So, my Premier weekend came in with a bang and went out with one.

 As I said in my previous post, Ranger had a really good Thursday--he won the Best of Breed Top Ten at the Top Ten Invitational, then went on to a 5 point pull in weight pull. This was over 10 times his body weight. He probably could have pulled more but I did a handler withdrawal.

Friday and Saturday Conformation yielded no wins or placements (and thus, no Total Dog award on Saturday), but that was fine because on Saturday Ranger blew me away with his weight pull performance. Ranger pulled his personal best of 1455# on wheels (over 25 times his body weight) for an additional 15 champion points in weight pull. The reason we pushed Ranger in this pull was to see what he could do. That is, now that I know what he is capable of pulling I can adjust his training to something that will improve his performance.

On Sunday Ranger finished out the weekend with the final win needed for his UKC Conformation Grand Champion title. He went on to compete in Weight Pull one more time where he got a 10 point pull (he pulled over 15 times his body weight--19.2 times, to be precise).

Ranger finished the weekend with a great award from the conformation ring, a new title, a personal best weight pull, and a good start on the next title. I came home a proud dog owner with lots of tips on how to improve his performance.

(Ranger needs to learn to stay on the ground and NOT slam into the harness and I have a couple of tricks to try to teach him this). 

 Ranger's examination in the show ring.

I'm making a quick post before I head out for the first day of the UKC Premier.

Yesterday I competed with Ranger in the UKC Top Ten invitational. We competed in the 2009 season and Ranger earned points for Best of Breed wins and ended up #8 for the breed for 2009. 6 of the 10 dogs invited made the trip to Richmond, IN to determine who was the best of the best. Dogs came in from PA, ON, IN and WI. Ranger surprised me and won the Best of Breed Top Ten. He didn't make it out of the semi-finals round, but that's just fine by me.

Later in the day he got the first 5 points toward his advanced Weight Pull titles. We'll be working on those titles more this weekend as well as attempting to get the last win needed for his Grand Champion title, and maybe even a Total Dog award.

I'm really happy that all the conditioning (running with the bike, pulling, long drags, free running) has helped his physical condition.

One of my rainy day activities is to troll craigslist to fill my wishlist. I missed out on a sweet deal on a pull-behind camper trailer last week, but the deal I got yesterday totally made up for it.

 I'd originally planned to get a smooth-skinned aluminum dog box without top storage, but was concerned about it being large enough for my dogs as it was designed for bird dogs.

I found this for the same price as the other box instead.

It's awesome.

It has lockable top storage, lots of ventilation, insulation (cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter) and, being aluminum, won't rust. The only real complaint is that I can't put my stickers on the diamond plate.

I'm working on fixing up the trailer I bought last year so that I can use it when I travel with the dogs. Currently I'm getting about 20 mpg with the OD off (as leaving the OD on while towing isn't good for the transmission), so I'm going to attempt to remove/redo the sides on my trailer to make it a bit lighter.

I'm also working on a frame to help hold everything in place while it's on the trailer. I'll still strap things down, but a small frame will help keep the things like the cooler, water tanks, truck box, and the dog box in one place.

Okay, so my attempts at a weekly posting have really gone awry over the past month. I got crazy with work and, between the heat and the rain, I just haven't been out much. Or at least not enough to make an interesting trip report.

 Things that have come up, though, are that because of the heat I wanted to make it safer for me to take Ranger for a ride in the cooler evening or morning hours. The problem with those times are that it's usually dark enough that people aren't looking for cyclists. I ordered a bike light set for my bike and am pleasantly surprised at the visibility, both for me and for traffic also on the road. The front white LED is a 1W and has several settings: flashing, low and ZOMG!MYEYES! The rear red LED taillight has solid, flash and strobe. Ranger also has a red flashing LED that hangs from his collar, and one that I can clip to the back of his harness if I put a harness on him. I have reflective vests for both of us. Mine is mesh vest in a bright highway-worker yellowy-green, so I wear it in daylight as well. I wear safety glasses and a helmet, despite research that I recently came across that says bike helmets may not protect you in an accident.

Ranger has put in about 70 miles on the bike tow leash and has had a lot of fun with it. I've taken him across the dam where I live. The walkway there is narrow and has a barrier to keep you away from cars. The flexibility of the bike tow leash has allowed him to safely drop behind my rear tire in this situation. On days when it hasn't been pouring rain I take Ranger out. Of course, since it's not pouring, there are squirrels and rabbits all over. He hasn't been able to pull me over to get to them, and can't get around my front tire to get to the ones on our right as we ride by. This has definitely been a good purchase.

On the weight pull front, I purchased and assembled a wheeled cart for Ranger's weight pull training. It rolls pretty well and he shouldn't have any trouble pulling it for his qualifying weight (on wheels it's 8x his body weight for a qualifying pull and 10x for his CH and All Star points). Right now it's still so hot out that he'll only give me a couple of good pulls with little weight on it before he quits, so I have to start back at much lower weights (probably even an empty cart) to build up his confidence to keep pulling even when you have to put some effort into it.The house I live in came with a large pile of bricks behind it--about 800# by my estimates. This will be plenty for Ranger to practice on. I don't expect him to ever need to pull much more than that. He has moved about 1000# on rails before, but decided it was too hard (after almost a full 16-feet pull) so he stopped and barked at me. This is what I'm trying to avoid by building up his confidence.

This cart has a 1200# capacity (I don't know the weight of the cart itself, but it's over 50#). I used 1400# test vinyl-coated metal rope for the traces. I clip him in using a screw-gate carabiner. I tied down the steering mechanism, but am still having some trouble keeping it from moving around, so it sometimes doesn't track very straight. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve that, please let me know in the comments section.