Preparing Blue for Petit Prix

A week ago, Saturday, August 1, we had a couple of our local folks here for Games Camp. This is an annual event designed to introduce campers to games strategies.

This year it turned into Petit Prix prep for five of us.  Vicki and her beagles Elmer and Quigley, Jackie and her min pin Baxter, Kristen and her golden Griffin, Bud and his shelter Hazard, and I and my all american Blue played all sorts of games for 4 days.

We had a few other locals join us for a session or two but, for the most part, it was the four of us clawing our way through the complications of games.

My goals were:  1) partner up with Blue and re-establish our working relationship,  2) strengthen my knee by using it and putting pressure on in small increments,  3) continue my healthy eating habits while cooking for camp,  4) learn the speed at which Blue works in preparation for WHO DARES WINS, the final round of the Petit Prix.

I met my goals.  Blue is becoming more clingy to me and her behavior began evening out over the 4 days.  I only had to pop a couple of Aleve to keep the pain away, and was able to get in a swimming session during camp.  We had frozen fruit instead of ice cream at camp, though I did offer apple pie one night and Vicki brought a luscious chocolate treat the last night of camp. My calculations of Blue’s pace for our WHO DARES WINS game was spot on, though our performance broke down on day 4 while Blue did some floor sniffing.

Blue’s floor sniffing may be caused by a couple of things — my stress and its effect on my voice is probably the main cause of the sniffing — second might be the 2×2 weavepole protocol with food tossed onto the mats of the building.

I played a bit with toy tossing / tugging two days ago and will try to substitute that for the food toss in an effort to eliminate that reason for floor sniffing.

My stress?  Well I’m just going to have to handle that myself.

In other news …. I mowed both cottage properties and the agility field yesterday. After 2-1/2 hours of mowing the belt broke on my favorite mower, so I’m going to have to get creative until the belt gets replaced. Today is going to be hot, so I doubt if I’ll be mowing on foot with a walk-behind mower, but stranger things have happened. <g>

I’m going to prep the guestrooms for Jim Dwertman and Margaret Hendershot today. Jim will be with us beginning Monday evening, and Margaret will join us next Friday to secretary the trial and run her dogs.

During the games camp, Kristen and I worked at cleaning up the training building. We got all the books off tables and onto book shelves, straightened the Live to Run Again audio book library, and rearranged the retail area.

We set up a table for Margaret, got the ribbons and toys ready for the trial, and cleaned the honor bar area. Bud brought a counter top and base units out of the basement for a little “kitchenette.”

On Thursday Bud took our old television set, which worked beautifully but was replaced by a more modern flat screen which fits into our new cherry armoire. This old set weighs perhaps 250 pounds, is a cabinet model, and refused to quit running.  Bud put it on a dolly and, with the help of my Mom and I, pulled it to the edge of the road where he put a sign on it that said, “FREE, WORKS.”

We then took bets on how long it would sit there.  Mom bet 12 hours.  Bud bet 24 hours. I was tempted to go for 12+ hours but decided, instead, to say it would be gone in less than 7 hours. We finished this conversation, walked outside to head to the hardware store for screen repair materials, and into the driveway came the future owner of the television set. I think 15 minutes has GOT to be a record of some sort. This fellow took the TV and the signs as packing material.

Yesterday Bud decided to clean out the shed. Because of the success of the television set he just lined stuff up by the road. “FREE STUFF” was his sign. He’d take a load to the road and, in 30 minutes, that stuff would be gone — sign and all.

With his second load he took a glass jar that said “TIPS – HONOR JAR” — in 30 minutes that mess was all gone, including his sign AND the empty honor jar.

He’s diligently working in the shed again today, sorting glass bottles for me to recycle, and probably seeing if he can’t sprinkle the neighborhood with more of our junk by lining it up along the highway.

Tags: 2-Minute puppy training, basic dog obedience, Bud Houston, dog agility, dog performance sports, dogs in motion, Marsha Houston, TDAA, teacup agility