We're Back!

I've uploaded the few pictures that I have off of my camera and I'm ready to finally post an update! Lets see, the last time that I posted last week, it was Wednesday. On Thursday I took the dogs out for some trail running. More like trail jogging because it was still a little on the warm side. We had a really nice evening outing and ended it by playing around in the creek near the trailhead. I took some video of the dogs running around a bit there, but it's going to take me a little bit to get the videos edited and uploaded to YouTube. By the time we got home it was time for dinner and then nail dremmeling. I was pretty beat after all of that and just went straight to bed. Then Friday evening we were just basically kind of gearing up for the overbooked weekend. Adam wanted to do a light jog on Friday to kind of prep him for the race the next morning. After everything was settled, I was again to tired to post anything. Then Saturday morning rolled around!
We loaded the dogs up and headed out to Silverton for the Homer Davenport fun run! I will preface this by saying that Adam has NEVER done a foot race, of any sort. He also doesn't run much. I had hoped to get him out running more routinely in the weeks leading up to the race, but it was really up to him to plan his workouts based on what he wanted to get done. He didn't get as much running in as I would have liked for him to considering it was an 8K run that we were doing, but he did make it through the race! He actually ran the majority of it as well! The weather was not quite as perfect as it had originally looked like it was going to be, but it still worked for us. The original forecast was that it was supposed to be overcast all morning and stay pretty cool. When we got to Silverton, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Hmmmm....on the up side, the dogs are in shape. On the down side, the race route left us pretty exposed to the sun for most of it. Bess did great and had energy to spare. Heffner was definitely starting to feel the rising temperatures (low 70's by the time we finished). Overall, we did pretty good and I'm really happy that Adam has accomplished this!

My parents were both supposed to enter the race with my mom doing the two mile fun run and my dad doing the 8K with us. Sadly, there was some confusion on there end as to when the race started and they thought it started a half an hour later than it did and they arrived after the race had already started. That was a bit of a bummer. Plus I was hoping to have them help take some pictures while we were there. I don't have a ton of pictures, but I did take a few. Here they are!

As you can imagine, we garnered quite a few questions as we were waiting around for the race to start. Runner's World magazine more recently ran an article on dog breeds that are good running partners. Needless to say, great danes didn't make the list. I actually had a handful of people bring up this article to me and mention how they didn't see great danes listed and were genuinely interested in how it worked out for us. I think that regardless of breed, as long as you build the dog up to the distance that you want to do and are always mindful of how they're doing, any breed could do this. Are great danes meant for long distance running, not really. I definitely wouldn't train for a marathon distance with either dog. A half marathon I could see as long as I chose my terrain and temperatures appropriately for them. But obviously I don't have any problems having my two as my primary running partners.

The other comment we got that totally cracked me up was someone asking me how old Bess was. Before we got this question Adam had been doing a little warm up jog on the grassy middle of the track (we started and ended with a lap around the track) with Bess and she was full of piss and vinegar! Leaping through the air, playing tug with her leash, and just generally acting like a total spaz. The person had asked me what her age was because he had watched her dorking around and thought she was still a puppy!LOL

After the race, we headed up to my parents for a little relaxing, visiting, and to let the dogs run around in my parents' yard. That's where we took our "official" family post-race picture.:) It was nice to kind of unwind after the race like that. There was a photographer along the route, but I haven't been able to track down any pictures along the way. Hopefully I'll come across them!

Once we got home, it was a mad dash to fit in showers, a birthday party, and an evening get together with friends. It was all great and we had loads of fun, but it was a VERY packed day!

Sunday was the Dane Outreach Education day!! I got to the event site about an hour early because I needed to get Bess set up in her crate and then I needed to inflate all of my balls. I had the pleasure of doing a demonstration again this year of some of the ball exercises that I do with the dogs.:) Additionally we got to help with the agility demonstration and I was filling in for Georgia (she was showing dogs at the hound specialty) and did a talk on the common health problems that crop up with great danes. Busy, busy!

There were some great talks by Marta Brock and Allison White on a variety of topics such as picking the right puppy and how to start them off on the right foot and how to go about teaching your dane basic manners. They also did a rally demonstration and I snapped a few pictures during that. The decided to hold the demonstration inside to be better heard and make it easier for everyone to watch.



And looky who we got to see in person!! Darwin and her family!!
Brooke did a fantastic post on the event and got some AWESOME pictures too!! I definitely recommend that you head over and check it out!:)

Once things got rolling, we got pretty busy. Bess and I headed outside for the agility demo and Bess got to show off her amazing tunnel sucking skills. Oy! At one point, I can't remember whether I accidentally sent her into the tunnel or whether I was just trying to fix the end of it, but she dove into the tunnel after a jump. The problem was that the opposite end of the tunnel had been collapsed by her previous run (I didn't bring along anything to hold the tunnel in place), and the exit was facing down into the ground. There was no way for her to get out that way. So what does she do? Somehow she manages to turn around while inside the tunnel and come shooting out. I have no idea how she did it, but that girl definitely likes her tunnels! I wasn't entirely sure how she was going to be on the course because of how exciting everything was and she definitely full of herself already. Thankfully she behaved, stayed with me, and had a great time playing around. While I was running, Marta was explaining different thing. Then Marta was up and ran Jive. Jive was also feeling pretty good and was having a great time out there. So good, that she decided to poop in the ring.:)


I then ran in from the agility demo to get ready to do either my ball demo or the health talk. We were running a little behind schedule, so I wasn't sure what was going to be next. Edie did her talk on disaster preparedness and brought up lots of good points and had good ideas for an emergency kit for people and dogs. After her talk, Bess and I were up!

I started out with the simplest exercises that anyone could do with their dogs and also not have to spend a small fortune on equipment. The cheapest thing to buy is the air mattress. So we started there. I hadn't thought about the fact that I was going to be holding a microphone and still trying to position everything so that everyone could see what we were doing, but we made it work! After the air mattress we moved up to some of the core disc exercises and Bess got to show off her balancing skills. From there, we moved on to the pill ball and we showed how to do the weight shifts while the dog sits on the ball. Then we went for the big guns and pulled out the giant ball!! I had been working with Bess on mounting and dismounting for the two weeks leading up to the event. Last year, she was so excited that she just vaulted straight onto the ball. This year, I wanted to be able to demonstrate how the dog should PROPERLY get onto the ball.;) And thankfully she cooperated! I think the whole demo went really well and Bess had fun showing off her skills!

Once I got her settled back in her crate, I ran back to the microphone to do the common health ailments in danes talk. I was a little out of breath from running around so much and I was really trying to condense the talk as much as I could because we were still behind schedule. So I was a little flushed and short on breath, but I think I got the information across.:)

It was another great event and I'm looking foward to doing it again next year!

I'm going to save my description of our vet visit yesterday for tomorrow because this post is getting pretty lengthy and I've got a couple of pooches who are in need of some exercise. I hope that everyone had a great weekend, happy hump day, and here's to looking forward to this upcoming weekend!!