Just another rainy day...

It's been somewhat of a worthless day today, however, it got better in the evening. I'm preparing for an exam on Friday and I'm just very tired of all the studying. It feels like everytime I try to focus on studying, I get interrupted... either the phone rings, or the dogs are acting up or Mr. L is calling for my attention :) or it's something. I wish I could just take off and live in a cave or something for a while.. I would bring Alih along though, he's great company. He never says a word as long as he gets fed and walked, yet a great big Teddy Bear to keep me warm. :) My Old Fabulous Tiger!!!!

We had WP training tonight... in the rain. Do I have to say, not a whole lot of people showed up, but some braved it. Jay needs to go out whether it rains or not, so why not put some rain gear on and head for training... that way I know I will have a content dog who hopefully will leave me alone for a while so I can get some studying done. :)

Now, to some very exciting news.. I ordered a WP harness for Jay tonight...hihi.. I ordered it from the US since it's cheaper there (with the dollar still being weak). See below pic, it's something very similar to this Jay will get. It will be his name on the side of the harness (instead of it saying Powered By CAT) and the text will be in yellow instead of white. Normally I go for the more mellow and subdued colors but this time I thought - what the heck!!!... Yellow & Black represents speed & power (thinking of a motorcycle for example) and that suits Jay just perfect. :) It will be very exciting to see how it will look on my Blue Little Baby.

I just finished watching the finale of So You Think You Can Dance (we're a bit behind in time when it comes to American TV shows). Twitch and Joshua were my favourites, and I'm so happy it was the 2 of them who lasted til the end...with Joshua being the winner!!! Anyhow, it's about midnight and I will have to get back to studying for another hour at least... Nighty Night!!!

Birthdays

Lots of birthdays this time of year. Today, is my DAD's birthday!!! Hip, Hip Hurrah!!!

If I could afford it, I would buy him something like this (considering he's a serious car freak):

Today, is also Freddan's birthday (an old friend of mine) -

Happy Birthday!!!

Clean Babies

My furry babies are clean, they finally got a bath. Ahhh, they smell lovely! :) Jay and I have done more obedience training today as well... And I've been studying. How much fun do you think that is? Not very.

Oh must not forget - Happy Birthday to my good friend Miss Hazel Girl today... she's getting older and older, I tell ya... hihi.. She's 26!!! Anyhow, it's almost time to head home to the city... Time to pack up!

Above: Jay and I training the heel command.

Above: While Jay and I are training, this is usually Alih's position. hihi.. He loves to sleep as much as possible... the old Tiger. :)

Show Biz News - Really?

***************
Clay Aiken: "Yes, I'm gay"...

L.E.W: "Whaaaaaaaaat??? I am shocked, I had no idea..." LOL

A Gorgeous Screen Legend...

Mr. Paul Newman has died at age 83. What a hunk he was in his younger days, huh??!!!...

My sincere condolences...

Our day in Kristinehamn

Jay and I took off this morning for Kristinehamn where we met up with Gabbi & Vilma. After having checked out Gabbi & her man's house, we went to the harbour. We found a great lawn right next to the water where we began our training. Jay was actually really good today, but he's been in a good phase for a while now so he's quite well-behaved and calm, thus easy to train... (well, calm for being him at least :)).

After having trained stacking (for dog shows), obedience such as heel, sit, down, down-stay, sit-stay and recall etc. we went to the Dog Club to check out the obedience competition that was going on there. It was fun to see, but after about an hour we were freezing our butts off ... We said our good-byes (by this time it was already late afternoon) and Jayness and I sped off to the country where Mr. L and Alih were hanging out. Next time Gabbi and I meet, we are gonna train tracking together... looking forward to that. Here are some pics from our day... ps. Kristinehamn is a really beautiful town worth visiting...


Above: Here are the wild babies = trouble, trouble, trouble... :)


Above: Down-stay training. They did great, but after a while they became very interested in each other. :)


Above: Very important with contact training... so lots of it.


Above: And more contact... Such a Good Baby! :)

A Quote by the great Martin Luther King, Jr. -

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

Amazing Weather

It should be illegal to be this cute... :)

We've had absolutely amazing weather today! Jay and I went to a park and the forest this morning. We started off with obedience, then play and thereafter some search... and finished with a nice walk. For the first time when doing search with him, I actually hid 2 items for him. He found the first one, a ball, in a short amount of time and retrieved it back to me. But when I sent him right back out again, he looked at me like "I just found the toy... what am I searching for this time?"... but he did as he was told, and took off again... he worked hard, searched and searched and sure enough, he found his tug-of-war toy and could not have gotten any happier! :) Jay really loves search and he's very good at it. My little baby...:)

And regards to the WP training last night. Only a few people showed up, unfortunately. But we started off as always by having the dogs pull chains around the track. We even added a tire for Jay after a while...mmm, it was quite heavy for him with both the chain and the tire (I tried pulling it myself). But we only took one lap around the track with both the tire & the chain. Don't want to overdo it with James, he's still so young and also, it is very important he continues to enjoy it. After a few laps with a chain around the track, we practiced starts. Jay was tired and very content when we finally made it home. :)

Tonight was our last intermediate obedience class. We did lots of training that I found very valuable, so Mr. Jayness is pooped right now. :) Tough mental training for him. Alih went with my parents to the country tonight, but we are actually going there tomorrow since my folks are going away for the weekend. Hopefully the nice weather will continue 'cause on Saturday Jay and I are going to meet up with Gabbi and her dog Vilma. We are going to check out an obedience competition in the town where she lives, and we are gonna do some training with Jay and Vilma as well. I'm really looking forward... Anyhow, time for some school work... Ciao my friends!

Pics from this morning...

New Training Partner

Tonight, for the first time (after talking about it for so long) Jay and I finally met up with Anna & Aston (springer spaniel) for some obedience training. We did not do that much training tonight though, mostly chatted and decided on stuff we want to focus on with our training... but it felt really good and both dogs behaved very well (they are both males). I got very motivated and am really looking forward to next week when we meet again. We are gonna join the local dog club so we can use their training grounds considering it soon will be dark early at night and we will need access to light. :)

Tomorrow night it's time for WP training again. Should be fun!

Ciao!

Mental/ Temperament Test (MH)

James did his Temperament Test (Mental beskrivning) yesterday; Saturday, September 20, 2008. It went great. It was done at Filipstads Brukshundsklubb and the grader was Klas Nordblom. At the time of the test, Jay was 4 days shy of being 13 months old.

Here's the result (in Swedish only!). Pics further down.

1a. Kontakt - hälsning
R: Överdrivet kontakttagande, ex. hoppar, gnäller, skäller = 5


1b. Kontakt - samarbete
R: Följer med villigt, är överdrivet engagerad i testledaren, ex. hoppar, gnäller, skäller = 5


1c. Kontakt - hantering
R: Accepterar, svarar med överdrivet kontaktbeteende = 5


2a. Lek 1 - leklust
R: Startar snabbt, leker aktivt = 4


2b. Lek 1 - gripande
R: Griper tveksamt eller med framtänderna = 3


2c. Lek 1 - dragkamp
R: Griper direkt m. hela munnen & drar emot tills testledaren släpper = 4


3a. Jakt - förföljande
R. Startar med hög fart, målinriktad - bromsar in vid bytet = 4
R. Startar med hög fart, målinriktad - bromsar in vid bytet = 4

3b. Jakt - gripande
R: 1*Griper tveksamt eller med tidsfördröjning = 3
R: 2*Griper direkt, släpper = 4


4a. Aktivitet
R: Är uppmärksam och i huvudsak lugn. Enstaka aktivitetshöjningar = 3


5a. Avst. Lek - intresse
R: Intresserad, följer figuranten utan avbrott = 3


5b. Avst. Lek - hot/agg.
R: Visar enstaka (1-2) hotbeteenden under momentets första del = 2


5c. Avst. Lek - nyfikenhet
R: Går fram till den dolda men talande figuranten = 3


5d. Avst. Lek - leklust
R: Griper direkt. Drar emot. Släpper ej = 5


5e. Avst. Lek - samarbete
R: Är aktiv med figuranten när denne är aktiv = 3


6a. Överraskn. -rädsla
R: Hukar sig och stannar = 2


6b. Överraskn. - hot/agg.
R: Visar inga hotbeteenden = 1


6c. Överraskn. - nyfikenhet
R: Går fram till overallen när föraren gått halva avståndet = 4


6d. Överraskn. - kvarstående rädsla
R: Ingen tempoförändring eller undanmanöver = 1


6e. Överraskn. - kvarstående intresse
R: Inget intresse = 1


7a. Ljudkänsl. - rädsla
R: Gör undanmanöver utan att vända bort blicken = 3


7b. Ljudkänsl. - nyfikenhet
R: Går fram till skramlet utan hjälp = 5


7c. Ljudkänsl. - kvarstående rädsla
R: Ingen tempoförändring eller undanmanöver = 1


7d. Ljudkänsl. - kvarstående intresse
R: Stannar upp. Luktar/tittar på skramlet vid ett tillfälle = 2


8a. Spöken - hot/agg.
R: Visar flera hot-beteenden under längre tid = 3


8b. Spöken - kontroll
R: Kontrollerar/handlar mot spökena. Kortare avbrott = 4


8c. Spöken - rädsla
R: Uppehåller sig i huvudsak framför eller bredvid föraren. Någon avståndsreglering = 2


8d. Spöken - nyfikenhet
R: Går fram till spöket när föraren gått halva avståndet = 4


8e. Spöken - kontakt
R: Tar kontakt själv. Balanserad = 4


9a. Lek 2 - leklust
R: Leker aktivt, startar snabbt = 4


9b. Lek 2 - gripande
R: Griper försiktigt eller nyper i föremålet = 3


10. Skott
R: Visar ingen berördhet. Snabb kontroll sedan helt oberörd = 1


Below are some pics from the test.


Above: 2 ghosts showed up from different directions... Jay is taking a good look at them. :)

Above: This overall was pulled up right in front of Jay.

Above: Sudden loud noise. He got scared but immediately walked up to the source and checked it out.