Layla gets her MX!!

Today, the Golden kids and I drove to Fort Collins for the Longs Peak Dog Training Club trial.  Despite it being 27º when we left, we were quite comfortable inside the equestrian barn.  This says a lot for the quality of the facility because I am uncomfortable in the low 50s!!  The barn was well-heated.  It was a very nice facility.  Layla did very well today.  She finished her MX in the morning and Q'd in JWW for her 8th QQ in the afternoon!  I really like the judges this weekend.  Lisa Selthofer congratulated me outside of the ring after our class for my standard run.  Dan Selthofer made a really nice flowing jumpers course.  I am glad to hear that these judges are the same judges who will judge a show that I am entering New Years weekend.  I can't wait to get back to Fort Collins and run again tomorrow.  Because I have such a busy schedule with several difficult classes, I do not stay out of town for dog shows during the academic year.  I am lucky that Colorado has enough trials within an hour or so from my house so that traveling is not an issue.  I have been spoiled with close trials.  The 1.5 hour drive to Fort Collins today was the farthest I have driven for a trial since classes started this fall!

I measured Jade at the trial today because I wanted to see if he had passed up Layla in height.  I confirmed that Layla is now the smallest dog in the house!  Jade is about half an inch taller than Layla.  He measured 21.75" today!!  Last week, Jade weighed 47.5 pounds!  I am so excited about my big red boy!  Looks like I am going to get my 24" jumper that I wanted!  Jade has been just soaking everything in that I am teaching him.  It took him 2 ten minute sessions to learn how to pivot to the left (and keep his bottom close to me when I turn into him) and walk backwards in heel position.  We started baby sequences of jumps (bars on the floor) in class this past week.  Jade is sending extremely well.  I am very proud because Layla never had the foundation to work as independently has Jade will be able to.  Jade gets soo excited to work for me.  I was practicing with him Thursday night before Layla's class.  I told him "left, jump" and Jade WHIPPED his whole body to the left as hard as he could and took the jump.  I was laughing so hard because he is so dramatic in every aspect of his life- training included!!  This boy makes me smile so much.  Is it a problem that I feel the need to shower him with kisses every time I come home and see him?  I am having an unbelievable amount of fun with him.  In addition to agility, we are also taking field privates about every other week in Fort Collins with Sandy Whicker.  Jade thinks field training is the best thing ever.  It is so exciting for me to watch him light up when we take him into the field for marks.  Our future together is so exciting.  I am treasuring every little moment right now.  I am so blessed to have such a handsome, confident, and brilliant young man.  As far as I'm concerned, I am living the dream.  I really do have the best dogs in the world.

The quarter is actually coming to an end rather quickly, which I am quite happy about.  This quarter has been difficult, but thank goodness I have my Goldens here to keep me sane.  I miss Blake like crazy.  We do talk regularly on Skype, but it is just not the same.  We are so fortunate that our relationship is so well-developed that we are not having to build it over the internet.   Blake is, without a doubt, my very best friend.  We know each other like the backs of our hands after almost three years of dating.  I can finish his sentences, and he always starts laughing when I begin to say something funny because he knows how I will end my story.  Blake is one of the silliest people that I know.  I cannot think of very many conversations that I have with him where I do not end up laughing.  That has been so good for me because I have learned how to laugh at myself and how to take life less seriously.  I have always been an extremely sensitive person, so being able to laugh at myself has not come so easily.  Blake reminds me that in certain situations in life, all you can do is laugh and move on.   Excluding my parents, I cannot name someone more supportive of me than him. I am so ready for Blake to be back in the States and home.  I am counting down the days.  8 weeks from today, I will pick him up from the airport.  That day cannot get here faster. A part of me is missing when he isn't here.  Luckily, my little man channels Blake extremely well- he is handsome, as sweet as can be, brilliant, and beyond silly!  However, he sometimes sees wrestling with Miles more important than cuddling with me, he cannot cook dinner with me, and he is lacking in the English language skills department ;)

Brighton, my Baby Dog, and Bad Dogs

This past weekend was action-packed.  We had a trial in Brighton Saturday and Sunday.  This facility wasn't nearly as nice as the others I have been to so far in Colorado, but I have been very spoiled so far!  It was really dusty and the surface wasn't fantastic.  Saturday we got no love in either ring.  Layla started off the day popping pole 10, not once, but twice.  I do not know where that came from because she never does that!  The rest of the run was fabulous.  Lay let me get in a blind and FOUR front crosses in a row.  In standard, she had a really nice run except she got called on her aframe.  I wasn't watching her as well as I should have been.  Sunday morning, she NQ'd again in Jumpers.  Lay dropped 2 bars and I was shocked.  This dog rarely drops bars.  She has probably dropped a single digit number of bars during her entire agility trial career.  I watched the video a couple of times and found that the first bar was my fault.  I gave Layla a really late cue for a push, so she dropped her feet while looking at me to tell her where to go next.  The second one was her.  We were racing to the tunnel and she flattened out on the jump before the tunnel- way too soon.  We Q'd in standard.  Whew!  We both needed that.  This was Layla's 9th MX leg, so one more to go.  Maybe we can finish her MX in Fort Collins.

Regardless of our not-so-great as far as Q's go weekend, I am very proud of Layla.  She is so much more confident on the courses- so much so that I did lead outs with her on every course.  This was the first time I have done so in about a year.  She has shown me the past couple of weeks that she is ready for lead outs in practice, so I was ready to give it a shot in a trial.  I got excellent results!  I also found out recently that Layla's qualified for AKC agility nationals just since the end of August as far as QQ's go!  She is up to 7 right now.  We are short on points, but we are really going to try to qualify for 2014 Nationals.  That is my dream: to compete at a National competition with Layla, and I think she deserves to do so if she qualifies.

I am so excited about my baby dog.  Words cannot express how much I love my Jademan.  He is always making me laugh.  He really makes my day every day.  Jade is so funny, but he is also very lucky that he has a mom with a good sense of humor.  He amazes me how far he has come in the short time I have known him.  I am really getting a feel for him, and I continue to learn more and more about him the more that I work with him.  He is a fantastic learner.  Unlike Layla who has to be shown a new skill, Jade offers all sorts of behaviors until I mark the one I want and reward him.  He is obsessed with working.  I have to remember he is a baby dog and that he needs constant breaks.  He would go, go go all day long if I let him.  Jade is making progress by leaps and bounds in his foundations agility class.  We have a great lead out, he does rears by direction on the flat, front cross and post turns on jumps with out bars.  He knows hand signals, has beautiful recalls, and has such a nice natural retrieve.  We are now taking field lessons with Sandy Whicker.  She is really impressed with him.  I am equally impressed with him.  I feel so lucky to have such a phenomenal boy.  I think we are going to do great things together and I am so excited about our future.

Now that I have bragged about my two precious Golden kids, let me fill you all in on our little excitement for the afternoon.  Today was an absolutely gorgeous fall day.  Temps were in the mid 70s, the trees are on fire with brilliant colors, and there was not a cloud in the sky.  I love this weather.  All I want to do when it is gorgeous out like this is to stay outside.  This afternoon, I took the Golden kids on  our daily walk.  We always walk several blocks to a park, walk the loop around the entire park, and then walk home.  I was about the enter the park when we saw a dog sitting in a beat up car on the street next to the park.  I didn't see the owner at first, but then noticed her in the driver's seat.  Her dog was in the passenger's seat with the window rolled completely down.  As we were passing the car, the dog leaps out of the window and runs straight for me and the Goldens growling really aggressively.  I knew things were going to get bad fast.  I was doing everything I could not to get dragged towards this dog because Layla's hair went up on her withers the minute that the dog exited the car window.  I have never seen Layla and Jade be so protective of me.  Layla looked mean.  She was growling and baring her teeth.  She did not want this strange gray dog to touch me.  Layla scared the dog away, and he ran back to his owner's car.  Let me add that the owner watched all of this go on from inside of her car.  She didn't get out to help or call her dog off of us.  Luckily, no one was hurt.  I said to the woman, "You really need to watch your dog.  That could have been very bad."  She replied, "Oh hun, don't worry about it," and then she sped off.  WHAT??  People are idiots.  I am just so thankful I have two awesome Golden kids who are willing to do anything to protect me:)

Pictures next time- I promise!

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

It seems as though I only wrote one blog post for the entire month of September.  The one blog post does not nearly reflect my September at all.  I will try to catch up because BRRRR it's cold outside and there's nothing much to do but stay bundled up!

I left off after a perfect weekend in Castle Rock.  The next weekend, Layla and I played agility in Golden, CO- outdoors too!!  Running on grass is just my favorite.  The weather was so gorgeous with plentiful sunshine all weekend.  Layla rocked it on Saturday.  She earned her 7th QQ.  Sunday, we NQ'd in standard.  Lay dropped a bar and that really worried me because she NEVER drops bars.  I would safely bet that Layla has dropped single digit number of bars in trials during her entire agility career.  The opening was chute, hard 90º right turn and then I had to front cross to another jump.  The bar came down on that first jump out of the chute.  I couldn't believe it.  I was so bummed that I didn't watch her contacts at all for the rest of the run.  Unsurprisingly, she blew them.  My friend and I watched the video over and over again and we could find nothing wrong with what I was doing.  I though, maybe I was cuing my front cross too soon, but that definitely was not the case.  It seemed to us that Layla just didn't get enough speed off of the start and didn't have enough time to think about picking her feet up once she turned toward me to find the jump.  That's the neat thing about agility- our dogs really do keep us humble.  We ended the day with a nice jumpers run.  To add to the excitement of the weekend, Jade earned his CGC with flying colors!!  I am so proud of my little man.  He was just 6 months and 1 day!

Last weekend, I worked at USDAA Nationals just on Saturday.  I worked the Grand Prix Semi Finals ring, which was really exciting.  Even more exciting was seeing all of the fantastic handlers (some familiar faces) from all around the country and the world!  I learned a lot helping out and I am so motivated to run USDAA with Jade.  I don't know about Layla quite yet.  We are working so hard on this MACH, so maybe after that.

On Wednesday, the University of Denver hosted the first 2012 Presidential Debate. There was definitely a lot of commotion going on just a few blocks away from my house.  Megan, Toby (her boyfriend), and I walked the three dogs through campus, but much was blocked off. We sure saw a lot of crazy people though.  It is very cool that my school could host such an important event.

Friday morning I woke up to SNOW on the ground.  WHAT??  I am not ready for this yet.  It is only the beginning of October and the temperatures have not gotten to 40º in the past two days.  I am bundled up and usually under covers unless I am moving.  I am so not a winter person and I feel like our beautiful fall was just ripped out from under me.  I was wearing shorts on Wednesday.  All three of the dogs, on the other hand, LOVE the snow.  This was Jade's first time to see snow and he was beside himself with excitement.  He refused to come inside when I called him.  I looked out to find him tearing across the backyard doing all sorts of crazy spins and circles.  He makes me laugh!

Tomorrow Jade and I are off to Fort Collins for a field lesson before my next crazy week begins!