Well look at that, it's been a month since I last posted to Jedi's blog. What a crazy, topsy-turvy month it has been. I didn't even post for Jedi's 9-month birthday, that's how nuts things have been (it got posted on Facebook at least). To update Jedi's stats, he got measured by an AKC VMO at a trial a couple weeks back and she pegged him at 19.5". I've been putting him at 20" or just a smidge under, but she worked on getting him to relax and stop standing on his toes and was able to get a lower measurement. I'm pretty sure his final measurement will be over 20" but under 21", so we're good. I walked Jedi up to the vet's office yesterday to go pick up a refill of one of Luke's prescriptions and he was 34.5 lbs. He's got good bone to him and a ton of muscle.
My last blog post was about our whirlwind trip to Tennessee. Our lives have been a bit upturned since then because -- Surprise! -- I put in an offer on my friend's place. Yes, in Tennessee. This meant that I needed to get my house on the market and sold, a thought that literally had not crossed my mind until maybe a week before that trip, so there was a lot of work to do. As you can imagine in a house with five dogs, there was a lot of cleaning to do. Lots of cleaning... And painting. And floor scrubbing. Then the carpets got cleaned and that was the end of using our living room. I put up x-pens to keep the dogs off the carpet, but I'm not going in there, either, because I would feel guilty leaving the dogs in the kitchen. So I sit in the kitchen with them.
We were blessed with a very moderate November, which is good because the dogs spent a lot of time locked outside. Every time I had a showing they would have to spend a bit of time outside while I finished up the last bits of getting the house ready, and then we'd all pack up and go hang out up at my parent's house. Let me tell you, Jedi has thought that part of all of this is pretty awesome. I think he's starting to view my parent's house as Disney World. Not only does he get to play with their dogs, but it is the house of tennis balls. Tennis balls everywhere! Jedi's eyes pretty much bug out of his head the moment we arrive and he goes nonstop until we leave. The plus side is that this typically results in him being pretty quiet when we get home.
I accepted an offer on the house only a week after it was listed. The home inspection is tomorrow and I have elected to continue our life behind bars until we are past that point. I am so looking forward to having our couch back and I'm sure the dogs are looking forward to getting off the hard kitchen floor. We have been spending quite a bit of time in the bedroom as well. This works out well with Jedi because he is pretty much the best bed dog ever and will sack out for hours in there. Sometimes he gets bored and drops things on me then offers tricks to get me to throw them back to him. Obviously this is too cute to ignore, so he always wins. His sit pretty is improving a lot through these games.
Not surprisingly, we haven't really been doing a lot of training during all of this madness. I have continued to work on Jedi's running dog walk and he has progressed up to running the plank propped up on the 12" table. I was able to remove the wings as guides to keep him down the middle, but if my throw is terrible he will still go off the side of the plank. Striding-wise, I think Jedi is doing great. He does best if I set him well off from the table to start so that he can get a running go at it. I feel this hopefully bodes well to his performance on the full obstacle. One bonus to moving to Tennessee is that I'll be buying a new dog walk and can actually work with Jedi this winter! I don't have any more dog walk videos to share, but I did video our training session the other day where we did a Happy Hurdle Day drill. Jedi hadn't done any agility stuff for some time before this, but he didn't forget anything.
We finally got snow here in Wisconsin. Considering we're now into December I suppose I don't have too much to complain about. I didn't figure I would be lucky enough to get through the move without it. Besides that, it was Jedi's first snow, so that made it more fun. He was pretty jazzed this morning, because what is not to love about wet stuff falling from the sky and creating piles that you can play with? He was pretty insistent that I come out to join him, so I finally relented and all of the frisbee-playing dogs got to play frisbee. This is pretty much the only game you can play in snow. It quickly became evident that Jedi did not understand the concept of snow covering objects, as it took next to nothing for him to lose his disc and I pretty much had to pick it up and show it to him every time he lost it. I think there was one time at the end when the light bulb must have gone on because he finally pounced on the disc in glee after finding it on his own.
As much as I am not a fan of snow, I do enjoy having the opportunity to go out on an untouched trail with no footprints before our own. I think this stems from my riding days and the feeling of getting to be the first to ride in a freshly-groomed arena. Maybe I just like to see where we've been. At any rate, I loaded up the dogs and we went to a section of the trail out in the middle of nowhere to help guarantee solitude (who knows if other people would have the same idea). Jedi loves absolutely everything about snow and finds no apparent downside to its existence. He had the time of his life running around on the trail during our hike. Well bud, in the future maybe you'll be lucky enough to have snow when we come home to visit. ;o)Assuming all goes as planned, we should close here at the end of the month and be in Tennessee at the beginning of January. Fingers crossed for a smooth ride.
