AKC Trial & Kizzy Update!

We had another fun weekend playing AKC at Family Dog Center this weekend. We had two new occurrences this weekend -- Secret got her very first AKC NQ on Sunday (phew, the pressure is off!) and Kaiser FINALLY got his last Novice JWW Q to get out of that class!

Kizzy got to come with this weekend, but she spent most of her time in the car. It was planned that way and I really didn't even give her any opportunity to sit and scream in the kennel indoors. Amazingly enough I never heard her make a peep in the car (by the way, her crate was clipped shut for extra security despite the fact that the windows were up...), not even as I walked away. I've never thought she has an issue with being crate, though -- it's more an issue of being pissed off that she's missing out on all of the fun stuff in front of her.

Because there is so much dang downtime at AKC trials, I knew I'd have plenty of opportunity to get the little screamer out to play and socialize. We got in lots of time at the warm-up jump playing and tugging and I did have her spend a few short stints in the crate with me standing there to reenforce the rules. We only had one real over-the-top reactive episode where she went freaking nuts as an older lab puppy walked past us. I pretty much scooped her up and took her straight out to the car after that, so hopefully she made the connection. Likely not...

Secret's first time in Excellent was a Standard course. Our judge this weekend was Joan Mullen and there were several opinions floating around about her, but I liked her courses well enough. She made several tweaks to them over the weekend that resulted in more flowing paths than what you see presented in the maps.

The only real spot I was unsure of on this course was from the dog walk to the tunnel under the a-frame. My first inclination was to front cross after the dog walk so that I could push into the tunnel. After watching the small dogs run, however, I determined that this presented a very ugly path with 99% of the handlers who attempted it. The walk-through was split, so it was nice to have already decided my plan by this time and I walked/planned for a rear cross at the tunnel. It worked very well and put me slightly behind so that I was driving as Secret came out of the tunnel, which made for a nice speedy finish. Secret was the only Q in 24" Excellent -- her time would have taken 3rd place in Masters.

Kaiser was up in Open Standard next. He would need to Q in both Standard runs this weekend in order to get his title and move up to Excellent. Well, it quickly became evident that we didn't haven't to worry about that.  :o)  I lead out all the way between 2 and 3 in an attempt to catch his attention for the turn and avoid the off course tunnel, but he went right past me and took the tunnel anyhow. After that he got two refusals at the weaves (?!). I knew the table was going to be difficult for us coming off the a-frame since he's always hauling ass off that obstacle and I was right -- springboard! Then he hopped on from the back side because I didn't correct it, so that was likely another fault. We finished strong, though, with a fantastically speedy dog walk where he totally skittered to a stop right at the bottom -- GOOD BOY!

Secret saved my butt in JWW! I don't know if it was the knee brace that caught me up on the front cross from 1-2 or what, but when Secret went into the tunnel I suddenly found myself toppling helplessly forward. I wish I had it on video to see what happened and how I actually managed to recover, but it felt like it was happening in slow motion for about a million steps! It was a 20' tunnel and by the time Secret came out I had almost gotten my feet back under me (seriously, at one point I wished I would just fall over to make it end, lol) and we somehow managed to keep moving forward to jump 3. I was so out of position by this point and did the ugliest rear cross you've ever seen on the landing side of 4 and bless Secret, she kept the bar up and kept going. After that I regained my composure and managed to finish the course with a series of blind crosses as planned. I had a few people come up to tell me they were impressed with my recovery and thought surely I'd fall over. lol

 Kaiser was a fabulous little man for his JWW run. I did a short lead-out to avoid the front cross this time.  ;o)  I was able to stay ahead of him to keep his attention for the turns, so no off-courses this time! In order to be able to beat him to the front cross from 14-15 (to pull him off the tunnel) I needed to keep some fairly big distance at the weaves, so I stayed behind the 10/12 jumps. Admittedly I was a little concerned about his ability to nail the weaves after his refusals in Standard, but he was back to himself by this point and sailed through them. I got in the front cross and he Q'd with a time that was like twice as fast as any other dog in the class.... I think it was only like 5 yps, though, so nothing mind-blowing. But hooray for our Novice JWW title! That took long enough. We got several compliments on his weaves at a distance for that run. I try to avoid saying stuff like, "I would hope a dog who has his V-NATCH could weave from 15' away" and instead say thanks. lol

JWW Started the day on Sunday. Big dogs were first on this run and I don't think I spent enough time getting Secret ready for this run. She was moving nicely, but not quite as into it as I feel she has been lately. I ran the course with a whole slew of blind crosses again and was one of the few to (successfully, at least) run the left side from the weaves up to 17 (yay for being fast(er)!). I was ahead of Secret on the closing line and okay, I'll admit that I just ASSUMED she'd continue on down the line with me. I'm not typically in the habit of having to tell her to take something in front of her, so I was a little surprised to see her go just to the outside of the last jump. Say what? I have no idea why -- the only possibly reason I can come up with was that it was a funky/weird looking set of wings unlike any others on course. I believe we've had refusals on that set of wings at previous trials and then Kaiser went and refused a jump with those wings in his JWW run as well, so who the heck knows. It's something I will definitely be conscious of in future runs at FDC, though! Oh well, in a way it's a relief to get her first NQ out of the way, although it would have been kind of nice to have waited until she was in Masters so that we'd at least get some speed points out of the one Q run.  :o)

Kaiser's debut in Open Jumpers went very well. Jump number 8 was the one with the wonky wings in this run and he cut to the outside after doing a slight stutter in front of the jump. That's why I feel there is just something about this wing design, but that's so weird. I've never sensed that they pay any attention to wings on other jumps! You can have one refusal at Open and still qualify, so I knew Kaiser had to hit his weaves. Seriously, I normally don't even think twice about this being an issue with him, but he's been perplexing me with some minor weave issues lately... He was fine, as he normally is, and we finished the course great -- taking care to actually direct him down the last line instead of assuming he'd take the jumps as I'd done with Secret... Live & learn! First Open JWW Q!

Secret was more like herself for our Excellent Standard run later in the day. She had a bit of a wipe-out from 8-9 like numerous other dogs (sigh... the flooring...), but this was otherwise a very nice run!! My only concern here was the weave poles, as someone went a little crazy taping them with black duct tape (on green turf) and it really, really stood out and presented a much different picture than we are used to seeing (weaves are never taped here for NADAC trials). Secret didn't seem to have a problem with this and picked up speed in the weaves as she went. Her time on this course would have been good enough to win the 24" Masters class! Both days she would have gotten in the neighborhood of 18 speed points in Standard, I believe.

Kaiser finished the weekend strong with a perfectly clean run in Standard!! Has he had one of those in AKC yet? lol It was a very nice run and he even nailed the table! I knew I'd have a better shot at this one because I could ease him over jump 9 and hopefully have a little more control at the table. He certainly thought about bouncing, I could tell, but skittered to a stop and waited. His dog walk stopped a little high this time but was still pretty nice and he had no problems with the excessively taped weaves. That's our second Open Std Q, so just one more before he, too, gets to play in the fun classes!

Because this is not nearly long enough already..... Look what happened! Kizzy learned how to weave! In just a week of once-daily sessions the little squirt learned how to weave six straight/closed poles. I'm fantastically pleased with the wee girl. She's doing great!

Tonight I set up a long straight sequence into a tunnel to work on driving forward (and to see if I'm fast enough to beat her...). She did well, but she does have an issue of running around jumps when she's going super fast, so we're working on that. I also wanted to see if she was ready to do contacts for toys -- and the answer to that would be no. She's a wild woman on the dog walk and didn't give any thought to stopping and she was hesitant at the teeter with just the tug as incentive. I brought out treats and she had no issues with either -- giving me auto stops on the dog walk and running all the way to the end of the teeter.... So I guess we have some work to do there.

I've also continued to work on being able to touch/handle her in the middle of our working sessions when she's high as a kite and there has been significant improvement. Still absolutely no idea what she'll do in a trial setting, though! I really need to do a ring rental to get her some training time out of our yard....

Quick update - Trial report, etc.

I was playing on Google maps this morning after an article I read and was surprised to see that there is suddenly a street view available for my house! This is a pretty new addition to Google maps, as it hasn't been that long since I was tinkering on there. The picture is not new, though, because it still has my gravel driveway. It must be from last summer, I would guess.

At any rate, I chuckled when I zoomed in because you can clearly see Kaiser sitting in the window seat, watching the world.  :o)  It's nice to know that Secret doesn't hog that spot all day long and lets the others have a turn.

We had a NADAC trial here in La Crosse this weekend. By "we" I suppose I should clarify that THE BOYS had a trial. Secret and Kizzy got to sit this one out. I had several people ask me where Secret was on Saturday. The reactions were a little surprising when I explained that I don't think she likes NADAC. The biggest one was, "But she's so good at it!" --- I'll admit, she got her 13 Elite Chances Q's faster than either of the boys, finishing her NATCH when she was only three years old. But she TROTS on the majority of Chances courses. I don't care if she's "good" at it if she thinks it sucks bad enough that she trots through the course.

I stopped entering Secret in the games classes (Weavers, Touch-n-Go, Tunnelers & Hoopers) after finishing her Elite Versatility title because she doesn't seem to enjoy those classes at all. She hates Chances, which leaves Regular and Jumpers. What is the point?! We don't need to earn 5,000 points in those classes with the inability to achieve higher titles. She doesn't care if she doesn't run NADAC anymore. So yes, I think I'll just save my money and spend it doing things I feel she does enjoy more, like AKC (and I'm sure we'll get back to a USDAA trial eventually).

The boys, on the other hand, do quite enjoy NADAC so I'm sure I'll continue on a more limited basis for them (considering that Luke is going to start cutting back and Kaiser gets to play in AKC now). They both ran very well on Saturday!

I have no video and I didn't take ribbon pictures OR pictures of the course maps, so this will be a pretty dull recap. Kaiser qualified in both rounds of Regular, which I feel largely redeemed me from my horrible handling at Champs... It's nice to know that we can, in fact, still do agility together.  :o)  Not only that, but he had some smoking fast times, too. His was the fastest time in Round 2 of all dogs and he was right behind Konfetti (winner of the 2013 Triple Crown at Champs!) in Round 1.

The Chances course was a total gimmee at this trial, but I'm starting to think I am doomed to never Q in this class ever again. The only contact was the a-frame and it was at the start with no discrimination or line, so no reason to fault it. Then a send out to two tunnels side by side, but the far one was pretty obvious. Then just a push out to a jump, call back, send through the tunnel, a bit of a turn away from the a-frame and run out with your dog. Luke got it just fine but knocked a bar on the turn after the far jump. I was further ahead than I expected with Kaiser (because holy hell, I am getting faster!) and found myself literally on top of the line without realizing, causing me to stupidly take a step back as he was coming out of the tunnel. Naturally he followed my body and boom, so much for that.

Kaiser had Weavers up next. He was stressing at the start for some reason (yawned) and it took three tries to get him in the first set of weaves. It reminded me of Round 3, the Weavers-focused round at Champs. Do we have issues with weaves being at the beginning of courses now?! I have no idea why... At any rate we recovered and ran clean and we squeaked in under time. Can I say right now how much it irritates me that a small dog can have such a massive blunder like that on course, easily wasting 10 seconds, and still make time? Luke and I struggled for years in that class, coming in with time faults after perfectly clean, faultless runs. I've always thought that the discrepancy was terribly unfair.

Both dogs got to run Hoopers at this trial. Kaiser because he was running on a free day, and Luke because I figured I only had to pay for his runs that day and he'd enjoy it.  :o)  It was a numbered hoopers course, which I could take or leave, but we had fun. Luke had one very close call where I screeched and he literally slid to a halt in front of a hoop, pushing it over 6" out of place as his paws slid into the base. Apparently that is not a fault, because he Q'd. lol Hoopers is always fairly exhilarating with Kaiser and somehow we also managed to get through clean.

Jumpers was last and I knew it wouldn't be a Kaiser course, although he ended up going off course where I hadn't really expected. After that happened I had fun and threw some blind crosses at him. I actually did several blinds with him that day that he read well (typically always where there wasn't a real off course opportunity, granted). It helped my knee a lot... (that started hurting on Tuesday, yay...)

Luke's Jumpers run was kind of a hoot. You know how I mentioned earlier that I've gotten faster? Well, that's putting me in places I didn't plan on being! Bless Luke, he handled it really well and actually managed to keep the bars up as I continued to get in his way.

In other news, Kizzy's weave training has finally begun. I would like to actually give trialing a shot with her one day, which means she needs to learn this skill eventually. After the initial introduction to the first weave base (2x2) outside with toys, I moved the weaves into the basement to commence training on the mats. She's just too high with toys and we can't get enough repetitions in. We'll get a lot more done with food to start and can move on to toys once she gets the hang of things a bit more.

So far so good! She's catching on remarkably fast in the three sessions we've had downstairs. Surprisingly, she also auto-sucks to the table (that never got moved outside this year...) for some reason. We'll see how long that lasts.  :o)  Speaking of, I should probably take Kaiser into the basement for some table work this week. We get to play AKC all weekend!

Transports and other fun stuff

Today I picked up a couple of dogs being admitted to Border Collie Rescue of MN. I tend to get contacted when there are dogs in my neck of the woods and I'm always happy to give back when I can -- especially to the rescue that brought Secret to me!

This was a nice pair of dogs. They are farm dogs through and through and probably don't know a whole heck of a lot about much, but they are both super sweet. The girl, "Cheese" (in back) looks full border collie and the boy, "Basil," looks part English Shepherd to me, but who knows. It's unfortunate that their people couldn't keep them anymore, but I'm glad that they contacted BCRMN instead of dropping them at the shelter. For as nice as they both are, I have a feeling they will find homes very quickly!

We didn't do a whole heck of a lot else today, but I did get around to setting up the latest Happy Hurdle course this afternoon. Every now and then Ann Croft puts out courses that make my eyes bug out, but most of them tend to run very well. We had fun with this course today.

There was no real "pretty" way to get jump two for Secret. The backside wrap was very demotivating for her due to my lack of movement. One plan that I walked and then forgot to execute was to run her past the plane of 2 on the right side and do a blended cross to send her around the far wing, which would have been a longer path but would have provided a better/straighter shot into the tunnel.

Kaiser drives fine into such tight wraps (surprisingly enough), so he didn't find the beginning nearly as demotivating and I could handle it pretty much however.

The top of the course was the next "interesting" spot. Nothing ever seemed to run as smooth as I would have liked, but by far it felt best to run the dog past the top wing of jump 7 and front cross to show them the correct side of 7. I did pull each dog to the bottom a couple of times but it always felt awkward and more prone to having them ignore my come to hand signal and take the jump from the wrong side.

After that the course was pretty straight forward. I was reminded on several occasions that I need to continue to move and support the tight wraps or else Secret get sticky in front of the jumps.

Speaking of, I think I might need to get her into the chiropractor before our AKC trial in a couple of weeks. When we first started playing on this course Secret refused the first jump and went out of her way to the tunnel several times. That is peculiar behavior for her. She also didn't have the speediest weaves on the planet (well, until I got the Jolly Ball out later and then they were much improved), so I'm just thinking it might be worth it to take her in again. So much for saving money after visiting several times last month...

We have NADAC next weekend and I do not plan on entering Secret -- so I'll have to decide if I should take her in this week or next. Probably next, I suppose, so it's "fresher" before the trial. It will, after all, be her first time in Excellent and we want her feeling her best!  :o)

The 10k girls!

Today the girls and I hit a new milestone -- We ran 10k! Yes, a whole 6.2 miles. I was going to do an out and back, turning around at 3 miles, but then I thought, "How stupid is it to run 6 miles when I can just throw on an extra 0.2 and make it a full 10k?" So I did. And between 2.5 and 3.1 miles I was really regretting that decision, because that last portion before I turned around was ALL uphill...

We went out the same route that I like to do for our 5-mile runs (previously our longest distance) and it turns out that section of trail is perfect for the 10k length because the turn around point (3.1+/-) is where the trail crosses the road, which is a super easy marker and good spot for a stretch.

It's also apparently a good spot to accidentally turn off your GPS without realizing it. ARGH!!! I was reaching the spot where I figured surely another mile would knock off (shortly after nearly getting run over by a stupid bicyclist who wouldn't move over to pass us on the trail...) -- And since that mile had been almost all downhill, I was curious to know the time. When I looked down to check why it hadn't marked off another mile, I saw that I had ended my workout at the turn around point. *sob*  My first actual 10k wasn't even going to go in the books.

Well, whatever. I started it over from there and figuring that my average pace has been around 11:10/mile on these runs lately, I should have done the entire 10k in 1:10 and change --- Oh! I suppose it's worth mentioning that I finally hit my goal of running a mile in under 10:00 last night! I was surprised because I totally did not feel like running yesterday, but I somehow managed to push out 9:53 in my first of three miles. Yay for completing a goal! Now to set a new one, I guess...

The girls continue to be fantastic running partners. I was concerned if they would make it the added distance today, mostly because they were pretty darn sacked out at home before we left. I had nothing to worry about, though -- around mile 5 Kizzy started lunging at the end of the leash towards lord knows what and they were both still way out in front at the very end. I do wonder if there's a limit to how far I should be running them, but I figure they'll tell me. Right now it's more or less just an hour or so of trotting for them, which doesn't seem to be too strenuous. Kizzy is proving her husky heritage with her stamina, though, that's for sure. I feel bad for leaving Kaiser & Luke at home, but I know Luke couldn't handle the distance and I'm not sure about Kaiser (he'd probably be fine, I'm sure).

Tomorrow I'm hoping to actually set a drill and play agility with everyone! I love weekends.

Back to the FUN stuff! (and Target, too!)

First things first! A couple of days ago a friend was tagged on Facebook in a picture of her dog modeling the T-Rex costume at Target. Sweet! The costumes are out! So I swung by on my way home from work tonight to see if I might be able to find Kaiser on any of the stuff he modeled during his photo shoot.

There weren't any costumes in the pet section, so I started scouring the store for the Halloween section to see if the pet costumes were by the people costumes. Score! In the far back corner of the store, there they were!

I found the skunk, the hot dog, the knight and the cowgirl (I think it was the same one, but I thought ours had been cuter...), but they didn't have all of the sizes available. Kaiser definitely was not on the small skunk or hot dog, though (that went to a terrier and a dachshund, respectively). I was looking for all of the small costumes and darn near missed it -- When all of the sudden, RIGHT in front of me, was Kaiser! He's a bee!!  :o)

I was thrown off because he's on the medium package. Truth be told, the costume he's wearing IS a medium (except for the head piece, that's small) because the costumes all ran crazy small. It sounded like they planned to put him on small packaging regardless, though, so who knows what happened. The medium package says it's for dogs up to 50lbs, so maybe they just think people will think he's a husky. Woe to the husky owner who thinks a medium will fit their dog, though! lol

I haven't decided if I'll actually make my dogs wear it at any point in time or if I'll just put the package away for safe-keeping (because YES, I bought one!). I didn't buy the winter coat because I just don't feel like we'd get any use out of that whatsoever, and the tag is smaller.  ;o)

I am so excited that they used my little man for a costume!!!

As I mentioned yesterday, Secret & Kaiser got to play after Kizzy had her fun. The drill setup from Kizzy's Novice exercises had an equal number of Intermediate/Advanced options to choose from, so I chose three at random. After I'd walked the third one a few times I realized that we'd actually done that one before. Oops. Oh well. At that point it was the sixth exercise I'd committed to memory that afternoon and there was no way I was going to try to retain a 7th.

In the weeks going into NADAC Champs we worked on nothing but speed work (and the dog walk), so it was nice to get back to some super fun handling exercises. I so much prefer this style of agility! After seeing just how nicely Kaiser went back to the tight work I started wondering if I made a mistake to focus so much on distance/speed (granted, that was mostly for Secret's benefit). Maybe he would have been better off to stay in a bit more handler focus. Who knows. Too late now. I was just happy to have my sassy, barky little man back and he was eager to play!

Secret did great, too! I popped those jumps right back up to 24" on her and she did great. Only dropped one bar the whole time and I'm sure it was my fault.

I'm thinking we're going to be doing a lot more AKC in 2014. My next decision, though, is a conflict the first weekend in December. There is a NADAC trial here at home (i.e.: No travel) and an AKC trial in Milwaukee (Hounds for the Holidays). Apparently the H4TH trial is HUGE (three rings) and honestly I'm kind of excited about the idea of having actual competition... There's a good chance, with two AKC trials before then, that Secret would be running Masters by then, too, so we'd get a chance to start working towards her MACH at last. Yeah.... I'm leaning that way.

But then I was (perhaps foolishly) thinking that MAYBE Kizzy would be ready to do a few runs at the NADAC trial in December. Maybe we can split it up and do both. We'll see!

When did this happen?!

Today I went and scrounged up some Novice Jumpers drills from Steve over at AgilityNerd to do a bit of a test to see where the Kizzy-dog is at in her lack of training. The wee one blew me away just a little! To date, especially when training with toys, we've had a bit of an "obstacle commitment" issue where she'll run by a lot of stuff. Tunnels have also been a bit of a struggle at times because she seems to sometimes think she's going to miss out on the party if she goes in there.

Not today, though! She strapped on her big girl pants and held it together for 12 whole obstacles in a row for three different drill sets! And I only got bit once while getting her to release the toy!  :o)  Such improvement all around. She is also doing well with the increase in jump height -- I've moved all of her jumps up to 10" now.

Kaiser and Secret got to play on a few of the big dog (i.e.: Advanced) drills. Hopefully I'll get around to editing those eventually as well.

We are enjoying a nice, (much needed) quiet weekend at home. Yesterday we went out for a five-mile run (okay, I only ran 4+ miles and we walked the rest). I was planning to go to the track at the school today, but instead we ended up playing agility and I guess now I'm going to go fail at play tennis with my parents before dinner.

Champs 2013 -- Videos!

Kaiser

Secret

Luke

The Adrenaline Crash

One nice thing about Facebook is that it lets me know I'm not alone. I've had this funk about me more or less since I got home yesterday. Part of it is exhaustion that I need to recover from, but it feels like I'm just depressed -- which, according to the throngs of folks that feel like me right now, is apparently pretty normal after running on adrenaline for five days.

Seriously, though. I actually cried when I got home. And not happy, glad to be home tears, either. It reminded me of when I actually did have "issues" and would just cry out of the blue for no reason at all. Stupid hormones. lol

Today I just didn't really feel anything. Work sucked. I didn't want to be there and almost called in, but I hadn't gotten around to checking my e-mail at all while I was gone and assumed I'd have a ton of stuff waiting for me. Not so much. Half the people seemed to think I wasn't going back to work until Wednesday anyhow, so I should have stayed home!

I actually felt like running tonight (weird, right?), but the lawn managed to actually grow some real grass (vs just weeds) while I was gone, so I mowed that instead. I also set up a few jumps and worked Kizzy for a bit. I'm actually feeling inspired to get her going now that the build-up to Champs is done.

I haven't put together my videos yet, but I have watched them (I'm missing one of Luke's, so I'm not sure if I'll start posting them before I get that or not...). Many times. The videos make me both happy and sad. I could not be more proud of all of my dogs. They all ran just fantastic in every single round. I am sad because I am extremely disappointed in myself. I know I'm being too hard on myself because it was mostly good, but *every single one* of Kaiser's errors was me, me, me. I really let my nerves get to me while running him and I have nobody to blame but myself for not reaching our full potential. He was amazing. He nailed every contact all week long -- all of our errors were me sending him off course. Sigh. I'm sure I'll stop hating myself soon enough, but for now the blame for not achieving my goals is squarely on me and I'm busy kicking myself. So often I say, "Oh, he's just being a Klee Kai." Or not. Maybe he's just doing exactly what I told him to do. He's such a trier.

Secret was pretty dang awesome, too. She really thrives off the energy at Champs. She has been getting faster overall for a while now, but she was cruising happy & fast down in Springfield. Part of me wonders how much of it is footing related. For financial and convenience reasons we obviously trial most frequently here in La Crosse -- it is no secret that their footing is not ideal and all three of my dogs tend to run more cautiously to avoid slipping. I think running weekend after weekend on that turf is detrimental to Secret's performance in the ring... Or I could be completely full of crap. Who knows. It will be interesting to see how she runs at the upcoming AKC trial I guess.

Luke did not put a foot wrong all week, so we will just ignore that little failed start line stay in the final round.  ;o)  I feel so blessed to have had these runs with the old man. And to think I was waffling on entering him at all. I guess he showed me!

Nobody was happier to be home than Kizzy. Immediately upon being released into the yard she reverted to a semi-feral state and ran around for a solid 30 minutes not letting me touch her. That was fun, considering I was trying desperately to get everyone treated for fleas after hearing about other owners finding them on their dogs down in Springfield. I didn't find any on mine, but honestly I didn't go looking, either. I knew that if I found any I would immediately shun my dogs and not let them near me. lol  I can't help it... That was always an issue I had at the shelter. I'd be loving up on a new animal that came in and as soon as a flea was spotted it was like they had leprosy. Poor critters, they can't help it. So hopefully they didn't bring any friends home, but everyone is treated now and will hopefully be fine.

Meanwhile, I am now broker than broke and we probably won't be doing much trialing in the coming months. We'll plan on AKC this month and next. I don't particularly care for the person judging NADAC in November, so I don't have to feel bad about not attending that trial. We'll have to see about December, as Lorne will be in town and we quite enjoy him, plus there is no AKC that month. Perhaps Secret will get that month off and Kizzy will be ready to play? hahahahaha  We'll see.....

Maybe a sugar high will get me out of my funk? I finally went through and sorted my goodie bags last night after I got home and this entire bag is candy.... I think they may have went a little overboard! One friend said she left it at the hotel for the workers. That was a good idea.... I'll probably end up taking it to work. Anyone want some candy?! I'm not eating it -- I actually lost four more pounds while at Champs!  :o)  Hooray for stress and not having time to eat.