Family hike in the Franklin Mountains, El Paso, Texas
Happy New Year! We’ve been very busy the last week. Last Saturday, we drove down to El Paso to see Jenny’s parents and family. Jenny’s sister Rebecca, husband Phil, and their two kids were coming home from Thailand, her brother Chad, and his girlfriend Autumn, were coming from Georgia, and her cousin Frankie, Aunt Marcia, and Frankie’s son Bodhi were journeying over from San Antonio. Add our four dogs, and it was a full house!
It was so nice to visit family and have dinner made by Jenny’s mom — her cooking is the best ever! The trip went much too quickly, but we did pack a lot of family time into our week at home. Indy and Karma were especially happy to have Chad and Autumn there — Chad is a triathlete and Autumn is a marathon runner — needless to say both the dogs and humans were excited to have running partners.
Slight travel sidebar: We headed back on Thursday and stayed the night in the same hotel we stopped at on the way down last Saturday too. If you are ever traveling with dogs in Albuquerque, we recommend the Best Western Plus on Yale, near the airport. We stumbled upon it by accident, but so glad we did! Recently renovated, pet friendly, and free breakfast — as dog hotels go, one of the best options we have found 🙂
We got back in town on Friday and relaxed before our big agility weekend. And it paid off! Saturday, Karma picked up her very first MX leg. We got a little stuck in standard this fall, so it was really nice to earn a leg the first time out in the Master Standard class. She also earned 18 MACH points, which is the most we’ve ever picked up on a run! We spent the afternoon cheering on all our friends, Vizslas and Honey Badgers (our agility training class), and then the Vizsla group all went to dinner together to celebrate our great 2012!
Sunday was the best day ever! Karma picked up a Jumpers run in the morning and then qualified again in the afternoon on the Standard course. This means we earned our very first double Q! We need 4 of these to qualify for Nationals, so we are now a quarter of the way there on QQ requirements 🙂 YAY!!
Today we were very close in both our Standard and Jumpers runs, but missed the Qs. We did however qualify in Time 2 Beat and picked up 6 points there. So all in all, Karma earned: 2 MX legs, 1 MXJ leg, 1 T2B leg, and 44 MACH points this weekend! It was a great weekend for our friends too — lots of double Qs, and new titles… Heather finished Gunner’s OA title, and Dani from the Honey Badgers finished her NA & NAJ titles! Always fun to be around for the big wins 🙂
Videos from Karma’s runs:
MX #1: http://youtu.be/E5TT71PRWLU
MXJ #7: http://youtu.be/jIoYgxwUwYg
MX #2: http://youtu.be/ZCtEAhVTduk
T2B #5: http://youtu.be/jGLUVO3tNS0
AND JUST TO MAKE IT INTERESTING — Saturday night, back at Heather’s we decided to continue the annual tradition of our goal list. So here it is, and here is to 2013!!
-Rally Novice on Halo
-Rally Excellent on Karma
-Companion Dog on Gunner & Indy
-Junior Hunter on Halo
-Senior Hunter on Gunner & Karma
-Versatile Certificate on Gunner & Indy
-Grand Championship on Indy
-Get Halo major pointed
-Gunner’s OAJ, AXJ, and AX titles
-Karma’s MX and MXJ titles
-Novice Fast titles on Gunner & Karma
-Get Karma qualified for AKC Agility Nationals
*We also have a few stretch goals we are keeping to ourselves for now 🙂