Friends, Family and Random Strangers

Remember this contest that I was begging you to vote for?

My video of Frankie was chosen as one of 10 finalists in a PetSmart Charities video contest (you can see the video at the bottom of this post). The winner was then decided by the most public votes received in a two week period. It was a long two weeks of promotion! Every day I emailed all my friends, family and co-workers with the link, reminding them to vote. Every day I texted all my friends with the link and asked them to vote on their phones. About every other day I posted the link on Facebook asking for votes. Here are two of my posts:

 

I posted pleas for votes on the Maricopa Animal Care and Control Facebook page. I found a few other people on Facebook who were in other contests and started voting for them in their contests in exchange for them voting for me.  I posted in the Classified Ads email at my firm asking all the lawyers and staff to vote for me.

In my emails and Facebook posts, I asked people to vote from their desktop computer, their laptop, their phone, their co-workers' computers and their neighbor's computers. I asked people to forward the link to all their friends. And wow, did people do just that! My sister texted me one day saying that she just got home from voting at her next door neighbor's. My dad emailed all his friends and my mom's friends. They went crazy with it, emailing their kids and their friends. My boss, the COO of  our firm, emailed all of our admin team and requested they vote every day. Some lawyers at my firm and a lot of the staff voted daily and passed it on to their networks. Many of my friends posted the link on their facebook pages. People I don't even know had it posted on their Facebook pages to vote for Jill Diamond. My NFBF is a technical trainer and he made his entire class go online to vote at the start of their training. I heard stories like this every day. It was CRAZY! I could not believe the amount of support that was criss-crossing the country (and the world, actually, because one friend was voting from India) for Frankie.

The Bacon Bits having a voting party on the final day:

I kept an eye on the current vote totals all day every day for two weeks. It was quite a roller-coaster ride! I would be leading when I went to bed and then be in second place when I woke up. My main competition was a lady from Indiana. The two of us had a mad race to the finish.

And then on the Monday after voting ended, we got this announcement on the PetSmart Charities Facebook page:

And the winner, with 1,599 total votes, is Jill Diamond and her buddy Frankie! Thanks to Jill and Frankie, a local animal shelter of their choosing will receive a $1,000 donation from PetSmart Charities. Way to go guys! 

 

I have the best friends, family and co-workers EVER! My supporters ROCKED! Thanks to everyone and your 1,599 votes! You guys are awesome!

As promised, here is the video of Frankie:

And here is the video that I entered for Mo that they did not chose as a finalist:

 

Vote for Frankie!

I got two bits of good news last night.

The first bit of good news is that Frankie was chosen as a finalist in the PetSmart Charities High Five for My Pet Adoption contest. Ok, that's a goofy name for a contest, but the prize isn't goofy! The person with the most votes gets a $1000 donation to the shelter where their pet was adopted from. So, please vote!  http://www.petsmartcharities.org/video-contest/    Follow this link, click on the Jill Diamond video, then click VOTE. You don't even have to register! You can vote once a day on each of your devices (PC, laptop, smartphone) through August 3rd. I'm currently in 2nd place so I need all the votes I can get!

The other bit of good news is that Jake was adopted! Woo hoo! I was surprised at how quickly he was chosen. I guess someone saw through his scarred exterior and could that tell he's wonderful. I'll be keeping an eye on the adoptions page to make sure he isn't returned, though. Not everyone finds a torn up couch as humorous as I did. :)

Race Reviews, Part I

I've been busy this spring with a bunch of new mud/obstacle races. They were all in the 5K variety.  Warrior Dash and Rugged Maniac are the big daddies in this arena. I did those last season and reviewed them here. This post starts my reviews of this season's races.

Irvine Lake Mud Run, March 28, Irvine CA
What makes it different: No niche, just a standard mud run.
Did it live up to its marketing: They promised you'd get wet and muddy. We did, so yes, it was exactly what they were selling.

Still foamy well after the foam

The course:  Good. Pretty surroundings, obstacles spread out at good intervals, made use of natural obstacles with the mud and some hills.
Obstacles: The usual - little walls, little mud puddles. The unusual - a huge tube/tunnel/slide into a water pit. The bad - Many of the obstacles were lame. The wait for the tube/tunnel/slide was way too long. We ended up skipping it because it was too cold standing still when you were wet. The good - FOAM! The foam wall was higher than my head! Crazy mud on the edge of the lake that was springy and dense and weird and fun. The obstacles for the first 2/3 of the race were rather boring. The end of the course had a bunch of mud pits one after the other so that was fun.
Organization/Logistics: OK. This wasn't the kind of run where you could go for time, too many people in too small a space. It was a really big race and with the exception of the backup at the tunnel/slide, everything went as smoothly as could be expected with such a crowd.
Fun Factor: Mediocre. The foam was great. Running with my friend Nicole was super-awesome. This was her first race and a good one to start out on. The obstacles weren't too hard, maybe even too easy.  We went straight from this race to the Great Urban Race Santa Monica, so overall a really fun day.
Would I do it again? Probably not. One, it's in California. Two, it was fun once but nothing special enough to do again, unless I was in town and it was free.

Mud pit

Here is a slide show of picture from the whole day:

 
Toro Loco Challenge, April 7, Eloy AZ
What makes it different: Two courses, one is harder and one is easier. Dogs and kids welcome on the easier course. Also, they allowed you to pay for one course and then go do the second course free!
Did it live up to its marketing: Well, dogs were allowed but there weren't two different courses and as far as I could tell there were not easy/hard versions of the obstacles.
Obstacles: The usual - hay bales and tires. The unusual - swinging ropes to cross. The bad - a dry tarp to crawl under. The good - an awesome zip line, a huge mud hill to climb and the the best mud pit in Arizona.
The course: Very poorly marked, there was no way to know where to go next. It included lots of

We got super-muddy!

unnecessary running to make the course longer. Volunteers didn't know anything. No difference between the easy course and the hard course that we could see. No water on the course for earlier waves, one water stop for our later wave.
Organization/Logistics: Terrible. There was no one at the start line for our wave. We didn't even know which way to run - there were obstacles in three different directions. Apparently the bibs didn't arrive in time, the water stations weren't set up in time, some of the obstacles weren't complete in time.  It was so bad that they turned off comments on their facebook page and erased all the bad things people were saying.
Fun Factor: I have to say, it was SOOOO FUN! After we got over the major annoyances of the course not being marked and not knowing what we were supposed to be doing, we had a blast. Our plan was to do the hard course first then go back with Frankie and the Fabig kids and do the easy course. We made up our own route and did most of the obstacles on the first run through. We skipped two that were far away after finding out they were more hay bales. The fun obstacles with the water and the mud were at the end, so we took the dog and the kids and did the race backwards the second time. Frankie has so much fun!
Would I do it again? Absolutely! They are going to try it again on September 15th and I'm in! I'm going to coerce Pat or another dog-less friend to go so Georgie can come too.  They are currently offering half off team registrations, so the price is right.

The whole album with captions can be viewed by clicking here.  Below are just a few of the pictures:

Frankie loved the mud!

He REALLY loved the mud mountain!

Muddy puppy!

Frankie thought it was fun to jump over the irrigation ditch.

Swinging ropes - this was my favorite!

Lots of slippery mud.

Zipline

The zipline ended in a big water pit.

Princess and the Pea

Frankie looks a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps there is a little tiny pea under those 5 beds that is bothering him. What a princess.

Agility in Sedona

I took Frankie and Mo up to Sedona in June for an agility trial. It was a gorgeous weekend, in a beautiful location, with awesome friends. You don't get a backdrop like this for most trials!Frankie:
It's been so long since we've done any agility. We don't go to class anymore and our trial availability is so sporadic. Sometimes I'm amazed that my dogs even remember how to jump! I was able to take the dogs to practice once at Jim's the week before the trial to refresh their memories. Frankie did great. But, Frankie is always great at practice and always cracked-out at trials...so my expectations were low. Based on those low expectations, I would say Frankie did okay. He Q'd 2 out of 10.

It was me who did terrible. For my last 3 runs on Sunday, I forgot the course. All 3 times. It was humiliating. I usually only do one day of a trial weekend. I guess I don't have the mental stamina for 2 full days of agility. Two of those runs I blew were Frankie's jumpers runs. He always Q's in jumpers. Unless I lead him off course. Twice in a row. Boo. If I wasn't a moron, he would have Q'd 4 out of 10.

One major accomplishment - we Q'd in Beginner Trigility! Woo hoo!! Yep, Frankie is a specialist level dog who never could get out of beginner in Trigility. It took him FIVE YEARS! :) Thanks to my random partners for helping us reach this milestone!

Frankie jumping for joy that he will no longer be mocked by his Specialist level peers:
Mo:
The last time I practiced with Mo, she was awesome, doing all the contacts like a pro and almost looking like she was enjoying herself! It was beautiful...and yet she shut down again at the next trial. This practice was horrible. She flew off the teeter and scared the bejeezus out of herself. She fell off the dog walk (yikes!) and scared the bejeezus out of me. She, luckily, did not get hurt. I had zero expectations for Mo at this trial. She blew my expectations away! We had one AWESOME, PERFECT, WONDERFUL run in jumpers. Of course, she was still Slo-Mo, but she was actually moving fast for her. I had my hopes up for her first-ever Q, and I knew that if this run didn't earn one, then she'd never earn one. Alas, no Q. :( When my Slo-Mo runs her very fastest, even with the extra time allowed for being physically challenged and a veteran, she still goes over time by many, many seconds.

Her other events were disastrous. She had to be coaxed to go in the tunnel. She did the weaves, but then shut down and refused any contacts. The fastest she ever moved was after the run was complete - then she'd hustle speedy-quick to the safety of her crate. Poor Mo.

And so I have conceded the fact that Mo is not an agility dog. She is officially retired. Agility helped her gain confidence, especially with strangers and noisy situations, which was the goal, but it is just not something she enjoys. I don't see any future benefits to be gained for her by continuing to ask her to do it.

She may never have gotten a Q in agility, but she sure is pretty:
If you are looking for Q's, don't look at my dogs...look at Vickie's dogs, Conor and Kaylie. Here they are chilling with Frankie, Sheryl and me:
Let's take a look at how many ribbons Frankie and Mo earned this weekend. Two measly ribbons:

Now let's look at how many ribbons Conor and Kaylie racked up. Show offs.

Want to become the most interesting person a dog has ever met? Never underestimate the power of kibble:Seriously. It is hypnotizing!

Be careful what you wish for

I took the dogs hiking on Tuesday morning. When I hike, I like it to look like this:Two doggies walking nicely ahead of me.

Annoyingly, mostly what I got on Tuesday was this:One doggie walking ahead of me and the other was... Where? EVERYWHERE! After a cold rainy weekend, every gecko and mountain critter in the preserve was sunning on a rock. And Frankie found every single one of them and chased them off. Quite the hunter, he is!

He was off to the side of me chasing geckos into the desert:
He was off to the other side of me chasing a squirrel off the cliff:
He frequently came to a dead stop directly behind me too. This time he was staring down a bird:
His timing was also quite annoying. Any time the trail was covered with loose gravel that I could slip on seemed to him like a wonderful time to go running to the end of the leash and pulling me in the opposite direction. My usual 1 hour hike took an extra 20 minutes with all his starting and stopping and changing of direction. I really wished I had left the dogs at home. So annoyed.

But now I'm really wishing I could take the dogs hiking. I can't because Frankie currently looks like this:Later that afternoon, he somehow hurt his right front paw and he is limping around the house like Mo. Poor puppy. Vet visit on Thursday.

Wet. And Cold. And Wet.

This past weekend would have been a good weekend for some of Phoenix's renowned heat and sun. Unfortunately, Mother Nature thought it would be a good weekend for some cold and rain. And some wind. And some cold and rain. Ergh.

On Saturday, I had an agility trial in Tempe with Frankie and Mo. We camp out with our friend Sheryl at trials. She has all the amenities you could ask for...tent, walls, heater. By the end of the day, even this fabulous set up wasn't enough to battle the wet and cold. The day started out okay, there was an absolutely beautiful sunrise, and we thought perhaps we might get lucky and have the rain pass us by.However, later that morning it started to get windy. Really windy. There was so much dust flying around you couldn't even see across the ring. Mo did all her runs in the early morning, so she was done before the wind picked up. This is a good thing because she can't even make time under perfect conditions, if she had to deal with wind or rain, it would take her an hour to finish a course! I thought maybe we'd get a Q this time - she ran (okay...jogged. Oh, okay...walked quickly) through her whole jumpers run. Still, despite all the extra time she is allowed as a veteran and physically challenged dog, she was still over by 3.5 seconds. Slo-Mo, for sure! On her gamblers run, she did an A-frame for me. I was so happy!! This is the first time in a trial that she has even willingly touched a contact! To get a Q she needed 15 points in the first 30 seconds. The course could not have been set up any better for her. A jump (1), an A-frame (5!), the tunnel under the A-frame two times (3 x 2) and then a jump (1). BUZZ! Ergh! Only 13 points were accumulated. I don't think she'll ever get a Q!

Frankie did pretty well, for Frankie. He Q'd 3 out of 5 runs - gamblers and 2 jumpers. I thought he Q'd on one of his standard runs but he was over time. Yes, he spazzed out a bit and wasted time running around like a crack-dog, but I got him back before he went off course.

When we were waiting for our first standard run, a tarp from someone's set-up got stolen by the wind. Frankie and I were right in the path of the flying tarp. Like an idiot, I just stood there watching a full-size blue plastic tarp coming right at us. It was about 3 feet off the ground and as it passed over Frankie's head, he spooked (wouldn't you?!) and simultaneously cowered down and jumped to the left. When he took his next few steps, he was very limpy-limpy and when he was standing he wouldn't put much weight on his back right foot. I decided to let him run to see how it went. He felt no pain (crack-dog, remember) out on the course, so I guess he's ok. He hasn't been limping since but I'll keep an eye on him. I can't really afford another vet visit - we already spent over $300 on him this week!

Soon I will get to the point about getting wet and cold, like the post title alludes to, but I'm gonna digress to the vet visit first. Last week Frankie started being an over-urinator. Seriously, he would pee every hour and pee for a long time each time. On Thursday night I counted 41 seconds of continuous pee. That's insane! Especially when he had peed every hour for the last 5 hours! He went through the same thing last year around this time and the vet found nothing wrong with him then. Now the problem is back so I took him to a different vet. Yet another digression: Frankie hated everyone at the vet! The receptionist, the tech and the vet were all greeted with growls. We put a muzzle on him for the exam! Wtf? When did he become such an asshole? Anyway, they tested his pee and did a blood test. He has a slight urinary infection most likely caused by the over-peeing as opposed to being the cause of the over-peeing. The blood test came up with nothing. Ergh. $312 and no answers.

Back to wet and cold now....

After all of Mo's runs and half of Frankie's runs, Saturday's weather turned crazy! Full wind and full rain. Tents were flying away. They had to stop entering scores in the computer because the scorekeeper's tent was one of the ones that blew away and broke. Some of the bigger dogs were getting blown off the dog walk. (Scary!) I moved Frankie and Mo into the car because the walls of Sheryl's set-up were no longer keeping the rain out. The floor was a huge puddle. And yet...people stayed! Why? Cuz dog people are crazy! I guess I'm a crazy dog person, too, cuz I stayed. Frankie ran both his jumpers courses in the pouring rain. He didn't care at all. He loves jumpers and no stinkin' wind or rain are going to stop him! Finally the trial organizers decided to cancel the final class and give vouchers for a free run at an upcoming trial to all of us crazy, wet, cold people who stayed. Me and my crazy friends, soaking wet and freezing cold:
On Sunday was the PetSmart Charities PetWalk. It was a 5K walk and contests. I love contests! I dressed Frankie and Georgie for the costume contest. I didn't think we'd win because their costumes are cheesy ones bought at Target, but I love a contest. I was holding on to hopes for winning Best Trick (Frankie...are you a boy or a girl?) and the Fastest Pet/Pet Parent sprint with Georgie. I was very excited about her short legs beating everyone else! I brought Miranda with us so she could win Most Unique Participant with either Sammy, the ferret or Sophie, the rat. Well, we thought she was going to win until we saw a lady with two goats and another lady with a pig in a stroller! At 9:00 am, it was almost clear out. Not sunny, but not raining and it looked like maybe we'd finished with the rain the day before. The costume contest was before the walk. Frankie was a bumble bee and Georgie was a banana split. Not surprisingly, we did not win. No big deal. The real contests were at noon! The Walk had tons of vendors and activities and 150 shelter dogs up for adoption. It was supposed to go from 9am - 2:30 pm. We checked out a couple vendors before the walk, but saved the activities (agility course, a fetch area, paw-print painting) and most of the other vendors to keep us occupied between the walk and the contests.

We started the walk at 10:00 am. Still not raining, not too windy, just a little chilly. I kept the dogs' costumes on to keep them warm. The first two miles were fine. Then, it started raining. Then, the wind picked up as we turned the corner for the last mile. Ugh! It was raining hard! And it was cold!! The wind and rain were blowing right into our faces. We were a mile away from the park and 1.5 miles from the car. We had no choice but to keep walking. It was miserable! Cold and wet and wet and cold. I was wondering if I could win a sprint contest with soaking wet jeans on. Miranda, a girl after my own heart, commented during the worst of the rain, "Maybe it's raining too hard for the pig and the goats and I'll win the contest." I was kind of sad though because I didn't want to win any contest by default!

As the last mile progressed (very slowly), my hands turned into icicles. And Pat turned into The Grinch. He hates being wet. He didn't stop when we got back to the park but kept walking right to the car. Miranda and I stopped to ask if the contests were still going to happen or if they were canceled. Nothing had been canceled, but there was no way Pat was going to stick around for 40 minutes, so we sadly left the event and went to the car. We were soaked all the way through, we were frozen solid. The poor ferret was shivering like crazy and Frankie and Georgie fell asleep immediately on the floor of the car, curled up together for warmth , so it was probably best that we left. But still....I wish I would have stayed. I wanted to do the contests!

I was so sad for the organizers of the event, all the vendors and the rescues with the adoptable dogs. They all lugged all their crap out there, they planned for months, they put up 150 temporary chainlink runs for the adoptathon...so much work and it was ruined by the rain and cold. The adoption event wasn't even scheduled to start until after the walk, so I don't know if they adopted out any dogs. Heart-breaking. I still can't think about the event without getting completely depressed about it. All that work and all their high hopes dashed. Ugh.

Wet and cold. Yuck! Phoenix, I love you for your heat and sun. Could you please stop being like the rest of the country and get back to what you are good at? HEAT AND SUN, PLEASE!!

My 3 Dogs: Agility Update

We all went up to Pinetop over Labor Day weekend for an agility trial.

GEORGIE: Georgie doesn't do agility. She got to hang out in the x-pen all day, whining and crying and being a pain in the ass.

MO:
This trial was Mo's big debut! Our hopes were high! She'd been doing great at Jim's. Her confidence was up. We were doing full advanced courses, very slowly of course, but completing them! I thought she might be ready.

I was wrong.

She didn't like it at all. She was nervous with all the people and all the activity. She acted as if she had NEVER seen a contact obstacle EVER before in her life. This is the furthest she went on any of the equipment:

No amount of cheerleading, begging, pleading or fake-treating would get her to go another step. This picture actually shows her at her bravest. Most of the time she wouldn't even touch the obstacle. She did a whole lot of the standing still, staring into space and pretending she was invisible like she did when we very first started classes. She did do a few jumps and perhaps a tunnel in every run, but we didn't complete more than 6 obstacles in any run on the first day.

Nevertheless, she was a hit with the crowd. Everyone loved her! After her first run, when I finally gave up and took her over the end jump, the whole crowd cheered for her....which had the unintended effect of scaring the bejeezus out of her. She tucked her tail and tried to run. After that, everyone realized what a "special" dog Mo is. They were super nice and gave her lots of room, moved slowly when near her and took their time trying to befriend her. Though I did have the feeling that people were tsk-tsking me behind my back for starting her in trials before she was ready. I was tsk-tsking myself, too.

I was hopeful that the second day would be better for her. She'd be a little more accustomed to the surroundings and she'd realize that all I was asking her to do was the same things we've worked on over and over again at Jim's house. I knew she could do it, I just needed to convince her that she could do it.

Yeah...not so much. She still refused all contacts, she refused some jumps, even. I tried to keep a positive attitude - maybe she'd do well in jumpers, which was our last run of the day. No contacts or tunnels! Perfect.

Here is her final run:


She started out so great - I thought for sure she was going to get a Q. Then at jump 4 and 5, she realized there were people around! And they were moving! YIKES! How can she be expected to go over a jump when there are moving people around?!?! But, finally....she finished a course! About an hour over time, but she did the whole thing! It wasn't anywhere close to how she does in class, but she did it.

FRANKIE:
I also had high hopes for Frankie to do well at this trial. He, too, has been doing great at Jim's, doing perfectly in fact! He is now SIX years old and should be outgrowing his crack-baby ways. I thought for sure he would qualify in more than half of his runs.

Again, I was wrong.

We only got 1 Q out of 10 runs. It was very depressing. He got all cracked out on every run! People enjoyed his antics, but I didn't. I even tried having Pat run him once to see if that would get him to pay attention. It almost worked - he completed 3/4 of the obstacles - which was a record for the weekend, but he still lost it and went zooming around the ring for awhile.

Even when he's on crack, Frankie still excels at Jumpers. We always qualify. Except at this trial. Ergh. I must have been leading too far out because the jump I'm pointing at here:
was completely skipped:
and he took the next jump instead:
Ergh.

I have to admit that by the end of the trial, I was completely disheartened. I have put four years and thousands of dollars into Frankie - to no use. The dog definitely has a screw loose and I am a terrible handler.

Pat and I were supposed to stay Sunday night so we could hike and explore the area on Monday, but instead I insisted that we just load up and go home. I was too grumpy to stay. :(

PABLO:

Huh? We already went through My 3 Dogs. Who is Pablo??

My friend Vickie found a chihuahua puppy a few months back. No owner was located so she named him Pablo and let him stay. Pablo looks out of place with her pack of Aussies, but he fits right in with my pack of tan dogs! They are like a little family of tan:

3-Legged Agility

I'm taking Mo to her first agility trial over Labor Day. I'm not sure if she's ready to trial, but I guess we'll see.

It's been hard this summer because she really hates the heat. Frankie couldn't care less if it's hot...he'll play all day long. But Mo, she shuts down when it gets too hot. I was practicing with her on a course that went out and back and out again. Mo went out with me, she went back with me, but when I went out again, Mo ran right into her x-pen in the shade instead. :) I hope it's the heat and not a dislike of agility. I guess we'll see that, too. The trial is up north in Pinetop so it should be nice and cool.

She's already super-slow to begin with, but add in the heat and she slows down to barely a walk. However, last night we got to practice when it was fairly cool out and she did so well! She was almost running even. Check it out (I hope you've got some time because even at an almost-run, she is still Slo-Mo):




You can tell she is still afraid of the noise of the teeter. And I forgot in the middle of the run that she still doesn't do off-side weaves so I had to stop her so I could get on the right side. It sure is a different experience running Mo compared to Frankie!!

And here is Frankie doing the same course in half the time:

Funny Math and a TITLE!

Ok, I know everyone has seen that mass-forwarded email with the funny answers from math tests. It's been making the FW: rounds for years. However, no matter how many times I see this one, it cracks me up every time!
While I'm here on the blog, I guess have a second or two to tell you that I can almost die now. One of the few remaining items on my to-do-before-I-die list is to get an advanced agility title on a dog. Since we've been at it for almost FOUR YEARS now, it was looking unlikely that Frankie would be that dog. Oh, ye of little faith! (Or maybe that should be: Oh, me of little faith?)

YAY! He did it!

There was a mini-trial over Memorial Day weekend and Frankie did amazingly well!! He got the 2 Q's he needed to earn his Specialist Jumpers Award!

Jumping:

In other exciting Frankie agility news, he finally got enough Q's to move up from the intermediate level into the advanced level in standard agility!!! This is pretty damn close to a miracle, folks! But to make sure that everyone knew what was what, on his very first standard run as a high-falutin' Specialist dog, Frankie pulled the usual crack-boy routine and ran around like crazy instead of doing the course I was asking him to do. Welcome back, Frankie! We missed you for a minute or two while you were out there behaving!

Wussy-boy hiding from the rain from the misters (but still very optimistic that a treat might be coming his way from somebody!):
Now I just need to bowl a 200 game and get my ass to Australia or New Zealand...and then it's off the glue factory for me.