Cat Hiking

Summer of Puppies continues, Carol’s Briard puppies are 7.5 weeks, and I’ll get to play with one for a couple weeks while she’s waiting for her new owner. I do like Briards, but way too big and hairy for me. Playing with a puppy for a couple weeks will be fun though, they are very food motivated and people focused puppies – sort of the anti-border collie puppy. Then I’ll have a European sheltie puppy for a couple weeks, will be interesting to see if there is a difference from the american style shelties. And then it’s time to play with another border collie pup, a half sibling to Navarre and also related to Haku, Bright and Fred. The plan is Tammy is going to take that puppy while I’m finishing up with my other puppy visitors. We’ll see how long that puppy sticks around, I’m betting she’s going to be a handful. And red. Red dogs are always trouble.

Meanwhile we’re about ready for our agility finale around here, Justine and Jessica seminar this weekend, just Navarre. I have no grand ambitions for us, we’re still dealing with the same issues we were the last time we did a seminar with Justine. We also have not at all been focusing on international skills. I imagine we’ll still have fun.

Navarre then has one more trial in June, then we’re done until September. I’m dreading this summer something fierce and plan to spend it avoiding being hot when I can. Hoping to do a lot of hiking, swimming and going to the beach.

Still planning on doing some herding in the summer, Haku is on a bit of time crunch here and I want him to be able to do some trials. But at our lesson this week he really just got too tired, and that broke my heart. Haku doesn’t GET tired – but he’s not as young as he used to be. The problem was we took the sheep out to the big field … and Haku promptly lost them. Doh. So the sheep ran WAAAAY to the other end of the property, which involved us trekking all over the world to try to find the sheep in the trees and tall grass and he was just … not good at this. Even when I could SEE the sheep I would try to show him where they were, but he didn’t believe me. So we chased sheep all over the property and then did a LITTLE bit of driving – but Haku was tired. Poor guy, getting older sucks. And he IS fat. There will be no more Fat Haku, he got his Fat Food cut back. We could use some more practice, especially in bigger areas with lighter sheep. Which is not something we have access to, unfortunately.

I worked Navarre at his herding lesson this week, I had hoped to work him in between his last lesson, but it didn’t happen. I had low expectations, but he actually did better for me than he been for Dave. I can be a hardass with Navarre, and he needs that level of black and white, at least with sheep. It’s so different than working with Haku, but I know Navarre is not going to be questioning and losing his sheep, that’s for damn sure. We actually got some nice distance this week, comparatively speaking, and some good homework for working with our terrible stick-on sheep. And talk about exhausting, this kind of mental work blows Navarre away – it’s not easy for him to use all that self control.

I went up and watched just a little of a ABHA herding trial at Brigand’s over the weekend, which is a TINY trial (by design). Apparently a much more forgiving and novice venue than most, and they actually have a few local trials. I think this might be a good option for Haku to let him have a few trials. Certainly nothing too exhausting for my ‘old’ man. We may make that our goal, as the only other trials in Oregon are USBCHA trials, which I think will be too advanced for what Haku is going to be able to do in the time he has. We just want to go move sheep around in a helpful fashion and give us something to shoot for. I don’t even have that goal for Navarre.

Agility-wise it’s been hard not having Bright to trade off with Navarre – Navarre needs very short, high energy sessions. He’s not the sort of dog that can do a lot of repetition or wants to work forever. And I do like to run my dogs through things before classes to make sure they run smoothly. Haven’t been able to do that for the last few weeks, I miss my Brightness – the girl has stamina. We are currently running a Summer League in classes, out of curiosity I wanted to compare some different handling choices with Navarre. I would have guessed the second option would be faster (with more extension), but the first option was the clear winner. So interesting to note …

This week we tried two different endings, the second ending turned out faster:

And the cutest news, Marvin went hiking last week. I had bought him a little harness when he was a kitten with the goal that we’d at least attempt to do a little Adventure Kitty stuff. But he was sick so often I never really did it, nor did I do any cute cat tricks that I planned. But I bought a travel backback recently as I wanted a cat carrier than wasn’t a giant dog crate (like the Maine Coons have to use). So I had the backpack, I had the harness, Marvin had almost immediately taken to going out in the yard … I decided to just go for it and take him hiking.

Not the smartest decision to do this with no training or preparation, but I was willing to turn around and come home if he was terrified of the whole thing. Marvin enjoyed himself though, and was happy to be carried for long distances – which was good as hiking with cats is not a fast process. Marvin is not actually leash trained, so I just had him on a 50 foot long line for safety and did my best to encourage him to come with us as I couldn’t actually USE the leash. This wasn’t terribly successful, as he didn’t want to run off, but he didn’t really want to come with us either – he liked to hang out. But he was totally chill if I just carried him, and he did well in the backpack carrier as well, but I think it was more bumpy. So we’ll give it another try one of these days, it was pretty fun!

Meanwhile, Bright finally had her appointment with the sports vet this week. I was, as usual, not optimistic and was pretty prepared for some long term rehab of an illospoas or something like that. Bright HAS been looking pretty darn good, but we haven’t been doing much and there has been a lot of rest. For once though, it wasn’t anything serious. Basically jammed toes on her foot, but not really her toes, the bones behind toes – but basically she probably stubbed her foot! Which seems really silly, but it was so good to hear that otherwise she was looking really good. She is seven years old this month and has done her fair share of agility through the years. I appreciate that she has a lot of self preservation, but I always worry.

Basically she looks really good though, and that makes me feel good. Just some slight changes to her knees that the vet thought were related to a lifetime of twists and jumps, but nothing that should be bothering her or should affect her in the future. So, yeah, no complaints! We have some foot exercises to work on making sure her little metacarpals or whatever get back to flexible, but she’s cleared for action. She’s SO happy! And, it’s funny how she still feels like it’s her duty to act super dramatic when being examined and refuse to acknowledge the person, but the moment they’re done she’s instantly happy and their best friend. My drama queen isn’t even very good at drama these days! And she actually went completely limp during examination, which would have NEVER happened in the old days. Seven year old Bright is awesome!

In other news, I did contact a breeder of border-whippets today to express interest in a future litter. Now, I’m not saying anything will come of it, but unlike border collies, you don’t just decide spur of the moment to get one, they have waiting lists for years – at least for proven sports lines. And this particular breeding would be a very known quantity, with many different relatives all successfully competing and crosses of these lines having worked out very well for sports dogs with great temperaments and structure.

The plan is if the current litter turns out well they will repeat it in the future, and as they’ve had a lot of success crossing these lines before, they have high expectations for nice dogs. So it would be an opportunity to get my sighthound – but with a high probability they will enjoy training and sports – and jump well. I was talking to the owner of relatives and she was very happy with them, knows a lot of really nice relatives as well. Her experience with border whippets is that they are super fun to train, super easy to live with, really cuddly, do great with other animals, solid temperments and very athletic. And smooth coat – that would be nice! She also has whippets and border collies, and definitely prefers the borderwhippet. I have no idea if this will pan out at all, and I don’t know if I would really trust a lot of BW breedings unless I knew someone will first had knowledge of the lines. But if it worked out, these dogs speak to me and I could see a puppy for me. We shall see what the future brings …