Last Sunday was a fun Tigana family event at the Mission Bell Obedience trial.

• Sporty finished her CD title from the Novice A class under judge Alice Peterson.  Woohoo!  She finished her title with two 1st places and a 2nd place.
• Ronan did very well in his first trial, earning two Rally Novice legs.
• Avalon (Ronan’s sister, owned by Miche Evans) earned her final leg to complete her CD from Novice B.  She was a superstar and finished in 3 out of 3 trials.  She also got a 2nd Beginner Novice leg.
• River (owned by Meigs Matheson), made his debut in Novice B, and ended up with a score of 199+ (!!).  What a team!

Here are Sporty and Avalon in their mother-daughter title photo:

Next is a video of Ronan’s Rally trial on Sunday, where he earned a 4th place and score of 96.   We could have had a 99 if I hadn’t started the serpentine exercise incorrectly.

Next is a photo of Meigs and River in the “Heel Free” exercise.

Cute photo of Avalon and Miche.  Ava is clearly happy to have Miche returning to her after the Sit-Stay exercise in Beginner Novice.

Lastly, it seems appropriate to show Sporty in the Long Down exercise, which had been our nemesis the last couple trials.

Speaking of long stay exercises, I have started working toward the out of sight sits and downs exercises for Open, using Karen Overall’s Relaxation Protocol with both Sport and Ronan as structured practice for staying and relaxing through distractions.   We just finished Day 3.    An example of something that made Ronan excitedly pop up out of the stay yesterday was my counting out loud, and also clapping.  Today those things didn’t phase him.  I think these will be good exercises for us.

See Miche’s blog post for more about the trial.  Congratulations, Miche and Meigs!

Today’s hike was an 8 mile loop at Mt Madonna County Park, with an elevation gain of  1450 feet.   The uphill portion was on Sprig Lake Trail which is a beautiful trail through the redwoods, so that made the climb a little more bearable.  :-)   We did the hike described by this page, but had to do the modified version of the hike (cutting out the Tan Oak section) since our time was limited.   Still, we managed to finish the loop in well under 3 hours and before sunset, so we did pretty well.

Sprig Lake Trail > Bay View Trail > Blue Springs Trail > Meadow Trail > Upper/Lower Miller Trails > Loop Cutoff Trail > Loop Trail > Merry-Go-Round Trail.

View Mt Madonna, Jan 8, 2012 in a larger map

Here’s what the trails mostly looked like on the first half:

Here are Jennifer with Rockie, and Don with Thistle (cell phone photo with poor lighting).   This is on the last 1/4 of the hike on the Merry Go Round trail where the terrain changed and became wide open with very few trees.   It wouldn’t be a good trail to take during the heat of the day.

The next picture is in the same location, but taken with Don’s Canon G9 so it’s much better quality.   This is me and Ronan in all our hiking gear.   He is wearing a Ruffwear Singletrak water pack, and I’ve my hands-free leash waist belt as well as a waist pack that I usually use for tracking.

Afterward, we went to Creasian, our favorite sushi restaurant in the South Bay, where we ate entirely too much!

Also this year we hiked at Joseph Grant County Park.  We chose an easier trail to do after the holidays, and I inadvertently made it even easier by taking the wrong turn and cutting the trail short by 1.5 miles. We followed this guide.   He left out one trail which is why I messed up.   The Eagle Trail should be listed between Brush Trail and San Felipe Trail, and Brush Trail forks at one point and should be taken toward the Dutch Flat Trail junction.

Trails on this hike: Dutch Flat Trail > Dairy Trail > Brush Trail (toward Dutch Flat Trail) > Eagle Trail > San Felipe Trail.

We ended up hiking elsewhere in the park so we got 6 miles of hiking in.  My phone battery died so I only captured the first part of the hike.

View Joseph Grant County Park in a larger map

Don took a gorgeous photo of Sporty close to sunset.  We were next to Grant Lake at the time.

Corina took us hiking at Marin Headlands, and we met with her, Jennifer, and Corina’s friend Carla who has a lovely Aussie.  I’ve wanted to go hiking there for a long time, but just never made it up there.  Now I want to go back many more times– it was so beautiful and wild!  The weather was perfect, and the day was clear so we had a fabulous view.

Here’s our hiking route.   We only walked about 4.75 miles, as we decided to double back after we got to the top.   The route includes our time back at the beach after the hike.  LOL I just took a close look at the route on the beach, and it shows me running back and forth.  This is when Ronan was stealing things off of people’s beach blankets (while they were there) and I was running to try to stop him!  He thought it was hilarious!  What a naughty dog!

View Marin Headlands – Rodeo Beach in a larger map

Here’s a picture of Don and Thistle during one of our stops to take in the view.

Here’s Corina and Jackson- photo taken by Carla.

Here’s a landscape photo that Don took when we were halfway up to the top.  Click on it to see a larger size:

Afterward we went to a restaurant in Sausalito called Fish.  The food was delicious, and they have a big outdoor patio so the dogs were able to join us.    There’s also a big West Marine store right there- great for buying sailing gloves for tracking!  :-)

River debuted in obedience in 2010 and earned his Beginner Novice title in style, with 1st and 2nd places in large classes. Congratulations to Meigs and River!

I recently found out that River is “featured” in a real print birthday card, maybe sold in a store near you! Here it is – River is front and center (1st row, 3rd dog from the left), with Meigs’ older dog Reilly next to him (1st row, 2nd dog from the left), and our friend Ann’s girls Libby and Elsie above him (2nd row, 1st and 2nd dogs from the left).   This was taken at their dog camp in Tahoe.

If you want to buy the cards on-line, go to Palm Press, and shop under Birthday Cards.  The link I’ve added goes to the page the card is currently on, but I don’t think it will stay that way.

One of my goals for 2012 is to post more regularly to the blog (and update the website!), and that also means catching up on the last few months!   We’ve been doing a lot of hiking, and for fun I am using the Google My Tracks app (for Android) to track the route and distance.   On New Year’s Day, Jennifer and I hiked 8 miles at Almaden Quicksilver.   My route shows 7.7, but I started tracking after we had already started.   It was a really nice hike, with the only downside being the huge number of ticks that hitched a ride on Ronan.  He’s already on Frontline, but since he’s such a tick magnet I’ll probably use a Preventic tick collar on him during the hikes for more protection.

View Almaden Quicksilver 1/1/2012 in a larger map

The hike was tougher on us than usual, probably because of all the eating and lack of exercise during the holidays.  We were in Tacoma for Thanksgiving, and LA for Christmas, through the end of the year.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one feeling out of shape.   Ronan made his feelings clear to us and passing hikers.

Here’s Rockie lying down, too, just so Ronan wouldn’t feel too badly.

Happy New Year to all!  May this year bring you joy, peace, prosperity, friendship, and good health!

I’ve been reminded that the blog needs some attention, not to mention the website needs updates, such as the addition of the boys.   Hopefully I’ll make that happen soon.  :-)

Sport earned two legs toward her (and my) first competitive obedience title (photo taken by Steve Southard of Southard Photography).

Ronan got all his preliminary clearances for hips, elbows, eyes, and heart.  Woohoo!

Here are some recent photos of hikes and playtime.

Sport, me, and Ronan (wearing his Ruff Wear Swamp Cooler coat).  It really works to keep him cool.

Lola posing on a high place, as she loves to do:

Sport and Ronan playing at the NORCAL GRC fun match at Kirigin Cellars in Gilroy.

Thistle completed one session of a beginning agility class where they are learning fundamentals.  Here’s a little video of some of the things they did the first few weeks– they have progressed quite a bit since then, but I only have early video.  Exercises are: cones for practicing sending/front crosses, lead out-jumps, box training for learning contacts, circle work.

We took some of the dogs dock diving, and Miche/Bill/Avalon/Sammie were able to join us on an impromptu trip to Hollister.   Don put together some diving sequences for each dog, which I’m posting here.  Click on the photo to see the larger image.   Sammie’s isn’t done yet (Don’s done with pictures for today!), but I’ll add it when it’s done.

Here’s Ronan, with me handling.   His jumping style earned him a place in Don’s photo-a-day project on Flickr.

Here’s Sporty, with me handling, but you’d never know it because I threw the bumper from way back on the dock.  This isn’t her best jump in terms of distance as she took off about 3 feet before the end of the dock, but it still shows off her stylish form.  :-)

Here’s Thistle, with Don handling.  He jumped!  We were very happy with how he did, especially since he didn’t feel confident enough to start jumping off the dock at the lake until the last day.   He didn’t want to stop jumping.

Here’s Avalon, with Miche handling and Bill/Sammie watching from the sidelines.   Ava hasn’t jumped off a dock before, to my recollection, but she ran right up the steps and jumped right in by herself the very first time!

Don photographed the NORCAL GRC Working Certificate test a few days before we left for the lake, so he was able to obtain a couple (dead) ducks/pheasant to bring with us to the lake.   The dogs haven’t worked with birds in quite a while, so it was good to give them the extra exposure.

We used the outlet that runs from the lake toward the ocean, which has grasses/reeds on either side, so plenty of cover, and narrow enough for me to throw the duck to the other side most of the time.   Sporty was in heaven, showing the boys the ropes.   My work with Ronan’s ‘stay’ while leaving to throw bumpers for him really paid off because I was able to move off to throw the duck, then return to position to send him.   Proud of my boy.   While he usually brings bumpers back, the bird is different and he needs work on the retrieving to hand part.  That should come as he realizes things will move along more quickly if he brings them back to me instead of to the shade or the trees.

Thistle was a great water retriever, but isn’t too keen on birds on land.  A little competition with Sport got him picking up the duck on land.  We’ll see if that holds over time.

Sporty

Thistle

Ronan

He did it! Well, sort of. Thistle still won’t dive off the dock, but he will dive off the float, with style!  What a Good Thistly-Dude.

Here’s a picture from China Creek Beach in Bandon from the other day.  Can you guess which dog is in the photo?  :-)

We do a lot of hiking around here, though it has become quite a bit more dangerous this year with the boys since they run full blast wherever they go.  We have learned to listen for the sound of a thundering herd approaching, so we can step quickly to the side to avoid being crashed into.   Hopefully this is just the over-exuberance of youth and they’ll tone it down in the future!

I was very happy to catch this shot when I emerged from part of the trail.  Yep, I was the last one and everyone was waiting.

I love my sweet smiley brown girl, Sporty, who has been setting a great example for the boys this trip.

One thing about the trip this year that I could do without- the BUGS! I’m not sure what’s different this year, but we (particularly me) have been eaten alive by no-see-ums and mosquitos.  Itchy, itchy, itchy.   Maybe if I eat more bacon it will act as a natural bug repellent.  ;-)