Grey Skies

So it's the end of the long weekend.

Summer appears to have left the building.

Does anyone else feel like this?I'm with you, Abby.

Superdogging

This week has been crazy.

Normally I'm pretty busy so when I say crazy...I mean I have not stopped moving all week. It started in a whirlwind of moving starting Sunday and lasting until cleaning and handing the keys over on Tuesday. You'd think that I would then take a few days to relax and unpack and get used to my new place...but no.

Wednesday I left work at noon to go hang out with the Superdogs at the PNE. Our "in" was Dana with Zephyr (Ryan's brindle 'brother') - she's been in Superdogs for 7 years now I think? I brought Abby and Ryan and we played around on the equipment in between shows. The courses are fast and easy (compared to twisty agility courses) so they loved it. Me, on the other hand...I got a really bad impression of the people at first. By the end most of them were a lot friendlier but there are still a handful that are so snobby it's almost funny. I mean, come on, you might get an inflated ego from being cheered on my such a huge crowd for 2 weeks but you're still running around wearing a sparkly gold jacket making your dog jump over giant tampons (the barrels for some of the races can be described in no other way).

Thursday we went to agility after work and then we went back for the full day of Superdogs on Friday. Abby got to run in the midday show that was packed full with people standing. She did a flyball type race with 16 dogs on the floor at once. This is Abby we're talking about - the dog whose major distraction is other excited dogs. We were supposed to "burst" out from the sidelines with our dogs running all around us but under control, of course. Abby was overwhelmed and wouldn't tug (my plan was to just keep her tugging) but luckily she was fine eating treats so I kept stuffing liver in her mouth the whole time. She did fine with the racing (flyball had prepared her for the crazy atmosphere) and all in all was pretty amazing. The nicer people gave me a lot of compliments on my dogs' training which was great to hear. That nutty mutt sure has come a long way.

Something depressing about the Superdogs - they claim that 30% of them are rescued dogs but that is a pretty inflated stat. Most of them seem to be sport bred dogs of one kind or another. Way to prove that rescue dogs can do it all, people. More than slightly bitter here.

On a better note, tomorrow we head back to the beach and low tide so hopefully I'll have some good beach pictures - a bunch of my friends have never been there so there will be about 10 (mostly rescued for real!) dogs racing around having a blast!

Land Lion

This is Tasu.
Isn't she pretty? I think she's the most beautiful sea lion (shh, don't tell the other girls).

Looks aren't everything though. The big tough sea lion (emphasis on sea) Tasu, weighing in at 200 kg, has a bit of an embarrassing problem...

She's scared of the sea.

That's right, this built-to-dive animal doesn't like to swim in the deep ocean. She likes to dip her eyeball in - that's about it. Oh, and she likes to explore at low tide. Deep water though? Oh no, much too scary. Tasu had been sent to our open water site to participate in dive physiology trials. Too bad she doesn't like diving! Now she's back at the aquarium where she's the biggest and the oldest. She's working on putting bossy Ashby in her place - but Ashby isn't going to be pushed around that easily.

Ashby's on the left.

Oh Tasu, don't worry. We won't tell the others why you're back.

I should be packing

but instead I'm lying on the couch...eating crackers and dip and candy and obsessing about my soon to arrive iphone (and obsessing over whether I got the absolute best deal possible for my phone plan. I blame my mother for passing this trait on to me). I really don't have much to say in this post - I just wanted to occupy my hands for a minute so that I didn't grab more sour wine gums.

I like the moving in to a new place part where I get to organize everything but I don't like the moving out part. I seem to just be shuffling things from one side of the room to the other without actually accomplishing anything at all. Maybe I'll go throw some more clothes into suitcases...this time though I'll pack the clothes I *don't* need for work the next day (yesterday was a packing fail).

And to make this slightly dog related, here's Abby:

Abby is a Ninja

With super Ninja skillz!

Her greatest power is the "face of death"...
It instantly turns Ryan's brain into mush.

Whatcha looking over your shoulder for, Ryan?
Incoming NINJA!

Just kidding...except that part about Ryan's brain.

Today we went to the beach at low tide. To get there you have to drive over two bridges, but when the tide is that low you can practically walk back across. It's nice to have that much open space.

Happy beach faces.

We walked through knee deep water for about 20 minutes all the way out to one remaining sandbar as the tide started to come back in. Abby was pretty worried that we were seemingly walking out into the ocean - she stayed right behind me bopping the backs of my legs with her nose. She was right to be worried - when we turned around to come back the water was suddenly up to my mid thigh and Abby and Ryan had to swim most of the way back!

Abby likes the splashy level of water more than the swimming level.

That ear...if only they'd gone up :)