A Nice Day for a Ride

I rode my motorcycle down the beautiful 126 to my parents for a visit and for dress shopping. For my sister's wedding which is next weekend. Waiting until the last minute adds excitement to my life.

It was a nice day for a ride. Except when I got too far inland and rode into a furnace. And except when something got in my shirt and stung me several times (leaving welts) before I got it out. And except for the giant bug that hit my knee and exploded with such force that I got bug juice on my face. Other than that it was great.

Happy Father's Day!!

To the best Dad anyone could ever want! We got to spend a nice day together with Dad, Mom, and Youngest Brother, seeing San Andreas (the dad saves the day so a good Father's Day movie) and had a yummy dinner at BJs.  A good day for a good dad!

Channel Islands Harbor

Had a nice evening with a friend and her GSD at the CI Harbor.  Ate pizza on the patio with Dottie and Rita (GSD), then threw the toy off the dock for the dogs to play with.  Beautiful weather and a great time!

Rita and Dottie being good on the patio.

The Hunchback of VenturaCounty and her pretty friend.

Pie and Fancy got a swim also.

Fancy swam off into the sunset.

Walkies

We've been taking some long walks in the evening.  Sometimes we see some interesting things and sometimes we see some not so interesting things.

Walked to a park and the dogs got to run around.

Different night- different walk.  Venus, Jupiter and the moon very low on the horizon.

Walk with Dottie only this day.  And a not so secret passage.

The Door into Summer

If there is a door into summer, this could be it.

Taken on my walk around my neighborhood today.

Dottie is 6!!

Do you like my party hat?

Actually I don't care if you don't like it because I hate it!  I shouldn't have to wear stupid hats on MY birthday.

*For the record the hat says "Party Animal."

The Dog Who Saved Summer

Pie's movie came out and she is a star!  It is called The Dog Who Saved Summer and is like Karate Kid with dogs.  There are two people from the original Karate Kid in the movie. The instructor of the dojo (who plays her owner in this movie) and the main bad kid who is the voice of Apollo (Pie.)  Therefore, it is the same "team."  As in Karate Kid, the main dog (Zeus- voiced by Mario Lopez) goes to an unlikely source for help and doesn't realize he is being trained to succeed while doing chores.  In the end Pie's character sees the error or her ways and Zeus wins the agility competition and everyone is happy.  It was straight to DVD- very low budget.  You can get it on Amazon and my friend saw it at Wal-Mart.  I think it is a cute kid's movie.

Dottie had a small part when she was Pie's stunt double while running on a slippery floor.  They were concerned their star might tweak her back so they put Dottie in instead.

I got this "gig" through a lady at agility who mentioned my name when one of her friends who is in the "biz" and knows she knows lots of dog people said they were looking for a dog already trained in agility who was a police type dog since the owner of said dog is ex-military and they thought he should have a police type dog.  When they contacted me I picked Pie over Dottie since Pie looks more like a real police dog and also because Pie will put her ears up on command while Dottie will sit around with them pinned back all day.  That doesn't look good in pictures so I figured it wouldn't look good in a movie either.  And my final reason is the trainer was going to be working the dog and I knew Pie would work better for a stranger.  He did take her for about a week before filming started, and Dottie is such a mama's girl she might be upset.  Pie on the other hand loves men so I knew she'd see it like a vacation.  The trainer sent me pictures of Pie hanging out in his house with his kids and she looked very happy so I knew I picked the right dog for the job.

The first scene of Pie.  It is a picture of her and her "owner."  The other pictures on the wall in the back ground of the obedience school are mostly Dottie.  I sent the trainer pictures of my dogs at his request and they blew them up and used them as props.

Pie's first live action scene.

Pie in the credits.


A facebook friend pointed out that Pie now has a "Kevin Bacon" number of 2.  There is a lady in this movie who is also in Kevin Bacon's TV show The Following.  So she is only separated from him by 1 degree!

Pie is such a star!

Dottie's First Herding Trial

Dottie earned her PT (pre-trial tested) today. It means she has enough training to be able to do something, but not enough training to be ready for the regular classes yet.  Which makes sense for us since we've had a total of 7 lessons!  It was both of our first ever herding titles. Yesterday went much better, today was a little rough. The judge wrote on her score sheet- "Nice handling with a strong but obedient dog." Let's just say she could have been more obedient and I could have done a better job handling. But we passed so all is good!

After our first qualifying leg on Saturday.  Muffin approves.

Dottie PT!!!

Pie says she is a movie star and doesn't need herding titles to be cool.

There were a lot of boder collies there, but also some other breeds.

Lots of cattle dogs- mostly owned by the same couple.

Border collies-notice the different groups of geese have different colored bands around their necks- that is so they can tell the groups apart and if one group is too bad they won't use them again.

Belgian Sheepdog- same as Malinois but long black coat.

Sheltie- my friend's dog

German Shepherd (working lines)

My instructor's bc doing very well

There was also a corgi, boxer and samoyed and a few Aussies that I did not get pictures of.  Plus Dottie of course.  I think that covers all the breeds there.  I got to watch the A course which is in the arena, and also the B course which is in the big open field.  I saw sheep, geese and cattle.  It was a great educational experience so when Dottie and I are ready for the regular classes I will have a better idea what they are about.