New Picture

Monday afternoon we had stunning weather.  Moira was lying in the front window, soaking up the sun when I took this picture.  She has grown into such a lovely girl.  She reminds me a lot of her mother.

Power Twins - Activate!

At the 2010 National in Pennsylvania, we met Becky Dean and Drew.  Drew and Moira are half sisters - their mom is Honey.  The girls seem to share more than a mom though.  They are very similar in personality and physicality too.  At that National, Becky and I agreed that we would have to get together again to run both girls at an agility trial.  We were supposed to visit Becky & Drew in Ohio this spring but the work situation got the best of us.  Instead, they were able to make the trip here last weekend to run Pairs at the Madco trial with us.  What a great time we had!

The run resulted in a Q and a first place!  And the girls, once again, got along famously.  More trials are in our future.

Fabulous Fall Weekend

This weekend Moira and I ran in the annual Madco Agility fall trial at Misty Mountain Campground in Crozet, VA.  This was our first USDAA trial last year and we've come a long way since then.  The night before the trial I watched this video of our Jumpers run last year:


Not pretty, really not pretty.

This spring, we ran in another Madco trial and here was our Jumpers run at that trial:


Better but still not great.

Saturday morning was frosty and COLD!  Just the kind of weather that makes little red dogs act crazy.  However, Pu Head must finally be growing up because we had a great run and we Qd!  Unfortunately, there were technical difficulties with the video so I don't have footage of the run.  What I do have footage of is our Sunday afternoon Jumpers run.  A few bobbles and a knocked bar but it is such a vast improvement over last fall and even this spring that I am just thrilled.


Having video of our runs is a wonderful thing.  I only have one or two videos of Sam's agility career and, while they can be painful to watch, I love having them.  Unfortunately, there are so few that I can't really see a progression in our partnership and training.  With these videos of Moira, I can see how we are progressing and improving and what we need to work on too.

For Spring, the goal is to be able to enter Standard and a few other classes.  Next post - Power Twins, Activate!

Happy 6th Birthday Moira!

Slideshow customized with Smilebox

Class Pictures

Ahh yes, summer is coming to a close (at least chronologically if not meteorologically) and thoughts turn to back to school.  New school clothes (my personal fave), new school supplies (lunch box anyone? or are those passe?) and class pictures.

I won't share any of my old class pictures.  I think they are all in storage anyway and, generally speaking, incredibly unflattering with the exception of 5th grade.  In the spirit of those class pictures, we took the dogs to Chris Green Lake yesterday to get some head shots.  Let me just say that Moira and Bogey are terrific models, the rest of them are difficult to work with.  Sam is too excited about being out of the house, Ginny is too excited about having grass to eat and Georgia is still too young to really want to hold still.  None the less, here are some of the better photos from today....

Sam, he's actually an alum.  Can you guess which fraternity he pledged?

This is an oldy, but goody of Gin.  She just didn't want to have her picture taken.

Moira.  The other really good shot of her looked like a mug shot.

Bogey.  Doesn't this look like your classic 'senior portrait?'  The pensive, staring into space look.

And our 'first grader,' Georgia.

Great Green Bean Bandit

This is the first year UHM and I have had a vegetable garden and we've been thrilled with it so far.  We've harvested beets, lettuce and green beans - lots and lots of green beans.  We almost can't keep up with the green beans.

The other day I got a phone call from a friend whose husband is an avid gardener - 'Come up and pick some beans!'  Well, I didn't want to be rude so yesterday afternoon we headed out to their place.  They live in the Blue Ridge foothills on land that has been in the family for probably a hundred years and have a HUGE garden.  I'll give you a sense of the scale - 100 tomato plants.  It's all grown strictly for pleasure.  They eat what they want from it, can a good deal of it and give the rest away.  We came home with at least 50 lbs of assorted vegetables - including 4 plastic shopping bags of green beans.  Guess how we spent today?

You may remember the green bean extravaganza from last year.  We had another cooler full of beans again this time and my Green Bean Bandit made another appearance.

So far this evening we have canned 7 pints of Dilly Beans (pickled green beans) and another 7 pints of plain green beans.  When I finish this post, I'll be going back to the kitchen to work on blanching and freezing the rest.
Tomorrow I'll start on the 20+ lbs of tomatoes - both red and green - that need processing (while UHM picks more green beans from our garden).  I might be done with everything by Sunday......UHM doesn't think so.

Better Late than Never

There's been a lot going on these days and sometimes things just get overlooked.  Such is the case with Moira's performance at the Madco Agility USDAA trial April 29-30.  We were 0-3 over two days but the girl still loves agility and we get a little better each time.  Moira goes into sensory overload very easily so high energy environments, like agility trials, can cause her to lose focus very quickly.  She's been like this since she was a puppy and while she's definitely improved with age, her arousal level can still go off the charts at the drop of a hat.  I'm fortunate that it manifests as a dog who can't settle or focus and doesn't want to meet new people, rather than one who becomes reactive to other dogs.  In fact, when Moira is like this she couldn't care less about other dogs - there are too many other things she needs to keep an eye on.  Anyway, here is some video of our jumpers runs that weekend.  Please take note of the awesome rear crosses in the second video.

I don't have another trial planned until fall but there's a possibility I might slip one in sometime this summer.  It just depends on a lot of things.

There's No Place Like Home

I've been away since Monday, visiting UHM's parents in South Carolina, at the beach :)  There are advantages to being unemployed - I can go to the beach in the off-season when there's virtually no one there but the weather is still good enough for me to lie in the sun and add a few more wrinkles to my face.

Anyway, I got home this evening.  UHM won't be home until Wednesday.  When I arrived home I was greeted by three ecstatic dogs.  Moira woo-wooed me, Ginny ran around grabbing chewies and Sam barked a lot and jumped on me.  Sam is old, Sam's back hurts, Sam shouldn't jump on me.  Sam will be getting a double dose of Tramadol tonight.  Grace, the cat, slept through all this but has been awake for the last hour complaining about nothing.  That's Grace.  At 14 she's allowed to complain a bit, even if it is about nothing.

For those of you who are my friends on FB, you'll know that Georgia has a yacht.  We saw it while we were lunching at the marina on Tuesday.  It's a nice yacht.  If you click on the image you should just be able to make out Georgia's name on the yacht.

When UHM returns with the camera next week you can see Georgia's other 'toy.'  Here's a hint though, it's sporty and cherry red.  The Princess is acquiring quite a lot of toys.