But before we get into that, I thought you might like to see Boogie and Gidget's puppies growing up. Sorry for the quality...wish people would send me pictures instead of using Facebook. Here is mommy and puppy.
They have names....something about after different fables....but I don't remember what they are.
Playing must be hard work!
Today was earthdog in Cottonwood, AZ. The turnout was much smaller than normal. Hope that's not a trend.
The weather was much nicer than expected. No rain, a little wind and once it warmed up (low was 34) it was pretty nice....high of 54 but sunny.
Boogie has figured out that once you come out of the tunnel....your turn is OVER! So he has decided to just stay in the tunnel and work his little heart out. He has outsmarted the game. Fortunately he didn't figure this out until he had earned all his titles.
Problem with that..... Mike has decided not to do earthdog again until Boogie learns to come out. In the first Senior round today, Boogie wouldn't come out for anything. Technically you have 90 seconds to get the dog out. A lot of people have trouble with this portion of the test. It can take many dogs up to five minutes to come out.
But not Boogie. Twenty minutes went by and Boogie was still in there working as strong as ever. Everyone had given up on being able to get him out so they were going to have to dig up the tunnels! Nightmare! Just as they were starting to dig him out, he came out on his own. Oh, Boogie. Big sigh.
So in the afternoon run, Mike was going to scratch him. But I hate to see Boogie miss out on any fun. So I said I would do it. Mike drove the car right up next to the tunnels so I didn't have to walk far at all. Mike carried Boogie and handed him to me right at the start line.
Here we are at the startline....don't blink....as earthdog is not much of a spectator sport! You can't tell but Boogie is shaking and whimpering as he wants to get to it. But my fingers don't work so well anymore and I couldn't get the darn collar off!
Boogie went like a shot and went in the correct entrance (in the morning run not one dog went in the correct entrance) so I was encouraged. It doesn't look like he's going fast but he was a flash.
This shot is just to give you an idea of how they fix the site. There are a bunch of hills and branches and rocks to simulate someplace out in the wilderness.
I was sure he would come out for me. Delusional thinking for sure! So here I am calling and calling. I might have as well been calling Wazzu who is deaf!
Nothing doing! So finally we opened the tunnel and he did his usual trick of backing up so we couldn't reach him. So I bent down and pretended to dig in the dirt saying "Look...here's the rat!" Well he couldn't resist that and out he popped!
I just want you to notice the guy in the background - he is called the "rat wrangler". He is holding a bucket which has the rat cage with the rats in it.
I decided to reward Boogie for coming out by letting him look in the tunnel. He stuck his head in for just a moment and realized the rats weren't there. But where were they?
HEY! There they are....can't fool him for long. (He just noticed the rat wrangler.) A split second later we were over pouncing on the rat wranglers bucket.
Of course we know he'll never fall for that trick again. But at least it worked once!
Debbie
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