A glimpse of things to come?!

When things all come together it's really a great feeling. Indy and I had one of those weekends, where you just can't go wrong, we went 4 for 4! Easily winning the classes too.

Indy earned her first two ExA jumpers legs and her first two ExB standard legs, getting 118 points!

Indy had so much fun, and I'm really happy with myself too, I made it a goal before Indy started trialing that I wouldn't run her "safe", that I would push and would take some chances. To think I had considered not going after her crash into the weaves and subsequent weirdness on Wed. night.

crash

Poor Indy, she crashed into the weave poles! It was her first run on wed. night practice, she was weaving along when all of sudden she crashed her chest straight into the poles. I don't even really know what happened. She could have slipped or her striding may have been off, the day before she practiced the weaves at home on my 21" spaced poles, we haven't used them since Sept. because I really felt like switching back and forth between 21" & 24" wasn't good for her and I think I may have been right. She seemed funny and off the rest of the night, she's a sensitive little girl, I don't think she really hurt herself though since she was back to playing the next day. She wouldn't go near the weaves afterward at class, so I'm hoping she doesn't have any issues at the trial this weekend.

Abby relaxing

Abby Loves her airline bag. I recently got it out and it's been her special place to chill out and look adorable.

Tamarack Lake trial

We headed back to edinboro for another agility trial. it was just starting to snow a little at my house at 6:30am when were heading out, there wasn't snow in the forecast, so off we went....and the snow just kept coming. We did alright, my car really is great in the snow, past one accident, but we just kept slowly making our way on what should have been a one hour and forty five minute drive. We got there safely, but it took two and half hours and I missed the walk though. The course wasn't very hard, and it was pretty easy to follow just from watching it a few times, I had just enough time to grab Indy, take her on a quick walk and get in the ring. It wasn't the prettiest run, but not bad considering.

Indy ran really nicely all weekend, every run she scored 95......one fault away from qualifying, and you guessed it, that one fault would be the weaves! She does them perfectly one the second try. I do have some solid ideas about what's going on, and of course, it's mostly me. I need to decelerate just a bit before she gets to the weaves.....slowing down has never been my strong point. If a course requires you to run as fast as you can, I can do that, but slow down?! I actually think I slow down, but I was told it sure didn't look like it. Me and my dogs are alike in that way...running is more fun that slowing down.

Other than the weaves (and her weaves on the second try are beautiful) I couldn't be more pleased. There is one good thing to routinely NQing....you get very brave to try all sorts of things, like adding lots of distance from contacts! so, I'm now quite confident in Indy's abilities with all sorts of things that I probably wouldn't have tried otherwise. I've never been so happy after NQing either...she's just so much fun and doing so well.

loss

Bill's dad died this past sunday. Death is so hard to deal with, even when the person is older, has health issues and you were prepared that it could happen in the near future. It's an intense experience, that brings back past experiences when loved ones passed.

Bill seems to be hanging in there, handling things quite well. He had a conversation with his dad over Thanksgiving and apparently his dad told him he was "fine with dying, had no fear of it and had done everything he wanted to do" Everyone should feel so at peace late in life!

We truly have some of the best friends, our dogs were well cared for in a moments notice and we came home to great food prepared for us.

The whole thing really threw Indy for a loop, she's never spent a night away from me...heck she's barely spent more than a few hours at a time away from me, and she's been somewhat weird (hanging out with Rudy??, giving me pissed off dirty looks from a distance and pitching a fit and dashing out into the yard and refusing to come back in every time I try to leave the house.) Makes me wonder how dogs cope with being dropped off a kennel?! She'll rebound I'm sure. The pugs didn't care one bit, they love their aunt Danielle.

new years trial 2011 Indy & Kittie

Finally got the video from New Years weekend uploaded.

X country Skiing

This past weekend Bill & I tried XC skiing for the first time. We've been talking about it for a while, but we weren't sure if we'd actually enjoy it.... too slow, too hard to stop with no edge, fear of getting hurt. We had a lot of fun, it's absurdly easy to get started, practically zero learning curve! Okay, I'm still figuring out just how to stop, but fun none the less! I think once we go a few more times it would be a lot of fun to bring along a dog or two, I think Kittie & Indy would LOVE it.

So much fun to try something new, I thought for sure we'd wake up sore, but not at all, go figure!