Zoe managed to qualify in Gamblers, Snakes N’ Ladders, Jumpers, and NAC. NAC she bailed her teeter, but she still Q’d. Here’s her NAC run.

Raven q’d in Jumpers, Snakes N’ Ladders, and Standard, I think. She didn’t qualify in NAC because she had too many time faults and knocked a bar besides. I am still debating whether to enter her tomorrow in NAC again or not.

Dare q’d in Snakes N’ Ladders. I was really happy with her.

I have other video, besides just Zoe’s NAC, but I didn’t have time to upload it and I’m ready to go to bed now. My knee went out again this morning and I can’t figure out what I’ve done. I get plenty of things telling me how to get rid of pimples but none on how to get rid of knee pain. Oh well, the wrap is helping and maybe tomorrow it will be back to normal anyway.

I really wanted to do this DOCNA trial with Zoe because it’s her chance to qualify for Championships again, and we always have a really nice time at DOCNA Championships. I figured we’d do enter the whole weekend, while we’re up there. Then, I decided last minute that maybe I should let Raven run too. Then while I was temporarily losing my mind, I entered Dare in Snakes N Ladders and two runs of Gamblers. For anyone that isn’t familiar with DOCNA, Snakes N Ladders is a class that has no jumps. That is right up Dare’s alley…at least I hope it is. I decided to try out Gamblers with her too because I can still create my own courses, and I’m hoping to just make this a fun positive experience for her.

Anyway, it all sounded good until I started looking at how many runs I’d entered. I realized it was a total of 27 over the course of the weekend with all the girls! Good thing I’ve been doing a LOT of walking lately. At least I have a little more stamina. I may be needing a day at the spa after all those runs, but I don’t have a spa or a spa cover so I’m probably out of luck. That’s ok, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be happy with a nice relaxing hot shower and my jammies at the end of the trial days instead.

Anyway, we’ve been walking different roads than usual and I thought I’d show you what the main road coming into our town looks like now.

This is the bridge and as you can see the river isn’t anywhere close to it’s banks anymore.

Fortunately, even though this is just about a mile and a half down the road from my house, we still aren’t in danger of flooding at our house. Thank goodness since I have trouble understanding term life insurance, let alone flood insurance.

Anyway, enough about the weather…for today. LOL Friday we are heading out of town to go to a DOCNA trial. While we’re up in Salt Lake, we’re going to go into the opthomalogist and have Dare’s eyes rechecked. Then Sat., Sun., and Monday is the trial. Zoe, Raven and Dare are all entered. It should be pretty fun. That is, if I can even remember how to run agility. Seems like ages since we’ve been to a trial.

My reasons are that I’m tired of being out of breath when I run a course with the dogs and it seems like every time I turn around I’m reading about someone’s dog being injured. Granted, there are just times when injuries can’t be prevented, but I want to make sure that I’m not asking the dogs to do something their bodies aren’t prepared for.

So, we’re walking (and a little jogging) to help all of build more stamina. We’re going to start doing our ball work again more regularly to help with strength and balance and we hauled out some jumps to ease back into agility with some low grids.

Of course, I hauled the jumps out yesterday, and today…it’s raining and snowing. Hehe, typical. That’s ok, I don’t think it’s going to add up to much.

I set up some jump grids for Zoe and Dare, and both did really well. It was hot and windy, so I didn’t stay long. It was a short training session, but it was nice to go somewhere totally new and have the dogs take it in stride. Next week I think a friend of mine will want to go to Salt Lake for a ring set-up, so that will be a good challenge for Twist and the out of sight stays.

Then, I had forgotten what a pain it is to try to clean all the printing off the silly PVC.  Ugh!  That took hours, and hours.  But…here’s the progress so far.  If you haven’t guessed, I am making new jumps for the dogs.  My old PVC jumps are from when Zoe started agility like 9 years ago and they are starting to get brittle.  I also need to have smaller jump height spacing for some of the exercises we are working with Dare right now, and I just loved the Clip N’ Go Jump Cup Strips from Clean Run, so this was my chance to try them out.  Amazing how some girls need diamonds to make them happy, and others of us are every bit as thrilled with some PVC. LOL

So, all of the jumps are cut out and cleaned off, just waiting to be decorated. Here is the first one completed.

Hopefully by tomorrow, we’ll have them all finished and we’ll be back up and running with them.

Anyway, I am just taking Zoe and Dare with me this time. Dare is going to be trying to get her CGC this weekend, and I also still needed to get her microchipped. So we’re making a stop at our friends with Sheltie Rescue of Utah and chipping her this afternoon, and then we’ll head on up to the trial. I’ll try to get video of whatever I can throughout the weekend, but no promises that I’ll get it posted before I get home Monday night. No promises for Tues either, since after I get home from the trial I have to turn around and drive to Cedar City for an appointment with our accoutant to get the taxes done.

Anyway…I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Anyway, today I took Dare out and we worked on the “finish” part of the recall in obedience. I want her to be able to “finish” from both sides. Right now, I’m still using both a verbal and a hand signal. I will have to fade out one or the other before the skill is ready for the obedience ring. We also are working on an “in” which means that she needs to be aware of her rear end and move it as much as needed to keep her body in heel position. We are also working on reinforcing heel position by just taking one or two steps forward with her in position. For agility we are working on directionals, though I have serious doubts that I’ll be quick enough to use them when I really running a course. LOL So today we worked on “right”, “left”, and “back”

I think it was Diana that mentioned that it was recommended that she have Miley weave around her legs for a part of an agility warm-up routine. It sounds like a great idea, so I think I’ll be searching for videos to help me figure out a plan on how to teach Dare to do that next. Anyway, here’s a short clip from our training today.

I’ve been working on getting our little office/laundry room textured and painted, and now I’m just waiting on my husband to finish up his part of staining the cabinet doors and hanging them. Then I’ll post pictures.

Things have been incredibly slow for both the cabinet shop where my husband works and also here at the boarding kennel. They layed off employees again at his work. One was a close friend of ours. Feels like a repeat of last year already. The only good thing about it, without much work at the shop, it gives my husband some time to work on finishing up projects around here, like the office. The computer at his work had miscalculated his vacation time that was used last year and so he had some left, so they let him just trade it out for the materials that we needed to make the doors for the cabinets. As for the boarding kennel, things always slow way down after the holidays are over, but this is ridiculous. I haven’t had this slow a month since I started the business. I’m going for nearly a week at a time without a single boarder. It’s scary.

The dogs are all still doing great. Layla and Raven are entered in an AKC trial at the end of the month. Can’t believe it’s only a couple weeks away now. We’ve really been working on Layla’s tire and her broadjump. Hopefully, she’ll handle them both without any problems at the trial.

The weather is still cold, but warmer than it has been. We still have too much snow on the ground to train outside and we are supposed to get snow each day this week, but so far, it’s not turning into much.

I totally embarrassed myself on Sunday. I had gotten an email through one of the lists that they were bringing Jim Basic back again this year for another distance seminar. Well, I got all excited and emailed and said I’d love a working spot in the beginner part. Then, I looked through my bills and reality set in. Unless things really pick up, it’s just not going to be possible. So, I sent out an email explaining what was going on, and unfortunately…didn’t pay any attention and sent it out to the entire dog agility list, not just to the person putting on the seminar. Ugh! Talk about embarrassing.

Oh, one of my friends down here that has Belgian Malinois is going to have her first litter in about 6 years. I got to go with her to the ultrasound a few weeks ago and yesterday for x-rays to see how many puppies to expect. Looks like at best count, 8 or 9 but they were packed in there pretty good, so there may be more. I get to go help with the whelping, (don’t know how much help I’ll be), so I’m really excited!

I guess that’s about it. I need to get out and take pictures of the dogs and some video, but I haven’t done it lately. Maybe later on this week…

Another year has come and gone. It was a year packed with lots of memories. Some I’ll cherish forever, and some I wish I could forget. LOL Looking back though, I can honestly say that I’ve learned something from all the experiences, both good and the not so good.