Finally got to watch Off Season

And it was awesome! Wow freezing my toes off every day for a week was so worth it. Bill was very believable as the thief, as was Dekka as his faithful companion. Here are a few screen grabs from the movie. Dekka's performance was adorable, not that I am at all biased of course.

A friend who watched it with me said "it was strange to see Dekka with some Man as her owner". Which is such a great compliment for Dekka and Bill as well as for Jay, the director.

After watching it and waiting for the credits, I was thinking what an interestingly creepy movie.. and then my heart skipped a beat. The little dog got star billing.

Just the icing on the cake for such an awesome experience. (yes making the movie was hell when it came to location and temperature, but it was also absolutely amazing, the crew were fantastic to work with, my dog rocked, Bill was great and Jay and Jacob (film makers) were wonderful to work with... )


It really is a great short, if any of you get a chance to see it I reccomend it highly. Not just cause the best dog on earth is in it, but because its easy to see why it been garnering praise where ever it shows and got a BAFTA nomination.

The weather is unseasonalby nice and my dog is crazy.

Dekka (not pictured above, thats Kat) is being uber needy these days. I think she knows its agility season. She is normally such a calm and serious dog. She has been down right silly lately. Even to the point of 'rrrring' and trying to play with me in the mornings!! Once outside she does that silly run, with the sideways ears, bouncing back end and circles. She zooms through the barn doing laps. This is so not my dog. Can't wait till things are a little drier and I will start actually doing some agility here. Should help. I hope.

Kat is being a pain these days. Ahh the teenage stage. She has very selective hearing and next to no recall when outside. So no outside the yard being free time for her! She really wants to go over and play with the chain dogs at the shop next door. Which sucks as the gate is locked and I can't go in and get her. She is now trying door dashing to see how it works for her. We haven't had a door dasher in a while so its been hard for Darien and Mark to remember when going in and out.

Its most frustrating, but thinking back Dekka went through similar stages so I still have very high hopes for the problem child.

Sport's movie shoot debut

Sport is my son Darien's 2 year old border collie. He is a lovely dog but is not known for his ability to settle, though that is getting better as time goes on. He is not what you might think of as an ideal candidate for film work. However I feel in time he will be an amazing all round dog.

How did Sport land this role you may ask. I got an email looking for an animal wrangler and a lab. I said I could perhaps get a lab but that they would need a yellow lab as a black or chocolate lab was not likely going to be film friendly especially against a back drop of snow. I sent them a picture of Sport as an aside. They really liked the look of him. I mentioned he was totally inexperienced when it came to film work. But it was decided that as the role was very simple it would be ok (and I gave them a pretty decent discount).


Sport had to play a boy's dog. (never say art does not imitate life)


The role was fairly simple and shooting went pretty smoothly with only one real hitch...


That hitch was ZOMBIE deer!!!
Not only did this thing grin at you in a disturbing way it 'breathed' thanks to the wonders of ingenious people. Sport was fine when its head was in the snow. He was suspicious of it when its head was lifted up and Sport could see its grin in all its creeptastic glory. Sport was beside himself when it started to breathe. Sport wouldn't let James, the actor near ZOMBIE deer. He tried herding him away, when that didn't work Sport tried growling, when James still tried to approach the deer Sport tried air snapping. (this all happened very rapidly).

If there is ever a Zombie apocalypse Sport is the dog you want at your side.


Over all it went well. Sport did better than I had feared. He didn't once stare at the boom mic let alone try to eat it. He didn't like strangers grabbing at his collar so we will work on that. Sport did love all the people on set and was a very very good boy. Hopefully there will be more film work in his future.

Oh and my child decided that he should get something since it was his dog I used. Smart kid. I offered him a day of doing what ever he wanted. He chose a day at the Ontario Science Centre, with his uncle and I. A great time was had by all.

So its been a while...

Things have been happening, but after the loss of Aria I hadn't wanted to blog for a bit. I have some catching up to do.

I pulled Kaiden out of his 2,3? year agility hiatus and tossed him in a trial. I hadn't done ANY agility with him in at least a year but he was a good boy. We handily got a masters gamblers Q with a pile of points. Dekka didn't Q her advanced gambler class but had a ridiculous number of points in the opening (53 as apposed the next highest being 29, if I remember correctly, over all the heights.)

I got to watch Off Season and Sport was in a movie, Darien got his first gig as a professional handler at the LHW specialty. I will blog more on these later. Just wanted to say, nope haven't dropped off the planet.

Lost a horse

Sorry I haven't been posting much. Life has been busy, and tragic. Last week Aria, my little orphaned 'baby' horse slipped on a small patch of ice and fell. We found her down on the ice. With help from friends we got her on a horse blanket and dragged her into her stall. (she was very happy to be rescued)

Unfortunately she had broken her pelvis when she fell and had internal injuries. We had to let her go. Aria would have been 2 the end of April.

Not only was she the sweetest and best of companions, she would have made an awesome performing partner. She was so laid back and trusting of humans, as well as being incrediably smart and easy to train. I will miss her very very much.

Not much is happening.

Reading week has flown by so quickly. I think I need a reading month to rest and catch up. At the start of the week I have so many plans and great intentions. But you know what they say about good intentions. Great ones just get you there faster.

Anway whilst procrastinating on some particularly annoying MNR readouts for an organic chem lab report I found a neat new sub forum of reddit. Now those of you who don't know of reddit.. get out there and check it out. Its the best procrastinating tool on the net, and I am a discerning procrastinator. Now this sub forum of note is r/dogs. Yes a whole area of reddit just about dogs. Sigh, I hope to have intelligent dog conversations on the net with out have to quash the desire to beat people with the stupid stick.

www.reddit.com

Oh and my friend allie (go visit www.alliepets.com no go now.. finish reading this after you have admired her work.. GO.. ) made this http://www.knittingninja.com/pawsome/greywynd-logopics.jpg for my new logo for the film stuff I do with the beasties. Need a name though. Greywynd critters is just to generic I think.

Would getting into the olympics be good for agility?

With all the Olympic brouhaha going on it got me thinking of a topic some agility enthusiasts like to talk about. They usually talk about will it get in, should it get in etc. I got to thinking what it would mean for agility, how it could change agility.

I think it would be a very good thing. Right now there are two main "worlds" competitions. One is the FCI which is Kennel Club based and IFCS which is not. In many places in the US and in other countries the only place to play agility is the KC versions. I am lucky to live in Ontario where AAC is the predominant venue, which welcomes all types of dogs.

If agility ever makes it into the olympics I am pretty positive they won't discriminate on breed. (the countries picking their teams might though, but right now in FCI if your country doesn't reg your breed you can't play.. even if the FCI reg your breed.) I think this will be a very healthy thing, it will promote inclusive venues over exclusive ones. It will open up more opportunities for rescued dogs and for people running non KC breeds (like JRTs).

The KC folk will likely rebutt with well then you will get people mixing breeds to try to breed the ultimate agility dog. To that I say so what? People do that now. And who laid down the rule that says that all breeds we have now are the only ones we shall ever have? Take horses for example, most competing at the olympic level are registered, but not all. Some registries except other breeds as long as the offspring meet the breed requirements. All is not kaos. And with dogs these sport bred puppies will likley be in demand so not really a risk at adding to the over population problem.

So as I watch some olympic coverage from my puter, I will wish for the day when I could cheer for team Canada and their dogs to get a medal.