June and July

Where did the months go?????  I better get this finished before it’s August!

 This has the potential to be long!  Course I probably can’t remember alot of the details so that’ll make it shorter.  🙂

In June I entered Vada, Copper, Seven and Prozac in the AgileCanines CPE trial.  They were all very successful.  Vada Q’d in 2 classes I think.  I screwed up Snooker but I didn’t think I did and I didn’t hear the whistle or judge and kept going.  Copper Q’d in all 4 runs.  He was getting tired on the 3rd run.  Someone said he still looked happy though.  Seven had an awesome Jumpers run.  Prozac earned her CL1-R.  Her first agility title ever!  We only entered Sunday so I could train with MVSV on Saturday.

The weekend after that was the HOT Championship in Akron OH.  Angeli and I took her van and left on Wednesday morning.  That gave us time to get use to OH and do some tracking.  We stopped at the stadium when we got there for a bit of obedience.  The Obedience Championship was on Thursday.  We were also able to practice on the field that day.  And the HOT Championship was Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  We had Friday off so we used it to practice tracking.  Saturday we tracked.  Vada and I failed.  She started having problems on the first leg.  Training had not been going so well so I wasn’t surprised.  But I was still sad since we had worked so hard.  Too hard really.  Angeli and Griffin passed their track.  Saturday night I walked Vada to the pet store about a mile from the hotel to get some chews for her.  It was nice to only have 1 dog and to take her for a walk.  We also walked over to the grocery store and stood in line for the outdoor Redbox.  I got alot of compliments on her from people we walked by.  Sunday was our day in the stadium for obedience and protection.  I had a blast!  It was so fun to trial on such a big field.  It was in the rubber bowl so it was a bouncy surface and astroturf.  We earned an 86 in obedience.  I was happy with it.  She lost her fronts and needed a second command to down on the send out.  Otherwise it was very nice!  Protection was fun too.  She had to jump pretty high to get in Clark’s face in the blind.  The back half helper really tested Vada.  She has never seen such strong helpers.  I was very proud of her.  Proud of myself too for walking the blinds correctly and saying my “out” commands loud enough.  It was a rush!  We earned a 90.  We drove home after the awards.  We did have to stop at a rest area and sleep for a bit.  But it was nice to get home early on Monday to unwind before going back to work on Tuesday.  Pics are posted at www.mytrialphotos.com

The next weekend I went and watched the Ten Thousand Lakes Schutzhund Club’s affiliation trial.  Then Sunday we went and worked on the rental house some more.

On the 1st of July, Luci and Copper went to the vet for checkups.  Luci’s doing really well on her thyroid meds and all her bloodwork came back great.  Copper’s did too except that he showed Lyme’s.  So now he’s on doxycycline for 30 days.  He’s feeling MUCH better!  I just thought he was getting old but he wasn’t feeling so well from the lymes.  I did read that doxy is an anti-inflamatory so that might be why he is feeling better too.  We’ll see once he’s off of it.

On the 4th we took a vacation.  We went to Turtle Creek Ranch (www.turtlecreekranch.com) for 5 days.  The dogs were in heaven.  They got to be off leash and go for walks at least once a day around 40 acres of land.  And they got to swim in the pond at least once a day.  Here are some pics: http://tinyurl.com/65yr47  We drove home on Tuesday and stopped in Amery on the way home and met my mom for lunch.

That Saturday there was a PSA trial in Harris.  The judge owns a Dutch Shepherd.  And Christie was trialing 2 of her Dutch Shepherds.  One of which was Vada’s neice.  They invited me to dinner with them.  I got home late but it was alot of fun to hang out with them and chat about trials and such.  They had great stories.  It was great to see Christie again.  We had met her at the Dutch Shepherd Event last year in MI.  That Sunday we went and worked on the rental house again.  I had to work much of the morning so we weren’t able to be at the rental house long.

The next weekend we went to Holmen to visit Karl’s parents.  That Friday I had taken Sonic into the vet.  Turns out he had a hot spot on his belly that he had licked raw.  They had to sedate him and shave him.  So he got to wear a cone called up until yesterday.  It was nice to visit Karl’s parents again.  We do not get down there nearly enough.  His mom was looking very good.  We were happy to see that.  Before we left on Sunday poor Fringe got stung by a wasp on her nose.  Her nose and face swelled up.  We gave her some benedryl but it took a few days for the swelling to go down.

Whew!  That was the fastest 2 months!