Oh Yeah, You Blend

Well, we drew blood for Nina’s first progesterone test this morning. One sample to our lab, one to Dr Hutchison (to see if they match). Now we wait some more.

As of today, Nina is in heat…now comes the nailbiting and testing and waiting …

YEAH!

Yesterday we started off with a bang – Nina earned her first Open Standard Q with a gorgeous run. We scored 95, would have been 100 but her ABS failed when she hit the table at full speed and she slid off it half on her side.

Here’s her Jumpers run, would have been a lovely Q except for the bar down (Lisa apologizes for the butt shot at the beginning, her leash got stuck! And that’s not me holding her up by her collar, she was standing on her back legs trying to get going!).

(thanks Lisa for recording for me on your iPad!). No Q’s today, but we had a crazed crack monkey run in Standard, but then she settled right back for another almost-Q in Jumpers (one bar again). Really fun weekend, lovely courses, great weather!

Open Jumpers With Weaves Q #2!!!! We’re 2/3 of the way to her title! It was a spectacular run and of course I didn’t ask anyone to record it for me. A clean run, smooth, just lovely. And this was immediately AFTER a dog broke out of its crate and went tearing around the ring, knocking down the ring gates with everyone yelling “LOOSE DOG!!”. She was perfect, perfect weaves from a tricky entry, NO BARS DOWN. I did two things differently, I played Susan Garrett’s “It’s Yer Choice” game with her beforehand, and I TOOK MY TIME (as Linda is always reminding me to do) – if I get too fast Nina races me, if I am steady and actually handle her, she is fine. What do you know, it works!

I did get our Open Standard run half recorded, it starts right after I rear-cross the weaves (which I do in class all the time, and which I did successfully Friday), it threw her off for some reason and she just wasn’t going to weave (we had already NQ’d by this point). BUT! She got ALL her contacts with NO faults, AND NO BARS DOWN which was huge!

Nina finished her first AKC Open title in FAST today – we’re moved up to Excellent for tomorrow! Exciting. (we won’t talk about our other runs today…yikes).

Demi did TWELVE WEAVE POLES for the first time today in her debut Open Jumpers run!

Austin came to visit with Lisa today, he’s such a sweetie.

Most exciting news of the day: my mum is just waiting for a rehab hospital bed to get the hell out of the hospital! She is doing great! What a relief. She has been in for over a month now.

Only slightly less exciting news: Demi earned her first AKC title today with a smoking fast Jumpers With Weaves run! She is now Alkemi Adrenaline Murtaya ST CGC NJP! YAY RON AND DEMI!

Nina qualified in FAST with a lovely run. Two bars down in Jumpers, but our first time in Open Standard was gorgeous – no Q because she bailed off the dogwalk, but the rest of the run was awesome, I rear crossed the weaves, just lovely. I was very, very pleased with her – I was worried we’d look like we didn’t belong in Open, but we were fine. More tomorrow!

Day 1: Nina finished her Novice Weavers title today, and qualified in Elite Tunnelers and Open Hoopers. Tish qualified in Novice Hoopers and ran a great Tunnelers run for an NQ, but a fast, responsive Personal Q!

Nina’s Elite Tunnelers Q (leg #2):

Day 2: Nina finished her first Elite title in Tunnelers (now we get national rankings!) and finished her Novice Chances title to put herself completely in Open/Elite. Tish was the star of the day – she won the Most Memorable Run award for her lovely Hoopers run last night, she’d never run Hoopers before and had only seen hoops at all a couple of times. She also qualified in Jumpers today (her second leg), went visiting in her first Touch N Go run, but came back and worked, and on her second run, she worked beautifully.

Nina Open Jumpers (NQ because of bars down):

Nina Open Touch N Go:

Tish Novice Jumpers:

Friday at All Dawgs CPE:

Nina’s Jackpot run, lovely run but knocked a bar in the gamble so NQ:

Tish’s Jackpot run (a Q):

I dropped Tish back down to Level 1 in Standard, to see if I could get some more speed and drive out of her on simpler courses, I think it worked!
Standard Round 1:

Standard Round 2:

Standard Round 2:

FINALLY! Nina finished her AKC Novice Agility title today at the DOTCORNY AKC trial at Boom Towne. Her AKC name is now Vastgota Nina Ricci NA NAJ NF! We are completely in Open now! (AND Nina’s daughter Demi got a Novice double Q yesterday for her first AKC title legs, and earned her second Jumpers Q today! She is on her way! Yay for Demi and her dad Ron!).

Here is her Standard run (table fault because I was so worried about the off-course potential between the a-frame and the table so I didn’t slow up where I should have), nice run though! GOOD ENOUGH anyway!  (and she had the fastest time of all dogs/all heights/all levels)

Jumpers, a bit of a disaster…bars down, didn’t finish the weaves, etc.