Week 29- Dog Scout camp

Another great week at Dog Scout camp!  Dazzle had a lot of fun and earned two new badges (Sign Language- responding to American Sign Language cues and Treibball- ball herding).  He also got to spend a lot of time at the pond and did some digging in the play yard. 

I took some video, but haven't gotten that edited yet.  I'll upload it when I get it done and get it on YouTube.

Dock Diving Dazzle:

Waiting for the cue to jump.  I couldn't have gotten the photos above without his rock solid stay!

Big Splash! It amazes me how he can keep his head above water during the landing.

Water wings

I put him on a stay to my left, threw the ball to my right and gave the release cue when I was ready with the camera.

"Can we go back to the pond mom?  Pleeeeease"

Reflection...

Water fun at the dog beach

Water race!

Another race for the toy. Dazzle cheated and used the dock to get farther faster LOL

Time for a good roll. It was dusk, so the camera didn't do a very good job at catching his fast motion in low light.

"Hellooooooo?"

Sandy face

Good stick

How to bury a Puggle

I kept expecting her to fall in, but he went around her in his search for roots to pull out of the ground.

"Coming mom!"

Too fast to capture with the shutter

Playtime Sunday morning after camp was over

Tug with Charlie

Tired dog- he slept all the way home. Only getting up briefly (bleary eyed) for a potty break.  It IS possible to wear out a Malinois!

Yes, I took a photo while driving. But I did it by holding the camera up and shooting blindly over my shoulder so I didn't take my eyes off the road. Not bad for a guess at where the camera was aimed :-) It was even my first and only shot at it.

After camp, I collected all the badges and other items for my new job.  I will be processing badge forms and mailing out the patches/badges for Dog Scouts of America.  So I have my new work space all set up and ready to go now! Each container on the shelf is a different badge. 

Week 28

This week has thankfully been much cooler (back to more normal summer temps) and today is really perfect so far!  Just came in from some Treibball practice (ball herding). We are up to three balls and I think Dazzle will be ready to earn the Novice Treibball badge at camp.  

Yesterday Dazzle and I went to the new kayak/canoe launch area at the local park and he enjoyed some time swimming while I got several photos. 

Last week, the Flickr photo group had a "water" challenge, but I had already posted the 4th of July photo before I saw that it was a challenge week.  So I decided to do the challenge this week!  The Facebook group had a challenge to use a quote, so I combined the two challenges. :-)

Dazzle impressed several passers by with his ability to stay while I tossed the ball and got myself into position for the shot.  When I told him he could get the ball, he would take off like a rabbit and run down the bank to leap into the water.

Here I wanted a portrait shot by the reeds.  He is waiting to be told he can go get the ball in the water :-)

Taking a break for a close-up

Another set-up portrait

Week 27- Happy 4th of July!

Week 27 (of the 52 weeks of photos) took place over the 4th of July, so that influenced my photo this week.  I wanted to get a photo of Dazzle holding flags while trotting between two decorations, but it didn't go as planned.  The flags were too light and flew backwards and were not visible in the photos.

So I took a break and tried to add some wire to hold the flags down, but no luck.  This was the only passable one (out of many attempts).

Given that it was literally about 100 degrees, with high humidity, both Dazzle and I were VERY hot.  I was ready to get whatever shot I could and ended up going with a stationary shot. Dazzle was so hot by that point, he was no longer willing to hold the flags, especially when he could just let the bar rest behind his teeth :-)  Oh well... It looks more like he's smiling this way :-) Likely as he was plotting my demise.  Happy Independence Day!

Week 26- ice bath

This week has been brutally hot!  Over 100 degrees yesterday and 98-99 today.  But yesterday I had an idea for a photo that ended up working out way better than I could have imagined!  I know how much Dazzle loves snow, and I was envisioning the photo I saw of the bulldog laying over a pile of ice when I decided to try putting ice in the kiddy pool.

So I bought three big bags of ice and filled the little pool and figured if Dazzle had no interest in it, I could dump it on the patio and try to recreate the bulldog photo.  But I had no need to worry because Dazzle thought it had snowed just for him! 

He climbed into the pool and started eating the ice, then buried his nose in it, then rolled, started digging and had a GRAND ol time with it!  I tried to get video of it too, but must have had a setting wrong because the resulting video was completely washed out.  But I took lots of photos, and put a few together in a 30 second video as well as posting some below.  I hope you enjoy these as much as Dazzle enjoyed his gift!

VIDEO: Ice bath fun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWyGM9XrPsk

He laid like this munching ice for awhile!

I was amazed at how fast it all melted, but I guess 101 degrees will do that!  He wasn't as interested in it when it got soupy, but I had to get a photo of the "cartoon dog shadow" he made before it evaporated quickly.

Last night we had a bad storm go through that was preceeded by very strong wind gusts that brought down a LOT of power lines and trees!  I saw people posting on Facebook about the power company telling them they might not get power back on till NEXT Saturday!  I can't imagine a whole week of this heat without power!  Thankfully ours stayed on.  This is a photo I took of the deeply bending corn.  It was kind of interesting to be able to SEE the waves of wind as they moved through the corn.

 A shot of the corn from the same spot today (it's dead calm today and very hot).

Week 25- and Dog Scout camp

Camp was really great!  Such a wonderful and friendly group of people and dogs!  I think it was the most relaxed group of campers and dogs in a LONG time! 

I managed to teach Scent Detection to many of the campers and do the Admin job and still get Dazzle out for fun and badge earning :-) He picked up wilderness search and rescue (SAR) really fast!  And earned that badge by the end of camp (his 45th badge!)  And after camp, DSA held an IMPROV trial and he not only got second place in Standard level, but earned the 3rd Q needed for his title!

Here are some of the better photos I took during the week:

Note that I caught the ball mid-splash! I used this as this week's Flickr group photo

Portrait in the pines

Agility blur

Portrait in the ferns

Another uniform pose

Zooming out of the tunnel (to get the ball I just threw)

An accidental shot that caught me mid throw!

Dazzle did great with the Urban SAR Agility equipment too!  This is a brand new activity that will be 4 new badges next year.  They are intended to show that the dog has the confidence and skills needed to safely navigate a rubble pile and work at a distance and find a "trapped"/hidden subject. Only a few pieces of the equipment were ready for this year, but hopefully more will be built by the July camp. 

Navigating the pipe

Lure coursing was offered again and this time I got Dazzle to do a down stay at the start of each run so I could also operate the camera! Can you see his anticipation? :-) 

GOT IT! 

VIDEO: Three of Dazzle's lure coursing runs
http://youtu.be/lmRUxQxCBjY


The following are photos taken by the camp photographers.  There are not many of Dazzle because I usually had him out when I had free time and we were not participating in most of the scheduled activities. I know there were more taken (dock diving and SAR agility) but they were not on the disk. They took over 4000 photos, but could only fit about 1800 on the thumb drive so many had to be cut. :-( Next year we will have 4 or 8 GB thumb drives so they don't have to do so much cutting.  

Ready for dock diving

Maligator

Getting the weeds out of the pond is on the list of things that need to be done before the July camp!

We DID participate in the Wilderness Search and Rescue class and Dazzle did great!  Here he is realizing the instructor is hiding in the shed.

I think he was trying to get to the vent above the door!

Yup!  That's where she was hiding! At first the hidden person had his toy (she's tugging with him in this photo), but we quickly moved to both toys being with me and rewarding a "recall" and a re-find.

Playing with his very first girlfriend (they travelled to the TX mini camp as puppies in 2009). Though he also played with several other friends too.

There were bad thunderstorms the first day of camp, and even with meds he was pretty nervous due to the volume. One strike was so close we were looking out the windows to see if any trees were on fire!  He wasn't alone, several of the dogs were reacting and I'm sure that didn't help his confidence.  Here he is "helping" me present the Urban SAR Agility class orientation.

Demo dog- showing one way to help dogs learn to sit-up

Demo of the wobble board (my foot on it to show the beginning steps)

Overall, it was a GREAT camp!  Lots of fun and no major drama.  The new maintenance guys have camp looking really good, though I did leave them with almost 3 pages of more stuff to do! :-) 

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