Our first USDAA trial

Irie competed in her first United States Dog Agility Association trial this weekend. We've been taking agility classes on and off since I first got Irie several years ago. We got into it mostly because the place I first took her for obedience also did agility and encouraged me to get involved with it as she seemed to have the personality and speed for it. However, we'd never actually gone to a trial. I decided that I'd like to give one a try and see what it was all about, so this weekend we did just that.

I didn't have much of an idea of what to expect, so we only entered one run (most of the dogs were entered in several different categories), so we spent much of the morning watching the other dogs compete, but it was a good learning experience.

On our actual run, we did OK. We were slow and Irie wasn't a big fan of doing the "chute" (basically a closed tunnel), so we ran out of time, but overall, she did pretty well on all the obstacles. So, now, we can return to class understanding more of what the end goal is!

Mostly it's something we both enjoy doing, so while I don't think it's something we'll ever travel far or wide to do or be super competitive in, I don't think this will be our last trial.

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And here are some shots of her jumping. She makes it look so easy!

Parades, puppies and... unicorns???

A sea of green!

Checking out the Dogtown parade - or rather checking out Dogtown since we couldn't really get close enough to actually see the parade.

Ryan's parents came up this weekend too and brought their new doberman puppy, Sammy. 

Tuesday and Sami had a great time wrestling and Sammy had a great time chasing Irie around as she played ball. 

And, last, but certainly not least, Ryan decided to get his mom a tattoo as her Christmas/birthday present. We weren't sure she was going to go for it, but she surprised us all by not only agreeing, but choosing a unicorn. :-) Never a dull moment. 

Why we have toys all over the house...

Irie has recently figured out which drawer we keep their toys in. She now uses her nose to pull out the drawer and select her toy. She then leaves it open enough that Tuesday can get her head in and take her pick. By the end of the day virtually all the toys are spread out throughout the house. 

 Tuesday is a big fan of cat toys for some reason. She particularly likes this one which is just a soft "tail" toy that you can swing around for your cat. Tuesday thinks it's great fun and I love the look on her face when she was caught in the act.

The early aftermath. 

Puppy Photo Shoot

Ryan and I got a new camera this past week and (as fair warning) I think anyone viewing the blog may have to put up with a lot of photos of our dogs as we learn the settings. :-) We've been thinking about getting a DSLR for some time now and recently found an excellent on-line price. I'm beyond excited to be able to take much better action shots and do some continuous shooting to get the pictures I really want. Photography has been a long time hobby of both Ryan and I, but we haven't done much with it in recent years (and neither of us used digital when we learned on our original SLRs), so this should be interesting.

Here are some initial shots of the dogs playing in the backyard and out on a hike yesterday.

Watching Irie wears me out.