Wow, has this been an event packed month and we are only halfway through it. Just got back from the Teacup Dog Agility Association (TDAA) Nationals up in Maple Grove, Minnesota (just outside of Minneapolis). Raven was the primary competitor, but Ruger got to run a couple of runs at the beginning of the event. 4 out of 6 qualifiers for Raven – Ruger… well let’s just say he still has a full head of puppy in him. I’ll give more details in upcoming posts (waaaayyy behind on my July quota, that’s for sure). On our way back we had the opportunity to get Ruger introduced to Dock Diving. He has zero fear of anything and thought he would enjoy the sport – his brother is also getting his” feet wet” so to speak in the sport as they apparently both have a love for driving their owners crazy with their endless energy.
This first session was just to start introducing him to deep water. His breeder introduced him to water features when he was just a few weeks old (part of his performance familiarization). This was the first time since then he had been in water beyond his groomer baths. By the end of the session he was getting much more comfortable with his swimming skills and would leave the dock to get his favorite ball and come back. Everyone was shocked when he put his head completely underwater to go after his ball – apparently that is an extremely good sign! Needless to say we will be signing up for more sessions and finally getting out and filling the 6’x10′ pool we bought him last fall. We can’t wait until he takes his first leap off that dock!!
Being that we just got home from the week long trip, I had to pull today’s featured feathered friend off the wayback queue.
Hit the jump to see more graceful swimmers.
For those of you new to the blog, I have a massive backlog of images (thus all the jokes you probably saw from the long time readers regarding when they’ll probably see the latest tins). To my credit, I have been trying to use a LIFO queue lately and have been getting some of the recent shoots out sooner..just saying ha!
Looking through the queue I found this series of shots I took back in June 2017. What is five years between blogger friends anyway hehehe. Pretty sure Ron was with me for that outing at Chain O’ Lakes State Park near Spring Grove, IL. Been there so many times now it is getting hard to remember all the details without going back and reviewing the field notes. I was originally looking for a “water” related theme to go along with the Ruger adventure. Found this set instead and decided I’d flip it a bit. Our land baby was in the water, so, let’s go with shots of water babies on land. How is that for a shoehorning a cohesive theme.
This is probably one of those birds that needs zero effort in terms of an introduction. Close your eyes and throw a dart at a map of North American – you probably just hit one in the eye – maybe you shouldn’t do things people on the Internet tell you to do. Generally I’ll skip wasting digital memory space on such a common bird, but when they parade out their goslings its clickbait.
There were actually several sets of youngins in the mix. The older ones were busy exploring their new world and trying out those new wings. Been a hard day, things not going as planned, a political administration trying to gaslight you or maybe freaking out because you only have 2.5 months before a massive Halloween event (link here) and you have a ream of to-dos left? I have just the thing – find yourself a Canada Goose mother (probably not one you hit in the eye with a dart) out with her goslings and it will put a grin on your face from ear to ear.
These two were still sporting the fluffy yellow feathering and likely not that long out of the shell. Momma was keeping one eye on the little ones and one on me making sure I didn’t cross her comfort level. No worries there, I learned my lesson a long time ago, DO NOT piss off a mother Goose – they will stand their ground against coyotes – we don’t even have big teeth or claws.
Thankfully, The Beast has plenty of reach allowing me ample head start if my fun-loving sarcastic humor gets mistaken for taunting. I hear they get particularly irate if you refer to them as “Canadian Geese”.
“What did you just call me!!! Mommy, that dumbass over there just called me the ‘CN’ word”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, let’s not get our stubby little feathers all ruffled”. “Did you hear the one about the Goose that walked into a bar? The Mallards inside quacked “Even we are smart enough to ‘duck'”. Feel free to groan.
Better leave it there before I get the comedy hook – I also hear Ruger filling up the whirlpool “you better have your life vest on Ruger!”.
Wildlife Intrigued 
Ruger was in paddle mode. Darling goslings.
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Super paddle mode! It took him awhile to realize the vest was actually doing a lot of the work for him. His older brother Raven took a turn at the end – unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to video it, but it was absolutely hilarious. He immediately realized he wasn’t going to sink and then started lazily paddling – all he needed was a pair of shades and and a drink with an umbrella in it ha! I keep thinking how much crap those goslings are going to spew once they become adults. Thanks for dropping in Tim (I need to get in gear and get caught up on everyone’s posts).
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Pool puppies are funny. We had geese many years ago. The ground was always covered with goose crap.
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It gave us quite a laugh, that’s for sure. It was astonishing how the two took to the water differently – wiser one, of course, knowing he didn’t have to expend as much effort as the puppy was. As far as Geese go, I swear those things lay out a 1 inch grid in whatever field they are in and make a conscious decision to crap in every square. Apparently they carry this same trait with them in every state ha!
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They are good at making GCGs. Many years ago when I was working at the local kennel, they had a mean old goose. Laurie’s prissy sister came by to see the qoatimundis they had at the kennel. She was bending over trying the see a coatimundi in its house and that old goose made a beeline for her with his neck stretched out skimming the ground. He gave her a really good goosing. We laughed and laughed. Laurie’s sister was so mad that we didn’t warn her. But we couldn’t miss that moment.
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Hilarious! I hope you got that on video to bring out a family reunions. Admittedly, I had to look up what a coatimundis was – reminds me of a cuter shorter billed Anteater crossed with a Raccoon. Clearly a perfect distraction for a cranky old Goose to get a sneaky revenge on ha!
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coatimundi is part of the raccoon family. That was in the early 80s. I had no video then. It would have been great to have video.
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That video was just too cute!
So we’re the geese or goslings.
Yeah, what is 5 years between blog friends.😂🤣
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If we switch to dog years it hasn’t even been a year yet ha! The dock diving training was so much fun .. and best of all, I didn’t need to get into the water – that was Mom’s job. If things work out, we are hoping to get another session scheduled soon, so more vids to come for sure. Appreciate you dropping in CJ – looks like there are some upset farmers in your neck of the woods.
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OMG! You heard! Well let’s just say I will focus on that on the end of the month Hummmm file.
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Being in the heartland, we hear all the farming news!
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Yep, I manage to keep the refrigerator a FIFO stack, and I have to really discipline myself, or my photos will become a LIFO stack. Glad to see your pups doing so well – that energy level has to be hard to match. And little fuzz-balls are welcome anytime (wait, wait, what did she say?)!
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I was trying really hard to keep the FIFO queue but the more birding trips we started taking I kept falling farther and farther behind to the point I reversed my stack pointers on the linked list and starting popping off the front (a little technical talk I know you’ll appreciate). Once we get that energy harnessed we should be rolling – right now it is just crazy – never had a performance bred puppy before and wow, what a difference. Don’t get on the bad side of those fuz.. I mean goslings – they cry “mommy” and then things get real hehehe. Thanks for coming by Sam – enjoyed your Barr Lake post.
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Water babies are always cute and worth a long look.
Sigh. Those family photos are one of the things I miss about going to work; the Canada Geese and their nests in our parking lot landscape islands with their little ones strutting around between the parked cars. And a parental goose occasionally taking on a 4WD that got too close to their nest. I did see a security video where one of the department heads was attacked by a mom goose when he got too close to her nest. She chased him all the way into our building. Luckily no lost time injury to report to OSHA from the incident. But his briefcase did have some beak marks on it.
Best of luck on the run next weekend!
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Is it worth going back to work for!?! No need to respond, I already know the answer. I had forgotten all about those AD Geese, although I also remember those damn Red-Winged Blackbirds attacking me and trying to peck the staples in my head (you know, the box fan incident). Must of been drawn to the sun shining off them. Thanks for the well wishes for next Saturday. I’ve been doing some really hot runs as of late so hopefully I’ll be ready as long as the ankle continues to improve.
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Your readers are all looking forward to a report once you have completed the race. Hopefully no box fans will be harmed.
I had forgotten the staple incident. However, RWBB’s hold a special place in my auditory memory. Each time I hear one I am transported to the farm pond near my Grandpa’s house and am fishing again with my dad, uncle and Grandpa. None of us caught anything worth keeping. I guess that’s why it’s called fishing and not catching.
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What a great memory and the fact it is associated with a rather common bird in these parts means it will live on forever. Been a rough couple of weeks for me as we’ve been finishing up the clearing out and cleanup of my parents house. I never lived in this one so there isn’t any emotion with the house itself, but all the knickknacks and stuff all have a memory of some sort and thus difficult to figure what I am willing to bring home and what will stay or get thrown away. The good news is we close on it this week which means as of this past Sunday my direct ties to my hometown are now officially ended. I should be ready for the race – several brutally hot long runs completed and the distance shouldn’t be an issue at all – speed isn’t there, but I have pretty much curtailed that part in favor of endurance. As they say, when you get older, you just go slower longer! I am sure I’ll have a recap post after the event.. unless I drop then…probably not hehehe.
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LOL! Cute clip of Ruger! And these babies are just adorable! 🌞
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What a ham ha! I was telling Tim earlier that all I could think of while writing this post was how those Goslings. were going to grow up and start leaving “presents” all over the ground! Thanks for dropping in Lisa.
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🌞😆🌞
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Ruger passed his first swimming lesson and he did great! Goslings are so tender and so fragile. They grow fast and soon they look like their parents. I enjoyed so much your photos of goslings. They are all very special!
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Glad you enjoyed the post Kaya. Ruger is quite proud of his accomplishment and already begging us to set up his next session. Will see how it goes when he realizes he doesn’t just get to walk down the ramp into the water. Something about these bird offsprings are super cute. Quite a surprise in some cases as the parents can be ugly as can be, yet their babies are adorable. Appreciate you dropping in.
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Love seeing the video, how fun is that. He is paddling so fast. My big dog likes to chase waves but I think I will get him one of those vest. I went and visited the you tube channel and your photo gallery. Keep the videos coming. 🙂
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The trainer there commented how fast he moved in the water – reminds me of the old adage about how calm above water the Duck is and how frantic the legs are under the water. That vest worked really well and he didn’t have any issues with moving in the water. I even think having that around him gave him a security blanket feel. I’m still working out the kinks of the YouTube channel – what do I want to do with it, should I buy some better equipment, do I have the bandwidth to keep both platforms active etc. etc. All things I am sure you wrestled with when you started your channel. Right now I’ve just put up a few videos to test it out. Brother wants me to spend a lot more time on Halloween instructional videos which has me the most interested at the moment along with birding topics – per the video on the places we’ve been birding during our “average year”. The thing that concerns me the most is I do not want to put out a bad product and to make sure that doesn’t happen I will need to spend time making sure it is somewhat polished. I used to give presentations all the time at work and diving into the channel could feel like that again. Anyway still dabbling. The Eddiesoft Smugmug Gallery is our primary photography business portal so we do spend and incredible amount of time on that and a lot of that is private galleries for our shoots and ordering – I also use it for all the photos used in my blogs so that is all up there as well making that footprint huge. Thanks for coming by Sandra and for checking out the youtube channel.
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Yes, when it comes to your genre for You Tube, you have so many avenues to pursue. You can definitely sort your videos by playlist and have different topics that way from photography to how to videos. I like channels that have a little of everything. That is what I do as well, mine evolves around photography but I love making videos of anything related to nature, feel good stuff and good music. You have your sense of humor that you definitely want to use as well. Make them just like you write your post. 🙂 Mainly have fun and never let it be a chore or you will not like it. 🙂
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Thanks for the advice. I definitely hear you on the chore front – whenever it gets to be a burden (beyond a struggle from time to time to get my post quota met for a month) the fun drains out of it and becomes more like work than a hobby and nobody wants more work ha! We’ll see how that endeavor comes along. I know I will not be able to do much with it until after the Halloween Party, but it is on my list of goals to get to by end of the year.
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