Resq TailsThe trials and triumphs of rescued dogs

Well, here is Zoe’s sassy run from the DOCNA trial. It’s not pretty, I warn you. LOL But, I think it’s fair to say that it’s an even mixture of poor handling and sass. I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie “Up” but my husband says that you wouldn’t want Zoe to have one of the collars that the dogs on that movie had that translated what they were thinking into English when we have a run like this.

Since I’m talking about things that don’t go as planned…I’ll tell you what happened this afternoon. For the last week or so, I’ve thought that something felt odd with my front teeth. They didn’t hurt, but something didn’t feel right. That is absolutely horrifying for someone like me. It’s nearly impossible to think of something that scares me more than having to go to the dentist. You’d think that after I worked in a dental lab for a couple years it would have helped my ridiculously unfounded fears, but it didn’t. I still avoid going like the plague. I’d rather do just about anything, even go shopping for rustic furniture if it would keep me from having to go to the dentist. Well, today I was flossing my teeth and out comes a filling from the backside of the front tooth. Ack! Now I just can’t seem to keep my tongue out of what feels like a crater in the front of my mouth. So, joy of joys…I will be going to the dentist tomorrow. LOL Definitely, NOT PART OF THE PLAN…

So, the DOCNA trial on Saturday was great. Zoe started off the day with Jumpers, her favorite. She had a beautiful run. Unfortunately, our video camera wasn’t cooperating and so a friend has the runs on her camera, so I can’t post anything yet. Her Beginner’s Gambler course was next. Again, beautiful. Then Standard, or regular or whatever they call it. LOL It was a train wreck. I ticked Zoe off at the start of the course, giving her a really hard “here” to get her to come in to the dogwalk, rather than the tunnel on the outside. Well, she came in and told me off about the cue. Bleh. That’s never a good sign. So when I did get her on the dogwalk, she just flew across and bailed the contact. I wasn’t going to let that pass, since you can train in the ring in DOCNA. I took her back and we did the dogwalk again. I think that just made her even more ticked off. We did get around the course, but not without several other bobbles and arguing from Zoe. She’s such a brat! I just love her. I’m sure it would really make me angry if it happened all the time, but here and there it just makes me happy that she’s still feeling that sassy at her age.

Anyway, the class to qualify for DOCNA Championships is the North American Challenge. It would have been a really pretty run, except that again on the dogwalk, (maybe a little sass was still left over), she wouldn’t turn off it into the tunnel, instead she jumped back onto the dogwalk first. So that’s a 10 point fault. Fortunately…DOCNA allows up to 12 faults in this class. So, despite our bobble, Zoe will be going to Championships again this year.

The drive up and back both had parts I could have done without. On the way up we saw lots of deer because it was so darn early in the morning. We almost hit one coming into a town. Fortunately, Zoe was in a crate, so she was fine. My friend’s dog was riding loose in the back seat, and she got thrown off the seat, but was still ok. On the way home, we hit snow, and rain and slush and mess. It made for a very tense ride home. I’m definitely going to be grateful for warmer weather and decent road conditions again in the next few months.

My husband is out putting in more resumes today. One is a janitorial position. Not his ideal line of work, but it’s with the school district, so that part is good. He probably won’t be using any Anilox roll brushes for cleaning printing presses, just regular old cleaning. LOL For the rest of the week, a friend of ours has asked him to refinish her cabinets, so that’s a small job to keep him busy.

I’m headed out later today for an obedience lesson with Dare. Should be fun. Hopefully we’ll come away with lots of interesting stuff to share.