Boo hiss! No Q's in earthdog this weekend. That's alright. . .I really shouldn't expect ANYTHING at all since we don't really train for this. Became apparent to me that we actually need to do some before we try it again. I also came to the conclusion that I was very VERY lucky to get a senior leg a month ago. . .still not sure how that happened but it did. So to wrap it up in a nut shell, Rhys on Saturday, missed the entrance. He's not apt to use his nose in earthdog. . .I think he gets to revved up and just wants to get to the rats as quick as possible, not thinking hey maybe this rat scent will take me to them quicker. So he shot over to the judges to check them out and see if the rats were there. Then he meandered back and hit the false entrance, worked the rats fine, but at the recall, he just laid at the den and wouldn't come. Better on Sunday. I scratched the grass a little to get his nose down and he got a whiff. He took off, almost bypassed the entrance but then made it in. Worked fine again. Recall. . .same deal. This time, he laid just out of the peephole viewing area of the judge so the judge thought he was gone, but he wasn't popping up any place. So when time was up, we peeped in and yup, sure enough, just sitting there waiting for those ratties to come back.
Saturday for Riley wasn't very helpful. This judge didn't do hardly anything to get the dogs interested in working. Without reassurance, Riley doesn't work. So both junior and intro were a loss. Sunday was better. This judge really got down and was trying to get the dogs all jazzed up. Funny, since they are a husband-wife team of judges that they have such different styles but that's the way it goes. Anyways, she really got in to it in intro. Junior not as much but she did make an attempt.
The good thing out of the weekend, that after a LONG seminar, I passed my judges test so the first step in becoming an earthdog judge is now complete.

Alright, so as you may have noticed, I'm really bad at keeping this blog updated. I tell myself "oh I'm going to wait on getting these pictures uploaded" or something like that so just keep putting it off longer and longer. Anyways, I thought making one all-inclusive update would be better than nothing at all. Since the last update, we traveled to Champaign, IL where Rhys wonderfully earned his first Senior Earthdog leg. I had all but given up hope that he wasn't going to come for his recall when all of a sudden, his head popped up right in front of me and scared the crap out of me. I made a grab for him, which scared the crap out of him, and he yelped. Either way, it means we got leg #1, and 2 more to go. I was just so tickled and couldnt' keep a grin off my face that whole day.
The weekend of April 25th, Rhys and I headed to Michigan for the Westie Club of South East MI speciality. Rhys' breeder, Dawn Martin, and her breeder friend Jane Sajban were there. They took Rhys in hand and made my grooming mistakes somewhat managable and presentable. ;) They also provided many tips and tricks in to this showing world that is new to me. Bless him, Rhys won his class in Sweeps. The judge went back and forth between him and his half brother, Granite, for BOS in Sweeps but ended up picking Granite. Then Rhys came in and won his class in regular and also took RWD. We were thrilled! That's the best we've ever done in confirmation to this point. Well, not officially, but it's the best we've done when actually having competition and at a speciality too. I say it's cause he looked so pretty from Dawn and Jane's ministrations but I've learned from them too to relax in the ring and have fun with him, which helps. I think that really helps him relax too and make the show ring a game to him. . .or at least a place he gets treats for tricks! ;) Now, I just might be addicted to specialities. They give you good stuff there and have good food, etc! Just a lot less hectic than all-breed shows!
Last weekend was the first outdoor agility trial of the year. Riley was super pumped but that did not work to our advantage. ;) I've come to notice that she runs so much faster outside or on padded flooring but hates dirt or wood chip surfaces. Anyways, she takes off like a bat out of hell outside. There were some definite handler errors this weekend. . .I had to jump a jump with Riley cause I stupidly didn't get a front cross in with enough room. Then I fell again on Sunday. . . graceful, I'm not. Luckily, neither of these follies was caught on video! ;) I don't think we hit the weaves on the first try for any of the runs. Pat Kay came up and stayed with us to join the fun. As she said, "it wasn't a good weekend in Westie-ville". Between the two of us, we went 0 for 8 runs! Blah!
That's about it for a summary of our last month or there bouts. So this coming weekend, we are heading to Roscoe, IL for a big earthdog trial. Hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll have good things to report about later! ;)

So we (Riley and I) ventured south this weekend to try out rally at the Hamilton club. Never been there before but the facility was nice and people seemed nice too. Left the little man at home cause he'd just be bored all day and I think Riley likes the alone time. Anyways, so this is the first time we've done rally since, oh let's say November. Bless their hearts, why do I make my dogs do these things? I put them in situations they aren't used to then expect them to focus? Geesh, what kind of dog owner am I? :)

Anyways, moving on. . .so Riley pulled off Double Q #6 for her RAE so I'm thrilled with that. Rally is not nearly as fun to her as agility. . .Susan says Riley thinks it's too slow for her, she likes to go fast, which I had kind of figured out myself but it's nice to have confirmation. The show always starts with excellent, which is usually our sticking point. I know part of the reason is that I'm more tense about Excellent so that goes directly to Riley and also another part is she's usually a little keyed up from the car ride, new facility, new smells, etc. Excellent started with all the signs we don't particularly care for. The moving down was the first one. That actually went pretty well and once she was down, she stayed down which is a huge improvement. Before she'd always pop up once I started moving to her left. The back up three steps, though she was practicing it well before we went in, she got pretty crooked on when in the actual ring. There was something about the back corners that she didn't like. . .at all. I could see her tense up about them when we got close. Apparently, she thinks there was some bad mojo going on back there. Didn't help that someone tried to open the back door right as we were walking by. And she had a great honor this time too. There was this novice golden retriever that kept trying to stir stuff up with other dogs so he went off during the honor. Riley's ears were flicking around like crazy but she stayed right where she was. I tried to use some of the advice from Lynn Reagan-Hull about creating a relaxed posture and it seems to help both me and her. Score wasn't spectacular but what should I expect since I haven't practiced with her. Deb of Deb's Dog Blog graciously offered to tape our runs. I'd never had the ability to review our runs before and it put some stuff in to prespective. It really didn't look as bad the second time as it felt the first time. Let's see if I can post the link here.

Advanced was a little better but still not as happy as I would have liked her to have been. I've figured out that she likes the sit pivot right sit sign but not the one to the left. It wasn't till yesterday that I figured out that I gave the wrong command for sit-pivot left. . .no wonder she didn't know what the heck I was talking about. We had a sit-stand-walk around that she nailed. She has always tracked me a little with her head when I go for the walk around but she stayed right there this time, which is huge to me. She took a moment to scratch (stress) before a swing. She actually moved fast for the fast sign in Advanced but not so much in Excellent. Here's the link to the video of this one. Let's see how our success hold up this weekend when we do a three day rally trial.

So my mom keeps my dogs during the day while I'm at work. She will stop by my house once I'm home to drop them off when she goes out to do the chores, and usually rings my door bell to let me know they are on the back porch. So last night, she did that except door bell didn't ring-maybe due to the cold. I just happened to hear the screen porch slam close on her way out. So I go out to investigate and yup, there's the little white dogs looking at me and doing their happy-to-see-you-dance. They get excited as they normally do and as I go to open the door, Riley starts screaming bloody murder. I mean, really screaming her head off. Ear breaking, heart wrenching, adrenaline pumping screams. I throw the door open and see she's got her foot stuck between the door frame and the flooring below it (the house is 90 years old and has settled so they don't match up totally). We are all totally freakin out cause I can't get her foot out. Eventually I figure out to push down on the flooring to make enough space to get her foot out. She hobbles around, holding her paw in the air and whimpers for minutes after that. I tell you, my heart was breaking and adrenaline was pumping! Oh my gosh! Still thinking about those horrible screams now. . .it was awful. She still hobbles around on it for a couple more minutes. I run and get her a baby aspirin in hopes that it will keep any swelling down and ease the soreness. She wouldn't let me touch it for a little while but she hates having her feet touched any ways so this didn't totally surprise me. After a half hour, all was forgotten and she decides to jump off the bed, about giving me another heart attack cause it's really high and onto hardwood floors. So all is right again in the world and I'm definitely gonna have to do something about that gap beneath the door, though I'd be surprised if that ever happened again cause she's gonna be super leary of it from now on.

Rhys' first birthday was on January 24. . .yeah, I know, just getting round to blogging about it now. I still can't believe he's a year old already! How crazy is that! It's been so neat to watch him grow up (and keep growing and growing. . .your suppose to be a "small" dog). Bless his heart, he's such a good boy! He is such a sweetheart and loves to cuddle. I call him my little lovebug cause if you sit down, he wants to be right there touching you. I always say Riley has had to put up with my slow learning curve, but apparently Rhys is falling in to that same category too. Unfortunately, he's had to deal with my ineptitude as a show groomer and conformation handler, and performance handler so he's another "trainer dog".

So in honor of this milestone, I had gotten these little "pupcakes" from Three Dog Bakery and tried to commerate the moment with pictures, etc. However, I attempted to borrow my mom's camera, which did not go well. It apparently is extremely sensitive to movement so most of the pictures did not turn out that great. However, this is one of the better ones I got. Cheryl pointed out to me a couple weeks ago that I should make training sessions out of meal times (another duh moment) and make them wait for their food. . .sort of builds control, etc. So they've really picked up on it well, as can be seen. In the second one, if I make them wait for any length of time, Rhys kind of poops out and figures "why bother stressing about this, might as well take a nap".

I finally gave up on taking still pictures and used the video function on the camera. Again, don't expect high quality footage as a) I'm using a little point and shoot camera and b) I'm also trying to hold a cake in my other hand.

Ah man! Deb has found my secret blog! ;) I got the idea from you anyways, Deb! I found yours via Holly, I think, and thought what a great idea it was. I needed some place to write down my adventures in the dog world so borrowed your idea. I have stuff to say but no where to say it. However, I'm always kind of self-consicous about . . .well me and stuff I do/make, so haven't really gotten around to sharing it with anyone. However, since I started leaving you little notes on your blog, I think my commando sleath moves have been found out and sublietly is over. ;)

Unfortunately, I'm not as good about posting as you are. Problem one is short term memory loss. Something about running agility, probably more than a little adrenaline, and how fast it is and, frankly, results in my having no idea what the heck just happened. Hence, I can't write more than "boy, that was a nice run" or something along those lines. Problem two is, the things I think are significant, no one else does so I talk myself out of writing them cause no one really wants to read them. This theory is really kind of silly, since a) I haven't published the post to any one so no one is reading it anyways and b) that's the whole purpose of a blog is to basically to write about whatever is on your mind.
You've also made me realize, I've really got to invest in a video camera. There are tons of people taping runs and now, like a duh moment, I realize that I really need to do it too. It's made me realize that Riley is a great dog and is not the problem. . .I am. I've got to tape and figure out what the heck I'm doing wrong. I feel like my limbs flail around when I'm out there so I need to figure out what kind of signals that is sending. Maybe one day I'll pull it together. ;)
Anyways, thanks for the inspiration and the thoughts from your blog.

By the by on a totally different subject, had been reading the blog of Susan Garrett's (found once again via you via AgileGold) but hadn't seen the one about the Kleenex needed. And I really did need Kleenex. . .breaks my heart to think about that subject, though I know some day it will come. We lost Champ in November, our first "house dog" and I could never actually write it on the blog cause every time I did, I'd start crying. Not something particularly desirable when one is at work. Riley, if you haven't noticed, isn't a very well bred Westie and came from a backyard breeder in Bedford. I have worried for awhile now that her life will be cut short due to some freakish genetic disorder or malady or injury so this subject is kind of in the back of my mind a lot. We know a couple of dogs who've died unexpectedly under anesthesia for routine work so how can I not worry. Then I kick myself cause she's only 3 1/2. . .will be 4 this year. She's still so young and has so much life in her left. I can't dwell on stuff like that. . . geesh, you can't live in the "what ifs". But still, your heart breaks just a little at the thought that one day, the sweet brown eyes won't be there to look in to your eyes any more. Oh pull it together. . .see I'm sniffling again about this! ;) Anyways, thanks again and I'll see ya sometime soon.