"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."

I don't like trialing at my "home" trial site since this is where I train every week, and my dogs don't seem to run well here. However, I entered Dolphin and Noodle for 2 days. Actually, I had originally entered Pizza, but after talking with my coach I decided to switch her entry to Dolphin and work a little more on Pizza's training for the next few months.

Well, Noodle did pull off a Double QQ on Friday, and Dolphin had a Jumpers and T2B Q, but in looking at the overall performance over the two days, I was not very pleased. I knew trialing them here was probably not a great idea, but ya live and learn. Here is the recap:

Dolphin - Saturday
Jumpers - a Q, but a slow one
Time 2 Beat - another Q, but a slow one
Standard - Dolphin stopped to scratch in between jumps and got a refusal. He knocked a bar also. He did finish strong. On the plus side - he got his weaves on all three classes, albeit slow.

Noodle - Saturday
Jumpers - A decent Q, not very fast.
Standard - A Q, she felt slower than jumpers but got 3 times the points, so go figure.

Dolphin - Sunday
Standard - Dolphin jumped up at my arm and missed a jump. He hasn't done that in a while, and that was a shame because he was running pretty decently. He also missed his weave entrance, but on the 2nd try he was nice and speedy. Overall he was pretty fast, better than yesterday.
Jumpers - He knocked a bar, and missed a jump when he turned too much on my rear cross (which I knew was going to be a possibility, but since we had already NQ-ed I figured why not try it?).

Noodle - Saturday
Standard - a decent, slow Q
Jumpers - She was pretty slow at the start, and very distracted. She stopped before a jump and then went around it, so rather than keep pushing, I walked her off. She has been pretty sparky and distracted all weekend, for some reason the crowd of dogs was really making her uncomfortable.

I'm really spinning my wheels at this sport. I am pretty lost at this point - all three dogs are training great, but they all seem to fall apart at trials. I'm not the least bit nervous, I have such low expectations now that it makes me even more relaxed (though I am not the kind of person that gets nervous anyways). Thank goodness we will have a decent break from agility for a the next 3 weeks. We will go back to training, and back to having FUN.

The day started off with Noodle's agility class in the morning. She was perfectly accurate, but she was really tired. We had some storms roll in over night and she was up all night. I went back and looked at the recording from the kennel camera and she literally went in and out and was up and restless ALL night long. No wonder she was tired.

The temperatures only went into the 80's today, and that's a bit of a cold front after the terrible 90's we have been having for weeks. I jumped at the chance to get out in the field today. The van was in the shop getting checked, so I could only take one dog, and Noodle won the lottery today. I planted 3 birds for her. It was still pretty hot and humid, but there was a decent breeze. She pointed from a better distance than the last few times we were in the field, mainly because she could smell them. It's funny seeing the difference in her when I use pigeons vs. quail. She points the pigeons, but with much less intensity than when she encounters quail. I guess she knows we aren't going to be shooting and retrieving the pigeons, and that's the best part.

She was rock steady on all of the birds, and it was a nice way to spend a summer morning. It was a really nice escape for me. I am struggling mentally - Pretzel is really not doing well and it's really hard for me to watch him. I know this is going to be his last summer, but I am really afraid the end is coming sooner than I thought. This crushes me.

On a lighter note, Pizza caught a rabbit in the yard - it's the one that I have been struggling to get rid of from my garden. She brought it right to my hand, and there wasn't a mark on this rabbit! What a beautiful soft mouth she has. I relocated the rabbit outside of the property and hopefully he stays away. If not, I am sure someone will catch him again (and he'd better hope it's Pizza because I doubt if the others will be as gentle).

I had an opportunity to take Dolphin and Noodle field training, working with a gunner and quail. It's time to get down to business and get Dolphin steady to shot, and work on Noodle's new bad habit of hopping forward on the shot. Well, of course Noodle was perfect today, never moved a muscle. It was a great training moment for her, because when the bird was shot, the other dog (who was honoring) broke right in front of Noodle and tried to get the bird. His handler managed to get him back before he reached the bird, and Noodle stood perfectly through all of that. I then was able to tap her to retrieve, and she did a beautiful retrieve to hand. We also had a couple nice honors, one of which had the bird flush and flew just feet above our heads and she stood great. The other dog was doing a lot of stopping because he was hot, and Noodle kept stopping to honor him. It was great to see her so thoughtful, but after doing that a multitude of times, she blew him off when he finally did stop to point. I need to watch for that, and if the other dog does a lot of stopping I need to get Noodle in a different area where she can't see him.

Dolphin had a very educational day today. He was by himself, and we just worked on steadiness. The first bird was shot at and missed, but did go down in the field. He broke on the shot and I really got after him hard about that. Time to get a little tougher with him, I think! It was a good idea, as the second bird had the same scenario - was shot at and missed, but went down in a field and he never moved a muscle. That's definitely progress. Hopefully I will have more opportunities to train this same way and really cement this lesson hin his head.

Today I met up with a friend and I took Noodle, Pizza, and Dolphin all field training. It was a great morning. I started off with Noodle, and she was absolutely amazing, with one gorgeous long distance honor, and a rock solid point. The very last bird was not so solid, as it flew over her head and she made a half-hearted attempt to grab it. I hated ending on that note, but hopefully she understood she was wrong.

Dolphin was really sparky at the start and I had to remind him to get his mind off of his bracemate on on business. After that he was wonderful. We had birds in launchers, and instead of letting him creep in on a point, I launched the bird as soon as he caught the first scent and started getting birdy. Hopefully with a few more weeks of repetitions, he will start stiopping earlier on the scent.

Pizza Pie was pretty much perfect. Some gorgeous honors (and some obsessing over honoring for a while), and nice and solid on her point. She is such a joy in the field with her dramatic ways. She is so natural at honoring, that once she honors, it's like she is paranoid and is constantly stopping to honor every time the other dog even pauses. I have learned that I have to get her on her own bird first before letting her honor.

I got home and found that Pretzel was not doing well. It was so sudden. He spent the day yesterday hanging out with me in the shade while I stained the board fence out front, and he was so happy and contented. Today his eyes were really unfocused, and he could not get up by himself. I had to use towels to lift him up and get him outside to potty. She had no interest in nooking, and wouldn't look me in the eye. My heart is shattering in a milling pieces. We have a vet appointment tomorrow, it is an appointment for his yearly checkup, I pray he is a little better tomorrow. - I AM NOT READY! NOT READY! -

I literally didn't sleep ALL night. Every time I dozed off, I had terrible dreams about Pretzel. My insides were churning all night. When I got up this morning, he seemed much brighter-eyed, but still very weak. I got him in to my vet, who did a number of tests on him. We know his cancer has spread. I know they said it would probably go to the lungs next, and I have no doubt this is true as his breathing has become rather shallow lately. The cancer is in a number of places, we really don't know for sure, but he is struggling. Since we have nothing to lose at this point, we tried giving him some powerful steroids to see if we can knock some of the inflammation caused by the tumors.

By later in the afternoon, Pretzel was definitely feeling better. He was much more interested in things, and he was able (with a struggle) to get up on his own and walk. He was definitely more interested in interacting with me again. I feel like the spark was back in his eye. I know the end is near, but I am SO relieved that it isn't today, or tomorrow. My vet feels we have weeks at best, and I will make them the best weeks ever for him. I know he will pass gently, but I am not sure how I will handle it. I am not doing well with this whole thing, I cry at the srop of a hat. I knew it was coming. Last October after his first cancer surgery they gave us a year. We aren't quite there yet. I just hope whatever happens, it is peaceful and easy for him. Can't ask for that for me, but I will make it.

Noodle had a busy day today - agility class at 8am (she did great on some crazy weave stuff), and then I went field training in the afternoon with a friend of mine. Noodle had some nice honors and nice points. I can't believe I am saying this, but I look forward to a break in this heat so I can do some serious field training without the dogs getting so hot, and the scenting conditions are so bad.

Pretzel is holding his own, he has sparked up a bit today and is walking around taking a nice interest in everything outside, especially ME. So wonderful to see his tail wag again.

Pizza and Dolphin had agility class in the morning, both did great (and both won their respective classes' weave pole challenge...yay!). In the evening, two of my friends came over and we did some agility training in the yard. It was a blast! I ran all three of my dogs, they had so much fun (even though it was blazing hot yet again today).

Pretzel is remaining the same, which is a good thing, I guess. He struggles a lot in the evenings, I guess it's because the day has worn him out. The cancer is in his lungs, I am afraid, just like the doctors predicted. I noticed that even when just standing around, his mouth is wide open to help him breathe. I am trying to limit his activity when it is hot outside, just to help him. I think trying to go around outside in the heat and breathe is exhausting him.

Because I am spending so much time with Pretzel, and usually one of the girls is with us, I feel like I have been neglecting Dolphin. This evening I decided to take him out to the bird dog club to run. No birds, no training, just a fun run with zero pressure. It was such a nice evening together, I know he enjoyed it. We explored in the woods, took a break to drink from the creek, and ran through the fields. The best part - we made it home and the rain came within 5 minutes of getting inside - great timing!

Noodle and I headed to a rally trial in Cincinnati today. It was a loooong day. We earned triple QQQ #5 today! Master went well, we scored a 98. Excellent was a bit of a mess as I had to re-do a sign and we had some miscommunication, and we scored a 92. Advanced went better, although we still had a sign we had to re-do, and we got a 96. The courses had a LOT of sits, which made it a little de-motivating. Noodle handled it all pretty good.

Today was the perfect weather to field train - breezy and in the mid-60's. Today was also the perfect day to train a couple nearly perfect dogs. Yes, it did happen!

I worked Dolphin with my friend's dog, and we had quail and our gunner/trainer. Dolphin had a halfway decent honor on his bracemate to start - it was passable (which is better than it has normally been!). When it was his turn to point a bird, he did so from a decent distance...YES - the nice cool breeze helped the scenting conditions tremendously and he was right on the money. Here is the best part: He held perfectly through the flush and the shot and the downing of the bird!!! Say what? YES! The bird was only winged, so fell fairly close, and you could hear it thrashing and fluttering it's wings in the cover pretty loudly (loud enough to cause the honoring dog to break). Dolphin stood like a statue. I walked back to him and waited a nice long pause before tapping him to release to the retrieve. He did a great retrieve! He put the bird down once but picked it back up on cmmand and brought it to hand. Believe me, we celebrated! I threw him a stinking party, I was so happy.

Kind of funny - he was trying to honor several times when his bracemate stopped for whatever reason, it was nice to see that he was thinking. Unfortunately this somewhat watered down his honor, as when his brcemate actually did go on point he was a little hesitant to honor. That's always the hard part about learning to honor, when they start thinking hard they honor too much, then it's like the boy who cried wolf. By the time the dog truly stops on point, Dolphin is second guessing himself. This will all be fixed with experience.

Dolphin's second bird was perfect. The gunner missed, but Dolphin never moved a muscle. I feel like our last training session finally made an impression on him. Maybe I have been babying him a bit too much?

Noodle ran by herself, we just put one bird out for her. She was rock solid on her point, never moved a muscle on the flush and shot. The gunner missed, so after I heeled her off the bird, I grabbed a dead one from the side by side, whoa'ed her, my gunner shot in the air and I threw the bird. I sent Noodle for the retrieve, and it was a hard one. The cover was tall, and she really didn't mark where the bird fell (that's a bit of a problem with her). After a LOT of hard work, she did find it and brought it right to hand. It was a good workout for her brain and nose.

I finished up the evening with Dolphin in scent work class. He was awesome. We are entered in a trial in a few weeks, our first one in a year. Hopefully our year of training will make a difference, since the last trial in 2023 he went 0 for 10 on his searches.

Day # 1 of the agility trial was pretty good! Here is the recap of our four runs:

FAST: He ran good, but knocked an 8 point jump. We nailed the send, so I scrambled and got the 9 point teeter done and out before the buzzer to earn a nice Q!
Standard: Standard was a bit lazy and messy - he knocked the triple and then missed his weave entrance. Finished strong, though!
Jumpers: It was a really nice Q! Good speed and all the bars stayed up...yay!
Time 2 Beat: Not a very good run, Dolphin lost a bit of his moho, knocked a bar.

As always my friend and I found a nice place to hike with the dogs. It was a hot evening, we did about 3 miles but it was mostly in the woods, so very pleasant. This is one of my favorite parts of these agility trips - the evenings after the trial we always go hiking and go through the runs from the day and pull out one really good thing from each run. It's definitely a mood-lifter if you didn't have the best day, because almost every run has something good to report.

Day #2 of the agility trial was good, I'd say even better than yesterday. Dolphin had some great motivation and his first three runs were really great (he ran out of gas for his last run in Time 2 Beat). Here is the recap:

FAST: This was one of those FAST runs that went completely to plan (that rarely happens!). We did my plan, got the send rather smoothly, and had a great run with a lot of time to spare.
Standard: What a great run this was! Our NQ was totally MY fault. There was a spot where I was undecided as to whether to do a front or a rear cross, I walked it both ways. In the run, I started to go for the front, and then chickened out at the last minute (Dolphin was coming pretty fast), but I was in the wrong position for the rear cross, so I awkwardly threw it in and he knocked the bar. The rest of the run was wonderful. I am mad at my own indecision, GRRRRR.
Jumpers: For the second day in a row we had a beautiful, nice, smooth jumpers run for a Q!
Time 2 Beat: Dolphin completely ran out of gas/mojo/drive on this run. His lack of effort caused a knocked bar, but we did get everything else correct, so I'll accept that, I guess.

As usual, we went on another hike in the evening. Man, it was hot. For some reason I was completely wiped out. We went a few miles, saw a covered bridge and played around in a river, but it was so hot and uncomfortable we opted to head back to the hotel. The dogs were beat! Dolphin fell asleep around 6:30pm and other than waking him up around 10:30 to go potty, he slept straight through til 5:30am.

Day #3 was great! Recap:

FAST: We bombed FAST - the send had an A-frame to jump to tunnel, and Dolphin jumped off the A-grame and missed the jump, then knocked about 3 bars before I was able to successfully get him over 2 jumps and out of the ring.
Standard: We had a beautiful standard run - there were several places where there were off-course traps, and Dolphin was heading for them but listened and we were able to finish clean, and with a good # of MACH points!
Jumpers: I was so hoping for another Q today - that would make a Double QQ for us, but alas it was not meant to be. Dolphin ran great, but knocked 2 bars. Darn!
Time 2 Beat: We had a great run, he nailed a hard angle to the weave entry, and we ended up with a Q and 2nd place!

Today was completely opposite in results from the last 2 days, but still a great day. I love that he finished so strong.

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I actually entered Dolphin and Noodle in a rare weekday agility trial about an hour south of us. I thought this would be too much for Dolphin as we just did 3 days of agility in Cleveland a few days ago. Amazingly, he ran fantastic - we had some of the best runs all year. Unfortunately he knocked a bar in every run other than Time 2 Beat. He knocked two bars in FAST but luckily they weren't in the send (jump, jump, wrap back to jump) so we managed to Q. He knocked the double in standard, but the rest of the run was fantastic. We had a nice Q in Time 2 Beat, and we had one of the best runs in jumpers, but also with a knocked bar. Overall our results weren't great, but I LOVED how he ran, so I am totally good with that!

Noodle ran OK. FAST was good, but she stopped in the middle of the send to investigate something on the floor. She ended up getting the send, but ran out of time so was a couple points short. The wheels came off a bit in standard when she completely misread my front cross and mised the jump and headed to the off course tunnel. So unlike her! She also charged ahead and missed the teeter, heading for the dogwalk. No Q there. However, we did get a decent Q in jumpers. She was a bit slow - we didn't run until after 4pm and she was pretty tired from being there since 7am. A q is a q, I'll take it!

This is our last agility trial for a while, as I have to stick around to be ready to breed Pizza, and then it is HUNT TEST SEASON!

We did something different today! Dolphin and I were entered in a Scent Work trial, our first one in a year. Last trial we did a year ago we ended up 0 and 10, so my goal was to do at least a little better than that. Goal accomplished!

Our first event was Advanced Handler Discrimination. Dolphin was all business and very direct - went right to the hide and we were 2 for 2, and first places to boot! He only needed one more Q for his title, so that was pretty cool to finish that. Now we are 100% out of advanced and into Excellent and Masters.

Excellent Buried went pretty well. Our first one was not so good, I called it way too early and NQ'ed right away. The second trial was a nice solid Q...too bad we don't need this Q as we already have that title. Oh well, it was nice to have some success because that was IT for the day.

Excellent Containers was a complete bust. We did hit a few, but both trials were solid NQs. I was really dreading Excellent Exterior, but that actually went pretty well. IN the first trial we got 2 right away, but timed out before we found the third. Come to find it was way on the far corner of the search area, and he had gone outside of the search area and tried to alert on it but I pulled him back thinking it was out of bounds. The second trial we got two again, but he got a bit too interested in a squeaky toy that was there as a distraction, and when I pulled him off of the toy he missed the hide that was a little bit farther down on that side, so no Q.

Excellent Interiors started off with a bust on the first trial. The second one started off really good - he alerted in the first room, and then walked casually around and then came to the middle of the room and looked at me. I was correct in thinking that room was clear...woot! We went into the second room and I called one alert correctly. I knew there was one more hide left. Dolphin stuck his head under a table and came out with a cobweb across his face. He wiped it off with his paw and then went back under the tabel. I mistakenly though that he was showing me the hide, so I called it. Unfortunately it was no where arount that area, so another NQ.

Today's results are 3 for 10...better than 0 for 10 last time. It was so blasted hot, Dolphin struggled a little bit with the heat. Overall it was a fun diversion from the usual agility/field work circle we've been going in. I think he liked the diversion.