We’re getting ready to head out for an agility trial this weekend. Zoe and Raven are entered Friday and Sat. Layla and Dare are going along for the experience, and for a semi-private lesson with our Obedience trainer.
All the dogs are bathed, I just need to dremel some toenails…get packed up and leave. Should be a fun weekend! I’ll try to get some video this time. 
I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t have the calendar sitting in front of me, but Layla is a year old! Time just seems to fly by when you have a puppy. With Layla, though, I think it’s been even harder to keep track of, since she never seemed to grow up. She is now smaller than Dare at 14 weeks. To us, I think she’ll always be the “baby” because she’s so tiny.
Anyway, here are some new pictures of Layla that I took while I was up at my parents farm.
We survived the crazy weekend! Everything went as well as I could have hoped for, especially when you’re trying to cram a million and one things into such a short time frame.
Yesterday after everyone went home, we decided to take Layla and Dare to the lake. This was Dare’s first time at the lake. She did really well. She’s definitely not afraid of the water, but she thought that all the things on the shore were more interesting. I’ll post a few of the pictures that we took. Now I need to start getting organized to leave Thurs. for Idaho Falls for the Obedience trial.
It’s already Thurs. and I don’t know what’s happened to the first part of the week. A friend of mine is having a yard sale tomorrow and Saturday, and is letting me take some stuff that I’ve had sitting around here over to throw in with her stuff. There are just a couple of hitches to that. She wants to set everything up today, and it’s still cloudy and when I walked outside to take care of the boarders a bit ago I saw more lightning, so I don’t think that we’re done with the storm that came in yesterday. The other problem is that I need to go through and clean off all the dust that’s accumulated on the stuff that’s been sitting in the barn waiting to be sold. I guess I’ll do some cleanup this morning and try to get it hauled over there this afternoon.
Then tomorrow, I’m going to head to Parowan to do some Obedience and possibly some agility at another friend’s yard. She has open practice on Friday mornings, and since Twist’s obedience trial is coming up next weekend and it’s outdoors, I thought this would be a good chance to get some training in a semi-new place, with dogs that he doesn’t see each week. I think I’ll also take Layla since she’s never been there, and Dare for socialization. The bummer about it is that I’ll have to leave here by a little before 6:00 am to get there on time.
Sat. I need to help out with the yard sale, (since I’m pretty much taking my stuff over and then bailing out on her Friday), but my husband’s parents and grandparents are both coming in from out of town to visit. I don’t know how that’s going to work out. They aren’t dog people, so I’m always in a fit about trying to get the house cleaned for them, but this time…I’m just to rushed for time to do a whole lot. I never look forward to their visits even though they are just really nice people. I think it’s just that our lifestyles are so different… 
They are spending the night in a hotel at least, so I don’t have to worry about that part.
Sun. we’re supposed to have a barbeque at another friends house, and I’ve got to get the food together that I’m assigned to bring. I guess if I survive till Sunday, this will be the least of my worries. LOL
So, I rarely get the chance to photograph Raven playing with the other dogs. Usually I only get to see her playing when I watch from the window when they are in the yard. It’s really odd. But…finally the other day I had the camera out and she and Layla started playing. Raven seems to be convinced that using the paw is the way to get play started. LOL She even switched feet once she got things rolling. The picture of the two of them at the end cracked me up. They looked over at me like. “What? We weren’t doing anything…”
The last three weeks have been a whirlwind of activity around here. I knew it was going to be busy, but I really didn’t have a clue how busy! The middle of the month Cynthia and I had a trip planned to fly to Newark pick up her new Danish Swedish Farmdog puppy, Jet! We’d been waiting, (not patiently I might add LOL) for what seemed like months for him to come. To check out what a cutie Jet is you should hop on over to Tiptail and read all about his adventures! www.tiptail.com
That would have been plenty exciting and fun in itself but just a few days before we were scheduled to leave, I got an email from Judy with Himark Shelties in Florida. I’d been on a waiting list for one of her puppies. She was writing to let me know that a puppy had become available that she thought was just what I was looking for. Judy and Dave Guaraldo have consistently been producing some of the top ranked performance shelties in the country for years. They are even being spotlighted in this summer’s issue of the Sheltie Pacesetter.
I have to say that I was a bundle of mixed emotions. I was so excited to meet this little girl! At the same time there is always that question of when, (if ever), is a good time to introduce another dog into the family. Also, since I’ve been involved in rescue, our dogs have mainly been rescues. I think I felt a twinge of guilt for looking at buying from a breeder, (regardless of how reputable), when there are so many Shelties in rescue. However, while I absolutely adore my rescues, at times the baggage that has come along with them has made competition Obedience and Agility a real challenge. So, to make this long story shorter…the conclusion I came to was that Cynthia and I would fly down there and meet her and make the final decision then.
Well, I’m sure that you’ve all guessed…we brought her home with us. She is everything that I was hoping for and more! All my hesitancy is gone. I can’t thank Judy enough for matching me up with and entrusting me with this little girl. We’ve named her Dare. All the dogs in the house have been quite taken with her too, which is wonderful. Layla is thrilled to have a new playmate and even Zoe is playing with her. Here is quick clip of Dare and her littermates the day we met them tugging on a toy. I’ll post more pictures in a separate post.
Layla and I have been working on her agility since we’ve got the equipment back out in the field, and she’s doing really well. My mom was here today and so I took advantage of having someone here to video her run. So…here it is. We still have a lot of training to do, but we’re having fun!
P.S. don’t look at all the darn weeds coming up in the field. I’m trying to keep on top of them, but it’s tough. LOL
I’m not complaining, honest. LOL I love summertime, but doing much of anything in the middle of the day now has become nearly impossible because it’s really gotten hot the last week or so. We were talking at agility class today about changing classes over to an evening for the rest of the summer. Would be much nicer for the dogs and for us. Here’s a picture I got after all the dogs were out playing in the yard yesterday afternoon. It’s not a great picture quality wise, but just look at the length of that tongue! 
Layla says “it’s hot, mom!”
Well, I didn’t find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow this morning, but just the site of something so beautiful was enough to start my morning off nicely! I was really pleased that the camera caught the colors so well.
The boarding kennel has been keeping me busy lately. Which is a mixed blessing I suppose. It’s of course great that the business seems to be taking off, but it’s also nice when it’s slow and I have more time to just spend with my own dogs.
Training is going well though, Twist and I have been working on his broadjump for Open Obedience and I think we’re making progress. It’s been really nice having the agility field back again. Raven’s doing nicely with her obedience training, but her agility contacts still aren’t what I would like them to be. I think I’ve tried just about every method for training contacts, (2ox2o, using stride regulators for a running contact, 4 on the floor), but none seems to work for her. I am kind of stumped right now. Zoe’s still running great, even though we haven’t been able to trial as much as I would have liked this year. It’s hard to believe that she turned 9 today! Seems impossible. I wish I could just freeze time so that she didn’t get any older. Doesn’t work that way though. Layla’s 10 months old now, and is coming right along with her training too. Penny and Lucy are doing still doing great, although Penny wishes that all the afternoon thunderstorms that we’ve been getting would end.
I guess that’s about it, for what’s been going on here…
We stumbled upon this wonderful artist named Leanne Wildermuth’s blog a while back and I’ve been admiring her work. For anyone who enjoys beautiful photographs as well as drawings and paintings you should check out her blog: http://intricateart.com/blog/
To make this long story short, she has a really fun contest where you can submit a picture and story and she chooses a winner each week who will receive a custom 5 X 7 portrait.
If you know me at all, you know that the biggest task for me was trying to narrow my favorite pictures of the dogs down to one. LOL I finally decided that for the fun of it, I’d submit the picture that I took recently of Layla in the grass. Guess what? We won!!!
Isn’t it fantastic?! I think she did a wonderful job of capturing Layla’s mischievious look. Thanks so much Leanne. We love it!