Back to the agility trial today. I was feeling pretty sick this morning, but I did actually manage to make the entire morning without sobbing. Maybe I am getting better at handling things? I don't know.

Dolphin crushed my MACH dreams early by taking an off course jump in Jumpers. Of course he nailed Standard, Time 2 Beat, and FAST. This would have been a quadruple QQQQ and his MACH, but nope, not today. He did run better than yesterday, and that made me happy.

Mark has been feeling pretty bad all week, but we finally managed to go out and get something to eat together today. This house is just so depressing right now, and I am not much help.

I have been slacking on my training diary. Life has gotten so crazy, it's hard to keep up. Last Monday Bacon and I had our agility lesson, she did pretty good other than leaving me several times to go visit the other puppies (mainly Doree), which really bugged me. It's frustrating! Her speed and drive were really good, though, so I have to be happy about that.

I had a vet appointment today - it was Noodle's annual checkup. I brought Bacon along because she was supposed to have her first lyme vaccination, but instead I wanted my vet to see the vaccine reaction she received from her lepto in the hip. It's getting very big and some of the hair is coming off. He took samples of it and sent it off to the lab, and sent in a report to the vaccine company. Hopefully they will be paying these bills. Now I just wait and see what the lab results say, so we know how to treat it. It looks bad enough that I decided not to show her in her last beginner puppy show this coming weekend in Wilmington. Damn, Her puppy career sure got cut short this year, kjind of reminds me of Pizza's shortened puppy career due to injury and whatnot.

I am pretty excited today. Mark and I went to the local cancer specialty hospital for a consult to see if he would be a candidate for a clinical trial, and he is! Pending one more scan, he should be accepted into the trial. It's a new procedure they are trying for pancreatic cancer, and he will be patient #3 in the trial. It's a little scary, but it gives us hope and that's really what I need! Here is a link to the trial, if you are interested: https://www.alphatau.com/alpha-dart-radiotherapy

This evening I did some training with Bacon. It was a few hours after her dinner, and she wasn't very energetic. However, we did get some clean barrel work, 2 on 2 off, and some heeling practice. Oh, and some super fun retrieves! I feel like my training overall has been so neglected because of everything going on with Mark in the past month. My priorities have shifted, that's for sure!

Today I had Noodle and Bacon entered in the dog show in Wilmington, which had a Weimaraner supported entry. I did not show Bacon because the abscess on her hip looks pretty bad as the hair is all coming off. It was all about the Noodle today!

She showed first in veteran sweeps, and was the only entry so of course she won. She was the only entry in Veteran bitches in the breed show, so she went on to best of rbeed, which had a large number of specials entered.

Noodle showed like the complete rock star she is. This girl is amazing - at 9 1/2 years of age she looks amazing. Towards the end, the judge pulled out Noodle and one of the bitch specials and had us gait around together several times. At the end of the class, Noodle was awarded Best of Opposite, which basically meant that she was the best bitch entered in the show. How awesome, at 9 1/2 years old Noodle takes on the competition and wins! I love this girl to pieces. She is probably the best show dog I have, I regret not doing more showing when she was younger, but I had other priorities. Unfortunately there just isn't enough time, money, or weekends to do everything I'd like to do.

Bacon had a lesson today. I see definite improvement. We actually made it the first 35 minutes without her leaving me to go visit everyone else. When she finally did leave me, the first two times I was actually able to call her back (and throw a big party). The third time, I had to go get her.

We introduced the tunnel (no problem!) and a slight tip on the teeter (she did NOT like that for some reason!). I forgot to mention I did a bunch of training by myself on Saturday and had a great training session. Video is below:

I went to train Bacon a little bit with a trainer friend of mine today. She had a bag of quail and put a bunch out all over the place as we walked for an hour. Bacon was amazing - she even found a couple birds that we had not planted but that were running loose/wild. She is much more excited and dramatic with quail than she ever was with pigeons, which I am not surprised. It was so much fun to see her get so excited! She held her point beautifully, and nice and long (which was great so I could get loads of photos!). She may not ever be able to field trial with her bad heart, but I would at least like to do hunt tests with her. I love this little girl to pieces!

My friend and I had originally entered this agility trial for 4 days, but after Mark got sick I was going to pull completely. Mark really pushed me to go anyways, so I compromised by pulling on Saturday and Sunday. Thursday's trial was an evening trial, so I was only going to be gone a day and a half.

It was really nice to get away and do something normal for a change. Dolphin was wonderful. Both days he nailed Standard, and our MACH was on the line only to have him knock a bar in jumpers both days. Ugh. He managed to knock a bar in the FAST send and also in Time 2 Beat on Friday, so we ended up with only two standard Qs for our long trip. I am a little disappointed, but not really crushed. My perspectives have certainly changed! I had an absolute wonderful time running Dolphin, he was great! He is the best travel companion I could ever want.

It was nice to get away fro a day and a half, and kind of tough to go home. I missed everyone, but it was back to reality and being immersed in this cancer diagnosis. Mark has lost 4 pounds even though he has been eating. His CA19-9 numbers are still going up. We are worried.

I did some training with Bacon this evening. I forgot to mention I also trained on Saturday. At our last lesson, she was very hesitant about the movement of the propped-up teeter (it was propped up so it only moved an inch or two). I worked a lot on that with her today and did some heavy rewarding when she pushed the teeter down and stood in position. I noticed that in the past few weeks she has been a little more hesitant about things. It could possibly be a 'fear period', though I am not sure I really buy into that thing. Maybe it is? My goal is to keep her confidence up with lots of rewards, and watch her reactions to things so I don't push too hard.

I am having her circle over a little 4" bar now, getting her used to going over something. She was hesitant about that at first, but we worked through it and she was running over it enthusiastically by the end of the session. I also started the very basics of the 2 by 2 training, with just two poles and shaping her going in between them. She was a lot of fun to train tonight, she had lots of enthusiasm and worked really hard for me. We did some barrel work, and she was really excited about the new tug toy I bought her when I was at the trial last weekend. We ended the session with some fun retrieving. I just love the puppy training stuff! I can't believe how grown-up she is getting! She is in that weirdly awkward stage where she is gawky-legged, but every now and then you get a glimpse of maturity and what she will be.

My friend and I left at the crack of dawn to head to an agiloty trial in Westlake, Ohio. Mark has had a realy good week, so I felt pretty good about going (plus he pretty much shoved me out the door haha!). The day started off pretty bad. Dolphin was extremely distracted, which is so unlike him. He was looking at every dog and obsessing. Possibly because Pizza is deep in season right now? Or possibly because he did a live cover breeding with someone last week? Or the combination of the two? I don't know, but our runs started off really bad. In FAST he totally missed the tunnel in the send, went directly to it and then caught sight of something and skirted to the side. He knocked a bar in Time 2 Beat. By the time Standard rolled around, I had worked hard to get a hold of his head and he was more focused. We laid done a conservative but nice Standard run for a Q. I would say he wasn't completely focused, but focused enough.

We had a long wait for jumpers, we didn't run until around 6:00 pm! By then Dolphin was nice and focused. I refused to get too excited because for the past 4 trials we nailed standard and then blew jumpers. However, today was different! The feeling of coming around that last line of jumps into the weaves knowing we were clean, and all we had to do was clear the double....and it happened! DOUBLE QQ #20! Finally! MACH DOLPHIN!!!!!!

The celebration was epic! All these years of working towards this goal finally came to fruition. For the longest time I thought it would never happen. It feels so damn good to finally accomplish such a big goal.

What made this day so extra special is two of my amazing agility friends were there to celebrate with me. Plus, they both got a double QQ today, which was amazing! We've never had a day where all three of us got a double QQ. So what did we do? We went to celebrate at Carrabbas, of course!

To top off the day, Mark found out that his scans and bloodwork all passed and he is officially in the clinical trial for his cancer!!! I have such hope and such joy today. It's a wonderful feeling that has been a long time coming. Enjoy the photos and the video from our MACH run today:

Be sure to watch the video to the very end to see the ending of our MACH run and celebration!

Another day at the agility trial, and of course I was still flying high! We started off the morning with a nice FAST Q. Standard went REALLY well, he was really fast and focused and it was a lot of fun. I had a bit of a wait before Jumpers, and right before my ring time I received a call from Mark. They saw blood clots in his lungs on the scans from yesterday and told him to come immediately to the ER, so he was no in the hospital. This sent me into a tailspin. We actually ended up having a decent jumpers run, but knocked a bar. I didn't really care, all I could think about was packing up and getting home. What a downer of a day, it's almost as if I am being smacked down because I am not supposed to be happy.

We packed up quickly, got home, and I headed straight to the hospital. Mark is feeling great, no symptoms, but the clots have everyone worried. He will now be on blood thinners and will have to stay in the hospital until they can complete more scans to make sure his heart is OK. Dear God...

Today I did some field training with Bacon, and a little with Noodle. Bacon was amazing. She stopped on point a good 50 feet away from the bird. I love her long nose (but finding the bird to flush may be a challenge for me!). She has been so nice and steady!

Noodle came along for the day and I brought her out to work a bird and do some honoring. She did wonderful. She was feeling pretty good today, so that made my heart happy. Her days have been a lot of ups and downs, depending on how she feels.

In the evening, Bacon and I went to her obedience class. She is doing amazing! I never thought I would enjoy obedience so much, but she is making me love it. I don't know if we will ever do any formal competing in obedience, but we are having a blast right now.

I worked Bacon on some quail today. I cannot begin to describe how excited I am about her field training! She reminds me so much of Pizza - just tons and tons of natural raw talent right out of the box. Today she was a little more driven, and when a bird flushed and ran under a log she almost got it, but I managed to keep her from grabbing it under the log. So far I have been lucky, she has not caught a bird yet, though she really doesn't try to grab for the most part.

In the afternoon I took Pizza to the bird dog club to train with a friend. Pizza's first bird was a low flier and she took a couple steps on the flush - naughty! I scolded her, and then she was perfect on every bird after that. As usual, she was an honoring machine. It was a lot of fun working her in the field. I'd love to find a gunner and shoot some chukar for her, but sadly my gunner (Mark) cannot gun for me anymore. He is doing well right now, after a scary stint in the hospital last weekend due to blood clots. It's always something. This disease has so many ups and downs. Very few ups, but I am trying to focus on those.

Today I entered Noodle in an afternoon Rally trial. I only entered Choice and Master. I am trying to get those last 28 Master points to finish her RACH (Rally Championship). She did pretty good today, and I was really happy with how well she did. I decided to start her in Master from a stand instead of a sit, and it was SO much better - she didn't lag at the start line like she usually does. We knocked out 6 more Master points, so we are down to 22 points needed. It was a long drive (2 hours) for such a quick trial, but worth it. If she continues to do well, we should hopefully finish our RACH at the end of the month. Fingers crossed!

Today Bacon got quite a workout! I split a private lesson with my friend in the early afternoon - we worked on impulse control with the toy, and barrel-cot discriminations. In the evening we had our regular semi-private lesson. I was really happy with how she did. We are starting some jumping exercises (6-8"), and tunnel sends. We did a small sequence of tunnel send to jump. Bacon did great! She did leave me to visit the other puppies twice, but I guess that's a better average than previous lessons. It's always going to be a struggle, because she is such a social butterfly who loves everyone.

I have been working on my lowered teeter at home. I started with it all the way to the ground so that it only tipped a couple inches. I have now put it up one hole so it tips about a foot, and she is doing great with it. I am taking this very slowly, because the last thing I want is a teeter issue!

ON Tuesday, it was a glorious warm day near 80 degrees! I took Dolphin and Bacon to the bird dog club just to run around and explore. We had a grand time! The creek was really high due to the excessive rainfall we've had lately, and it was deep enough for Dolphin to actually swim! Bacon followed him in the water, but she didn't venture deep enough to actually swim. I didn't push it, we will hopefully have lots of time for that if we get to Florida this summer (God willing). I noticed Bacon is extra brave whenever she is with Dolphin. She kind of feeds off his lack of fear and she follows him everywhere. He is a good big brother!

On Wednesday, Noodle had agility class and she was pretty goodBacon had her obedience class in the evening and she was amazing! I love her focus and REALLY love her enthusiasm! She is excited to work. I am really surprised at how focused she is working with me in a crowd of other dogs and handlers. I never would have expected that, she has so much less focus when it's just a couple of us working. I never thought I would enjoy obedience class so much, but I do. I think I will keep going, if for no other reason than in is a great bonding exercise for the two of us.