PVBC's specialty

I keep writing 'em, and keep forgetting to post them

I had a long, surprising weekend at the show weekend before last. . .

Saturday was PVBC's fall specialty. I didn't want to enter. This had been the show Gossip was going to be in coat for, we were going to go for that 2nd & 3rd leg of our RA, so many plans, down the drain, but Bonnie convince me, so I entered Bella (9-12 puppy) and Dei(almost 10 yr old veteran), I had nothing competitive for the other classes, so that was it. .

Bella's never been shown by anyone but me. . .but she behaved like a little trooper for a good friend, behaving herself pretty much, tho by WB after sweeps she'd had enough and was getting squirrly. But overall, I was very happy with how she showed, not being a twit, behaving like a good little girl.


Dei hasn't been shown in years, but she is looking so damn nice. . still races around the backyard like a bat out of hell, still jumping on top of 3 ft tall dog houses, still playing hard with her kids, nobody believes her age, in fact, they thought she was Gossip's sister at her retirement race back in September. No, she's not as fast as she was when she was younger, but she definitely ran better than some of the dogs at the LGRA nationals!

Her movement suffered after a neck injury when she was young, and she became lifty, nothing like she was as a really young bitch at the 2002 Nationals, that coupled with her dry mouth in the ring(her lips would stick to her teeth, and was painful when judges checked bite), caused me to retire her from the ring, but we had noticed recently that her movement had smoothed out. . unlike other older dogs, her movement had IMPROVED with age, and so I figured, what the heck, I wanted to support a good friend who was judging sweeps, so why not. .

Watching her in the ring, friends outside the ring couldn't believe her age, and she moved like a dream, taking Best Opposite in Sweeps to the male a few months younger who went on to win the entire shebang, so I don't mind losing to him(and his owner & breeder are just the greatest people!). She was having so much fun and the applause just made her shine more.

She went on to win her veterans class, but by BOB she quit. . it was a long day for a dog not used to showing. .but I was very pleased. . I brought home so much loot!

Unfortunately, each stride in the ring caused hair to start falling out LOL Or I'd be looking at fall specialties to enter her in. . hopefully she'll look this ncie come next spring for the nationals. .

The nice weekended ended with Ziva coming into season, evil little brindle brat.

There were tears cried that weekend, people I hadn't seen since Gossip died, but I'm still so thankful for all the friends and people she helped me meet

PVBC's spring event

Photo by Jim Saklad

Oh what a weekend, so GLAD it's over!

Weather once again did not cooperate for PVBC's event. Sunday was miserable cold, but we got done before it rained, got everything packed up, INCLUDING the box(that was the easiest box loading I've ever witnessed), but it was COLD!!! And the wind didn't help.

One thing I did this time around, was 'hire' a 10 yr old. . a contractor that is working on Bonnie's house has a sweet boy who agreed to come out and run the bunny down the track in exchange for donations. We ran about 16 races, with an additional handful of practices on Saturday, and maybe the same number of runs Sunday with the large number of practices we did, and he made a nice sum from all the donations he was given(over $60). We've already booked him and another young friend of his for May. If you do racing, you know that one of hte hardest things to do is to get someone to walk the bunny back down the track. This worked out WONDERFULLY. His mom also thanked us, cuz it tired him out LOL. He enjoys the dogs, comes over to help socialize the piranhas every other week or so, they LOVE him. And I just got told tonite that he is soooo raring to come back, as he made enough money to buy himself a new Wii game lOL I love that enthusiasm

Unlike in December, just about everything went right and I started training my friend Mary McQuade on how to be race secretary. That helped a lot. She's a doll, and I'm so glad she came. I just had to worry about checking the board(she did it perfectly!) and run the lure. I'll be working on getting a number of club members trained, a lot less stressful if I know i have someone to help out!

Only problem we had was wind and the bunny, one high point race, the wind managed to throw the bunny off the track and Gossip shattered the post holding up the tape, scary shattered, she could've impaled herself on the broken piece. She was a bit sore from hitting that, and thus was house bound(not that she cares, means big fluffy beds, not getting rained on, she's all for that). fora few days, but is back to normal :) Otherwise the box, the equipment all ran well, the field was perfect, not too hard, not to soft. . .tho the bunny was hard to see on the wintered grass, thus the white bag that helped lift it off the field. Other than one obnoxious person who refused to run her dogs unless all other dogs were off the 8 acre pasture, everyone was great.

We had 13 starter Borzoi on Saturday, unfortunately 3 of them decided to be BAD. . .I feel bad for their owners, two of them are newbies to the racetrack, and it sucks when one day your dog'll run clean, next time you run 'em they're world class D***heads. . .but we had two NICE running FTE Borzoi, with the pretty white Bianca taking home the NICE Borzoi turtle (I didn't get a pic of it, but this turtle was NICE, nice enough her owner was bragging about it the next day at an ASFA trial LOL!) and Lori Miller's handsome Ryker placing nicely in the meet, not nice enough to get points yet, but he's learning strategy and it was his first weekend of being boxed. I really like him, he's a beautiful Teine bred black & tan. Top honours went to Gossip, but she had to earn it, then Padua to finish!(Congrats Ariel!), then a three way tie between Serrano, Dillon & First. LOL

Sunday was a much smaller meet, but unfortunately the bad luck for naughty Borzoi rolled into Sunday, and one girl decided she didn't like to be ahead, and turned to cheer on her cousin. .what's sad is she ran clean the first two races. . she kept weaving in front of Tipperary back and forth like she was cheering her on. Dingdong. . .Gossip won the meet, Ms First came in 2nd for 2 GRC points, and finished . . .was sooo tired Sunday night nothing was making sense. Tipperary was third, Surya, oh lord, images of his great uncle Races come to mind. . he's been boxed before, he's been raced before, but OMG!! Each time he was boxed, he got worse, and worse, to the point, third race he was a Paddock Scratch because we couldn't get him in. Having had to do that with Eros, I SOOO understand the frustration. . .

We had a number of nice practice runs with Surya's brother Yuri, Sciroccos' son Cayenne getting in a number of practices. Yuri cert'd with Grins ,and Cayenne'll come back out to play next time we have a practice. I was too tired to bring my monsters down by the time we were done.

We were so thankful for everyone who came out to help, even if they didn't have a dog in the race. Those hands are what makes a meet happen. Tho it does get frustrating when local Club people who are less than 10 mins away don't come out to help.

Grins got to certify a number of dogs this weekend, and enjoyed every bit of it. .from a deerhound to numerous Borzoi. . and when we quit yesterday, he was still raring to go. His eye has just about completely healed up! He'll be out next month to Cert' his kids for coursing!

So all and all, a successful weekend, but I am so glad I took this weekend off, had planned on going to RI, but changed my mind. The flooding made me glad I changed my mind, OTOH, it's nice not having anythign planned but birthday dinner and a movie, and maybe, just maybe, going to get First and the pups ASFA certified this weekend.