Busy, busy!

I can’t believe it’s been a few weeks since I’ve written.  Time is going by so quickly lately.  You’d think I’d get use to it.

Let’s see.  From when I last wrote, we did not have training that Tuesday as our helper could not make it.  But that weekend (Memorial Weekend) we had Stefan come in from Germany for 3 days of protection training.  2 rounds each day.  Narc and Vada both participated.  We had great weather for the 3 days.  Lots of pics and videos were taken.  Here are some from Stefan’s website http://von-der-staatsmacht.de/Bilder.htm  Mandy was able to update our Members page on our club site since so many pics were taken too.  Narc and Vada did really well.  I was very pleased with how they are working.  I went to dinner with the club Saturday and Sunday night.  Karl joined us Sunday night too.  He played a gig in Winona on Friday night.  So it was a very busy weekend for both of us.  He got home on Saturday morning shortly before I was leaving to drive down for the seminar.  It was long days and alot of driving but it was fun.  Vada did quite a few long bites.  Hopefully Vada is more prepared for the HOT Championship because of it.  Narc did really well too and made progress.

Tuesday we had training.  Wednesday was the 4 year anniversary of when Karl first kissed me.  🙂  That weekend was the MAC USDAA trial.  I was doing hospitality and awards.  The Friday before I had met Julie at Costco to get snacks.  So I had to pickup pop and coffee and bagels each morning.  I had to get up REALLY early to do the drive that is over an hour and get coffee and get there when workers were starting to work.  I also had to arrange workers lunches.  We had less people on Friday since it was the team events.  I have never watched them before so it was fun to see.  I went out and got pizza for all the workers.  Saturday and Sunday we had a company come in and sell food.  Sunday we ran out of some pop and water so I had to make a few trips to the store.  It got pretty hot out.  Saturday I got my legs sunburned so I tried to stay out of the sun on Sunday – or it hurt!  I brought Copper, Vada, Seven and Narc with all 3 days.  I worked with them a little bit through the day and played Chuck It with them.  Seven is working on “sit” and “touch” and learning really fast.  I did the practice jump with him too at 22″ and he had no problem with it.  I got a USDAA number on him so he can play Jumpers at the next trial.  Vada and I had a good weekend for the most part.  She got 3 Qs out of 7 classes.  Her Q runs weren’t the prettiest though.  We had lots of barking on the control obstacles.  And her start line stays got worse as the weekend went on.  But she only knocked 2 bars all weekend and that was in our first run of the weekend – Advanced Pairs.  She also had some weaving problems with popping out at the end.  But it got better and then fell apart again.  I had some bad handling in a few spots and she still managed to keep her bars up.  I was very proud of her for that!  She Q’d in Advanced Gamblers (our first Advanced Q ever!) and Starters Jumpers (2nd towards title) and Starters Standard (2nd towards title).  I bombed Snooker.  I’m so good at that!  We’ll I bombed alot of the classes actually.  LOL  But it was a good weekend and I’m looking forward to our next USDAA trial.  We have a CPE trial coming up on Sunday and that’ll be fun since Copper, Seven and Prozac all can play too.  I tracked on Friday at the fairgrounds.

This last week was pretty busy.  I was able to get out tracking on Monday and Wednesday.  It’s so hard to find places that aren’t full of kids playing soccer.  Wednesday night we did the end of the track in the dark.  Monday I gave up and tracked her in the yard.  I need to remember to find new articles and “flags” for our tracking for this week.  Tuesday night we had training.  Vada is cutting out on blind 4 and going to 6 but I am walking the blinds well finally!  Still need to work on my “out” command.  This week we are going to load the blinds for Vada if we have training on Tuesday.  We have 2 Tuesdays and a Saturday left for club training before the HOT Championship.  Wednesday before tracking I started working on the trial paperwork for the UKC obedience, family obedience and weight pull this weekend.  Thursday I worked on paperwork all night.  I was up too late all week!  Friday I worked on getting everything together and cleaning the van and getting the van ready for the weekend.  We had to bring all 8 dogs, all the ring gates, the jumps for the ring and all the trial paperwork.  I did manage to fit it all in!  Karl spent the night picking up judges from the airport.  He does not have a cell phone so he spent 2 hours driving around the loop to pickup the judge when she was still sitting on the plane at the airport in TX.  The website showed that she had left but the plane had not left the ground.  She got in 2.5 hours late at about 7:30pm.  Karl drove her to the hotel and then went back to work for a bit til the next judge arrived.  His flight finally arrived at 10:30.  It was suppose to be in at 6:30pm.  He had sat on the plane for a long time too and they made him walk all over the airport in Chicago.  He came up from Louisville.  We had a very windy day and they had closed much of the airport so alot of flights were delayed.  Karl got home after midnight!  Then we got up at 4:15am to get everyone loaded into the van and hit the road.  Lissie picked up one judge and we have to pickup the other after Karl dropped me off so we had an open seat.  Obedience started on time but the weight pull started almost an hour and a half late.  No one seemed to mind though.  They finished quickly as the pull was on grass and the dogs had a very hard time pulling alot of weight.  The obedience rings went well.  We never knew was the weather was going to do but the rain stayed away during the trials and it was quite humid both days.  That night we went to dinner at Famous Dave’s.  It was important for John to see the big horse race so we all watched the race in the bar area.  After that we took the judges back to the hotel (Karl took them back one at a time while I waited at Famous Dave’s) then we drove to Savage to help Denise and Al with the carpet so we could pull on carpet on Sunday instead of the grass.  We finally got home after 10pm.  Sunday morning we were up at the same time.  Today we only brought 2 dogs since it was a shorter day and were able to put the small seat in so we could pickup both judges.  We got them from the airport and got setup for Family Obedience on time.  All 4 dogs entered passed!  I have no idea how it happened but while they were practicing my van got locked and my keys were in it!  So Karl had to call AAA again!  That’s 3 times in only a few months.  Thank goodness we have them!  Then Karl ran Jerri to the airport in case she could get on an earlier flight.  Regular obedience started on time and went well.  I was able to steward for almost all of it.  The pull finished shortly before obedience so we were all able to pack up about the same time.  Conformation was going on too and they also finished about the same time.  We got loaded up and brought John to the airport on our way to the storage locker in Prior Lake.  It was nice to leave the gates and jumps there so they’re not taking up room in our garage anymore!

Saturday we entered Seven and Sonic in the fun pull.  They both did really well for their first time ever!  Vada pulled both days and finished her UWP title!  Saturday she pulled 530 pounds and Sunday she pulled 1070!  The grass was really hard and dogs were not able to pull as much weight.  She tried so hard and she was learning the best way to use her body to pull.  I was very proud of her.  Copper got to do the honor dog on Saturday for one of the classes.  He was very lethargic.  He sits funny too and then laid down when we were setting up for heeling.

So now we’re home and I am exhausted and am going to sleep!