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!!!!