Pizza and I did our AKC Agility League run this afternoon, and she was amazing! First try, she was clean and fast. We had a blast doing it, and I know she is LOVING agility without any stressors. Of course, we now have incentive to try and stay the #1 Weimaraner in agility league, so the pressure is on! Not really...that's the beauty of this league - ZERO pressure.

In the evening, I took Bacon over to my friend's training building and did about 45 minutes of training. We mixed it up and did some circle work first. She was awesome at her circle work, it felt like we were finally getting it together! Of course, 30 seconds in to her tugging, another tooth popped out. Looks like another back tooth like the one she lost in Indy a few days ago.

Her box work was awesome, she seemed to be doing better at her discriminations, and her back-up was decent. Reverse retrieve was awesome, and we even did some left side and right since heeling, which she did great. I finished with some conformation practice. Of course, she gaited perfectly next to me the whole time and never pulled. I cannot duplicate the excitement of a show while working by myself. I can only hope I just do it enough that it becomes muscle memory for her.

Today I had my semi-private agility foundation lesson with Bacon. Even though I was able to train her last night, I still expected her to be a bit wild and untrained after spending so many days cooped up at the dog show. Well, I just love it when she surprises me for the good! She was wonderful! She did leave me to go jump on the instructor a few times, but amazingly I was able to call her back. We were even able to work in the ring with two other puppies at the same time...granted we were app spread reeeeeally far apart, but still!

We did some barrel work, and I was really happy with her speed and drive, and her enthusiasm. We also did some 2o 2o plank work and she did really well with that. My next goal is to use the long plank and start adding some speed to it.

One thing I have to remember is that if she offers a behavior that I have trained and I didn't ask for it, do NOT reward it. I am typing this here so I remember that, because I have a bad habit of letting her offer something and I reward even though I did not ask for it, and this could lead to problems down the road. Overall it was a very good session and I left feeling a bit more positive than I have in the past.

I went to one of my favorite places for an agility trial, and only 45 minutes from home...bonus! Friday I had both Dolphin and Noodle entered. Well, it was a bit of a poopy day. Both dogs nailed their FAST send and qualified, but that was the only Q Dolphin got all day. He was the first dog on the line in every single class...ugh. In Standard, the judge walked in while we were waiting, and he set a water bottle down under the A-Frame. Dolphin, being the OCD boy that he is, saw that bottle and obsessed over it. I sent him over the star jump and he ducked behind me to try to go investigate the bottle. I called him right back and circled him around and he knocked the bar, but went on to finish the course clean after that. He knocked a bar in Jumpers, and took a wrong course in Time 2 Beat. Noodle had a slightly better day. She missed a jump and then went over to visit the judge, so I walked her off. She redeemed herself with a Q in Jumpers. I can tell she is not feeling well, her runs were very slow and labored. When we got home, Noodle stole Mark's pork dinner off the counter, Dolphin promptly stole the pork from Noodle, and thank goodness he has a great "Drop It" command. Bad dogs!

Saturday was much much much better! Noodle had the day off, so I brought Bacon along for some training. Dolphin had a stellar day - a Quadruple QQQQ!!!! This is Double QQ #18!!! Only two more to go! I am really excited!

On Sunday Noodle was entered again. Both dogs blew FAST. Dolphin actually got the send (which was a very difficult 3 jump serpentine) but then charged ahead to grap some extra jumps which cost him time and we ran out of time before we could get enough points...only 6 points short. Poop. Noodle was NOT feeling it. We attempted the send and she made zero effort to go out and get the jump, so we opted to leave the ring. I am trying to get a read on her as to why she is doing so poorly this weekend. I know she hasn't been feeling well all week, but she seemed like she perked up by the end of the week and started eating better. Noodle redeemed herself with a pretty nice Standard run and Q, but fizzled out at jump #2 in jumpers so we left the ring and called it a day. Her Jumpers Q on Friday did earn her the MJPB (Master Jumpers Preferred Bronze) title, which was cool! Kind of silly since she has already earned her regular Master Jumpers Bronze title years ago, but when we dropped to preferred AKC made us start all over from scratch. Crazy.

Although Dolphin's day started off with a fail in FAST, it skyrocketed after that with two beautiful smooth qualifying runs in Standard and jumpers and another win in Time 2 Beat. I am ecstatic!!! This is Dolphin's DOUBLE QQ #19 !!!!! We only have one more to go for his MACH! OMG! I am beyond excited...my head is exploding with excitement! I would love to finish this title here where all my friends are...part of me is hoping that we don't have success at the agility trial in Florida in a couple weeks...that would be nuts to earn our MACH with no one there to see it! You know, whatever happens happens...I'll take it! It's been such a crazy hard journey that I thought I would never finish, and now I see the finish line, it's right there!

I am going to have a hard time typing this. I will have to do it in spurts when I am mentally capable so please bear with me.

On Monday, February 9, 2026 my life changed forever. I woke up, ate breakfast and chatted with Mark about our upcoming Florida trip. We haven’t been back to our Florida property in 2 ½ years and we were both beyond excited to get there, take the dogs out on the boat, and visit all of our favorite islands. Life was good. Life was wonderful. I am with the man I love with all of my heart, and he loves me.

At 2:00 that day Mark started feeling sharp abdominal pain and nausea. At first we thought it was the stomach flu. When it didn’t clear up we thought it was food poisoning. By 9pm we decided that it was too severe to be either, so I took him to the emergency room. After a blood test and a cat scan, we were notified by 4am that it was pancreatic cancer, with spots on the liver. The oncologist came in later that morning to speak to us. He was 99% sure the spots on the liver were cancer that had spread from the pancreas. This is incurable. No cure. Just treatment to prolong life. My own life was shattered in that instant.

Mark is still in the hospital. He had a liver biopsy done today. I haven't slept or eaten in days. I am having panic attacks over and over again - heart racing, can't breathe, sobbing. I can't control myself and I am falling apart.

I had just missed the oncologist’s visit when I came, so Mark had the nurse call him back so he could explain everything to me and answer my questions. Mark's liver biopsy came back and he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer that has spread to the liver. There is no cure, we can only hope to shrink the tumor with chemo and maintain chemo for as long as possible to keep the tumors down. He will start a 4-drug regiment called Folfirinox which is pretty toxic, but powerful enough to hopefully shrink the tumors. If this works, our hope is that he will be able to be transitioned into a lesser chemo to maintain the tumors. He will be basically on chemo every 2 weeks for the rest of his life.

We tried to get an appointment at the OSU James Cancer Hospital in Columbus but they can't even see him for his initial appointment until March 9, and the oncologist feels that is too long to wait to start treatment. We will do our treatment here in Pickerington.

He does have the CA19-9, which is a blood-based tumor marker so we can check the progress of the chemo with a blood test every two weeks. If the chemo is working, the numbers will show it right away. Normal levels are less than 40 and his right now is at 16,000.

They are also going to do a celiac plexus block. This will deaden the main nerve to the pancreas to stop his pain, so he won't need to be on opioids throughout the treatment.

None of this is good news, we are devastated and trying to wrap our heads around all of this. Mark has a pretty good attitude about everything, but I could tell this information really hit him hard. He is realizing how difficult and uncomfortable and painful his life is about to come. Hell, it’s already there.

Mark was finally able to come home today. I know this is a "training diary" and it is mainly about my dog (and former horse) training escapades, so I want to keep the personal stuff mostly off of it. Not everyone needs to read about my misery, especially if they are going through something similar themselves. I have been writing out my thoughts and my grief on a Google doc. I read somewhere that putting your thoughts down in writing is theraputic. Well we shall see...

In keeping with my open door policy, I will post a link here if you want to follow along and see how badly I am NOT coping with it. Or who knows, maybe I will? Anyways... below is the Google Doc link. It starts at the beginning and goes forward, and I add entries to the bottom from my phone as things hit me or I feel the need to let it out. But please, don't read it if you are having trouble coping yourself. I'm not strong and I am definitely no role model or inspiration. As you will see, I cannot handle it.

I deleted the link. It's too personal. Sorry.

Without further ado, I will return back to my dog training, and just a few mentions here and there of the bigger personal events.

Not much to report on the dog training front. Monday my friend and I trained our puppies together, it actually went fairly well. I tried training a few nights ago and it was a MESS. Yeah, the mess was all me, Bacon could feel something was really off with me and she just ran rogue. My dogs are all getting neglected right now, I should care but I just can't bring myself to feel anything. Anyways, back to the dog training topic - Bacon is doing really well with her 2on 2off work. Her barrel work comes and goes, depending on her energy. I worry that her heart may be an issue with her stamina.

I have to share the valentine's card and gift Mark gave me the other day. I got addicted to these chocolate covered pretzels when my friend brought some home from Pittsburgh, so of course Mark went and found where he could buy them locally and got me three boxes. That's Mark - he's always doing for everybody else.

Today I took Bacon and Pizza to the bird dog club to train with a friend. It was wet and muddy, but warm, and I thought getting out in the field would help my mental state. Yeah, no, I had a complete mental breakdown all the way home.

Bacon did pretty well in the field. I put out 4 pigeons for her, and the first two she stopped on point from about 15 feet away. I like that! The air was humid and still, so it was tough to scent the birds. I trained Pizza eith my friend's dog. We put out 8 birds, she pointed 4 and backed 4 and was absolutely perfect. She is just gorgeous when she works in the field. It was hard driving home, realizing that when i lose Mark, I lose everything, including all of my finances. No more dog training and competing for me...I am losing my entire life in so many ways. I don't think anyone can understand that, so I am trying really hard to keep it together in public.

On Saturday, Bacon was outside playing with Dolphin and Noodle and when she came in, I noticed this big lump on her back between her shoulder blades. It's larger than a golf ball, and really hard and warm to the touch, and moves under the skin. It was not at all painful to her. Today I got her in to my vet, he scanned it and it is the exact location of her microchip. We are not sure if that is the issue, but he took a sample of the lump and it appears to be an abscess/infection. She is now on antibiotics and the lump seems to be going down a bit.

I haven't been able to update much lately. I really haven't been capable. I am not fuinctioning well, to say the least. I have been working with Bacon off and on, but our training has not been going well. I am not sure if it is because she feels my stress and anxiety and is reacting, or if maybe I am doing something wrong, but we are not gelling and she has not been wanting to work with me very much. Tonight I started two new classes at a local training place that I have not trained at before. Bacon started an "Advanced Beginner Obedience" class. She actually did fairly well. I was surprised that she started somewhat focused on me with the TONS of dogs in the ring with her. However, her "sit" was completely broken. After a few sits she absolutely refused to sit again. It was a bit frustrating. After 30 minutes of nonstop training, this puppy was DONE. I am not sure I love how this class is being run, we literally trained for a full 60 minutes straight, and it was way too much for my 5 month old puppy.

The second class was a Rally Signs class with Dolphin. It's time to get him going in Rally. The signs were way over his head, lots of excellent and masters signs. He actually did pretty good!

I made it through those two classes, then cried on the way home. I am so lonely. I feel so alone in this journey. I feel like a lot of my friends are avoiding me because this is something no one really wants to face or deal with.

This weekend I entered Dolphin (and Noodle) at the last minute at a local agility trial. Dolphin hates to trial here, it might be a waste, but he has a chance to earn his MACH and it would be wonderful if Mark could be here to watch it happen, if he feels up to it.

Oh, and Bacon's lump is way smaller than it was this weekend. That's a good sign.

This morning was rough again. I managed to get myself together enough to head out to the bird dog club around noon with Pizza and Bacon. I trained Bacon twice, first I worked her with my friend on some loose/wing-flipped pigeons. She was outstanding - stopping on point and really staying steady. After that, I got Pizza out and ran her with two of my friend's dogs. We just ran them, tossed a few pigeons to do stop to flush training (she did great). After that, I worked Bacon again, this time with another guy and his Brittany puppy. Again she did fantastic. It was very healing to be out there, but driving home was heavy. I felt heavy. Heading home to reality, and my reality is pretty black right now.

I am honestly trying to keep my emotions out of this training diary, but they color every inch of my life right now so it's hard to separate. Bear with me, because things will only get worse, unfortunately.

I took Dolphin and Noodle to a local agility trial today, in hopes of finishing Dolphin's MACH. We started off good with a decent Q in standard. Dolphin HATES running at his home agility club, so I didn't expect much. I called Mark and he came over to watch Dolphin's Jumpers run that could potentially earn his MACH. Dolphin managed to crush my dreams early by knocking the first bar. No MACH today!

Noodle actually ran both of her runs clean, but was significanly over time in both runs. She seems very stiff, even with the thorough warm up and stretching I do with her. I feel like she is getting pretty arthritic. I am going to talk to my vet about this on Tuesday and see if there is something he can give her to help. If not, I fear her agility career might truly be over.

Because I need more to stress about, I noticed this new lump on Bacon's hip. It came from her Lepto vaccination that she got on Tuesday, the tech gave it to her in the hip and mentioned she might get a lump but it would go away. Well here we are 4 days later and it is now abscessed, and I squeezed some bloody pus out of it. Just great. She is already on antibiotics for her lump on her back. We go back to the vet on Tuesday so I will see what needs to be done. I feel like the weight of the world is crushing me right now.

On a more positive note, I did some puppy training with Bacon and my friend this evening. Surprisingly Bacon did GREAT! She only left me like 3 times to go visit her buddy Doree, and I managed to get her to come back to me (with a lot of squealing and running on my part haha!). Her barrel work was really good, as was her plank work. I worked on some heeling, and she is doing pretty well. I have figured out that Bacon does not enjoy repetition and drilling, she loses focus and drive if we repeat something too many times. I have a very bad habit of over-training, probably because I love training so much. I have to keep that in mind. I also (per the suggestion of my vet) upped her heart meds a little bit and it has made a BIG difference in her energy and stamina.