She's Official!

Exciting stuff came in the mail yesterday -- No, not any of our NADAC awards. I've pretty much given up on those ever arriving. It was Secret's permanent USDAA card already! That was fast!

Because she measures into the 26" class, there are no measurements that need to be done. I think it's silly that they send me the temporary card just to make me send it directly back to them, but it is what it is. So next weekend when we go to check in at our first USDAA trial, Secret will have a pretty permanent card to show. :o) Poor Kaiser has to be measured. He hates that.

I was surprised to see such a different look from Luke's USDAA card that we got several years ago. This one is much prettier, I must admit. Luke's is bright yellow and not very attractive. I wonder if I can get them to reissue him a new one? lol Nah, probably not important.

This photo is from our last trial at FDC. Let's hope Secret manages to keep her eyes OPEN when the jumps get a little higher. I've seen plenty of photos of dogs with one eye shut in agility, but I'm not sure I've seen both eyes closed. Good heavens, Secret, look where you are going! This was her Jumpers run from Saturday, I believe, which was a good run and a Q. Amazing how she manages to stay on course when she isn't looking where she is going.

One more week! I'm not looking forward to the butt-crack of dawn drive, but we've done it before. The puppy makes it slightly more of a hassle, but Luke will be having a sleepover at "Grandpa & Grandma's" house, so hopefully that helps. Now we just need the weather to cooperate. It would be just my luck to go nearly this whole winter with barely any snow and then we end up having a blizzard next weekend. lol Let's hope not.

Missy continues to do well with her training. Potty training is going well when she's with me (who knows her schedule), but Bethany watched her yesterday while I was working at the shelter and I guess she had several accidents. Puppies are hard work, you know. I think the reason I'm queen of house training is only because we go outside like every 15 minutes if needed (okay, might be an exaggeration, but we go outside a LOT when puppies are in the house). Bethany really hasn't had a puppy before (Rascal was like 9 or 10 months when she got him) and I think she just isn't into the routine yet. But I still very much appreciate her playing puppy-sitter all day! :o)

It came in super handy when it was time for me to come home, too. Yesterday we confirmed two cases of kennel cough at the shelter -- Noooooooo!!!!!! I've never been worried about working with the sick kitties because I have no cats at home to bring anything home to (ringworm is my only heeby-jeeby area, as I did bring this home to Luke once and that sucked). But the idea of bringing kennel cough into my house -- into a house with a puppy and dogs who have a few trials coming up -- almost sent me into a panic. So despite the fact that I was training in the Iso/Q section, I more or less tried to avoid handling the KC dogs as much as possible. We took one to the vet, though, so it was impossible to avoid it.

I called Bethany on my way home and asked if she would mind keeping Missy for an extra half hour or so while I showered. She said it wouldn't be a problem and offered to bring Missy over when I was ready. So that just left my own dogs for me to worry about. I did what I could with my shoes at the shelter -- I walked through the Trifectant foot bath and then sprayed the heck out of the tops of my shoes with Trifectant as well. I don't care about bleaching when it comes to KC germs.... Once I got home I took everything off down to my underwear in the garage. That's right, I was standing there in my skivvies in my 25 degree garage in February. I opened up the door to the outside and then opened the house door and tried to shoo everyone outside without anyone touching me or otherwise greeting me. They thought I'd lost my mind!!!

Once they were outside I grabbed my pile of clothes (including my jacket that I was wearing on the vet run) and threw everything into the wash. I did let the dogs into the house before getting in the shower (because they were standing at the patio door with worried looks on their face because Mom went crazy) but didn't let anyone touch me until I got out.

So, fingers crossed that I didn't bring anything home..... That is the LAST thing we need right now.