Show Report

As mentioned in my last entry, Chili, Stoker and I were entered in a dog show in Albany this weekend. Jessie was nice enough to shuttle me down to the show on Saturday - picture five PWDs and two humans with very efficient packing in a tiny little car.... Once at the show grounds, I stayed with my friend CJ in her amazing Class A motor home on Saturday night and then Jessie shuttled the pups and I home again Sunday afternoon.

We had a great weekend, running into lots of folks we know and hadn't seen in a bit.

On Saturday Chili earned the first leg of her Rally Excellent title with an enthusiastic performance and Stoker earned 3rd place in her Rally Novice class to finish her title. Unfortunately, I only got to catch about the first 5 minutes of the conformation ring, but it was long enough to watch Jessie earn Winners Dog with her boy Rebel. This win leaves him only one point short of his CH title.

On Sunday, the girls and I shifted gears and ran agility. Chili and I had a very "crunchy" Open standard run, but I blame it mostly on her handler (yup, that's me!) along with lack of training time for Chili due to a minor injury that required some down time. Chili had a really nice Open Jumpers run and qualified with a 2nd place so that was a nice way to finish out her weekend. Stoker had a super Novice Standard run and Qd with a 3rd place. Her Novice Jumpers run was really nice too, but she couldn't quite stay focused enough to get through those weave poles. She is really starting to run with speed and intensity now that she is starting to understand the game.

In conformation, Stoker's cousin India (owned by Mandy Ford and handled by Jessie) took Winners Bitch for two points, leaving her very close to her Championship. I also got to visit briefly with Connie Hansen and her girl Gabby, a Kilo daughter that I don't get to see very often. Gabby reminds me a bit of Chili. She's a smaller, compact girl with nice spring of rib and a super personality.

Caos, Chaos and Catching Up

The "caos" are keeping things hopping as usual. In addition to our own dogs, we have two more PWDs staying with us over Spring Break. Never a dull moment, at our house, especially since we are also in the middle of remodeling our kitchen!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Julie and I loaded Ecko and her brother Cooper into her car and headed for Hansville, WA to attend a land-based water workshop put on by the PNWPWDC and taught by Lauren McDermott. The workshop was great, with Lauren breaking all the exercises down in an approachable manner and illustrating everything with lots of video clips. As you can see from the photo, it snowed on our workshop! Since the workshop, I have been motivated to start playing with Ecko on some of the behaviors she will need to tackle apprentice this summer. We've been dunking for treats (to work on the underwater retrieve), practicing taking and carrying a small dummy with a delivery to hand (for the Dummy Carry and Boat Ride) and working on lots of static retrieves with deliveries to hand. I need to get moving with Stoker too and pick up where I left off on training her buoy ball drop.

On the way to the seminar we stopped with the dogs to check out the Simpson Timber Camp and see if it might work for the Club's summer water trial. It is a gorgeous location, but it looks like it may not work due to some constraints in the way some of the existing dock structures are located.

This weekend Chili and Stoker are going with me to a dog show in Albany. The girls are entered in Rally obedience on Saturday and agility on Sunday.

birthdays and haiku

Thursday the 26th marked the 4th birthday for the "fire litter". Birthday wishes to Chip, Ellie, Fresno, JoJo, Maggie, Serena, Shuma and Stoker. Almost everyone responded to my birthday e-mail with reports on their dogs activities. I even got some cool photos of several of the pups. It sounds like they are a lively bunch still, but starting to settle down a bit.

I was updating the website last night and realized that Ecko was the only one of our "pack" that didn't have her very own piece of haiku. Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry that combines three different lines and a noticeable grammatical break. The break is often indicated with commas or hyphens in English haiku. Haiku usually includes nature and everyday things and situations. Haiku is written in three lines, the first with five syllables, the second line with seven syllables and the third line with five syllables. Here are my efforts to convey Ecko in haiku:

Bouncy pinto girl
Spirited, self-willed and smart -
She’s our great white hope

and

Ecko, well, echos...
Full of fun and sweetness too
The world - her oyster