Last post of the year

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and I wish you all a happy new year, etc, etc. We had a pretty good day here, nice weather, all that sort of thing. Not that I paid much attention to the weather because I spent most of the day in bed. Not nice having a cold on Christmas! But anyway, I’m feeling a lot better now. We had to reschedule our Christmas canine freestyle routines though, and we’re planning on doing them on the first day of 2013 – that is, depending on if Jessica’s feeling better by then or not. She’s come down with something very similar to what Chana had a few months ago, and it kept Chana in bed for a week.

 

Now, a look back on some “highlights” of 2012.

JANUARY: We were stuck in a boring caravan park in Whyalla, SA, with annoying neighbours. At the end of the month we finally left, only to have some nutcases throw rocks through our windows the first night back on the road. So back to the caravan park we went until we get the windows fixed.

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FEBRUARY: I made the Superdogs Trick Show 2012 video of the team and booked the Wallumbilla Show for May.

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MARCH: We had a tour of a fire station in Broken Hill, NSW. That was awesome! We also bred Lassie to Sambo.

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APRIL: Not much interesting happened this month.

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MAY: Wallumbilla Show. Gympie Show. Last day of the month Lassie had nine gorgeous puppies!

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JUNE: Nothing interesting.

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JULY: We went down to Beenleigh (Brisbane), met some friends and found an awesome dog park!

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AUGUST: Visited cousins in Townsville and performed for them.

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SEPTEMBER: I nearly lost Sparkie to some sort of virus thing. She ended up at the vet’s overnight. One of worst nights of my life!

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OCTOBER: We spent a week staying in our cousins house near Sydney. Discovered Stargate Atlantis!

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NOVEMBER: Took my first lightning photo!

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DECEMBER: Nothing much happened this month either.

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It wasn’t as busy as 2011 was! I have some stuff planned for 2013 already – mostly dog stuff, shows, you know.

So, that’s it. See you all again in 2013!

Five days to go!

I’m still here. I know I haven’t exactly been blogging very regularly the last few months, but this time I have a different excuse – I’ve been too busy! The Christmas canine freestyle routines are looking great. Well, some better than others, but that’s pretty normal. We spent Monday night in town, then spent six hours walking around the shops on Tuesday! Ugh. I think we managed to get every we need, which is good because shopping’s not my favourite thing to do, and definitely not for six hours straight.

Since my last post, aside from training the dogs, we’ve been making random videos, learning how to dive into the pool, watching Stargate Atlantis, making a few friends, we set up the Christmas tree, wrapped most of the presents, and set up the tent. It’s been around 30*C and we’ve been swimming almost every day.

That’s the best shot of us older one together so far. Not so good!

 

Random stuff: Gabrielle, Chantel, and Suzanna have colds. Again. It’s only five days until Christmas, but apparently the world’s going to end tomorrow… I don’t think so! It rained a bit this morning. I need to organize a costume for our routine.

Swimming and… other stuff!

We got permission from the Ariah Park caretakers to run the team in the oval, and we’ve been spending several hours out there most days (when it’s below 30*C). The routines are looking better, still some kinks to sort out though.

 

The swimming pool nearby is cheap enough that we’ve already been there twice. And the water’s almost warm!

Mummy was trying to get a photo of us all on the raft, but we kept jumping/falling off!

 

Last time we were in Ariah Park was four years ago, Christmas 2008. It was so hot that little Sparkie tipped over her water bucket and then dug in the mud patch she’d created! I remember it hit 40*C on Christmas Day. I’m not sure what the temperature was the rest of the time, but it wasn’t far off 40!

This year it’s hanging around 30*C so far, which is not too bad if we can jump in the pool whenever we feel too hot! And there’s showers here too to wash off the chlorine afterwards.

Back in Action

We haven’t been doing much dog training for the last nearly two months – being in the town your baby sister is buried in can really knock your motivation out the window. And the last two show organisers I emailed never emailed back. But I woke up on the first day of December and realized that we didn’t have any routines sorted for Christmas! Last year I was working on ours even before my birthday. We’ve got some good ideas so far, music sorted, now just waiting to get permission from the camp caretakers to let the dogs off lead. If they say no, we’re going somewhere else!

As of our last rehearsal, Sparkie’s overexcited, Tess is unfocused, and Lassie’s goofy. Jessica jokingly calls us “the rusty Superdogs and their rusty handlers!” which isn’t far from the truth. This is what happens when we take a two month break!