Posts Tagged ‘animal house’

March 4th – Harley

Mar 5th, 12 / 0 Comments

So March is off to a great start. 102.5 miles down and only 497.5 left to go!

Current pledges have already raised $98.53 and my current daily average is on track to bring in over $1,000. I plan to take some lighter days to get through the work week so projections should taper off to a little more realistic level over the next few days.

Today was possibly the best day of running in a very long time. After spending almost 7 hours going up and down Bear Peak on icy trails on Saturday, my legs were pretty tired. I haven’t put in that much time and vertical gain in one day in a very long time and it took quite a bit of effort to get up and get moving again this morning.  But the gorgeous spring weather and clear, dry trails made it worth spending the day outside regardless of how bad my legs felt.

The few south from the top of Reservoir Ridge looking back along the foothills that run the length of Horsetooth reservoir.

After a nice run along the Foothills trail system, I headed over to Animal House to get in a few extra “easy” miles with the dogs. The highlight of my day was getting to the shelter just in time to meet Rocky‘s new family. They seemed like a perfect match and I was pretty happy to see him head out the door for good.

I took Scout out for an easy 4 mile run around the streets and through City Park and then took Harley out for 5 more easy miles around the ponds behind the shelter.

Harley has been in a foster home for several months now and it’s obvious that they’ve been doing a great job working with her. She already knows sit and down and is very smart and eager to learn. She’s very friendly and gets along with any other dogs or people. There really isn’t anything wrong with her. Except one minor detail – she’s deaf.

I never really realized how much I use voice commands with the dogs to correct and praise them so it takes a little bit to get used to working with Harley. She’s been learning hand signals very well and on leash, the gentle leader works perfectly to give her direction. For the most part, she just naturally stayed at my side. But any time we went by dogs or other distractions, just a tiny tug at the gentle leader was all it took to get her back on track. And any time she was good and payed attention, I made sure I leaned down to scratch her ear and she seemed to respond very well to this extra positive reinforcement. Unfortunately Harley won’t ever be a dog who can run free off leash since there’s no way to reliably call her back. But this is a fairly minor inconvenience. My own dog Baxter (who can hear perfectly well) has a tendency to panic and run and can’t be trusted off leash. He’s managed to escape a couple times and it’s definitely something I always worry about. But it really hasn’t been a huge hassle to keep him on leash when he’s out in public or supervised when he’s in my fenced yard. Anyone willing to put the time and patience into working with Harley is going to end up with a fantastic dog.

Harley is a gorgeous little lab mix.

Contact Animal House for more info about adopting Harley.

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I like big mutts – Joah, Rocky, and Scout

Mar 3rd, 12 / 0 Comments

While the usual retriever, hearding, and hunting mixes are usually the most practical dogs for running and just about anything else, I always have the most fun with big dogs – especially the big bully mixes.

Today I went out for runs with Joah and Rocky. For the past few weeks I’ve been running with Scout regularly.

Rocky is a Boxer/Shepherd mix

Rocky is is a super friendly, energetic, goof ball. He could use a bit more practice with leash manners and he can be pretty stubborn. But his happy and friendly personality tends to make up for it. It takes a little patience to give him direction and get him to cooperate but he does catch on eventually. This morning he started out throwing a fit trying to get the gentle leader off but quickly figured out that if he ran nicely, it wouldn’t bother him.

Joah is some sort of a Bull Dog/Pit Bull mix.

With a face like this, I have no idea why someone hasn't snatched him up yet. (photo by Animal House)

Joah is really a great dog all around. He’s attentive, eager to please, and already has excellent manners. I didn’t use a gentle leader with him today and he’s a bit of a puller on the run. He doesn’t chase after anything or really try to take your arm off. He’s fine walking around and he didn’t seem to be interested in other dogs, people, or birds along the way. I think he just likes to pull like he has a job to do on the run. Next time I take him out, I’ll use a gentle leader to give my arm a rest.

Scout is some sort of Deerhound, Scottish/Terrier, Airedale mix. ...whatever he is, he's an impressive looking dog!

Scout is a ton of fun to run with. He occasionally wants to chase things but he’s super easy to control with a gentle leader – kind of like leading a horse around. And as long as he isn’t distracted by something, he’ll run nicely on a slack leash right at my hip. He’s very friendly and affectionate towards people and likes to lean into you for attention. And he learns quickly and responds very well to attention and loves treats.

Contact the staff at Animal House for more details about adopting any of these dogs. And if anyone wants to meet these guys or any other Animal House dog on a run, feel free to email me. I always bring a dog out to our Tuesday social run and this month, I’ll be running plenty of extra miles and will gladly make time to meet for a run.

 

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March Madness Pledges

Mar 1st, 12 / 2 Comments

Current pledges and total progress for my 2012 March Madness Fundraising for Animal House.

I will continue to update this report on a regular basis throughout the month with my progress and any new pledges.

Full details about the project are posted here.

To make a pledge or invite me out on a run, email me directly at pete@k9runner.com

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March Madness Animal House Fundraiser

Feb 29th, 12 / 4 Comments

For the past year I’ve been volunteering for Animal House helping to take some of their more active, energetic dogs out on runs a couple times every week. And over the past few years, I’ve continued to find fun and interesting ways to challenge myself and push the limits of my running ability. But other than running local 5k charity races and chipping in a few bucks for dozens of different Teams In Training, Fight for Air Republic Stair Climbers, or any other odd fund raiser like Runners Without Borders and the HPBT, I’ve never actually organized a fundraiser myself. Running is definitely an effective way to raise money so I figured I’d finally put my miles to good use and try to raise some funds for Animal House.

The plan is pretty simple. I’m putting my entire running volume up for pledging for the month of March.

My goal for March is to run as much as I possibly can.

My biggest month of mileage so far has been 500.5 miles. I think with a consistent focus on daily volume over the full 31 days of March, 600 miles should be a reasonable target to aim for.

And just to make sure I don’t get lazy and run a ton of easy road miles all month, I will welcome pledges for total vertical feet or specific challenges. The only restriction is that I won’t be running very fast this month so pledges related to any speed performance at races or time trials won’t be very helpful.

I will consider any reasonable challenge for volume and difficulty. And I’ll probably even consider most unreasonable challenges for volume and difficulty too:-)

My only rules and limitations are that I need to stay healthy and uninjured to continue to run every day, I need to keep up with my full time work schedule, and all miles will be outdoors – treadmills don’t count. I won’t be doing any huge 24 hour or 100 mile efforts that will require too much time to recover from. My longer runs will be around 30-40 miles and I probably won’t run any single day over 50-60 miles. I also plan to keep up with my volunteer running and will aim to get out with the shelter dogs for at least 3-4 runs per week.

Here are some stats for a frame of reference for pledges.

Mileage:
Largest Month: 500.5 miles
Largest Week: 222 Miles
Recent volume: Feb – 273.25, Jan – 274, Dec – 322, Nov – 328.75, Oct 405

Vertical PRs:
Largest Month: 89,667ft
Largest Week: 43,935ft
Recent Volume: Feb – 25,380ft, Jan – 32,503ft, Dec – 42,294ft, Nov – 59,876ft
Greyrock: 6 loops. 45.25 miles, 15,361ft, 13 Hours 59 Minutes
Sanitas: 13 loops. 40 miles, 17,339ft, 14 Hours 24 Minutes.

Some ideas for pledges:

  • Cents per Mile (i.e. 5 cents would be $20 at 400 miles, $25 at 500 miles, $30 at 600 miles)
  • Flat Donation for a specific goal (i.e. X dollars for 500 miles, X dollars for 600 miles, etc.)
  • Dollars per 1,000 Vertical Feet (i.e. 50 Cents per thousand would be $20 at 40,000ft, $30 at 60,000ft, $45 at 90,000ft)
  • Dollars per local Peak (Horsetooth, Arthur’s, Greyrock, Round Mtn)
  • Dollars per mile or per dog that I run with from Animal House

Feel free to be creative and set limitations if you need to place a cap on your maximum donation.

If you’re short on funds and still want to contribute to the cause, come run with me!

I already have several offers to help drag me out for 5am and 6am starts before work. With the volume of miles I’ll be running, I’m sure that at some point during the month, I’ll have an opportunity to run with anyone who wants to join me.

To send me a pledge or invite me out for a run, email me at: pete@k9runner.com

I will publish all pledges and fundraising totals in a Google spreadsheet online here. My mileage and vertical will be recorded based on the measurements from my Polar G3 GPS. My daily running log will be updated regularly on Attackpoint and I will post regular blog updates with my weekly progress.

Click here for a current list of pledges and progress.

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Chief, Draco, Nitro, Raquel, and Zorro

Dec 12th, 11 / 7 Comments

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted about any Animal House dogs. Since I last worked with Mickey, Animal House has been turning over a lot of adoptions so I really haven’t spent a lot of time running with any one particular dog. Over the past few months Angel, Rocky, Kendal, Benny, Xara, Buzz, Benji, Happy, and Frieda have all been adopted.

But here are a few great dogs who are still stuck at the shelter. I’ve spent some time with each of these dogs and really think they’d make great companions with the right owner.

Chief (Photo from Animal House)

Chief has been at the shelter since last July. I’ve been out running with him a couple times and he learns very quickly and really wants to work with you. He gets very attached to people and has some separation anxiety issues so he’d probably be best with someone who can spend more time at home with him. His only other issue is purely cosmetic. You can’t tell from the photos but half of his hair is missing. Evidently it’s a genetic condition, blue hair alopecia, so other than regular brushing and feeding him high quality food, there isn’t anything you can do about it. Anyone willing to take home the funny looking dog that no one else wants is going to end up with an incredibly loyal companion.

Draco is one of my all time favorites. Animal House brought him in from some other shelter that wasn’t feeding their dogs enough and when I first met him, he was all skin and bones. He’s super friendly and loves treats and attention so he was very easy to work with. He loves to run and the first time I took him out on the trails, he just fell in naturally to bound along at my side. He’s in a foster home now and is doing extremely well learning basic commands. He’s even learning how to run nicely next to a bike. The only problem is his name. I guess the volunteers were on a Harry Potter streak assigning names and he got stuck with the mean kid’s name. It really doesn’t suit his personality. His foster mom has been calling him Drake which is a bit better.

Skinny Draco happy to be out on his first run at Reservoir Ridge.

Draco looking much better at his foster home. (Photo from his foster mom, Abby)

Nitro (Photo from Animal House)

Nitro is another one who could use a better name. Kim asked me to take him out for the first time just a couple days after I ran the Antelope Island 100k. My legs were still pretty wobbly from the race and with a name like Nitro, I expected to get dragged all over Reservoir Ridge. But Nitro turned out to be a pretty good dog. We had a bumpy start …mostly because it didn’t seem like he’d had any practice on leash and didn’t quite know how to behave. But once we got things sorted out, he was really easy to run with. He has a lot of energy and has plenty of moments when he gets super excited and occasionally spins around in circles. But he responds really well to both positive and negative voice commands. Just tell him NO when he’s in mid-jump and he’ll actually stop himself and settle down ….my own dogs won’t even do that once they get wound up! I think he’ll do extremely well if anyone takes the time to pay attention to him and give him consistent directions. Nitro is living with a foster right now and is doing great. He gets along with another dog in the house and chases the cats around, but not maliciously. For a lab mix, he’s on the small side so I think he’d be a great dog to take anywhere traveling around running, hiking, and camping.

Raquel has a ton of energy but is really very easy to run with. She’s very responsive and loves attention and treats so she’s super easy to train. I honestly have no idea why she’s still at the shelter. Other than her high energy, she has a pretty impressive vertical leap …maybe she’d make a great frisbee dog? She’ll be a lot of fun for anyone who stays active and runs and hikes regularly.

Raquel

Zorro really shoudn’t be on this list of dogs that have been difficult to adopt out. He’s hands down the best behaved dog that I’ve run with yet. He walks and runs on a slack leash at your hip and pays attention to voice commands. He’ll follow behind you on narrow single track and if you tell him to go, he’ll run out in front as fast as you want to go. But he doesn’t pull and will come right back to your hip as soon as you tell him slow down. (I would love to try skijoring with him!) He knows how to sit and he is very patient and gentle taking treats. He hasn’t quite mastered “down” yet but he will gladly roll over for a tummy rub. For a Malamute mix, he’s really quite calm and gentle …definitely not your typical alpha dog. But despite his nearly perfect behavior and temperament, it’ll probably take some effort to find him the perfect home just because he’s a Malamute and it’ll take a lot of work to take care of him. He’ll need a lot of exercise, he’ll shed a ton, he’ll be miserable in our summer heat, and he sings. But anyone who thinks these are all lame excuses to pass up a perfectly good dog is going to love this guy.

Zorro

If anyone is interested in adopting any of these dogs, please contact Animal House. The Animal House staff will have a lot more detailed information about each dog. Nitro and Draco are currently living in foster homes and Chief has been in and out of fosters homes and is currently back at the shelter. Some have even worked with volunteer trainers.

I would be happy to answer any questions as well. And anyone interested in meeting a dog to can always come out and join our Fort Collins Trail Runners social at 6pm every Tuesday at Reservoir Ridge. I always bring a dog from Animal House to the run.

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