The good part about parking there was that the lower level was pretty much fenced so we could just open the door and let the dogs out. Turns out they only had one thing in mind every time anyway....
Next to the arena there is another building – the same length but much narrower. The dogs seemed to think there was some critter hiding somewhere around that building. They would do laps around the building as fast as they could! It was good exercise for sure. Mike and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the critter was actually on top of the building. I think Wazzu had figured that out as she kept looking at the top of the building – but nevertheless she enjoyed doing the laps.
The arena itself is very large. There is a very large space for crating which you can see on the right portion of this picture.
Then there is more than ample space for a generous size ring - there is more of the ring area than you can see in this picture.
I decided to have a little different routine this weekend to hopefully motivate Wazzu to run. It worked all but one run! It was so good to see her happy! Saturday morning started with a tad bit of disappointment as Wazzu did the entire Chances course beautifully doing the hard part so easily but she missed the discrimination. Guess that’s a clue, as she’s missed that same discrimination four times in the past three weeks! But she was running fast and very happy so I didn’t care that we missed the Q.
Sparkie was really running nicely! She and Mike had some very nice flowing and speedy runs. Saturday they did great Q’ing in every run except for just missing one contact in her second Regular run. I know I say this a lot but it really is fun watching Sparkie run when she and Mike are on. And they were certainly on today!
The trial finished by 12:30 so we had a few hours free to take one last romp on the beach for the summer. So since we’d been going north to explore the last couple weeks, we decided to go south today to see if we could find a fun place to play.
There were a number of places to pull over and look at the beautiful views, even though it was a bit overcast. Here is one example of the pretty views we saw.
As we drove along we came to the following viewpoint and spotted the perfect place to play on the beach. If you look at the next picture you can see the freeway going along the coastline then cutting into the trees at the far end. If you start on the bottom left and follow the road you’ll see it do a bend to the left. At that point if you look to the right you’ll see a large sand patch leading to the beach. This is where most everyone stops and goes down to the beach. We were worried about playing here as the road was too close – and we don’t want to take any chances with the dogs near a road.
So we continued on down a ways. If you continue on down the road you’ll see place where there are two rocks on the beach - just about where you see a patch of water between the road and the beach. This looked really safe as the dogs certainly couldn’t get to the road from there without a log of work.
If you look at the two rocks I mentioned. One looks very large and the other looks really little. Just to give you some perspective, here is a picture of the “little” rock. Not so little. That shows you how big those other “big” rocks really are. Truly massive.
We were the only ones on the beach here. Just what we like!! All four dogs could be off-leash here as it was very safe. They must have known it was their last chance to play on the beach as they went all out.
Since there was a lot of driftwood on this beach it was easy to find sticks to play with. We found one that Slugger really liked – ha ha – at the beach he likes ANY stick. Slugger’s big thing is that after he gets the stick out of the water he likes to take it to shore and demolish it. He was just starting that task when Boogie came by to see if maybe he could help.
Slugger gave him a look – and that’s all it took for Boogie to know he should wait a bit.
Boogie was so patient……but he didn’t realize how long a task this was.
He had to wait so long that he had to rest his head! What a patient boy.
After a while, that got boring! So he decided to go play with Sparkie. He rarely plays with Sparkie as Sparkie likes to grab his collar and swing him around. Boogie doesn’t really like this game. When Slugger was little he loved that game! I was always afraid Slugger would get dizzy but if he did, he didn't care. For a while Sparkie and Boogie had a great time before the collar game started. First of course is the play bow……
Then comes the counter attack.
And finally the hug….or is Sparkie trying squish him?
At that point Sparkie tried to do the collar swinging game so I had to jump in and try to save poor Boogie from that!
It was easy to distract Sparkie from that game by just picking up a stick to throw. I found this beach very interesting as it was so different from any other beach I’ve ever been on. The waves weren’t all that big but they were really strong! Anything that got in the water was “thrown” way up on to shore. So if the dogs didn’t get the stick immediately, the first wave would have it back up at our feet.
This also meant that if the dogs got in the waves, they too were picked up and thrown to shore. I’m hoping you can see from my pictures how the waves aren’t really rolling, they are more like staccato waves throwing water (and dogs) straight up in the air. Hmmm, hard to explain. Maybe this will help. Here is poor Sparkie. I don’t know if you can see but her paws aren’t where they would normally be in relation to her head. She is on her back and the wave is really twisting her hard.
Little Slugger didn’t seem to mind as you can see….well maybe you can’t – but he is inside the staccato water wave.
The water is popping up so much it looks as though it is boiling on the stove.
Oh no, here we go again.
Finally he comes up out of the back of the wave this time....of course with his stick.
How he’d come out of the wave with the stick I’ll never know!
Even though there were many sticks, Slugger and Wazzu wanted the same stick. And today, neither of them were backing down. This game of tug went on for a good 20 minutes. I think if we hadn’t stopped the game they’d still be out there tugging!
This isn't a particularly good picture but I like how it shows what determination (and muscles) Slugger has when chasing sticks.
And of course, while all this playing was going on I had to take time to enjoy the view. It was a little overcast today as clouds were rolling in as the day went along and the weather was deteriorating fairly rapidly. But even so I was able to capture a little bit of the beauty of the beach.
Here is some evidence to show you how strong the water is here. Look at all the driftwood on the beach. Now you can see why we had no shortage of sticks!
There was even a portion of the beach that had some small but pretty sand dunes.
Some of the sand dunes even had driftwood in them.
Of course you can’t leave the beach without eating one more shell.....
Or one last really good run.
Between the driftwood and the car we had to climb a small hill of grass. Boogie thought this would be a good place to take a rest.
But we needed to move on as we wanted to see a little more of the coastline. We hadn’t gone much further when we came to Arch Rock. I wish it had been clearer today but at least we did get to see it.
Looking down we could see a really nice half moon bay that looked so nice and secluded – a perfect place for the dogs to play. We figured Mike and dogs could probably have made it easily but we knew there was no way I could do it so even though I encouraged them to go without me, we just took pictures.
It was a nice way to spend out last afternoon before some hectic times ahead. When we got back to Gold Beach it was time for the weekly Saturday evening barbecue. One gal offered to go pick up fresh salmon from the pier for those of us that wanted some. Let me tell you it was well worth the money! Bruce did his usual fantastic job of barbecuing the salmon just perfectly. I’m thinking Bruce should come with us on our trip! Or maybe we should just learn to barbecue!! Anyway, the company was great and the food was delicious. I’m going to miss our Saturday evening get-togethers.
Remember I mentioned the weather was turning. Well it turned! It poured all night and there were wind gusts that I thought were going to turn us over. We're used to some rocking and rolling in strong wind but there were some gusts that made the rig creak even. We were afraid the wind was going to break the satellite dish so we put it down even before getting up for the day.
With the rain falling most of the day and a dirt arena we were all really muddy - and so was all our stuff. As usual though, the dogs didn't seem to mind a bit. And also like usual, this seemed to make Wazzu especially happy. How is it that Wazzu and I get along so well - we certainly don't agree on the weather!
But it does make for fun agility! Wazzu was really fast today and super happy. And when you're this happy and this fast there is no stopping us! Wazzu went 4/4 today even getting a Chances Q! Fun!
Sparkie was super good today too going 4/5 - just missing her Chances Q. But all her other runs were really pretty. She was running with a lot of confidence this weekend. I can say with a lot of certainty that Mike and Sparkie both had a good time this weekend too.
We got so many good comments on Boogie's behavior. We had him in an x-pen and he'd just play with his toys. When we'd leave him to walk the course or take the other dogs outside after their runs he'd just sit quietly in his cage. People were so impressed with how quiet he was when left alone.
During some of our breaks I would take Boogie outside and let him play off leash. When he'd get a little ways away from me I'd call him, practicing our recall. He was so good. One time he went over a large mound of sawdust. I thought this would be a perfect recall situation. He wasn't far from me at all but he couldn't see me. I called him - but he didn't come! What - he always comes. So I called him again - this time he came running up over the mound with something in his mouth. I thought it was a really big soggy stocking cap - until he got closer to me. It was a headless pigeon! Eew YUCK. I had such a huge dilemna racing through my brain....reward him big time - after all he had come when he had found a real jackpot. But eew he had a dead bird in his mouth! Fortunately when I offered him a good boy and a treat he dropped the bird. He even came with me when I told him to leave it. What a good boy! By the way, I had Mike go and throw away the dead bird so I wouldn't have to deal with it next time we went outside!
The trial finished by 11:30am and by the time we got all packed up at 12:30 we were able to get a good early start on making our way to Bend, OR. This was an eight hour trip and Boogie was the perfect little boy the entire way. We're so lucky that he travels so well. Sure hope this continues.
Here are a couple very fitting pictures to leave you with of our time here this weekend.
Slugger (now renamed "Surfer Dude" by our best friend) is somewhere in this wave.
And a pretty view on the beach.
Debbie
8/18-19/07
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