Eeepp! It has arrived :)

We've waited for it a long time and the suspense was killing us. Can you tell?

I'm so super excited my iPhone is finally here! I think I'm most excited about playing Angry Birds. But we'll see. I'll probably be in my own little world for quite some time, but that's ok. I'm pretty glad I decided to wait the few extra days for the white one to arrive but the wait was excruciatingly difficult. For those of you that don't know me in person, I'm not the most patient person in the world, but I try. I was listening all day and constantly paused the tv in hopes that I would hear the Fedex truck. Needless to say, the guy was super terrified of the 4 monsters that helped answer the door in excitement. I assured him that they were all friendly, but I got the response "Don't let any of those dogs out." Ok, suit yourself. Miss out on the awesomeness. :) Either way, I think now I'm just rambling, but eeeeeeeeeeepppp!!!! Happy day!

Just the little things

Sleep. It's kind of overrated. Actually, a lot overrated. I'm kind of happy I won't have to get into a rhythm after vacation for this coming semester. My earliest class is at 11:10am. I wasn't really even planning on doing that, but it worked out that way. So, I guess there's a cause for celebration. I'm really kind of excited to go back to College Station though. I mean, sure, vacation is great, but College Station is home. Houston doesn't really feel like home in the sense that I live there. I just come to visit. College Station is where we belong. We like it there. It's all about appreciating the little things in life. :)

Mhmm food.....

Thin cut pork in garlic salt and pepper dipped in flour then egg then bread crumbs and fried. Doesn't it sound amazing? It's called Schnitzel. Pretty much the best German dish on the planet. My mommy makes it when we come home for the holidays. Right now the smell is just drifting towards me from the kitchen. Mouth watering and sort of awesome. I would probably describe it as one of those things you could eat until you explode. Yep. That sounds pretty accurate.






In other news, my iphone comes in tomorrow! Yay happiness. :) I'm super excited but I know I'll have to leave it be to charge so if you absolutely have to reach me, facebook is the place to do it until Thursday afternoonish. I think I'm most excited about playing Angry Birds. I've gotten obsessed. Is that a bad thing? Eh, I would say it probably makes me part of the cult. That's about it.

Aside from that we went to the dog park today. Lots of running around for an Omelette and a psycho puppy. They got dirty as all get go like they do every day and both of them were miserable during bath time-as always! But, now I have deliciously smelling fresh jasmine scented dogs.

I'm going back home in about a week since I'm petsitting for a friend. I'm pretty excited since there's 6 other dogs and a cat that Vengeance will be living with for about a week. A good new experience for him and something fun for Shimmy. Lots of puppy playing as well since my friend has a sweet little border collie puppy too. School starts back the 17th and though it was a hellish semester Fall 2011, I'm ready to make it a great one this Spring 2012.

I also got super excited today because I bought Shimmy a Holt lead for her service work. It's not like she really pulls but there are times where she is more excited and rather than jerking her leash (which is the opposite of the type of training I'm going for) we're going to see how this head halter works for us. She did great trying it on and was only a bit uncomfortable. I think with time she won't mind it at all. Our next trial should be the last weekend of January USDAA show up in College Station. Still have to send my entry in but I've got plenty of time. Super excited to do some USDAA again. It's been a while. We've had a good start to the year so far and we're ready to continue it! :)

Feeding the Wolf

First off-Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe it's 2012 already. In March I'll have been alive for 2 decades. What a thought! Most people come up with resolutions for the new year, and although that is good, in order to come up with the resolution I think you need to reflect on what has happened in the past year and what you are going to do to change that. This popped up on my news feed on Facebook today. Aside from it looking pretty cool, I realized how much it can relate to how you view life and what you're going to do with the choices you have. You can either feed one wolf or the other, but the choice is entirely up to you.I also decided to look at this in the aspect of not only life but agility in general and the relationship I have with my dogs. It's unfortunate that a lot of people base their beliefs on dominance theories, alpha and pack leadership, as well as an intimidating relationship. I personally feel that this side of us feeds the evil wolf. It's our choice to blame our dog for our training mistakes as well as expecting them to carry all the baggage of things we wish to accomplish but then go wrong. I always tell people that I try very hard to base my relationship on trust and compromise with my dogs. Though we all can't be purely positive, let's face it, we've all been extremely upset with our dogs, but we can choose to rethink our choice and change our training plan. We can choose to follow the path of clicker training, positive reinforcement, shaping behaviors, and understand how truly incredible our dogs our. I will admit, all of Susan Garrett's webinars and posts have had me thinking about "Do-Land" a lot in the past half year. Even more so since I have Vengeance now but also how I've approached challenges with Shimmer in the past and how we may overcome them now. Sure, there are times when I get really upset and have a hard time living in "Do-Land", but there are many times were I sit back and realize that I've feed the good wolf and my dogs responses to me are much more positive and relaxed than if I were harsh with them. I'm not much of a resolution fan simply because it puts pressure on people and most of them never get followed through, but I've been somewhat working on this resolution for a while now, and I guess I've just realized that I can follow it through. There's so much to learn and the accomplishments can be massive, but you have to realize which wolf you want to feed to get to those accomplishments.

Aside from that Shimmer, Vengeance and I have had an awesome time during our winter break. We've done lots of cool things including plenty of relaxation. So, here are some cute pictures...

It's rough laying in a recliner all day....

Ducky killer puppy. Nomsnomsnoms.

Comfy Shimmy?Looking all growed up at 5 1/2 months today!

It's been a great start to the new year. Can't wait to see how it continues...