September 02, 2012

Week 35- KHP & around the yard

Rather than fill this blog with the over 300 photos I took at the Integrated Concealed Carry course last weekend, I created a new blog page:  http://iccexperience.blogspot.com/ Because of all the photos, give the page a moment to load.  I also got one short video of part of the training: https://vimeo.com/48269221 You can visit the blog link above if you want to read about my interesting experience at the course.

This week, I have been recovering from the training course.  :-)  But on Monday I met some great folks from Australia that are touring the U.S. to learn more about American dog programs/sports. They have been speaking with some top name trainers, so I was honored to be included in that group!  It sounds like they will be starting a Dog Scout troop shortly after they return home, so I'm looking forward to having Dog Scouts in Australia!

This week a challenge has been popular on Facebook- spell your dog's name in treats or toys and get the dog's photo near it.  So I decided to play along. Dazzle watched as I spelled out his name and then couldn't decide which toy to go for when I let him know he was free to move. LOL

And then it was pointed out that the Z's were backwards!  Since the sun was quite low by that time and the shadows would have been bad, I just fixed it in Paintshop :-)

Who knew it took so many tennis balls to spell Dazzle!  I had to substitute other toys when I realised the big bag of balls wasn't going to be enough :-)
 

Yesterday (Saturday) I went down to the Kentucky Horse Park to shop the vendors at the big Bluegrass Classic dog show.  I only ended up getting some treats and a T-shirt, but spent quite a bit of time chatting with several friends I hadn't seen in awhile.  I also had the plan to get this week's Flickr photo down there:


This chair is part of a set on display.  They are from a table and chairs jump called "The Giant's Table" created for the first U.S. World Equestrian Games in 1978.  They are really showing their age though.  The seat on the other chair was much worse. Since many people sit on them for photos, I wonder how much longer they will be on display. 

I also found a new display nearby- The Flower Basket.  Sadly this is on display because a famous horse, Frodo Baggins, died after a fall on this jump and his rider was critically injured.  His death was the second in a short period of time in 2008 and that brought about a major review of the sport of three-day eventing and a change in the rules to increase safety.
In trying to get his ears up, I tossed a clod of dirt. He was VERY interested in it, but didn't move his feet even after stretching as far as he could!  Good boy!
 
On Friday, we had a challenging Excellent level course for Agility practice.  I had to get video of him doing this course after he did SO well on the LONG send away to the weaves.  And for the recorded run, he NAILED it!  I'm so pleased with how far he has come and how well we are able to work together even though I can't run with him.
 
 
I took several other photos this week too:
 
The Saddlehorse bronze at the KHP


A view of some of the pastures at the KHP

Kentucky Horse Park logo

The vendors surrounded all the rings and more were on the upper level

An interesting leaf I found at the training last weekend.

On Wednesday, I decided to see what I could photograph around the yard...

Abandonded home:

Depth of Field

Dazzle wasn't too pleased to have to wait inside the yard while I was out playing :-)

Pretty in Pink- This is straight out of the camera- no editing

It's amazing how many textures and colors a stalk of corn has

This little guy was a cooperative subject and let me get the camera quite close.  The rest of his buddies jumped away as soon as they saw me. He (she?) was watching me closely, but didn't jump away.