Falon’s World

Today after the Agility Trial, we rushed to Holland for a very, very quick meal with Eric’s family, then off to the North we went. After getting lost for awhile, ending up 30 minutes late and finally reaching our destination, we looked at a house with the ‘rents and then headed up to Hart Lake for a little dock jumping practice.

The boys knew what it was all about as soon as we pulled in, they were fired up and raring to go. We kept Kya in her kennel with the back of the van open so that she could observe before expecting her to jump right in to a new adventure. We practiced the boys one-at-a-time at first. Midas was actually doing what he was supposed to be doing and even little Mason got some POP going off the dock. Then we started letting them swim together and this is basically how it went:

Swim up together:

Swim passed together:

Bring bumper back together:

LOL

By this time, Kya was yelping like she could hardly contain herself in the van. So we let her out - she not only jumped right into the lake, she jumped off the dock!!!!!

She wasn’t too terribly keen on the whole swimming bit:

So she decided to observe and encourage. She would also shake off every single time the boys did. 20 minutes after she had been out of the water, she was fairly dry, they would come off the dock and shake, and she would too, right on cue with them. Quite possibly the funniest and most adorable thing she has done yet!

We may make a dock jumper of her yet!

Eric liked the pretty Swans too:

After the lake we headed back to the ‘rents house for some pizza. Kya got to meet their two dogs…and I think she was disappointed lol. Magnum sniffed her so enthusiastically he lifted her right up off the ground and when she approached Tess (tail whipping around like crazy) to play, she was very rudely rebuffed. Magnum started to play with Mason, Midas joined in and was being a butt-head and Magnum got so worked up that he started to thrash around and bark like a looney. Tess escaped to the deck. I called the boys to order and Kya hid behind me lol. She’s such a sweetheart!!!

My Agility instructor and a couple people from our classes were going to be at/working at the Agility Trial in Kentwood this weekend so Eric and I decided we had to go, it was so close. We wanted to get up bright and early and head over but that plan didn’t go too well. We ended up only staying for about 2 hours. It was a blast though. I love watching these events. I can’t wait until Midas and I are ready to compete. Plus, it gave me an opportunity to observe the set-up of an indoor event. There weren’t many labs (or pits) there, so I was a little disappointed. The vast majority of dogs were Shelties and Border Collies. There was the one pit that we actually got to see. Through some craziness I found out that a lady from the Pit Bull Forum was there, but we missed her…

Shelties:

Border Collies:

Pit Bull!

Well, tonight at midnight was Kelsey’s 21st birthday, so Eric and I had people over to our house for pizza and a little pre-drinking and games before heading out to the bar.

Good times!

Well, I made it through the end of the semester…finally. *whew* It was hard!

General Laboratory Practice = A

Diagnostic Microbiology I = A-

Health Care Management = A

Semester GPA = 3.833 (the highest I’ve ever gotten!!)

Yay!

Today was a lovely relaxing day for all of us. Kya was all over the boys. At one point she lay down on top of Mason, butt on one side, upper body on the other and they both contently chewed on their separate bones for quite awhile. At another point Midas was stretched out next to me sleeping and Kya came over and sat on his head - they stayed that way for 10-15 minutes, until she abandoned his skull for the comfy bed - he didn’t even wake up lol .

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of that but Eric managed to snap these two which are pretty cute too:

Aren’t they cute?

This week was long and hard. To celebrate it’s conclusion, and the ending of the semester, I went on a triple date. Eric and I plus my brother, two other people from my program and one of their significant others. The three of us in the program get along fantastically and have the same sarcastic sense of humor, so I knew it would be a blast. Adam had to work until 5 but he came home straight from there and Eric had prepared some goodies for us:

Mmm, Dirty Girl Scouts here we come!

Then we both had to change out of our scrub clothes (aka my every-day clothes ) and there were even more goodies waiting…

Down the hatch!

Then we headed out to Buffalo Wild Wings on 28th St and had dinner with the rest of the triple date members. After some chatting, eating and drinking we headed back to our place for some Flippy Cup, Catch Phrase and Line Dancing

During Catch Phrase (nice face Josh lol):

Some people would only drink water…

Then we were going to watch Juno but ended up being completely distracted by the knowledge that Rebecca knows how to line dance! I was soooooooo excited!!!

This one was hilarious!!!

The boys wanted to dance too…

Notice in every single photo I’m looking at her feet haha.

Then she had to leave to pick up a wayward roommate so I attempted to teach Adam…attempted being the operative word lol

In this photo, Adam has some pretty fancy (and crooked) foot-work going on:

Good times had by all - I can’t wait for the next time!!!!

Kya’s really coming around for me. She’ll run up to me while in the yard, put her front feet on my thighs and lick my face. She’ll chase me and play with things that I toss her way (instead of running in the opposite direction). She’ll run to me when she’s scared and she’ll try to check things out if I tell her it’s ok and hold/touch the object she’s frightened of. She really models after the boys, watching and mimicking them and I couldn’t be more happy that they’re so good. We’ve been leaving her kennel open so that she can travel around the house with us/the boys if she desires. She was really curious this weekend and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine warming up our house this weekend.

She loves to cuddle and is getting to the point where she’ll actually come up on her own.

We also work on the Touch command all the time, whether it be a hand, foot, fingers, toes…or nose:

We also brought her to the beach for her first time. She wasn’t sure how to act because we didn’t bring the boys for her to copy. She was a little leery of the waves “chasing” her and she kept trying to scarf down dead fish bodies but otherwise it was a good time.

This weekend we had several projects that we really wanted to get done. We had bought the equipment here and there over quite a length of time and it was just time to finish them up. The flirt pole I got from The Pit Bull Forum, someone posted a step-by-step how-to, with awesome photos and we just followed those. It turned out awesome! Kya wasn’t too sure at first so we had Mason show her how it was done, she quickly caught on and we all had a blast. Midas enjoyed it too but he thought it was more economic and more fun to wait until one of the other two grabbed it and then take it from them…brat! lol

We also made a small set of weave poles to practice on in our backyard since Midas is struggling so much with them in class.

I’m also working on them with Mason so that (someday) when we start Agility with him he’ll have some things mastered.

Kya enjoys watching

We also made some new rope leads, each dog got a lead that coordinates with its collars. It took us a long time to get the bits we needed but I’m so excited with how they turned out! They’re rot-proof and they won’t burn your hands, so they’ll be perfect for the summer months ahead and for dock jumping events.

Didn’t they turn out great?

Well this week we started our third round of Rally and our second class of the third round of Agility. Mason is going to be joining Midas and I in Rally and he did really well for his first class! Yay Mason! The rest of the story is here.

Agility was interesting, Midas had some troubles:

That story is here.