Rabbits

We have seen one woodchuck in our back yard, but Mendel enjoyed a romp with him, and I doubt he will be back this year.

We successfully got one mother rabbit to move her nest to the yard behind us. We see the 5 youngsters visiting daily, and so far Mendel has not got them. They stay way in the back, and there is plenty of greenery for them to hide in at this time of year. [In the winter, the rabbits were unable to run away or hide.]

We thought we were successful with the second mother, who wanted her nest in my lily patch, which is fenced specifically to keep out rabbits. We saw yesterday, though, that her babies are just a few feet away from the lily patch, not far from our house. As they begin to venture out, we don't think there is much hope for them. They are at the very young, innocent and extra-cute stage.

This is the first year we have not lost any lilies, annuals, clematis or beans to rabbits [so far]. So we do have Mendel to thank, but we hate to find carcasses. We are rather torn about this hunting job/game he seems to enjoy so much. We don't know whether to yell at him or encourage him. But it has been a month since he caught anything. In the winter, he caught a rabbit every week.

Triple Q

It looks like Mendel is finally catching on. He did very well in all 3 AKC agility events today. What an improvement from his April experiences of running away and refusing obsticals! He is no longer afraid of the artificial turf, or jumping on the judges.

He also earned his very first agility title this weekend, for Novice Fast.

NADAC success

Here is Mendel's 1st place novice run at today's agility match. I am really proud of him. A couple of weeks ago I was ready to give up on agility because he couldn't concentrate and he had problems slipping on the astroturf. Today he paid attention and ran really fast (I also tried a special grip spray on his feet).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx1x0WArmKM


The Chances and Standard runs are below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXtOmg_O_FY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvz9QnDhnW8

Last Sunday's AKC trial

Here is 10 second clip of Mendel falling on his face as he turns to enter the weave poles. He had lots of problems slipping on the astro-turf. Is there someplace to practice on a similar artificial grass? I would like him to get used to it before the next trial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keqVYOXQGOU

Skijor Music video 2

I had fun putting together another video of Mendel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpTTrrziSRA

Funny announcer

Here is the youtube link to yesterday's race at Tug Hill with Mendel (he did
great):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EkOrVIqCMc

Not again!

We can't believe it. Mendel has been attacked again, this time by a stranger's dog at while Jeff was skijoring at Chestnut Ridge.  His shoulder is bleeding and a large flap of skin has been ripped open.  Further more, why, oh why, do people with unreliable dogs let their dogs loose in the park?  Back to the vet.  The past few months have been regularly punctuated by emergency visits to the vet, starting last fall, when Mendel played with a rabid raccoon.

There are so many reasons why this is frustrating, even infuriating:

1] He just recovered from being "off his feet" with the paw injury.   (See the bootie in the above photo?)  It is really hard to keep a young, athletic dog "quiet", and now we have to start all over.  We have to watch him carefully, so he does not chew the wound or stitches open.  We also have to keep his side clean, without any dressing on the wound.   When we leash walk him, he throws himself on the ground and rolls.  There is no way to protect his wound, when he does this, as he is in an unstoppable fury.  We can't trust him home alone, so I will be curtailing my own activities, and hiring a sitter for the time I am at work.  The inconvenience is enormous.

2] The owner never learned that his dog is dangerous,  AND we got stuck with the $350 vet bill.

3] The big Tug Hill race is next weekend, and he is on restriction for at least 10 days, until he gets the stitches out and is re-examined.  This race has been the focus of our winter, and we already took the time off from work and so on....

4] It is becoming clear that the wound on Mendel's head (from Flora's Thanksgiving attack under the dining table) is going to leave a noticeable, permanent scar on his forehead.  I wish the emergency vet had stitched it, so it would have closed up better.  That injury took a long time to heal, and the scab busted open many times, because no stitches were recommended on the face.  Boo.

Skijor race Chapman Park PA

The "pro" skijors are all competing in races in New Hampshire and Canada this weekend. Its just me and Mendel, a woman with Rocky, who has little interest in leaving the starting line, and a girl on downhill skis (!) with two beautiful racing siberians. Mendel ran well both days, only stopping once to take a poop. The snow coverage was terribly thin, and after spending the past week fine tuning my skis, rocks on the trail left the bottoms of my skis a mess.

In addition to the the skijorers, 2 dog and 4 dog sled teams all ran the same course (about 3 miles) and I can at least take some satisfaction in that of all the dogs that ran this course, no dog ran faster than Mendel! After the race Sonia, Mendel and I went out for a fun ski on the frozen lake. Mendel still had plenty of energy to pull Sonia and we had a good time. Our big worry was the cut on Mendels foot. We ran him with a bootie protecting the cut and happily we got through the weekend without the cut re-opening.

Saturday night we did some tricks and set up a small "agility course" in the hallway of the Warren Holiday Inn. I put trash cans in the 1st floor hallway and used them as jumps and posts to run around. We were having fun and I was impressed with myself in how well I could control Mendel. Then he decided he had enough agility and took off like a rocket toward the main Lobby area. I yelled "DOWN!" and luckily the stars must have been alighed because he listened and performed an "emergency down" before he created chaos in the Holiday Inn Nightclub. I'm also glad that we thought better of the idea of letting Mendel have a late night swim in the Holiday Inn pool. I wouldn't have wanted to get kicked out during our Mendel's first hotel experience .

day 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpvXl97o2xY
day 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igHb0L930Sw&NR=1

Cuts his paw again!

Mendel has cut his paw again.  There was blood in the snow but I don't know how he cut it.  The cut is deep but luckily on the side of the paw and not the pad.  The vet glued it together.  We will see the vet again later this week and tell us if he is fit for the weekend's race.

Last time, he cut it when jumping our 4 foot fence in pursuit of a rabbit.  The first time, there was blood all over our front porch and everywhere he walked. It looked like a murder scene.