year old boy that has scrapped knees, scars on his shins, scabs on his elbows, sutures above his eye, and is in the middle of climbing a 60' tree during a lightening storm to get a better view. He is all boy.




I did not properly cue the jump before the chute due to the weave poles being in the way. Had I given it any thought at all in my walk through I would have noticed this problem. I gave it no thought, because I had no thoughts to give while walking, I was out of it. He read the rear cross to the double very nicely, and the front cross to the weaves was so pretty, such a good boy. The dogwalk was just plain stupid on my part. It wasn't a straight approach and he has only been running on contact-a-coat for the last few weeks. I am sure hitting wood instead of rubber didn't have much to do with his fall, but it could have surprised him, who knows. I did not actually see the fall until afterwards. I was trying to get to the end of the dogwalk and was not supporting the up. Poor boy. Anyways, he truly is fine, he had a massage tonight and I didn't find a thing on him except for his scabs.

I am hoping tomorrow is a better day, I will hopefully be well rested.

The police just left my home. Someone tried to enter my house a little while ago. The person was pounding so hard on my door that the dogs did not even bark, they did not recognize it as a knock. Blaze is still in the bedroom hiding from it all, nervous and shaking like me. The person rattled the door knob and really pounded on the door. They never said anything. I called the police.

The police arrived pretty quickly and THEN the dogs start barking, except Blaze, who was still shaking in the bedroom. They were very nice and reassuring. They have patrol cars searching the area. They told me it was most likely a drunk stumbling home. I do not think I will sleep tonight.