My Boring Life
No, I didn’t spend ALL day swearing at the programmer who created the theme I use, honest.
Instead we went over to my BIL’s, where the entire family, with dogs, had gathered. Guess Apollo and Arty had as much fun as we did:
Looks like they wore themselves out!
There are actually a variety of organizations that have canine weight pulling contests, though this is the first I’ve heard of a multi-event contest like this. That 1000lb figure isn’t theoretical either. Apollo was training for IWPA pulling, and managed 600lbs at the age of 9months and doing so like it was nothing, I was ready to pull the plug cause I was worried it was to much weight on his growing frame, but he didn’t even flinch. And he wasn’t even GOOD at it. Dogs who’d been training for a while were pulling 1000lbs plus in competitions in almost all of the weight groups. Sound insane? Go here and look at the contest results. Dogs weighing as little as 30lbs pulled over 1000lbs.
I’m not sure if it’ll replace dog fighting in the culture, but I like the concept. More power too them.
Friday evening Husband brought home a dozen donuts for us to split over the weekend. No we don’t need them, but we don’t do that sort of thing very often either. As of last night there were still 4 left in the box. As of this morning when I got up, the box was on the kitchen floor and the donuts where no where to be seen (don’t worry, the chocolate ones were long gone).
Pretty sure its Arty who’s the problem, Apollo is certinally capable of stealing stuff off the counter, but he knows better. Arty on the other hand has JUST reached a size where he can stretch up and grab something, and we haven’t been successfull yet in teaching him not to. And of course although Apollo might not START it, but he’s more than willing to “help” once Arty starts it. Sigh
Took advantage of the sun today to get some pictures. Didn’t quite get the ones I wanted, but they turned out cool anyway.
….when you spend 1/2 an hour brushing 1/4 of the dog and get a wad of hair to match a baseball…
Saw this over at Marooned. So cool, and they look like nice pieces of furniture. Unfortunetly their coffee table won’t work in my house. I have one really big problem:
Yes he has a perfectly good dog bed, he’d rather lay on my coffee table. That particular piece is already showing the strain of a 100lb dog jumping on and off. I’m thinking our next one is going to be a box of wood, if I’m lucky it’ll have a drawer or two.
So, Apollo and I have been taking a “Confirmation Handling Class” so that he and I can have a clue the first time we enter a show ring. I almost didn’t bother, with the breed standard changes I didn’t see a point. But after discussion with his breeder, and some thought on my part I decided to go ahead with it anyway. Worst that happens is a DQ, and since we don’t plan to breed thats not exactly the end of the world for us.
While we were waiting for the class to start last night a lady walked by who was able to correctly ID Apollo as Tibetan Mastiff (even among doggy people the usual response is “what IS he??”). But she then said “he’s not full grown right? He looks really small for the breed.” Now, on his first birthday, back in December, we measured Apollo at a bit over 28″, call it 28.25″. He was a bit confused by the whole fuss and was sinking a bit under our hands so it might have even been closer to 28.5″. The new breed standard puts the upper limit at 29″. Which means that by those standards Apollo is NOT small (he’s not small by any standard really but…). Now true, he’s by no means finished filling out, which makes him appear less “big” over all than he is, but even when I said that to her she said, “oh, so not the smallest in the breed anyway.”
Now I agree that care needs to be taken to make sure the breed doesn’t get TO big, there are to many health problems that occur when thats allowed to happen, but yah, 29″ was just NOT the place to put the upper limit.
Well, Apollo had a total freakout (ok, total freak out for HIM anyway), as in he planted his feet and REFUSED to move when we hooked him up to the bicycle. Not entirely sure WHY, he’s seen the bike before, and I’ve even pushed it with him walking beside it a couple times to make sure it wasn’t totally scary. He handled the harness ok. But when I hooked him up to the bike and started to move, well, he didn’t. Oh well. I thought about trying to see if we could coax him into it and decided it wasn’t worth it for now. Maybe later.
Arty however is still thrilled with it. The lower attachment point makes a HUGE difference for me, and doesn’t seem to bother him at all. So I’ll take it.
We bought an attachment for my bicycle so we could attach one of the dogs for some extra exercise. Which sounds like a really good idea, but thanks to the wonky weather last year its been 2 years since I was last on a bike. Didn’t even bike a mile and the fronts of my thighs hurt. Sigh.
On the other hand at least for Arty its working reasonably well. He caught on REALLY quickly to the concept and seems to enjoy it, and its probly just as well I couldn’t go any further as he was definetly flagging by the end. I will say that before I hook up Apollo to the bike I’ll have to get the alternative hookup for the bike so that it attaches to my back wheel instead of just below the seat. Even 25lb Arty can jerk me hard enough that I have to correct, 100lb Apollo would pull me over….if it WORKS for Apollo though we’ll get a 2nd setup so that my husband can take a dog too.