When we still had Champ, he and Riley would "co-hunt" for moles. They were quite a team. Champ would watch the ground and listen for the little buggers to move. Then he'd pounce on the correct spot and dig it up. It was amazing. That dog could move some dirt. Well, then once he got the mole, he didn't know what to do with it. Cue Riley. . .she'd take it and "dispatch" of it with a quick flick of her head. Done! Poor Riley can't really move much dirt so moles would escape her. She's got tiny little feet and it just doesn't work like having 100 pounds behind Champ's big paws so this was teamwork at it's best. It cracked me up. The tag teamed moles on a regular basis. Well, now that we no longer have Champ, mole hunting has been a fruitless endeavor for the little white dogs.
Last night, Riley and Rhys were scopeing out my mom's front yard. Riley is drawn to this one particular area and then just stops. She glances around and does the head-cocked, listening intently thing. Then all of a sudden she pounces and starts digging like mad. Well, she dug and dug and I had all but given up on her and was about to call her off, when all of a sudden she runs by me with this big ol honkin mole. Oh it was priceless. I swear this thing was almost as big as her head. . .well, at least half it's size. Flick, shake, flick, and done. Then she spit out a whole bunch of dirt and grass that she had to accumulate in the catching of it. Much praise was had for ridding us of the evil vermin. She did perfect earthdog form-minus the barking but I can live with that.
So why is she like the only terrier that will hunt above ground but not below? She is a "go to ground" breed. . .but apparently, she doesn't know that.

Well, I took Riley down to Kentucky for a weekend of trialing at a new facility. Much better than when they hosted this same trial before. . .outside. . .in Southern Indiana. . .in late May = way too hot and too long of a drive for that crap. ;) Anyways, indoor on astroturf was really nice.

Saturday were some good runs. Standard was clean and working really nicely until I didn't think she was committing to a tunnel very well. Riley is like the only terrier I know who doesn't really like to go to the tunnel. Who would have thought? So when she did go in, I said "Good job". Well, apparently, she was like "Oh really? Did I do a good job?" and popped right back out of the entrance to check and make sure that she was doing good. Dang it! Why can't I keep my mouth shut sometimes? So that was our only problem with that run. . .a stupid handler. We finally broke our streak of NQs in JWW with a Q on Saturday. Pshew! That one had really been annoying me so I'm glad we worked that out. Only 3 more Q's till MXJ. . .oddly, that title is coming so much slower than the MX. . .who'd have thunk it?
Sunday was a of a different story. I've noticed that very very rarely can Riley string two good days together. I think it's the excitement of the trial that puts her over the top. . .she knows what's happening the second day and builds up all this anticipation before she goes in. So anyways, in a freakish thing, she broke her start line in Standard, which I knew was going to happen as soon as I left cause duh, another handler error. . .didn't enforce it when I knew she was gonna blow it. So she jumped the first jump and then decided to blow off the a-frame. . .an odd occurence to be sure. Think she was just too excited. . .she just likes to flat out run & screw those things that get in her way. So then I was all flustered cause couldn't believe that just happened and ended up taking a pin-wheel twice. . .hey, it looked like a good idea at the time. ;) JWW was again not successful. She pulled around a jump and then botched her weaves.
Oh well. Another weekend to give it a try this weekend. Just hope it's not too hot (or monsoon-y like it was last year).

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.