The Illusive Merf

Bleys merfs. When he is sleeping and dreams he makes a suppressed barking sound we have called the merf. I've been trying forever to capture this piece of adorableness for years, but have met with limited success. This video is the best I've been able to come up with so far. You make have to turn up your sound to hear what I 'm talking about.

River Walk

Mom and Bleys
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Back in Big Rapids mom and I took a walk on the now completed River Walk. I think its been done for a while, but I haven't seen it so it was new to me. It was a very nice walk and here near the end we saw some brave tubers (it was a little on the chilly side that day) getting into the water. You may not be aware, but Big Rapids is the tubing capital of Michigan. Impressed, aren't you?

Readyyyyyyy

Our next trek took us to Hastings, Michigan for our first U-Fli event. We mostly just wanted to check it out and have a little fun. We ran singles on Friday night and with a pick up team on Saturday. The other team members were mostly from Overdogs, but we did race once with a Rude Dog named Melee. Everyone there was very nice, totally welcoming, and it was a great time. Bleys was the height dog and measured at 6" (which is the lowest height available and quite a bit lower than he runs in NAFA). Bleys earned his Top Flight title and got a sweet squeaky toy out of the deal. The racing situation was a little different than Florida with the crating outside. But it did make the racing arena a little quieter...not a lot, mind you, but a little. Most teams camped out in RVs right at the site and used those as their crating area. We set up in an open pole barn across from the racing building. It was just fine, but I would imagine it might get a little hot sometimes. My Mom even stopped by for a while to check it out. It was really nice to have her see it!

Baroo

While in Kalamazoo we stayed with Jason who allowed us to crash his place whenever we needed to. He has a nice big back yard which Bleys really appreciated. He got to run around a lot more than he does down here. There is a fun picture over at Flickr of him running. He's a little blurry, but I just feel like he was having a really good time after two days in the car. Here he discovers that Roland is up on the deck.

Otter puppy

Otter puppy
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

After flyball yesterday a couple of us went over to a place not too far from practice that has a dog swim area. We had an awesome time and Bleys really enjoyed cooling off in the water. There are quite a few pictures over at flickr, including some using the series feature of my new camera. Bleys doesn't realize that he can jump into water so he didn't get a series. But Jubilee (black lab) and Jake (rat terrier) both have some fun shots of leaping for toys.

Spring Fling

We attended another Flyball tournament this past weekend so I've been out of town since Friday. It was a really nice time although the facility just wasn't designed to hold that many people. The air conditioning really struggled to keep up, especially on Saturday when it was very sunny. The building is pretty much a metal box so it acts like an oven. Bleys didn't start racing until almost half-way through the day so he also struggled. He was pretty slow and we ended up spending quite some time out in the car's air conditioning at the end of the day. Sunday was better because at least part of the day was overcast, and Bleys started racing right off the bat. Bleys did very well for himself and I think everyone had a good time. Roland even ran Bleys for a couple of races! Although I'm not really sure how that went because I had to hide. If Bleys saw me, I'm pretty sure he would forget about the racing and try to come over and say hello instead! That's what happens at practice anyway.

Roland and I took quite a few pictures and for the most part they didn't turn out too badly. I'm still unhappy with the noise, but I'll have to experiment some more to see if changing some settings will allow a better result. A few of pictures are over at Flickr (click on the above picture), but most of them are at the Storm Riders website.

Now Bleys is at a new puppy boarding place and Roland and I are preparing to go up to Disney to see his parents, sister, niece, and brother-in-law. We will be back on Friday and then I'm going to just say no to traveling for a few weeks before we start our trek up to Michigan in mid-June.

Proofs

If you are interested, the professional pictures from the tournament are now available. There are a lot of them to sift through though. If you click here you can choose Saturday or Sunday and then click on any folder with SR somewhere in the title (for instance the second folder on Saturday "02 BOI-SR"). If you aren't so keen on that you can check out this folder of the pictures that Roland and I chose to get. There were some additional pictures that I liked, but it seemed like 5 was plenty to purchase...probably more than enough.

Other fun pictures include this one when I got to run Ace a couple of times, and this one of a pretty nice pass between Hannah and Cagny. I also like this one of Scotty and his "but I want both" conundrum. Ooh, or this one, this one, and this one of Deuce, Ace, and Jake showing just how far ahead of the jump they leave the ground.

Back to the Future

Pensacola is in a different time zone. Did you know that? I didn't, until the flyball team decided to go to a tournament there. It was quite a drive so some of the team didn't really want to go that far. That was an advantage for me because that meant Bleys might get some more time to run. And he did. The team was way too nice and rearranged the teams on Sunday so that Bleys could run a bunch on a team that could make up for his slower times. He earned his FD (Flyball Dog) and FDX (Flyball Dog Excellent) titles thanks to their generosity. Bleys did pick up his speed a tiny bit once he was more comfortable with things, but he is still a good 3 seconds too slow to really be a good contributor to a team. If he gets the whole catching the ball from the box thing down (which we are making progress on) I think that will help, but I just don't know how fast he will ever be.

As an added bonus there was a professional photographer there. He took really nice pictures of all the dogs and got some nice ones of Bleys. I ordered some, but they won't be ready for three weeks or so. He does have a website where the pictures (untouched) will be available for viewing and I'm sure for purchase, but they aren't up there yet. He said probably by tomorrow or Thursday. When they are up I'll post a link so you can check them out if you want to!

The other new dog who ran did amazing! Jake is a tricolored rat terrier who has been learning flyball for about a year and a half, he started about 6 months before Bleys did. He had some set backs early on with a little fear of popping the box, but it looks like he's really got it and boy is he a fast little guy. He's going to rival Kodi (one of the other height dogs on the team) for speed and cute factor. He did passing like a pro and was super fast!

All this really got me to thinking on the way home. It's not really fair to ask the team to do all that special arranging for Bleys on a regular basis, especially since there is another dog who is slow like Bleys, but who has been on the team longer. If they are going to build a team around a slower dog it should be her, and I don't know that they want to in the first place. It is a competitive sport after all. I've already committed to going to the tournament at the end of May, so I think I will still go, but maybe I'll just help out with boxloading, stats, and pictures.

Sproing

Sproing
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Roland took some really nice pictures at practice today. He also ran Bleys for the first half of practice. We should have left it that way since when I took over Bleys didn't do very well. I worry that we might be starting to see some of the exercise intolerance that accompanies a worsening of his heart murmur. We will just have to wait and see, but I'm trying to prepare myself for the fact that we might not be attending too many more tournaments. We can still play on Sundays, but if he stops enjoying it... There are some more pictures over in my Flickr stream if you're interested.

Practice

Shutter Lag
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Today we had flyball practice and we took my new camera. I didn't have much time to take pictures but Roland managed to get in a few. Including this one that shows the camera has a little shutter lag. We also found out that Julie and John are engaged! Julie is one of the ladies on the team and John started coming to practice when they started dating. Congratulations John and Julie.

One of our long distance team members drove down for a Disc Dog competition yesterday and practice today, so after practice we all drove our dogs home and then met up for lunch. I took some pictures there, but they weren't very good (you can still check them out at flickr). I still have a lot to learn about my camera and taking good indoor shots appears to be one of them. I think I'm going to have to spend some time with the instruction manual and have a chat with my Dad about how to handle it.

Intro

For my birthday this year I asked for a nice digital camera. I have a really great pocket camera that I got as a hand-me-down from my Mom, but I wanted one that wasn't all about the size. I wanted some more features, increased zoom, better pixel density (my little one is only 3 mp), the ability to manually chance the aperture size and shutter speed. I decided against an DSLR because of the cost and my ability level. Anyway, here is one of the first pictures with my new snazzy camera. Of course the first thing I look to take a picture of is the fuzz-bucket. Isn't he anerable?

Pincushion

Bleys is officially back in action! We got a pass today to go back to regular activity after his appointment this morning. We are going to do more warming up before running and at least for a while we will be jumping only the lower jump heights. But all in all he should be mended. We are going back in 3 weeks for a checkup, but other than that we are all systems go. Bleys will be delighted since he is getting pretty antsy sitting around the apartment so much.

While we were at our appointment I took a couple of pictures of my favorite pincushion.

Corner

Corner
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Photogamer hasn't been providing new prompts lately but someone on the discussion section posted one today. Take a picture of a corner.

Demo

This one was taken a while ago, but I seem to have forgotten to upload it. It was taken by one of the other people on the flyball team at the warm-up for the demo at Happy Tails Park. Bleys didn't actually get to run in the demo because I was doing the talking, but he did get to warm up before hand. Look at those ear flap! This was the day that he tripped over his ear hair a bit and I decided to trim them. I miss those long ears though.

Ret to go

The other day Bleys decided that he wanted to go to work with Roland. After getting ready in the morning he walked into the living room to find this, Bleys was totally already ready already. He was all up in his travel crate waiting to be whisked away to the land of eternal college-girls-who-think
-he-is-adorable-and-aren't-in-a-place-where-they-can-have-
pets-of-their-own. Puppy heaven.

Message

Apparently the weather has been busy in Colorado. Janice sent me some pictures around her house of all the snow they got. My favorite was this one.

In other news Bleys is doing a little better. I took him to a different vet yesterday on the recommendation of some of my fellow dog people down here. One of them is a lady who does pet therapy with me at the Renfrew center, and the other two are on the flyball team. They all recommended this lady separately which made me take notice. She specializes in rehabilitation and recovery and I was hoping that she could tell me more than give him drugs and wait. She was really nice and reminded me quite a bit of Doc. She actually did some acupuncture which was kind of neat to see. I was ready to be all skeptical of the results but when we came home Bleys totally slept like a rock. He hasn't been sleeping very well since Monday, getting up a lot and re-situating himself. So it was nice to see him actually get some real sleep.

Then today he is obviously feeling much better. Now we are going to have to keep him from being too active. He doesn't understand that I would rather put him on the couch than him jump up there, but we are working on it. I'm just glad that he seems to be able to wag his tail again.

Dumps

Bleys isn't doing very well. Yesterday morning he just wasn't acting himself. He wasn't all excited about getting up in the morning and not really very keen on eating (major red flag for him). I decided to give it a day to see if it was just a little stomach upset after what I'm sure was a super fun weekend hanging out with his girl Jubilee. However this morning he wasn't any better and eschewed breakfast all together. So it was off to the vet for us. After narrowing it down a bit we went through a series of x-rays. Although they were not conclusive the vet thinks Bleys is having trouble with his back, probably one of the thoracic discs.

I'm trying to hang on to the upside, which is that he doesn't need surgery. That would be bad because of his heart murmur (which was not evident today, but the x-ray did show a slightly enlarged heart). The down side is that he is on restricted movement. No stairs (oh wait, we live on the third floor), preventing him from jumping on and off the couch/bed, and no flyball. People can make fun of me for living through my dog, but it's the flyball that makes me the saddest at the moment. I really enjoy it and he has such a fun time with all the other dogs and people.

Nose

Nose
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Photogamer: take a picture of a nose. Bleys' nose is way cuter than mine, and much easier to take a picture of.

Fake

Photogamer for the day: Take a picture of something fake. My first impulse was to take a picture of some fake potatoes. Unfortunately we didn't have any in the house. Roland suggested I take make some mashed cauliflower, but that was little more effort than I was willing to put in. So I went for my fake fur blanket. But any time there is a blanket involved Bleys has to come take a look. So here is some fake fur with some real fur on top.

Look, they match!

I ended up with a whole lot of stuff I needed to take to the demo so I decided to make myself a little present. I wanted to make it in blue, but the only blue shades I liked were too dark to the Cavalier embroidery to show up. So I went with navy-red, in a nice micro-suede. It's quite roomy, and I thought it turned out nicely. The only thing I don't really like this that when it's empty it's a little bit floppy for my liking. I used the stiffest interfacing I could find, but what I really need is a specialty interfacing that is a bit expensive and I would have to order online. But seriously isn't that puppy just adorable?

Jumping to Digital

I couldn't resist trying again with my digital camera while I was at the dog park today.

Jumping

I had a few pictures left over on the cheap film camera so when I took Bleys to the dog park I tried to use them up. I ended up with some not so great ones, and then this one that made we wish I had taken my digital camera with me. Or that I had whatever camera my fellow flyballer Andrea has. She took some really nice portraits of the flyball dogs. You should totally check them out here.

Yet another sleeping picture

You may wonder why so many of my pictures of Bleys are of him sleeping. I think it is partly because he is so completely anerable when he is tired, and part of it is that way he isn't moving so I'm more likely to get a good picture.

A mess of Cavaliers

A while ago I mentioned going to a Holiday party for the Boca Raton Dog Club. It was a very nice time, albeit a little on the loud side as it was held in an old train depot. While there I met a very nice woman who breeds Cavaliers. She invited us over to for a play date sometime. Since January is apparently very busy with her show schedule we made arrangements to meet today. She has a nice house a bit north of here with a large (for around here) fenced in yard. We had a very nice time and Bleys really seemed to enjoy the company of this own kind of dog. Here a some of the pictures I took while we were there.

Asnorable

On the way back from Clearwater yesterday Bleys was in the back seat. We are very lucky because he doesn't mind riding in the car at all. In fact mostly it just makes him sleepy.

I do believe I'm getting tired.

It's gets so hard to keep my eyes open.

I think I'll just rest my head...

And take a little bitty nap.

Therapizing the masses

Last Thursday I participated in a Yuletide parade representing the Humane Society of Broward County Pet Therapy Pack. I wasn't sure exactly what that would mean, but they needed teams and it sounded like it might be fun. It turns out we just walked along the parade route as a group and let some of the people pet our dogs and generally let people know about what pet therapy is about. Roland was nice enough to come along and take pictures. An easy request, or so I thought. Unfortunately by the time our group actually got to being part of the parade it was full dark. Being a trooper he still took a bunch of pictures in hopes that some of them would turn out.

Here we are waiting for the parade to get a move on. The lady in the front was from the group in front of us, a Police Bagpipe and Drum Corps. They were pretty cool to listen to seeing as how we were outside so the volume of the pipes wasn't offensive.

On the left is one of the other teams that walked in the parade with us, Patrice (leaning over) and Max (lying regally at her feet). I originally met Patrice and Max during our training and certification at the humane society class. Max is a beautiful Briard and they also go to the Renfrew center, which is where Bleys and I go.

On the right are Bleys and I, waiting with a cute Rottweiler mix (check out the other pics on Flickr for a picture where this Rottweiler mix has some seriously intense eye-glare). Isn't Bleys resplendent in his tiny green vest? There are a couple more shots that I liked over on my Flickr account, but I kind of been feeling like I've been over doing it on the pictures lately so I will leave off here.

We're taking on water

Alright, this post is going to be picture heavy, because I think my dog is pretty darn cute. Yeah I'm totally biased. While I was gone Roland was awesome and took Bleys to that Splash Adventure thing again and took some great pictures. He had my old camera, which has quite the shutter lag, so it was a little frustrating, but a lot of the pictures turned out really well. We went last year (at a different park) and had a great time. We were at Disney when they did the dog day at the park we went to last year so Roland had to drive a bit longer this time, but it

sounds like a fun time was had by all.

In the first picture, which is much easier to see in the large version over on Flickr, Bleys has three - count them three- tennis balls he is sort of corralling and trying to decide which to bring. At this point he seems to be leaning toward the largest one, which clearly he could never fit in his mouth. But, I guess we should all dream big!

They don't allow you to bring your own toys and they didn't have any small balls, so Bleys ended up settling for a regular sized tennis ball. Still way to big for him, it's hard for him to get it in his mouth. But he will go after it over and over again, until exhausted. When he is swimming he looks much bigger than he really is because all his fur floats out. He looks downright chubby here!

Some of the sporting breed must be left in the Cavalier because I think Bleys likes to have a job to do. I don't suppose his job is to empty the pool of water by carrying it out one coat-full at a time, but he's going to make a go of it. Boy does that little dog soak up a lot of moisture!

Just look at that concentration, this dog is on a mission.

And last, but not least, is my personal favorite. The situation where the dog is soaking wet and looks up at you like he is saying:

"Want a hug?"

Plus, Roland got the added bonus of catching him mid-lick. What a cute little drowned rat! I love him even if much all of his majesty is lost when he gets wet.

On the way to flyball

Bleys and Jubilee on the way to flyball practice this morning. Jubilee did awesome, as expected. She didn't care who she ran for, Derek, me, whoever. As long as there was a ball involved she was fine. Bleys did all right as well. He still gets a little spooked when a dog is coming off the lane and he is supposed to go on it. And he still doesn't grok that it would be great if he actually caught the ball from the box, but it's going well anyway. I think they both had a good time.

Roland was nice enough to join me this morning to help wrangle both dogs and crates and whatnot. It was nice to have him there, but it is very early, so I'm not sure how often it will happen. Oh, and there are a couple other pictures of these two on the way to practice in my Flickr account if you are interested.

Hanging out

After a short morning at the dog park everyone wanted to hang out with Roland. Apparently that's the place to be. I wanted to spend longer at the park, but Jubilee chased about a million tennis balls and frisbees and she was panting really hard and wouldn't take a break. So we came back early. I figure if it comes down to it, we can go back later and use up some more energy.

Stowaway

Roland is at his Georgetown reunion this weekend, however Bleys didn't seems to want him to go. Here he is trying out his chances at stowing away in the luggage.

Peanut Butter Kong

One of Bleys' favorite things in life is a Kong toy filled with peanut butter and then frozen. However, we quickly discovered that if left to his own devices he would get his ears all up in the peanut butter creating quite a sticky mess. So, now before he gets this delectable treat I pull his ears back with one of my hair ties. Admittedly he doesn't appreciate this and it looks pretty silly, but the peanut butter is enough to distract him from the embarrassment of it all.

Watching

Do you ever get that feeling, like you're being watched?

Nosicle

I happened to have my camera within reach last night while we were hanging out. So, I was taking pictures of Bleys and I thought this one turned out pretty well.

As he was trying to nap at the time so he wasn't super appreciative of my activities. He is apparently sensitive to all the beeping and other noises associated with my camera. Every time I focused, took a picture, or changed a setting he had to open his eyes to check out what was going on.

In other news I had a lovely chat with Katie the yesterday. It was really nice to talk with her and it made me miss having close friends I really feel comfortable with. For some reason the people I know down here I just don't feel at ease around. Perhaps I just haven't known them long enough? I don't know. Anyhow, it was nice to talk with her.