WW: Playful Cats

Playful, possessed. Same difference when talking about cats, right?

Tasty Tuesday: Merrick Jerky Strips

With another awesome opportunity offered to me by Chewy.com to review some treats, I could not possibly pass it up. This time around, the treats up for review by the flyball dogs are Merrick Real Cut Jerky Strips.

I forgot to take a photo before opening the package. This photo was provided to me by Chewy.com to use in the blog post.

These jerky strips were large sticks that are easy to break into smaller pieces, even with one hand. They are super smelly, meaning the dogs absolutely love them. The smell isn't that unpleasant, but it lingers on your hands a bit. So I wouldn't use this as a treat to take along if we were going somewhere in public like the Farmer's Market. I would be happy to use it at home or training classes, where I expect my hands to smell like dog treats and am able to wash up immediately afterwards.

Pallo is woe

That stick balanced on Pallo's face is one entire strip. You can see they are pretty good sized. I broke it into smaller pieces to reward the dogs for posing.

Even Martha was getting in on the jerky action. She couldn't really bite off pieces, but was able to gnaw on it enough for a few pieces to start coming loose.

Of course the cats got to taste test as well. I didn't get any good pictures of Theo tasting the jerky, but Martha enjoyed it a lot, and kept meowing at me to give her more.

Koira must tilt her head and pin back her ears in order to concentrate. That's just how it works

Overall, I think my dogs enjoyed it quite a bit. For $5.99 for a package, I might pick some up in the future to use as training treats, since they are pretty easy to handle.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: I recieved a free package of treats from Chewy.com in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to give a positive review and was not compensated in any other way.

Oops

Oops. I forgot to write a blog post today.

Here, have a picture of a cat.

Martha, regally reclining

Flyball pictures

I handed off my camera to a team mate at practice on Thursday and he managed to get a couple good pictures of Pallo on the box. We also found out that Pallo doesn't really mind the flash on right in his face, he is too focused on doing his job.

And no one said flyball was elegant. Huge amounts of spit are permitted.

This is Zip, a Tervuren on our team. She gets super excited about flyball, and is a barking, slobbering maniac with a high-pitched, ear-shattering yodel of happiness. I think she looks kind of like the saber toothed squirrel from Ice Age when she peels back her lips and nose to get a really nice, loud bark going on.

Pallo is doing good with flyball. He is holding on to his ball the whole way back, and we are working on having him do this even with another dog passing into him. He has dropped early (not before the line early, but before I want him to early) a couple times, but it takes only a simple reminder that no ball means no tug and he remembers to hold the ball the whole way.


This is what Pallo looks like after running flyball- tired, tongue out, hot, glassy eyed.

 Koira is still not doing flyball while she rebuilds some more muscle. I do bring her along, though, and bring her in to the building for obedience practice after we finish cleaning up from flyball. I am not doing anything super serious with her, just working on her giving me her full attention, doing some sit-walk-arounds and down-walk-arounds, as well as doing long sit and long down practice (we are doing 1 and 3 respectively with those). She still breaks her stays some, but more just by shifting position than anything else. We're working on it.

And, one out take from my St. Patrick's Day photo session.




Martha wasn't too sure about wearing the hat for pictures, so I had to so some click-and-treating with her to get her used to it (I use the camera shutter as the click for this type of training). Once she realized that she got treats for leaving the hat alone, the rest of the session was about as easy as you can expect any cat photo session to be. The picture, by the way, is of her getting her treat, not biting me.

Wordless Wednesday: Eyes

Okay, not totally wordless. First off, the winner of the contest has been chosen and the collar is in the makings. I am planning on picking two additional winners and notifying them in the next day or so, as I get the chance with work.

In the meantime, enjoy some eyes.

Giveaway teaser

Well, with my own dog's St. Patty's Day collars finished and adorning their necks on walks, I thought I would share a few photos of what your collar could look like if you enter the giveaway. And don't delay, the winner will be chosen tomorrow! (Don't forget, you can use any resources you need to pick which breeds you think are pictured.)

Koira is still on injured rest, so we do two 10 minute walks per day and LOTS of mind games to try to tire her out.

Here we are on our walk yesterday.

And then here are some closer up pictures of the new collars.

As with every collar I make for my own dogs, these are limited slip collars, meaning they tighten up a limited amount if the dog pulls, which prevents backing out of the collar. I also decided on these ones to try out some center-release buckles, as I like the lighter weight, sleek look of them compared to standard side-release buckles.

And, for your viewing pleasure, how about a picture of a cat chewing on a dog's lip?

 Don't worry, they're still friends, and the dog is still in one piece. They even posed for me some more.

And Martha has been posing quite a bit. I think maybe she is jealous of all the blog-time the dogs get.

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.

Collars and training

Due to a sale at the local fabric store, the dogs got new collars made this week.

I went for a new, fancy look by making them each a 2" brocade collar. With a limited slip, of course. Having my dog pull out of her collar once on a busy street was enough to ensure I will always put my dogs in limited slip collars to prevent that from ever happening again. And, I just had to do a 2" collar this time to show off the fabric.

I think it makes the dogs look very regal.

Now, since I don't have any flyball pictures I haven't already shared, I'm going to continue showing you pictures of the dog's new collars while I talk about flyball training.

Pallo is doing great with his ball carrying training. After a full weekend of him carrying his ball the whole time, I decided it is time to step up the training. So far, I have been sending him, running up to the start line, call him when he hits the box, then facing the lanes, back up a few steps, right hand held out and low in a fist, and yell "Touch" to him. Once he touches my hand with the ball, he gets his tug.

This works fine, obviously, but I want to get back to the normal pattern of flyball. The normal handler pattern goes something more like this: Release dog, run to start line, call dog when dog hits box, turn and run veering to the right, tug held out dangling in left hand, dog hits tug.

So, the first thing I did was put Pallo's tug into my closed right hand. I'm trying not to change the picture too much all at once, so everything else I did in the pattern was the same except for the tug placement (so, facing the lane, right hand outstretched with tug).

He did that successfully a few times, so I upped the ante by then turning and sticking out my left hand with the tug held in my closed fist (so, facing away from lanes, left hand outstretched with tug). He dropped a few feet early the first time, but nailed it the next few times. Over the next few practices, we will hopefully build up to me being able to be running away with the tug dangling and not have to worry about Pallo carrying his ball. I think we will get there without too many problems.

On the front of Koira's box turns, I think we made a decent amount of progress. Instead of using a PVC prop in front of the box, we are now using a single gutter and a triple gutter. These are basically exactly what they sound like, being plastic gutters from the hardware store, cut to be 4' long. The triple is just three of them stacked up, two on the bottom with one centered on top of that (I'll get a picture as soon as I get to the hardware store to make my own for practice at home). Using the triple gutter right in front of the box and the single a few inches out from the triple, Koira's turns are high, tight, and fast. And, she seems to be having a great time.

We will work her with this set up for a while, then slowly fade out the triple so she just has a single gutter in front of the box, then eventually fade that to a white slat laid flat on the ground, then nothing. Hopefully, if we do this over a long enough period of time and take it nice and slow, with lots of pull-out-prop for one hit, put it back in, etc, we will build a beautiful turn that stays high and safe even when at a tournament.

Martha had to come investigate while I was shooting photos of the collars.

I think she was jealous of the dog's getting new bling when she didn't get anything, so she decided to eat Koira's new collar.

As a last little note, I am LOVING my new indoor photo shoot setup. Doesn't it look nice, clean, well-lit, like I have a pro back drop and everything? I picked up two pieces of poster board in white, taped them together, and set it up in front of my window (which is covered in tissue paper so people can't see in, but which acts as a diffuser preventing harsh glares). With winter coming on, its nice to find a way to take indoor pictures that don't totally suck.

Twelve week photography course

This week's assignment was to shoot some pictures indoors, making use of natural lighting as much as possible. These pictures are straight out of the camera, with no editing.

I actually set up a large white paperboard on the other side of my animals, which helped a lot in increasing the light. It reflected a lot of the natural light back at my subjects, lighting up their darker sides nicely.

Also, by making sure my focus was on my subjects, my camera adjusted the light for them, rather than for the bright window they were next to.

It helped that it was a very sunny day, with a lot of natural light coming inside. Also, my windows have white tissue paper over them (otherwise everyone could see right inside), which I think helped both increase the amount of good, clear light and also prevented sun glares.

I even had enough light to get a decent moving picture. Normally, this is one of the hardest things to do inside, because movement will blur without enough light. I'm sure I couldn't get this decent of a picture of the dogs wrestling inside, but for a good bit of minor movement, it worked.

For more photography tips, to check out other participants, or to try out this photo course yourself, go check out Twenty-Six to Life.

Limping... Again

Well, bad news. Koira is limping again. This time, it started in the morning today and has lasted all day. I stretched her out good first thing this morning, which loosened it up a good bit and reduced the severity of the limp. By the time I got home from work, she was holding the foot up again not wanting to use it at all. Again, stretching it out helped a lot, but did not get rid of the limping. Hopefully she'll be feeling better by tomorrow.



While I was stretching out Koira, I decided to do some stretching with Pallo as well. One stretch we do (and the dogs both naturally do often) is have their front legs on the ground, back legs on my lap straight behind them. This time, though, as Pallo straightened his legs out behind him, I felt first one, then the other, hip make a huge pop. He didn't act like it hurt at all, and has been fine since then, so I guess if anything it was a needed adjustment. It sure did give me a scare though for the first minute.

A weekend of blog hopping

Well, after Koira's excitement with the coyote yesterday, I have decided we will have a nice mellow weekend. Our plans include going for a lunch date with my mom on Saturday and heading to lure coursing practice on Sunday.

Relaxing in the sun is also on the agenda. Martha is being great and giving a good demo of what this should look like.



Martha, in fact, has been having a great time lounging around and attacking grass.



She knows how to keep that grass in line for sure.

Martha in general doesn't get much notice on this blog, which is, as per the title, about me and my flyball dogs. Martha, being a cat, doesn't really qualify. But she is awfully adorable.



And I wanted to let readers and followers know that I will be doing a giveaway when I reach 50 followers. The leather collars and leashes I made a while back turned out great, and I have some new ideas for them as well, so when a winner is chosen, I will make one to fit your dog! So make sure to follow along if you haven't yet, and be sure to check back regularly!


A blog hop:


A Saturday Pet Blog Hop:



A Friday Blog Hop:

3-D Cat

I told Martha I was going to a 3-D movie for the first time ever. Martha was intrigued. She said she wanted to go too.




Martha believes the 3-D glasses are very glamorous, and wants a pair of her own.



She thinks she'll just steal mine.



If I don't give them to her, she'll just chew on mine so I can't enjoy them anymore either.



She looks great in them too.