Thursday, February 19, 2009

Tag Neglect


Okay...so there are blog awards...and then there is tag! I'm starting to wonder with all the awards and tagging going on, when do people actually blog about...what their blog is about?

For the first time I have been tagged - and I really do think you should have a look at the beautiful jewelry at Purple Crystal Equine Jewelry! Here are the links to her blog her Etsy store. She also trains her dogs in Schutzhund. I'm not sure how many people actually understand just how impressive that is. Schutzhund is a lot of work. It makes the CKC obedience I did with Zen and Maggie look like child's play.

I always wanted to have a Schutzhund dog. Thing is, the other trainers I hung out with mostly had German and Czech import dogs, so I developed expensive tastes! I really wanted a German import Rottie...but at the time I was heavily into dogs enough to have been willing to put in the time, I didn't have the $3,000 or so that dog would have cost me. Hey, I had a $200 horse! That was in the budget!

So, I ducked the last "7 things" for the award. I'm not sure everyone really wants to know 7 other things about me. Well, I told you one above, right? I always wanted a Schutzhund dog. Okay, so similarly, I'd like to event. That's kind of the equine equivalent to Schutzhund. In Schutzhund, you have three phases - tracking, obedience and protection. In eventing, horse and rider must do dressage, cross-country and stadium jumping.

Hey, that leads me into number three, then. I *have* done a triathalon...sort of. I did a couple of little "Try-a-Tris" one year. That included swimming in a lake that was about 60F at the end of May. Seriously cold water for a non-polar bear. It was fun though. I can swim and I can bike, but due to my ankle I can't really run to save my life. I try...but really, that third phase involved a lot of walking for me. Or, sometimes, hopping!

Wow, so that's three. How about some art-related stuff? In Grade One, kids from Grade Six used to come to me to get them to draw horses for them. Funny. I knew horses had hocks when I was four. Am I the only one who is impressed by that? (that's five..two more!)

Six: the first car I actually owned was a Hyundai Pony. Maybe not the coolest of cars, but I paid cash for it and the fact that it was called a Pony was enough for me, especially as I didn't have a real horse at the time!

Seven: When I was growing up, I never, never, NEVER did chain letters. So why am I doing this? These things seem a bit different to me - it's kind of hard not to acknowledge when someone passes on an award or basically gives you a plug on their blog through a tag like this. I may be slow to respond, but I still appreciate the notice. So thanks to Purple Crystal Equine Jewelry! And my apologies to anyone reading this for subjecting you to useless information about me! I should maybe have just let the beautiful jewelry stand on its own!

(Just a quick note about the photo: I know it may look kind of ferocious, but Billy suffered no ill effects from Medz' reprimand for pushing the boundaries. I'm really missing Medz and Mute right now, because without his two older buddies to keep him in line, Billy is testing things out with me! We've had a couple of discussions in the last week! Such is life when dealing with yearling Thoroughbred colts!)

2 comments:

artbykarieann said...

Hi Linda, Well done on being tagged. I've got a german shepherd whose bloodline were all trained in shutzhund and are from East German breeding. I wanted to teach her shutzhund but there are no classes near where I live but my dog is such a softy I don't think she'd even pass the personailty traits test as she is a bit cowardly so perhaps the breeding is somewhat exaggerated.

Linda Shantz said...

It's too bad you couldn't find some classes, Karie-Ann. At the very least you both would probably have some fun even if she wasn't cut out for competition! I keep thinking I should at least do some tracking with my one Border Collie...she has a great nose!