A month like a roller coaster: can I get off now?

What a month, good and bad, up and down, just like a roller coaster at 6 Flag. . and one I'd've rather not've gone on

Friday, 5/13, wow, just got that when looking for the date, makes sense for how horrid this weekend started. I took Treasure to a cat specialist vet, who after examination, looking at his xrays, the blood work, and examing him, gave me a totally different diagnosis, and worse than Cancer.




At least with cancer chemo, or surgery can or MAY help, but not with Feline Infectious Peritonitis. .. that's a death sentence. . .incurable, so much unknown about this horrid diseaseshe drew 700cc's of fluid off Treasure's belly and he still was filled with this crap. . .I left him in her hands, with fear, as I lost Pandora last year when I boarded her when she wasn't feeling well. .. and I should've gone with my gut feeling, as he passed away Saturday night. . .if he hadn't been so bright eyed and talking with me Friday, I wouldn't've left him, but I didn't think he'd leave me so quick. . OTOH, not sure I could’ve handled him passing away on me in the hotel room and having had to figure out what to do with his little body or even waking up to him dead on my bed, so not sure which way was better, but it put a huge damper on the entire weekend. . .this new vet was very sweet and tried to comfort me, but nothing comforts me. He was my pillow buddy. He came into my life when I lost my Schatzi, thus his name Treasure the memories. . one of the meanings of Schatzi is treasure. .. and I was so hoping I'd have him at least as long as I had Schatzi(12 yrs), but it was only 8 years ago that I brought him home. And after the finally diagnosis, I was hoping to be able to cuddle him one last day, but it wasn't meant to be.

They just don't live long enough

Boy did this just put a whole barrel of ice water over the weekend. . .first vacation I'd had since last May, and i couldn't even really enjoy it. . .just like my LAST vacation!

But, I'm ahead of myself.

So, after dropping him off I packed the van with 7 dogs: Ziva, Jenny, Nacht, Focus, Wizard & Logan(RR) and then the brat, err secret, cuz I know she'd've driven everyone nuts all weekend. She's not a good house dog if i'm not in the house(paces), and is a PITA in the backyard at my ETA. .. yes, brat. Drove down to the field, staked out an area with my xpen and ez-up, and headed to the hotel.

Little did I know that the hotel I chose, I had to cross a ferry to get to. . .EEKS. . .it's not open all day, it closes sometime in the evening and doesn't open til 5. .but would they cross with just one vehicle on it? Unsure, and not wanting to get stuck there if they wouldn't, I had to map out a new path, chose a different hotel for Saturday, and tried to sleep. Ziva & Secret enjoyed the hotel room rights with both of them being good girls. Was in bed at like 10:30-11.

Couldn't sleep, tossed and turned, looked at the clock so many damn times, afraid of sleeping thru the alarm(roll call was 5:30 for those helping), saw it was 3, knew I had 45 minutes of sleep, and fell back asleep, next time I woke up, I glanced at the clock, it was 4:20, EEKS!!!!!! I had set the alarm for 3:45 pm, not AM. .. slammed everything into the van and took off. Got lost because the GPS kept trying to take me back to the damn ferry. . .not a good way to start the morning.

Got the kids roll called, found the RR's handler for the day, and went back to finish setting up. .

Thankfully they had made sure to put Borzoi 1st in the running order, so we were on almost as soon as we started. I'm so thankful for the extra hands that were around(Sally marciszewski, CHuck Grabosky, Steph Parkers darling hubby, Chuck's father in law, Frances Burnes), since I was running 4 of the 6 opens(my three and Bonnie's girl) and thankfully only one of the 20 FChs!! LOl

The field was a challenging one, definitely showcased the dogs who had enduranced, very hilly, parts that you had to step out further on the field to see if you were short like me :) A number of dogs took tumbles with the 'ditches'. Jenny came back with her blanket wet, so I know she did, but didn't see it because of where she fell. Some amazing runs were ran. Some of the dogs took the scenic route over the hay bales, which was just so neat to watch. Soon as we were done, it was walk the dogs out, and head back to the field to do my huntmastering job for salukis.

Got done there, grabbed something to eat, and went to find friends terri & Susan, watched a few of the greyhound runs, and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

By the end of the day, all the walking made my knee hurt. . .I happened to've parked in BFE. I packed up everything but the EZup and the xpen, and went to move the van closer to awards so I could get on the road ASAP and not walk back and forth

Now, it hadn't rained all day, but the ground was soft. .. and it proved too soft for my cargo sized van, and when I threw the van in reverse, tires started spinning. Damnit.

Turned the wheel and tried to drive ahead a bit and throw it in reverse on fresh turf, same thing. Got out, but unfortunately the people who had parked next to me had really tied their xpen down, so no way I could just pull thru and keep going.

So, I went looking for Dean wright, who rounded up a bunch of men, and with their help pushing it, I backed that SOB up and out, and kept going til I was on asphalt, not wanting to park it anywhere it could get stuck again.

End of day results was Wizard won his flyte of 10, then best FCH(40 points), Jenny, Ziva, Nacht went 2,3,4th,(18, 12, 6 points) with Jenny & Nacht winning breeder stake. Mr Logan placed 4th in open for his mama(think she said there were 7 opens)

Headed back to the hotel, got there, asked for a 1st floor room as close to the parking area as possible because my knee was killng me. In fact, stepped out of the van and it gave out. They set me up, backed my van into a parking spot as close to the room as I could get, and went to my room, and my brain went WTF????

It took me a minute to process that the room was filthy, garbage on the dresser, bed not made, it hadn't been cleaned. Went back up front, walking, cuz I am not comfy backing that thing in and out, and was hoping that they'd set me up close to wehre I'd parked to make life easier on me. They apologized profusely, gave me another room, unfortunately, this one was not as easy to get to, had to traipse quite a bit to it, yeah, on the 1st floor, but the inner courtyard area, with no convenient parking.

Then, the dogs all went on strike, refusing to potty on leash, the youngsters all wanted to play and run: WTH? Didn't they realise they had ran their little butts off earlier???? Fed them, settled them down for the night, took Jenny & Secret back to the hotel room, with visions of a nice, long, hot as I could get it, bath in my head.

My vision was not to be, Jenny nor Secret would settle down and be good beddogs, so crawled into bed after I wasn't able to connect to the internet I paid for, and went to bed.

Up early once again and headed out, parked on a different area, downhill, and with Dean's help, got my Xpen & EZ up over to the van. And then the day began.

This field was challenging in a different way. With a lot of dips and hills, the bunny was out of sight for quite a bit of the course, and if the dogs zigged left and the bunny right, they could easily get unsighted. Numerous dogs throughout the day came back to their handlers after losing sight of the bunny.

After Prelims, I was waiting to huntmaster, when I got the call from the vet, letting me know my little man had passed away over night. Up until that point, it had been a wonderful, fun weekend with great old friends and making new friends.

I tried to put that aside to finish out the day, was hard. . .my animals are my family, and Treasure had a special spot in my heart. .. watching my girls run helped, especially silly Jenny. She started coming in on the bunny hard, sliding in to home, under the line, grabbing the bunny, reminding me in so many ways of her Uncle Obie & Daddy Grins. I was very pleased with my girls runs and Wizard as usual for me, ran really well. When the finals came in, it was Wizard 1st of 19 in FCh, Jenny 1st of 5 in Open, and a lovely bitch named Tory in Veterans. After the dust settled for the BOB runoff, Jenny was the breed winner for the day.

Jenny flying

Tho I didn't think she had a snowball's chance in hell of winning, I ran her for Best in Event. .I don't know if she'll ever get a chance, so WTH right? I was very pleased with her run, but could definitely see she was not in the shape the others were in. Considering she was just two weeks or so post season(Hell, all of them but Ziva were!), I was very happy with her run.

I put her up and watched the rest of the runs, and there were some awesome ones. The basenji Searsha able to keep up with her longer legged running mates, Sammy the black greyhounds beautiful course with his nice running stakemates, and even a really amazing run of Deerhounds.

End of Sunday resulted in Jenny BOB(40 points), Wizard 1st(40) points, Ziva 2nd(15 points), Focus 3rd(10 points), Nacht 4th(5 points), Wizard & FOcus winning Bonnie the breeder stake, and Jenny coming home with the awesome pyrun trophy :)

Didn't make up for a crappy day Sunday, but it made it slightly better.

Went out to dinner with a great group of people including Katie Kaltenborn & Shirri Peake, before heading home to crash.

The fields were gorgeous, the weather almost perfect, the field committee did a great job with the battery operated water sprayer, and the competitors for Borzoi as well as those I huntmastered for were WONDERFUL!! Saw some great runs and was in the perfect position especially Sunday to be able to enjoy them. Got to see some dogs run that I hadn't seen before and it was overall, a nice weekend barring Treasure's loss.

Jenny is getting better and better every run. . .the next time out was LGRA, and she won two meets over Focus, who has only ever been defeated by two dogs: Doro, and Gossip. .she would OCCASIONALLY eek out a race win, but never ever beat Gossip for the meet win, so I really am looking forward to this fall once she & Focus are over their post season slump.

Happy New Years

A large number of people I am happy to call friends lost special family members last year, myself included. .I so hope this new year will be magical and better to all of us, because not sure I can take another crappy year like last year.

Yesterday, I packed up the car with Nacht and Joannie, a puppy Bonnie & I co own, and headed to Hanover for Nacht's inaugral run. . unfortunately she was the only open, but that gave her two nice runs by herself before running for breed. Unfortunately, Nacht is smart, and I think she may've been the only one who didn't take a nose dive on the slick field because when the footing was uncertain, she'd slow down, and once it was back to being firm, she took off like a bat out of hell.
For her first run ever, at 12 months and a handful of days old, I was very happy, even tho she did lose BOB to her nice distant cousin(They both go back to Stardust) Weston, she ran nicely, even tho she was put off by Roy's screaming Bug. .

Joannie was a social butterfly, enjoying herself completely, met some SIlkens, some RR's, some whippets(She thought their doggy blankets were funny squeakie toys), and was just a wonderful little brat, tho at the end of the day, I was looking for the off button on that puppy LOL. . She showed some lure interest, and seems to be a very smart food motivated puppy, so I'm looking forward to seeing how she progresses. She road well in the car and for her first time out in the public, she was just about perfect. I was very pleased . .

weather was bitter, but I enjoyed myself. . .unfortunately Nacth's sister chose now to come into season, OTOH, thankfully she chose the dead of winter LOL. . .looking at other events to take Nacht to, her new mom in Austria is very tickled that she's running.

Hope everyone has their dreams come true this year. . .and have the bad mojo go elsehwere!

Things a going on

Can someone explain to me the common sense of creating a night time medicine, that ONLY lasts 4 hrs? By the time you can fall asleep, you've been tossing and turning for an hour, and then by the time you feel crappy enough to wake up, the previous dosage is already gone, and you have to toss and turn until the new dosage kicks in. .it makes absolutely NO sense to me at all. . .

I think I may've finally recovered from jet lag, only to be waylayed by a bugger of a sinus problem. . .

Vacation was typical of a vacation. .fun, stressful, went too fast, frustrating. . funny, when I got on the plane to head to Vegas, put on my ipod, and 1st song that comes up in the shuffle is ZZ Top's "Viva Las Vegas" LOL. boy I sure do miss my family. .Bubba is a handsome little boy. Yaya is a brat, but aren't most almost 9 yr old? Bubs is a little booda bellie boy, can't believe that 4 month old baby weighs in at 20 lbs, and J is growing into a handsome teenager. . Linnie is a brat, as usual. . .17 going on 7. . .

Disney was fun, albeit 5 days there is a long damn time. . .only one mishap and maybe one day Yaya'll forgive her Aunt LOL. Vegas is actually tolerable this time of year, a little chilly some days, but otherwise, not miserable. .but too damn brown. . I couldn't live there, the lack of colours in the desert is sad to me. . as we drove to Anaheim all I could think of was how blah it was out there. . if you live in the desert and love it, great, but don't get angry with me because I don't like it. I like my greens and yellows and reds and purples. . even the occasional whites LOl

Was amazed in Anaheim that flowers were blooming, from day lillies, to birds of paradise, to roses, but there were days where it was warmer home than it was even in California. Unfortunately, Marie & my schedules did not overlap at all, she was on the East coast when I was in California, would've loved to've seen my buddy (and Gossip's other momma)

The wind in between Vegas & Anaheim is strong and amazing. We saw half of a double wide ripped off its trailer and the trailer itself further down the road, looking like toffee some child had played with then tossed away. boggles your mind to think of the strength of the wind that ripped those hold downs apart. Mom told me there are some days that stretch of road is closed down to any and all semi's, due to the force of the wind. Just amazing. Nothing but flat desert, nothing to break up the wind, so it hits like a freight train.

While I was away, Eros got a thorough grooming, and looks really nice. Bonnie's groomer did a lot better job than I would've, I'd've got frustrated and hacked away, because he's a PITA, and managed to get some herbage entangled in his britches. . .but Mary is soo patient. . .but of course, with the way vacations get away from you, I forgot what day it was, and missed the dog show entry for him. .damnit. Oh well, Kari has time to work with him, and I have time to get him into better shape.

And oh well, it allowed me to spoil myself for the first time in like ever. . .I was bad, never spent this much money on myself on anything but a dog. . .I bought myself two late Christmas presents. . a HP Photosmart printer(Does it all, printer, scanner, copier, photo printer), and even more tickled a new Nikon Coolpix p80. . .haven't had energy(due to being sick) or weather(been horrid) to play with it yet, but I can't wait :) Jim helped me pick it out, since I had no clue what I was looking at and he's a photographer geek :) So it's a really nifty little camera

christmas day is on it's way

I sat down at my desk at work the other day and glanced at the phone and was like wow, it's December already. The year has gone by too fast, stayed busy and life is better than it has been in a long time. First time since I left Germany that I haven't hated the season.

Finished my xmas shopping last night, or at least, that which I'll do here. . now if I can only get the beautiful chocolate santas to Vegas without them getting smooshed. . Bubba should have a blast with his. Problem with buying xmas presents is I hate waiting to GIVE them LOL

And started my packing. . got 13 days to go, but I always forget something, so figure if I start NOW less things to forget, I hope

can't WAIT!! Kitties are taken care of, doggies are taken care of(Jim promises to spoil Gossip while I'm gone LOL), and fishies are taken care of. A vacation I truly don't have to worry about anything, other than having FUN!!!!

I'll be home for christmas

Yeah, I know, it's four months away, but just got approved for vacation, so I am PSYCHED!!

I haven't been home with family for christmas since 1992, so it's LONG overdue. Almost 2 wks of fun in the sun(Las Vegas and California!), see my sister's new bowling ball . ..err Baby(9lb 8 ozs OWWWWWWWWWWWW), my princess(Ms Sage), and christmas at DISNEY!! :)

Took more vacation that I wanted to take due to frequent flier mile availability, so trying to figure out if I have time off to do a few other trips I wanted to do between now and then, but family is more important than dog events anyway.

Next weekend is LGRA/NOTRA, I do so hope Gossip'll chase the NOTRA bunny, hey, it'll have bunny ears attached, she very well may chase it LOL Silly goose. . .and that's the start of our Fall season, WAHOO!!! Getting Grins in shape to come out as a veteran this fall. . .he still has a lot of good follow, just needs the stamina, moved him into a bigger pen, and he's having a blast. Touchet was moved in with Umbra, she's on a D-I-E-T, but don't tell her that LOL

Random thoughts

It's a beautiful day out, sky is blue, humidity isn't too bad, beautiful breeze, just about perfect.

I'm tickled life is looking better, the car's paid for, big yeah, I thought my previous car was a good find, but this one is way better, my old vet bill is half way to being paid off(yippee!!!). I have some beautiful breedings planned in the future with my three gorgeous girls and a nice girlie coming my way to breed to Wings. I have great friends and good (IMHO) dogs.

Also helps that I've finally shrugged off the shackles of the last toxic person in my life, well the last two, the idiot ex and the person I gave a dog to down south who's proven just how evil she was. I should've seen that when she attacked Nadine on a public list, and Nadine has always been nothing but the sweetest lady every time I’ve seen her, but I took it as the wicked witch's influence on her, now I know better.

It's sad that only after the fact, that I realize just how nutso she is, she really reminds me of Kyra's breeder, both her and her scumbag buddy. Bipolar definitely seems to fit both of them, sickening sweet as long as you give them what they want, but once you cross them, evil as can be, and they can swing back and forth in a nanosecond. But you can't hate people like that, it's not their fault they're screwed up in the head, it's biological, all you can really do is pity them for who they are and hope they will one day gain professional help and get themselves fixed. But you have to want to be fixed, and some people like being vile 6th graders. Sad, really, but you can't let it bring you down, that's why you shrug off the toxic people. The good, intelligent, smart people see them for who they are. I can't count the number of people who asked me what their problems are, and it's they're sick in the head.

OH well, shrug it off, and continue your life. That's all you can do. I do seem to attract the very schizophrenic nutcases in the breed. Too bad there's not an inoculation against that. LOL Just glad my friend didn't get that puppy from one of them that she'd wanted, she's had enough of the psychos in this breed too!

It's strange how people not in the dog world are nowhere near as vile and nasty as those who are. Guess it's because they're mostly woman and they can't play my penis is bigger than yours is. Tho I've been told that it's true in any competitive sport. . thank heavens with sports growing up, we were taught sportsmanship, something that's severely lacking in the dog world.

But I've got some great friends, and they make up for the ones who need straight jackets. "Always look on the bright side of life".

I put in for almost 2 wks of vacation for xmas in Vegas & California! Disney here we come! WAHOO!! Too bad it's so expensive to fly dogs, I might be tempted to let Marie take Gossip for awhile to do OFC, wait, no, no can do. .I love that brat child too much, hard enough letting her go for one day this last weekend, can't imagine being without her for longer than that, and those of you who've seen her with me know she's just like Obie was with his mom. . .

Then back home to bust my butt to make sure I have the money for the nationals. Talked to a member of the BCOA board last month, and he cleared a lot up, along with the fact it wasn't my post that got him riled, but another lady who's known for being . . well . .her posts can piss a lot of people off lOL

As for Borzoi. I realized earlier today that the breed has come a long way in the last few years; I can now count almost 2 dozen NICE males, who are sound bodily (which is obvious by their performance careers). Temperament's on some of them I don't know, as I've never seen them in person. A few of them surprise me, as I never thought to see dogs of those bloodlines I would like enough to think of breeding to. One boy in particular is lovely, and thankfully even with the bloodline I'm not particularly fond of, he's not linebred on the bitch my friend produced that had so many health problems surrounding her. I've already got the nod to use him if I want to, and I'm pleased as punch, he's faaaaaaaaaast too!

off to do things!