a super weekend :-)

I haven't had much time to work on The Herb Gatherer since Friday but despite that, I'm please with my progress. She is so cute and I love working on her. Anna I owe you an email regarding The Toy Gatherer. I'm interested. And I need to update my wish list/trade list so it's not available to see right now because it's really out of date because of the big sell off I had several months ago.

Here is Clancy and his friend Beasley. B is a Bernese Mountain Dog and he jumps 24 inches. In contract, Clancy jumps 12 inches. But they are fast buddies.

Clancy and I had a one day trial on Saturday and he was excellent! No Qs but we had a couple of breakthroughs. Not only did he do his weaves from start to finish once but twice!!! That has never happened in the almost two years we have been trialing. We are on our way. We ended up not placing because he dropped a bar each time. Talk about close. And he was fast. We would have had first or second places for sure. Our next trial is in three weeks but I wish we had one sooner since we seem to be on a role with small but important improvements each week. We also did FAST (the event he place in last weekend). The bonus was very un-Clancy friendly and I knew we didn't have a chance but of course I gave it a go any way. Well the little bugger did it. :-) But I was the problem. I was so excited that he pulled it off because I was convinced he didn't have a chance that I stepped into the bonus box resulting in a fault. So I blew it. Lesson learned, I need to trust Clancy more. :-)

Yesterday and today I'm at an agility seminar that is being held in the area. For this one I didn't have much money when sign up time happened around three months ago so I audited the classes. That means I get to watch and hear the lectures but I don't get to work my dog. But I thought I would give it a try. And it really is an inexpensive way to see/hear world class handlers. Well it doesn't work for me. I hated every second of it. I want to go out and play! At the lunch break I was sitting with my friends and said how unhappy I was. Well one of my friends paid for one of her employees working place but the friends dog had to be pulled out because she went into season and was causing to much of a disruption with the other dogs. And she was in the young dog classes. Well I just happened to have Aoife with me and they let me take her place! And I didn't have to pay any more money! Yeah for us. So Aoife and I got to participate in the young dog session in the afternoon and will be able to play all day today also. :-) Sometimes things just work out. :-) She wasn't the rock star of the class but we received some good tips and I expect more of the same today. The experience of getting her into the ring is also very valuable. This is as close to trial conditions as I can find without signing her up for a trial. And she did great. Staying with me and keeping all her attention of me. And she ran her courses pretty well. She is very close to being able to do a real trial I think. But I want her to be 100% so I'm waiting until November/ December to bring her out.

Here she is herself. I have to apply for her AKC number and since she is a rescue I have to apply for a limited number and one of the steps of the process is I have to prove she is a pug. So here is her mugshot. She looks very serious. :-)