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

Rally trial time! Noodle and I are very slowly chipping away at that RACH title. I mean, VERY slowly! We were entered today in a very very small rally trial in Eastern Ohio. Another 4:15am wake up and drive in the wee hours of the morning. The weather was perfect - sunny and pleasant, and not too hot (which was a good thing since the trial was in an un-air-conditioned building).

It's funny how my perspective is so skewed in Rally. I felt like our three runs were really bad. When I went home and watched my videos, I was like "Dang, we looked pretty good!" It just never feels very good, maybe because I am still so uncomfortable doing rally.

Noodle wnded up with a score of 94 in Master and 4th place, a 93 in Excellent with a 1st place (we had to re-do a sign that Noodle got mixed up on), and a nice 99 and 1st place in Advanced. It was a tough venue - the ring butted up to the obedience ring, and Noodle really lost focus in Excellent when they were cheering and clapping during awards in the other ring (hence the lower score). However, she kept her wits about her and we managed to get everything done without issue...always a win for us! The best part - we won High Triple and High Combined! Granted, there wasn't much competition, but still we had to get all three done and qualified with high enough scores to win, so that's something.

I really need to hit more Rally trials if I am going to get serious about finishing this RACH title, but it's so difficult. They seem to be few and far between, and I have so much else going on right now. Priority #1 is Pizza, STILL waiting for her to come in season. GET ER DONE!

It was another perfect morning for field training! We started off in the back field of the bird dog club - it was horribly stubbly with lots of harsh stems everywhere. Both Noodle and her bracemate slowed way down and had to pick their way through the briars and stubble. Yuck. She did have a couple nice honors, and was really solid on her bird (other than a turn/step to mark the fall), and a good retrieve. I am hoping she finally has her brain back together after totally losing it all spring/summer. If Pizza isn't ready to breed next weekend I might head to a hunt test and try her out.

We headed back to the front field where the cover was much friendlier. Dolphin was amazing! I am almost afraid to gush about it. OK, his honoring was meh, and he totally ran past a stop to flush and didn't even pause (yikes), but he was PERFECT and solid on two birds. The first one was shot fairly close, and he stood great through the shot and fall and waited for me to release him. The second bird was shot really far away, and it did one of thoze circle-traily falls where it took forever to hit the ground. He watched the whole thing, marked it perfectly, and did an incredible beeline to the bird - straight out and back (with a reposition or two in his mouth). BIG improvement! We still have to work on the little things like staying put for the honor, and that dreaded stop to flush, but we are making progress finally.

Everything is so much up in the air right now. I can't make any plans or enter anything as I am waiting for Pizza to come in season. Luckily the hunt tests usually don't close until 3-4 days before, so it allows me to make last minute entries. However, you know me...I am a planner and I hate not being able to set my schedule in stone. Meanwhile Pizza is holding out on me. I truly expected her to come in season a couple weeks ago. Of course, now I am worrying and stressing. I expect this will be my life until I have puppies safely on the ground. Oh who am I kidding? I'll be worrying and stressing long after that happens!

Pizza and I did a 3 hour agility seminar today. On a good note - Pizza was nearly flawless, and ran fantastic no matter what challenge we threw at her. On the down side - this meant we got very little ring time as she was one-and-done and didn't get a chance to have to re-do things or repeat sequences. I guess I should be glad for her awesomeness...I am, don't get me wrong. It just made for a very long 3 hours.

Dolphin and I split an hour private lesson with our training pal. He ran really well until the last 15 minutes of the hour. Contrast to Pizza's 3 hours, Dolphin ran a LOT, pretty much on task the entire hour. He made some mistakes, I made a lot of mistakes, but overall it was a great session and we learned a lot. I love when I have opportunities like this to increase my skills.

Pizza is still holding out. She's killin' me!

What an amazing day. Seriously amazing.

Noodle and I changed gears and headed to Xenia to show in our Weim club's specialty show. There were two specialties, I only entered sweepstakes and the second specialty. The judge for the second specialty was running late, so they flipped the judges and the judge I was supposed to show to ended up judging the morning specialty, which I hadn't entered. No biggie.

After the first specialty was done, Noodle and I showed in Veteran Sweepstakes. we were the only veteran, so obviously we won. Noodle showed wonderful! She looked amazing. Fun thing - when I came out of the ring, the judge from the morning specialty was watching, and said that she really wished I had showed Noodle to her in the morning specialty. I told her that I had originally entered under her, but the judge assignments got switched at the last minute. What a compliment!

I had Noodle entered in the veteran bitch class in the afternoon specialty. She was the only veteran bitch, so we won our class, and on we went to best of breed. There were 6 other bitch specials entered today. Noodle again showed fantastic, you could tell she was happy, super confident, and just looked on her toes. The judge worked us a lot, separated dogs into groups of 2 and 3 and had them gait around together. She pulled Noodle and the winners dog out to gait around, and then had us stack on one side. She worked other groupings, and then you could have knocked me over with a nudge when she pointed to Noodle and announced she was Best of Breed!!! Say what? Noodle is now a Best in Specialty WINNER, and against some good competition!

This win means SO much to me! Not just because she won best of breed, but when you look at the catalog she was the ONLY dog in the entire show that had performance titles. My mantra of "More than just a pretty face" is for REAL when it comes to her. This girl never ceases to amaze me with what she can do. My Ride-Or-Die girl...I don't think I will ever have another dog quite like her.

I came home to even more good news....PIZZA IS FINALLY IN SEASON! Now the testing, the planning, the worrying begins, again!

Today there was a UKI agility trial here at our local training place. These trials are smaller and more laid back, and the courses are international-style which are big, wide-open courses with lots of traps. Great courses for my bog dogs, so I decided to use this as a training day for Pizza. Bonus - they allow bitches in season to run, yay!

Pizza ran fantastic. We did 4 runs and a mulligan run, every single run she had ONE single visit, came back and ran pretty much clean. Her start line stay was awesome (I even did a 3 jump lead out on one course), her 2 on 2 off contacts were all 100% perfect, her weaves were awesome, it was just that damn visiting. My most talented dog...we WILL get past this, but it will have to wait until after her puppies.

On a whim I decided to enter Dolphin just in the Speedstakes. It was kind of funny - when I had Pizza out to get ready to run, he started howling, and he howled all through her runs. It was so obnoxious! However, when it came time for him to run, he was amazing! In our very first UKI run he managed to nab a Q and 1st place in Senior Speedstakes! I could tell he really liked these big courses. It was so much fun to run, I hope they have more of these trials here.

The only sure thing about dog training is that there are NO sure things. Today was a beautiful cool morning so I headed out to do some field training. Pizza had to stay home as she is fully in season (YAY!). I worked Noodle and Dolphin with my friend's dog, and we set everything up hunt test style with a backfield and 4 birds (pigeons) planted in the bird field.

Noodle was first, and she had two very nice honors. However, her first bird...UGH. When I flushed the bird, it took it's time getting up in the air and she did lunge at it to try and grab in the air. Thankfully she missed, and I really got on her case about that. I immediately worked another bird a little ways down the field, and she was perfect on that one, which I knew she would be. I need her to be perfect on the FIRST bird, darn it!

Dolphin's honors were awful, it was like he had no clue on the whole concept of honoring. That is frustrating since we have worked a TON on this and he had seemed like he was getting the idea. However, he was rock solid on his birds, even the one that tried to run underneath his chin before flying. I'll give him props for that, he was a good boy.

Its like the never-ending journey, this bird dog training stuff. The dogs are never 100% trained, are they?

Field training today! Noodle was a bit bratty. She jumped forward on one of her birds, didn't stop to flush until I yelled "whoa", and tried to blink several honors. However, she did have a nice retrieve. This is our last bit of training before the hunt test this weekend. Talk about leaving on a less-than-positive note!

Dolphin worked one bird. He stayed steady through the shot, watched it fall, and then couldn't contain himself and broke. I got after him, made him come back and wait, then I released him on the retrieve and he did a decent retrieve. Work. In. Progress.

It was all about blood tests today. Pizza had her first progesterone test this morning, and was at 0.29. We start LH testing tomorrow and will be going every day. It's gettin' real!

Later in the afternoon both Noodle and Pizza had blood drawn - Noodle to check her albumin levels, and Pizza for a Brucellosis test. They were both weighed in the office. Noodle was 68 pounds (that's super heavy for her!) and Pizza was a whopping 75 pounds. Yikes! Neither dog looks the least bit fat, I guess it must all be muscle weight.

We had Pizza's progesterone tested on Friday morning, it was at 0.25, so it was safe to head out to the hunt test with Noodle for the weekend. It was a hot, sunny weekend at one of the most beautiful hunting grounds I have been to. Of course, a lot of that beauty is in the rolling hills, and let me tell you those aren't so beautiful when you need to walk up and down them multiple times a day!

My first test was Saturday morning. Noodle broke from the line like it was a field trial, which isn't surprising. I am trying to remember the details of the test, but they are a bit foggy. I know she had a pretty nice honor from behind me - I called to her to get her to come down the path and see the dog on point, she came up and stopped on her own a good 8 feet behind me, which was good. She stayed nicely through the honor, and her own birdwork was pretty darn nice. The retrieve was good - it was OK. This was a nice pass with all 8s and a 9 in honoring.

The second test was in the afternoon, and it was hot. With Noodle, there is no slowing down or conserving energy, she ran full out as usual. We had a decent honor, and then a nice solid point on her own bird. The bird was shot on the other side of a big tree. Noodle had to go around the honoring dog and the two judges and all the way to the other side of the tree for the retrieve. She did a great job, going right to the bird. However, at this point she was so hot she was wheezing, and kept having to put the bird down to breathe. Thankfully we were done after this, but she was on the verge of heat exhaustion and I was really worried about her. I got her back up to the van and stayed with her in the a/c with the fan running on her for quite a while until she cooled off and her breathing normalized. I really wish more judges would take into consideration the heat, and shorten a long back course. We did end up with OK scores - all 8's and a 7 in honoring.

Noodle slept pretty darn good that evening, it was an exhausting day. Sunday was sunny and warm, more of the same. We started off in the morning bright and early (7:30 am). Yesterday had taken an edge off of her run, so I thought, but halfway through the backfield she kicked it in to high gear again. When i got to the bird field she was already there standing on point. As I approached her, our bracemate also went on point a little ways away from her. They worked her bird first, and she was SUPER steady on the bird, and the retrieve was ok, not the cleanest. They immediately toldme to bring her arund for the honor, and that was kind of hard to do as I released her from the retrieve she wanted to take off in the other direction. I hate having to micro-manage her in to the honor, but I called her back and we managed to get a pretty OK albeit unnatural honor. Good enough, I guess. She soon found a second bird, and we waited quite a long while for her bracemate to honor. She was steady, and this retrieve was pretty darn sloppy (in my opinion). However, we ended up with another pass and straight 8's.

Our last test was in the heat again. They did shorten the back course, which was good. I had told them that if they didn't shorten it I would be pulling Noodle from the test, as it was not worth it to risk her with heat exhaution. Not to worry, the brace went fairly fast (unfortunately!). Noodle quickly went on point when she reached the bird field, and when her bracemate was called over to honor, he also went on point on a different bird about 20 feet away. We worked Noodle's bird first, and when the gunners shot it, the other dog broke away and went for Noodle's bird. Unfortunately Noodle could not handle that kind of pressure and broke (late) herself to beat the other dog to the retrieve. Both dogs were picked up at that point. Kind of a bummer that Noodle let the other dog's attempt to steal the retrieve cause her to break. Something to work on, I guess!

I am pretty happy with this weekend! 3 out of 4 Master Hunter passes for Noodle (and 2 in one day NEVER happens for us!). This makes #26, 27, and 28 for her lifetime achievement award. Pretty darn cool! It was so much fun, I love every minute I get to work with her in the field.

Pizza had her progesterone test done today. She rose slightly to a 0.5, still not high enough to make plans. UGH I wish she would progress faster! We will test again on Wednesday.

Noodle's blood test results came back from last week - her protein and albumin levels are in the normal range (albumin is low normal, but 0.1 higher than 6 weeks ago). This is good! This is now the second blood test done since we took her completely off of the mycophenolate earlier this year. Thankfully she is maintaining her levels with NO medication, just a very very strict prescription diet. I am so thankful, I will move heaven and earth to keep my ride-or-die girl healthy!

I feel like Dolphin has been neglected lately, so this evening I rented the training building and we did some training with our agility pal. He was WONDERFUL! Yes, quite a few knocked bars, but he ran fantastic and did some great wraps, weave entrances, and other tough skills. I am sad we won't get to an agility trial for at least another month, but it is hunt test season now so I need to prioritize.

Pizza's progesterone was 1.8 today. I took a gamble and booked my air bnb in North Carolina starting Sunday. I sure hope she doesn't stall out as the reservation is non-refundable. We will test her again on Friday, and also pull blood tomorrow for LH testing.

Corky came into town today! Actually she came to Woodland Run in Grove City for an appointment with a foot specialist as she has an abscess that doesn't want to heal. This is the same place that did her foot surgery 6 years ago. I drove up to meet with them. I am glad to report that they found nothing remarkable in her x-rays, and that the abscess is healing, slowly. They packed her foot with medication and put an aluminum plate on it to protect it, and will re-check her again in 6 weeks. It was great to see my girl, she is so very special to me. I have to admit I was a little puffy when they said she was the best-behaved horse they worked on all day. That's my girl! It sure helps when you raise them from a newborn and work with them every single day.

You wait for what seems like forever, and then you scramble! After daily blood tests, Pizza had her LH surge this past Wednesday (Sept. 18) and ovulated Friday (Sept. 20). We did one last prgesterone test at 7:30 am on Sunday (Sept. 23) just to make sure she didn't stall out (and she didn't!) and off to North Carolina we went to do our breeding with the beautiful and talented Sig.

Everything went great, all the numbers looked perfect and lined up, so I can't really do anything more other than pray and wait now. I will say Pizza is the bestest travel companion. She is so patient, doesn't make a fuss waiting on me, and was thrilled to curl up with me on the couch at the air bnb and have me all to herself. Plus she is a GREAT dog to sleep with. I want a puppy from her so badly...now we wait almost a month until we can do the ultrasound. This time when she gets a little fat from inactivity I am NOT going to get excited thinking she is pregnant. Trying to tamper down my enthusiasm until we get pregnancy confirmed, because I don't know if I can take another heartbreak again. This might have been my last chance as she is already 5.