Anyway, we have to move to a new destination today but wanted to get in another hike in Sedona first. This time we wanted to do another hike that was one of our favorites when we were here last time. The trail itself is very flat until you get to the end where you either turn around or do a rock climb (not like with ropes).
We got there at a good time as no one was at the trailhead except for a bunch of people that were getting ready to go up in some hot air balloons. This is another great off leash trail for everyone other than Slugger. As you’ve probably noticed – Slugger spends most of his life on leash. One big drawback of not having a yard. Poor guy. Like Mike says, Slugger can only have one thought at a time. So when he is walking along sniffing the air he just doesn’t seem to be able to use his ears. It’s not that he’s trying to run away or go anywhere he shouldn’t, he just kind of wanders off. He usually stays pretty close but we just hate to take a chance of losing him.
Boogie was full of energy this morning and kept attacking Wazzu. She was a great sport and ran up and down the trail with him doing her best to try to wear him out. I don’t really think that is possible. He gets hot very quickly but he doesn’t get tired. He did get hot on this hike and did everything he could to get as much of his body touching the ground as possible.
The Faye Canyon trail has really pretty views. From this trail you can go to the only arch in Sedona. We didn’t climb up to the arch today but we could see it from the trail. It is camouflaged a bit since there is a solid rock wall a few feet behind it but if you look carefully you’ll see the arch.
Today there seemed to be a lot of butterflies playing around on the trail. But since I’m always bringing up the rear they got scared off before I could get any pictures. But one time a lonely butterfly came back and landed next to the trail. While you can’t see it super easily I thought it was a pretty picture nonetheless.
There are many very nice views of various rocks and mountains from this trail. Next to the trail at one point was a very red rock wall with a view of a red rock mountain in the background.
This mountain looks like it has a smokestack.
This was a bit of an unusual red rock mountain in the fact that there are a lot of trees growing right out of the rocks.
This large rock formation looks like it has pillars.
While we were getting to see the pretty views from trail there were quite a few people that preferred to see these same mountains from above. We would see a helicopter go over every once in a while.
I'll bet the people flying over couldn't see that this mountain has a large Pez dispenser looking rock sticking out from the side. Don't you think?
When we got to the end of the trail, Mike wanted to turn around. But I figured if we’re this close to a pretty view we might as well make the short (but very steep) rock climb.
Mainly I really wanted to do it as Sparkie and Slugger, especially, love to climb rocks. It turned out that Boogie really likes it too. I think he may have been a little too brave but he is pretty agile.
Mike didn’t want to go up so I told him I’d go ahead and he could wait at the bottom.
He let Slugger loose to look around as there really wasn’t any place he could go. As you might guess, all the dogs decided to join me in the climb. But silly Boogie went over to the steep slick rock wall and climbed part way up then turned to sit and look at Mike. He was totally on his own as there was no way we could get over to him.
He didn’t seem to think anything of it and easily made it back to me. Unfortunately Slugger had followed him over and he just isn’t as agile. When he tried to turn around he started to slip. Mike and I both held our breath as we thought he was a goner. But fortunately he got his footing and saved himself.
Sparkie came my way and made it look so easy. She was up and down about 10 times before I made it even part way up.
On the way up, Slugger found a rock to climb up on that was sticking out over the edge (a bit scary) but he perched on it and just looked over the canyon. He sat there the entire time we were climbing.
As you can see he really did have a very pretty view and could see quite a lot.
The rest of us continued on up. Poor Wazzu isn’t as sure on her feet as she used to be and I had to help hoist her up in a few places. I didn’t go all the way as it gets much steeper and I was trying to carry three leashes, a good sized camera and keep an eye on the dogs. Even so I did get high enough that there were some pretty views. This one is into the canyon.
It seemed like a nice clear day until I got up a ways and looked off into the distance.
I tried to take a close up of the distant view to see if it looked a little more clear – and maybe it does a little bit but as I've mentioned recently, views just aren't as clear as they used to be.
Looking straight up I could get a nice view of the rock we were climbing. This rock always reminds me of a chess piece.
Sparkie made it much higher up the rocks than I did and said the view was nice from there too!
Wazzu didn’t make it up as high as Sparkie but she also made it higher than I did. She’s coming down very carefully.
Slugger is still sitting there watching the world.
The rest of the gang is watching Mike down at the bottom making sure he doesn’t leave us up there on our own.
We all made it down safely and headed back toward the trailhead. There was no flora around (except trees) at all that we saw so we were surprised when we came across this lone flower.
As you near the trailhead, the trail slopes downward and there are a number of single steps down.
Boogie had been lying in the shade at the top of this stretch and when he was aware that we were quite a bit ahead of him he came zooming toward us as fast as he could. Each time he came to one of the steps we would take a big long jump at full speed. He had quite a lot of hang time at each step.
Now it was time to pack up and head to Phoenix. We hadn’t planned on going until Friday but a good friend of ours has a training facility there and has a puppy class on Wednesday evenings. She said we could do drop in classes when we were in town. How nice is that!
In addition, she invited us to park our RV at her house. It is a really nice set up. You open the gate to the yard and drive right on in. When you get in and shut the gate you are in a totally enclosed yard! And there is also water and a 30 AMP hookup. Sounds perfect doesn’t it? But wait…..it gets even better.
Straight ahead from there is another gate which takes you into a full-sized agility field. No classes are held here - it's just her own private field. I think this is the best agility field I’ve ever seen in someone’s yard. The field is 140 x 120 with a 10 yard apron on three sides and about a 30 yard apron on the fourth side. The field itself is some kind of fancy Astroturf-like surface. The apron is a very small type of rock.
In one corner is a covered area where extra equipment is stored. To top it all off there are even lights all the way around the field.
The lights are pretty much a necessity if you want to do agility down here about six months of the year. Even in October it is WAY too hot to do agility in the day – the high each of the three days we were here was 99 degrees. We could do agility from sun up (about 6am) until about 8am. Then we could do it again starting about 8pm. The lows at night were 78 degrees! Even I was wearing a t-shirt well into the night and wasn’t even close to being cold.
Anyway, after we got all settled in on Wednesday we headed out to Boogie’s very first puppy class. I was so excited and had been looking forward to this for quite some time. Before we headed out I had taken Boogie out in the agility field to remind him of the obstacles as he hadn’t seen any in well over a month. We followed the directions to the training facility but when we got there it was totally dark. The address was correct but it looked deserted. Just as Mike was getting out of the car to go knock on the door, a lady came out to see if we were there for the class. It turns out they had turned on the irrigation system the night prior to class and had forgotten to turn it off so the field was completely flooded and unusable. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was. Wouldn’t you know this would happen in one of the only two weeks that we were going to be in town. Oh well, what can you do.
Early the next morning (Thursday), Billie was out in the yard working with her two dogs. I went out to watch and got there just as she was finished. Since Billie has two Border Terriers (and both are related to Boogie) she has been extremely kind to help educate us about them. She asked me to bring Boogie out and said she’d help me with him a little bit. Wow, how exciting. The disappointment of last night was immediately forgotten.
Billie showed us how to train him using the harness method. I had never heard of this method before and now I can’t understand why anyone would train any other way. After one short lesson, Boogie was weaving on his own and finding the entrance all by himself no matter where I was standing (I wasn’t far away but was at different angles), he was finding the tunnel entrance on his own from many different angles and from distances of about 10 – 15 feet away, and he was going across the dog walk and a-frame at full speed without me running along beside him. This was all accomplished in less than about 20 minutes.
Billie invited us to go with her to the advanced class Thursday evening. Wazzu hates to practice so we didn’t go but Mike and Sparkie went. They know most of the people and dogs in the class so it was a lot of fun. A course from the championships was set up and they worked different sequences. Mike said it was a great class.
Mike and I did another short practice session with Boogie after Mike got back from class with Sparkie– about 9pm. We were so happy and excited to see how eager he was to do agility. The second we opened the RV door he zoomed out and ran to the agility field. Boogie hates doors and is extremely reluctant to go in or out. So to see him run out of the RV without us even asking him to, was both exciting and worrisome.
When we got to the field he was barking and running around like crazy. He wanted to do something…anything. As we were walking to get the needed equipment I glanced over and he was doing the weaves all on his own! Needless to say, I immediately ran over to reward him.
We had a great little practice session with him. It was short but he had a blast doing weaves, tunnels, dog walks, A-frames, and even little pin wheels. He did everything at high speed. We left with him still eager to do more! But it was still hot out so I didn’t want to over do him.
Friday morning we got up early once again so we could get some practice in before it got too hot. We worked with all four dogs (one at a time) and each really had a great time and hopefully made progress on each skill that we were trying to teach each dog.
Sparkie is working on a new command – straight. This means to go straight out from Mike and do whatever is in front of him – no matter how many obstacles or how far away. This is always an important skill to have for the Championships especially.
Wazzu was working on a switch in a situation where I can’t cross behind at all. This seems to be a very difficult skill for her – but we tried working on it.
For Slugger we were working on weaves since he hasn’t done them for close to six months. He was so eager to get a turn to play agility. He was moving really fast and did his weaves very nicely. Amazing what cool weather and no distractions will do for you.
Boogie worked on everything – and had a ball no matter what he was doing. It seemed like I listened so closely when Billie was explaining her teaching method but neither Mike nor I remembered how to do some things….no wonder Boogie can’t figure it out!
At the end we let all the dogs in there together. Wazzu was too hot (8am) and just went and laid down in one of the tunnels and wouldn’t come out.
However, I hadn’t noticed that and I sent Boogie in the tunnel. No matter many times I did it he would zoom in the tunnel and then come out the same end he had entered. He’d never done this before so I just kept trying. Finally one time I sent him in and the tunnel started rocking and a rolling. What the heck. I look in and there is Wazzu lying there and Boogie is attacking her for all he’s worth. I guess that’s why Boogie never went through the tunnel!!
Sparkie, Boogie, and Slugger then had a little romping time. It was great to see little Boogie tucking his bottom and running around. The other two kind of danced at him as he ran by. Boogie did show Sparkie who was boss though.
After just a few minutes they all ran to the shade and plopped down. They were completely done and it was only 8:15am.
Even though we've only been up a couple hours, it must be time for a nap!
Debbie
10/10-12/07
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