Waterboarding Is F-U-N!

My preference for shooting lure coursing on fields with a little bit of character is pretty well known. So when we arrived at the hilariously named G.A.N.G. Park, (which is, in reality, the home and property of our friends Les and Shirri), we were thrilled to see the result of weeks of rain in North Georgia; a pond, which Les thought he had filled for good, was back.

The G.A.N.G. folks, being an entertaining bunch, made sure that for most of the five days of lure coursing trials scheduled for the end of the year, the pond would be in play... at least for the more enterprising of the hounds.

So many hounds spent so much time in the water that one of the exhibitors donated a prize for the most entertaining of the swimmer/diver/skier/SCUB.. well, you get the idea. A judge was selected from those on hand to peruse and select a "winner" from our many images. When all was said and done, this Afghan Hound was picked as the best water crosser....

I decided to include a few favorites of my own, which include not just the comic antics of a few goofy dogs, but also this graceful, and picturesque Saluki...

...and for pure comic relief, this sequence featuring an Ibizan Hound who was sure... absolutely sure that...

"I can clear this thing!...

...I think I can clear this thing...

...ummm.... uh-oh...

...nope. Can't clear it after all."

For me, that was the jump of the week. Check out all the water shots at the above link, and all of the images from five full days of lure coursing here.

Nice Trip.

For no other reason than I like my free screen capture software...

While Margaret was in Michigan battling snow, cold, sleet, rain, and what-all, this was the trip I made the last week-plus. The dogs and I battled nothing but sun, wind, jackrabbits.... and abject poverty. You can help, and it won't cost you anything. Just click... you know.. up there at the top? Those things I can't mention? Do it. It will make you feel like.... Christmas!

East to West on the top, and West to East on the bottom. If you care.

Lure Coursing, Racing, and OFC stuff..

It appears some friends of ours have decided to advertise with the big "G"... and as luck would have it, because of the subject of many of of the posts here, their "link" has shown up in the bar above... so if you're looking for really slick coursing or racing "attire"... or slips... you might want to check them out. Hint, hint. I've had this business linked below for a long time, but it works better for me if you "look up" ;-) You'll figure it out.

There.. that should be vague enough to not violate Big G's terms of service.

Ontario-friendly Whippet Products.

Now the fine, law-abiding folks of Ontario, Canada have nothing to fear about putting the Shot On Site "I'd Rather Be Coursing" sticker on their vehicles... The American (and Global... except for perhaps Saudi Arabia) "Porn" version remains on the shelves.

See also new products for Azawakh, Irish Wolfhound, Ibizan Hound, Italian Greyhound, and Pharaoh Hound! (In addition to all the original breed goodies).

Where do you get them? here, of course.

New Stuff at Cafe Press

We've added Scottish Deerhound and Italian Greyhound to the bumper sticker assortment. Here's the "tongue in cheek" IG version.. You get it, right?
Right now we've only got the IG in the bumper sticker, but we've got the deerhound in stickers and apparel items. Check 'em out!!

Heads Up

Three quick things:

Tomorrow, 3 or 4 of the Galgo littermates are going out hunting. I predict a post about that later in the day.

New slide show on the sidebar. Magdalena. People, dogs, landscapes, horses,..... and pigeons. Click on the show for the captioned version.

Last: I just chopped a buck off the price of the bumper stickers at the store. We realized there may be some price resistance to a five dollar bumper sticker... even a spectacular, vibrant, attention-getting, custom design that our Margaret sweated over for days! There's lamer stickers there for $6 and more. Be like the folks in the Netherlands: buy a bunch! (And Anke: we'll do something nice for you... kind of like price protection).

More Than Bumper Stickers!

Who can keep up with Margaret? Not me! We now have "I'd Rather Be Coursing" apparel at our Cafe Press store . Right now there's just the Galgo Español. Other breeds to come. Besides, who doesn't like the Galgo?? Not me.

It's A Hit!

Early indications are that you like the bumper stickers. In the Netherlands, especially! Love you, Anke! In addition to those, and the US, we've even sold to Australia.

Biggest seller so far is the Galgo Espanol. Did I mention we love you, Anke? :-) Followed by Basenji, and Borzoi. So... where's the Whippet folks? Greyhounds? Longdogs? Salukis?

See them all here. They'll be available on T-Shirts soon, as well, and Margaret will be coming up with new designs, too. Check it often.

The Doors Are Open. A Crack.

It will be a while before we have a "Grand Opening", but the Shot On Site store is now open at Cafe Press. The storefront needs some work, but the page you all will be interested in is the linked page.

We're starting with a bumper sticker,

an old favorite in fact, but updated. Eventually there will be so much more. Apparel, ceramics, totes, notecards, etc, etc, etc.

All images on the work are by Dan, and all the designs spring from Margaret's fertile imagination.

Currently we have the bumper stickers in Salukis, Longdogs, Galgos, Greyhounds, Borzois, Whippets, Ridgebacks, and Basenjis, with more to come. Each is available in several color schemes as well. We're looking forward to seeing them on a lot of cars in the coming months' trials. Enjoy!! And Pass it on!!!

(The copyright watermark will not be on the product you buy).

UPDATE: We've added the storefront link to the linklist on the sidebar.

Coming Soon.

Margaret's getting fairly competent shooting movies with the little Fuji camera. We'll post some live coursing videos as soon as she gets them on a stick so I can load them on this computer. She also shot some ah... interesting... footage at a Broadway show when she was in New York. I think it's worth sharing.

On a commercial note: we're about to launch a storefront at Cafe Press. Margaret's been very busy this week working on some designs that you are going to want. Seriously. Stay tuned, and I'll post a sample and details before the weekend.

Unabashed Self-Promotion.

Tired of coming to these pages every day and seeing the same post you already read yesterday.. or the day before that? Wouldn't you like to know when the content has changed without looking at the website itself? Of course you would.

We've hooked up with Feedburner to give you the tools you need to know when something new is here. Up above, is the headline thingy.. it scrolls through the past 5 blogpost titles. The cool part is, you can grab it and put it on your own blog, your My Space, or Facebook page.. anywhere you can paste a little HTML.. even on your EMail signature. Just click the "Grab this..." line and Feedburner will walk you through the rest.

At the top of the sidebar on the right, is a link to set up EMail alerts whenever there is a change here. Simple.

If you want to subscribe to a reader, or your Yahoo, or Google, or AOL, or whatever homepage or reader you use, you can just click on the "subscribe to a reader" button on the sidebar near the SiteMeter counter. I was shocked to find, when I pasted in the subscriber counter, that this blog has..... ZERO... none, nada, zilch... subscribers. Get off your butts people!

Beaver Shots.

Another New Mexico "attraction"; big hair never looked so good.

And the Winner Is....

Unknown.. at least here in New Mexico. More than 24 hours after the polls closed, there's still no winner in the New Mexico Democratic primary. With only one precinct left to count, Clinton leads by a slim margin of 1092 votes. But.. there are still over 17000 provisional votes to be counted, so it could be weeks before a winner is determined. Kind of mirrors the national race.

Close enough that if we lived here we could have conceivably cast the winning ballots! Our South Dakota primary isn't until June. I originally figured it would all be settled by then. Now I'm sure we'll order up our absentee ballots. We, like you, can make a difference. But who will we make a difference for? Hmmmmmmmmmmm...


...I just don't know...

Gleaned from Google Ads.

Hope you all are checking out the Free Hog Hunt ad. I'm afraid my semi-dyslexic brain looks at that every time and sees "Tree Frog Hunt". MMMMmmmm-mmm, 30-40's my limit.

Every now and then something interesting pops up, up there. I saw this product advertised, but only briefly, the other day. Good thing I remembered the name of the business. This is a very interesting product. I'm trying to figure out if it's a product that would lend itself to Open Field Coursing. It's certainly less expensive than the California-made mechanical slips that most of the people are using now.

I'd like all my hunting friends to check it out and see what you think. It may need some modifications, but they wouldn't seem to be difficult. It would probably also be easy to modify for lure coursing. Check it out and send me some feedback.

Looking for dog food? Lots of ads for that up top, too. Help us out, and check them out.

Semper Fi.

Saw this new TV commercial today during the Patriots-Chargers game. It gave me chills.


I've enjoyed watching the Silent Drill Team ever since I first saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show back in the early '60s; or was it the '50s?!? Yikes! I'm old.

Some of you know that while I was a "Navy guy" for 4 years, my last year, 1969, was spent with the Fleet Marine Force in VietNam, with a Marine rifle company. I have a lot of respect for them.

Semper Fi.

Announcement.

Announcement 1: We have arrived in New Mexico! Back at Dreamcatcher RV Park in Deming, and the good news is the goathead stickers that plagued us last winter in the field adjacent to the campground are pretty much gone, along with a great deal of the foliage. But there's enough cover in there to hide a lot of cottontails and jacks, and about a thousand Gambel's Quail, and other birds. I took Sandia out to see his first jacks. Took a while, but we were finally successful. I tried to video it with our new Fuji Z10 compact digital camera, (More about that in another post), with little success. But here it is...


It took me 3 or 4 viewings before I finally picked out the running jackrabbit. Good luck with that... :) Tomorrow we'll head out in earnest to some of our favorite fields.. Fanny will begin Sandia's training. Should have better video then.

Announcement 2: Pictures from the weekend trials in Hutto TX are now uploaded and available for viewing and purchase at our website.

Patience! Stuff Coming.

I'm "borrowing" a computer and satellite signal now, because things are achingly slow out in the motor home, so when we move to a better area, watch for something I'll call "T-Rex vs. Blind Faith".. no it's not a '60s battle of the bands, but some quick ruminations on our brief stay at Dinosaur Valley State Park, (and their not-so-subtle next door neighbor). Also, watch for a new slide show from the park, a very cool place!

Got some links to some recent interesting posts from Steve B. and Patrick. Those who are regulars have probably already seen them.

Will I post something on OSU's latest embarrassing defeat at the hands of the SEC... ? maybe.

Stay tuned.

Oh! Quickly: Pictures from the weekend's trial in Glen Rose, TX are uploaded and ready for viewing at our website... link at right. Pass it on!

Hare-Brained Express Tour '08 Hits the Road

After a relaxing week spent parked at friends in the Houston area, the '08 "tour" logged its first 250 miles today. We're now parked in the RV parking section of that special hell known as a dog show. (Yes ma, I'll wear my galoshes!). Lucky for us, we're not here for the show, of course, we're here for the fun stuff! There's also a lure coursing trial as part of this show, so that's where we'll be tomorrow and Sunday. Glen Rose, Texas. One of these years, while we're here, we'll get over to the Dinosaur Valley State Park. It's supposed to be real cool.

Before we get too far from Richmond, I need to mention something I've let slide a bit recently: Food. We ate at two "Tex-Mex" joints and had barbecue from two places. Of the four, the Swinging Door Barbecue was the best. I like a place that keeps your options to a minimum. Pick a meat, pick a side, and order ya up a Shiner Bock. Or two. I ordered the Super Combo, choosing ribs, brisket, and turkey. "Vegetables" were cole slaw, beans, and potato salad. Check the menu... they were all beyond good. I loved the ribs but, considering the fact I'm not big on turkey as a barbecue item, this was the best I've ever had. Pecan wood smoked and oh, so tender. It was all good.

Today, at the suggestion of our hosts, we stopped on the way to Glen Rose, at Dozier's Meat Market and Barbecue in Fulshear. Sent Margaret in to get some goodies for the fridge; she outdid herself, bringing back pepper bacon, brisket, turkey, smoked sausage, and.... venison! We had cold brisket on bread as we drove, so a more detailed evaluation will have to come later, after we've heated some up and enjoyed it proper!

BLOG UPDATES:

Just need to point out a few new, and revised items on the sidebar. We've removed the AAWC March trial from the shooting schedule, because we found an excuse to stay in New Mexico an extra two weeks. Lure coursing and oval racing in Mountainaire! Looking forward to that. Beautiful location. We looked at some property there a couple of years ago. We'll also be checking out a friend's 40 acres near Deming. One of these years we'll go to New Mexico and not come back. That's the plan, anyway.

See the kinky new counter? Now we can see at a glance, how many are looking at the blog right now, and what country they're in. It's hosted in France. Click on it and see the other fun things they have. There's also a world map, with dots at the very bottom of the page.

And here's a "bleg".. (a beg on a blog): I've brought back the Google ads. I can't tell you to click on them, because that would violate the Google agreement terms, but there are some things on this blog that would help us out greatly if they got opened. Nobody says you have to look at 'em. And that's all I'm going to say about that. The tip jar is gone.

And I don't think I mentioned it on the last go-round of blog "freshening" but if you look almost to the bottom of the sidebar, you'll see the return of our old friend. We're almost down to a year, say hallelujah! Can I get an "amen"?!?!

Blatant Commercial Message.

A week or so ago, Margaret sent out about 500 email messages to people we have addressess for. Kinda like spam, only with a more valuable message. Her idea is to have periodic "specials" for our customers. The first of these specials is for a gen-U-wine art gallery style poster... 16x20, and custom designed by Margaret herself! These can be done from any picture we've taken in our "digital era"- from August 2003 to now.

Ideally, they will look a lot like this one of our staghound, Buffy.

Regular price for a 16 x 20 print is $40 + $6 for shipping. If you order by October 10, the price is only $25 for each, and shipping is only a flat rate of $6, no matter how many posters you order. So far, we've sent out about a dozen, and the feedback has been beyond positive.

About 70 messages bounced. If you didn't get one, or if you know someone who might be interested in this special product, pass this post on by clicking on the envelope icon at the bottom. To order, simply send your request to margaret@shotonsite.us. It's as simple as that to get the ball rolling.

See other samples at our event website.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled entertaining blog posting.....