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

Our first trial staying in an RV!!

We just got back from the trial in Murfreesboro and our (Jennifer, Natalie, and I) first RV experience. Jennifer brought their pop up camper and we stayed in the RV park near the site because many of the hotels in the area had ridiculous rates and were no longer allowing dogs. So we set the camper up next to Steve and Terry's RV and had a great time!!! Friday night we had Hawaiian hamburger nite complete with authentic Hawaiian tunes from Terry!! The dogs hung out in Xpens while we ate and we had great food thanks to Steve and Terry! Saturday nite we had Taco night at our camper! Again Yummy!!! We also celebrated Cletus' 2nd birthday with cake (for humans!). Aside from a few thunderstorms Saturday nite the weather was great and the air conditioner in the camper would freeze you out!! Our next RV agility adventure will be the Hattiesburg trial in August!!




On to the agility trial itself...there were some big milestones at this trial!!! Jennifer and Moana got their first legs EVER (in regular or preferred) in Open Standard and Open Jumpers on Sunday!!!!!!!!! (Yes Moana and Jennifer Double Q'd!!!!) We think it may have been the first ever bulldog competition that Moana faced this weekend from a younger girl named Moxie! She was very cute as well...though not a real bulldog because she was mostly white and EVERYONE knows that a real bulldog is red brindle.
Steve and Nala got their first Open Jumpers leg on Sunday as well!!! Terry and Pebbles Q'd in Jumpers this weekend, and Terry and Splash made their debut in Open as well in Jumpers!!

Lexi did well in Novice Jumpers earning a 2nd and 3rd place. She will probably be moving to open in the near future! Standard is a whole different story!! The table is still an issue, but we did manage a sit on it on Saturday...too bad we were needing a down that day! She also blew all of her contacts except for the teeter on Saturday...the high point of the weekend for the runs with Lexi is that her jumping is beautiful and she is really listening during that portion of our runs! Sunday I did pull Miss Lexi from the course as she blew off the weaves and was running past obstacles...her head just wasn't in the game:)

Mr. Foster was incredible this weekend!! He earned 5 Q's out of 6 and only because of handler error did he miss that 6th Q. He also got 1st place in all of his runs which meant 5 big toys!!! YEAH!

We did miss Jill, Tammy, Annette, and Dave (the rest of our crew from Memphis)@ the show!!

Our next stop in 2 weeks is a Barb Davis seminar in Nashville!

Am I Not Turtlely Enough For You???

The other morning, before work, I saw Lexi and Foster sniffing in the grass and then jumping back from something, over and over again. I really thought they may have found a snake, but turns out they were just scaring a little box turtle that wandered into our yard from somewhere. When I got home from work there was no sign of the little guy.

Foster and the turtle (Far right side of the pic)

Lexi and the turtle

Last Saturday morning we woke up to another limb down in our yard. This time it was from the neighbor's oak tree. It has been dead quite some time, but I don't know what made it fall on a completely clear night.... We are trying to get with our neighbor sometime this week to cut it up and get it down without hopefully harming the fence.


Speaking of the fence, last weekend Mike finished the majority of the new gate!!! We now have a 2 door gate instead of the old heavy 1 door gate. All that is left to do is put the latch on!!


All of the pups are doing fine! Lexi is taking an obedience class and is back herding in addition to agility training. I am slowly figuring out that her "shutting down" is really her saying "I just don't want to do what you want me to do". But we are working through it, and I hope all of the different exposure she is getting at all of the classes will help her agility:) Foster is doing great!! Just gearing up for the MOTC trial at the end of this month! We (me, Lexi, and Foster) will be staying with Jennifer and Moana (Cletus and Dexter too) in a pop up RV next to our friends Steve and Terry! We have a great BBQ Night and Fiesta Night in the works for the weekend!! Bailey is doing great too! She is really coming a long way with her herding!!

I was really upset when I heard the other day that there would be no AKC agility at the St. Jude Showcase of Dogs this year. It is one of two shows that we have here at home all year. But today I heard that they would be doing a 3 day USDAA trial instead! Even though Foster can't compete in USDAA (jumps are too high for him), it will be a good show for Lexi! YEAH!

Tomorrow is Imma-Jane's very 1st birthday, and Saturday is my Mom's birthday, sooo...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to them both!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Mike!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been a few weeks so I will try and catch everyone up on what has been going on...

Today is Mike's Birthday!!!!!!! Of course, the cake was Baskin Robbins white cake with chocolate chip ice cream as it must be every year! :)

This spring I decided to try and grow some blueberries because they are so expensive at the stores. So we got a little blueberry plant from Lowe's and today I took my first blueberry harvest!!! They were delicious!!

First Blueberries of the Summer

Here are a some pictures of Lexi and her sister Blue waiting "patiently" for their turn at agility practice. Lexi has recently started back to herding lessons too. She loves the sheep and the ducks! (Well chasing them anyways)

Blue and Lexi

Blue

Mike and I also celebrated our 3rd Anniversary on May 28th!


And I will leave you with a couple of pictures of Foster and Bailey just hanging out in the yard.
Maybe next time I will attempt to upload a video!
Can you guess what Bailey is waiting for?? (Its green, round, and fuzzy...)

Foster surveying his domain

Decatur Agility Part 2 and other happenings...

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks so here is the scoop!!!

We had another great weekend in Decatur for agility!! Foster got 2 Q's in JWW over the weekend, and came really close to a few Q's in Std. A judge that shall not be named called a fault on his Aframe contact, but after reviewing the tape he was in the yellow...and the last STD run was the darn teeter!!! I have never seen a dog as big as Foster have trouble tipping the teeter, but he got to where he thought he should be and it didn't tip!!! Poor Foster had the most confused look on his face, as he has been doing the teeter for 4 years and this had never happened!! He did finally tip it down, but we were over time:) Lexi Q'd once in Jumpers (with 1st place) this weekend, which finished her NAJ title!!!

Alright... I will do my best to run down the rest of the crew's accomplishments( If I miss one, I'm sorry)... Cajun got both his Open Std and Open JWW titles this weekend!!!! Simi got a couple JWW legs and a 4th place on one of those. Best of all, she did her dogwalk and teeter in the Std ring!!! Storm and Dave got a 1st place and a Q in JWW. Charly and Annette got a couple of Q's this weekend I believe. I am afraid that I don't remember if Bailey got a Q or not, but she did come so close to a Q in Std, if it hadn't been for the same teeter that plagued Foster!!! George and Jill came a long way on their weave entrances this weekend!!! Jennifer and Moana competed in both Open classes this weekend for the first time. Moana was on fire and streaking through the courses, but the 2 downs on the table caused her some time and no Q's. And she had some speedy weaves as well!!! Marian and Jazzy got a MACH!!! (There were actually 5-6 MACH runs this weekend!!)

So I guess that does it for agility for now as we all go back to practice until Murfreesboro in June!!! I'll try and upload some videos this week!

Belated Happy Birthday to Jason!!!

Here are a few photos from Foster's Birthday on May 11th!!! He turned 7 years old!!!
Foster on his birthday

Birthday Treats!!
Birthday Treats were yummy!!

We also had a storm run through Olive Branch very quickly last week, but it did pack a punch and knocked down many trees in the area including our pine tree in the backyard. Luckily, when it fell it only took out an agility jump!!!


The view from the houseThe base of the tree near our back fence
The view from the back fence towards the house

Fun Agility Weekend in Decatur

I think our whole group had a good weekend with EVERYONE getting at least one Q and having a great time at the Decatur show!! Terry and Splash got their Novice Standard title & Pebbles continued to Q in Preferred. Steve and Nala had a great run on Saturday with a Q. Jill and George had a fun weekend ending finally with a Q!!! Moana had a big weekend with a Q and a placement in Novice Jumpers!! She nearly had a Standard leg as well!! Tammy and her crew: Faith got her illusive MXP title, Cajun got a couple of Q's this weekend, and Simi got a Q in Jumpers as well. Lexi got a Q in Novice Std and Jumpers as well as placements in both. We have a little table issue to work on though, but she really did great!! Foster got 5 out of 6 Q's this weekend, with 2 Double Q's!!! We also had some fun out in the field next to the trial site. It was full of clover (?) and made for some pretty pictures of everyone!!

Family Portait: Dexter (Baby Bulldog), Moana, and Cletus

Pebbles and Nala

Cletus and Moana

Lexi

Foster

Last ,but certainly not least, Bailey and Mike got two qualifying runs and placements in their herding trial at the Advanced level in ASCA, one in ducks and one in sheep!!!