Mischief Monday: Agility Trial Fun

We started the year off right with a really fun agility trial.  This was sponsored by the place we take lessons from, All American Dog Sports and was a NADAC trial.  We entered 4 classes: Touch n Go, Regular Round 1, Regular Round 2, and Jumpers.  All were in the Intro level except Touch n Go and that was Novice.

The morning was very cold compared to the warm winter we have been having so the dogs were feeling it.  The first class was Touch n Go and it was a HOT MESS!!  OH MY!  The dogs were everywhere.  Teach did place 8th, but didn't qualify and Tucker went off course so got eliminated.  They both had a good time and I had hoped got all the excitement out of their systems.  I do have videos of it I'll share ... in all of our hot mess glory ... HAHA!  (as a side note after watching the videos they didn't seem to do as bad as it felt out there!)

First is Teach.  At the end he came out of the tunnel and went to check the judge out ... he didn't seem real sure about him.

Next up was Tucker.  He's so happy ... HAHA!  We had one moment of brilliance coming out of the tunnel under the dog walk, he's running ahead of me going through every hoop he should (he's also listening to me!), hits the A-Frame, goes through the hoops and was suppose to hit the A-Frame on the way back and did the tunnel instead ... oops!  Then we went to visit the judge at the end, even trying to jump on him.  He thought that may get him some bonus points, but I told him that didn't work that way.

So the first class would be our mischief class because the rest of the trial they redeemed themselves.  Teach qualified in Reg. Round 1 & 2 with a 4th place in Round 1 and a 2nd place in Round 2.  He did excellent in Jumpers, but didn't qualify because of time faults, he was 2 seconds over, but did place 4th.  Qualifying in Round 1 & 2 meant he finished his Intro Regular Title where he had a Q from the previous trial.  I put together his videos from the 3 classes.  They are here:

Tucker also redeemed himself.  Like Teach, Tucker qualified in Regular Round 1 & 2 with a 1st place in Round 2.  This also finished his Intro Regular Title.  In Jumpers Tucker qualified and placed 3rd.  A big plus in Round 2 and in Jumpers was Tucker didn't go visit any of the ring crew, that's huge for him!!  Here are his videos from the 3 classes:

It was a successful weekend.  They dogs came home with lots of ribbons!  We are loving agility and I really see a lot of potential in Tucker.  Teach enjoys it, but I think he does it more for me than himself, but he does have a good time.  And as long as he's having a good time I'll continue to play the agility game.  Tucker truly does seem to LOVE it.  That dogs just flies around the ring.  Randy had a lady stop to see Tucker while he was videoing Teach and I and she couldn't believe the personality Tucker had and said most collies she sees certainly aren't as outgoing as him.  

Monday Mischief: Holiday Weekend Happenings

Happy Labor Day everyone!  Hope you were able to get out an enjoy the last official weekend of summer.

We had a fairly busy weekend, but not totally relaxing.

Friday Teach and I were able to get over to our friends house for an evening horseback ride.

There are no dogs in this picture ... which is strange to see!!

Saturday Roxy came over and spent the day with us while the parents went to visit Teach's Aunt Susan.

Sharing couch space together

The "fun" started that day ... I say "fun" loosely.  On Friday the gas company came to replace our meter as part of the "replace every 15 years" thing.  Well ... apparently we had a small leak in the line that got gradually bigger after they replaced it and the smell of gas was very strong Saturday.  So that afternoon the gas company came back only to find out ... yes we had a leak.  So the rest of this weekend has been spent trying to get that fixed.  

Thankfully we had a great supervisor on the job.

And who would think that supervising would be so hard.

Hopefully it will be completely fixed tomorrow.  At least Teach hopes so ... he isn't sure he can do 3 days in a row!  He's sacked out on the floor right now.

And the last thing this weekend ... the calendar contest Teach had been entered in is officially over and Teach is officially "Mr. January".  It was highly competitive between him and Ryder, but Ryder (from All Things Collie) came out on top.  I said if we have to lose at least its to a beautiful Collie, so congrats to Ryder!!!

For anyone that will want a calendar stayed tuned until next week when the details are out.  Remember this is for a great cause to help a fellow Blogging Dog out.

Teach wanted to be sure and thank everyone that did vote for him.

That sums up our Monday Mischief.

Monday Mischief: Vacation Recap in Photos

Two weeks ago Teach and family took our annual beach vacation at the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  We stay in Hatteras Village, which for those who have never been, the Village is as far as you can drive on Route 12 before having to take a ferry to the next Island (Ocracoke).  This was Teach's second trip to the ocean and I think he enjoyed it as much as we did.

After a long drive happy to be out of the car

This year we did stay in a different house in a different area than normal (about 1/2 mile up the beach from our normal location).  I have to say the beach was much better there and there was a ton of dogs around.  Was fun to see other families enjoying vacation with their 4-legged family members.

Taking Teach out on the beach (I rhymed ... LOL!) was like walking a celebrity.  People are always stopping and asking about him and how beautiful/unusual he is.  They want to know what breed and so on.  One family had two little boys who became his fan club and yelled and cheered at him all week when they saw him.  Of course they loved his name (he was named after Edward Teach, Blackbeard, who was well known along the Outer Banks and was supposedly killed off the coast of Ocracoke).

Teach went for walks in the morning and evening.  The middle of the day was to hot for a dog with a black coat so he chilled in the house with his Aunt Roxy.  He seemed content with that.  His favorite activities towards the end of the week was ridding the beach of those pesky laughing gulls and their little friends.  He was run and herd them off ... for them to only land a little bit ahead of him ... and the cycle continued.

I took so many pictures, as usual, its hard to figure out which ones to share.  Hope you enjoy the ones I picked!!

Monday Mischief - Horse Fun

Over the past two weeks we have been super busy with the Holiday, Concerts and Golf Tournament.  Which meant that Teach didn't get to have as much fun.  So yesterday I made it up to him and took him for a 2.5 hour trail ride with his best buddies.  We're fortunate to live close to our good friend that has horses, dogs and miles and miles of trails.  We are able to hit the trails and not see any people or cars so all the dogs can go and have fun!!  If you stopped by yesterday for the Black and White Sunday you saw some of our pictures.  It was nice and shady for the majority of the ride and the wind kept it cool and the bugs at bay.  Enjoy the pictures in color now!

Scrappy (Tennessee Walking Horse), Drummer (Rough Collie) and of course Teach

Teach and his best bud Drummer

Dakota (Rocky Mountain Horse), Scrappy, Teach and Oliver (Rough Collie)

Teach checking out the self timer on the camera to make sure its working

Scrappy, Teach, Drummer and Xander rolling in the ground pines

I also had fun using Pic Monkey to do my edits on the pictures today.  

Happy Monday Mischief!

A Trip Without Teach ... WHAT?!?!

On Saturday Randy and I decided to head out the road in search of an old Pavilion we had read stories about and saw pictures of ... the Pavilion at Blue Sulphur Springs.  Because this was going to be mostly a road trip with no hiking planned and hot outside we decided that Teach would stay home and I think he was fine with that ...

Going down the back roads of WV you do find some cool things.  And this Pavilion was all that was left after the Union soldiers came in and burned the resort down so that the Confederates couldn't benefit from it.  

It sat in the middle of a cow pasture and no way to get close to it.  I used the zoom on my camera to take the pictures.  

As you can see its in fairly good shape for being over 150 years old.

Next on our adventure was to find the grave site of Randy's 6th Great Grandfather, Elder John Anderson.  He was the founder of the town of Alderson and the Old Greenbrier Baptist Church.  Cool little note about the church (which was founded on November 24th, 1781) was it was the first church founded on the west side of the Allegheny Mountains.

We did succeed in finding the final resting place for Mr. Alderson and his family.  

On the left is Elder John Alderson and his Wife Mary Alderson is on the right.

Elder John Alderson Born 1738 Died 1820

Mary Alderson

Revolutionary War Veteran.  You don't see many of these in our part of the country.

Civil War Veteran

Cool Panoramic Shot of the Cemetery ... look closely on the left and right ...

Mean while back at the ranch ...

Teach didn't seem to care we were gone ...

Hope everyone has a great Mischief Monday!