Cathy M. Rosenthal has some interesting ideas for having fun with your dog as well as teaching obedience – tricks.

Backyard versions of six popular canine games.You throw the ball over and over again, and your dog happily retrieves it. But wouldn’t it be more fun to play with your dog in ways that brings out his special talents? Borrowing a few ideas from canine sports, use these tips to make backyard playtime more fun. Jumping. Make your own agility or flyball hurdle by placing a broom or PVC pipe across two plastic buckets. Hold a treat on one side, and encourage your dog to jump over. Jump, sit, stay. Create an agility pause table by placing a bench, ottoman, or piece of carpeted plywood on four cement blocks. Teach your dog to jump onto the low table, then sit or lie down for five seconds, then jump off. Ta-da! Backyard tunneling. Using a nylon pipe tunnel, coax your dog inside it with food. Run alongside the tunnel or sit at the other end to persuade him through. Reward your dog with toys or food at the end. Enthusiastic fetching. Flyball dogs are rapid fetchers. To build your dog’s excitement, throw the ball, hold him back for 10 seconds, and then let him sprint after it. Hide and seek. Teach tracking skills by showing your dog a toy and hiding it in an easy to find location. Once he gets the hang of the game, ask friends to walk away from your dog to a hiding place in the yard. Ready or not, here he comes. As your dog’s skills improve, have your dog sit with his back turned while everyone else hides. Simon says. In rally obedience, you instruct your dog to perform skills printed on directional signs. Make your own obedience signs, such as “right turn,” and place them around the yard to create a mini-course for you and your dog.

Can Obesity Lead To The Swine Flu?

By Ken Coward November 9, 2009 5:00 am

Recently I came across some valuable information I wanted to share with you all. Everyone here is familiar with the swine flu. A correlation between the swine flu and obesity has been discovered. People that are obese are 6x more likely to catch the swine flu.  I have already informed you about chronic disease being at an all time high. Now you have specific evidence which show how a chronic disease can make your body vulnerable. Before I go on about the swine flu, let’s get one thing straight. The swine flu isn’t anymore dangerous than any other flu. Do not believe the main stream media propaganda. You need to look into the vaccine, then make a educated decision if you want to receive it or not.

Obesity plays a significant role in acquiring the swine flu, it also plays a role in children and pregnant women getting the swine flu. This study was conducted by Dr. Russell Blaylock. Dr. Blaylock discovered that32.7% of those admitted to the ICU had asthma or other chronic pulmonary disease, far higher than the general population. Obesity is also associated with a high incidence of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, both of which would increase your risk of having a serious infection, even to mild viruses.

Avoiding the swine flu can be simple as keeping your immune system at optimal levels.  Listed below are simple guidelines to follow to avoid the H1N1 virus.

1.Increase you Vitamin D levels (Not Vitamin C Once again don’t belive the hype check it out for yourself)

2. Avoid Sugar

3.Get Enough Rest

4.Don’t Let Stress Become Overwhelming

5.Exercise

6. Take a good  Omega-3

7. Wash Your Hands

These are simple guidelines that can keep you healthy so you won’t have to worry about getting a vaccine show. As I ‘ve said before you now know the facts do not fall for the media hype educate yourself and make the right decision for you and the family.

Outdoor Games For Toddlers

I found this in the Salsbury Post.  Cornhole (Bean bag) can be more than a backyard game.  Some people make money with it in tournaments.

Cornhole game catches on

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 3:00 AM Jimmy Stowe, right, throws in the final matchup of Saturday’s Cornhole Toss Open at South Rowan High School’s stadium, held to raise money for Bible education at South Rowan. Andy Huffman, left, and teammate Richard Yates beat Stowe and his partner Johnny Hines to win the tournament. Huffman and Yates are also state cornhole toss champions. Ryan Honeycutt, left, watches as his competition, Tim Pate, throws a bean bag at a cornhole toss tournament on Saturday. Honeycutt and teammate Adam Jordan eventually beat Pate and his teammate, Jeff Royston, but then lost in the semifinal round against state cornhole toss champions Andy Huffman and Richard Yates. By Noelle Edwards nedwards@salisburypost.com If you had closed your eyes and walked into South Rowan High School’s stadium on Saturday morning, aside from falling down the stairs, you might have thought you were in the middle of a basketball or baseball game. Or at least a rousing round of tug-o-war. You would have been wrong. The stadium actually played host to a cornhole toss Saturday. Cornhole, as in that game they set up in a carnival midway that involves throwing bean bags at a board with a hole in it. Sixteen teams competed ferociously with one another for the $100 prize. Competitors cheered on their partners with phrases such as “Keep it up,” “Calm down,” and “We got ‘em right where we want ‘em.” They trash talked, making references to people’s mothers. They strategized and calculated, meticulously kept score and charted it with brackets, refreshed themselves with bottles of water and wiped sweat from their foreheads. Pretty intense for a lawn game. The competition was emblematic of a growing cornhole-playing population. A Google search turns up rules, competitions, associations, terminology pages and news. One Facebook group for cornhole — there are several — has more than 104,500 members, and another has nearly 80,000. Official cornhole rules determine that opposing boards must be 27 feet away from each other. Each bean bag that lands in the hole scores three points. Each one to land on the board scores one point. After a player from each team has tossed four bags, the teams — made of two players — count their own points and subtract the higher number from the lower, and that’s the point total of that round, going to the team with the higher points, of course. And it goes on like that until one team scores 21. Teams play for charity sometimes or just pool their money and award the winner the take. Saturday’s tournament raised money for the South Rowan Public School Bible Teaching Association — basically to fund a Bible history elective at South Rowan High School. Each team paid $20 to compete, plus concessions, of which they were strongly encouraged to partake. Bennett Hester, chairman of the association’s board, hoped the organization would walk away with a couple thousand dollars from the day. Pretty good, considering that only a few months prior most of the members of the board had never even heard of cornhole. The idea for the tournament was pastor and board member Steve Sprinkle’s. People in his church play, and he suggested it as a supplement to the organization’s annual golf tournament, held this year on Oct. 24. Pete Kluttz from the association made 10 boards, Sprinkle put them together and painted them a solid color, and his wife, Ann Sprinkle, painted logos of sports teams and the Bible Teaching Association. Just the painting took four or five hours per board, Ann Sprinkle said. Daisy Rodgers, the mother of the group’s treasurer, made the bags for the tournament and extra bags to sell. Hester said he hopes to see more people come if they hold the event again next year, but for the first year he was happy to have so many serious competitors. “It just kind of surprised me,” Hester said. “I’ve been around a long time and I never heard of it.” Tim Pate, who’s been playing about six years, heard of it from his boss, an Ohio native. He said he thinks it’s more of a Midwest game. “Now the Southerners own it,” said Jeff Royston, Pate’s teammate. Several competitors at Saturday’s event were veterans of the sport. Bubba Renken and Mugsy Helms, both of China Grove, came in third place in this year’s state cornhole championship and fourth the year before. “It’s good competition for 30-year-old men,” Renken said. “It’s something you can do in your backyard and your wife won’t fuss at you.” Renken and Helms were topped in state championship play by two other men competing on Saturday. Andy Huffman of China Grove and Richard Yates of Salisbury are the reigning state champions of cornhole, and have been for two years. Apparently they have a knack because they hadn’t really played much before. Yates was driving through Raleigh and heard an announcement on the radio about the state championship tournament and thought it would be fun. And it was. It didn’t hurt that he and Huffman walked away with custom cornhole sets, which sell for $200 or more, after beating 63 teams in 2008 and 95 teams this year.no cash prize for that contest. Saturday’s tournament made them each $50 richer though; they won their way through the bracket, beating the final team in a back-to-back matchup, and became that competition’s champion team as well. Don’t think it was an easy victory, though. A few teams, including the one that came in second place, were made of people from a cornhole troop, of sorts. The Kannapolis Regulators get together and travel the region — as close as their own houses and as far as South Carolina — playing cornhole. They hold tournaments for restaurants that want to drum up business. “We play every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, sometimes Wednesday,” said Don Mackling, who bills himself their president. “We do it for charity. Plus to help us win money,” said Jason Van Buren. The Kannapolis Regulators had eight people in Saturday’s tournament. They played Friday night until late and were hoping to finish in China Grove early enough to enter a tournament in Charlotte later on Saturday. (For the record, the China Grove contest went long into the afternoon, and the Regulators were fairly involved in the competition, not to mention the cheering and trash talking.) “Where else can you play a sport that you can do it with a beer in your hand?” said Van Buren. So it’s not the NFL. But between the sweating and the spitting, evaluating which boards to play on and which bags to toss — all the bags are a pound, but the players preferred larger and looser ones to those stuffed tightly — and the “ohhhh”-ing and color commentary from spectators, Saturday’s five-hour competition had the tense moments and frequent victories of more traditional sporting games. “You wouldn’t think there’d be this much drama,” Roxanne Johnson, South Rowan Bible teacher, said. “It gets worse when it’s not a church function,” Helms said. Several versions of this game can be found at:  http://tinyurl.com/l9u7ex

From the FT.Wayne Journal Gazette

As we enjoy playing our outdoor games in our own backyard we tend to forget about those less fortunate.  This article outlines what many of those “less fortunate” have been able to do

(CNN) — When Katy Wilson was born with Down syndrome, doctors told her mother that the infant likely would never walk or talk.

Katy Wilson says she wants her athletic successes to surprise people and give them hope.

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more photos »

She sure showed them.

Wilson, now 29, has won two international gold medals in the Special Olympics for her gymnastic abilities. She turns cartwheels for her floor routine and does acrobatics on the balance beam.

She also goes on public speaking tours.

“Most of all, I love doing speeches because I want them [the audience] to be surprised just how good my speeches are,” she said by phone.

Wilson’s story — and countless other stereotype-bending stories like it — is possible in part because of the dogged vision of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and the Special Olympics organization she founded more than four decades ago.

Shriver, who died Tuesday, started the organization as a sports camp for special-needs kids and adults in her backyard in Maryland in 1962. The camp, in part, was inspired by the life of Shriver’s sister, Rosemary Kennedy, who had an intellectual disability.

The Special Olympics has grown from that small camp into a global organization that helps 3 million athletes with Down syndrome, autism and other intellectual disabilities compete for medals in an array of sports.

Her legacy will live in the stories of hope and against-the-odds success she made possible through the Special Olympics. See photos of Eunice Kennedy Shriver »

“She helped forever alter how people with intellectual disabilities are viewed and treated and respected,” said Amie Dugan, a spokeswoman for the Special Olympics. “This is a population that 40 years ago they were beyond marginalized. They were disenfranchised from society.

“It was considered the status quo … to put them in an institution and never think about that again. And she changed all of that. She brought them out into the light.”

An estimated 200 million people in the world live with intellectual disabilities. That population was largely unseen and voiceless in 1968 when Shriver stepped to the microphone to announce the start of the first Special Olympic Games at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

“In ancient Rome, the gladiators went into the arena with these words on their lips,” she told the 1,000 athletes in the stadium. “‘Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.’”

In 2007, the most recent Special Olympics World Summer Games were held in Shanghai, China. More than 7,000 athletes competed.

The sports competitions are held in the winter and summer on four-year intervals, just like the Olympic Games; people from countries as far-flung as Tunisia, Rwanda and Sri Lanka participate in events that include skiing, volleyball and track and field.

Before the program, people with intellectual disabilities were only told what they could not accomplish, said David Tolleson, executive director of the National Down Syndrome Congress.

“Special Olympics emphasizes what folks can do, and it does it in a manner that’s fun and exciting and it offers a sense of community both within the family of those with developmental disabilities as well as with the greater community at large — the volunteers who come in and have some of their misconceptions or preconceptions cast aside when they realize how much people with developmental disabilities truly are capable of,” he said.

The program continues to expand its global reach, but in many places, people with intellectual disabilities lack basic human rights, said Dugan.

Thomas Webb, a Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation fellow who studies public policy and intellectual disability, said it’s still a challenge in the United States to integrate people with disabilities into mainstream society.

No one knows all of the solutions, but Shriver and the Special Olympics have had “significant impact” on peoples’ lives, he said.

Coming from the athletic Kennedy family, Shriver realized the wide-ranging benefits of sports, said Dugan.

“It’s just a fun way to bring people with intellectual disabilities and their non-disabled peers together,” she said, “because everyone enjoys competition and fun and exercise and getting out there.”

The fun translates into experience that helps Special Olympians build communities of friends and succeed in the workplace, advocates and athletes said.

Melissa Stokes, 26, started playing sports with the Special Olympics when she was 8. She now is a volunteer Special Olympics ski coach in the Denver area and works as an assistant at the Special Olympics of Colorado office.

“We’re like a little family,” she said of her ski team.

She added: “Because we have special needs doesn’t mean we can’t do stuff. We can still accomplish a lot.”

More than half of Special Olympians in the U.S. are employed, according to the organization, compared with an estimated 10 percent of the intellectually disabled population at large.

Jeanne Wilson, the mother of the gymnast with Down syndrome , started tearing up when she recounted the moment she saw her daughter — whose future once looked so uncertain — standing atop an awards podium with a gold medal draped around her neck.

“It was just amazing because that really gave her confidence. And I don’t think people realize how much it means to a young person who you might have thought did not have a future or might not ever have a chance to walk,” she said. “To see her doing a routine on balance beam or a floor routine is pretty amazing.”

Katy Wilson, who lives in Gainesville, Georgia, continues to train as a gymnast. She also goes bowling with a group of Special Olympians most Fridays. They call themselves the Alley Kats, and Wilson describes the bowlers as some of her best friends.

“I love bowling because it is so much fun being out there being able to have friends,” she said. “It’s exciting to do bowling because I get a lot of scores.”

When she’s not in training, Wilson works at a steakhouse as a hostess.

“I get their coffee, I get their bread, I get their drinks, I do the silverware, I sweep up, I do the hostess,” she said. “Oh, I love the job because everybody’s so nice to me, especially the managers, they give me hope and they’re so excited to have me there and I’m so happy to be there with them.”

As a global ambassador for the Special Olympics, Wilson tours the country telling people about her life story. She says she hopes it reminds them that everyone can succeed with a positive attitude.

She modeled her life in her sister’s image, but she forged a life that’s all her own

For a selection of outdoor games go to: http://www.cysbackyardsports.com

If you like the game of horseshoes you will enjoy this article by columnist Bruce McClaren of the San Angelo Standard Times.

BRUCE MCLAREN: The fine art of pitching horseshoes

Around this part of the country the game of horseshoes often refers to pitching washers. Some folks refer to it as Texas, Polish or redneck horseshoes.

There are other contests where the object “pitched” is referred to as a dried “cow-pie.” In the words of the famous colonel from “MASH,” Sherman T. Potter, all of these were probably lumped into his category called “horse-hockey.”

I’m not exactly sure what he actually meant, but so as not to sound disparaging towards either washer horseshoes or cow-pie pitching, I’ll leave these two events to ebb and flow within themselves and stick to a game played between two people or two teams of two people using four metal objects called horseshoes and two metal stakes.

The horseshoes are not really shoes used on horses, but ones designed for tossing at one of the two stakes in the ground. Points are scored on the basis of the position of the thrown shoe to one of the two stakes. Now these stakes are placed 40 feet apart, thus making the throwing of the horseshoe a challenging experience for even the most able of players; but more on that later.

Not unlike other sporting competitions, this game is governed by rules established by the National Horseshoe Pitching Association of America. This organization regulates such things as the height of the stake above the ground, the shape of the horseshoe, various point-scoring rules and events held to determine national championships.

In case you are wondering, this game has not made it up to Olympic level as yet, however its history goes as far back as the American Revolutionary War. To find out more about the game, how to lay out a court and other finer details of how it is played, go to http://www.horseshoepitching.com. You will get a wealth of information that I cannot hope to include in this column.

Why then, you ask, have I chosen to spend my 750 words on something you could just as easily learn about off of the Internet? To be frank, my interest is not so much in the game as it is in the people who enjoy it as a non contact, family-oriented game.

Let’s look at this Fourth of July we just celebrated as a place to start, and harken back to that holiday a few years ago when folks gathered to celebrate Independence Day, not in contests to see who could remain standing after consuming large quantities of frothy beverages or playing a major league-wannabe softball game with its injuries, sprains and the aroma of eau-de liniment.

Rather, many families gathered around for the importance of the holiday and a chance for fellowship, friendship, food, homemade ice cream and a “friendly” game of horseshoes.

Once the outdoor experience of roasted corn, lemonade and all those other goodies was finished, for a while, a game of horseshoes brought folks together for a little friendly competition. Tame by today’s super-competitive, all-or-nothing activities, folks used this as a time to relax and work off some of the homemade meal without physically throwing too much out of whack.

Pitching a horseshoe that 40 feet to hopefully hear it make that resonating “clang” against the metal stake might be considered heated competition as the game wore on, but played without many disagreements, harsh words or modern-day brawls.

While other outdoor games such as croquet were almost as popular, horseshoes brought a spirit of competition that almost always ended with handshakes by winners and losers. Another unique aspect was that it permitted members of the family to play together, not pitted against each other, providing a unique bond unlike present-day competitive relationships. These moments provided them the opportunity to share a unique connection of sportsmanship and camaraderie.

Look back at those times, not really so long ago, when families got together in parks and backyards with friends and neighbors. Contests, games and special kinds of fun were tied to those get-togethers, often seen lacking in our present-day needs of speed, daring-do or one-upsmanship. Horseshoes may not have been the glue that held those times together, but they did instill a certain truism in the saying that “a family that plays together, stays together.”

Ready to try returning to more wholesome family gatherings? Lose your competitive edge and buy a set of horseshoes. Give it a try and have some fun.

San Angeloan Bruce McLaren is a member of the Standard-Times editorial board.

If you would like to purchase a set of horseshoes go to:

http://tinyurl.com/l344qn

For those of you who may think “I’m too old for badminton” take a look at this reprint from the Mohave Daily News about a lady who didn’t even start playing until in her 60s.

Gold-medal grandma

Sunday, August 23, 2009 11:03 PM CDT

Fort Mohave woman badminton standout at the Senior Olympics

By BILL McMILLEN/The Daily News

FORT MOHAVE – Judy Gray is glad she won three medals at the recent Senior Olympics. It worked out well that way.

“My medals … go to my grandchildren,” said the 68-year-old Fort Mohave resident, who harvested a gold and two silvers at the recent Games in Palo Alto, Calif. “It’s a good thing I won three because I’ve got three grandchildren. They’ll each get one.

“Every time I see them, they ask what (medals) I’ve got for them. They hang them in their rooms. It doesn’t matter what place, they just want the medals.”

Gray earned them earlier this month by winning the championship in the ladies singles division and finishing as runner-up in both ladies doubles and mixed doubles in the 65-69 age group. She defeated Julie Bradley of Florida in the singles finals. Her teammates in doubles were Karen Warnock of Dana Point, Calif., in the ladies division and Robin Lyon of Stockton, Calif., in the mixed.

For Gray, it was the latest success in her return to the sport of badminton a few years ago.

“I started playing in the ’60s,” Gray said. “I ended up being third in the nation at one time. I was in the top 10 for a long time.”

She and a friend entered a tournament in high school, a decision that piqued her interest.

“We saw this sign on the bulletin board advertising a tournament,” she recalled. “I told Val ‘Let’s play in it to break up the monotony.’ We wound up winning. That was my first tournament and we won.”

She became active in the sport, climbing the national and regional rankings and collecting plenty of hardware along the way.

“I just kept playing. I kept getting better and better. When I was in my prime, I was probably No. 1 in California.”

But marriage and other pursuits curtailed her competitive days and she’d pretty much given up badminton as she reached middle age.

“I hadn’t played for a long time – eight years,” she said. “I started back when I was 65, after my husband died.”

She hadn’t lost her competitive desire and found that a return to the sport fulfilled a need for camaraderie.

“It’s a great sport. It gets you out and lets you travel,” she said, citing a recent visit to Canada and an October World Masters date in Sydney, Australia.

Badminton – competitive badminton – requires skill and endurance. Gray played eight matches in a single day at the Senior Olympics – she said she’d never done that before – and won because she was the most consistent player in the 20-woman field.

“A good serve and a good clear… drop shots. Being consistent with all your different shots,” she said of her keys to success. “That’s why I beat the gal from Florida – I was more consistent with my shots.”

Being a badminton player in the Tri-state isn’t easy, Gray admitted. There are no indoor facilities and no existing programs.

“I would love to start a group of badminton players here in Fort Mohave,” she said. “But there’s no place to play here.”

Competitive badminton is only a distant relative to the backyard game.

“Everyone thinks it’s a backyard game but it’s not,” Gray said. “It’s an indoor game with high ceilings and dark walls.”

She travels to either Las Vegas or to San Diego’s Balboa Park – she’s originally from the San Diego area – to practice in preparation for tournaments.

Gray said she was also a swimmer and racquetball player in her younger days. She still is active in swimming, teaching lessons in the Los Lagos neighborhood in Fort Mohave.

“Yes, I’m very competitive,” she said with a laugh. “It doesn’t matter what it is. I’ve always loved sports.”

She’s also realistic.

“If I really wanted to travel all over the United States, I could play in more (tournaments), but the budget will only stretch so far,” she said, figuring that “five good tournaments a year” was a satisfactory goal.

She said she has no intention of slowing down any time soon.

“You have no idea what’s going to happen in 10 years,” she said. “That’s why I’m doing this now, while I’ve got my health.”

She scoffs at the notion that she needs to slow down.

“Some people say they’re too old to do this or that,” she said. “That’s hogwash. If you feel you can do something and are willing to try, why shouldn’t you? I think it’s a mind game more than anything else. If you put your mind to it, you can do it.”

For badminon equipment (racquets,net, shuttlecocks etc) go to: tinyurl.com/lr7usx

I realize that the purpose of this blog is to give you ideas for activities for your back yard wherever that might be. For a few of you, however, the Ranches in this reprint may be very close to your backyard.
KIDS DALLAS | August 17, 2009

Horsing Around
Dude Ranch Getaways
the flying l guest ranch!

The kids think a ranch comes on salad. Sounds like it’s time to take your city slickers out on the range.

Discover the (not so) wild west at The Flying L Guest Ranch (Wharton’s Dock Road, Bandera; 800-292-5134), two hours southwest of Austin. No spurs required for horseback trail rides, and urban cowboys will get a kick out of putt-putt golf and a water park with slides and shoots. Send buckaroos ages 3-12 to the kids’ club for activities (leatherworking, archery, pony rides) while you sneak off to the spa.

Prefer the plains of Oklahoma? Head north to the Tatanka Ranch (8235 North 48 Road, Stroud; 918-368-2251) outside of Tulsa. Explore trails on foot or horseback, then skim the lake in a kayak or canoe. Amateur fishermen catch on quickly in fully stocked ponds, and gamers go old school in the arcade with foosball and ping-pong. Map It

For a selection of oudoor games for backyard play go to: http;www.cysbackyardsports,com