What a whirlwind 10 days
5/15 I picked up the Enterprise van. . I will say, this is not the most comfortable way to drive, but it was extremely convinient and when I do my next road trip, I'll be doing the same thing. Three Borzoi size crates fit in it, and I piled blankets behind the seat and two Borzoi slipped in there(tho Gossip stayed between the two seats most of the trip). I packed almost everything Friday night.
5/16 Put the boys(Grins, Wizard & Umbra) in their crates, finished packing the various stuff(cooler, suitcases, toiletries, etc), and then got the two girls (Gossip & Kani) in and headed out. Kani wasn't entered, but she's sooo darn submissive, I figured it would do her good to get the experience. She's looking so darn good I want to start showing her, just have to get her over being submissive. Left home about 10:30.
The ride was nice, sunny most of the way, t ho we did hit some torrential downpours in Western PA. . .I almost pulled over at a rest stop to work Gossip in the pouring rain, LOL. Got to the hotel about 8:15, walked the kids, and hit the sack.
Gossip says the best part about traveling is BED RIGHTS!! LOL. I don't have a bed big enough for her to snuggle at home, heck, it's barely big enough for 53 lbs of cats(and one of those cats is only 5 lbs) and me LOL. . .
Got up, walked the boys, and ran into two nice ladies with some nice youngens. Realised it was Deb Butler, who I've talked to for years on line, and her darling friend Karla Smith. Gossip REALLY wanted to play with I think it was Merlin LOL. . .She's 4.5 going on 4 months I swear. Packed up the kiddos and put the address of the field in the garmin and headed out. Gotta say, that Garmin has been the BEST Xmas present ever, I was not lost once this last week.
The field was gorgeous, lush green grass, rolling hills. .I knew Grins wasn't up to it. he's not had a lot of endurance since running his back off, but the weather was gorgeous, a bit on the cold side for me and my shorts & tank top at first(Thankyou Amy Sikula for lending me a jacket LOL), but perfect borzoi weather.
The entry was nice. .2 full stakes of Opens, 18 FCH, and 4 veterans. Poor wizard had his work cut out for him.
There were some amazing runs, and at the end, Grins' nephew Sagan had won his Open Stake A, Deb Butler's lovely girl Carina had one her Open Stake B, Wizard had tied three way for 2nd, and Grins had placed 2nd in Veterans behind a cousin. Wizard went on to win his runoff, giving him 70 points towards his LCM in 2 trials. . .boy John, you've got one special little goofy boy. Sagan won the runoff with Carina, and then went on to win the whole shebang in an AWESOME runoff. He's a nice boy, and one to watch out for. . .
Unfortunately Wizard's brother Bartleby had a huge brainfart and didn't place, but it was nice seeing him course.
I went back to the hotel, took a long hot bath, and Kani, Gossip & I crashed.
Up early Monday, headed to the host hotel. As we drove around the front, I heard the screaming of an albino peacock, and all I could think of was OMG, I hope that's not close to the racing LOL
There were two bad things, IMHO(Other than being a handslipped meet LOL) about where they decided the racing would be held.
1) you could not park near the track. Thankfully they allowed me to pull the van up to unload the xpen and set up the three dogs I was racing nearby. .with my asthma, I did not want to be traipsing back and forth.
2) The track could not be set up with adequate runout. . .from the finish line to a concrete path was only 50 yds. . .in fact, the entire 1st program high point race jumped the fence. Not Carol, Dawn or Tom's fault. If they'd known the problems caused by flooding, we may've been able to hold it on the same field as the coursing. . .
Anyway, helped Dawn Hall with the board, it was nice brushup before running PVBC's first meet this last weekend.
It was some nice racing. . .only one problem with the dogs, one problem with someone who thought they had to scream like freaking tarzan to get their dog to race. . .I caught, so didn't get to see the start, but Gossip's handler Carol told me she got boxed in by the three boys in the 1st race, but made up most of the difference to come in 2nd behind Bartleby. She beat Bart by a few lengths 2nd race, and then got a bad handslip the last race. Poor Carol kept apologizing and i kept telling her it's one of the reasons I hate handslipped meets, nor was I upset. .it happens in handslip meets.
Heck, we had one dog start the race backwards because he freaked out over being held by a stranger. She made up most of the difference, finishing right behind Bartleby. . . she placed 2nd to his 1st, and BOS to his BOB out of 26 racers, nothing to sneeze at, and we'll eventually be able to see them race on even turf, I'll make sure to handslip my own dog next time LOL Tho I screwed THAT up in February LOL. I love Jamie & Bart, so am happy for them. Gossip picked up 4 of the needed 6.5 poitns for her SGRCIII.
Unfortunately, the sudden stopping made her owie on that amputated toe. . that last knuckle IS coming off the 9th. . two different peopel who OFC asked me why I didn't take it all off the 1st time. . because I trusted my vet, never having had a toe injury.
I got LOTS of compliments on my speckled girl(and one snide "don't you know the saluki nationals arent' for a few months?")
Head back to a new hotel. . my cost at Motel 6 for all 5 days, was less than one night at the host hotel with 4 dogs would've cost me. .and even the smaller rooms (@140.00ish a night) weren't all that and a bag of chips for that price, my motel 6 room was nicer LOL. I collapsed on the bed, only waking up when the sunburnt back of my legs got chillled. Ordered Pizza for Gossip & I(yes, she's spoiled), walked the kiddos and collapsed.
Got up, checked to see how Owie Gossip was, headed out for Rally.
My good girl, who's been soooo good at Class, lost her brain LOL. . she became fixated belong belief with a toy in Paula Moore's bag, and this is a dog who had no interest in toys 15 months ago. . .She decided she was in agility, and leapt the chain fence to go check otu the toy. . .if they'd used the XXXX fencing all the way around she
may've done better, but we had fun. .and I hadn't truly expected anything of our first time in RA. We'll practice more this summer, and I will be using her squawker as distractions LOL and try again this fall. Saw some nice work, and got some good hints from June Mitchell(think that's right, Riju borzoi), as well as Amelia Finkelstein.
As we were waiting, answered some questions from a nice gentleman in a wheelchair and his girlfriend. Surprisingly, Kani had no problem with the wheelchair, and in fact, crawled in his lap and was happy as can be(see picture below lOL)
Caught up with Pat, helped her unpack, ran back to the hotel(only bad part about not staying on site), dressed for the futurity, and headed back.
The best part of the rental was being able to leave the dogs in it, opened the backdoors and put a tarp over it to keep the sun out, faced the rear into the nice breeze we had all week, and the dogs stayed comfortable. . .
Saw some nice puppies, including this adorable little Duri daughter that R Lynn had. . Sparky made you want to scoop her up and kiss her sweet face. Stayed most of the night, but when I misplaced the rental keys(after already misplacing my camera, I found both thank the heavens), called it a night and headed back after penciling Umbra in
for bathing the next day.
Got up and was at the showgrounds by 8:30. . i love the raised bathtubs, wish I'd had a way to get it home, I'd've bought raffle tickets for the one. . .they are wonderful, put Umbra in the crate to dry, and went to watch the sweeps.
I took 2500 photos of mostly sweeps. . my Nikon is WONDERFUL, got lots of good photos of various dogs sidegait. . .trying to edit it to put them up somewhere. A light touch, and it takes multiple photos in sequence. I'm still dealing with the learning curve, but did get some GOOD photos.
Saw a number of nice puppies, many of them go back to Virago, who definitely stamps his get with a beautiful head. All three of Rlynn's Duri pups I saw were scumptious, Anne Midgarden had some gorgeous pups too, I saw a number of puppies I could've stuffed in my van and took home. And the double Kyra descendent Tom Golcher had is just too darn cute.
Ran back to check on Umbra to find out he had an accident, he was refusing to eat, and had icky poohs. Raced him over to wash him again, used Carol Enz's blow dryer(thankyou carol) to blow him out, and Pat groomed him up. And then we went down to watch Veterans.
The sad thing about Veterans is, I remember many of them as youngens. Burni was in 12-18 with Races & Wings back in 02, I remember Gala in I think it was the 6-9 class the year I went to Detroit, and I remember Virago as a gawky teenager up at GNY. . .Almost all of the vets looked great for their age.
Except for one, who should've been home on the couch. . I know his owners are proud of him, but the poor boy couldn't get around the ring. . .if you want everyone to see him, put him in the companion parade. . .he'll now be remembered for the poor dog who couldn't make it around the ring vs the dog in his prime. .this is the 2nd time I've seen a veteran who shouldn't be in the ring be put in the ring, the last time was the Centennial . .everyone'll remember that dog as the limping veteran(who won despite the limp, makes me respect Gerda Kennedy, NOT, but then, she put up a number of lame dogs that day)
instead of the gorgeous dog I saw in his prime. . .there just comse a time when you have to realise your best buddy is old, and leave him on the couch. I felt sooooo very very bad for this old guy. When/if Umbra gets to that point, he will stay home and just be handsome for me.
Umbra showed beautiful for Aunti Pat, tho he did keep an eye on me, he didn't do anything, but look gorgeous, didn't expect Katie to like him. Just proud of my boy. . .he's gotten gray in the face, but moved nicely, and his coat is looking lovely. . .even if it was still slightly damp from the 2nd bath LOL. He'll be out in fall specialties
as long as he's raring to go. . .
Pat had to go out to the Steele's for grooming of her boy who went on to WD/BOW, which just blew her away :) So I had a nice, fun, quiet dinner with Tom Golcher, talking dogs and Germany, and how we miss a good german meal :)
I had to leave Thursday to head home, not enough vacation, and PVBC's event was this weekend. Stopped in Pittsburgh to visit Grandma Dorothy, my step dad's mom, haven't seen her in a few years, Pittsburgh was just not dooable from Syracuse, but found out that it's definitely dooable from Baltimore. She sent me home quickly tho, Thursday was the hottest day of the week and she was worried aobut the dogs. .they were fine, but for a dog hater LOL she was worried.
On the ride, I got a call that Sage's son Payton placed 2nd in his Ambred class! :)
Got home about 9, unloaded the dogs and the necessary items and did some paperwork for the meet, and crashed hard. Got up, went to work, thank heavens for short summer fridays, and went home to finish paperwork, turn in the van, and buy what items I needed for the meet.
Saturday nothing went right, took longer to finish packing the car, got stuck in a parking lot on 95 due to everyone going to the beach, and then realised that what I had ordered was NOT what I had gotten for the jackalure. .so we had to make due: we gutted Grins' giant dayglow caterpillar and stuffed the jackalure in that LOL SOme duck tape and we had a different kind of bunny LOL
LOL, the dogs seemed to like this more. Not sure what it was about the giant day glo orange caterpillar, but they all seemed to run harder for it LOL
Once the meet started, it ran well. We had 31 dogs on Saturday and 26 on Sunday, not a huge meet, but a nice size one for a holiday weekend where there's coursing in the area. And a nice beginning meet for me. . .Sunday went much smoother, and thank heavens I had Monday off to recooperate and do paperwork. AND catch up on my sleep LOL
So PVBC is now 'official'. . .we'll be holding another event later this year, and work on getting NOTRA approved next year hopefully. It's a lot of work, but was worth it :)
Payton also went on to win his Ambred class at the MBC I guess supported entry on Sunday :) nice 1st national for his owner :)
Gossip's now .5 from becoming the first SGRCIII bitch in borzoi history.
And I am BEAT LOL
Umbra, looking for Mom
Kani, happy as can be
Gossip
COME ON MOM!
Jenny & Mielikki's Agent Denozzo AKA Tony. (red)
Abbie(Black) & Tony.
From Left to right, Jenny, Tony, Gibbs & Ziva.
From Left to Right: Ziva, Tony, Abbie, Gibbs, timoth(heavy black masked red)
Timothy being chased by Gibbs & Ziva
Think that's Abbie in the air, GIbbs is in the front with Emma looking on.
Yummy, we like the lure toy
Emma (Mielikki's Leap OF Faith), Jenny & Timothy
Abbie, Timothy, Tony & Ziva
Emma, Jenny & Timothy
Jenny.
Gibbs, MINE MINE MINE!
