Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Nerds on Vacation

Since we're having to drive up to Tallahassee in August for a wedding we decided to take some extra time off afterwards and have a little road trip.  I've never been to St. Augustine or Kennedy Space Center so we are hitting up both and might drive by Downtown Disney on the way back to Tampa.

44 Spanish Street Inn
My friend Cat gave me a great recommendation of a bed and breakfast to stay in while we are in St. Augustine - 44 Spanish Street Inn I haven't yet searched for quilt shops to visit while I'm there but I know there are bound to be some nice ones to pop in to.  There is one right around the corner on King street!  I'm set.

We are only staying in St. Augustine one evening and will shop a bit the next day before driving down to Cape Canaveral.  I think we'll be staying at Casa Coquina.  The website brings back memories of the many websites created with Geocities in the 90's.  But who can complain for $89 a night? It looks cute and the gardens look very nice.

Casa Coquina
I've never been to Kennedy Space Center but I've always wanted to go.  My grandfather worked for NASA back in the Space Programs hayday.  I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a little girl.  I'd often jump on my dads recliner with his belt strapped around me pretending I was on a space walk tethered to the shuttle.  Then I found out astronauts have to be incredibly good at math and realized it probably wasn't meant to be.

Ringo has been to Kennedy a few times back in the 80's so we are both excited to see what they've done since then.  You can have lunch with an astronaut!  I'm definitely doing that.  They also do two different guided tours each day and we are staying for two days so we can do both of them.  Also featured is something called Star Trek Live and I'm wondering how different it is from what we did in Las Vegas at the Star Trek Experience before they closed it down. 

August is going to be full of traveling across Florida and of course I'll have my camera in tow.  Last night I had a dream we went on a cruise to the Caribbean and London (don't ask me how my brain works I don't know) and I apparently forgot my camera and nearly had a breakdown in my dream. 

Friday, April 22, 2011

Basil Agility Videos - NADAC Trial from February


These are videos from Basil's last agility trial in February 2011.  I finally got them! It makes me sad to know we won't compete or do agility again but I'm glad to have the memories of the fun we did have together on film so I can watch and enjoy. 

Basil was kind of over Start Line Stays for this run and just decided to go. He was a little stressed out at that ring due to the amount of activity going on in the parking lot adjacent. Missed his weave entrance but got it the second time (we were still working on off-side weaves). He was pulling to tunnels the entire course and took two off courses. I got good speed and he did many obstacles for me before we were finished so I was happy with that.

I got a fantastic start line stay and good distance on the first gamble line. Then I forgot my course and had to turn him around and he got a bit of the zoomies. Some nice rear crosses in here too. After our first off-course I just had fun out there trying to get the best distance I could knowing I already NQ'd.

Another great start line stay! We actually received a qualifying score on this run. I made a mistake pushing too much into him at the hoop after the clear tunnel so he shot past and I had to do a circle to get him through again. He had a great discrimination at the Dog Walk entrance and didn't pull to the clear tunnel. I was so proud! We had great speed on the closing. This was such a fun run to do.

Great start line stay on this run too! I signaled for a rear cross too late so had to double back and get that jump in the middle. On the very last jump Flying Arm Syndrome kicked in and he ran past it due to my bad flying arm. :( It was such a great run though.

I had to do a running start because he just wasn't listening to me at the start line. Something had him a bit spooked. I managed to get my send to the clear tunnel before he ran off. It was the parking lot distraction again. Then he came back at full Basil speed and I got my distance on the discrimination between the clear tunnel and the dog walk entrance! I was so excited. He was speedy on this run.

He was tired so I knew I wasn't gonna get a start line stay. This was the last run of the weekend so I decided to do a running start and see how it went. Once I caught up to him at tunnel 3 we were doing good. He got a qualifying score in this run.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Making Lemonade

This morning was the appointment with the orthopedic specialist Dr. Hay.  He looked at Basil's x-rays and then did an exam of him on the floor.  Basil was quiet and stood quite still letting Dr. Hay check him all over.  

So from Dr. Hay's experience he feels it is the beginnings of a tear of his right knee ligament.  He said it might even be so small it is microscopic but he could feel swelling and with the symptoms Basil has, he is pretty sure it is a knee issue.  He says corgis are lucky in that they are quite muscular so it helps to hold the knee properly in place and not let it luxate too much.  Basil in particular is in good shape and Dr. Hay loved his disposition saying how sweet and calm he was and that most corgis are quite feisty and don't like him to examine them.

While the tear is small, this is a career ending injury.  The ligament will tear completely in the future at some point and doing agility will put too much stress on it.  So for now, we want to prevent that ligament from tearing as long as possible.  

I'm sad that I won't be able to train or compete in agility with Basil anymore.  He does have a lot of fun doing it and I love doing it with him.  Hopefully he will be just as happy playing with Bernie and Byron at home.  Dr. Hay recommended I swim him as much as possible to help keep his muscle tone so I'll be doing that a lot over the summer.  He loves to swim and fetch his toys in the water so that should be fun for us. I may bring him to a trial to do a fun Tunnelers course every so often since that doesn't require any jumping at all.


And now Byron will really start getting some agility training in!  That should be fun.  He is such a confident little big puppy.  He is quite heavy now.  I can't pick him up with one arm anymore because of how heavy and long he is. 
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