AKC

P P G L

SHOOT! 

I talked to the MB-F people, who are superintendants for Friday’s AKC trial, and they said Baby’s and my entry arrived after closing – at 2:25 – and they closed entries at noon, so they sent it back to me.  Wow.  That’s a first.  I think I even Fedexed it, but I can’t pull Fedex up on the Internet this morning (infuriating!), so can’t check on that.

A little later in the day, I got a letter from the MB-F people.  A letter?  I mean a strip of paper with my check.  Now on the paper they say the entry got there on 2/25!  Which 225 was it?  I don’t know.  But I mailed the entry through US mail, as Fedex finally came up on the Internet and no record of my sending to MB-F was listed.  Now if I mailed our entry through US mail from Broward county to Brooksville, which is in Hernando county, on the 18th of February, one would think it would take only a day to get from here to there.  Seven days?  It’s a 4-1/2 hour drive!  Where’s my Rescue Remedy!

This is yet another entry for the People Plan and God Laughs category.  I asked to take off Friday from work even.  Eeewww kay, did I already say

SHOOT? 

Baby: Did she come or did she run?

On our way to the show grounds this morning, Baby and I saw a Golden Retriever in the back of a pick-up truck, which was towing a boat. Bad news. Illegal news, but no police were doing anything about it.

Golden in back of pick-up truck

Once again, Baby and I arrived at the show grounds.

Arriving at the showgrounds

This show we had to arrive at a later time than our last trial, which was nice. Novice B was to start at 11:20.

I can’t say I got a warm, fuzzy feeling when I snapped this picture. I figured Baby was in one of “those” moods again.

Baby gives me the raspberry first thing.

And she was. She wanted to be loved by everybody. She is such a socializer, unlike her mom. She poked people, and prodded, and many just weren’t amused. When Baby finally figured I was it, she settled down and annoyed me to no end. If I stood by her ex-pen, though I was trying to watch the goings-on in our ring, she insisted I pet her. Loud and louder barks were her way of demanding, er … communicating.

These were some of the vehicles we saw in the parking lot, and I have to say this first one gives me the willies. It’s too much like an animal control vehicle rather than a dog show vehicle.

Odd machine

The person who owns this van has the neatest windows. Her dogs are on either side of the rear windows. This is Star.

Star

And this is Ringo!

Ringo

Corgis are really cute little rascals.

This van was full of crated Akitas, as I remember. There’s quite an ordeal to groom them for a show.

Grooming van

This is a Rottweiler Rescue vehicle. I can’t imagine fitting too many of those characters in that little mutt of a vehicle. Now chihuahuas? Perfecto!

Rottie Rescue Vehicle

Of course, this was my favorite. You know why.

Ahhh…the Dobie Van

Well, here’s the moment I’d been waiting for. Would she come or would she run? Baby, the Recall Specialist, came. She came straight at me, full speed, and right by my left side into a half-assed finish. She didn’t think stopping in front of me and sitting, looking up adoringly at me, was the thing to do, so she tried a new twist. When I told her to heel, she looked at me and moved about a half-inch with an “I already did!” look. Uh huh.

Well, here we are. Baby looks smashing in this picture. The photographer was another exhibitor in the same class with us, so I have to thank her for the great Baby picture.

Baby and her 188 got her a second leg towards her CD!

We got a 188. We lost 5 points on the recall, and the rest on the heeling exercises. Puh-leez. Baby was not in the mood to do anything but socialize, and I asked her to “just get the leg,” and that’s what she did. No bells and whistles. Not my DoberDiva. And she was rewarded heavily for doing as little as possible with plenty of chicken tenders. That was our deal. So whoopie! Now we have one more leg to get and Baby will have a CD to put after her name…besides all her other titles…like QM (Queen Mother), FDSP, RS (Recall Specialist), RN (Rally Novice) and such. Ewwkay.

One unusual turn of events in our Novice group is that everyone qualified. That’s highly unusual. It is. We had ten total. Several, three to be exact, were absent from our group.

There were plenty of beautiful dogs at the show grounds today. Here are three beautiful collies.

3 beautiful collies two owned by Lil and blue merle by Susan

The most beautiful Dobermann…oh wait! It’s Baby! She went on a shopping spree after she got her qualifying ribbon.

Baby shopping

Baby was a little teeny weeny jealous of this gal’s hair. I mean, it is the cutest hairdo.

Cutest hairdo ever

Then we saw another Dobe…oh wait! It’s Baby again. Still shopping.

Baby shopping some more

Here is Karyn. She has done magnificently with her Dobies in the confirmation ring. Last year, I met her Doberboy, also red, who was first Doberboy in the nation. This is Karyn with her Dobergirl, who is not 2 years old yet.

00073-karyn-03-01-08.jpg

Here’s a good look at Karyn’s sweetie pie with her beautiful green jacket on.

Karyn’s Dobergirl

Even show dogs drool.

Drooling Sequoia Baby

Here is what some people do when they don’t want their dogs to know they’re watching while they are performing in the ring. Mommy has gone outside the ring with a sibling.

Peek-a-boo!

Here is a high-ranking Great Dane, who is owner handled. He’s so cute.

Such a face!

There’s a lot of grooming going on behind the grandstands.

Grooming space

Here we have several more shots of Baby in the parking lot as we are packing up. First is her ever-generous raspberry. She started out with it and is ending with it. She’s consistent.

Baby with another raspberry for me

This is an unusual look for the Diva.

Aww shucks

This is why she’s a Diva. She has so many looks and in seconds can change from one to the other right in front of the camera.

Baby Diva

She’s a model at heart.

Yummy

When we got home, the most beautiful sky was waiting for us.

Baby’s sky

After the sun set, well, Baby need to catch up on her beauty Zzz’s and got right to work at it.

Zzzzz…

I wonder what she’s dreaming about. I hope it’s a dream about getting high in trial at her next trail, which is Friday! If she passes then, well, she will get that CD title.

Until then…I will need more Rescue Remedy.

Helen

Baby, aka The Recall Specialist

Yesterday, Baby turned into an expert at doing the recall.  She did.  Everytime I called her, she came.  She waited before I told her to finish/heel.  I think the chicken tenders may have been just the tool I needed to express to her how extremely important this exercise is to us in the scheme of things. 

After having had seen Baby’s consistent recall capabilities, I’ve decided to don her “The Recall Specialist.”  This not only gives her another title, which she likes, but when I call her that, I get a feeling of calm.  Yes, that works.

Here she is.  Baby, The Recall Specialist!

Introducing, Baby!  The Recall Specialist.

That’s me!

———-
Helen 
(click to e-mail me)

People Plan, God Laughs

People Plan, God Laughs…that about sums up yesterday evening.

I got home and had all the dinner preparations in motion, as planned, when I opened the front door. The rice cooker had the rice cooked and warming, the 18 eggs with chopped Shitakes were beaten and chilling in the fridge, and cheese slices were stacked and ready to be plopped and melted onto the top of the mounds of dinners. All I had to do was go through the process of putting dinner together (30 minutes), doling out the bowls (10 minutes), and getting Baby and me in the truck to go to the Rodeo Arena for our Drill class (15 more minutes). I had about 30 minutes to spare for poop pick-ups, water bowl duty, and miscellaneous happenings.

One part transpired exactly as I planned it and when I planned it to happen. I opened the front door. The rest … eww.

The odor that met me at the door was reminiscent of doo-doo. And it didn’t take long for it to overtake me, and I didn’t have far to go to find the source. Lilian’s crate, right by the back door. Actually, and don’t tell me dogs aren’t brainiacs to some degree (like when it suits themselves), Lilian had turned rear end to the crate door and let her rip. She had diarrhea, OK? It was the most unpleasant thing to say the least.

Lilian, you are my special puppy.

After I went into my own drama queen scene, that was to get un-crated friends of Lilian to back away from the area, I grabbed the roll of heavy duty towel papers, a plastic bag, and got to work. Originally, I held my breath, but that was a bad idea. When I thought I would faint from lack of oxygen, I had to open my mouth to gasp for air. No, not a good idea.

I couldn’t open the back door yet because the other dogs would have charged through “it” to get out. The fresher air would have been nice, but the extra paws to clean were highly undesirable. Not to mention the pavers and ugh! No, I just suffered through that first part of the clean-up, and made sure everyone knew I was suffering. Oh, I’m good at groaning and ranting when it comes down to stuff like this.

Once I completed that little song-and-dance, I opened the door, and after the stampede, I turned Lilian around. She was still in her crate-on-wheels trying to maintain that princess Lilian look.

Princess Lilian

After the crate door was facing out, I opened it, and she sprung out. Glad to be free from, well, you know. And she had to go some more. Eegads!

I rolled the crate outside and started working feverishly on cleaning. The blankey was relatively untouched. Remember, she aimed it all outside the crate. But the Nylabone was touched. I put the blankey in the washer, and got the hose and soap and rinsed rinsed rinsed rinsed rinsed. Sometime around that point, I got the shakes. Yessum, that’s when I knew my plans – the ones I had all weekend to take Baby to drill class and work her recalls to the bone – the ones I pan fried special chicken treats for – the ones I was looking forward to all weekend – those plans were out that window.

I pushed Lilian’s crate back in the house, ate some canned chicken and Abuelita Corn Tortilla Chips, drank juice/seltzer, whatever, I knew it was going to take an hour for me to get back to “normal.” I persevered, though. Finished making the dinners, and by the time I got to the part where I was doling out the bowls, I just wanted to collapse somewhere. And I did. For all of 3 minutes before Raven started screaming from her crate. I didn’t have the umpf to stuff a Kong with banana to quell her savage beast long enough for everyone to finish their dinners. So I screamed back, but sooner or later (OK, sooner) I figured it was better to just get up and let her out. I did that.

By then, my driving time to the arena had been cut into and I was still not feeling well enough to rush around and pack everyone in their crates while I take off with Baby Puss Diva. So I ended up staying home, reviving, pouting and worrying the heck out of myself.

What will Baby do at the dog obedience trial on Saturday? Will she come when I call her in on the recall? Will she sit there and look up trying to figure out if she heard someone say something? Will she run out of the ring (again)? Now I know why I’m having acid reflux enough to cause this, that, and the other, which in turn gives me the shakes.

I guess Lilian was feeling left out being she hasn’t been blogged about recently.

Yum Yum Lilian

I was thinking that last night. I would have rather not gone through this, however. If all she wanted was a little blog space, I’d be happy to give it to her!

<sigh>

What will Baby do on Saturday?

Baby

Eeegads!

Helen (click to e-mail me)

A Beagle Wins Westminster

Eegads! A beagle?

Ch K-Run’s Park Me In First - 15in-2008 Beagle - pix from westminster website

That beagle won. That’s nice, but Annie and I were routing for the Aussie. She looks like Annie a bit, and she just had puppies 5 months ago and she is also an agility dog. She does it all, and do they pick her? No. They pick a boy dog. A boy beagle. What does he do? Howls? Big woo. What a travesty of injustice. OK, he is cute. But gee whiz!

Well, OK.  😉 Congratulations, Beagle Boy.  And thank you Martha Stewart for dedicating an hour radio time on Sirius to covering this event live.