The roof, the roof,

the roof is on fire.

Because my neighborhood was not hot enough, a school a few blocks away had to catch on BLAZING fire this morning in the middle of this heatwave and cook us a little bit more. Of course, it was a nice distraction from lying on top of all my bed covers, not sleeping, just sweating, listening to three very hot dogs pant in harmony.

Whew.

Food Lady. Oh Food Lady. It's really stinkin' hot in this condo.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS?

I suppose ... we could go swimming? What do you think?

I think ... WAHOO-FREAKIN'-HOO!!

Are we yelling about something? OK THEN! I WANT TO GO SWIMMING ALSO!

Oh wait ... swimming means going IN this river-lake-thing? Hrmm.

(*ponders*)

Less pondering, more swimming. Kthx.


Ah, Eff it. He's right!

WAHOO!!!!

Ohhhhh, yeahhhh
(cue porn themed music and slo-mo sexy hair shake)

One would think that by virtue of its sheer mass and velocity, The Flamboyance (tm) would be sufficient to keep entire nations cool while in motion. I mean, look at the thing!!


But even The Flamboyance (tm) is no match for this heat wave. It needs to periodically recharge, in a bed of flowers and on a diet of small logs.

Sing with me folks (to the tune of Little Rabbit Fru Fru):

Little collie Piper Bounding through the water,

Resting on a fallen log,

And repeating the process again!

I'M STILL YELLING! GIVE ME MY BALL!!!

I SAID I WANT MY DAMN BA- oh, oops. Thanks!

Ain't life grand?

It's a scorcher out there kids! Remember to keep your pets cool. And if you figure out how to do that, could you let us know? We're all roasting in here!

Piper ADC, SGDC!

Thanks for all your good wishes, readers! On Sunday, Piper got her last Starters Snooker Q with a first place, which makes her officially an "Advanced" agility dog now. Of course, Starters Snooker is ridiculously easy, but I am proud of my wee girlie nonetheless. She is trying very hard!

Our friend JLE took some photos at the trial which she has kindly let us post here.

Piper is a rocket. She either gets a Q and 1st place, or she crashes and burns.

She used to run under the tire, as it was much faster than jumping it, but now she is so graceful.

Please note The Sadist, Mr. "Again, FASTER" videotaping in the background, probably so whatever I did wrong will come back to haunt me in a class later ;-)


I have some video of my own I will try post later. Right now, we are having a heatwave in Vancouver and it is too hot to even pick up my camera - when I try to put my eye to the viewfinder, it just sweatily slides away. Sitting in my office is like sitting in a sauna!

ETA - a few more photos from the weekend, also courtesy of JLE!

I LOVE this dog!

Please to make unflattering facial expressions with me Food Lady?

Well, of course I will do that Tweed. Here you go - matching, unflattering facial expressions coming right up!

(Hey, it's really hard to try and run as fast as a border collie, and maintain your dignity, okay?)

Now this is what we call "A Missed Contact!"

I wuv you. Pleaz don't beat me. And pass the zombie cookies so I don't have to suck our your braaaaaiiiins. kthx.

Hey! Get out of the post, Carlos!!

Pickle Pr0n

So ya'll will stop whining about "Where are the Pickle pictures, the ones where he has his shirt off?" and stuff, and because I like to make you all happy, please enjoy some Pickle Pr0n.

(but if Mrs. Pickles starts taking names and kicking ass, don't blame me! I'm still jobless and rapidly becoming broke, so if she tosses me a few dollars, I will give all ya'll perverts up!)

Mr. Pickles decided The Sofa needed to learn to swim, so he donned some ocean going pants and did the deed.

All things considered, I do believe Sofa enjoyed being HURLED TO HIS DEATH FROM THE DOCK more than this experience. Oh the things a dog will do for a tennis ball.

Le sigh. Life was so much simpler then...

Fortunately, there was a lifeguard on duty.

I know this photo is out of focus, but for a moment when I was downloading I thought Red Dog had come back to pay me a visit. I took these photos about a week ago and had largely forgotten what was on the card or why I took them. It was too eerie not to share this, blurry or no!

Hey look at me! Look at me! I'm in the air!


Poor Wootie is feeling undervalued. We are at an agility trial all weekend and he is not getting the attention he feels he needs and/or deserves, since Tweed and Piper are running the show.

Harumph. My Food Lady went to an agility trial and all I got was this lousy dead stuffie.

Today's star is Miss P, who got her first Advanced Jumpers Q!!

Yay, me! Wait, what?

This is no small achievement for Her Highness. Just a few short months ago, Piper did not understand the game of agility despite a year or so of lessons, and could not even navigate a series of more than 2 jumps. Today, she did 3 runs and the ONLY thing she garbled was her nemesis, the Evil Weave Poles. If it were not for weaves, she would have run clean every time. HUGE improvement.

Oddly, the weaves haunted Mister Masters today as well. Tweed ran a gorgeous Standard, but he bobbled the weaves - and he did it so smoothly that I, running right beside him, didn't even notice! It was not until I reviewed the tape that I noticed his little shimmy-skip. Unfortunately, the judge noticed it in real time. We also played a new game called Challenge, which is exactly what it sounds like - challenging! And I am apparently challenged when it come to remembering the name of the Frame, because I called it "TunnelNONOImeanPlankNOIDON'TWhyCan'tIRememberWhatThisIsCalled?!!" while doing a little dance of frustration that messed us all up :) But he ran like stink. I am so very proud of my dogs!

We do so well now because MY INSTRUCTOR IS A SADIST!! I know I say that a lot. It's mostly cuz he reads this, and it drives him batshit when I call him that.

Payback's a bitch ;-)

He has a two lovely Aussies. There is the very handsome and masculine Cisco:

Who would like me to give him the cookie, and get my facebox all out of his bizness.

Get lost. But leave the cookie.

And Biscuit, who is darling. I love Biscuit, because when she gets mad at Gerhard, she bites him in the pants! Actually, I was a little worried she was going to bite me in the pants too. She doesn't appreciate picture time.
I brought my camera today, but mostly just to get the odd shot, because I was too busy running to take photos. However, I did get this one of Calen the Beagle, and I am very very glad I did.
ha ha ha!!!

She is going to kick some serious ass in the handstand competition.

We're at the trial all day tomorrow too. Come by and visit us! You can play with Noodles and the Wootie Toy, as he is ever so lonely...

And on your way, please come get these other cats. I hate them.

Rinky dink dink

Two kittehs in a sink!

tee hee hee.

The news cats and the old guard (AKA Nutz) are still unimpressed with one another. And yet, they are united in their distaste for their living-sharing.

Behold - Donutz is pissed off.

So is the kitten. Except she looks exactly like Donutz.
Hmmm.

While I had hoped that one of these little cutiepatooties would be a partner in crime to Her Majesty, it looks like Donutz prefers to fly solo. So these little devil kittens are looking for homes of their very own.

Yes please, find them new homes. They make me so darn tired.

What are you talkin' about?

I totally never unraveled your toilet paper! I never did!

Yes she did.

Now get that camera out of my face. I'm trying to figure out how I can replicate myself.

Speaking of replicants ... The Sofa is one step ahead of kitten on that one. He replicated himself at the beach today.

Eerie, no?

It's kind of to be expected though. I mean, there's a lot of things to get accomplished in a day when you are The Sofa, and there needs to be more than one of you if you want to get it all done.

So many puppies to NOM NOM NOM

NOM!

Dee-lish!

Also, if you are The Sofa, you must steal Harriet's ball at least 8 / 10 times it's thrown in the water.

Too far I think.

Agh! Agh! Definitely too far!!

That sucked!

STOP STEALING MY BALL, A$$HOLE!!
(tiny dog. BIG voice)

I'll take that, thankyouverymuch.

The Sofa seems to have settled down and is back to his friendly, playful beach self. He can even share toys, as long as they are not HIS toys. Seems he is over his snit.

Tweed however, was in a snit because Fergus was not sharing.

Damn it, Fergus.

The Biggest Snitty Of Them All was Rogue, aka The Scorpion.

She did not want to swim.

No! DO NOT WANT!

NO NO NO NO!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!1

When she paddled back to shore, she took out her bad mood on some random passing terrier. Poor little thing didn't know what hit 'im.

I'm just glad it wasn't me!

Yo, She is lucky it wasn't ME.

As for Woo, well ... there is no dock at Spanish Banks.

But Woo can get air anywhere.

So here's a question for you ... does your breed of dog recognize or behave differently around other dogs of the same breed?

Today Sofa met two dobermans. One of them (his doppelganger) totally ignored him. The other one beat the living snot out of him. I thought maybe they would bond or something.

My border collies recognize other border collies and relax around them. They don't mind other border collies joining them in their reindeer games, and if they see them from a distance they wag their tails. They are not particularly interactive with other border collies - or any dogs at all, actually - but they do seem to enjoy their company. Other dogs are not worthy of their attention at all, and sometimes are snapped at if they are too pushy. But it's really obvious that they recognize their own "kind" - Tweed even recognizes border collies on television, though he otherwise totally disregards television.

Is this true of your breed as well?