On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

:)  Yes, they're open but still never thought I'd see it.

Does anyone watch Star Trek: The Next Generation anymore?

I sure do.

So I worked the girls over spread jumps today.  I didn't work on the weave entries I'm concerned about, as we weren't set up very well for that, and I didn't bother to bring the table out.  Tess had a really nice table last weekend, hopefully, she will this weekend too.  We did quite a bit of work over the spreads.  

It was almost impossible to get Tess to knock a bar.  I did finally get her to knock one on the double, which wasn't a real double, it was 2 jumps put together, and a bit wider than a real double.  I tried many things.  Hopefully, she gained something from the practice, even though she wasn't showing any signs of actually needing the practice.

Tully wouldn't really knock a bar either, but what she would do, was after jumping beautifully for a bit, she'd suddenly jump completely carelessly and crash the jump alarmingly, with her legs tangled in the bars.  I didn't like that very much, but hopefully, she learned something from it.  She is quite capable of keeping those bars up.  Working on it, she'd turn midair as she jumped, and pick up a foot to keep it from hitting a bar.  So she does seem to understand what's expected, and have the physical capability to do so, she just gets careless, I think.

We'll see how things go!

Zach is all checked in and ready to rumble:)  I forgot to send his yellow card with him, but thank goodness he didn't need it!  Whew!  He gets his wallet back today. 

 ... so goofy looking. 






Edited to add Mr B!


Edited to add Fred at 16 weeks too!

I really need to retrain Ten's chute performance, but heck if I want to spend the $$ on a chute.  Anyone have one that mostly sits and isn't used?  I'd be happy to pay to rent it for a month or so?

Haku is 16 weeks old tomorrow and, man, he's like a jigsaw puzzle put together by a blind man at the moment - parts everywhere! Seems like the poor guy can barely stay upright these days. His rear has way overtaken his front at this point, and the head is most definitely getting bigger - I still think he's damn adorable though. I could be biased.  Around 17 inches and I still have people telling me how BIG he's going to be.  I just don't buy it.

16 weeks does not seem long to be alive, yet he's so grown up in many ways. He's definitely starting to spread his wings and gain more confidence and a little bit of independence. He most definitely has gotten bolder with his discovery that just about everyone will play with him if he brings them a toy. I fear he's heading towards the teenage years, but I'm not done with the whole baby puppy thing yet - how sad will I be when the world doesn't revolve around me anymore!

Certainly Haku is a border collie, there is no question, with all the predictable border collie issues.  He's already become quite ball obsessed in just the last week that he really discovered them.  Fast moving objects have the typical response of his brain falling out of his head.  Today in class we were supposed to be proofing stays while watching another team do restrained recalls - HA!  I knew there was no way we were even close to that, but I did manage to at least occasionally get his attention.  I don't expect that will be something we'll be able to do for quite some time.  At home we've just worked up to me gently throwing a toy while he holds his stay anyway.

He's growing up though, it's amazing how fast.  It's also amazing how well he's settled into our routines, and he's still offleash puppy 98% of the time, I'm feeling terribly spoiled and just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Haku to turn into an evil puppy.  Or even a normal puppy, he really is terribly easy.  He doesn't even attention bark much at all anymore.  Though god forbid I train or play with another dog.  I'm sensing a theme with my dogs, I am not good at training them to behave while I'm working with the others.

Haku has his first introduction to the teeter today in class, just banging down the end of it.  I was a little worried as Haku has had some sound sensitivity, so I rewarded while another dog had their turn with the exercise, but he didn't seem to care.  Of course, I think he startled himself just hurling himself onto the teeter end as the first thing he did when he saw it, so we started off somewhat cautious.  After class I came back and worked on it a little more with his lunch and he seemed happy to bang down the board, hold it down and get on it.  Still not as confident as with the tippy board, but I was happy with his introduction.  Obviously we have a long time to play baby teeter games, I have no worries for him.

His rear feet targeting (or 2o/2o) we trained on a box last week looks very cute.  I don't know if I'll use it at all on the contacts, but it's always a fun behavior to play with.  In general I prefer a 4-on teeter performance, but if I train a 2o/2o behavior on the dogwalk I'll probably just use that for the teeter as well.  Fenwick and London started that way before we moved to the running teeter, which I prefer.  Not a big fan of the sliding teeter, I think it wastes time.  If the dog does not come to a full stop they're likely to be called for a flyoff, while a 4-on performance the dog can continue motion throughout.  And just seems more comfortable and the dog is less likely to get smacked in the balls with a rebounding teeter board.

Trick this week is 'sit up' or beg, which I wasn't sure Haku was old enough for, but we played around with it a little tonight and he was offering it, but for only short periods of time, naturally.  We won't push it.  It was cute though, one of things he now offers is 2o/2o on my leg while I'm sitting, he turns around and props his feet up on me - too cute.  He really is just so much fun.

Was also funny, Haku is feeling much bolder out with the whole group of dogs, he's more willing to move away from me and occasionally chase someone.  Brisbee is especially nice for chasing, as Brisbee runs ... just to run, and full speed randomly around the field.  Haku tries SO HARD to catch him, and he's squeaking and whining - but there is no way.  Brisbee is actually VERY fast, and Haku is, well, not so coordinated at the moment!  He's got heart though - and, thankfully, common sense.  Knock on wood he's being every so wise about when he should stick by me and when he can go join the other dogs.


Puppy power!


Not afraid to steal the ball from any large poodle


Attempting to catch the Great White Brisbee (and failing)


Poetry in motion


Still my little snugglebear

Haku - 15 Weeks

Telsa and Haku!

This afternoon, I introduced Roper to the contact trainer. I want to work on proofing the dogwalk and teach him the end behavior for the Aframe, with out having him have to go over the entire obstacle again and again. He remembers the end behavior, 2o2o, for the dog walk, as long as there is a target to put his little feeties. We'll work on fading that out. And on staying on the contact if I'm moving around. I wasn't sure how I wanted to do the aframe, as I could tell the height would be a struggle for him in terms of stopping at the end. I thought he might generalize it like Mayzie did, but he kept jumping/falling/hopping off the 2o2o position, he just couldn't hold the position. He tends to be front heavy anyway, though all the pedestal work and the backing up and coming to heel work has made a difference. It's balanced him out some. Then, one time over, he got carried away and launched from two cleats up, a behavior I do not want at all! So I decided to try something else. I sat on the ground in front of the downside of the aframe. He stood in front of me, and I lured him to step backwards. It only took about 20 treats for him to figure out that the goal was to step up on to the contact with his hind feet. Then I asked him to stretch forward so that his back was as parallel to the ground as possible. The second time I tried it, he stepped right up and was even tugging on a toy while on the contact. Of course, it helped to see Mayzie do some mad tugging while in her fantastic 2o2o position. He was gung ho about trying too. So, I'll progress to being on the side of the contact, then kneeling next to it, then standing up. I just have to figure out how to stop him from flinging himself unbidden down the aframe side, while I'm doing something simple like standing up. I do now have a leash with no loop on it, so it may come in handy.

I also worked on shallow rear crosses with him. Mayzie seemed to get it, as it was my motion parallel to the bar as much as my arm that told her which way to turn. With Roper, I'm not as confident he's committed to go around the jump standard and I don't want to charge forward and step on him as he comes around the jump standard in the opposite direction. The deep rear crosses (if I'm interpreting that correctly) are much easier for us. I think I need to figure out which foot to have moving forward to get him to commit. Not sure it matters, but hey. Luckily, he's a pretty quick study, if we don't get it the first time we practice it, coming back and trying again tomorrow, it will be amazing to me how much better he gets it.

Roper turned 6 months old on November 5th. I have been reading people's wonderful posts about puppy training, and they sound so good to me, so fun and puppy-like. I really should spend more time on those skills. But, I am having a difficult time not working on agility stuff. I suppose there are some puppy things (like potty training!) that I should spend more time on, but I've so enjoyed working on this stuff, that I am probably letting other important things slide. I realize that there are some things that are essential to the life of any dog that they should know. Potty training not withstanding, they need to know stay (still working on that), come (pretty good unless Mayzie is around, and then I just call her) and that's about it. So maybe I need to quit the agility stuff until those three things are under 100% control. Bleh. Am I rushing the agility stuff too soon? I suppose that if it was over his head, he'd tell me and be scared to do it. I know that I am leaving weave training (a whole sport unto itself) until he's one and jump training till who knows, though he's getting all the ground work for jump training, so that he'll know everything but how to go over a bar. And from the look of how he can already get up on my bed (at least two to three feet off the ground) jumping won't be a problem. I suppose the ultimate goal is to just have fun training the dog, it doesn't really matter what I do. Though my carpets would sure appreciate the potty training....

Tess is sort of meandering into season now, as she does.  A little bit puffy, but no telling when she'll actually come in.  Sometimes she draws it out for a long time, sometimes she surprises me by coming in quick.  I'd put it at anywhere from 1-4 weeks, most likely 2 or 3.

I intend to breed her on this season.  I don't want to put it off any more.  I'm a bit concerned, as the first week of February would be hard for me to get off of work, and it's possible that I could need that, if she comes in too quick.  I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope for the best, though, I might be able to get an exception.  And, of course, it might not be needful.  Depends on when she comes in, and how soon she ovulates, which I'm not sure, as I've never done progesterone testing.   With Tully, I kind of knew based on Elmo's level of interest, but Tess is apparently so sexy that Elmo's level of interest is high for the whole damn thing.

I emailed Tully's breeder to let her know that Tess is on her way in.  Since it's quite possible that Tess will be ready to breed during the time that I'm down there for the Invitational, I wanted to ask if I could board Tess at the kennel she works at and have her conduct the breeding there.  Tully's breeder insists that Tess can't possibly board, since she's family, and will have to stay with her at her parent's house.  Well, that's squared away, anyhow.  And she's ready to collect and send fresh chilled if Tess comes in too soon for that plan, which seems quite likely.  

Now I just hang out and watch to see what happens.  I really do hope that Tess comes in later rather than sooner, it works out better.  

While I was gone over the weekend, btw, my damn cat peed on my one remaining dog bed.  Now my poor dogs have no bed to snuggle in.  I'll have to see if I can find a new one that can hold up to Elmo.

They made it safe and sound.  Zach says it's 90 degree and is freaking hot!  Ha!  Hopefully it will moderate a bit.  They're signed up for International Standard tomorrow.  Go Zach and Wee Nub!

Bubbs the cat and I have a very odd relationship. He's a bit of a nut, for instance he was once closed in the bathroom by accident for less than a couple minutes and he managed to break everything possible, tear down the towel rack, and was attempting to scale the walls. When he was younger he used to steal our socks from our drawers and dip them in the toilet and them leave them in little piles around the house. He goes crazy when my hair is wet and I have to fend him away or he tries to eat it. We have these really weird moments where he attempts to cuddle and it always ends up with me pushing him away because he is just so incredibly odd about it. He comes and sits on the couch next to me, usually laying on the pillow so he is even with my arm, then he takes one paw and he pushes against my arm with what seems like all his might, he's a big cat, it's not really comfortable. If I push the paw away it comes right back, we do this over and over again about 20 times. If I don't push it off then in a couple of minutes he starts leaning onto the paw and next thing I know his face is right next to mine. I try petting him back into a comfortable position, I try nicely helping him find a better spot for his really pokey little paw, but no he insists on cuddling requiring a firm paw and face to face connection. Michael laughs at us constantly because this will happen about 10 times a night.