As we close out the year...

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas!! We did and now that it is over, we have begun to work on ripping up the carpet and starting to lay the new laminate floors. A big project, but one that I hope will go pretty smoothly:).

On the agility front, it finally stopped raining long enough to have class on Saturday!! Since all it has done for the past week or so is rain, all we have worked on is that table in the house. (much to Mike's dismay :) ) But on Saturday, Lexi did the table 4 times, with a sliding down or sit with no hesitation!!! I was so excited!! For a dog that has only done the table with much begging a couple of times, or just stood on it, it was a huge step!!! I was so excited! So now that the forecast is calling for a few days without rain, it is on to the weaves, and trying the Susan Garrett method!! I really hope that this is going to help her get her weaves! Foster has also been doing well! We have found over the last month or so, that the squeaky tennis ball gets much better speed and motivation out of him than food! That is a shocker because Foster is mostly a lab and therefore a stomach with legs!!!

Mike and I are also continuing with herding this winter. We are training for an AHBA trial soon! They only require 2 legs to get a title, so hopefully Lexi will be able to get her first herding title in one weekend! Well, I can hope!! Both her and Bailey are doing really well in practice. Mike will trying for his Level 2 title and Lexi will be going for Level 1. We will keep you posted!!

I'll leave you with a few pictures from playing in the lake after class on Saturday! (and no shelties took any unnecessary plunges into the lake this time!)

Foster and Lexi after class
Jasper resting on the table after watching everyone else run agility (It's a tough job, but someone has to do it!)
Lexi looking on as Bailey and Foster swim back in
Tammy's newest pup, Chase, showing much more confidence coming up to me on his own! (Homer is trying to sneak into my lap at the same time)
Ron entertaining the entire crew with a game of fetch!

The weekend before Christmas...

Well, Saturday was a full agility day for Foster and Lexi. We went and did some run thrus up in Bartlett with some friends, and then we came back to Olive Branch for class. Class was in a new location because we have had so much rain lately. It wasn't far from Tammy's house, but there was a also a lot of land and a lake!! So after class all of the dogs got to run, play and swim! Foster swam a ton and had a blast!! The surprise of the day was that Simi, Tammy's sheltie, decided that if Foster could swim in the lake so could she!! (And I am pretty sure that Simi has never been swimming before) Simi mustered up all her strength and leapt straight up in the air and landed with a splash in the lake, dunking herself under water!! She came up in a panic, eyes wide as saucers, and began doggie paddling for her life!! Yes, with a little coaching she made it back to shore, with no long term injuries, to her VERY worried mom. (I have seen many dogs take to the water for the first time and Simi's venture, though scary for her mom, was truly the most hilarious that I have seen in awhile!!!) Tammy did take some pictures before and after Simi's swim, however, not of Simi's swim. Here is one of Foster and Lexi at the lake.


Foster AFTER the big day of agility and swimming!!

The rest of the weekend has been spent putting the house back in order after having two rooms painted this past week. We are really happy with how they turned out! We also did a little rearranging in the great room too, so we have to find some things to go in the little cubby hole above the fireplace.

Bathroom - before

Bathroom - after


Great room - before

Great room - after

Now onto laying pergo floors downstairs!!!

We hope that everyone has a wonderful and Merry Christmas!!!

Fun @ Work....

If that is even a possibility!!! But last Friday, I decided to have a little bit of fun with a co-worker's cube while he was out of town. It needed a little Christmas spirit:) So far he has an idea that it was me...while everyone else knows of course it was me! He has promised revenge, which would really cool, because no one has ever done anything cool to my cube!

The entrance of his cube...wrapped !

Festive computer!! Shhh it's a surprise!

We are awaiting an ice storm they say, but they have said that all day and nothing. They even let the kids off school @ 1pm today and not even a drop of precipitation! So we will just have to see. I really do not want an ice storm, but if they are going to get everyone here in a panic, it should be for something!!!

I will leave you all with a picture of our Kindorf Christmas tree from work! Kindorf is a kind of metal strut that a division of my company manufacturers and they constructed a HUGE Christmas tree out of it and we light every year. The picture is a little fuzzy mostly because it was a misty rainy night when I took the picture.

For those that wonder....

Whenever I mention herding to my family, people at work, or agility friends, they often give that quizzical look, and ask, Herding? Herding what? Where do you do that? Mike has been doing this for a year or two now, and I just started a few months ago. So here are a couple of videos, one of Mike and Bailey, and one of me and Lexi (our first trial ever) competing recently at an AKC trial here in MS in Started Sheep. We both Qualified on these runs with Mike taking 3rd place and Lexi taking 4th. (By only 1/2 a point I must add. Not bad for our very first run!) Thanks to Tammy for taping these runs out in the cold!!

Herding and Agility Updates

2 weekends ago, Lexi and Bailey competed in an AKC Herding trial here in Memphis. Mike and Bailey completed two Sheep runs, with a 3rd place in both, and finished her AKC Started Sheep Herding title!! This was mine and Lexi's first attempt at a herding trial since we started training a few months ago, and she did awesome! Lexi qualified both days and even got a 4th place on Saturday! So we have 2 legs towards our AKC Started Sheep title!!

Last weekend was our last agility trial of the year in Decatur, AL. Despite the chilly temps in the unheated arena, Foster did Q twice this weekend, and was just seconds from Q'ing on some of the most challenging courses I have ever seen since I got up to Excellent a few years ago! The judge, Mr. Dege, did create courses with sequences that you often see in World Team level courses and mostly do not see at the local level. Lexi did well this weekend, completing all of her contacts except for a new found fear of the teeter, and even did the table on Sunday very quickly!!! We did have some handling challenges on my part, and of course we didn't weave. BUT I now have my new channel weaves, and am so excited to start over on weaving with Lexi. On top of that, I was just reading a new ebook by Susan Garrett about 2x2 weaving, and I have some really good ideas to apply a lot of it to channels. My goal is to have Lexi weaving by our January Show in Franklin. Keep your fingers crossed!

Other great news from the trial... Congratulations to Simi and Tammy on their 2 legs in Open Standard!!!! It was so exciting to see them succeed all weekend after all of the hard work they have put in to get there! Congratulations to a new Excellent team, George and Jill!!! George finished his Open Jumpers title! Congratulations to Jennifer and Moana on running an Excellent Standard course 2 seconds under time!! Even though they didn't Q, it was an incredible run!!! Everyone and their dogs did well this weekend, and we all had a great time!

Little Rock Agility Trial

We have never gone to this show before, and since it was so close we decided to give it a try. We had a very good time despite the chilly weather!! This show had FAST offered and they ran it first on both days. I did enter Foster and we had a couple of mistakes, so no Q's, but they were fun courses. However, having FAST had us running Novice after 7:00pm on Sat, and we didn't leave for home until 6pm on Sunday. One nice thing for those of us with Big Dogs, is that it was high to low on a Sunday!!!!! That NEVER happens! Foster got 2 1st place Q's in Jumpers, but we just couldn't eek out the clock in one Std run, and in the other I cut his approach to the dog walk too tight and he couldn't get his footing and had to bail. Otherwise he had some great runs!! Lexi had some beautiful runs as well, but we are still working on our table and weaves in competition. Moana had a little trouble with the clock on these tightly wheeled courses too. Cletus and Jennifer found a new rythym in their Jumpers runs and boy is Cletus FAST!!! Jill & George got 1 2nd place Q, and both George and Atticus had some great runs as well! I think Natalie made out like a bandit at the awesome raffle that the club had!! I think the club is rethinking what days and what time of the day they will offer FAST next year, so we will have to wait and see for next year.

This upcoming weekend is Lexi and I's first herding trial. Mike and Bay are also competing as well. They are both in Started for this AKC trial. Bay has 1 started leg on Sheep, so she only needs two more to get her Started Title!! Wish Lexi and I luck !!! It should definitely be interesting! Then next weekend Lexi, Foster, and I are off to Decatur for our last trial of the year and we are also hopefully picking up our new channel weaves!!!

Well that is all for now:) Hopefully next week I will have some herding videos to post!!

Halloween, Our Weekend Guest, and Voting!

This was my first time voting in Mississippi! I hope everyone got a chance to get out and vote today!!

I haven't had a chance to post any Halloween pictures. So here are a few! After 3 years of, at most, 15 trick or treaters, we had at least double that this year!!! And so many cute costumes!! Lexi and Bailey dressed up for a few minutes too!!





Our friends' dog, Mattie, stayed with us this weekend while they went to New Orleans. We love having Mattie stay, and give Bay a run for her tennis ball, and play with Lexi and Foster!



We are getting ready to head out to an agility trial in Benton, AR this weekend! I have never been so it should be exciting, and hopefully the weather will be nice and not too chilly. It is an outdoor trial under cover. Lexi and I also have been practicing for the AKC Herding trial the weekend after this agility trial. It is a lot harder to practice anything during the week now that the time has changed!! After that we have one more agility trial for this year, the weekend before Thanksgiving in Decatur, AL. Busy month!!

We also took a couple of pictures at Tammy's house in fromt of her awesome Fall Background!!

Return from Murray, KY Show

We had a great time at the agility show in Murray, KY this past weekend!!! It was a fairly small show so we finished early each day. That left us time to play with the dogs out in the adjacent fields in the afternoon and relax. Foster had a great weekend!! He Q'd 4 out of 6 runs, finished his MXP2, and got his 12th QQ!!! Lexi had a good weekend too, finishing her Novice Standard Title finally!!! YEAH!! We have moved up to open, and she did the table twice this weekend, not perfect, but she with a little coaxing did what was required!! Now we must work on our nemesis...The Weaves!!! I will be ordering some channel weaves this week!! From all the people, either Jennifer or I have talked to that have dogs with great weaves, they have learned on channels.... so we are going to give it a shot!!!

Lastly, Lexi's sisters Blue and Jean were also at Murray competing in Agility. Jean finished her Novice titles in one weekend!!! Blue only competed one day, but Q'd on both of those runs!! See the picture below!!

Lexi & I with the judge she titled under, Cynthia Tilley.

The Blue Sisters: Lexi, Jean, and Blue

Cletus relaxing after a hard day of agility


Atticus is staring intently after a butterfly, one of his favorite past times!

New Shoes!!!!

A girl loves a new pair of shoes!!! Probably not the kind some of you are thinking of...a new pair of shoes for running agility. I have been talking about getting a pair of new shoes for agility for a while now, and I finally did! I decided on Merrell Siren Sport GTX. And wow what an incredibly comfortable shoe, especially for a trail running shoe! I tested them out a little today because we practiced at Elaine's ring with a packed dirt floor...they were great! I can't wait to give them a full test run at the trial in Murray, KY next weekend!!!

My shiny new agility shoes

VP Debate, Flies, and Qs!

Last weekend we went to Franklin for an AKC agility trial. When we got there on Thursday we got the Pop up set up, our spot at the trial claimed, and got the TV hooked up so that we could watch the VP debate while we were grilling dinner. Luckily, all of the flies( the show is at a horse arena) disappeared when the temperature dropped!! There were so many out there all weekend, but the really cool nights made them go away while we were eating!!


On to the agility! Friday was Lexi's first run in Open JWW. She did really well on everything but the weaves, but I expected that:) We are still working really hard on getting our weaves! Lexi also got her 2nd Novice Std Leg!!! She had great contacts, did the table, and on the 3rd try we got the weaves!!! She is really starting to come along!!! I was so excited when she hit her first contact w/ a 2o2o!!




Saturday, Lexi again did well in JWW but we had 2 refusals on the weaves. I think Lexi may have gotten spooked by a whistle in the other ring because she just wasn't into focusing on the std run. O well!! She has made so much progress, and we are hopefully going to get that 3rd leg and a ticket out of novice std soon:)

Foster had an incredible weekend as well with 1QQ bringing our total to 11 out of the 20 we need for his PAX, he finished his MJP2, and just was all around fast this weekend!!! He finished his Std run on Friday 10 sec under regular time and 15 sec under preferred time!!!! That is unheard of for us even when he was running 24"! We had a great time running this weekend and all the mistakes were minein handling! There were some really great courses this weekend, very challenging!!

Last but not least, Moana finished both of her Open Titles and is now in Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think she may be only the 2nd bulldog currently running in Excellent in the country!! Cletus, Jennifer's Bouvier, ran in his first trial this weekend and did really well!!! Our whole group did really well and we had a lot of fun this weekend!!

I almost forgot...this was Tammy's first time in her new RV!! Here it is!!!

And finally, here are some pics from the weekend!!!


Dexter with every toy Moana has won since Jennifer got him!


Foster and Lexi


Cletus and Dexter waiting for Jennifer to return to the pop up.

Off to Franklin!!!

This weekend is the first agility trial of the fall!! It is going to be beautiful this weekend, no rain, great weather!! We will bring you all of the details when we return! I can't wait to try everything we have been working on since the last trial! Wish us luck!!

Before I go, let me catch you up on last weekend...my mom and dad came to visit for my birthday! We had a great time and we celebrated my Dad's birthday too! Mike baked my favorite kind of cake...yes you read that right, Mike baked the cake! It was Devil's Food with Milk Chocolate icing... all Duncan Hines...yummmm! In the midst of all that I still managed to squeeze in some agility practice at Tammy's, herding sheep with Lexi, and acupuncture for Foster that day too. Here are some pics from last weekend and some that I took today after work. It was just too beautiful outside!!

Flowers from Mike

My birthday cake!

Dad opening his gifts

Bay resting after playing ball today

Lexi and Foster playing in the grass

New Toy!!!!!

Well after 4 years of push mowing .75 acre, Mike finally got his new toy from John Deere today!!! What used to take multiple days to do, now only take 1.5 hours!! He was completely thrilled!!


My new wires for the weave poles arrived on Tuesday!! Hopefully they are going to help Lexi build her speed in the weave poles.

Just a few pictures of the kids out in the yard this morning! I even got a pic of the camera shy Lexi!(from a distance of course)




Hope everyone is having a good weekend!!

"Lazy" Labor Day Weekend

We started off the weekend by going to a Fun Run Saturday morning. The place where it was held had a heavy teeter so I decided to test Foster's new fear of heavy teeters. After his run...nothing has changed, he is still refusing the teeter the first time and then going up it with me there the second time. So we'll keep working to build his confidence before the next show, but I think I will also plan to be right at the teeter at the next show too. He had great contacts and weaves though!! Lexi's first run was a disaster!! I tried her on the contacts w/o a target and just a verbal command for her 2o2o...she was in show mode and blew them all, and skipped the weaves too. She didn't do an automatic down on the table either(we have been working on this too), and there was no judge. Still A LOT of work to do over the next few weeks!!! She did do better on her second run. I didn't run the course, and instead just took her target and did the Aframe and the dogwalk a few times, then added some jumps and speed with those. She did really well on that run!!!!

Then we headed home to get the house ready for my Mom and Dad to visit. We also went to Lowe's to get some mortar and concrete last night because we have some people who are going to brick the border of our flower gardens today!!! The good old Jeep Liberty could only hold the 20 bags of mortar, so we have to go back today for the concrete! I'm excited because we have been wanting to get this project done for quite some time!

This morning, my Dad called and said that Mom wasn't feeling well, so they would have to come a different weekend. :( We are going to work on some other projects around the house I guess; hanging shelves, cleaning off the patio, looking for laminate to redo the first floor! Can you feel the excitement??

Here are some pics of the pups just hanging out in the yard after playing ball and frisbee!
Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!!!

Hattiesburg Agility Trial

We just returned from a wonderful weekend in Hattiesburg at the BARK AKC Agility trial!! Jennifer with Moana, Cletus, and Dexter, her daughter Natalie, and me and my crew stayed for the second time in the pop-up. They had a great RV Park at the facility!! Annette and Dave came with their crew including the new addition Daisy, who introduced them to what happens when you don't know what age the female dog you rescued is, and your spay appointment is next week....Daisy came into heat while we were there! And last but not least Jill came with George and Atticus.

Here are the highlights...Moana got 2 Q's this weekend!!! One in Open Std and one in Open JWW bringing her total to 2 legs in each!!! One more to go in each to move to Excellent!!! Storm finished his Novice JWW title!!! Charley had some great Excellent runs this weekend!!! Atticus finished his Novice JWW title in his agility debut weekend!!!!!!! George had some great runs this weekend as well!!! Lexi had a Q in jumpers, and almost a Q in Novice Std...BUT the most exciting thing was that she sat on the table on Friday and downed on the table on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!! She has not done either one in quite sometime in competition!!! I am hoping we are making progress!!!! Foster got 2 Q's, one in Std and one in JWW, unfortunately not on the same day...no double Q's this weekend. The heavy teeter, and tight courses got the best of us this weekend. Lastly, Foster and I tried out Novice FAST on Friday....what fun!!! And we got a Q and 1st place!!! We may just have to try it again in Benton, AR in November!!! We also had some great cookouts at the pop-up Friday and Saturday nights!!!!

So for now, we have about a month and a half to work on some issues we are having and get ready for the Franklin show in October!!!! At that show, we will have Tammy and Jill joining us in the RV park!!!!

New link for Moana

http://www.worldwidefido.com/watch/6011/bulldog-agility

It looks like they changed the link to vote for Moana! Or just go to www.worldwidefido.com and type in Moana.

Another Contestant for the World Wide Fido Awards!!!

I was throwing Moana the bulldog her daily bone for the Most outrageous in this contest, and I ran across Chase the High Flying Sheltie...and it was none other than Tonya and Jason's Chase!!!! So please also throw a daily bone to Chase with the link below!!!

Tonya and Chase

http://www.worldwidefido.com/watch/5929/chase-the-hi-flying-sheltie

Bulldog Agility

Here is a little video of Moana competing in Open Preferred in Decatur, AL this year. Please go to http://www.worldwidefido.com/watch/5778/bulldog-agility to vote for her as the Most Outrageous dog for the Worldwide Fido Awards on Nick at Night!!!

In Memory of Izzy

Just wanted to take a moment to remember Izzy, Lauren's Aussie pup. They both trained with Tammy. Lauren lost Izzy on Saturday. They were a great team learning agility, raising a fawn, and just being each other's best friend. He will be greatly missed!!

Izzy's fawn

Happy Birthday to My Favorite Atlanta Aunt!!!!

Happy Birthday Aunt Penny!!! Hope you have a good one!!!

Visiting Graceland last year