Our New Home

http://kelpiepaws.wordpress.com

Yep. I've jumped ship.

New Year Coming Up

And a new blog, I think.

Still deciding whether to jump ship to Wordpress or stay with Blogger, but it's happening.

January first, this blog's going to not be touched anymore.

I will linkage the new blog for anyone who might be reading this and curious about where we'll be making our new home, but apart from that I can't really be bothered updating this before I leave it.

So ta-da :D

La Di Da...

So.

I've been really bad with updating this.

There's a few extra videos I've uploaded to YouTube that I haven't even bothered to embed in here. That's how slack I've been. Can't even be arsed to simply embed a video or two.

I'm considering making a move from Blogger to Wordpress, simply because I'm feeling so uninspired with this blog and it seemed to get caught up a bit in my other, unrelated, fairly depressing crap. I've got a blog started there (well... if "started" means a URL) and am going to have a fiddle with the design and layout and see if I can navigate the site as a whole before deciding definitely.

But to make a conscious effort to put something semi worthwhile in this blog for the time being, a few updates.

I've been super organised and entered the ADAA Dusk 'Til Dawn trial for the 31st Dec/1st Jan. I'll prattle on more about that a bit later in another post at another time. Can't really think too coherently for a really long post at 12:30AM. I've also got entries ready for posting for my first five trials for next year: one day out of the last weekend in January and then every weekend in February, I do believe. After Charlie's superb performance at the Purple Fundraiser a couple of weeks ago, I'm feeling so pumped for trialling in 2012 and I've got a really good feeling about us maybe- hopefully- making some actual, marked progress.

Zeke turned seven months yesterday- or rather make that two days ago since it's now Wednesday.

I need to go and sleep. My sleep schedule is so unbelievably fucked up. I'm slowly becoming nocturnal.

Anyway. So he turned seven months and I'm starting to finally get over the month or so of... issues... I had towards him. Given that it's fading now, I think it had something to do with his age and what age he was coming up to being- and anyone who's known me for at least, say, the past year will understand what that's all about. I just didn't feel motivated to do anything with him, didn't want to spend time with him- when I did do something it was a spur of the moment burst of enthusiasm and as soon as it waned I'd just not want to be around him at all.

It doesn't seem to have hurt him, though, the few weeks of "neglect". He had his most successful puppy gym class last night and I didn't have to put him in the crate in between activities since he was actually staying switched on and not losing the plot; I think he's finally getting to the stage where he can cope with working for such a long period of time. If he's not working- so doing some shaping or focus or being in his crate- he goes looking for work and that usually means trying to play with every dog around him, going psycho with pent up frustration and energy and becoming this zooming demon on the end of the leash.

Not pretty.

But he did really well. Obviously still was his usual hyperactive, overly friendly self, but he offered me focus after every "OMG I WANNA GRAB YOU WITH MY FEEEEETS" moment and was enthusiastic about doing every task.

Fingers crossed for a similar performance from him tonight at our second last Rally One class. I think I want to keep him back in for the start of next year and redo it, just so he's a bit older- he'll probably be about ten/eleven months by the time we graduate second time around- and we have more time to get the stuff we've learned perfected because I know, having been there with Charlie, rushing through it when it's all "pretty much there" gets us having to go right back to the beginning again and fix really stupid mistakes and bad habits.

I had some other stuff I wanted to prattle on about, but I can't think at the moment. Blurgh.

I should go and sleep.

Zeke Training: Twenty Six Weeks

WAAG 19th November 2011

Zeke's Six Months Old Tomorrow

I Need More Imaginative Titles For These Things

Thundershirt has been dispatched via Express Post, thank heavens, so I should have it tomorrow or Thursday. Since WAAG's next Saturday I was getting a bit concerned that it wouldn't have cleared customs in time, but crisis averted- and I have a ten per cent discount off my next Waggle purchase for the trouble. Shame I have no spare money at the moment.

So I just wanted to have a ramble about something that's rather quite exciting.

Actually found a use for iCal. Happy days.

But it's not just that I've found a use for iCal that's exciting, it's those yellow boxes. I went through and managed to semi-decode the proposed CCCQ trial dates for 2012 and those yellow boxes are ones that should or definitely are ones local. Look at all the pretty highlighted boxes! Apart from January, November and December, since that's when trialling is starting up or winding down for the year as usual, I could be trialling the majority of weekends every month.

How. Fucking. Awesome.

And that's not even counting all the ADAA comps I want to go along to next year. WAAG's the closest, but PADS and BAAD aren't too far a trip away so I'll probably go along to them and I would absolutely love to go down to Tamworth for at least the ADAA Grand Prix next year.

I'm determined to finish off my last eleven hours and fifteen minutes of driving on my Ls before the end of this year so I can polish up on my non-existent parking skills, scrape together some money and go for my Ps in January which will leave me free to borrow one of the cars and take myself off to trials whenever I so please. I'm aiming to have enough money saved up for a car by the end of next year at the very latest, so that'll be good eventually as well.

With the end of the year drawing to a close, I'm starting to again think about goals for next year with Charlie and trialling- given all the opportunities at runs we're going to have, I'm aiming for at least one quallie in novice agility. I'd absolutely love to finally get into ADX, but if we just get the one Q in AD I will be absolutely over the moon. I can't wait to see whether the Thundershirt helps him keep his head at WAAG and the Purple Trial because that could very well be the only problem why he doesn't get his contacts- he's just too wound up to. If we get over the one bar wonder, our JDX title is very, very do-able for next year as well. I don't know if we'll have enough gamblers runs for his GDX title, but if we do that's another very realistic possibility since gamblers is our domain :P ADO might be a bit of a stretch, but if we iron out the "thou shall only do ten poles" attitude Charlie has, the final four (should be two but something in my room eats Q cards) quallies for our JDO title could be done and dusted as well.

ADAA titles still confuse me so I won't even think about goals for that.

Zeke shall be starting a bit more of a focused approach towards his agility foundation once I've finished school (next weekend officially) and he'll be six months old this coming Monday so it seems like a good place to start. He's very reward focused and that makes him a bit of a velcro doggy who doesn't look where he's going, so we'll be doing a lot of work towards getting him to run with me without needing the toy out on the ground and having me hold it instead. I'm thinking about pulling him from the tricks class we do on Tuesday nights and changing him into the puppy gym; I kind of want to do my own thing, though, and even though I know the instructor really well I'm not sure whether I should be in the class if I'm going to want to skip certain things or do other things my own way.

Buuuut, we'll see.