Saturday night fever

So, yesterday evening was Mawson and I's second Rally-O trial. Given our mock trial's preparations and previous attempts, let's say that I wasn't expecting much, but hoping that the advantage of home ground would help us a tad as it was held at our usual training club. We were number 37 in the Novice ring, so a fair wait before our turn. We did a bit of everything to get into the spirit from waiting calmly with a settle, a bit of a walk, a bit of warm up training with some of the Rally-O moves out of the course.
The course had some tricky tight bits, but mostly some turns and fun things. Definitely a bit harder than our first trial however, nothing that Mawson cannot do when nobody looks at him (or even just a few metres outside of the ring...). As our number was high, I got to walk the course a second time half way, not that it was going to be very necessary, wasn't it Mawson? Ahem...

And then it was time for our turn. Tried the very upbeat and encouraging tone, happy happy coaxing... Weeellllll! Let's start by the positive and say that we did the first station fine!!... Look at the score sheet below, station number 1 didn't get us any deduction, yayy!! The other 2.5 that we attempted out of the total 15 were a little bit more problematic, however, we got awarded an E for effort from the line steward, even after I withdrew at the 4th station.... Just wish they would add some new moves in Novice Rally-O like "dog halts and scratches neck vigorously" or "dogs halts and thoroughly sniffs ground".

Martin did take a video, but I am not sure that the world of Rally-O, or the entire world for that matter, is ready for that yet! Mostly because Martin also took the run before me and that was from Karin Bridge and Gracie, and they got the nearly perfect score! One day... We'll get there, one day... Maybe in 5 years or that might still be a bit short... For now, I keep looking back at that video and crying of laughter!

In great contrast to our little "clown team" The others from the NSDTC crew did great with a lot of qualifications! Well done to Mel and Bodhi, Jacky and Fergus, and Karin did great with Gracie too, and a whole lot of other NSDTC members! Just not us!

Now let's start again next week for the NSDTC Rally-O trial... Think that will be our last one before a bit of a break in that type of trials!

Air Mawson take off

Well, I guess it's no secret that I quite like agility. But lately mum got the impression that I had a secret advantage compared to other dogs. I have wings! I disguise them as ears, so very cunning! That's pretty handy to go above the high jumps on the course. If I am a bit low, flap flap flap and up I go... And it's also useful to gently glide down after a big jump, you have to look after the knees.

Flight Mawson001 off the ground

Stinky yummy

Today I have decided to introduce you to some delicacies that us rulers of the 4 paws' kingdom enjoy, ok mum... us "dogs"... My mate Bodhi gets his mum to help him bake things in the kitchen for his regular Foodie Fridays. Me, though I like a good old bit of baking, I like to be close to nature you see. I forage for what nature has to offer for food as well as for my day to day hygiene... I'm a bit picky but mum has been able to make a detailed list of what I have found depending of my behaviour!

- Turn round and round on my nose trying to roll my entire body on a cm square surface: dead rotting worm or skink
- Rolling around with abandon on a bit of grass: grass fertilised with manure or blood and bone
- Sniffing and doing some retching sounds without eating: cockroach (dead or alive, but more retching if alive... those legs bleh!) will still try and eat it again and retch again for an undefined number of time...
- Sniffing and doing some retching sounds with eating: any flying thing except cockroach... I like crunchy Christmas beetles :)
- Sniffing at distance with miserable face: dead bird or possum (I didn't even have a chance of failing to try and kill them, how sad!)

- Sneaking around tip toeing and quickly walking away like a thief with my head down before chewing: I've stolen something of the woody kind and delighting in creating the maximum mess out of it while ingesting half of it
- Sneaking out of sight and running back towards mum trying to give her a kiss as soon as possible: I've had a delightful meal of dirt (yummy for the tummy!) and want to spread it on mum's face

Different types of poos encountered on excursions:
- hoovering: sheep and kangaroo poos
- rolling into: cow poo and bird poo
- turning nose away disgusted after interested sniff: dog poo. One other thing about that as well, I will not touch my ball and fetch it back to the minions if it has landed or rolled in dog poop. I put my paw down on that... Would you brush your teeth with your tooth brush if it had fallen in your loo? I don't think so! (if you do YUUUUUCK!)

Apart from that, I'm pretty happy to ingest anything that I can forage from the kitchen floor or the minions plate (I tried to see on the counter top, but got told off! Kill joys!) that still counts as foraging no? Except prawns, not keen on prawns.

I might still ask for mum to go cook some things in the kitchen for me though, because I just saw Bodhi's latest recipe and that seems delish!

prefer sheep pats but that would do as well
Love Off the leash!

Aliens!!!

Arghhhh, mum is trying to kill me. She's dragging me into a real life horror movie! Have you ever seen the Aliens movies, with the little babies exploding of the innards of people? Well look where mum makes me walk!! There was plenty of similar things that jump onto you and some had also exploded! Carcasses everywhere!! Ahhhahahhahahahahhahhhhhhhhhh help!!!!!

New Year's day madness

Well, I told you they were getting mad crazy about chickens... Mum has made "plans" and they are both going silly with screwdrivers and saws. It's so noisy...

Grand design...

Don't they know it was New Year's eve yesterday? And today, it's New Year's day... No working! Only eating and lazying about in the sun... But no, they have to run around like their soon-to-be headless chicken (if I have anything to do with them, mwhahaha). YES mum, I will not touch the chickens, they are not for playing or chasing or anything else, they are little beings, gnagnagna... 

I felt bad to leave them all the work though, so I took it upon myself to supervise... Just to make sure they do things right, you see.

I had a few breaks because, they are going so slowly anyway, no chance to miss anything.

After that, they started painting... I decided that I should bring some more able bodies, so I went to ask mister pig to come and lend a hand. We had to do a few rounds around the start of the construction to check the best way to initiate the painting. Mum wasn't very patient, so she started before we could decide. And she didn't seem impressed when mister pig and I came closer to help. Ok, mister pig overdid it and played in her hair, and on top of her head. He also wanted to check her painting action, so he asked me to get him closer to her arms and on her back... I must have got a tad close, cause I got a green nose... It's hard to hold those paint brushes... And then I had to go somewhere else cause mum asked dad to come and play with me. She said: "take that stinky monster away from me", I'm not stinky!!

I'm helping...

She must have thought I was, because the great thing that happened today is that they finally let me in the pool!! *dancing*
They made me do about 1000 recalls before hand, I don't know why? Maybe they are getting a bit blind and forgetful, and they didn't see me in front of them? They kept calling me and saying good boy with a pat on my head, then the other was going away and doing the same etc...?? They are weird, but I don't care because: I WENT IN THE POOL!!!

After all that hard work, I got my New Year's day dinner! Well deserved, if I may say so myself! Even though as I said before, I would have liked more smoked salmon, but what do you want mum's stingy....

mmmmmmm