This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is surprise:
Just for fun, feel free to leave a caption for this photo in the comments section. I think Bailey is thinking “Whoa! That rock is alive!”
Tag Archives: german shorthaired pointer
Weekly Photo Challenge: Delicate
This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is “delicate.” When I saw this topic get posted last Friday I immediately started searching through my Flickr photo collection to find a suitable image. Unfortunately I quickly realized that a vast majority of my photos are of Bailey, food, and landscapes… not exactly subjects that evoke delicacy! I did however find these three photos of Bailey looking rather gentle:
That’s Bailey daintily handing me her frisbee, Bailey nosing the turtle she found in the backyard, and Bailey gingerly saying hello to 8-week-old Barrett the Rhodesian Ridgeback.
Pretty delicate, wouldn’t you say? Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
DockDogs Recap: Ocean County Decoy and Gunning Show
Last week I cautioned New Jersey to watch out for the Little GSP and it turns out I was right! Bailey had a fantastic weekend at the Ocean County Decoy and Gunning Show and came away with the top jump of the weekend and a big blue ribbon to show for her efforts. Everything about the weekend was great — huge crowds, perfect weather, lots of new competitors, and season-topping jumps from Bailey!
Prior to this event, Bailey had actually only achieved three scores in her “Elite” title category this year — a 23’1 at June Bloom and a 23’2″ and 23’0″ at Dover. All of that changed this weekend when Bailey jumped over 23 feet a total of SIX times! This was such a pleasant surprise that I’m pretty sure I was smiling all weekend. Here are the scores from her four competition rounds:
Saturday Wave #3: 23’3″ and 22’2″
Saturday Wave #4: 24’1″ and 23’10” (woohoo!!)
Sunday Wave #6: 23’4″ and 13’6″ (<;-handler error on that second jump!)
Sunday Finals: 23'2" and 23'6"
I didn't take a single photo this weekend, but here's a video that fellow competitor Tom Aquilone took of Bailey's 23'4" jump during Wave #6. I suggest you stop at the 1:23 mark unless you want to see me mess up my throw on the second 13' jump… 😉
Other highlights of the weekend included a brand new competitor — a yellow lab named Dexter — who started his first-ever Extreme Vertical competition at the opening height of 4'6" and ended up WINNING the discipline with a grab at 6'4" (a HUGE achievement for a new competitor!!) and also some beautiful elite-level jumps from our canine friends Mojo and Bosco. Off the dock, we got to meet the nice volunteers from the GSP Rescue of New Jersey and it was neat to get to tell them at the end of the weekend that Bailey had won the DockDogs big air competition! Maybe next year we can try to coordinate with them to get some GSPs that are in need of adoption on the DockDogs dock in front of the big crowds.
I think my favorite part of the whole weekend was right after we won. Several parents wanted to take photos of their children with Bailey so I had Bailey sit while each little kid stood next to her and smiled for the camera. I put a Zuke’s peanut butter treat between Bailey and the photo-taking parents and as a result she was very well behaved during her impromptu photo shoot! Bailey was very sweet to all of the kids and I think she could definitely tell that she had done a good job at the event. 🙂
Last weekend’s event was awesome and we definitely hope that the Decoy and Gunning Show will invite Delmarva Dockdogs back to Tuckerton next Fall. Delmarva’s next DockDogs event will be the Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland from November 9-11. We will be at the event but Bailey won’t be jumping due to the colder weather (she’s a baby) and the fact that we’ll be gearing up for DockDogs World Championships the next weekend. If you’re interested in learning more or signing your dog up for the Waterfowl Festival, you can click here to visit the event web site. 🙂
Watch out Jersey, here we come!
Next weekend Bailey, Matt and I will be joining Delmarva DockDogs for our second annual event at the Ocean County Decoy and Gunning Show in Tuckerton, New Jersey! I loved this event last year because all of the spectators are waterfowl-hunting, outdoors-oriented, dog-loving people and there are hundreds of vendors who are catering to that crowd. For me, that makes this festival MUCH more fun to walk around than a big state fair with aisle after aisle of funnel cakes and ‘fresh squeezed’ lemonade (although those are nice, too..). Last year we saw multiple German Shorthaired Pointers spectating with their owners which was really neat since GSP’s tend to be rather uncommon in the greater Philadelphia area. I’m hoping to meet even more GSPs this year!
My favorite little GSP had a great time at Tuckerton last year, bringing home the blue ribbon in Extreme Vertical and a 2nd place in Big Air. Hopefully the weather won’t be too crisp and fall-like this weekend or else she may decide that it’s too cold to jump!
The Details:
What: 30th Annual Ocean County Decoy and Gunning Show
When: Saturday and Sunday September 29-30, 2012
Where: Tip Seaman County Park, Tuckerton, New Jersey
Do you think your dog would like to try DockDogs? This is a great event for first-timers because there will be lots of practice time and plenty of Delmarva club members willing to help! The cost is $10.00 for an unscored “Fun Jump” or $30.00 for registration in a “wave” which will get you 2 scored jumps and a chance to qualify for finals which are split up into five divisions. Learn more at the DockDogs event page (or just ask me!). 🙂
Dover Summer Splash!
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.
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Bailey’s Health Scare
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!
The Fair That Never Was
Or, why I drove down the NJ Turnpike last night with my high beams and hazard lights on!
On Friday I eagerly reported that Bailey and I would be returning to the Monmouth County Fair for a weekend of DockDogs fun. Well, mother nature had a different plan. The fair was plagued by severe thunderstorms that resulted in a 4 hour “rain delay” opening on Saturday and the complete cancellation of all festivities on Sunday (today). It’s a good thing we got some jumps in on Wednesday when the weather was still nice!
Bailey rockin’ the dock on Wednesday evening.
As I was driving to the event on Saturday a friend called to let me know that the fair had closed at 12:45PM due to storms and at that point they didn’t know if/when the event would reopen. I was already 1 1/2 hrs. into my drive so Bailey and I hung out in the car at a rest stop for 3 hours (!) before receiving word that the fair was reopening at 5.
Bailey patiently waits out the storm at the Woodrow Wilson Rest Stop on the NJ Turnpike.
After a relaxing afternoon in the car Bailey and I headed up to the deserted, water-saturated fairgrounds. The DockDogs event staff were able to fit in the Extreme Vertical competition and two Big Air waves before the Fair closed again at 9:30 due to advancing storms. It wasn’t all bad, though… Bailey won Extreme Vertical! That’s our first EV win at a National Event and although there weren’t many competitors and her jump wasn’t actually that high for her (only 5’10”) I’m still thrilled to have brought home a blue ribbon!
(That’s the muddy bottom of Bailey’s crate in the background… all of our DockDogs gear is currently spread out on the driveway to dry!)
My trip home Saturday night was one of the worst driving experiences of my life. As soon as I got on the Turnpike I could see the cars ahead of me start to brake. This usually means one of two things — either a state trooper with a radar gun is sitting on the shoulder OR (much worse!) the highway has just been overtaken by an onslaught of torrential wind-driven rain. Sadly it was the latter so I spent 40+ miles of my trip home in the right lane with my high beams and hazard lights on. I know, I know, I was that car last night but hey, I’d rather slow down traffic than bring it to a dead halt by triggering a multi-car accident.
I somehow managed to hit all of those intense storm cells on my drive home. They were moving east and coming across the turnpike in waves.
While on the topic of slowing down traffic, have you ever wondering how the heck those drivers who fly by you at 50 mph in a downpour can actually see the road?? I was crawling along at maybe 20 mph (I quite frankly couldn’t take my eyes off the road to check) and I couldn’t even see the lines on the highway. Maybe I just have bad eyesight but I believe that my speed was much safer for the road conditions last night.
The severe pockets of rain didn’t end until I was about 15 miles into Pennsylvania and by that time I was violently shivering and my teeth were chattering uncontrollably – a combination of the scary driving and also the fact that I had apparently been blasting the A/C throughout the whole storm! (I didn’t realize this until the rain stopped.) What a drive!
Storm aftermath: this huge, well-staked, professionally installed tent at the fair was no match for mother nature. (Photo from Monmouth County Fair)
I woke up this morning to a message from the Fair saying that they will not be reopening today due to damage caused by those storms. That means I don’t have to make that drive again, thank goodness!!! I don’t know how DockDogs will handle the event placement but if they just use the existing scores this would mean that Bailey wins Big Air with her 22’6″ jump from Wednesday and she also wins the “Iron Dog” competition with her combined scores from Big Air and Extreme Vertical. (The third leg of Iron Dog, “Speed Retrieve,” was supposed to occur today.) We’ll see how things play out but for now I’m just glad that I don’t have to face the NJ Turnpike again anytime soon.
Another one of Bailey’s crowd-pleasing jumps from Wednesday. They loved it when she caught her toy!
Dockdogs Eastern Regional Championships
Last weekend Dockdogs teams from 15 U.S. States and Canada converged on the WISP resort in Garrett County, Maryland for the first-ever Eastern Regional Championships. This was the biggest Dockdogs event we’ve ever attended and it featured two pools, nightly social gatherings, and the best Big Air and Extreme Vertical dogs in the country. The goal of the event (besides having fun and hanging out with friends!) was to earn an invitation to the Dockdogs World Championships that will take place in Dubuque, Iowa in November.
You may be wondering… did Bailey the Little GSP make the cut and earn a World invite? Did she hold her own against our friends and competitors from all over the east coast? Did she thrive in the 90+ degree hot and humid temps? I’m happy to say that the answer to all of those questions is YES!! After a long weekend of more than 20 competition jumps Matt and Bailey placed fourth in the Elite division. Watch out Dubuque… We’re going to Worlds!
Bailey’s jumps weren’t stellar — actually none of the elite competitors were jumping the types of 23+ foot jumps we’re used to seeing out of them — but her 22’6″ qualifier jump with Matt was good enough to earn her a spot in the Elite finals. Bailey also jumped a respectable 22’3″ for me which would have qualified us for finals if she hadn’t already been in the line-up with Matt. (Matt and I always have a friendly competition going on to see who can get the biggest jump out of Bailey… I’m still ahead for the season with Bailey’s 23’1″ jump from Hog Dog a few weeks ago!) 🙂
Here are a few photos from the event:
Remember Baxter? We last saw this high-flyin’ Malinois at the event in Virginia Beach a few months ago. Baxter again showed everyone who’s boss by winning Super Elite Big Air, Iron Dog, and Speed Retrieve.
And here’s Rocket, another top-ranked Malinois. Rocket is from Pennsylvania and he’s one of Bailey’s friends. Also… Rocket is sponsored by Precise Pet Products, go check them out!
An odd thing happened to our friend Tim during Elite finals. Tim thought that his black lab Boo looked a little slow running down the dock so he leapt in front of him at the last moment. Needless to say, physics took over and Boo slammed into Tim, sending him straight into the pool. Tim took the fall in stride and was able get out of the pool in time to complete Boo’s “real” jump… good enough for 3rd place Elite and a World Invite!
Here’s another shot of Bailey. She’s twisting mid-air in an attempt to catch her toy. Not her longest jump but it looked pretty cool!
This is Twister from Baltimore, Maryland and yes, that stick is about to hit her on the head. (Don’t worry though, she’s a hard-headed Chessie!) Twister rocked the dock earning second place Elite with her handler Steve and first place in the Youth Handler division with Steve’s son, James.
This weekend Bailey was jumping best with the “place and send” technique, meaning that we throw her toy into the water first, then take her to the back of the dock and release her. Here’s Matt chasing her down the dock during a qualifying round on Friday.
To see more photos of the Dockdogs Eastern Regional Championships, you can visit my Flickr photo album of the event.
Thanks for stopping by and good luck to all of the teams who are going to World Championships!
Vote for Bailey in the Dockdogs Photo Contest!
Guess what? I entered this photo of Bailey and Matt in a Dockdogs photo contest on Facebook. The contest is based purely on the number of Facebook “LIKES” a photo gets so I’m humbly requesting that you consider voting for it. All you have to do is click on the photo below which will automatically bring you to the photo’s page on Facebook. Then click “LIKE” in Facebook — it’s that easy!
Here’s some more information on the photo itself if you’re interested…
- Taken by me on July 3, 2010 at the Big Butler Fair in Butler County, PA
- The toy is not in fact attached to Bailey’s nose with a string… the rope-ended duck toy that Matt was using just happened to twist in the air that way at this particular moment.
- This photo is the original version of the image that I use for my WordPress “gravatar” icon and it is one of my all-time favorite photos of Bailey.
- Bailey ended up getting 3rd place overall at this event behind a Dalmatian named Lance and a Black Lab named Marcie.
Thanks for reading and please consider voting! 🙂
Our Four-Legged House Guest
This weekend we had a furry, four-legged guest in our house – Hershey the chocolate lab! Hershey is my mom’s dog and we occasionally take care of her when my mom is out of town.
Hershey and Bailey spent hours outside playing tug-of-war with their favorite rope toy, cooling off in our shallow “kiddie” pool, and resting in the shade under our viburnum bush.
By the way… see that embroidered green collar that Hershey is wearing? That’s a gift from Bailey! Bailey actually won this collar at the Care-A-Lot Dockdogs event in April. Since Bailey usually wears a plasticized orange collar we had the green prize collar embroidered with Hershey’s name instead.
We dropped Hershey back off at my mom’s house a few hours ago. She and Bailey will both sleep well tonight after their busy weekend!
Does your dog have a “best” canine friend? What do they do together all day?
The Little GSP 