For those new to the blog, my follow-up Friday provides me with an opportunity to update or revise a post from the previous week. 

Be Prepared….Author’s Note:  A lot of different people have posted about emergency kits as well as supplies you should always have with you.  My last vehicle (Chevy Equinox) had mad room for storage.  I could fit both dogs and a ton of other things in it.  My current car (Hyundai Tucson) is TOO SMALL.  I have a shopping bag with towels for the dogs, some toys and then most of the other junk; that somehow never manages to make it out of the car.  

Wednesday night we were heading to the park and I had the bag on the floor in the front seat and I said to hubby, “This car is too small; I have no room for anything!”

Hubby said, “What’s in that bag and why do you need all that stuff?

I didn’t want to say, it’s really all the junk that I’m too lazy to take into the house, so I said “It’s stuff for the dogs, you know in a case of an emergency.” “Towels and whatnot.” (I know what you’re thinking, it wasn’t a lie there really are towels in there!) 

Flash forward to last night when on the way to obedience class Hubby said, “Dude you really need to clean this car; do you have anything to wipe the windows?” 

I said, “First, I’m not a dude and don’t call me a dude.” 

“I have my shirt do you want me to take it off?” 

He laughed, but when I made the move to take it off, he said, “No, don’t.” 

That’s when I reached into the bag and pulled a shammy cloth out, handed it to him and said, “Do you want to ask me again why I need this bag?” 

A good laugh was had by all.  

What I learned from K-9 Kamp…..Author’s Note:  It was interesting to me how many posted about what they learned at K-9 Kamp; if you are interested check these out. 

Kol’s Notes

Peggy’s Place

I Still Want More Puppies

Forums….Author’s Note: I guess I’ve joined three forums.  The Labrador Retriever Chat Board, Dog Forum and Discuss Dogs.  Now I guess it’s time for foruming….

One of the challenges at Blog Paws (I’ve lost track of what number challenge we are on) is to join a forum and start……foruming?

I make no bones about my challenges with technology, I mean I have a twitter account for both Sampson and myself but I very rarely tweet, mostly because I don’t know what to tweet.  In fact, I’m following a blog that is teaching me about twitter. :-0

Now I’ve heard of forums, but never joined, read or used one. So I posed the question to fellow challenge participants for suggestions of forums.  I joined two, Discuss Dogs and I can’t remember the other one (but I think it is about labs.)  🙁

What I love about Blogville is how supportive and generous everyone is in sharing their knowledge and encouraging others to succeed.  So I’m throwing this out to you. 

I ‘introduced’ myself at Discuss Dogs and I read a couple of comments and I’m flummoxed, what do you write/chat about on forums, can anyone explain this to me?

Do you use forums?  What forums do you like/read?  Is there a forum for beginners? 😉

Well today wraps up the 5 week torture known as K-9 Kamp hosted by Kol’s Notes and Peggy’s Place. 

We grabbed the badge for our side bar so it was really important to me that I tried to complete the tasks.  For the record I only put myself into the raffles if I had actually completed the challenge (that would be week one.) 

K-9 Kamp wasn’t school; but I thought it would be important to share what we learned and grade ourselves based upon performance. 

WEEK 1 ) The Challenge?  Walk it off.  Walk for one hour; it didn’t have to be all at once but it had to be an hour. 

We’re good at walking.  We walk on average of ½ hour per day four times per week.  Because I felt we had an advantage I upped our walks to 45 and 50 minutes.  

What I learned:  A big ole’ dog like Sampson can walk for 50 minutes, but he needs to cool down in the pool after. 

Grade: A+

 Week 2)  The Challenge?  Fetch it yourself.  Play fetch with your pet for one hour.  Throw the toy, race the dog to the toy, pick it up and do it again. 

What I learned: Just because your dog is a retriever doesn’t mean they fetch.  I spent a good portion of this hour chasing the dummy (and I don’t mean the dog) myself.  How that looked to someone observing from a distance I can only imagine. 

Grade: C- 

Week 3)  The Challenge?  Tug with me.  Play tug with your dog for an hour (broken up into smaller time blocks if needed.) Play regular tug then drop into a squat or lunge and play tug in this position. 

What I learned: A 73 pound lab with all four feet on the ground can easily pull over a 125 pound (+) Mama in a lunge; causing the Mama to laugh hysterically and lose her breath while a 90 pound lab looks on. 

Grade: D (I only attempted this once, it would have been an F if not for at least trying.) 

Week 4)  The Challenge?  Jump around.  One hour of jumping.  Jump up and down, jump rope, jump over things,  just jump.  

What I learned: Sampson and Delilah can jump; but this white girl can’t.  The dogs jump over bushes, logs, leashes etc.  In fact, they even kind of jump a bit when they run. Me, not so much.  I finally had to resort to a little side-ways run, skip, jump.  And I couldn’t complete the entire hour.  But I sure surprised hubby with my little side-ways jumping.

 Grade: D 

Week 5)  The Challenge?  Catch me if you can.  Chase your dog then turn around and let your dogs chase you. 

What I learned: I am far better at chasing the dogs then they are at chasing me.  While Sampson doesn’t like me to get too far ahead of him; Delilah well she could care less; if there was something interesting it wouldn’t matter if I could turn myself into a steak, she wasn’t buying it.   I couldn’t catch the 30 foot leash she was dragging; never mind the dog at the other end of it.  I tried again tonight and I still wasn’t quick enough; causing hubby to say, “The things you see when you don’t have a video camera.”  (I didn’t tell him I had one in my pocket.) 🙂

Grade: B+

All kidding aside, even though we walk a lot; I’m still not in very good shape.  I also need to learn to incorporate other activities with our walks if I’m to put in a decent showing for next year’s kamp.