First Flicks from Warwick

Lot's going on today and I missed a lot of the action, but good stories to be told soon. Please let me know what pics you can get and we'll post them out in the album.

Team Obedience?? Tool cool. Send results soonest.

http://picasaweb.google.com/MidMassNewfers/NationalsWarwickRIApril2008

Simple Harness

Hey Joyce,

How about this little practice harness? Do you think this would be appropriate for tracking?

Results from Springfield

• Joyce and Splash qualified in Rally Excellent on Saturday. That was Splash's 2nd leg score 91. Hoping for a title tomorrow. He was such a good boy today in and out of the ring. It was almost 3 when we left and we'd been there since 8:30. A long day for him. I'm a proud Mom.
• And on Sunday, Splash earned his RE. Score was 84
  
• Kathy and Sammy qualified in Novice B (first leg) and got highest scoring newf in Novice (we were the only newf in Novice but that was still fun).
  
• Just to put some icing on the cake, Sammy was awarded his TDI
  
  A good weekend for newfs. . .

Go NEWFERS !!

Book Review: Calming Signals

On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals. Wenatchee, Washington, 2006, Dogwise Publishing by Rugaas, Turid

Major Author's Message: Wolf communication is not limited to aggression and dominance communication. Wolves are often in the business of trying to resolve conflicts. They have a repertoire of what are sometimes referred to as "cut-off" behaviors because stop an interaction before it can escalate into something dangerous. She prefers to call these "preventive behaviors". Wolves are very clear with all their signals, they speak in all caps. Like SHOUTING in email I suppose.

Rugaas argues that domestic dogs have these language elements too but they are somewhat more difficult to see because dog language is more subtle than the wolf, more like whispering in email.

A few examples of calming signals include:

• Head Turning
• Quickly licking the nose
• Freezing or moving very slowly
• Yawning and sniffing the ground
  

Many of these are extremely quick; blink and you'll miss them.

This booklet is quick to read and generously illustrated with color photos which complement her descriptions nicely. Each section also contains one or more little vignette that illustrates an real life situation where dogs used these calming signals successfully. Having identified some of these behaviors, Rugaas suggests that we can use them to our advantage when we want to prevent a situation from escalation.

21 Rally Myths

Hey Folks,

Kathy shared her copy of Front and Finish with me and pointed out the article on page 48 “The Rally Station” which busts 21 Myths several of which I had heard at evening training.

You might find the article useful as well.

I went out to visit Front and Finish to surf around and found that they have the April 2008 issue on line in their free library.

http://frontandfinish.com/webstore/index.cfm?fuseaction=feature.display&feature_id=52

I thought it might interest you as well.

Many thanks, Kathy a good read. In fact, several of the articles were very interesting.

SIG: The Telephoto

Let’s talk one camera feature.

When you’re getting ready to purchase a digital camera, one of the problems that people run into is that there are SOOOO many options. Which ones matter and which ones don’t.

As with most questions in life, “it all depends”.

However, in taking Newfie pictures over the years, I have found that some features become pretty important. One that I use all the time is the telephoto lens.

Telephoto lenses work like a binocular.

There is your darling kitty happily sleeping in the basket across the family room. “Oh he’s so cute. Quick darling (she always calls me darling) take his picture.” What cat? Oh, way over there?

I could walk over, but that might wake him up and I want the picture with him sleeping. Whatever can I do?

To the rescue comes the telephoto lens.

On my pocket size Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3, I have a 10x mechanical zoom built in. I just posted two pictures, one Zoomed out all the way (what cat?) and one shot from the same spot zoomed all the way in.

http://picasaweb.google.com/MidMassNewfers/MMNPhotoSig

It’s great to have zoom when you want to take pictures of a dog in the ring and you have to stay on the outside. I like my 10x zoom. It was one of the things that I looked for when I purchased the camera.

Geek Peek: Please note that I’m talking about “Optical” zoom here rather than software zoom. Two different things.