Weekly Photo Challenge AND Bailey is a Finalist in a Photo Contest!

Posted in Bailey, Challenges by Annie T

First of all, I just learned that this photo of Bailey has been chosen as a Grand Prize Finalist in a photo contest! The winner is determined by popular vote which means that YOU can help Bailey win simply by clicking here and then hitting the “VOTE” button.

I would REALLY appreciate it if you could take a few seconds to vote! Voting is open until August 16th and you can vote once per day. The contest is sponsored by Yakima Racks and the winner receives gifts from Ruffwear (Bailey’s favorite dog gear outfitter), Zukes (Bailey’s favorite treats!) and a $500 Yakima gift card!

In other news, this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is One Shot, Two Ways. The idea behind this challenge is to show the same subject from two angles and I have a fun example to share. The following two photos show Bailey flying through the air about to catch her duck. They were taken from two different cameras at the exact same moment during the same jump. Cool, right?

The first photo was taken head-on by a professional photographer (Key4Prints). I happened to catch the second photo from the bleachers at the exact same time… just as Bailey was contorting her body and snapping her mouth open mid-air in an attempt to catch her duck. While the professional shot is clearly a better photo, I kind of like the second shot because it helps you appreciate what a huge jump this was. Bailey ended up winning her division at this event with a 24+ foot jump!

Thanks for stopping by and, again, thank you to everyone that voted for Bailey in the photo contest!!!! (You can vote here: http://bit.ly/146NFcQ )

27Jul2013

Seeing Double… A GSP House Guest!

Posted in Adventures at Home, Bailey by Annie T

Just before Christmas 2012 Matt’s parents rescued a beautiful German Shorthaired Pointer and named her Bella. Prior to her rescue Bella was discovered by a forest ranger wandering around in a New Jersey state forest (in cold winter weather!!) and she was underfed and seriously in need of a loving family. Lucky for Bella, Matt’s parents welcomed her into their home and she is now enjoying a comfortable, happy life with her new family!

Bailey and Bella are really similar in size and coloring. We sometimes joke that Bella could be Bailey’s sister… after all, Bailey was the runt of a 10-puppy litter born just 30 minutes from the state forest where Bella was found! Biological siblings or not, Bella and Bailey are great friends and we take care of Bella when Matt’s parents are out of town. We have Bella this weekend and I had fun doing a mini photoshoot with the GSP girls.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

As you can see, Bailey and Bella are in a constant competition to steal each other’s toys. Today they were vying for the same orange squeaky toy. Aren’t they cute?

Bella sticks her tongue out at Bailey

“Why does Bella get the toy”

Bella

Bailey sneaks up on Bella

We don’t know what Bella’s background is, but she definitely has good hunting instincts. Today she discovered a monarch butterfly in my flower garden and spent quite a while stalking and pointing at it. Bailey used to point at butterflies but seems to have lost interest in them… now she focuses on squirrels, groundhogs and birds!

Bella points at a monarch butterfly

Bella

The object of Bella’s affections

As I write this post we’re watching TV in our home office with the two dogs. Bailey is snuggled comfortably on Bella’s bed (because Bailey is a HUGE bed hog!) and Bella has generously decided that that’s OK and she is alternating between lying on the floor at Matt’s feet and curling up in an awkwardly tiny ball on Bailey’s very small bed. What a good pup! Soon we’ll put both dogs to bed so they can rest up for another fun day in the back yard tomorrow!

Does your dog have a best friend? Tell me about them! 🙂

Related Post: Our Four-Legged House Guest (Hershey the Chocolate Lab)

18Jul2013

DockDogs Eastern Regional Championships 2013

Posted in Bailey, Trips by Annie T

Less than 72 hours after returning home from our St. Lucia honeymoon Matt and I packed up the Subaru and set out with Bailey to the WISP Resort in western Maryland for the 2013 DockDogs Eastern Regional Championships! If you’ve been following my blog for a while you may remember that last year at the 2012 Regional Championships Bailey earned an invitation to Worlds by placing 4th in the Elite Big Air division. Bailey didn’t do quite as well this year but we still had a blast!!

Bailey’s best Big Air jump of the weekend was 21’2″ and she grabbed 5’10” in Extreme Vertical. I think that’s pretty good considering that she hadn’t jumped off a dock since last November! 🙂 Here’s a sequence of one of her Extreme Vertical jumps:

One of my favorite things about DockDogs events is that Matt and I get to spend quality time snuggling with Bailey. She is not allowed in our bed at home, but when we travel to pet-friendly hotels she sleeps with us and she makes herself very comfortable on our bed when we leave her alone in the room. We have an ongoing battle where we try to shield the pillows with blankets (because, as much as I love Bailey, it’s not my goal to sleep on a pillow that’s been nuzzled by a dog dipped in DockDogs pool water!) but, try as we might, Bailey always burrows her way under the blankets and we return to find her nestled in a luxurious doggie pillow nest. (It’s adorable.) I’ll have to try to get a photo of Bailey on the bed next time, but for now here are some other photos from the weekend!

Bailey towing her yellow wubba to shore

Bailey and Matt

Matt and Bailey at the WISP Resort

Bailey

Bailey and her GSP friend, Flyer!

More Extreme Vertical

This next photo cracks me up… I always let Bailey watch the dog before her jump to get her excited but I didn’t realize that Matt was capturing the moment on camera! The jumping dog is Mojo, a fellow Delmarva DockDogs club member, and yes, that’s Bailey’s little head peeking over the side of the pool!! (And me making a funny face… I was telling her to look!)

Good times. Well, that’s about it for the event recap. Thanks for stopping by!

3Jul2013

July Update: A new streak begins and the garden keeps on growing!

Posted in Adventures at Home, Challenges by Annie T

Matt and I are home after spending 10 days in beautiful St. Lucia and a few days in Western Maryland for the DockDogs Regional Championships. I’ll post honeymoon photos and the dockdogs recap soon, but in the meantime I have some updates!

After 205 consecutive days my mile-a-day streak ended the day before our honeymoon began (June 13th). I initially thought I would keep on streaking while in St. Lucia but for the first week we were staying in the rainforest on top of a mountain at the end of a precariously washed out dirt road so running a mile a day wasn’t really feasible. Oh well! 🙂 As of July 1st I have started a new streak. We’ll see if I can beat 205 days… I’ll reach that goal on January 21, 2014.

In other news, we had record rainfall in June and as a result my vegetable garden has been growing like crazy! Check out this photo that I took today… a comparison shot from my May 10th gardening post is below.

Quite a difference, right? When we got home from St. Lucia I was shocked to see how much the parsley, thyme and tomatoes had grown and I was overwhelmed by the enormous zucchini plants!! (I think my basil was overwhelmed too… it’s now living in the shadow of those large-leafed behemoths!) Here are some other photos of my garden and back yard flowers from today.

Purple Hosta Flowers

Baby Green Tomatoes!

Pink Zinnia

Mmm… Basil

Shasta Daisy

Mint

Monster Zucchini Plants

While I was wandering around with my camera this afternoon I was surprised to spot a white-tailed deer in the front yard. It is quite common for us to see deer in our area (usually in other peoples’ yards or dashing across the road!) but it is very, VERY rare to see a deer in our yard because Bailey has made it her life mission to stalk and chase any and all wildlife that comes within her invisible fence boundary.

I guess the neighborhood deer herd realized that Bailey was not at home for most of June and as a result they are now making themselves comfortable in the front yard. Luckily Bailey was on her game this afternoon and as soon as this deer made a move Bailey (who must have been stalking it from a different angle as I snapped away with the camera) came blasting over, chased it away, and then proceeded to roll and rub in the deer’s scent for a good 30 seconds. Good dog, Bailey (even if you do smell now…)

Oh hello, deer in the front yard

Bailey on patrol!

Soaking up all of that deer stinkiness

Well, that’s it for tonight’s update. Happy 4th of July and have a great holiday weekend!!

Related Posts:
• Streaking, Reflections, and Other December Challenges (December 3, 2012)
• Streaking, Day 100 (March 1, 2013)
• Let the 2013 Gardening Season Begin! (May 12, 2013)
• Waiting for Red Tomatoes (July 4, 2012)

11May2013

Happy Birthday, Bailey!

Posted in Bailey by Annie T

It’s Bailey’s 6th birthday today! I think a photo montage of my four-legged best friend is in order, don’t you?

Hiding behind the tulips

Bailey ponders life with a ball in her mouth

Here are some of Bailey’s most memorable moments since her fifth birthday:

Qualified for Worlds at the DockDogs Eastern Regional Championships (July 2012)
Won Big Air and Extreme Vertical at the Monmouth County Fair (July 2012)
Diagnosed with Lyme’s Disease (August 2012)
Won Big Air and placed second place in Extreme Vertical at the Dover Summer Splash (August 2012)
Won Big Air at the Ocean County Decoy & Gunning Show (September 2012)
Competed at the DockDogs World Championships (November 2012)

Happy Birthday, Bailey!

22Apr2013

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

Posted in Bailey, Challenges by Annie T

This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is “Up.” As you may have noticed, I love to use photos of Bailey whenever possible in these challenges and it just so happens that jumping UP is one of her favorite things to do!

The first photo shows Bailey competing in Big Air at the Dock Daze event in May 2012 and the second photo was taken during the Extreme Vertical competition at the 2010 Delmarva Doggone Fun event. Bailey ended up winning with a height of 7 feet!

15Feb2013

Multiple Baileys and a Photo Contest!

Posted in Bailey by Annie T

Happy Friday! Check out this photo of Bailey… I entered it in a photo contest and, if we win, Bailey will get to have a professional photo shoot and be the “Cover Dog” of Delmarva Unleashed magazine! If you want to help Bailey in the contest please click on the photo. This will take you directly to the Facebook version of the photo where you can “LIKE” it to vote! Voting ends February 21, 2013.

The above photo shows Bailey in Dover, Delaware at a Delmarva Dockdogs practice. I created the image by combining five photographs of the same jump together in Photoshop. I especially like this image because you get to see five Baileys in the air and five Bailey reflections in the water. She also caught her yellow wubba like a pro. 🙂

Over the years I have created several sequences of Bailey competing in dock diving events. Here are a few of my favorites! (Click the photo to view the high-res version.)

Bailey at the June Bloom event last summer. Not the prettiest grab but she got it! (2012)

Bailey doing a place ‘n’ send style jump at a pond event in Frederick, Maryland. (2010)

Bailey makes a splash at Care A Lot in Virginia Beach. (2010)

Following her red wubba through the air at the June Bloom event. (2012)

A prettier Extreme Vertical grab at June Bloom. (2012)

Last but not least, a close up of Bailey’s expression as she takes off.
She’s all business! (2011)

Do you like any of the above photos? Tell me about it in the comments section. And please don’t forget to Vote for Bailey in the “Cover Dog” photo contest! Thank you!!! 🙂

13Nov2012

Preparing for DockDogs World Championships!

Posted in Bailey, Trips by Annie T

After months of waiting we are now only 3 days away from the start of DockDogs World Championships! Bailey qualified for this invite-only event back in July and now we are getting ready to make the long (long, long!) drive to Dubuque, Iowa. In anticipation of Worlds, I’ve created several pieces of Bailey “swag” including trading cards, t-shirts, a decal, and a banner. I’m really happy with how everything turned out so I thought I’d do a post on all of the custom items that we’ll be bringing with us to Dubuque.Many Worlds competitors are bringing “trading cards” featuring fun facts and photos of their dog. Rumor has it there may actually be a “Paw-tograph” session where willing dogs can stamp their paw print onto their cards for adoring crowds, but it seems that the main purpose of these cards is really for competitors from around the country to exchange info about their dogs and, of course, get some bragging rights for being Worlds invitees! Here are the double-sided cards that I got printed for Bailey at OvernightPrints.com:

I also made “The Little GSP” shirts for Matt and myself to wear at the competition. I used a silhouette of Bailey jumping (it’s actually the same photo as the top left image on her trading card) and had these shirts printed at BlueCotton.com. The shirts are super soft and my Bailey shirt is quickly becoming my favorite t-shirt of all time!

DockDogs is hosting a “window-tagging” contest (i.e. “DOCKDOGS WORLDS OR BUST” written all over the car windows) but we are skipping the window paint in favor of our Little GSP decal. I had our decal made at VistaPrint.com a few years ago. If you see a silver Subaru Forester driving down the highway with this decal (or ANY window-tagged DockDogs vehicle, for that matter!) please feel free to honk and wave!

Our last bit of “Swag” for Worlds is a banner that features all of the Delmarva DockDogs that will be competing in Dubuque. We are excited that so many of our club members will be joining us at the event and we’ll proudly display this banner with our fellow club members in the competitor area. The banner also came from VistaPrint.com:

We’ll be heading out to Dubuque in our swag-laden car in about 20 hours. Wish us luck! 🙂

31Aug2012

Dover Summer Splash!

Posted in Bailey by Annie T

On August 25th Matt, Bailey and I drove down to Dover, Delaware for Delmarva Dockdogs’ Summer Splash event. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that Bailey had been quite ill earlier this month and, after receiving a diagnosis of Lyme Disease plus a vague possibility of torn ligaments, I was very nervous to see how Bailey would feel about flinging herself off a dock.

Matt had the first jump of the weekend and Bailey went about her business in normal, happy, healthy form. Woohoo!!! Oh, and by “normal form,” I mean that Bailey launched into the air after her wubba, landed in the water, forgot all about her toy, and started swimming around the pond trying to catch bugs and frogs! Bailey always does this at the Dover pond so Matt and our club president are always prepared to wade into the pond and drag her back to shore so as not to hold up the rest of the competitors (thanks Matt and Mike!).

Bailey was clearly feeling better after her bout with Lyme Disease. She placed second in the Extreme Vertical competition with a grab at 6’4″ and capped off Saturday with a great 23’2″ jump for me — her best of the whole season!! We returned to Dover on Sunday for the last qualifying rounds and then got ready for the Elite/SuperElite finals where we would be competing with our canine friends Mac, Mojo, Cali, and Rain. Bailey set the bar high with her first finals jump of 23’0″ and never looked back. Bailey’s jump was good enough for first place, a big blue ribbon, and a prize bucket full of goodies. Go Bailey!

Here are some photos from the event:

Alice, a beautiful browndog, wows the crowds with bouncy leaps on the dock as she works herself into a frenzy before jumping.

Alice’s owner Kelli took this photo of Bailey soaring through the air during finals. I love how relaxed she looks!

This 8 month old puppy Nico had several personal bests at Dover. Nico’s handler, Laura, helped him out with beautiful, well-timed toy throws.

Coleman, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, had a fantastic event with multiple 21 and 22 foot jumps. Great job, Coleman!

During a brief rainstorm on Saturday Bailey happily wedged herself onto her squished up bed and snuggled under a fleece blanket.

31Aug2012

Bailey’s Health Scare

Posted in Bailey by Annie T

Hello blog world! You may have noticed that I’ve been somewhat absent lately but I’m back! We had a bit of a scare with Bailey earlier this month and I didn’t want to post about it until we knew what was going on. Now we know that she’s going to be fine so I’ll give you the whole scoop.

On Monday, August 13 we noticed that Bailey seemed a bit under the weather. When it was time for bed she was too stiff to walk up the stairs and then she stayed up all night crying and moaning. We spent most of the night telling her she was fine (Bailey can be a bit of a baby sometimes) but by the time 4AM rolled around I couldn’t take it anymore and made the mistake of googling “dog crying in pain” or some similarly alarming phrase. As you would expect, the internet presented me with all sorts of horrible conditions and diseases that Bailey could have been suffering from so at that point I called our local emergency animal hospital and we had Bailey in their office about 15 minutes later.

Sick Bailey looks a little bug-eyed after having her temperature taken and blood drawn at the animal hospital.

The vet examined Bailey’s back legs and concluded that she was exhibiting signs of bilateral tears in BOTH cruciate ligaments (like a human with partial ACL tears in both knees). This was terrible and shocking news since, as far as we knew, Bailey hadn’t done anything especially stressful and we had no idea why she suddenly would be injured!

Desperate to find an alternate diagnosis, we asked the vet about Lyme Disease. Lyme frequently causes joint pain in infected canines so we hoped this might explain her discomfort. Sure enough, a quick blood test revealed that Bailey was positive for Lyme. Woohoo! I never thought that I would be happy to hear that Bailey had Lyme Disease, but given the alternative Lyme was starting to sound pretty good.

Snuggled up under a comforter trying to feel better.

The vet put Bailey on Doxycycline for a month and sent us home feeling cautiously optimistic that Bailey’s “ligament tears” might just be symptoms of the Lyme Disease. Bailey spent the next week curled up in bed with limited leash walks while I spent the week worrying, hovering, and watching Bailey’s every move, trying to detect any signs of continued back leg pain.

After the week of forced rest was over Bailey was happy, sound, and eager to get back to normal life. We had scratched her from a DockDogs competition on August 18 but since Bailey was clearly feeling better we decided to let her trying jumping at our club’s DockDogs event in Dover on August 25-26. Check out my Dover Summer Splash post to see how things turned out!