Where do I even start?

I feel like Rugby has soo much to share today I am not sure where to start. I suppose we will start with our video from the other day doing our Open exercises. Our new dumbbells are not going to be here until Tuesday so Ellie was kind enough to let us borrow one of hers.

We decided it was time to break in the new jumps a little bit today. We love them!! We got them from K9 Fun Works.  First Rugby used his open jumps for the pictures. We got a bar jump too, and set it up yesterday but since none of us today are working at utility yet we didn’t use it for our pictures.

The other dogs were just starting jumps so they got their repetitions in for the day too.

Brandy, the Kerry Blue Terrier, is sooo funny to watch! She really loves to jump and since she is a bouncy terrier and she looked like a deer going over the jump.

Anya comes with Brandy, and she works Ellie in the Thursday night classes. She started off with Ellie and switched a couple times (turns out it is harder to wear out a kid than it is to wear out the dogs!).

Random, but cute kiss from Brandy to her owner while waiting their turn.

She switched to Black, the PWD, but didn’t work him for too long because he is an old man and we thought he might have a heart attack or at least get too stiff if he was worked for too long.

  

By this time we were running out of dogs for her so for her last dog of the day, she switch to Rugby. Just because he could do it, for the first time over she left him on one side of the jump and called him to her on the other side.

Sydney took Ellie over again after she was done with Blue and able to rest a bit from her first session.

Then I had him hold his dumbbell, and she ran him over it a few more times.

Last but certainly not least, is a video of Rugby retrieving Sanity’s dumbbell. I absolutely LOVE this video of him. Margot has it up on her blog, along with an explanation of what motivated us to make the video. 

http://sanityshome.blogspot.com/2009/12/mighty-maltese.html

Even though the jumps aren’t being used in the video they are set up…although I think maybe now I am beating a dead horse with all the jump pictures!

Thanks so much for the wonderful jumps Dina!!!

The package has arrived

Rugby’s Christmas present of portable obedience jumps has finally arrived. We haven’t set them up yet since we are at my dad’s house but CAN’T WAIT to set them up tomorrow. Once we do we will take pictures of Rugby putting them to good use (at least the open jumps).

Meanwhile, Rugby was tortured tonight while I was playing with my computer. Here is a picture of my dad, me and Rugby. Rugby was chewing on one of his candy cane rawhides from Christmas.

Attractive, Right? ..I know. LOL

Rugby did an open run through this morning with Pete, Brandy and Ellie. I think he did pretty good, just needs some more polishing. I think he is lagged a bit on the outside circle of the figure 8, but sometimes it is hard for me to tell since he is so little. We took a video. Hopefully I can either get it from Margot or convince her to put it online somewhere. *cough cough* :p

I think we have sort of hit a plateau on our swing finish. He just doesn’t really like to do it, and kind of hates it I think. Just like everything else I guess we just need to practice it more. He is doing it off leash (mostly) so maybe I should just be happy with his progress so far.

We have been spending some extra time on fronts and finishes and I think it is starting to pay off. It isn’t a ‘steady’ or ‘reliable’  improvement just yet, but he is starting to think about it, I can tell. The frequency of straightness is increasing!

We have been playing around with a moving stand just since so much of the same thing gets boring. He does it pretty good, but… I was flipping through our Koehler book the other day and I think I am giving the wrong hand motion. So we are stopping until we can ask what it is we are actually supposed to be doing. That way I don’t screw us up too bad.

You can't say we don't practice!

Rugby and I spent about an hour outside today working, and walking around the neighborhood. Unfortunetely, Rugby's dumbbell didn't make it through the training sesison. After the first throw...this is what we were left with.

I guess it is time for a new one, or maybe two.

Merry Christmas (0 Days...)

25 Days is a long time! I am glad we stuck with it though. I found out 25 is higher than I can count, since I messed it up so many times! Rugby will be glad to not have his picture taken for a couple of days!

It was kind of fun, and a good excuse to carry my camera around for opportune moments.

Christmas was wonderful today. Rugby was the only one that volunteered to play outside with my cousin. He ran circles around him and my cousin seemed quite amused. The snow has finally melted enough that Rugby can get the most out of it.

Technically, his christmas presents were his monkey sweater and the blue jacket that he was wearing in some of the snow pictures. My dad also bought him some portable obedience jumps!! Even though they weren't here yet for Rugby to open this morning, he is awaiting their arrival.

I hope everyone else had a very merry Christmas as well!!

Santa's Coming (1 Day...)

Winter Wonderland (2 Days...)

I went through the pictures from yesterday and I decided on a little less than 70 pictures that were worthy of sharing. I already know I take too many pictures, and I also know that I am not putting 70 pictures onto Rugby's blog.

Then my problem was that I couldn't decide on wether to share the ones of Sanity trying hard to convince Rugby and Ellie to play with her too...

Or the ones of Rugby terrorizing Blue, the PWD, and her giving him warning teeth...

Or the ones of him ambushing the poor, unsuspecting Ellie...

Or the ones of the two munchkins having a good time together...

Soo, here are ALL the pictures.

Rugby's practice playing in the snow was put to good use. Ellie wouldn't go in the snow except when I tricked her, and then she would run right back out. Rugby and Sanity were the only ones that would venture out in it. Ellie changed her mind when Sydney came and stomped down a snow path for her and the two little ones ran back and forth in it. :p

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A random story from this morning -

My mom is in general not a dog person. She loves Rugby but only because she doesn't have to take care of him and he is mostly well behaved. It took a couple of years of convincing for me to persuade her to let me get a dog in the first place.

Rugby followed her upstairs while she was brushing her teeth and getting ready this morning. A side note: Rugby has a strange obsession with the toilet..he likes to look in there every chance he gets for no apparent reason. So while she was brushing her teeth he got up on his hind legs and peeked into the toilet. My mom took this to mean that he was thirsty (???). When she was done she came down and told me this herself - that my dog was thirsty and he needed water. To this I replied that he had a whole bowl of water on the floor and if he was thirsty, there was nothing from stopping him from drinking the whole thing.

This is the good part...

Then she said to me, "Yeah, but that is warm water." She proceeded to empty the entire bowl and refill it with water from the fridge.

Rugby didn't go over to drink it.

Friends (3 Days...)

Rugby had a  wonderful day today. We took lots and lots of pictures, but I won't have time to go through them all untill later. Here is our red and green picture for the day untill I have sorted through the others.

For those who havent met these two - The yorkie is Ellie and the italian greyhound is Caesar. :)

Snow Man (4 Days...)

Don't ask me how I skrewed up my countdown again. I am just not good at these things, what can I say?

Rugby took his pants off  found some Mardi Gras beads laying around the house. They were so big I had to cross them THREE times for them to hang around his neck like so, and you can see how big they still are on him. More importantly than beads, we went outside again to play in the snow again today. It didn't seem as deep where we were today and Ruby did a little better with it.

He was so excited, he left me behind at first.

But then came back to yell at me for being too slow.

On the way out, Rugby caught a whiff of something good from the parking lot...

and went over to check it out. That was untill I told him it better not do it.

So he shook it off to focus on playing.

Once we were in the snow, he couldn't keep up as well and ended up behind me.

I think he wanted that leaf!

Or maye not...he just passed it up?

He was being very talkative today, that is why his mouth is half open in almost all of the pictures.

***rolls eyes***

By the time we got back inside, he was practically a walking snow man!! :O

Precipitation (6 Days...)

 

We got a bit of snow yesterday. A little more than a bit - somewhere right around 20 inches of snow. Considering this is Maryland, and we hardly ever get more than a couple inches this is pretty unusual. Rugby while in the snow that he has been in before has LOVED it. He even loved it last night when I took him into the partially plowed streed to play. He was unhappy about how much we got yesterday though. He just can't get around easy enough. The ONLY way he can get through the snow by following in my footsteps, and even that isn't easy.


He made it as far as this tree, then he stopped to tell me he really couldn't get through!

He decided he would come only as long as we were headed towards the house.

Sloooowly making his way...

"You still coming inside??"

Then had to warm up a little with his snuggie.

Just a quick video of Rugby playing in the snow last night. We were playing in the street since that is the only place Rugby could have any fun. :p

Just Wait (7 Days...)

I am so incredibly excited today. The weathermen were calling for us to get up to 2 feet of snow this weekend and I just woke up to head off to work, and they were actually right for once. Can't tell from my window but there is at least a couple inches out there already. Only bummer is that I don't think Rugby and I will have too much time to play in it until Sunday. I HOPE HOPE HOPE it sicks around till then because Rugby LOVES the snow.

Jake was chosen specifically to accompany Rugby in his picture today because of dog class the other night. One of the games we played for Christmas was to see who could balance a treat on their nose for the longest. Jake was denied participation because a specific two-legged said he was incapable. Jake's ego was hurt by this and we had to prove that he was indeed capable of holding still enough to balance the treat on his nose.

A testament to how well he did balancing the treat is that I was the one both putting the treat on their noses, and taking the picture so he at leas had to hold still long enough for me put it on there, get the camera, and take the pictures. The first two time we tried he wasn't that good at it and only lasted about 15 seconds or so. It was only long enough for me to get the silly only Jake photos that are on here. Third times a charm though, and this time he held it on there for probably 2 minutes or so, long enough for me to get all of these pictures. with both him and Rugby.

Being as competitive as we are, I am glad Jake didn't participate because he might just have won! I *think* Rugby timed out at 30 seconds the other night, before it fell off. I can't remember if Pete or Brandy won, but they both beat Rugby's time.

The pictures with Jake were no problem for Rugby since he doesn't notice that there was even a treat on his face (Yes, even this humongous one...I am fairly certain he was oblivious). I posted about him not catching treats that I threw at him before...or even attempting. Balancing on the nose is kinda along those lines since even when it falls off, he just stares at me blankly. I think he is a lost cause! You can see how un-amused he is in the pictures. :p

That would be it - proof!

And completely irrelevant, but last night Rugby went to bed without me for the first time! I was staying up doing pictures (what else?) and he was laying on his dog bed more or less by my feet and once it got to be 10:30 or so he was no where to be found. Funny part is he didn't even go get in one of his three beds he has in my room...he got in MY bed. By the time I got there he was all stretched out, belly up in MY spot too. He didn't even get up when I lifted the covers to get in and he rolled to the other side of the bed! :p What an old man Rugby is getting to be! No more staying up late for him!