Today I was able to escape the house to take my dogs to the Cincinnati Weimaraner Specialty in Wilmington, OH. I had both dogs entered, but obviously couldn't show both since Mark was incapacitated. I had a friend come along to help hold dogs, so that made it easier.

Dolphin was first up in sweepstakes. He hasn't been shown since December, so he was a bit worried about the judge going over him. He got 2nd out of 2 in his class. Pizza was in a class of 3 bitches, and won her class! Pizza decided to be a rockstar and win Best In Sweepstakes! I was very happy with how she did, after 4 months off.

Since I couldn't show both in best of breed, I have Pizza the rest of the day off and decided to show Dolphin since he needs the experience. He was very solid in best of breed, and showed much more confident. He ended up winning Select Dog at the specialty, earning his first Grand Championship major and champion defeat! What a way to start his "specials" career! All that at not even 1 year old yet...the future is bright.

Pizza and Dolphin were entered in the all-breed show in Wilmington today, but I opted to just bring Pizza, show, and head back home. Pizza showed better today than she did yesterday, and earned Select Bitch. On the home front, Mark is slowly improving each day - the pain is lessening a tiny bit each day and he is now able to very slowly walk with a walker around the rooms on the first floor. We are getting there! I am so blessed to still have him with me. I think about that constantly. Life is so fleeting, and so unpredictable. I don't know that I will ever be secure and comfortable with things again.

I worked a little bit on retrieving with Noodle this afternoon. She didn't do very well outside. In the house I got her retrieving a rolled up wad of paper, but outside she was very inconsistent. Going to keep working...we have a hunt test in one week, for ONE shot at that last senior hunter leg that we need.

Happy birthday, Dolphin! Dolphin turns one year old today, I can't believe my little baby puppy is really not a puppy anymore! Just think, a year ago today i was sitting in the parking lot of the emergency vet hospital where Pizza was undergoing abdominal surgery for a blockage, and I received word that Country was in labor. Dolphin was destined to be mine, I just know it.

To celebrate Dolphin's birthday, we did some field training. Dolphin actually saved me money by finding a rogue bird that my trainer was able to pick up, thus taking a bird off of my bill. Woot! Noodle and Pizza were stellar. Noodle actually did some really good retrieves of a dead quail. I took a couple dead birds home to train with. The retrieve is the part of the test I am most worried about, probably because it is the part of the test I have done the least amount of training. It's hard to train for a real retrieve without a gun or live birds to shoot.

Noodle heads to a hunt test on Saturday, and then the two crazies (Pizza and Dolphin) head to the field futurity on the following Monday. I have a few more training sessions scheduled, so we will see how those go.

Today is humbling day. We did some field training, and all three dogs made some big boo-boos. Noodle grabbed a bird about 20 feet in to the backfield (woods), after her bracemate was on point and got called off. She went to investigate and picked it up. She brought it to me cleanly, but yikes... Pizza couldn't handle a bird that decided to walk under her nose, and tried to break (I caught her in time, thank goodness). And Dolphin was all over the place. However, I went home and worked the retrieve with Noodle with two birds and she did great. So there is hope! Back to Top

Today was my first "normal" day, as in agility classes! It's been a month since Dolphin had class. Yeah, it showed. Even though I had trained him several times when I rented the building, I could tell he was lacking a bit of drive. I usually know that he is confused if his drive disappears. He did really well on his contacts, though I had to coax him on the teeter the first few times. Right now he is jumping 18", which is as high as I will go until he is x-rayed to see if his growth plates are closed. We are doing very little jumping, and when we do work on the jump circling, I lower it a bit to make it easier on him.

Pizza did a little better in her class. She is an odd one to train, it's hard to read her mood sometimes. We did pieces of the course from the AKC National Agility Championships, held last weekend. She did surprisingly well, considering the difficulty. I am not planning on entering her in any trials until June, hoping to get her a little more trained and under control.

It was a gorgeous day, mid-70's and sunny...the sunshine makes me happy! Mark is slowly improving in tiny increments every day. That is a blessing. Today was a great day to take some photos of the two trios. We are definitely blessed with Weimaraners!

This morning was Noodle's first class in 3 weeks. She was awesome She NAILED the parts of the National Agility trial course we did. She is so accurate and has such try in her, I just love her to pieces. So fun to train!!!

After class, I took the three to one last field training session before our big weekend/week. Everyone did well. I tried hard to screw Noodle up by flushing the bird right into her face, and she held staunchly. Pizza did great also, and Dolphin was doing better being steadied on the check cord. At this point I have trained as hard as I could for these events. I could not have done any more. What will be will be...

INTRODUCING NEW SENIOR HUNTER NOODLE!!! Noodle and I headed north to Shiloh, OH to a hunt test. She only needed one more leg for her senior hunter title, and she nailed it!

The course was a big one, with a lot of hills. It was a warm morning, and I gave her several water breaks on the backfields to keep her hydrated. When we got to the bird field, she was ready! We found the first bird, she had a beautiful point and held through the flush and shot (yay!), but the bird flew too low for the gunners to take a shot, so I blanked it and heeled her off (yes!!!) and we went on. She quickly found a second bird, went on point, held through the flush and shot, and this shot was good. I sent her on the retrieve, and she went straight out, found it, and retrieved it STRAIGHT back to hand! This is a big improvement over a few weeks ago, and I was thrilled! Now I just needed to not screw up the rest of the test.

They asked me to just stay along the tree line and try to stay out of the field to give the other dog a chance to find a bird. Her bracemate went on point, and as I was bringing her around for her honor, she went on point on yet another bird! She had to stay on point the entire time they worked the other dog, and it took a LONG time. I cannot believe how steady and staunch she was on point while waiting. When it was our turn, I flushed, they shot, I sent for the retrieve, and it was another perfect retrieve right to hand!

They planted a bird for the other dog to point so Noodle could honor. It was a tough situation as she couldn't see the dog well with the hills and the high cover, but she did honor (with a little "whoa" help from me), and we finished!

This was a HUGE proud moment for me to finish a senior hunter myself. I trained so hard for this, and I feel like Noodle has been steadily improving. We aren't going to stop here, I desperately want to earn our Master Hunter, and that would be flipping amazing! I think we can actually do it!

The agility place where I train did a fun thing - they set up the AKC Agility National Championships finals course in the building, and people could rent for an hour to try it. Of course I had to try it with my girls! Pizza did pretty good - we had a few boo-boos so we tried it several times, but Noodle came out of the van, walked into the building, and nailed it on the first try! It was such fun.

We made it to Virginia! I arrived last night to Farmland, VA with Dolphin and Pizza, and checked in to the most disgusting, dirty Days Inn I have ever stayed at...gross enough that I slept in my clothes on top of the sheets. I got online and found a nice Air BnB for me and the dogs to stay at starting tomorrow, but I had to suffer through one night in the world's smelliest room.

The field trial grounds were just gorgeous! It was really warm here - 70's and 80's and a large change from cold Ohio. My first event was the Open Puppy stakes with Dolphin today. Seeing the grounds was very intimidating, it was huge and hilly and I could easily get lost! Thank goodness I borrowed a GPS collar for my dogs, I am terrified I will lose them.

Dolphin was a little intimidated at the start of his puppy stakes, but the farther he went the more confident he got, and he started ranging out nicely. He had a few nice bird finds (which isn't mandatory in puppy, but still nice). Best of all, I could tell he was having a blast! Likewise, so was I.

At the end of the day, they announced the placements, and I was surprised and proud to find that Dolphin placed 4th! That was pretty exciting for us...show dawg done good!

We checked in to our air bnb house, we had the entire 3 bedroom house to ourselves, and the best part was that it had a fenced-in back yard for the dogs! What a nice change from the nasty Days Inn. Note to self: Always read the reviews before booking hotels!. Yeah...lesson learned!

I ended up having no events yesterday, as they bumped the Open Derby to today. This meant that poor Pizza had to run twice today.

She was up early in the morning for the Open Derby. She broke away nice, and although seemed a bit intimidated at first, she got more and more confident as we went along. At one point she dove into some brush following scent, and got all tangled up in thorns, to the point where I had to go rescue her. She started to panic a little bit as the thorns caught on her skin and collar, and I even had to pull a thorn out of her eyelid! Por girl. She had a really nice solid point and a few other finds, and ended up with a placement of 4th place! I think she wanted to stay up with Dolphin and his placement. I was proud - another show dawg holding her own!

Only a crazy person would enter an agility trial less than 2 days after competing in a big field trial 8 hours away. Oh yeah, I am that crazy person! I wasn't quite crazy enough to enter Pizza, as she had been running wild at the field trial all week. I did enter Noodle, because I was strangely confident that she would be just fine with a week off from agility. Strangely confident? Well, you know I never ever take anything for granted with Noodle, but she has been so solid for me for a long time now, I let my confidence make my decisions...and a GOOD decision it was!

We started off the morning with Excellent Jumpers. We had two runs, and by golly of she didn't nail both of those runs for a Q and finishing off her Excellent Jumpers title!

Next was Master Standard - Noodle was with me 100% and nailed both courses for her very first Master standard Q's, and her very first MACH points! Yes...MACH points! Who would have ever thought we would be in the position of earning points towards the highest agility title. I feel this may actually be possible for us! I am scared to dream, but I'm a-doin' it anyways. How about dreaming about a MACH and a Master Hunter title? Wouldn't that be amazing? Dare to dream? You betcha!

I haven't posted much about Cadence lately. Since my life came to somewhat of a screeching halt a month ago with Mark's accident, Cadence went on to a show in Georgia without me. It was a learning experience for her, let's just leave it at that!

Today I finally was able to go out and ride. She was wonderful, she felt so magnificent under saddle. I felt pretty confident, we worked out canter transitions several times and I started getting a better feel for them. She is getting a few weeks off while my trainer and crew head to a show in Ocala, but we will attempt a show in Wilmington in just a few weeks. I feel pretty relaxed about it, what will be will be. I am not letting any of this part of my life stress me out, I have plenty other parts to do that. Going with the flow...could be my new motto for 2021!

Back to training! We headed out to train in the field today. Now Noodle is "officially" training for master hunter (but then, we have been training for master all along, but now it's REAL!). Man she was good today. Honoring without a whoa, and we worked on standing patiently still while another dog went for a retrieve after a shot. She did awesome!

We worked a bit on retrieving with Pizza today - first time retrieving with an actual shot. She held her whoa through the shot, and me throwing the dead bird, and waited for her release and retrieved straight to me twice! This is a pretty big accomplishment, because she isn't a natural retriever and we had to work a bit at home on making retrieving fun. We worked Dolphin with another puppy, both on check cords, still working on steadying up. He is making slow progress, but it is progress so that's all that counts. It's not a race.

Today Dolphin had his first "real" agility class. We have been taking privates and semi-private lessons since he was a baby puppy, and he finally has developed the skills to jump in to the Level 3 class. I was a little worried that he might be too far behind the other dogs, but he was right up in there! Did 6 weaves several times, and we did some jump-tunnel sequences, working on sending to the regular end of the tunnel, and the bypass end. I think he really enjoyed being around the other dogs, and the positive energy in the class. This will be good for him.

I had entered the show in Marion this weekend - Pizza was entered Friday and Saturday, and Dolphin was entered Sunday. Since it was so close, I could drive back and forth, including in between breed and group. This was good for my situation right now at home

Friday we showed late in the afternoon...Bonus! Pizza showed well, and was awarded Best of Opposite and Best of Breed Owner-Handled, earning a few grand champion points...working towards her bronze. She showed great in the Owner-Handled group, but got no love. She just isn't flashy enough for groups...she is beautiful and correct, but she doesn't fly around the ring (as she shouldn't), and is more of what I would consider "quietly stunning".

Saturday we earned Select Bitch, and she showed great in the owner-handled group and pulled off a Group 4 out of a big, tough group! I did a few things different when stacking her today, as an experiment, and it worked out well. Now I have something to mull over and think about (which I love!).

No sooner did I get home than I found out that Dolphin had thrown up several times this afternoon, and had complete liquid diarrhea. I am talking diarrhea coming out like a fire hose! Off to the emergency vet we went, and $800+ later he was home with a big pile of meds. Luckily the x-rays showed nothing at all in his stomach or intestines (no blockage...yay!), so it was probably just something weird that he ate causing a bacteria overflow. Thank goodness no surgery was needed. I was having flashbacks to a year ago when Pizza had her obstruction surgery. I never want to go through that again!

Obviously, Dolphin and I did not head to the show today. I spent most of the day cleaning up diarrhea as it accidentally came out of him as he was walking around or laying around the house. He seems to feel just fine, is running and playing, but that liquid diarrhea was pretty uncontrollable for most of Sunday.

Monday was a little better, he still had diarrhea but was able to hold it all day, so no more clean-ups in the house. It made for a very fun couple of days. Hopefully we are getting to the end of it.

Dog training is like a complicated dance. Two steps forward, on step back, one step forward, three steps back, then a leap forward...I never was much of a dancer. Today we had major steps forward in Pizza and Dolphin's field training, and a little step back in Noodle's. Maybe I am exaggerating a bit, it wasn't really a step backwards for Noodle, it's just that she made a mistake that she never makes anymore. We were working on retrieve, and standing on a whoa while the other dog retrieves (always hard for a high-drive dog). Noodle retrieved first and did a beautiful straightforward retrieve, waiting for me to release her after the shot. Then I whoa-ed her so she had to stand while the other dog retrieved. Noodle actually broke on the shot for the other dog, only jumped forward about 2-3 steps but those steps would mean failure in Master Hunter. I was really surprised, because she has been so solid in her training for months. I can't expect everything to be perfect, and in the end this was a good training lesson for her

Pizza was awesome, and did a beautiful back on her own without a whoa. How awesome is that? Dolphin made the biggest strides, doing some impressive Pretzel-like points on the check cord with little to no pressure on the line, meaning he was holding himself at a whoa when on point. That's a lotta progress for my baby boy.

Call me crazy, but I am thinking about entering all 3 crazies in a field trial in a few weeks. This would mean traveling by myself with 3 dogs. Insanity. Should I do it? Hmmm...

Pizza and I took a quick little girls' trip to Morgantown, West Virginia to a dog show. I had hoped to do some hiking while I was there, but the weather was rainy the whole time. We did manage to walk a couple blocks to the river, and then of course got caught in a rainstorm and get very wet running back to the hotel.

Thursday, Pizza was the only bitch special entered, so our Best of Opposite ribbon was not too exciting. We also got owner-handled best of breed, but got nothing in group. We spent the evening in the hotel, and I have to admit it was really nice to spend a couple days just one-on-one with my Pizza Pie. She loves the individual attention. I know these little trips are important for that very reason.

Friday was a bigger show, with 3 bitch specials entered and competition in owner-handled best of breed. Pizza showed great and got a best of opposite and owner-handled best of breed. We ended up having a LONG wait for group, and even when we came in to the building when the group before us was ready, we still had a long wait due to a delay from a judge's conflict. Pizza is NOT good with standing around on leash for an hour. She was a little more uncooperative in group, but her extra energy gave her a little extra sparkle in the ring, and we got an owner-handled group 4! That's huge for her, because it is SO hard to place in a group with a female Weimaraner. She is just not super-flashy like the other sporting dogs, so i have to show really hard to get noticed. Well, today we finally did!