Wednesday, November 10, 2010

enjoying the sun

Sunday afternoon we headed to the Omaha Zoo to enjoy what will probably be the last of the sunny, 70 degree weather. It was beautiful, and so relaxing!



I always go crazy taking pictures of the ring-tailed lemurs. I must have taken at least 50. This guy particularly amused me.



My highlight was seeing the 5 month old Siberian (Amur) Tiger. This is Isabelle and her mom. How precious, a new baby girl in a critically endangered species. 

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Autumn

Autumn, I just think it's a prettier word than fall. Summer has ended in the heartland. This morning was distinctly chilly. Still, I decided to play with my camera and post to my much neglected blog. We have been lucky with a warm, dry fall. It's only just getting chilly so can't really complain. 
Some of the trees have already lost their leaves. Raking season is in full swing!

Others are still showing off their beautiful colors.

If you haven't realized it, there is a relationship between which dogs are most likely to stay still for a picture and which one's pictures get taken the most often! 

Yes, Brynley is probably my favorite subject.

Annie is also cooperative. This picture made me laugh. It's such a typical Annie expression that I just had to use it!

Brynley has had a wonderful fall making his debut in agility. These are his AKC Novice ribbons. I really like his choices in favorite colors! (Green ribbons are for runs qualifying towards a title, blue is for 1st place, the multi color was for his first title)  I ran him a total of five days in AKC agility this fall. He ran outdoors on grass, in an indoor horse arena, and indoors on an artificial turf soccer field. (we both love that turf!) I was so proud of how he performed in all these different conditions. He had rock solid start line stays, no off courses, great weave pole entries, and blazing speed. He earned his first two AKC titles . He is now Jusdandy Twilight Bright NA, NAJ. Now we'll take the winter off to relax and maybe play with some obedience training and build back to what needs to be worked on for Open in the spring. The biggest issue for now is that his contacts haven't  held up as he's gone from second gear to overdrive. I'm not quite sure how we're going to address this. We can do some 2o2o work over the winter, but the real issue is putting it together with serious speed that we can't get when we're training indoors on mats or just on a contact trainer. That's my puzzle for now. Meantime, I'm looking forward to just curling up with a book and my dogs to snuggle and relax as the weather gets cold.