My friend Beth from MI was in town to do a book signing and to appear on Fox 19 to talk about her new book:

http://www.bethduman.com/CharlieDarwin.html 

It is about her dog (abandoned, then placed in the shelter, adopted out, but returned for several behavioral issues).  She named him Charlie Darwin and in the 18 mo. she has had him, he has made an amazing evolution into a well mannered and well trained dog. 

The book is titled "The Evolution of Charlie Darwin".  It's a fantastic book, very easy to read and packed with excellent information anyone can use to train their dog! 

The book signing was at Jacks Pets in Harrison on Sunday where Charlie impressed the customers with his skateboarding abilities

He also used an ink pad to "pawtograph" books that were sold.

The next day, we got up early and accompanied her to the Fox 19 TV studio where she talked to Rob Williams about the book and showed off Charlie's new skills.

Dazzle was patient about waiting off camera for Charlie to finish. 

Charlie rides his skateboard

And shows how easy it is to teach a dog to go to a mat and settle

After we left the station, we went on a "sightseeing" tour of the area.  I showed her some of the unique architecture of downtown, then we headed west.  We stopped at the oldest church building still on it's original location.  It's a very cool little piece of history!

A better view of the church. The squares under the second floor windows were gun ports to defend the church from Indians and any other attackers. The headstones in the cemetry are so old, they are disintegrated to tiny lumps of stone or have the text completely worn off.

This little gem is open to the public, so we went in to see the wonderful preservation work done by the historical society.  It has a charcol pit in the center for cold weather services that are no longer held, a large balcony and wonderful acoustics from the pulpit on the right side of the photo.

From there we continued west and checked out the locks on the canal.  You can click on these photos to enlarge them and read the signs.

The lock is on the right, with the spillway on the left.  Wouldn't want to be the barge that got THAT confused!

 The down stream side of the lock (spillway on the right)

Then we visited Metamora, an artisan community along the canal.  Because Monday and Tuesday are the merchant's "weekend" days off, the place was like a ghost town, but we did still manage to find one shop open to get some yummy ice cream. :-)

Metemora is the location of perhaps the only remaining "aquaduct".  The sign was on the other side of the canal, so I didn't get a shot of that.  But an Aquaduct is a bridge that carries one waterway over another.  In this case, the bridge carries the canal water over the river. The river flows left to right under the canal in the photo below. 

The dogs check out the view of the river, which due to the lack of rain, was barely there.  Just to the right of Dazzle's head, you can see some of the water that is leaking through the canal bridge and being caught and ejected out the side.  In the winter, this freezes into a giant icicle.

Below is the foot bridge next to the canal way. The canal water is to the left in this photo and the river bed below is visible through the slats of the foot bridge (when walking across).  The dogs had no problem walking over it though. The size of the handhewn logs used to make this bridge is really impressive!

 Another view of the canal bridge with the footbridge next to it.

The canal boat that gives rides (when the town is open :-)

About the canal boat (click on photo to enlarge)

Then we went to Brookville Lake. Here's Beth on the dam where I go for bike rides with Dazzle pulling the bike (when it's cooler). It's a half mile to the other end of the dam.

About the dam:

Dazzle and Charlie enjoying the view of the lake and all the scents being carried to them on the breeze.

Another view of the dam

Beth playing tourist :-)

 Our last stop was Franklin Co. park.  The views from the top are great, but today was really hazy

The drive to the top of the park is a narrow, winding, one-way, single lane road that is quite steep in places.  This photo just doesn't do it justice. Beth got in the photo to show scale

It was a great visit and I hope she and Charlie will return soon and be able to stay a bit longer!

Dazzle's B-day tribute, a bit early

I just created this little video of photos/video clips from the past year and I love it so much I couldn't wait to post it :-)  So even though Dazle's birthday is on the 31st, here is the tribute to a wonderful year gone by (age 2 to age 3).  Here's hoping for MANY more years together!

VIDEO: Tribute 2 years old to 3 years old
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDpDZoj6lGg

Forgot some photos

Here are a few more photos that I took at camp.

On the last day of camp, Dazzle got a massage. He REALLY enjoyed the rub down and went to sleep while she was working on him.

I laughed when I came into the room and saw that he had very carefully used the floor rug to "hide" his food from the other dogs at camp. I think he did a pretty good job!

Here is what he had covered. He came over to check to see if it was still there after I uncovered it

Wet and happy dog

Portrait- taken during the Directional Control practice

Another portrait, taken on the last day

Camp 2 was lots of fun!

Dazzle had a great time at Dog Scout camp even though I was working.

He didn't seem to mind the sand one bit! 

I tried not to throw the ball into the sand, but it's kind of hard to avoid :-)

 We participated in the mini "greeting" hike on day 1

But most of his exercise was from fetching his ball out of the lake, over and over and over again :-)

I relaxed in a chair in the shade while he got his workout in the water to keep him cool. God bless whomever invented the Chuck-it toy!

 Water entry:

We did find some bits of free time to work on badges.  He got the Frisbee badge, Naked Dog Obedience badge (multiple behaviors performed in a row at a distance from the handler) and also the Directional Control Level 2 badge shown below.

VIDEO: Directional Control 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y5rMvXhAi8

I celebrated my birthday at camp- A great place to be! Lonnie makes sure the German Chocolate Cake is served on my birthday :-)

Dazzle got to run the Agilure course again just for fun and once again had the fastest time of all the (16) dogs (under 8 sec.) and was 1/2 a sec. faster than Cadence the BC that had the next fastest time.

He also played the "Devil Duck" game. 

The idea is for the dog to get the most ducks out of the hoop and close enough to the handler for the handler to get the duck (within the time limit). But if they pick up one of the red ducks, the time stops. If they select the black duck, it counts as 2 ducks. Staff had 2 red ducks in the ring and the campers only had 1. There was a tie for second place and in the "duck-off" Dazzle got 9 ducks! So he got second place in the staff category.

One of the crafts was making "Survival Bracelets" out of paracord. Not sure who's bracelet this was, but mine is just solid black.  I made a solid blue one at camp 1.

This baby blue tailed skink had hitchhiked a ride on Ann's back.  When I got him off of her, he spent several minutes riding around in my hands being shown to anyone that wanted to see it.  Then I let it go in the woods.

Dazzle also got a bit further in his Treibball practice during the Treibball class

He was able to nose the ball all the way to me from about 15' away

Charlie Duman, a dog belonging to a staff member, started working on Treibball during the June camp and then was the very first dog to earn the level 1 badge at this camp, just 1 month later!

The full moon was amazingly bright (enough to cast shadows)!  The number of stars visible at camp in the north woods of Michigan is just mind-boggling. This is a photo of the moon!

As usual, it was "the best camp ever!"  Great people, great dogs, wonderful and supportive atmosphere, several life changing "Ah ha!" moments for many of the attendees and lots of new friends made.

After camp, we had another IMPROV trial.  Dazzle got 3rd place, only 1 point shy of the 2nd place dog!  I was very proud of his performance, but surprized he had trouble with the retrieve objects.  No photos or video this time.

Laughing dog

AAAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Dazzle was panting hard after a play session in the heat and I was playing around with camera angles.  For the first photo above, I had him looking at my hand that was held high.  I expected to get some good photos of "all teeth", but had to laugh when I saw that they ended up looking like he was laughing.