Wow. . 2014 may be the year of dreams. ..
We haven't been doing as much racing, but that's because we've been soo busy doing other things!
Mr Duckie has been on a roll this fall. He came back out after almsot 3 months off to go SBOS at Potomac Valley Borzoi Club's Specialty under Karen Dumke for yet another 5 point major, then the following day went BOB for a 4 point major. He now has all his majors, more champions defeated then you can shake a stick at and is sitting at 21 points towards his GCH. He also has picked up his first coursing point and is a 1/3 of the way towards his SGRC.
Sisters Nikki & Teela have been put up to mature bodily, but both have finished their GRCs with multiple meet wins and are also 1/3 of the way towards their SGRC. With Traveler finishing his GRC in August, means the entire litter has a performance title already.
Ziva came back out and ran with Duckie in open up in NJ, and ran the best I've seen her run in years since she was repeatedly attacked. No, she didn't beat him, but it gives me hope she can get those last 4 singles and 22 points towards her coursing titles(AKC & ASFA respectively). She is also looking absolutely positively lovely, hope to get her in the ring next year.
Jenny has continued her winning ways. After jamming a toe at a coursing event, I put her up for the fall, and instead, we're working on other titles.
She finished her Rally Novice in September, to become FC Mielikki Dir Shepard at Silkenswift SC, CGC, FCH, SGRCIV, BN, RN.
If she'd done her darn downs, we'd've been tied for 2nd out of 19 entries, but she gave me the infamous Jenny snooty look, so when we got back home, she went into Borzoi Down Boot camp, EVERYBODY in the house made her do downs. I was not having her pull that again. She downed at every doorway, to get in the car, etc. This little problem was really getting under my skin.
She went to a few more shows unfortunately being the only bitch, but did pick up an additional single, and then... I saw there was an OB trial in town . .said ok, I have a racemeet that weekend, I'll just go Saturday and we'll go to the trial on Sunday. Sent my entries in then woke up in the middle of the night going OMG!!! That's MY racemeet.
Too late, check cashed. . entries closed. .could just hope for the best. A small racemeet combined with a great group of people got us done in record time and we headed over to the event, and still had to wait 4 hrs.
After the weekend of running the racemeet , I was too exhausted to get nervous or worried when just before our turn, the GSD did his recall that ended in a playbow, a bark, and then a 5 min game of you cant' catch me, Made sure Jenny was not watching as the dog ran around and around and around, a great game of zoomies. . they finally got him caught, and then it was our turn.
All I wanted was to prove to myself we COULD do this. . all I asked for was a 170. . .unlike the nationals where _I_ gave up after I lost her on the about turn, I refused to allow myself to think "Oh well, we failed." Each exercise was it's own. . yes, I lost her on the about turn, YES she leaned against one of the stewards on the figure 8, BUT she did do a perfect happy heel on leash, she DID do an almost perfect sit for exam, she DID do a perfect recall, and although she decided to be a little butthead on the down, she DID down and kept her down, even when we came back to heel position. She was good enough, we didn't get a 170, we actually got a 181 1/2 and our very first ever, MY very first ever, CD Leg.
I walked out of that ring crying for joy, hugging the silly little black bitch.
Fall's winding down, but we do have one possibly two more weekends of racing, one weekend of dog shows, and a rally show. I'm already looking at future OB shows to look for that next leg :) She is an overachiever and I'm having a blast with her.
