New Year, Birthdays and Trials

Happy New Year! I don't even know what day of the week it is anymore, but I know that today is the 1st, so there you go. My schedule is so messed up from having a complete lack of any sort of regular schedule. As much as I've enjoyed the random days off, I do look forward to life getting back to "normal" in the coming weeks.

I realize I never updated anything following the second day of our trial in Oshkosh. The little dogs got to come inside as planned and things actually went really well. Kizzy only made noise a couple of times when people had puppies playing in front of her. I had the little dogs' crate up on the shelving unit and I think they like being up high. Kizzy pulled the cover off several times but didn't seem to be screaming, so I let them look out much of the day.

Kizzy and Kaiser had no Q's for the day. Kizzy hit the weaves (obstacle 3) in JWW too fast and while she made the entry, she just couldn't hang on. The rest of the run was super nice, though! I was especially proud of her Open Standard run, because she was losing her freaking head before that run and was hyper-focused on everything except me before we went in the ring. She got it together, though, and ended up with just two refusals in that run. The first was at the weaves when she once again hit them too hard, slipped, and popped out. Then she R'd on the chute after the a-frame. Oh well, it was a good effort.

Kaiser refused the table in Standard, which was right after the weaves and kind of odd. He also ran right past the teeter, which was naughty, so we just left after that. His jumping was loads better on Monday, though. Loads. In JWW he ran past the second-to-last jump, but that one was totally my fault.

Secret picked up QQ #21! She had another 9-point run in JWW in the morning. I didn't think her Std run was THAT slow, but she only got 16 points. Sixteen? Okay, well, better than nothing. At any rate, that leaves her 23 points from her MACH. Next weekend starts with JWW, so she essentially will have to QQ to get it on Saturday. Well, she *could* pick it up just with Standard, but I could celebrate without question if she got JWW first in the morning.  :o)  We'll see, I'm not going to stress over it. She'll get it at some point, likely next weekend -- although she certainly did have that weekend at Hounds where she only got two JWW Q's, which probably wouldn't net us 23 points. Meh.

Kaiser celebrated his birthday on Tuesday! He is now seven years old! Wow, that is so hard to believe. This officially earns him his "veteran" status in NADAC. That means that if I run him as a Skilled Veteran dog, he can now run 4".... Hmm. That might be fun. I'm presently trying to decide if I want to do NADAC at home the last weekend of January or go to the USDAA trial in Madison. I'll need to figure that out soon. I'm tempted to do NADAC just to see what happens when I run Kaiser at 4"! There's also that temptation of Champs being back in IL this year and figuring I should probably have a few NADAC Q's before signing up -- and Kizzy kind of needs to get out of Novice/Open, too.

Today we celebrated Luke's 11th birthday! I was head over heels into my horse life when I got Luke, but I've always loved dogs and felt like I needed a companion in my life. He very much enjoyed accompanying me to the barn every day (and to work), but he was eventually the catalyst that led to me leaving the horses behind and getting sucked into this world of agility. Couldn't have asked for a better first dog!

To celebrate Luke's birthday (and Kaiser's earlier in the week, I suppose!), we went for a nice hike this afternoon out on the trail. It was in the upper 20's and we still have no snow! What could be better? I'm sure we'll get snow eventually, but I'm going to enjoy it for now.

This weekend should be pretty quiet -- hopefully we can get out and play some more. I'm going to see about getting Secret in for another chiro appointment before our trial next weekend, so Saturday might be our best shot at that. I figure if it's going to be her big weekend then we may as well make sure she's feeling her best!

Looking back, 2014 was a great year for us. I can only hope that 2015 brings more of the same!