Ok, so I finally got it together and took a picture of Raven with her ribbons from the obedience trial last weekend. The only thing I wish is that the club would have had a ribbon for completing her title, but that’s ok. This picture of her makes me laugh because if you look close you can see her teeth, it looks like she’s trying to smile for the picture. LOL
I’m behind as usual in posting about the weekend’s trial. It always seems to take me a day or two to catch up after I get home from a trip.
Anyway…Raven earned her CD this weekend!!! I wish I had a picture of her with her ribbons, (she had a 2nd place on Sat. and took 1st place on Sun.) but I fell down on the job. The weather was so bad on Sunday that we had all been drenched in the downpour of rain that lasted all morning and partly into the afternoon. By the time she finished up her class that afternoon, we all just felt a little chilled, soggy and wanted to get home to a nice hot shower more than anything else. That’s my excuse for not sticking around to take pictures.
So, now Raven’s ready to move on to her Open Obedience work. Yay! Should be lots of fun. She’s already got a better broadjump than Twist, although that doesn’t take much. LOL We’re still working on her dumbell and some other pieces, but I’m sure they’ll come along. 
I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off, once again. Twist, Raven, Layla, Angel (the foster sheltie) and myself are packing up and heading out to go to an obedience trial in Farmington this weekend. Well, Angel’s not going to the Obedience trial, she is just going back to Sheltie Rescue of Utah, since they are now back from their trip to Bucharest, so her brief stay with us has come to it’s end.
I’m really hoping that Raven will be able to finish her CD this weekend. She got her first leg at the Sheltie Specialty at the end of April, so she only needs two more. Twist is just entered on Sat. of this trial to see if our work on the broadjump has improved to the point that he might be able to qualifiy in Open for the first time. I’m a little nervous. Ok, I’m a lot nervous. Obedience always makes me more nervous that agility does, for whatever reason. I love it though.
Layla is going along to have a lesson tonight, so I’m really looking forward to that. It’s always nice to see if we are making progress and then what areas still need our attention. Anyway, hopefully we’ll have lots of good news and some pictures or some video to share when we get home…
I just love this time of year! Everything is finally turning green again, and I feel like I’m coming to life again after a long winter. So, today we went down to our friends place to train with the dogs. She lives about 1/2 an hour away and the drive is a beautiful one. It’s through a gorgeous canyon with water running through it. It’s one of my favorite drives.
So, we worked on Obedience with Raven, Twist and Layla. We worked outside today, which proved to be a huge distraction for all three dogs. My friend has geese, chickens, horses and a goat all within eye and earshot of where we were training. It was a challenge, but a really nice day. We have alot of work to do at different outdoor locations before the first of June because that obedience trial is outside (Yikes!).
On the way home everything just looked so pretty and green that I couldn’t help but pull off for a minute and take some pictures. Here are my favorites of the day.
I’ve been meaning to write about how the Utah Sheltie Specialty went for a couple of days now, but as usual time seems to get the better of me. Anyway, Raven and Twist were both entered in the Obedience portion of the Utah Sheltie Specialty this year.
Raven was trying out the Regular Novice class for the first time and Rally Novice for her second time. I was so proud of her! Raven qualified and took first place in both of her classes, and didn’t seem to get her usual case of ring nerves this time. She had a nice happy expression and wagging tail throughout. Woohoo!
Twist did really well, although he didn’t qualify. He still is not quite 100% confident about all the new exercises in Open, but I thought that he did a really nice job for his first time. We’re going to keep training on the broadjump and do some polishing up on a couple other little things and then I think he’ll be ready next time.
One of the really cool things about the Utah Sheltie Specialty is that our friend is usually in charge of organizing things and she always makes sure that there are lots of fun “special prizes” so that no one goes home empty handed. Alot of us will donate baskets full of fun things, and other prizes, and it’s always a highlight to see what everyone donated. This year Twist won the prize for highest scoring rescue Sheltie. I think she said that it was a crate pad or a bed or something. The only bummer was that we weren’t able to stay for the rest of the week and our prize wasn’t going to make it to the showsite till the next day. LOL Anyway, we had a really nice time
This week is getting away from me quicker than I expected. LOL We had a really nice weekend! Friday started off with an obedience lesson for Twist and Raven. We have lots and lots to work on before the Utah Sheltie Specialty at the end of April. That’s good though.
Saturday and Sunday we spent at the DOCNA trial. I only had Zoe entered, but then they offered day of trial entries, so I broke down and entered Raven for the last run of the day on Sunday. Zoe had a nice weekend. She was really consistent and Q’d with first place in 8 of the 10 classes that she ran in. The other two were my fault. I got lost and sent her into an offcourse tunnel on one class, and realized it too late to get her turned around, and the other was a class called Strategic Time Gamble, and you make up your own course to accumulate points in the opening time period of 30 seconds. Then they blow a whistle and you have another 10-15 seconds to cross the finish jump. The problem is that you can’t finish too early or too late, it’s more a gamble of whether you can estimate how many obstacles your dog can complete in a certain amount of time, and I suck at that. We crossed the finish jump too soon, and lost the Q. Raven Q’d in her one jumpers run, which should have finished her Beginner’s jumper title.
Zoe did qualify in the North American Challenge Class though, and that is DOCNA’s qualifier for their Championships, so if we decide that we can get away (time and moneywise), we are qualified to go to Prescott, AZ in Oct. for the Western Championships. That would be fun!
The next few days are going to be busy. I am sitting waiting right now for a client to pick up their dog. I hate waiting for people. It seems like that’s what a majority of my time is spent doing with the boarding kennel. Waiting for people to pick-up/drop-off dogs. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could count on them showing up at a specific time, but you just can’t. People tell you that they’ll be there at one time and then show up hours later. It’s very frustrating because it means that you are tied to the house, and can’t leave.
Anyway, in the meantime, today I’m trying to get a packing list together so that I can be ready to leave Friday morning for Salt Lake. Zoe is entered in a DOCNA agility trial this weekend. I was only planning on travelling with Zoe and Layla this time, but there is an obedience ring set-up on Friday if we can get there early enough that would be ideal training for Twist and Raven. So…it’s looking like I’ll be bringing all the Shelties but Rogue this time. She’ll have to stay home with her dad and keep things in line here.
I have a three boarding dogs going home tomorrow, and at least one coming in, and then I have agility class with Zoe and Raven, and somewhere in between that I’d love to get a chance to bathe everybody. It’s not looking real promising though. LOL I almost forgot I have the cats that I’m watching for some friends while they are in Indiana too. All in all, it’s going to be a busy last half of the week, but I think alot of it is going to be spent hurrying up to sit around a wait for people.
So, I thought that Layla’s “wait” had come along far enough to test it out on some group pictures. I was wrong. LOL Here’s some of the outtakes.
Setting everybody up….
“Did you see her drop something?”
Hmmm…wonder what I’m missing behind me?
Woops! We’ve lost someone…..LAYLA!
Wait, wait, there she is! She’s back, but not for long…
Layla says: “I’m outta here! I’ve got much better things to do than sit and wait for you to snap my picture.”
We’ve obviously got a ways to go before she’s going to make group pictures an easy task again. LOL
So, we went for a walk yesterday and Penny found this hole in the snow. I don’t know what it went to, but the series of pictures that I got just cracked me up! 
