Monday Mischief: My Troublemakers

Off to make some trouble together.

Off hunting trouble

Koira has been seriously in squirrel and rodent hunting mode at the park ever since a large mole/vole creature ran almost directly over her feet, giving her a false sense of skill in the rodent hunting world. Unfortunately for her (and fortunately for the squirrels and other rodents) the squirrels can disappear up trees and the rodents into holes in the ground or massive stands of thorned blackberry bushes.

Darn squirrel disappeared up the trees

Pallo is a bit disappointed in her constant hunting and tries to get her to romp and play with him instead. His most successful way of getting that to happen is to wander off (like down to the river) and wait for me to call him. When I call him, Koira tends to take off looking for him or lay in wait to pounce on him once he comes barreling back.

Koira's gonna get you!

Ultimately, this pair of troublemakers ends up tired and soggy after a walk filled with romping and squirrel hunting.

The face of trouble when I call

Run or Dye

On Saturday, I went and did a human thing. I ran my first 5k, the Run or Dye in Redmond, OR. It was a ton of fun. The race wasn't timed, so I don't actually know how long it took me to complete. I ended up running some and walking some, and I know I could have pushed myself to run more of it. However, I still had a ton of fun. I want to do another fun 5k (a themed one like this, though maybe a different theme), but I think a timed one would motivate me more to really run and give it my best effort.

A bit dye throw in the "dye zone" after the finish of the race

Overall, though, I had a great time and am happy with how I did. After all, even though I was training for it, I did sprain both of my ankles three weeks ago, and get shin splints, both of which really put a cramp on training. Not to mention that Redmond (3000 ft above sea level) is a much higher elevation than where I live (250 ft above sea level)!

Just after the big dye throw

And, I got totally drenched in dye! Some people walked away barely touched with a few splotches of dye. I was drenched head to toe.

At the end of the race

Post Flyball Recovery

We've been off at a flyball tournament all weekend. It normally takes me a few days to recover (or almost two weeks for my voice to recover). The dogs, of course, are ready to go again after a good night's sleep.

Oops

Oops. I forgot to write a blog post today.

Here, have a picture of a cat.

Martha, regally reclining

Mischief Monday: Splashing

Koira's version of mischief is not normally too mischeivious. At the river, she had a ton of fun making big splashes with me. I would run up and down the bank of the river in knee deep water (yes, I was totally exhausted!) and she would run and bounce next to me, seeming to try to make the biggest splashes she possibly could.

I think her mischief was paid back a little by her getting water up her nose and sneezing though!

And of course, she had to get a little sassy about the whole thing. She knew she was so much better at running in the water than me, and couldn't help but mock me for it a little.

Mischief Monday: New Sports

I am sore this morning. Kind of an all over muscle soreness with a few concentrated areas that hurt worse- my hip, my elbow, and the portion of my foot with the blister. All of this, because I joined a new sport. We had practice for the first time last night. And the mischief part of that? It doesn't involve the dogs. The new sport is Roller Derby.

Geared up but afraid to stand up

I don't normally post my non-dog stuff on the blog, I know. But, this new sport will be practices two or more times per week for at least the next seven weeks, so will be taking up a lot of my time, and I think I might want to have something to look back on and see how far we've come. So far, it is a lot of fun, but I kind of feel like the trainers are trying to kill us and have us melt into the ground. First, we skated in circles (once we got the courage to stand up on skates for the first time in years!). Then, we did falling and stopping drills where we were introduced to some of the basic ways to stop yourself when moving- three of which involve deliberately falling- knee stops, using left, right, or both knees. What falling on your knees repeatedly means is that you have to get up off your knees over and over and over again, and my thighs are telling me about it this morning!

First attempt at 25 laps in 5 minutes. No, I got no where close!

After we got the hang of the basic ways to stop, including T-stops and plow stops as well as the knee stops, the real torture began. (By this point, by the way, I had fallen once on accident, landing on my not-padded hip and my elbow, both of which are also telling me about it this morning.) We did a time trial of how many laps we could finish in 5 minutes. Man, I started off pretty strong, but by that point, my legs were killing me and I'd developed a blister on my foot, and it was all I could do to keep going after a few laps. To pass Boot Camp, you need to skate 25 laps minimum in the five minutes given. I made it to 14 and felt dead at the end. I'm confident that by the end of Boot Camp I'll have a hard time believing I could only make 14 laps and that I thought it was hard!

Being pushed by a partner around the track.

We also did a bunch of different drills. One of them involved being pushed and pushing a partner around the track. It sounds like it would be easy to be pushed, but staying in a deep enough crouch to not fall over but not actually moving your own legs for momentum really makes the thighs burn deep. And pushing a partner was surprisingly easy in comparison. We switched back and forth who was pushed and who was the pushee to help spread the pain more evenly.

Equal spacing and speed practice, with extra crazy mixed in

We also did a line drill to practice even spacing and speed. The spacing and speed part wasn't too hard until some of the trainers and more experienced girls started weaving back and forth up the moving spaced line! Thinking about where the weaving skater was, looking back for her, and not freaking out when she passed within inches of me, all that made the equal spacing a lot more difficult.

To throw in a little more torture, we were introduced to burpees on skates (which I now need to seriously practice without skates, along with my lunges, because ouch) as well as a "Simon says" type game on skates.  Basically, torture.

But in the end, it was so much fun. I can't wait for the next class.

Mischief Monday: Dirt Colored Dogs (and a Poodle)

I go to a lot of dog events, if you haven't noticed. Most of the time, I bring my camera along. I really enjoy taking pictures during events. I also enjoy going through the photos afterwards, editing them, and sharing them with people. It is one of the best things about going to dog events for me.

But seriously people, stop getting dirt colored dogs!




Do you have any idea how hard it is to even see a small dirt colored fluffy dog running on dirt, let alone through a zoom lens? And then, once you find the small dirt colored blog that is the dog, how hard it is to get the camera's auto focus to actually focus on that dog?



Now, I promise I am not trying to insult any of these dogs' looks. They are all wonderful dogs, and pretty gorgeous. But.. they are all brown, or gold, or some similar kind of color. And that color? Yeah, it blends into the dirt.



And look how many breeds there are that are brown!



My only issue at all with all these dogs who are brown, red, brindle, etc, is that they are really hard to take photos of. At least on dirt they are. And so many different sports are run on dirt (or golden brown summer grass, which is just as bad!). It makes for hard picture taking.



Of course, dogs who are black aren't really any better. Auto focus has tons of problems with black dogs no matter what surface they are running on. And then there are exposure problems, you can't see the dog's eyes, or the dog is exposed right and the background is totally blown out, and on and on.

So maybe you are thinking about getting your next dog. And, if your only criteria for that dog is that you want photographers at every event you go to to be able to get wonderful pictures of your dog, here is my advice. Get a poodle. A white, standard poodle. Because seriously, there is no way to screw up those photos!

Mischief Monday: Koira Needs Dentures

I mentioned in the post on Saturday that I took both the dogs with me to the park when I went to take pictures of my 6 month old nephew. Well, Koira was a bit of a loud mouth at the time, because she is used to being the center of attention.

Who else thinks Koira needs some dentures? Somehow, she manages to be completely toothless in all of these pictures. I think it is particularly impressive in the second picture, since you can see the entire inside of her mouth- and yet, no teeth!

Mischief Monday: Mummy Screams

Is it just me, or does Koira have a disturbing resemblance to the screaming mummies from the movie The Mummy?

Koira:

The screaming mummies:

Mischief Monday: Woof

I love having the dogs pose for me. Generally, they do pretty well with it, even posing in some pretty funky positions.

Or posing with each other, and not hogging the camera too much.

But, sometimes Koira gets a bit impatient about the photo op, and then, she tells me about it. Loudly.

Mischief Monday: Tater

A flyball friend of mine has many dogs. One of her dogs is Tater, who is accused of being even more adorable than Pallo. And possibly even more tug crazy. What do you guys think?

These pictures are of Tater last year when we did the Nike Hoops Summit halftime show with my friend's team.

Here is Tater looking cute.


Here is a still shot of Tater tugging


And here is a recent video of Tater while "relaxing" between runs at agility practice.



What do you think? Is it possibly he is cuter and more tug crazy than my Mr. Pallo?

PS: I decided to update the name of the blog to So Fly. I don't plan on changing the URL or anything else, however. I have always felt my blog title was a bit long and wordy, so thought I would change it up. So Fly just seems so short and snappy, and yet so very descriptive all at the same time. We'll still be the same kind of awesomeness in the same place!

Mischief Monday: Custom Wrapped

I think the mischief this week may have been on the part of the human...

Pallo is all wrapped up for Christmas. Who wants a Pallo Present?

Dog Shaming

Apparently I am hopping on the dog shaming train. Koira doesn't have much to shame, really. Her only real issue is her fear, which is not her fault. Well, and that she requires me to help her up on the bed and into the car despite being healthy and athletic.



Pallo, on the other hand, has plenty about him to shame.



I have to check Pallo's mouth before leaving the Cat's Meow (a local thrift store whose proceeds go to Heartland Humane Society). They have a tennis ball bucket on a low shelf, and Pallo has stolen balls and walked out of the store with them before. Now I check before we leave.




I think all regular blog readers have heard this story. I brought Pallo home from Linn County Dog Control and put him in isolation. He had really bad worms, and had just come from a high volume shelter with an unknown vaccine history. He basically was kenneled or leash walked on pavement (so the worms wouldn't pass to other dogs via the lawn). A few days after bringing him home, he puked up a piece of plastic that turned out to be part of a shot gun shell. Finding that solved the mystery of where the BBs kept coming from. I have to assume he passed the metal part of the casing while at the shelter, since I didn't find it and x-rays (much later, and for a different reason) showed no metal objects in his gut.



And everyone knows this problem of Pallo's. Despite walking him a ton, and doing everything possible to make sure he is empty before heading into the ring, he still poops in the flyball ring. He even did it when I sent him to Canada with another handler (I even warned her beforehand about it). It hasn't happened recently at class or at a recent tournament, but I can't quite convince myself it is a problem of the past.

Mischief Monday: The mischief is all mine

Those of you who are on Flickr may have noticed that I stopped doing the Daily Dog Challenge. It wasn't on purpose. I got busy, then I got hurt, then I just never really started it up again. But, I want to. I had fun taking the pictures, I had fun talking with the other DDC people via the comments, and I enjoyed seeing everyone's take on the challenges.



I am going to try to start participating more. I am starting with today's challenge and moving forward from there. Catching up with the current ones from the previous week makes me tired thinking about it.



Plus, I am going to try to get more pictures of dogs other than my own. For the DDC, I want to try to do mostly my own dogs, because lets face it, they are mine and I love them and they are the easiest to get pictures of. But, it is fun taking pictures of other dogs.



Focusing on other dogs gives me a chance to get some pictures that I would never be able to do with my two. It also helps me figure out how to actually be a better photographer. My dogs are both relatively easy to take pictures of, not just in that they both pose pretty well, but both have light faces, distinct facial markings, and light colored eyes that show up nice in photographs.



And I'm going to finish off with a picture counter the theme above (which was "Open Mouths" if you didn't realize there was a theme). But, I just had to include a picture of Cassie. She is an adoptable senior dog available through Senior Dog Rescue locally. She is completely blind and deaf (though she appeared to be able to partially hear some sounds). She was a complete love bug; the hardest part of getting a picture of her was to get far enough away, since all she wanted to do was lay right next to me, just enough to touch, and get petted.

Mischievous Monday

Martha wanted to make an appearance on the blog today.

Because let's face it, cats qualify as mischievous just by being cats.