The Weekend Report - Three Out of Four Ain't Bad

Before I launch into my main post, here's a reminder about my Jones Natural Chews giveaway. Leave a comment on that post (not today's!) to have a chance to win some truly delicious treats for your dog. I'm pulling the winner sometime tomorrow so don't miss out!

OK....moving on to today....

My title came to mind from this Meat Loaf song. It has nothing to do with my post except for a similar title, but it will give you a good earworm for the day. That's always good mischief!

This weekend was the agility trial given by the Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club of the Potomac. It was a lot of fun. Great judges who designed fun, flowing courses, corgi friends I hadn't seen in a while, and even a blue merle Cardigan puppy. SQUEE!!!

Jimmy and I had quite a bit of success. Three Q's and 71 more points. Both of us are loving running in the 8 inch class! Jimmy is happy because he makes less mistakes, and I am happy because I can now run the course for a more efficient line and not a line that helps keep the bars up.

Jimmy earned first place in both of his Standard runs. Here is Saturday's, the only one that was videoed (thanks Melissa!)....




We also qualified in Jumpers on Saturday, giving us double-Q #3 toward our PACH. It was a speedy run, but we could not beat a Sheltie that was a full 4 seconds faster. So, it was good for a 2nd place ribbon. Sunday's Jumpers run had a bar down, which was 100% my fault! I changed my handling plan in mid-run, for no real reason, and badly botched a rear cross. Jimmy had no idea what I was trying to tell him to do and crashed the bar. Sorry Jim, that one is all on me!

Sunday's maps for you agility addicts out there.....

I was definitely the mischief maker this week! We would have had a clean sweep if I had just stuck to my original plan! Oh, well, I'll try harder next time!

Tracking Jimmy's PACH progress:
Very 1st Double-Q: Saturday 06/21/2014
Masters JWW legs: 3
Masters STD legs: 5
Double Q's: 3
PACH Points: 194

Mischief Monday: The Way the Sunlight Plays Upon Your Hair

The early morning sun slants into our kitchen everyday. I love the quality of the light.....that is until I noticed that it was highlighting my housekeeping, or lack there of! Actually, the house had a thorough cleaning just yesterday. Sigh.

At any rate, as so often happens, this photo brought song lyrics to mind. I had to google it, but my slightly paraphrased title comes from the Beach Boys' song Good Vibrations.

I definitely pick up good vibrations from my dogs! How about you?

Monday Mischief: I SAID Play with Me!

That fit of boredom that overtook Jimmy the other day, also hit Wilson. Here he is giving me his best play-bow and loudly demanding some one-on-one toy time of his own.....

The Weekend Report - Inch by Inch

This past weekend was a glorious fall weekend and I had an outdoor agility trial! It doesn't get any better than that! It's always sad to burn a perfect day inside of a soccer building, so this was such a treat. This trial was given by the Talbot Kennel Club and was held on a farm on Eastern Shore, Maryland. I've posted about it several times, even my very first blog post ever. It's a beautiful place.

We weren't terribly successful however. Our first run of the day was Standard. I set Jimmy at the start line, told him to stay, walked out a bit, released him, and he took down a bar on that first jump. Sigh! It was an easy course and we missed out on A LOT of potential points.

We now had about two hours to burn before our Jumpers run. Not a problem when it's a warm fall day on a waterfront farm!

Our Jumpers run was a very close call with Jimmy's nemesis the triple jump, but despite nicking the top bar, it stayed up and we Q'd! This earned us a whopping 11 points..... It was also the 40th Jumpers leg Jimmy has earned, equaling his MXJ4 title, although there really isn't such a thing.

So here's our tally:

AKC Nationals 2014:
Double-Q's: 8 (out of 4 needed)
Points: 463 (out of 500 needed....37 to go! We can do it! Verified w/ AKC on 09/19/2013)
Masters Legs: 29 (out of 20 needed)

For a third time, I am linking this with the Monday Mischief blog hop and this time I have not one, but two reasons!

First, this pretty country setting was just TEAMING WITH SPIDERS!!! Every single jump upright was crawling with the creepy little bugs. It got to the point that they were spinning webs as we did our pre-run walk-thrus. As we walked the course, we would be breaking through the webs. They were everywhere! My car was full of them by the time I left. Sure hope we get a hard freeze very soon!

And speaking of my car, the second mischief was a dead battery! I had left my keys in the ignition after lowering the windows. I didn't turn it fully off, so it was burning power for about an hour before I discovered it! Yikes. Lucky for me, the first person I asked had cables and gave me a jump. Thank you, Frank!

And we've got more agility next weekend.....going for full burn-out!

The Weekend Report - A Triple Q!

This past weekend was a three day agility trial relatively close to home. It was given by the Potomac Valley Golden Retriever Club at an indoor soccer field in Frederick, Md. This is as close to home as it gets for me, about 45 minutes depending on traffic, which is why I opted for all three days. Overall, I'd say it was a very successful weekend. This trial offered the game called Time 2 Beat and we Q'd all three days! This title requires earning 15 legs and 100 points. So now we have 10 legs and 82 points. It's not a high priority, so this title will come when it does. Also, the points earned in T2B don't count toward my AKC Nationals tally.

On Friday, Jimmy and I actually had no success in Standard or Jumpers. In both runs he managed to take out the top bar of the big triple jump. In Jumpers it was only the 2nd obstacle, so I cheered the rest of the run to get Jimmy going faster. Sadly, in the Standard run, the triple was the very last jump. As we cleared the finish line I was thinking, "Yea!", and then heard the awful tick of toenail on PVC and the bar went down. It had been a great run and very fast. Too bad we lost that Q as it would have earned us a lot of points.

Saturday was our best day. Jimmy Q'd in all three runs! So the Jumpers and Standard run Qs earned us Double-Q#16 toward our MACH title and 28 points to chip away at our Nationals count.

Here is Saturday's Standard run:



On Sunday, the Standard run had a challenge that took a Q away from many dogs! After the dogwalk was a tunnel, but the dogs needed to take the entrance that was further back, not the one staring at them from the bottom of the dogwalk. They had already gone through the tunnel once in the close entrance and faced with that choice a second time, the vast majority took the wrong end. Jimmy was no exception but it was really my fault. I didn't handle it as I should have and Jimmy flew off into the wrong end, even with me screaming NO!. Everything else was well done and speedy.

Jumpers wasn't too bad and we were successful. Of course you don't earn as many points in Jumpers as the course times are lower so it's hard to get in that much under time. (You get one point for every full second you come in under the judge's set time.) And, of course we got our T2B Q as well. So out of nine runs this weekend, we were successful six times.

AKC Nationals 2014:
Double-Q's: 8 (out of 4 needed)
Points: 452 (out of 500 needed....48 to go! We can do it! Verified w/ AKC on 09/19/2013)
Masters Legs: 28 (out of 20 needed)

Once again, I am tying this into the Monday Mischief blog hop. And here is why this week:

At the trial a vendor was selling Elk jerky. Jimmy really wanted some so I bought 6 sticks. I was going to use them for this week's training treats. Once home, I was cleaning up all my junk, and took my training bag upstairs to put away. I left it on the bed and went on to do other things. I heard Wilson go upstairs but thought nothing of it. He hangs out by himself often, just looking out the window. I go up a few minutes later, and shredded all over the bed is the wrapper paper for the jerky. Wilson had eaten all 6 sticks ($5 bucks worth) and poor Jim got none. LOL! Hopefully this doesn't mean diarrhea later!

Oh, and as to last weekend's mischief...My shoes I left behind at the farm. The woman who owned the place was attending this trial, and kindly brought my shoes along! How great is that?!

The Weekend Report - An Official 75%!...And 82%!

This weekend was the very first AKC Agility trial given by a club called RACE (Reva Agility Club Enthusiasts). It was held at a horse farm near Culpeper, Va. The ring was an indoor dirt floor. The footing was wonderful and the building well lit. You never know with a horse barn what you will get. The building was on the small side so the courses were tight.

Jimmy and I had a very successful weekend. Saturday the courses were tricky but quite fun. Jimmy's breeder Anne drove up to watch and she also ran the video camera for me. She caught both runs but for some reason YouTube can't process the Jumpers run. I tried several times to no avail, so I only have one half of my Double-Q (yay!) to show you. Yes, indeed, we pulled off double-Q # 15 so now we are a full 75% of the way to our MACH! Five more double-Q's to go!






UPDATE! YouTube finally processed our Jumpers course so here it is:




Sunday was an incredibly gorgeous fall day! Clear blue skies, cool, crisp air and mountain views to die for! My new header was taken on the farm. Breathtaking, no? I have a few more photos to share later.

We came very close to a double-Q on Sunday as well. In our Jumpers run, we were nearly home free, when Jimmy lost his footing somehow, and crashed the second to last jump. He surprised even himself. The poor boy had quite a bewildered look. Standard went well, giving us 18 more points toward our AKC Nationals tally, a 3rd place finish and a new title as well, the Master Agility Bronze (MXB), which you earn when you have completed 25 Masters Standard runs successfully. No videos on Sunday though. This weekend gave us a total of 45 points. Two more weekends like this and we could have our Nat'ls' points!

AKC Nationals 2014: 
Double-Q's: 7 (out of 4 needed)
Points: 412 (out of 500 needed....88 to go! 82% of the needed points!
Masters Legs: 25 (out of 20 needed)

So, I've hooked this up to the Monday Mischief blog hop...Where does that come in? Well, I wore my LLBean muckers (shoes) to the trial since I figured between early morning dew, potential mud, horse poop, etc. I wouldn't want to wear my sneakers except for the actual runs. Unfortunately, I switched to my sneakers and forgot all about putting the muckers back in my bag/car. So my favorite dog walking shoes are sitting about 80 miles from home right now. Oops!

Mischief Monday: Sand, Sand, and More Sand!

As you may have guessed from last Friday's post as well as my new header photo, once again we've been down to our condo in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We had an incredibly gorgeous week of clear blue skies, warm temps, and ample beach time.

The boys were more than happy to stretch their legs on the beach with a good game of fetch.....

The mischief enters the picture when we all go inside and dry off. Wherever the boys decide to lie, be it the floor or the bed, a large pile of sand can be found when they vacate the spot. It doesn't matter how much rinsing I do with the hose, their thick coats hold onto incredible amounts of sand and it all drops out once the fur dries!

Mischief Monday: So I Did a Load of Laundry Last Night.......

.....however my attention to detail wasn't so good......When I was moving the load to the dryer, I found I had washed FIVE poop bags! (Let it be noted that they were empty, un-used poop bags!) So much for checking the pockets on my shorts! LOL! But waste not, want not, I hung them up to dry.....

What?! You don't wash out your poop bags and re-use them?!

Mischief Monday - Breakfast Pile-up!

It's always a happy time when the dog bowls are readied for a meal! The boys come flying into the kitchen to supervise.....

They even let me run upstairs to get the camera without abandoning their post!

Not much mischief going on around here, although I am sure the boys would complain that there was too little food, that took too long to be served up. Mischief is in the eye of the beholder!

Shark Week!......

....Well, really just Shark Day! Since life hasn't been too photo-worthy of late, I've been going back through the archives. Here's one from quite a few years back. It's a baby shark of some sort on the beach in Myrtle Beach, SC. (no worries, we helped it back into the water after the photo-op).

I guess I can officially say that my blog has now "Jumped the Shark" .     

The First Dip of the Season

The water might still be bone chilling, but that doesn't stop Wilson and Jimmy!

And finally, Jimmy giving his best Halloween Black Cat imitation.......

Either that, or the water was way too cold for his boy parts, what's left of them anyway!

Happy Earth Day!!!

Don't forget about my GIVEAWAY for Jackie's book What the Dog Ate. Stop by that post and leave a comment. I'm shipping outside the US even, so hop on board my international friends!