Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Moab with family.  5 adults and three collies shared a Subaru Outback. 

 Friday we drove to Dead Horse Point State Park to walk and take in the view of the Colorado River.

 Saturday we started off with a 3 mile round trip hike, to Corona Arch (behind Coffee).  

Getting to the arch itself was tricky!  There is a ravine behind Coffee so we had to climb up and around.

In the photo below you can see people that look like ants.  We had to scale UP the rocks from where they were to about the middle of the photo (see a tiny person).  First try both dogs had their nails out and got no where.  Second try we had them on a short leash on our right with our left hand on the cable to pull ourselves up.  Going down was easier for the dogs, but awkward for us.  Their rears held their weight back.

Photo on right doesn't show how steep and slick the surface was.

Sam and Echo walked along the Colorado river chatting with hikers while we did the climb.  

There they are in the road waiting for our return! 

After lunch we drove around Arches National Park.

We left just as the sun was setting.

Moab is 3 hours from us.

It was a fun weekend and the weather was gorgeous!

Hope you all had a good weekend too!  Sydney

Donna and I took the dogs out to Buchli Station for a pre Thanksgiving Run. The weather was perfect. The sky was clear and most importantly for our 3 the ground was wet and the ponds were full. They had some joyful comes through the pond amidst a lot of play. Ube and Lea began the day with a quick kiss before they went wild. Jennifer

CHUD'S CANCER RECHECK

Super news, all the testing today up at Davis showed no sign of cancer. They did bloodwork and an abdominal ultra sound. Also his weight is slowly coming down from a high of 73 to 69 1/2 today. They were thrilled as they well know how hard it is to lose this prednisone weight with his screwed up metabolism due to the chemo. Of course his normal weight is around 62 lbs so we still have a ways to go. Unless we see something alarming he goes back in 3 months for another check up. Christy

Stuff

Hi all!! Christy, great jobs with the dogs. How in the C man doing?? Be sure to sign your names when y post. I now have a new vehicle, my old one totaled in a car accident. More on that later. Donna

1st Snow

Nov 10 - that's all the snow we got - east side of house.

Nov 12 when we could see the La Plata Mountains to the west.

    Last few days it has been in the 20's at 6 a.m. but warms up with the sun - mid 40-mid 50's .   I was actually out in the yard with a sweater at 1 p.m. yesterday!  If the wind isn't blowing it is quite nice.  Sunny and dry.  But there is a thick piece of ice on the koi pond that stays all day.   

Sydney and the girls send Happy Thanksgiving wishes to everyone!

Norcal Golden Trial 11-11-12

I am bumbling my way though this, as I am a beginning blogger lol.

The past 2 days we were up in Santa Rosa competing with the boys.  I THOUGHT  I had NQ'ed in every possible way over the years but today was a new one for me.  On Chudleigh's standard run he came around the wrong side when I did a front cross and to keep from falling down when he hit me I threw my hand out to catch my balance, but I hit the wing and brought the whole jump down!  Yup, I dropped the bar instead of my dog!  Shame on me, except for that fiasco he would have q'ed.                       

With all of Chud's medical problems I bumped him down to novice preferred as he was unable to get even close to course time.  Wouldn't you know his first time in the ring doing novice jumpers he was so kerflummoxed at seeing only 6 weave poles that he popped out at the 5th pole looking for the rest, and this was just as I blinked and turned my head to see  where we were going next.  Now remember this is a dog with his AXJ so you would THINK he could handle 6 poles.  Um,  with boxers you don't think.                                                                                                                     

Yesterday in standard Chuds bailed on the teeter but did everything else fine.            

Yesterday Rollo was more confident in the ring and in both of his runs he ran over to introduce himself to the pole setter, eating up far too much precious time.  He made his open standard debut and it took him 2 tries to get the weaves so even if he hadn't gone visiting we wouldnt' have qualified.

Today I tried T2B with Rollo.  Um, in a nutshell he ran out of time due to a LONG visit with a pole setter.  He ran well though and I was pleased, the buzzer sounded when we were 3 obstacles from the finish.  

Rollo's open standard run today was better, no visiting and if it hadn't been for Trolls in the tunnels he would have qualified!  He aced the weaves, and galloped along paying great attention.  The tunnels were dark and the entry was straight on with a very sharp U in it.  Too scary, he popped out and refused to go back in.  Same thing with another tunnel.  Darn those tunnel monsters.

As I said earlier, Chudleigh's standard run would have qualified if I hadn't run into the jump.  He bravely did his teeter and I was very pleased.

Final class of the day for both of them was novice jumpers and they BOTH QUALIFIED!  Hallelujah, Charlie is always so pleased when "his" dogs qualify.  For some reason Chuds fluffed the weaves and popped out at the 5th pole but I saw it and brought him back around to redo them.  That ate up precious time so I ran as fast as I possibly could to save the run as the clock was not our friend.  I didn't collapse  and his 93 was all time faults.

Thankfully there were about 18 dogs until Rollo went in which game me time to catch my breath.  This dratted congestive heart failure is such a nuisance sometimes.  Rollo missed a jump and we had to circle  and redo it which ate up time so his score was a skin of his teeth Q with an 85. 

Chuds has really aged and I think he looks a lot like Zorro with the greying eyebrows.  He sees the oncologist next week for a recheck but so far so good.  I am still trying to get his prednisone weight off, and it is a hard battle.  The drugs really messed up his metabolism.                                                                       

                                                             

                                                              

Hi!

The girls saw snow last weekend!  Coffee for the first time.  At first she didn't want to step on it but was fine once she did.  We went to visit our nephew as the cold front arrived.  We had a beautiful  sunny/ blue sky five hour drive through the mountains until about a half about out when the snow started to blow.   David is north of us and at higher elevation.  Next afternoon the sun was out and snow started to melt.   The girls had a great time running with their dog,  Hobbs!  When we got back to Durango a few days later we were back to upper 60's and sun.  We did not have snow or rain here.   We are in a drought so either is wished for!

I've enjoyed hearing what Christy and her gang have been up too.  I hope the rest of you will keep in touch now that Donna has set this up for us. 

Healing thoughts go to Donna and Mike after their accident.  

Sydney, Echo and Coffee