Category Archives: Visitors
Los Lunas, NM Weekend….
We had a most excellent time a few weeks ago in New Mexico. We went down a few days early to help my family out for a few days, and stayed over the weekend to show dogs. Was a great little mini “vacation” if you ask me!!
Anyway, it was also the “maiden voyage” and first road trip for the box truck. It was fun. I think its good to do a trip or two with something like this you are working on so you figure out what you need and what works and what does not. One of the first things we realized was that we needed a broom!! And then decided we might as well see if we could find a small shopvac that could mount on the wall as well (and we did, on clearance at wal-mart – which was an awesome find!!) So broom and wall mounted shopvac aside, the truck is pretty fabulous! Working out of it for a week with the dogs made life much easier than hauling crates in and out and working out of the minivan ever was!! There are some organizational things we need to figure out, but those will come with time of course and getting things “finished” as we go along. But for now, I’m quick pleased with how things are going with it.
Anyway, back to the show – we had 3 Cardigans and 2 Pointers entered over the weekend.
Puzzle needed 3 points to finish going into the weekend. She was WB/BOB the first two days for two of those points. She was also Best of Breed Puppy on Thursday and got a puppy Group 4th (which makes her 3 for 3 in puppy group placements in her puppy career…) Lorne ended up WB/BOB the last two days for 2 more points on her total.
In Cardigans, Widget was 2nd in her class 3 out of 4 days, and won her class on Saturday. Nola (who I show for and is owned by Penni Adrian of Elyan Cardigans – http://www.elyancardigans.com) placed in the Open class every day she was entered, and was 2nd/RWB to the 5 point major on Sunday (SO CLOSE!! She only needs a major to finish!!)….Nash (who I show for and is owned by Jeri Lamy of Allegro Cardigans – http://www.allegrocardigans.com) was Select on Thursday, BOB/GROUP FIRST on Friday, BOB/Group Fourth on Saturday, and BOB/Cut in Group on Sunday. Not a bad weekend with the Nashville!!
All in all, not a bad weekend. Was sad and disappointed to have not finished Puzzle, but oh well, such is dog shows and the 14-point curse wanted to remind me that things dont always go as planned!!
We had photos done of some of the dogs while we were down there…will post them here in a bit….but for now, here is Puzzle showing in the Group on Thursday…
ABQ…
What a crazy few weeks it’s been…
Puzzle broke a toe playing in the yard right before I left for Nationals…
Juno got a hematoma in her ear the week before I left for Nationals…
We picked up kennel cough while at Nationals and it’s been working it’s way through the young dogs. I look at KC like the chicken pox – once they’ve had it, they generally don’t get it again. The only dogs that got sick this time were the ones who weren’t here two years ago when we had KC going through the house (the puppies – Dom and Puzzle – and the two visitor puppies)
To top it all off, Juno came in season the day I got home from Nationals, so the boys have been making life pretty miserable the past week!
So, last Friday, I took two dogs (Dom and Juno) and drove to Albuquerque for 4 days of shows. I had no dogs entered myself since Domi is out maturing, and Puzzle was broke when entries closed (fine now, of course!!)
I picked up Rango Friday night, and met Penni who has Chase and Nola at the show on Saturday morning.
To keep this from becoming a novel – here are the short version results:
Sat: Rango RWD; Nola 1st in AmBred; Chase BOB (5 PT GCh major)
Sun: Rango 1st in 9-12; Nola 1st in AmBred; Chase SD (1 PT)
Mon: Rango WD/BOW/BP (4 PT major); Nola 1st in AmBred; Chase BOB (5 PT GCh major)
Tues: Chase SD (1 PT)
Rango had a bad day on Tuesday. Decided he was done playing show dog for the weekend. Sometimes 4 days is just too much for the babies.
Penni and I decided to skip the Durango shows since it was only a single point and just Nola entered, wasn’t worth the time or money for either of us.
Next show is Flatirons in Longmont…will be Puzzles first show, and Pointers show outdoors so should be an interesting experience for her!! No points, but good practice regardless.
And back to the regularly scheduled program…
I took the last of our summer/fall visitors home yesterday…it’s a very strange feeling to drop the number of dogs in the house, especially when one or more are very active young dogs. It’s weird to see empty crates at dinner time, and to mentally recalculate what you need to feed the crew without having a ton of leftovers!
We miss them already though…I had extra cookies in my hand this morning and it took a bit to figure out why…plus, my “count” keeps coming up 2 dogs short….
Bye Stella and Gravy!! We will miss you, but thank your parents for letting you come visit for the past few months!!!
Sunshine Makes Me Happy….
One thing I have started to really enjoy, especially with Brian home again, is to just sit in the chair in the living room in the mornings with a cup of coffee, and watch the dogs play or whatever it is they decide to do, and enjoy the SILENCE. (Well, silence for the most part, I have some loud players sometimes!!)
One of the things I’ve noticed that most dogs enjoy, but the Pointer girls seem to REALLY enjoy and seek out, is laying in the beams of sunlight that come in the windows or patio doors. Our Maui will even go behind the curtains if we have them closed just to lay in the sun. I know it feels good to just lay in the sun, so I make a point to make sure at least one of the curtains is open for them in the mornings.
Today, all four of the Pointer girls decided that the sunbeam was THE place to be….
From closest to the door to furthest from the door its Maui, Stella, Juno, and Lorne. I found it somewhat funny that they lined themselves up like this…normally its one here, one stretched out there, one curled up over here. They tend to snuggle together a lot, but I have never seen them all lined up.
Fall Photo Shoot
We were sitting here enjoying a gorgeous fall day in Colorado and I started thinking about how we havent done photos of the dogs in awhile….
So we packed up the van and headed out to Garden of the Gods with most of the crew (left Lorne at home since she is in blazing season, and Domino gets his pictures taken quite often lately, so he stayed home as well) and set out to do pictures. We tried to get each dog their own unique backdrop, so we did quite a bit of hiking and hauling of out-of-shape butts up and down hills to get the right spots. Sore legs tonight, but I think some of the pictures we got were well worth it! (and I’m again resolved to start losing all this excess blubber I carry around!)
I will also say that these are ungroomed, un-touched photos. I cropped some of the excess background out of most of them (or cropped myself out 🙂 ) but aside from cropping, I did NOTHING to them. The dogs were ungroomed, unshined, just packed in the van and headed out. I think Pyros pictures alone are enough evidence of exactly WHY I am head over heals in LOVE with our dogs diets! He gets his meat/bone/organs, and NO suppliments at all. He hasnt been bathed in probably 3 or 4 months now. I rarely brush him….and didnt spray or wipe or brush him for his photos…..LOOK at that SHINE!!!
My handsome Pyro…who will be 4 in a couple months.
My gorgeous old lady Maui, who turned 9 a few weeks ago. She is in phenominal condition for a 9 year old, and we just love her to pieces!!
Miss Juno, who recently turned 2, and who I havent gotten any good “grown up pictures” of since…
And Louie. Louie V. Who has been the redheaded stepchild lately! Poor Louie, so obsessed with the girls, but really tries sooooo hard to be such a good boy! We love his silly Orange self!!
And, because I think it is a gorgeous shot of a gorgeous Pointer….we took photos of our two remaining visitors as well…
Stella …
and Gravy….
I will leave it to their owners if they want the rest of their photos published….
I honestly love doing photos of the dogs. One day maybe I will even be lucky enough to have a super fancy camera and know how to use it! LOL. But for now, we take what we take and we have fun doing it, and get some fun shots of the dogs to have for ourselves forever 🙂
On the road again…
Spent the last two weekends in New Mexico.
The first weekend was in Alamogordo, where we had a great time on Saturday, the temperatures got HOT, and we woke up to disaster on Sunday and ended up skipping the show to head home.
Spent this past weekend in Los Lunas. Had fun on Saturday, got the Pointers shown, 2 GCh points for Miss Stella…Domino got to go play and have fun with the other Cardis. The show on Sunday sucked. Stella was BOB for another 2 GCh points, Domino had fun and showed very well for a little barely legal 6 month old. The judge made a point to tell me how much she liked him. Guess my puppy boys were just too immature for the panel this weekend….oh well. Another day, another dog show.
Went to visit my Parents after the show, swung by Starbucks near the college to pick up coffee on the way – and as I was driving down the road, noticed a guy riding a horse, leading a fully loaded pack horse. Right by the New Mexico state university. In the middle of the city. Crazy. The things you see when you show dogs……
Long drive home, as is normal, and of course, wake up sicker than a dog this morning. Feel very much like death warmed over….few days to relax will hopefully help before this progresses to something worse! Ugh. Thankfully most of the dogs are content to just hang out and cuddle in bed all day. I love my doggies 🙂
Still deciding on our next shows……..to go or not to go, that is the question!!
What a trip!!
Brian came home late last week….Friday night, we loaded up all the dogs in the van, and headed 9 hours south west to Alamogordo, NM for a dog show. Saturday was fun, Domino is a baby baby 6 month and 1 week old Cardi puppy, and he did as well as I can expect him to (including his “OMG!! Feed Me!! Touch Me!!” dance on the table! LOL) and he was the only class dog, and went WD.
Gravy was the only Pointer I had entered, and won the breed by default of being the only one entered. We are still working through his butthead phase….. silly adolescent Pointer boys!!
Saturday night, we walked everyone a few times, got everyone fed, walked them again late before turning in for the night…work up at 5 am to get everyone out and pottied again so we could catch a few more hours sleep (had late ring times – Pointers at 11 and Cardis at 1!) and realized that out of the 8 dogs that were with us, 5 were sick. Nasty sick. Make you want to puke just getting a slight wiff of it sick. Got everyone walked, got the crates cleaned out. Got everything somewhat calmed down. Looked at Brian, and all I could manage to say was “Lets get them home before this gets worse.” So we packed up, and hit the road. We left at about 6, didnt get home till after 4 in the afternoon. Stopped and walked dogs every hour. By the time we got home, most of them were under control, but still acting sick. Got all the crates scrubbed out, all the nasty dirty blankets in the laundry, and got all the dogs re-bathed so they were clean and not covered in stuff. We were both exhausted, but spent most of the night up watching , checking on, and letting sick dogs in and out of the house. By morning, 4 of the 5 sick ones were perfectly fine, back to normal. In another 24 hours, the fifth one was also. Who knows why sudden and severe things like this can crop up suddenly (we know the fifth was due to the chunks of blanket she had been eating – but the other 4 had no diet or water changes to attribute)
Sometimes, the kids pick up bugs along the way. We’ve done a LOT of traveling this year, put a lot of miles on the van, and the dogs have been along for the ride. More often than not, healthy dogs fight off those bugs without issue. Until something happens to drop their immunity. Between Brian coming home, rapid temperature drops, the home schedule changing, a long trip to the show, and hanging out in their crates for 2 days on the road, it was probably enough stress to drop their immunities enough that the bug kicked in. Between preventative measures, and coming home to their familiar area, they rallied back to normal, like good, healthy dogs would. They had no changes in diet (we’ve been feeding from the same batch of food for a month now…) and no changes in water (brought water from home for the road)…so nothing to attribute to but stress. Oddly enough, the young puppy and the old girl were two of the three that didnt get sick….
Bye bye!
Two of our wonderful summer visitors went home today…
Dash (GCh Coedwig Cracker Jack) went home to WA…
Dash was such an awesome dog to have around the house, such a fun dog to show, and a great representative for and of his breed. We greatly enjoyed him while he was here with us.
Inca (Ch Penzance Inca Rose of Indica) went home to MA…
Inca defines “sweetheart.” Her favorite place is to be cuddled up on someone’s last. She’s been fun to show, and a fun girl to have around. She’s a gorgeous girl, and I can’t wait to see what her future holds!
Thanks guys for sharing your wonderful dogs with me this summer!!!
Arapahoe Kennel Club
Can’t say enough how strange it is to only have ONE dog entered at a show. Even stranger yet to have LATE ring times with that one dog!!
This was my last weekend showing Dash. Oh Dash, we will miss you!!! On Saturday, he won the Breed, and we took a fun trip around the group ring (but walked…) and on Sunday, after going in the ring an hour later than we should have…he went Select. Oh Dasher. He showed so well for me on Sunday…was happy on the table and moved out well. I’m still proud of the little man.
I brought Domino along for the ride on Sunday, ended up getting him his Rabies shot while we were there at the health clinic. He said “OW! My butt hurts! They killed me!!” but French fries quickly made it all betta!!
I’m off to get crates and bedding and paperwork together for two kids who are leaving us tomorrow…more on that later.
Greeley, CO (Evergreen KC)
Had fun in Greeley as well…with a much lighter dog load, there was more time for “fun” instead of just “OMG, how am I going to get all these dogs shown!”…
Inca finished the weekend before, but I wasnt sure if the other class bitch would show up, so we left her in the classes on Saturday to hold the points for Stella (in case Stella went WB…)
Stella went into the weekend needing 3 single points to finish her CH…
On Saturday, she went WB/BOB for 2 points…Dash went BOB…
On Sunday, Inca was moved up to BOB, Stella needed 1 point to finish and the other bitch was there, so there was 1 point available in the classes. Stella, again, went WB/BOB for 2 points to finish her Championship! Yay Stella! Dash Dog went BOB again…
